Pondering New Year’s, I came across this post by Christine Kane. I suggest that even when we don’t choose one word deliberately, one will choose us–and we may not be terribly happy with it, or it might be a fabulous accident. What has your one word been for 2009? Did you choose it? Did it choose you? Did you like your method? What are you going to do about 2010?

Came across a page that lists up alot of useful tricks in Windows 7: Windows 7 Secrets

Especially shortcuts with keystrokes:

• Win+1…9 = 1…9 applications in the taskbar
• Win+Shift+Left/Right = move window over to the other screen at same location
• Win+Home = Minimize all other windows
• Win+P = Multi monitor setup (duplicate, extend, etc)

How best to reproduce daylight within a semi-porous, organic system.

A question of sustenance emerges out of air: to strive, break towards. A concupiscence characterized by watery overflows, another version of rapture set against a bent willow frond, reading nook, cloud-cover of eyelashes you cannot make out through a high-def screen.

The sun’s strophe = a stronger self-portrait set sail in a translation quickened from fingertip to breath.

Sun blinded-ness. To tremble in the semaphore that is this effort of communicating. Of angles without hips. A jointed venture.

The impossible how you go again and relapses.

I made this without thinking of you.

You know the feeling. You make a little typograpical error, which you could have easily have corrected yourself, and MS Word (thinking itself the proverbial bee’s knees) decides to fix it for you. Then you’re left with a smug little blue rectangle and a flawless piece of work.

Well, you know what? I always press backspace until I have passed the “error”, then retype the word. It gives me a feeling of satisfaction to know that there is now definitely no possibility of Word uncorrecting all my mistakes just as I press print.

Call me paranoid, call me petty. But this is how I “roll”.

Kottke discovers the secret way of reviving dead and dried out Play-Doh.

The way to address those enticing risotto leftovers from the previous day—before you take the fateful step of simply discarding them. The name arancini derives from the shape and color of this street and cafe food, which is reminiscent of a small orange. These deservedly glorified fried stuffed rice croquettes are an almost cult-like, centuries old Sicilian delight. Dip them in aïoli once they cool some. (See Aïoli, Aïoli, Aïoli, January 25, 2009)

ARANCINI (RISOTTO BALLS)

3-4 C wild mushroom risotto, cooled (See Risotto, January 27, 2009)
1-2 C Taleggio cheese, cut into 1/2″ cubes

4 large eggs
2 C all purpose flour
2 T fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
1 T fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
2 T parmigiano-reggiano
2 C fine fresh bread crumbs

Equal parts extra virgin olive and grapeseed oils, for frying
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Aioli, for dipping

Pour combined olive and grapeseed oils to a 3 1/2″ depth. Bring the temperature of the oil to 350 degrees F, using a frying thermometer. Line a jellyroll pan or cookie sheet with paper towels to later drain and season the fried arancini.

To make an arancino, take about two tablespoons of risotto in one hand, make a hole with a finger and stuff it with 1-2 Taleggio cubes. Close the hole and then form and roll the risotto into almost 2″ diameter balls. Set aside on a pan covered in parchment paper.

Break the eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk well. Place the flour in a separate mixing bowl and combine with the bread crumbs, parmigiano-reggiano, rosemary, sage and salt and fresh black pepper to taste. Place the bread crumbs in a third mixing bowl.

Roll the arancini first in the flour mixture, then dip into the eggs until well coated and then finally roll lightly into the bread crumbs.

Working in batches cook in the heated oil until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from the oil with a spider or slotted spoon, drain on paper towels and season to taste.

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
~Publilius Syrus

Fried sage. Rings like that series of ads in the late ’80s that depicted a sizzling fried egg and droned on: “this is your brain on drugs.”

This post seems simple to the point of naive, but the uses for fried sage are manifold and often forgotten: gracing appetizers…adorning pastas, rice, risotto, polenta, gnocchi, pizza, soups, fish, meats, poultry. They possess a fine textural finish. To me, even naked in a bowl as chip-like finger food is heaven enough.

FRIED SAGE

Extra virgin olive oil, for frying
30 or so whole sage leaves, cleaned and patted dry
Sea salt

Heat about 1″ of olive oil in a heavy medium saucepan over medium high heat, and when small drops of water sizzle when sprinkled into the oil, add half the sage leaves (to assure decent spacing) and fry for only 10-15 seconds, then remove them to paper towels to drain with a spider or slotted spoon. Do not let the leaves brown. Fry the remaining sage leaves and sprinkle them all lightly with salt. They will crisp as they cool.

