Zombie Lapdance

This week I implemented google reader into my internet webbrowsing behavior, and I haven’t yet decided if it’s a great way to pipe more information down my gullet, or if it’s a colossal waste of time.

On the plus side I now have a convenient way of keeping track of the blogs of people I know. I can’t go around checking a dozen or so blogs every day just so I can tell people at parties that I have in fact been keeping up with their blog. Now it all gets wrangled into one Firefox tab and I can get all my blog-reading responsibilities done in one go.

I also have a lot of webcomics that are now part of the RSS force feed. That means that any time I need a little break from the rigmarole of being busy at the computer, I can get a little laugh.

The problem comes with all the other informational opportunities. I’m subscribed to a couple of science news feeds that combined give me about 100 breaking science news stories. That’s a lot to keep up with.

On the one hand, I don’t want to fill my valuable free time with crammed little tidbits of information that I will never need. On the other hand, I don’t want to miss stories like:

National study finds table saw-related injuries have remained consistently high

I also found out today that we now know how the brain stores the meaning of nouns. Every time we learn a noun the brain classifies the word according to three predictable criteria that correspond to discrete sections of the brain. Those criteria are: 1.) how we manipulate it, 2.) how it involves shelter, and 3.) whether or not we can stick it in our mouths.

I kid you not.

Julia, my food-frakking deputy, had never been inside that mineral shop down on East Fifth, the one inside the used office furniture warehouse. I can never remember what it’s called, Nature’s Booty? Earth Package? Dirt Treasure? Something like that.

Anyway, we found out that they didn’t have any uranium, but they did have a fossilized mineral called "viking balls" that was supposed to give you strength and courage. Like a viking! It wasn’t clear if you were just supposed to own the mineral, or if you had to eat it, or fondle it, or whatever. But I’m sure it works.

They also had some 2012 crystals. I mean, I love the Mayan calendar and I love healing, so the two together must be awesome.

I would never force you to read the entire page of explanatory text, but here’s some samples with exegesis.

The opening paragraph:

"The vibrational rate of the 2012 crystal is among the highest of any on the planet and energetically contains our completed future selves. They have downloaded themselves energetically into the 2012 crystals as a vehicle to return to their past which is our present to rescue our present self."

So. From this we can conclude that quartz crystals 1.) vibrate, 2.) contain energeticals, 3.) travel in time, and 4.) cost a mere $22.

From the third paragraph:

"As unique healing tools, Twenty-Twelve Crystals ™, have combined properties of diagnostic and repair. Much like a diagnostic tool linked to the computer inside your car, they both analyze the situation and often heal it simultaneously!"

Holy shit! Computers heal cars!

And here’s the conclusion:

"The 2012 Crystals energetically connect or grid with all other 2012’s on planet. The users and the planet herself benefits from the higher vibration created."

I need to take my hat off to the creators of the 2012 crystals. By taking a mineral which has a wholesale cost of $.50, finding the ones that contain the spiritual energy of time-traveling ghosts, and then giving it a trademark and a brand name, they not only improve the lives of massage therapists and their clients, they actually make an entire planet better.

Thank you 2012 cyrstal people. You are true heroes.

I’ve been talking a little about the finer points of bacon. So last night, Julia, my food-frakker deputy, and I put together a PSA to bring that message to children.

I hadn’t found any new podcasts to be excited about for a while, and then I stumbled upon Cooking with Dog.


Ostensibly, this is a Japanese cooking show that’s hosted by a poodle. In reality, there’s a poodle that’s inexplicably standing behind the cook and there’s no other attempt to explain it’s presence.

The dog combined with the fast-paced and curiously detailed descriptions of cooking Japanese food makes this a thoroughly mesmerizing video series.

If you’re like me, you spent 2009 in constant celebration of the International Year of Astronomy. You saw meteor showers, made solar system models, and took photos of the moon with homemade telescopes.

And of course you listened to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast.

It was crushing to come to the end of 2009, to no longer have the International Year of Astronomy to give me purpose and direction. I thought, "Matthew, you only have to make it through another month, and then it’ll be Black History Month."

But the good news is that the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast isn’t going to stop! That’s right, it’s going to continue posting astronomy-themed episodes every day for another year. It turns out that there’s still quite a lot of astronomy out there.

Is it too early to declare this the century of astronomy? How about the Galactic Year of Astronomy?

So Patrice Sarath was putting together an Amazon list for the Slugtribe writer group. I figured something that I wrote must have popped up on Amazon, so I searched for myself.

What I found was too amazing for words.

But I will use words anyways.

It turns out that I got an honorable mention in the 2009 Best of Horror Anthology edited by Ellen Datlow (and Gavin Grant and Kelly Link). I had no idea. Datlow specifically mentioned that my "Dead Town Taxi" story in Undead 3: Flesh Feast was a pleasant departure from the usual flesh-eating zombie story.

Serves me right for not reading everything that Ellen Datlow writes. Thank goodness for Kindle ebook searches, otherwise I never would have known.

So it turns out that the seafood restaurant on my way to work stocks lutefisk during the holidays, so I didn’t have to drive all the way out to Cranfills Gap after all. Unfortunately, while they sell lutefisk at a very reasonable price, they only sell it in 2.5 pound increments, which is far more lutefisk than a normal human being could possibly eat.

So I invited Jeremiah and his lovely wife to come over for a lovely lutefisk dinner with me and my food-frakking deputy Julia.

But wait, that’s from the end of the dinner, while we had desert of more lovely krumkake.

Before I can show you how we got to this point, a point of satiation after a more or less Scandinavian-American-themed dinner, I have to start from the beginning of the lutefisk story.

When purchased, the lutefisk was an unappealing solid block of frozen re-processed cod.

