:: Ray's Periodic Rantings ::

:: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 ::

Most amusing restaurant review I have ever read

The NY Times's Frank Bruni reviews a steakhouse in a strip club. The restaurant gets one star, but the review gets four for laughs.
:: Ray 5:21 PM [+] ::
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Could've gone to Mars

Having been to Burning Man several times, I know that costs can add up. Every year we look at what we spent on the whole undertaking and say to ourselves, "we could have gone to Europe for less." Burning Man is worth it to us, but sometimes in life this is not the case.

I just read something that put the Iraq war into a new perspective for me. Back when Dubya's daddy was president, he proposed that we send a manned mission to Mars. It was a neat idea, but it fell by the wayside after cost estimates exceeded $400 billion.

As near as I can tell, we have spent about $370 billion in Iraq so far, and estimates indicate it will easily exceed half a trillion and could even approach a trillion before we are out of there. We could have put people on Mars for that kind of money! It would have been a far better investment, with stunning return on the dollar in new technologies, too.

This war has been a fucking waste of humanity and money at a nearly unimaginable scale. George Bush is a putz for lying us into it, and he and Cheney really ought to be impeached for it before their terms expire.

PS I know there are all kinds of other things we could have done with the money having to do with things like health care, education, and alternative energy, too, but I am trying to make a rhetorical point here!
:: Ray 6:03 PM [+] ::
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Winter in Arlington Heights

I took a couple of photos of the house yesterday after shoveling out from a bit of snow that we had in the Chicago area, along with one of Mabel, the Airstream, hibernating under her blanket of white.
Winter 07 house pics and Mabel
:: Ray 11:13 PM [+] ::
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I guess I'm an alpha

Mary and I both laughed so hard, we cried, when we read this in yesterday's New York Times: He Cooks. She Stews. It's Love.

In the following excerpt, substitute Mary Green for Robin Henry and Ray Koltys for Andrew Goldman, and you have our kitchen exactly.

When Robin Henry, an interior designer, helps make dinner with her fiance, Andrew Goldman, a writer, she endures his constant, conspicuous scrutiny.

"I'll be standing there, sauteing onions, and I can feel him standing over my shoulder, staring down at the pot and gnashing his teeth," Ms. Henry said. "He'll say things like, 'You should really turn that down now.' "

:: Ray 11:10 PM [+] ::
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Yeast

Yesterday I baked a full-blown loaf of bread for the first time, and it actually came out OK. It looked like a loaf of bread, it tasted like like a loaf of bread, and while a tiny bit dense, it wasn't like a brick or anything. The biggest surprise to me was that it didn't take a ton of time, and it wasn't very difficult...I just followed the directions on the packet of yeast.

I'll be trying it again, and refining my technique. I think that the results are well worth the time invested. Fresh baked bread at home...yum.
:: Ray 11:44 AM [+] ::
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If you live in IL-10

Here is a link to some some choice video snippets of a recent talk given by our Bush-loving Republican congressman, Mark Kirk. Enjoy some good laughs as our know-it-all representative tries to impress us with his worldliness!
:: Ray 6:17 PM [+] ::
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Observations

The journey from my office to the train station is usually one to be made as rapidly as possible, frequently by Xootr. Tonight, however, I enjoyed it as a casual walk.

Snow fell, lending some magic to the twilight. The air was cool and crisp, but not unpleasantly cold. A blanket of white covered the largely frozen over Chicago River, helping to absorb the city noise as I walked next to it on Wacker Drive. And an old friend, the chocolate scent of the Blommer Chocolate factory, accompanied me (smelling it's usual pleasant self, with none of my one-time confusion about it). No, I was in no hurry indeed.

Having been reading about Celiac and other allergic dining options in Chicago earlier in the afternoon, I was somewhat alarmed, upon sitting down on the train home, when the guy next to me pulled out a jar of peanuts for a snack. I hope he never does that when someone with a peanut allergy happens to be nearby. The result could be tragic. It makes me wonder if people with severe allergies are forced to avoid public transportation simply because they have no control over what they might be exposed to there.
:: Ray 8:05 PM [+] ::
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Weather

It is winter in Chicago, so I am not going to complain about how cold it is. I will, however, say that I find it interesting how much warmer 9 or 10 degrees Farenheit feels after it has been -2.
:: Ray 6:47 PM [+] ::
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