Towse: views from the hill

August 20, 2008

"We become what we think about." Earl Nightingale

Filed under: life,lifehacks,people — Towse @ 3:42 am

I grew up listening to short, inspirational spots on KCBS narrated by Earl Nightingale.

What a voice that man had.

Through some weird click to click to link to click, I stumbled across a free audio of Earl Nightingale’s classic The Strangest Secret today over at the Mark Victor Hansen site with added commentary by MVH, but … well, I stopped the audio to write down a thought and backtrack and had to start ALL OVER AGAIN!.

and again…
and again…

Yeeks. Can’t deal with that.

Go over to YouTube and find Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret, unfiltered and uncommented.

part 2
part 3

“We become what we think about.” — Earl Nightingale
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want Mark Victor Hansen (he of CHICKEN SOUP fame) and his commentary and Earl Nightingale’s classic, here ’tis.

August 19, 2008

Beautiful soup, so rich and so green, bubbling in the soup tureen

Filed under: food,web2.0 — Towse @ 8:25 pm

via Paula — foodie stuff, which originated over at Andrew Wheeler’s Very Good Taste.

I so seldom do these things … but this appealed. I’d never have seen it but for Paula. Thanks, Paula!

The Omnivore’s Hundred

Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (no … yak butter tea though)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (not that I remember. …)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp (not that I remember. …)
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes – I don’t recommend Maui pineapple wine.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream – My sister made THE BEST coffee ice cream for the family BBQ on Sunday. Yum.
21. Heirloom tomatoes The Dissident Chef prepared a 10-11 course dinner a week or so ago that had tomatoes in every course. Loads of heirloom tomatoes.
22. Fresh wild berries – used to pick them at my grandparents’ farm
23. Foie gras — Paula says, “cruelty!!” but I say, “Yum.” PETA and other folks are really aiming to get rid of all meat animals including chickens, who have a much worse life than the geese, but they start with foie gras. Because most people don’t eat it, they don’t care if it’s banned. If they’d started with the Sunday roast chicken, they’d’ve been stomped out of business.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (Raw? No.)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I haven’t had that many cigars in my lifetime, let alone big fat ones.)
37. Clotted cream tea — Clotted cream. Ym. With scones to spread it on and jam and tea? Dbl-ym.
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects — Grilled grasshoppers in Yunnan, iirc. I used to put chocolate covered insects in my dad’s stocking back when I played Santa.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu – I don’t play Russian roulette either.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal – don’t like the oversized soda
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini – I’ve had so few martinis in my lifetime. Never a dirty one.
58. Beer above 8% ABV – La Trappe Quadrupel (Koningshoeven) is 10%ABV and my beer of choice at La Trappe restaurant on Columbus Ave, North Beach, SF.
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads – his nibs wooed me with home-cooked sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (not that I remember. …)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian – saw some yesterday in Chinatown. $1.09/lb. Some day …
66. Frogs’ legs – when I was very young I used to go to the pond with my grandfather to catch the frogs for frogs’ legs.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain – comfort food from the days in Brazil
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu – I believe this was the firewater we picked up in a market in remote Yunnan
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini – how could you stop at Harry’s Bar in Venice and not indulge?
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict – I judge hotel restaurants by how good their Eggs Benedict are at breakfast. (Eggs Benedict at breakfast, Reuben sandwich at lunch. If a hotel restaurant can provide both of those flawlessly, I’m there.)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant – cheating really. We went to a Penfold’s event at the French Laundry and the tasting menu was what we got. We usually opt for the tasting menu at Manresa (two-Michelin-stars).
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (not that I remember. …) I’ve had cuy, though.
90. Criollo chocolate (don’t know)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake — tastes like chicken!

John Cleese — available 24/7

Filed under: culture,people,web2.0 — Towse @ 2:41 pm

John Cleese’s Cleeseblog

John Cleese on Twitter

John Cleese on friendfeed

John Cleese ning

John Cleese podcasts

… A taste of Cleese. [via laughingsquid]

August 18, 2008

Opening Summer 2008 | press club

Filed under: wine — Tags: — Towse @ 11:30 pm

Opening Summer 2008 | press club

Waiting. (Waiting. Waiting.) for Press Club to clear up whatever ABC issues they’re having and open … and not just because Sophie will be pouring Mount Eden Vineyards’ wines.

