Tuesday Night Open Thread
Couple of quick things:
1.) Not sure what is going on with Daylight Savings, and maybe my memory is just fading, but I don’t recall it getting pitch black at 5 pm in previous years. Am I just not remembering?
2.) I’m a big fan of fruit, and every fall I am more and more turned off with apples. They just don’t taste as good as they once used to- red delicious are red as hell, but gone is the sweetness I remember as a child. I’m working my way through some Braeburn’s and some Sonya’s, but I would kill for something that tastes like the Red delicious I had as a kid.
3.) My macbook has a cd stuck in it. Do any of you have experience with the geniuses at the Apple Store (and that is there name, genius, and not an insult). Will I have to pay or is it covered by the warranty (the macbook is only a few months old). Are they allowed to take the laptops apart on site, or will I have to go without for days? IF I have to pay, how reasonable are their prices?
4.) On a side note, the current version of Dreamweaver from Adobe is just awesome. Really like some of the changes and the additions from GoLive, now that Adobe and Macromedia are one and the same.
5.) Still really enjoying Dragon Age. Such a great game. I’m losing two-three hours a night and staying up too late.
6.) Need a new caffeine free tea for night. I’ve temporarily lost my taste for the Stash Peppermint I used to have every night, and I’m bored with chamomile.
Finally, a pet pic:
Enjoy.
Sam Wilkinson
1. No.
2. Try Fujis, or ripe pears.
3. No.
4. Maybe.
5. Okay.
6. Twinings Rooibos, available at either of your local Giant Eagles. Cheap for a box, and very, very tasty. Also: decaf.
General Winfield Stuck
Same here. Crumbling retinas with aging. I just set my clock an hour ahead instead of back. Fixes the shit right up./
Jay B.
You up for Larry King’s gig at USA Today?
Mary
John, you have a year warranty on the macbook so it’s free. CDs and DVDs get stuck in my macbook too. I called the excellent apple hotline that comes with my apple care the first time it happened and they talked the thing out without my having to go to the store. I just pull them out with tweezers now. Works for me.
Alan
The only apple I like nowadays is Gala. I try to have one at least once a day. Usually cut up in my cereal in the morning along with a banana and anything else that looks good at the market.
General Winfield Stuck
If anyone wonders what happened to MylowIQ, here he/she is with some Reagan Love/PUMA style.
Mike M
Regarding 3, does your CD drive have a release catch on it? Look closely at the front of the tray – if it has a tiny hole anywhere, slowly slide a straightened paperclip into it. Most drives these days will have something of that nature, so you don’t lose a disc even if the drive/computer doesn’t power up at all.
My Truth Hurts
Didn’t we go to Standard Time later this year? That would mean it’s darker at 5 pm right after the switch than it would have been in previous years.
DougJ
1.) Not sure what is going on with Daylight Savings, and maybe my memory is just fading, but I don’t recall it getting pitch black at 5 pm in previous years.
This proves Al Gore is wrong about global warming.
Zzyzx
I live in Seattle. 4:30 PM darkness happens all the time. We make up for it in June…
JHF
Mike M has the CD answer. You can always use a straightened paper clip. Just be careful. Push straight in and not too hard. It should pop right out.
Mike M
@DougJ
ACORN IS STEALING OUR DAYLIGHTS
NCD
Honey Crisps are unbelievably good. Crisp, juicy, sweet but not mushy. They may be gone from markets near you already, but if not, grab a couple and rediscover Apple Love.
LorenzoStDuBois
Time to play the contrarian here:
Why is it so unethical for a Democrat to vote for the filibuster? A lot of my favorite bloggers are saying things like “if you don’t believe in the HC reform bill, you can vote against it on the up or down vote. You shouldn’t filibuster it.” I know, I know, these “centrists” dems are all dirtbags, but if the tables were turned, I sure wouldn’t be satisfied if my guy didn’t filibuster, but then voted against just to say “see? I voted against.”
I’m just saying, if you’re really for or against something, shouldn’t you vote on it when it counts, not when it’s symbolic?
[I do get that it means your a horrible Democrat and it reflects badly on Harry Reid, but aside from party loyalty, I don’t get why it’s unethical to do…]
JK
A Glenn Beck Christmas
http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Orig....._Xmas.aspx
LorenzoStDuBois
Time to play the contrarian here:
Why is it so unethical for a Democrat to vote for the filibuster? A lot of my favorite bloggers are saying things like “if you don’t believe in the HC reform bill, you can vote against it on the up or down vote. You shouldn’t filibuster it.” I know, I know, these “centrists” dems are all dirtbags, but if the tables were turned, I sure wouldn’t be satisfied if my guy didn’t filibuster, but then voted against just to say “see? I voted against.”