Some developmental psychologists believe that humans are born with an urge to help.

When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help, Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October. Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

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This is a beautiful post by Katie West over at FLNGS. I really liked it. Needless to say that it’s NSFW.

In a “summing it up in one sentence” entry on her blog, imgonnabreakyourheart recently posted:

His Facebook status still reads “Married.”

She was referencing a friend of hers going through a painful divorce. But it got me to thinking about how we wear our marital status in public, and the extent to which it reflects reality.

My wife joined FB several months after I did. She began building her friends list by going through my list and clicking “Add as Friend” as she felt appropriate. But she never listed her marital status, and I thought that was telling… albeit not really a surprise. (My status was listed as “Married”, but did not mention her by name. At the time that I’d joined FB, you couldn’t put someone’s name in unless they were a FB “Friend” of yours. Once she did join, and I saw she didn’t list herself as married, I was reticent to up the ante by linking to her specifically as my bride.)

Now, there are other ways we advertise our marital status. Truth be told, Penny stopped wearing her wedding/engagement rings some time ago. Two years ago, maybe? For that matter, I stopped wearing mine soon after the wedding. I think some context might help to show that our similar actions conveyed different things. First, I kept losing my ring. I’m not a jewelry person, and I’m not trained to keep track of such things. I don’t wear a watch for the same reason. And so on. Plus (he said, defensively), I had begun gaining weight after we wed… you see, Penny kept saying, “No,” while Ben & Jerry never said, “No.”

Penny, on the other hand, was a person who wore rings. So, when she stopped wearing rings after eight or so years of marriage, it seemed a little more… meaningful.

[I don't know; perhaps I'm deluding myself. Maybe my not wearing a ring all that time only exacerbated her disinclination to sleep with me.]

After my wife and I had our first “Talk” about divorcing, I checked to see if discreetly de-listing (not changing, but making ‘unpublished’) my marital status would trigger one of those “So-and-So has changed their relationship status” posts. I have two accounts on FB, you see. When I first joined, I was suspicious of the whole enterprise, so I joined under an assumed name and asked a friend to “Friend me” so I could see what the deal is. Having kept that account around, I use it to test things like that. So my shadow account unpublished his marital status. No mention of it on my main account’s front page. So, I un-published my main account’s marital status, likewise.

As in the case of “imgonnabreakyourheart’s” friend, it’s a matter of acknowledging reality. While Penny and I are not yet separated, that is the path we are on. And there’s an important distinction between acknowledging your situation and advertising it. I don’t want a little broken heart icon showing up on all my friends’ FB accounts telling them I’m no longer married. I don’t want them to ask the inevitable questions after seeing my status change to “Single,” (which I’m not) or “It’s complicated” (which it isn’t).

And even if it were available, I’m not up for telling the whole world (except here, pseudonymously) that my status is, “Prepping for divorce.”

As it turns out, some other people are not so discrete about these things.

Penny has three brothers. All of them got married, starting with the youngest brother, then Penny (who, like me, is an oldest child), and then the  middle two. Imagine my surprise when, one evening while FBing, I see on my list of status updates that her youngest brother (with a broken heart icon) “is no longer married.”

He was online, so I pinged him. I asked if there was anything I could do. Nah, he said. This was the second time [his wife] had been sleeping around, and he was just tired of it. So, they were going to split up.

We had a good chat. Of course, I did not go into Penny’s and my own marital woes. (Although the topic of divorce had come up at a counseling session, I had shot it down. The topic had not yet resurfaced at that point… although it was heavy on my mind.)

I can’t remember if I told Penny the news about her brother or not; he had said I should, but I think I waited to allow the possibility that someone else would tell her, instead. I think I may have eventually told her, anyway. What I do know is that I did tell her I learned about it on FB, once the subject came up.

I think that’s what convinced her to join FB — the fact that I knew more about what her brothers were up to than she did, all because I was on FB and she wasn’t.

We have had many many friends announce their impending singlehood on FB, many of whom she has (or had) not yet friended as of the time of the announcement. I’ve neglected to keep her apprised of all this split-up-itude, mostly because I didn’t want to encourage that line of thinking. Of course, now we’re there, too. So much for that idea.

