I'm experimenting with Tumblr. Check out my Tumblelog here. If the experiment proves a success, I'll likely move it over here to the main site.

My grandmother doesn't cook, but she does enjoy reading cookbooks. I am beginning to suspect I am the same. I enjoy watching America's Test Kitchen and reading Cook's Illustrated, but I find that whenever I try to follow their recipes things are just too much work to bother with. Today is a case in point. After seeing them make Thai Chicken Soup [registration required] on Test Kitchen today, I thought I'd like to have it for dinner. So I printed out the recipe, walked up to Schnuck's, got my ingredients, and came back to make the soup. The shopping took about 45 minutes, which wasn't too bad. But then making the soup took 90 minutes or so. To be fair, I now have about two more days worth of meals ready to go, but I think next time I'm inspired to make something, I'll just go out to eat instead.

Link.

My high school made it into my RSS feed today with news that the school district had lost all of the second semester grades. A bit odd that they apparently didn't bother with backups of any of this data.

Charlie Rose decided that it was a better choice to stop a fall with his face than to drop his newly acquired MacBook Air. I'm not here to question that decision, but the picture above does make me wonder: does PBS not employ makeup artists?

I continue to be amazed that Hillary Clinton's campaign, in pushing the idea that some states are more important than others^*, uses the phrase "second-class" to describe the delegates from these unimportant states. Their choice of language here is repugnant. Whether intnetionally or not, they seem to be invoking the idea of second-class citizens -- those in socitey who are routinely discriminated against, such as African-Americans more than forty years ago. Given the earlier racial politics of this campaign, I can't help but wonder if this is an intentional act of race baiting. Perhaps Hillary thinks the delegates from these so-call second-class states should only be given 3/5 of a vote?

^* Aside from the extra value already attached to them as evidenced by their differing delegate counts.

Why do the eco-skeptics get so much traction by claiming the the current warming trend is a "natural" process? Regardless of whether you think global warming is a man-made problem or just part of a predictable cycle that also gave us such great time periods as the ice ages, the effect of the change in temperature doesn't seem to be in great dispute. Why is it that calling global warming a "natural" process is at all an argument against doing somethign about it?

We certainly don't think of other "natural" processes this way. Death is a "natural" process, for example. We certainly don't let its "naturalness" keep us from spending 16% of our GDP on trying to delay it as long as possible.

So far, so good. They closed I-64 here in St. Louis sometime this morning, but the post-holiday commute was pretty easy. I was concerned that crossing Hanley (I-64 Westbound traffic is being diverted onto Hanley) would be difficult, but it was as easy to cross as it always is (which isn't great). Everyone seems to think the true test will be next Monday morning, so I'll reserve final judgement until then.

And now, because I haven't seen this widely reported anywhere else, is some information on closures related to bridge demolition. All of this info comes from the I-64 website.

• Lindbergh will be closed in both directions at I-64 from 10:00 pm on 1/4 until 5:30 am on 1/7. Once demolition is complete it will reopen with two lanes in each direction.
  
• Brentwood will be closed on both directions at I-64 from 10:00 pm on 1/11 until 5:30 am on 1/13. It will also be closed from 10:00 pm on 1/18 until 5:30 am on 1/20. Once demolition is complete it will reopen with two lanes in each direction.
  
• McKnight will close at 7:00 am on 1/14. Use McCutcheon as an alternate route until reconstruction of the bridge is complete, which should take 4-6 months.
  

Everyone has been raving about the 2005 Bordeaux vintages -- the warm temperatures and near drought conditions means unripe grapes should be a near impossibility -- and I think they're right. Over the weekend I had a remarkable bottle of the 2005 Chateau Beychevelle (fourth growth; Saint-Julien). I'd had an earlier vintage at a wine tasting and it had been pleasant, but nothing to write home about. The '05 is a very different animal. It's complete beginning to end with a great nose and a strong finish. It is however, worth decanting before serving. The critics seem happy with it as well. Parker scored it a 90-92 and said it might be the best Beychevelle since 1982. Unfortunately, the price reflects this quality. While earlier vintages have been in $40 range, this is not true of the '05, which is going for closer to $90 at some places. But it seems that, this year, Bordeaux is worth it.

If you've ever considered investing in a well stocked wine cellar, this article from the New Yorker should serve as a cautionary tale.

The long and short of it is that buying wine that is more than 100 years old is a lot like gambling. Much of what even the experts "know" about older wines may be based on fraudulent tastings. And because no records exist for wines produced very long ago, there is not much that can be done to truly authenticate a bottle. Which leaves us trying to do so based on tastings, which even in the best of conditions would be rather tricky. But given the uncertainty surrounding some of the basis tastings that experts have gone to, even that is not particularly useful. So, caveat emptor should be your motto when buying those eighteenth century grand crus.

My mom saw the NY Times wedding announcement for Wilhelmina Slater and Bradford Meade in the paper today. She thought it was fairly odd that they had to pay for a wedding announcement given their extensive resumes and read it out loud to us. Fortunately, I was able to clue her in on the fact that these were characters from Ugly Betty. But the request to visit abc.com at the end of the announcement probably should have given her a hint about the falseness of this particular wedding announcement.

I'm thinking that it might be time to trade in my car. My Escape has served me well, but it seems to be spending a lot of time in the shop these days, which makes me reluctant to keep once my warranty expires in a few months.

I'm thinking that I want something that still has some decent storage capacity, like my Escape, but I don't want to deal with the poor mpg I get from my Escape. My original thought was to get a hybrid SUV, but the only one in the size I'm interested in is the Escape hybrid, which seems too much like keeping my current car. So now I'm looking at standard cars with decent fuel economy. I test drove the VW GTI last weekend because a guy at work recommended it to me, but I probably need to look at some more options before I make up my mind on this.