I’m just saying, if you’re really for or against something, shouldn’t you vote on it when it counts, not when it’s symbolic?
[I do get that it means you’re a horrible Democrat and it reflects badly on Harry Reid, but aside from party loyalty, I don’t get why it’s unethical to do…]
Emma Anne
I had this with my iBook. What worked was attaching a mouse and then holding down the mouse while restarting the Mac.
Mary
John, go to apple.com//support and put in your serial number and get yourself an apple id. They will then call you and talk you out of your problem ( not 24 hours a day though). Apple support is great, great, great, says this longtime PC user.
RedKitten
1.) Not sure about where you live, but yeah, that’s what it’s always been like up here.
2.) Royal Gala or Honeycrisp are both very good.
3.) Here are some ideas on how to get it out.
4.) Good to know.
5.) That’s when you know it’s a great game. :)
6.) Have you tried rooibos tea? It’s very nice.
JHF
And if you do go to an Apple Store, the geniuses are very, very good. Odds are they’d fix you right up on the spot without charging you a penny, unless there’s something REALLY wrong with the CD drive.
I went in once wanting to replace a sticking key on my MacBook. They took it in the back, returned 10 minutes later with a whole new top case & keyboard, no charge. The MacBook was out of warranty. Your mileage may vary. And you need to make an appointment to see a genius. Go to the store’s website.
feebog
Nope, its the same every year. The problem is that the morans in Washington decided to extend Daylight Savings Time into November, so when the switch comes, it really makes a dramatic difference. I can remember, as a letter carrier many many moons ago finishing up a route at 5:00 p.m. and getting out of the jeep to sort the last few stops by the headlights, it was that dark. And I live in SoCal.
RAM
Try Honey Crisp apples; they’re not easy to find, but they’re really good eating apples.
The problem with apples last year was that it was simply a bad year for them. A lot of them were mealy right off the bat and as the months passed they got even worse tasting. Things are a little better this year. Our Northern Spy tree was loaded; I wish we’d made cider this year, but the schedule didn’t work out and then it rained most of October. Cider making is a social activity for us, so that sort of messed things up for us…
JK
New York Post lawsuit: Shocking Allegations Made By Fired Employee Sandra Guzman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....52314.html
slag
For what it’s worth, apples are high in calories. Or at least that’s what my Wii Fit tells me. Pears are better.
Left Coast Tom
The previous Mac I owned encountered a problem, after 5 years, that I couldn’t fix. I drove it to the Apple Store in Palo Alto, totally ignorant of the need to make an appointment for the Genius Bar, without considering warranty questions, etc. They had one bit of open time, solved the problem, showed me what they did so I could take care of it the next time, and sent me on my way. Didn’t charge me. I bought my current Mac there.
Since I’m still totally ignorant of policies, etc., YMMV - I have no idea whether I received a favor or whether that’s just what happens. But I was impressed.
superfly
Restarting the computer usually will kick a stuck disc out, if you haven’t tried that.
If not, call first, as mentioned above, and Genius Bar won’t cost anything.
Max
I second the call for Fuji’s. I like them with peanut butter, but then again, I like anything with peanut butter.
I’m not a tea person. I love my coffee at night, but I do like Earl Grey, with honey and milk.
So, the DC sniper is being / has been executed tonight. I’m not bothered by this in the least.
This Dragon thing must be popular. TNC has a post about it.
Obama’s speech at the memorial service made me cry. He is remarkable.
General Winfield Stuck
@LorenzoStDuBois:
Not unethical. But it is stupid to obstruct your parties Marquee issue from getting an up or down vote. That’s why most won’t do it. But Lieberman is not a democrat, he just caucuses with them. And Nelson is from a bright crimson red state as is Landrieu, but I doubt even they would join the wingers in a filibuster to block HCR. Though they may well vote no for the final vote.
Tokyokie
My experience is that the redder the variety of apple, the more likely it is to be mealy. I stick to the yellowish-red varieties: Honeycrisp, Fuji, Gala, Braeburn, but my favorite, and the variety I find the sweetest, is Pink Lady.
Beauzeaux
Daylight Saving Time is singular. It’s like “Dog Washing Time” or “Beer Drinking Time.”
CalD
RE: Daylight Saving Time
The candy industry lobbied congress for years and years to move the date for changing to daylight saving time to November. The reasoning was that an extra hour of trick-or-treating before it got completely dark was worth a few million in additional candy sales every year. Three or four years ago—I believe the Republicans were still in control of congress—they finally did it.
We used to go to daylight saving time in mid-October. A couple of weeks earlier it wasn’t quite dark by 5:00 PM so the change didn’t seem so abrupt.
srv
In other news, just a normal day in the Fluffersphere:
“It’s unimaginable that a 56-year-old would be so deviant.”