This is what it looks like thawed.

You can see that the cod has undergone a miraculous process of gelification.

I asked around my family, who keep an oral tradition of lutefisk-preparation lore the way that African bushmen keep the tribe’s knowledge of watering holes and lion-repelling scents. I was told that wrapping the lutefisk in tinfoil and baking in a tray with a thin layer of water will keep the stink to a minimum.

While the lutefisk was in the oven, I put together some of the side dishes, like boiled rutabaga and mashed potatoes.

Here I am, moments before the guests arrive, realizing that I don’t literally own any serving platters.

It looks even more gelatinous after some steaming in the oven.

The spread included white sauce and melted butter for the lutefisk. Lefse and two varieties of pickled herring made the meal extra authentic.

You mash up some boiled rutabaga with some mashed potatoes and butter, and it’s not so bad.

How was it, Jeremiah?

The publication of Anasazi-35 has stimulated some interesting conversations, so I think that it deserves a little more attention. I’m posting several exegetical articles, covering different aspects of the story. Previously I talked about the technology. Today, I’m going to talk about how Anasazi-35 approaches economy.

I believe it was back in 2006 that Bruce Sterling talked about spimes at his opening address to SXSW interactive. For the few of you reading this who are not on the inside of cyberpunk theory, a spime is a physical object that’s wired up the wazoo with miniaturized RFID, GPS, geonetworking, mobile networking, and microprocessor technology.

The day after, I was sitting in the Flightpath Coffeehouse, listening to a downloaded MP3 of the speech. When I tried to explain the concept of a spime to my girlfriend of the time, I illustrated it with the first consequence that came to mind: with ubiquitous computing, property becomes a data set. Which means that theft becomes practically impossible, and any object could be rented out on a second-by-second basis. The application I came up with off the top of my head was, supposing you needed a sweater, you could find the nearest available sweater (as informed by Google), and when you were done with it, you could simply toss it into a tree for the next user to find as needed.

This was all seat-of-the-pants theorizing mind you, hardly a developed prediction of the world to come, but there was a heated argument. I was accused of having reckless hippie ideas, voices were raised, and the customers of the notoriously tranquil Flightpath got up and moved to the other side of the cafe.

A version of this cooperative spime economy is a little more developed in the story. Traditionally, there hasn’t been much success with collectively-owned property systems, but when you add the element of ubi-comp, you can have collectively owned property that automatically bills you for its use at fair free-market prices. Aside from the convenience of having networked consumer goods, they could conceivably be cheaper than mass-produced goods because the market is colonizing the time that the product is not in use. The same sweater (or roll of tape) that served the needs of a single consumer, could now serve dozens or more.

Considering that economy of scale manufacturing thrives on profits that can be measured in pennies per unit, it’s not inconceivable that a system that can multiply the consumer benefit will out-compete capitalism itself.

There’s a number of foods that I make a point of preparing only around the holidays. You’ve already seen the lutefisk. Another holiday treat is krumkake, which I am here eating with chocolate icecream.

I managed to overcook virtually an entire batch of krumkake, which did not make me happy.

I also made a big batch of lefse, a traditional Norwegian flatbread. Imagine a tortilla that tastes a little like potatoes. In this photo I am having a traditional Norwegian breakfast of eggs, lefse, coffee, and pickled herring.

At least that’s what I imagine a traditional Norwegian breakfast would entail.

I had a lot of lefse left over, so I slathered some pizza sauce on a few, and topped them with shredded cheese and pepperoni.

It tasted remarkably similar to a New York style pizza.

Take a look at this picture. It looks like a rootbeer float, right?

Wrong! It’s actually Dr. Pepper! I got this at Naus drug, one of the few remaining soda counters. Everybody seems nostalgic about soda fountains in drug stores, but hardly anyone can be bothered to go. Although it doesn’t help that Naus Drug is only open during banker’s hours.

If you were of the British persuasion, you might be pleased to note that the Fiesta grocery also stocks food that caters to your ethnicity. Here’s a steak and kidney pie.

Emphasis on kidney. There’s so many delicious organs in a cow, why pick the one that tastes the worst?

I make it a point to avoid Whole Foods, but you can buy individual bottles of beer for $1.79 and drink them on premises, so I sometimes find myself with a longneck in my hand, fending off the damn grackles on their patio. While there I sometimes get a beer-snack, like this candied salmon.

You’re thinking, how do you candy a fish? I guess it was smoked and then fried with brown sugar or something, because the skin was vaguely, but not particularly, sweet. Inside, the salmon meat must have been almost half fat. It was like eating a gooey, fishy marshmallow.

When I was a kid, my mom always cooked the bacon in the microwave. Throughout the years as an adult, and hundreds of pounds of pan-fried bacon, I’ve never been able to replicate the crisp texture I remember from the bacon of my childhood. Attempts to use the microwave have ended in failure because you need a special pan that lets the grease pour off as the bacon nukes. Well, I was pleased to find a micro-wave baconing appliance at Goodwill the other day. As seen on TV!

This should be extra-effective because it was on TV, I thought.

Right away I ran into difficulties.

A couple of vital components to the tray were missing, a pair of skewers that pierce the bacon and hold it above the grease pan. I re-purposed some chopsticks to the task, but it’s a huge pain to skewer a floppy piece of bacon on two ends and then thread them through a series of slots at right-angles to the skewer. And once I did there was a lot of overhang. As it turns out, the tray, even though it’s much shorter than the standard size of bacon, is too large to rotate inside the microwave.

Six minutes of high power later, and I had six slices of bacon with hardly a drop of grease.

The bacon had pulled taught and had a weird mummified look, but it did indeed have that crisp texture I remember from my childhood. Thank you TV!