I’ve been watching as friends keep changing their relationship status. “Single.” “In a Relationship.” “Single.” “In a Relationship.” Oh, just cut it out.

I think FB needs to add a few new stati for relationships. They currently have “Single,” “In a Relationship,” “Engaged,” “Married,” “It’s Complicated,” “In an Open Relationship”, and “Widowed.”

How about, “Serial Dating?” Or, “Playing the Field?”

They should also have, “Frigid.”

And, “Men/Women Suck!”

I think the “Married” status should be available in three sizes:

MARRIED!

Married

(married)

With a tip of the hat to Leah (who inspired an upcoming post on the subject with a comment she posted to an earlier entry), I also suggest Facebook add: “Having an Affair.”

Of course, there’s “Divorced,” and “Prepping for a Divorce.” But, there should also be, “Pussywhipped” and “On the Rebound.”

Since, it seems to me, the whole point of posting your relationship status on FB is to let people know whether you’re available or not, why not trash the current labels and just go with these?

• Interested
• Unavailable
• Desperate

I take heart in the comments that Nicki has been generous enough to share here, and they inspire me to think that, even given the likelihood of me and Penny getting divorced, my ideal Facebook Relationship Status would be this:

“Getting Better.”

Once again, it’s been proven that the Crunpad has become total vaporware. Arrington just announced it on TechCrunch. Unfortunately, like many in the field and like many commentators on the post, I don’t believe that he is telling the whole story. He paints Fusion Garage as the enemy. My guess is that Fusion Garage will release a Crunchpad-like device in another market and it will filter into the US at some point.

Regrettably, kicking feeds and ideas seems to have distracted many blogs I used to read. I wonder how many bloggers now kick content to micro-feeds – and we are becoming less engaged with the thoughts and minds of those people? The feed runs too fast. I have no idea what Kevin Jarrett is thinking anymore … unless he blogs about it.

I was reading some blog post with a list – telling people what to do and not what to do. I’m never sure what to do. I’m still a kicker, but much less so than a few years ago. Today, I kick most feeds and ideas to Posterous – and usually make no effort to substantiate them in my blog. Blame iPhone for that.

I leave the biggest kicks to Mashable et al, who have professional-kickers.

Most of the people I engage with though blogs and communities would not build a school system anything like the one they are working in — they are talking about a mass-movement away from that — where teaching and learning is important — but in-between is up for grabs. They see a more than possible future of learning that does not require critical mass adoption by current teacher-volunteers at all.

Perhaps I’m just tuned into dystopia, but I am sure today’s education system and exams will not create any utopia for my kids — who are in public school along with 75% of the rest of Australia’s future — the ones that ultimately matter to me most … mmm, spiky thoughts. Yet we seems to orbit the same issues and drag in overseas kickers who can’t realistically tackle any local issues — which is where we need to be in 2010.

I’m not going to get all list-making about it — as there is a place for that stuff– as everyone needs an upstream , however I’m seeing a decline in Australian blogging … and an increase in kicking … not good.

Web2.0 moved on; kicking to new channels; demanding new playgrounds — and some are eating off the same meal – using their blog to push what people into private spaces – where they kick content to a user-pays audience. What do you read that makes you think again or try something new — pushes you out your comfy chair … or have you opted to kick to Twitter and Facebook and quit blogging? I’d love to find out … what Australian bloggers are sending out new smoke?

Today, my grandson asked how old I am and whether I’d seen Mammoths “for real” when I was a kid. FML
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This one had my wife laughing out loud for quite a bit. I also discovered that I was born on a Monday, the same day as my wife.

Gotta love little computers… and need my Leopard wherever I go.

After years of spouting nonsense about being a liberal haven, as well as a tax haven, financial megalopolis Dubai is bankrupt. The city built on slave labor is finally as bankrupt as its morals.

I spent some time looking around concept sites today — looking for an idea. I need some object that two characters I’m messing about with might use to leave messages. . Just about everyone who is or will be an industrial designer is blogging and developing highly rendered concepts online, so it’s not hard to fly though hundreds of ideas.

From mobile phones to cars, household items – you name it – there are highly talented people doing it. During my travels, I noticed this video – where a car — designed for a game – has been put into real life. There was a time Industrial Design students sketched out ideas with Pantone Markers — today they are building cars in games, racing them and creating movies from their virtual toys. This is a great video to make the point about how easily influential 3D has become in the development of — well everything.