No, not really.
dr. luba
@JHF: Apples don’t have those holes for paperclips anymore. Pity.
Try opening disk utility and ejecting from there. If that doesn’t work, restart the computer while clicking on the mouse (or on the touchpad button). That will usually do it.
If that doesn’t work, the sucker is really stuck, and it’s time to see a genius. They will usually do on site repairs for straightforward stuff, sending only big jobs out.
Standard warranty is 1 year, but if you bought Applecare (and you really should), you get three years’ coverage. I got three CD/DVD drives with my last laptop, and then got an brand new one just before it went out of warranty because of a motherboard (?) issue. Applecare is a good deal.
Beauzeaux
Also, you can almost never go wrong getting Fuji apples. They generally have a nice balance between sweet and tart, and they stay crisp forever.
Just Some Fuckhead
I was also thinking it was getting dark pretty early here. Dusk at 4:30 in the afternoon?
bogart
About the geniuses:
When I bought my Macbook, about three months in the touchpad and keyboard went to hell. I took it to the store, where they made an appointment for me (you can avoid this by setting an appointment time before you go into the store). The geniuses took my computer, replaced the broken parts, and didn’t charge me a penny. It took them 24 hours. It has worked perfectly ever since.
There’s a reason people love Apples, and it’s not just the computers.
Comrade Mary
Joining the Gala recommendations, not just because it’s sweet and lovely, but because it looks a little Delicious-esque, with a tall, tulip-like shape, and crisp, pale yellow flesh.
And why is that? Because it was developed as a cross between a Golden Delicious and Kidd’s Orange Red. The Royal Gala variant tends to be quite red rather than variegated, too.
David
If you are buying apples at the grocery store, that probably explains a lot of why you thing they are not as good anymore. What produce in what store is as good as what we had as kids, when the produce wasn’t in the supply chain for a month, and when they weren’t shipped in from New Zealand. I have been enjoying some incredible local apples from my farmers market lately – you might try that if you haven’t already.
dSquib
For stuck CD, release catch + 2 dinner knives. Jobs a good’un.
arguingwithsignposts
Open Thread funny: This post from Sadly, No! The comments almost cost me a keyboard.
P.S. – on the macbook, the newer versions don’t have the eject hole on the outside.
dmsilev
@Mike M: Macs haven’t used tray-loading drives for a while now. They’re slot-loading, and the traditional hole for paper-clip ejecting (which goes way back in Mac lore; the hole used to be for ejecting floppy disks) is gone.
I’d suggest John browse through the online support documents at Apple’s website, and if there’s no easy solution bring it into the store, since it’s still under warranty.
-dms
South of I-10
@RedKitten: Honey Crisps are amazing. Little South and I have eaten a ton since they came back for the fall.
dr. luba
@Left Coast Tom: That was standard treatment, actually. In store tech support is free; they only charge for actual repairs on out-of-warranty computers.
Another reason I am on my fifth Apple desktop and fourth (fifth if you count a free replacement) laptop. Never owned anything else. And using a Windows computer at work has convinced me I never want to.
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s my floor and my rug but it ain’t my dog. Maybe Timmy and Lassie are sneaking over when I’m at work. Wait, I work from home. The mystery thickens.
Jennifer
Yogi’s Pomegranate Green Tea = love.
arguingwithsignposts
@arguingwithsignposts:
Dammit. Here’s the link.
J
Cameo apples are the way to go.
I’d describe them as something of a cross between Braeburn/Honeycrisp and Gala—slightly less tart than the former and crisper than the latter.
And I guess this website describes them as something like a cross between Red Delicious and Golden:
http://www.honeycrisp.com/Merc.....Code=Cameo
donovong
For apples, let me recommend Cameos. Just bought some from an orchard up the road last week, and they are awesome. Kinds like Fuji’s, but just a bit more tart and larger. Fuji’s were about gone. Also second the votes for Honey Crisp, although it is not my favorite.
Wifey likes Celestial Seasoning’s Tension Tamer at night. I prefer Sam Adams myself.
Davis X. Machina
I’m assuming the obvious—power up while holding down the trackpad button—has been tried on the MacBook.
Mike M
@dmsilev: That’s a shame that they don’t have a release catch – I suppose ditching the tray allows for a sexier, lower-profile case overall, but when it malfunctions you’re up a river.
How close is Mac’s CLI to a Unix shell? I can usually run ‘sudo eject’ and the OS will spit my disc out, regardless of how fubar the driver is.
RedKitten
@South of I-10: I know, and now that I’ve been talking about apples, I’m craving some, damn it. And not only do I not have any in the house, but I just DID a grocery run today, the stores are closed tomorrow (for Remembrance Day), and I can’t really justify driving back another 45 minutes to the grocery store just to buy apples.
WereBear
I’ve found that the more the red apples look like a lovely piece of furniture, the better they taste.