The wineries involved in this new and different wine bar opening (SOON!) on Yerba Buena Lane are Hanna Vineyards, Mount Eden Vineyards, Fritz Winery, Chateau Montelena Winery, Miner Family Vineyards, Pahlmeyer, Saintsbury, Landmark Vineyards.

Should be fun. Support your local winemakers.

FORA.tv – Videos Covering Today’s Top Social, Political, and Tech Issues

Filed under: culture,media,politics,video,web2.0,writing — Towse @ 8:09 pm

FORA.tv – Videos Covering Today's Top Social, Political, and Tech Issues

FORA.tv is advertising for unpaid interns on CraigsList.

Toddled off to see what’s up with that. I’d seen a stack of FORA.tv lit over at the Commonwealth Club offices on Saturday.

Long Now talks. Aspen Institute talks. Commonwealth Club talks. …

Here’s a Roger Rosenblatt interview with Amy Tan at the Chautauqua Institution on July 10, 2008. The interview is broken out in sections. If you only want to hear Tan speak on “Writer’s Memory” you can click straight to the spot.

E.L. Doctorow on the Problematic Nature of Writing Novels

The indexing is superb. You can select one of the broad subject ranges and then one of the sub-sections. You can search for subjects. You can find all videos from the Hoover Institution.

Brilliant stuff.

I am one vote. T-shirt from Zazzle.com

Filed under: politics,shopshopshop — Towse @ 7:01 pm

I am one vote. T-shirt from Zazzle.com

August 16, 2008

California License Plate 2GAT123

Filed under: factoid,writing — Towse @ 12:41 am

Here is my “find out something new every day” for today courtesy of a post Dangerous Bill (Penrose) made to misc.writing.

Read the Wikipedia entry about California license plate 2GAT123.

(I knew about 555-0100 to 555-0199, but this license plate biz is news to me and news to his nibs as well.)

August 15, 2008

Film Terms and Definitions: chyron

Filed under: news,wordstuff — Towse @ 2:24 am

Maybe the next time I have to look up chyron I’ll remember what it means.

(Three’s the charm.)

The Obama Campaign’s 40pp rebuttal to Jerome Corsi’s book

Filed under: books,politics — Towse @ 12:19 am

Unfit for Publication [PDF] – the Obama campaign’s 40pp rebuttal to the “facts” in Jerome Corsi’s book.

Reminds me a bit of Usenet. If someone spouts a bunch of stuff and you can see there’s at least 30% of it that’s wrong right off the bat, you go looking to see what other “facts” might be wrong.

Loads.

Corsi seems an odd duck.

Perhaps, though, I should volunteer as copy editor when the campaign is writing up these lengthy, smear-fighting essays.

e.g.
p2 As you might expect from the book’s shoddy foundation, many of its claims are also completely false. The Obama’s never gave a million dollars to a Kenyan politician.

misplaced apostrophe Maybe it started out as “Obama’s campaign” and morphed into “The Obama’s” without needed tweaking of punctuation.

p5 Obama Writes That His Father’s Third Wife Refused To Life With His First Wife

live

And so forth and on. I tuckered out about page nineteen, but I’ve saved the PDF and I’ll continue reading later.

August 10, 2008

new video: "Republicans and military men on John McCain"

Filed under: politics,video,web2.0 — Towse @ 6:47 pm

This election has the internet (columns, blogs, newsgroups, sites, videos, commentary, Web2.0 electioneering) playing a huge part, for those who use the internet.

And even for those who don’t, if they read the papers or watch TV.

McCain’s ad comparing Obama to Paris and Britney didn’t have much play in paid air time, but it was on the Web getting a zillion views and MSM picked it up and talked about it and wondered about it and speculated about it and suddenly a fairly small media budget got a factor of n more traction than it would otherwise.

But it’s not just the videos produced by professionals and paid for by campaigns or major political parties. I am stunned by the brilliance of some of the non-campaign videos that are popping up. (And stupefied by the webisodes that were shot of John Edwards and paid for by his campaign, but that’s another story. …)

The younger nib grew up making videos and belonging to movie/video clubs and competing in movie/video competitions from his teen years as did many of the Y generation.

Those years of practice show up when professionals donate their work to the cause: will.i.am’s Obama ‘Yes, we can’ video and Paris for President.

Those years of practice show up too in the amateur videos made for YouTube distribution.

This morning I came across a link to “Republicans and military men on John McCain” in the comments tail of a Huffington post. Visuals. Captures. Background music. Amazing work from someone who seems to be the same age as the younger nib.

Director: Aaron Hodgins Davis, Skidmore. Uploaded 31Jul2008.

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