“You can hide ‘neath your covers

And study your pain

Make crosses from your lovers

Throw roses in the rain

Waste your summer praying in vain

For a savior to rise from these streets.”

- “Thunder Road,” Springsteen, 1983.

Crunching, crunching.  Fallen leaves give way under Nick’s feet as he climbs from his Civic and heads to the door, pizzas in tow.  The air is crisp and thin.  The sun hides behind a smoky looking sky.  A woman opens her front door and greets Nick, says something about the weather, says something about how hot the pizzas are, something about how fast the food arrived.  Nick, as always, smiles his mostly fake smile, thanks the woman for her (somewhat) generous tip, and rakes off back towards his vehicle – each time, almost always the same routine, the same result.  This is Nick’s life, mostly.  This is his existence, entirely, or so he dreads to think.

The radio station crackles as a nasally voice wavers:  “Thank you for listening to,” a pause, “West Virginia Public Radio,” a pause, “Brought to you by…”  Nick isn’t listening.  Nick is thinking.  He thinks a lot, maybe too much.  He thinks about how different his life could be, if he hadn’t come here, if he hadn’t come with her. He would probably have his degree by now, for one.  He could have a real job, maybe.  He might’ve done something with his life by now, probably.  Everything would’ve been different, perhaps.

As Nick goes over the thoughts in his mind, it occurs to him that it all seems a little presumptuous.  How was he to know his relationship, his adorned her would slowly slip away, would slowly distance herself, would slowly disappear from his life?  Maybe, if he were still at home, nothing would be different.  Maybe he would just be there delivering pizzas, instead of here.  Maybe he would just be there taking classes, instead of here.  Maybe everything would the same, except he would be there and not here.

Nick turns and backs the Civic carefully down the long, winding driveway and into the potholed streets of Catawba County.  He downshifts and speeds up the road, around the curving streets, half-canopied by leering, leafless trees, as two voices on the radio discuss something almost entirely irrelevant.  “Why, yes, in fact dung beetles are a very interesting species…”

Nick sighs.  A dollar tip.  Another goddamned dollar tip.  He has driven 15 miles round trip for a dollar tip.  Here he is, 23 years old, still completely reliant on people’s charity.  He has forgotten how to lie to himself.  He is a sixth year, count ‘em, senior at some place called Marshall.  He delivers pizzas to support himself and his drama queen.  He has no clue where he’s going in life.  It just so happens, on that note, he fits right in with the old Wild and Wonderful.  He should be right at home, except he isn’t.

Nick rounds a curve too fast and nearly sideswipes a passing station wagon.  He sees a woman’s wide eyes flash by in an instant, and then she’s gone forever around the bend.  If she had been half a foot, mere inches, closer to the yellow line, her car would have hit Nick’s Civic, and in the confusion she would almost certainly have lost control of the unruly station wagon.  Horrified, Nick would keep going, too scared to look back, trying to invent a story in his mind, trying to expel what he had just seen.  Nick would get a mile up the road, choking on his own mucus as nausea rises in his throat, trying to ignore the voice on the radio, “Turn around!  You goddamned fool, turn around!”

He would turn around, he would speed back to where he last saw the station wagon, would pull over, would get out and run to the road’s edge, would peer over the side and see the ruined vehicle sitting far below, would smell smoke and burning metal.  He would rush down the mountainside, rush to the driver’s door and see the woman’s wide eyes inside, see the woman’s tattered black raincoat and too-white face blackened by licking flame.  He would thrust his hands through the shattered window, into the oven’s fire, pleading for the woman to grab hold, “grab hold!  I can pull you out!”

She would comply, and he would pull, only to have her skin come off her arm like a sleeve.  She would cry out for him to help, for him to do something, anything, but there would be nothing he could do but pull back and watch the fires engulf her.  Through the smoke and flame, he would see her wide eyes – wide pale blue eyes – pleading with him before they melted away, as he dithered back and forth, helpless, responsible, and far too late.  Then he would spend years trying to get the images of that dying woman out of his head.

But today, none of that was to be.  None of that actually happened, today.

Twitter Japan is about to let users charge to follow their tweets. Would you pay for premium tweets? I wouldn’t.

OK so this is good; now I can update from the front page. As it should be. Especially since I intend t use this blog now as my personal trading and economy notebook. If you can’t see the other things you’ve written down without going back and forth from this and that window, what’s the point of taking notes?