However, I’m a huge fan of Granny Smiths, because they are always crisp & tart, unless something went really, really wrong with the storage by the time they arrive on the shelves.
My main problem with the death penalty is the possibility of error. With the DC Sniper, that’s not a problem. Likewise, the recent Fort Hood shooter.
Psychopaths who have racked up quite the body count once they’ve been caught… Also.
There are heinous crimes and heinous people who can be linked together with very little doubt. But I also realize this is not how the death penalty is always handled; perhaps it should be.
Good luck with the stuck CD; I’ve used the methods outlined here with great success, but each version has its own tricks.
dmsilev
@dr. luba: Yeah, Apple’s support, especially the in-store support, is great. They’re also pretty fast even with major repairs. I brought in a laptop with a set of dead fans that needed replacement, which is a depot-level repair job. I brought it in on a Sunday. FedEx delivered the repaired laptop on Wednesday. Basically, a day to ship it out, a day to do the work, and a day to get it back to me.
Sure, if I had some pricey corporate support contract it could have been faster, but for an ordinary consumer with a standard warranty, that’s pretty good.
-dms
Elizabelle
That is one fine looking collie.
How can one not smile back at that photo?
rmp
Two words, Honey Crisp
dmsilev
@Mike M: The CLI (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) is a fairly standard UNIX shell; defaults to bash, I believe. ‘eject’ gives me a ‘command not found’ error; Google suggests that ‘drutil eject’ is the OSX equivalent.
-dms
Andrew
I had to get a logic board replaced for my macbook a few months ago. It was done in less than 24 hours. I can’t imagine a stuck CD would take longer.
PeakVT
Gala, Honeycrisp, and Empire have been good for me lately. Granny Smiths are reliably good year round, though the mega-tartness isn’t for everybody.
MikeJ
As far as Dragon Age goes, I’ve just gotten to the capital. It’s a pretty decent game so far, but I think I still prefer Fallout 3. If you like DA better, that’s fine by me, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near what the hype led me to believe.
Apples: Our local stores in the Seattle area stock a dozen varieties, and I don’t think red delicious are among them. I’ve become a big fan of pears since moving here too.
hilzoy fangirl
Pink Lady apples are delicious.
Betsy
Lovely collie! Anyone who’s interested in collies and lives in TX, NM, AZ, I’ll put in a plug for Southwest Collie Rescue, which my stepmom helps run. They are a stand-up organization.
wingnuts to iraq
Honeycrisp appleas are the only apples I eat when they are in season. Get those. They rule.
They are so good they charge $1 more per pound for them.
Down with “delicious” apples! Fuji, gala, and to repeat: Honeycrisps!
// don’t know if anyone mentioned this already, didn’t read the thread.
WereBear
re: Tea
Celestial Seasonings has a metric ton of different, caffeine-free flavors. Many of the fruit ones also go well with some cream, making it a little more full-bodied and giving you a bit of a nudge towards dreamland. Peach is a favorite for this purpose.
Also, many people find that catnip tea is very relaxing. I find it intriguingly minty, yet different. Health food stores usually carry it in bulk (necessitating a tea ball) but some places have it in tea bags, too.
raff
OK, I give in on the Dragon Age thing—I thought, at first, it might be a bit too RPG-ey for my tastes, but after watching the IGN video review, it looks worth a go (it looks somewhat similar to “Witcher”—which I loved). I’ll
downloadbuy this game post-haste.On a dragon-related sidenote, you might want to check out “Divinity 2: Ego Draconis”. It’s more of an action-based RPG, but the grfx look sweet & you play a half-human, half-dragon character—i.e. your character is a human who can change into a dragon at which point you can kick ass dragon-style. I think I just had a nerdgasm.
ellaesther
On the apple front, I’ll back up everyone who’s said Fuji and Honeycrisp—though at this time of year, I barely even bother with anything but a Honeycrisp. That’s good eatin’, right there!
South of I-10
@RedKitten: Me too! I’ll pick some up tomorrow and be glad I don’t have to drive 45 minutes to the store. John, go directly to the store and get some Honey Crisps!
Betsy
Tea: I am a fan of a kind called “Eight Treasures,” which I get (unbranded) from my local loose-leaf tea shop. It has spearmint, rosemary, and various other herbs. It is wonderful. I don’t know where else you can get it.
Also, I’m half-watching NCIS Los Angeles, and apparently “John Cole” is an evil oil magnate consorting with the Russian Mafia.
J
All you who like honeycrisp should really give cameo apples a try—you’ll like those as much or more.
Betsy
@J:
Where can you get them?
