Life's a one-take movie

Somebody needs to tell the folks at Apple that marketing includes demand forecasting ... and the vaunted reality distortion field really only gets you so far where customer goodwill is concerned.  One of the definitions, after all, is "see a need and fill it."  They need to work on the "fill it" part on the product supply side.  Seriously.

So no, I didn't get an iPhone today.  You'd think they would have learned from the first iPhone launch.  This is getting old.

What are 10 things you've done that other people probably haven't? 
Submitted by Janette.   

Can't really think of ten things.  However, the first thing that came to mind when I read this was:
I had logged over 500,000 frequent flyer miles before my 21st birthday.  It would have been more, but I began flying international when I was four years old -- many years before the frequent flyer programs began.

Who are the last five people you called on your cell phone?

chris
Cafe Sevilla
Alaska Airlines
poweryogi
sorebrek

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

John Perkins

I just finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins.  Having grown up in the Philippines, I had some idea of the work that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund did in developing countries, but this book was very eye-opening.  John Perkins reveals what he and numerous other "economic hit men" did in Latin America and the Middle East, in the service of global corporate empire.  I highly recommend it, and will be reading Perkins' next book, The Secret History of the American Empire, when it is released next month.

Which band or artist which is no longer performing or alive would you have loved to have seen?
Submitted by Rev Stan.

Oh, where to begin...

Microdisney
The Wild Swans
Danny Wilson

There are probably more, but that's who came to mind right away.  Oh, and the Beatles.  :)

Hi from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco! Lots of interesting sessions, although as an exhibit pass holder, I am only allowed to attend certain sessions.

There was a T-shirt, which I managed to get, that in the Web 2.0 spirit of user-generated content, has a blank for the wearer to fill in. I guess somebody could tell that I was still trying to come up with something, because they swiped it off my shoulder as I was trying to make my way through the crowd. If it's gotten to the point that people will actually steal a t-shirt from you, then I have to say that from a purely "what's the next big thing?" perspective, Web 2.0 is so 20 minutes ago.  Apparently, Technology Review agrees with me -- they're already talking about Web 3.0.

What is your favorite greasy spoon?
Submitted by S@ngarang.

There was a chip shop in Berkeley on Shattuck Ave that alas is no more... I think there is a Thai fast food place in the space now.  They had really good fish and chips.  The taqueria across the street from there (El Sombrero?) was pretty good too... I think they're still around.

This question reminded me of this news story:

Chippy smells of chips complaint (BBC News)

Book: Show us one of your favorite cookbooks.

The USENET Community Trust, The USENET Cookbook

I used this cookbook quite a bit when I was in college, in the pre-World Wide Web days.  It's a collection of recipes contributed by USENET users.  I downloaded the whole thing piece by piece and kept it on a floppy disk that I used with my Mac SE.  It's good to see that it's still around and has been webified.  Some of the recipes are unconventional ("Fred's muskrat", or the Minderbinder chocolate-covered cotton -- shades of Catch-22) and others are not food (e.g. soap and playdough), but I was very satisfied with how things turned out for the recipes I tried.

The Mushroom Soup with Whisky was very good, although I left out the whisky part because I wasn't drinking age yet.
I remember being very amused by the "Poncit" (pancit) being described as "Filipino cabbage in garlic and soy sauce" -- since nowhere in the description does it mention the actual pancit (noodles)!  I particularly remember the corn and sausage chowder and Biagio's spaghetti carbonara turning out very nicely, although I may just have been lucky in the case of the latter (the recipe warns that it is "moderate to difficult -- timing is critical").  And I never was daring enough to attempt the Kalakukko (Finnish rye bread pie with fish and pork filling).

I just now went through the hyperlinks, looking at some of the recipes that I hadn't tried.  The Frango Mint Pie recipe is very tempting, now that I no longer live walking distance from Marshall Field's.  The Bep's Barmi Goreng recipe notes that "this recipe is unique in the history of alt.gourmand in that virtually none of the ingredients is available in an ordinary North American grocery store," and goes on to suggest some liberal substitution.  Although it may still be true that an ordinary North American grocery store is unlikely to stock the ingredients in question, I was in a store that carries them just last week.  The world really is getting smaller.

If you want "real" bound books, then I couldn't pick just one.  Here are three I like:

Marion Cunningham, Lost Recipes

C and I have tried a couple of recipes from this one and enjoyed them.  The whole idea is to share meals and recipes, and it has a little expanding file built into the cover that I've started filing the recipes we tend to use more often in (recipes from other sources, that is).  Mom used an index card file; I have a bunch of inkjet printouts.

Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, Memories of Philippine Kitchens

Haven't tried anything from this one yet, but the pictures are amazing.  The cookbook also gives a fair bit of background on each of the geographic regions it covers, as well as each of the representative dishes.

What's one family recipe that you wish you knew how to cook?

Mom's chicken, which was a regular fixture of Sunday dinners at our house when I was growing up.  Mom just calls it "baked chicken", because it is cooked in a Pyrex baking dish in an oven, but it's not dry-baked.  There is a sauce that I think comes from the juices of the chicken, probably with some water added.  I confess I have never actually paid attention to how it's cooked.  All I know is that at some point in the process, there is about a quarter cup of evaporated milk added to the liquid in the bottom of the pan.

There is also grandma's vegetable lumpia, which she would always make for New Year's dinner.  I don't think I'd really attempt such an undertaking on my own, as it was a huge project that took three days (lots of chopping vegetables involved, not to mention making stock from scratch).  But I'd love to have the recipe, in case I'd like to try it (with help) someday.

Show us some macro photography.
Submitted by NomDeCocon.

Not my best macro shot, but the only one I have on this laptop.

Paperwhites