Kirk Spencer
re the Mac, On The Other Hand… I had one (Macbook Pro) that would freeze and crash, regularly. Four calls to Apple tech always got the same instructions, and not one would hear my “I already called, tried your instructions, what’s NEXT?” Two trips to the genius didn’t work because “we can’t find a problem.” Third time, while the condescending prick (maybe he wasn’t, but it felt like it by that time) was showing me how to properly do the same thing I’d tried SIX FRIGGING TIMES when it froze and crashed on him.
“Oh. Wow.” Two days later I got it back, and it crashed the next day.
I don’t own a mac any more.
Bondo
Apples: a few years back I had some Jonamac apples; they’re the best, but they’re also harder to find.
ellaesther
Since it’s an open thread….
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much the genre of fantasy in Western culture (in games, books, or movies) is really just Beowulf. I finally read it (the Seamus Heaney translation) a couple of years ago (as opposed to when I was a high school senior and seem to recall doing well on a test despite never bothering to actually read the section we were assigned) and I kept just recognizing things—ideas, tropes, atmosphere, that I had read a dozen times in other rather more modern tales.
Which leads me to Gilgamesh.
I have this awesome child-friendly version of Gilgamesh that I read to the boy a couple of years ago, and half of our literature can be found there as well. (Gilgamesh the Hero, Geraldine McCaughrean)
I’m going to order a kid version of Beowulf and go down that road with him next. He’s such a fantasy fan—I think he’ll totally dig it!
Bill Arnold
Agreed about Honey Crisps and Pink Ladies
Empires are often good.
Braeburns are … consistent.
Elizabelle
OK, out to buy an apple (Honeycrisp, if available) en route to a visit.
Have a good night!
RedKitten
@PeakVT:
Love Granny Smiths. I love how when you take a bite, they’re so crisp that a quarter of the apple comes with it. (That was poorly expressed, but you know what I mean…)
Mirthless Chopper - Frmrly TheFountainHead
With regard to the stuck CD, just reset your PRAM, that almost always does the trick on my girlfriend’s Macbook. I believe you restart it while holding down Cmnd + Ctrl + P + R, but Apple has the step by step on their site.
Guess I have to go out and buy Dragon Age this weekend…
Strandedvandal
From my Mac Basics training material for agents.
If your computer has an eject button on the keyboard, restart the computer holding down the Option key. When the startup disk selection screen appears, let go of the option key and press the keyboard’s eject button.
Betsy
@RedKitten:
And when it does, it makes that wonderful noise!
ellie
I had some very bad Galas from Kroger’s this year. They were soggy and awful. Usually, they are very good.
I spilled a diet Pepsi on my Macbook in June. We don’t have a genius bar here, I had to take it to the Mac local place and they sent it out. It cost me $800 and took a week. They did a really great job and saved all of my files, but the whole spilling a soda on my laptop was very traumatic. I have to go lay down now.
gregor
Caffeine free tea? Try Rooibos (African Red Bush) tea with a dash of cinnamon
RedKitten
@Betsy: Exactly!
Well, I may not have apples, but I do have a nice steaming mug of NeoCitran, which will hit the spot after a rough evening with SamKitten.
Bob Esler
I recommend Empire apples- sort of like Macintosh, but with the bite of a honeycrisp. They were first grown in New York State (hence the name) and are now common in the midwest- Michigan, Wisconsin. It is the only apple I eat, Honeycrisps are a bit watery, and they used to be more tasty. I think as they have become more popular the growers are dumbing them down. Like what happened to chardonnay a few years ago.
As for the other Apples, I can’t believe the bitching in the posts. I have used nothing but Macs since 1987 and have had zero problems.
b.dot
@John
Sorry to hear about your apples. Here is a link about the American Red Apple in the NY Times around 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11.....038;st=nyt
Betsy
@RedKitten:
Ugh, sorry to hear that. Someone feeling dissatisfied with his lot in life tonight?
ellie
Oh, and it is dark here (NW Ohio on the western edge of the Eastern Time Zone) by 5:30. It really sucks and is disorienting.
Left Coast Tom
On the edible apple front…I’ve always disliked Red Delicious…I think they’re bland and relatively mushy. Among the other recommendations here, to the extent I’ve had them I like them.
Growing up in Michigan, I felt that apple cider from later in the season was significantly better than earlier…the varietals had more tartness to them. This time of year should be perfect. In CA…ever since Odwalla’s e-coli problem years ago the available cider has been pasteurized, and having tried it I denounce the idea of pasteurized apple cider.
Fern
@Tokyokie:
Pink Lady is indeed very nice – stay crisp well into the winter. Ambrosia apples are my favourite for fall, but they don’t keep all that well – they are kind of sad by December, but when they are fresh, they are delicious. I used to enjoy Newtons – super tart and crisp but nicer than Granny Smiths – but haven’t seen those for years.
I don’t think I’ve eaten a decent Red Delicious since about 1984.
Joel
apropos of nothing.
an actual apology for xenophobia to brighten your day.
Reason60
1.) Not sure what is going on with Daylight Savings, and maybe my memory is just fading, but I don’t recall it getting pitch black at 5 pm in previous years. Am I just not remembering?
2.) I’m a big fan of fruit, and every fall I am more and more turned off with apples. They just don’t taste as good as they once used to- red delicious are red as hell, but gone is the sweetness I remember as a child. I’m working my way through some Braeburn’s and some Sonya’s, but I would kill for something that tastes like the Red delicious I had as a kid.
3.) My macbook has a cd stuck in it.
What, is Andy Rooney guest blogging tonight?
I kid, I kid!
Patrick
If you moved North recently, it would be getting darker earlier than you remember. Otherwise, it is as dark as always on 11/10 give or take a day.
Gala is the best apple for eating. Red delicious have been bred for shelf life and appearance, not for taste.
Since Tolkien was extremely influenced by Beowulf, and every fantasy writer since Tolkien was influenced by LOTR, it would make sense. Everyword in LOTR is Anglo-Saxon in origin, which is what Beowulf is written in. If a word came from Latin or French, he wouldn’t use it.
JK
@ellaesther:
Given your reference to Beowulf, you might be interested in the novel Grendel by John Gardner. I haven’t read it myself, but it sounds interesting. In Gardner’s novel, “Grendel is portrayed as an intelligent, articulate yet malicious creature, striving to find meaning in his life.”
h/t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....Literature
dfd
After hearing all these stories about macbooks and trips to the Apple store, I think I’ve decided it’s not worth the money for the privilege of owning one.
Deborah
1) Yes and no. It has always gotten this dark at 5. But not in early November; time change used to be a few weeks later. Last Saturday in October is just a couple of years old.
2) Red Delicious have been utter crap for my entire 41 years; can’t speak to before that. We’re eating a lot of mutsus and sunchrists just now.
3–5) Can’t help at all.
6) Cinnamon Cardamom from Republic of Tea. Strong spicy flavor, lovely smell. If West Virginia has a China Town you could look for chrysanthemum tea.
RedKitten
@Betsy: Oh yeah. No idea what caused it, but around 7pm, I put his jammies on, and he started to cry. Then the crying turned into wailing, which turned into incessant, ululating shrieking. He was just in an utter froth, with tears running down his poor little red face. I tried everything I could think of to calm him down—the only thing that finally worked was (of all things!) giving him a warm bath. He’s sleeping peacefully now, thank goodness. And I still have no idea what set him off.
Betsy
@Reason60:
WIN.
ellaesther
@Patrick: It was funny for me, because I knew that before reading Beowulf, but apparently I didn’t know know it!
Randy P
I have had many issues with CDs getting stuck in my Macbook, which tends to get a lot of abuse. Basically the slot is very sensitive to the case being misaligned even a tiny bit. If it’s like mine, the CD is bumping against the top of the case.
You’re not going to like this, but these do work:
In some online forums, I read the suggestion to hold the Mac vertically as you eject, to let gravity do the job. That sometimes worked for mine.
What I’ve mostly been doing lately (well, till my Macbook started dying of other causes) was use something thin, like the bottle opener on my pocketknife, to open the slot ever so slightly. Stick the thing in, not deep, and give it a slight twist, just enough to widen the slot by a tiny fraction of a millimeter. That always does it.
Joel
for the record, my observation is that apples are crappier because they’re distributed differently.
apples that you buy at your local supermarket won’t be as good as they were ten years ago because—i think—the advent of places like whole foods and the like. they’re basically buying the better produce and the “traditional” supermarket, owned by bottom-line watching multinationals, are selling apples that are bruised, or have been in storage too long. the kind of stuff you normally would have found at your “second tier” supermarket (i.e. the discount produce stand, like the haymarket in boston).
another factor is the influx of apples from new zealand, which are definitely stored too long.
if you want a sweet, crisp apple, your best breed is probably honeycrisp. i have the fortune to live in washington state so i get to pick from a lot of “heirloom” varieties that are downright delicious, like king david, spitzenberg (somewhat tarter), and the orin apple—the absolute best, sweetest, most decadent apple you’ll find.
ellaesther
@RedKitten: Oh my goodness, you poor thing! Could it have been something in his jammies? A wee bit of grit in the footie part, or a new detergent, or, well, God knows what?
techno
From the Mac Help (has always worked for me.)
Open Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder), select the disc, and choose File > Eject.
ppcli
@RedKitten:
Sigh. Of all the things I long for now that I live in the ‘States, NeoCitran has to be in the top ten. Especially when, like tonight, I feel vaguely under the weather.
gg
John Cole wrote: “Still really enjoying Dragon Age. Such a great game. I’m losing two-three hours a night and staying up too late.”
Because of your recommendation, I’m now losing about the same amount every night. Thanks for that!
One thing that really bugs me, though: wolves totally kick my ass every time. 5 wolves are enough to massacre my party, while I can take out a drake or two or any amount of darkspawn just fine. Wolves—the real “blight” of DragonAge.
Martin
See, Obama is making the nation blacker already.
I would like to also note that there have now been 3 mass shootings since the Yankees won the World Series.
ellaesther
@JK: I’m ordering it, too! It came so highly recommended, and I always feel sorry for the beasts in these things—being American, one presumes them to be misunderstood….
Betsy
@RedKitten:
That’s awful. That kind of full-on baby scream-cry just does bad things to our lizard-brains. One of my good friends had a baby 14 mos ago who was colicky for the first 2 months or so. I was there a few times when she (the baby, not the friend) really lost, and I do not know how my friend survived those months. It was totally different from the usual cry that I’m used to with babies.
(I have no children myself, but I had 5 friends give birth in a 3-moth period, 4 of them within 5 weeks of each other. I have learned more about pregnancy and infants than I ever dreamed I would know while it was still a theoretical problem for me.)
ellaesther
@Joel: Wow! That is so… adult!
Oh, damn it, now you’re going to give me hope again.
mario
honey crisp
honey crisp
honey crisp
have I mentioned honey crisp?
Short season – horde them – they last a long time – crispest emmeneffen apple ever.
Galas/Fuji – pretty good if you get them fresh, but it’s a dicey proposition.
oh, almost forgot
honey crisp
Betsy
*That should read, “really lost IT.”
RedKitten
@ppcli:
You don’t have NeoCitran in the U.S.?! What on earth do you DO when you have a cold?
Betsy
And 3-month period, not 3-moth period. Damned lack of edit button!
Betsy +2
raff
I’m on-board with the ‘Gala’ people (Royal Gala, in particular), but no Russett fans? Russetts are consistantly crisp & flavourful, but widely ignored by the ‘Apple Community’ (even Shakespear dissed the Russett: “there’s a dish of leathercoats for you”). Burn!
Sure, the Russett looks rough & discoloured, but inside a tasty & complex experience awaits. Think a US version of an ‘Asian Pear’.
NovShmozKaPop
RE: Apples:
There is 1 year warranty on the hardware. You may have to leave it for a day or so. Back up everything you care about before bringing it in. Data loss is very rare but I’m paranoid after working with the things for 25 years.
Apple service is absolutely first rate. They will probably replace your drive, no charge if you are under warranty.
While you are still in your first year and under basic warranty, there is still time for you to buy AppleCare for your machine. Get it. It is really, really, REALLY worth the outlay: $249 for MacBook, $349 for MacBook Pro. AppleCare extends the warranty to three (3) years and more than pays for itself after one relatively minor incident.
The Other Steve
@Betsy: I just saw NCIS too. I’m shocked! Shocked to find out John Cole is a traitor to our nation who sold out the country for some oil.
lynxnight
Have you tried “Good Earth”s Sweet and Spicy Herbal Tea – Caffeine Free? It’s amazingly sweet considering there’s no sugar. Here are ingredients:
Red Rooibos, Chicory Root, Artificial Flavor, Rosehips, Cinnamon, Peppermint, Lemongrass, Papaya, Chamomile, Panax Ginseng Leaves, Anise Seed, Ginger Root, Dandelion Root, Orange Peel and Orange Oil.
Interrobang
I’m glad something from Adobe is just awesome, because nothing that I have to use actually is. I’m not too thrilled that Adobe took over Macromedia, either, because the major piece of software I have to use at work is something Adobe acquired because they bought Macromedia, and Adobe treats it like the bastard stepchild of their product line, never mind that it’s the industry standard product in its field.
I’m speaking of course of RoboHelp, beloved and behated by technical writers everywhere. Last week while I was flattened by the H1N1 “Three-in-One Disease,” Adobe pushed out a RoboHelp update which broke two of its DLLs. So when I tried to open my big project on Monday, I got to watch the in-program list of project files (around 2200 of them) shrink magically before my eyes to less than a dozen. Eeeeek!!
The only way to actually fix this was to get a couple of Adobe beta DLLs from a couple of the RoboHelp user forum maintainers, and maybe Adobe will sorta bother to get around to fixing the problem in the next point release, whenever that might be.
I feel like Adobe owes all of us help authors out there a new pair of underwear after that. So I currently have very little patience with Adobe fanboyism, not that I had much to begin with.
Of Bugs and Books
CalorieKing.com book, 2005 ed.:
Apple, avg. of all varieties – 110 cal.s / 8 oz.; 28 carbs
Pear, Bartlett – 120 cal.s / 8 oz.; 30 carbs
Pear, D’Anjou – 120 cal.s / 8 oz.; 30 carbs
schrodinger's cat
Apples: Try your local farmer’s market, all their varieties taste wonderful, at
Tea: Stash’s lemon ginger tea, I add some honey and a dash of lemon or lime if I have it.
Enjoyed Tunch photo from yesterday, time for a new live action cam of Tunch, haven’t had one of those in while. How is Lily?
currants
1) yes
2) try some of the more old-fashioned varieties, like Baldwin, Winesap, or Northern Spy
3) DEFINITELY take it to teh Genius Bar. No charge-their warranties are great.
justvisiting
2) Another vote for Cameo apples – they’re my new favorite. Unfortunately, they’re not available all the time, so when they’re not in season, I eat Fujis from my farmer’s market. But while I love the crunch and juciness of Fujis, they are sometimes a little too sweet. Cameos have the PERFECT balance of sweet & tart, along with a firm crunch and a delicate, lemony fragrance.
6) And also another vote for Red Rooibos tea. I’ve bought it plain in bulk, and it’s quite good, but my favorite is Republic of Tea vanilla rooibos:
http://www.republicoftea.com/t.....p?navID=16
Betsy
@The Other Steve:
Well, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at the traitor part, since we already know he’s a DFH who hates America. But I would not have anticipated said DFH pursuing his anti-American agenda through oil profits.
Ty Lookwell
Apples? It’s pomegranate season, my favorite fruit season of them all. Jewels of the underworld.
I’m surprised that people are still eating red declicious apples, anyway. Here in PDX, there are so many interesting varieties at the farmers markets (mostly closed now for the season, though) in the fall. Mutsu (Crispins) and Stayman Winesap are my favorites, but i like crisp and tangy.
Also, its so dark, so early, that I decided this year that I actually prefer daylight savings hours.
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat:
My first sentence is cut-off, should have read:
All their varieties taste wonderful, at the farmer’s market in my town, the vendors let you choose a peck or half a peck from elebenty varieties, the names of which elude me right now.
Betsy
@schrodinger’s cat:
I got my apples through my CSA share this year, and they actually weren’t great. I was rather disappointed. I think maybe New England didn’t have a great year for apples? Or maybe this farm just sucked.
ruemara
1. Apples. genius bar or restart while holding down the eject key. they killed such simple tactics as safety pin/paperclip CD eject abcess.
2. Apples. Have you ever tried a Pink Pearl? They’re my new fave this season. Sweetart, sometimes a bit crumbly but juicy. I think I may plant one so I don’t have to pay for them. However, a good greenmarket macintosh has always been my apple love. Asian pears are also crisp, sweet and gentle to the tongue.
3. Dragon Age looks good but all I have is a laptop and a gamecube. stuck with WOW.
4. I’ve made a tasty chocochai with rooibos, chastetree, ginger, cinnamon and some other stuff. If you want to sleep, damian, hops and orange peel is awfully yummy.
Mark S.
Any biologists want to weigh in on this?
Key to Success? Dinosaurs May Have Been Warm-Blooded
I thought this had been the consensus thinking for the past twenty or so years.
Juror #7
Unlurking with my two cents worth…the depress-trackpad-button-while-(re)starting has always worked for me (as has depressing the mouse button while starting up a desktop Mac with a CD or DVD stuck).
LD50
@Mary:
Doesn’t that fuck up the CD, tho?
amorphous
Pears are disgusting. Everyone recommending pears must be crazy. Red bananas… now THERE’S a fruit.
The Other Steve
@RedKitten: Ok, if he’s like our Alex… at about three months he started getting gas and then he’d cry his head off. This is what they call colic I guess.
The warm bath was a good idea. We also found laying him on his back and moving his legs like a bicycle seemed to help… or at least distracted him. As part of this, pushing his legs up against his chest seemed to help him fart or poop or whatever.
Once he was crying so bad and I wasn’t sure what was wrong… he seemed hot, and so I thought I’d try the thermometer to see if he had a fever. Stuck it in his rear and apparently this stimulated something and well it all came out… for distance. But he stopped crying!
This went on for about a month… maybe once a week or so. Then he moved past that phase.
It has something to do with the bowels maturing and functioning differently. Every month the poop starts coming out a bit differently. :-)
cay
Re: Daylight Savings
As we approach winter, we’re actually closer to the sun and slingshot around it. Days get dark fast, but after the winter solstice days become longer fast. Endure, John Cole. Love, An Astronomy Teacher in CA
DavieInOz
JC
I see from The Mudflats that you’ll be able to get your copy of ‘Going Rogue’ signed on the 21st.
Ben JB
1. @CalD: That’s amazing! Well, maybe not amazing, but like John, I’ve noticed that it was way too dark too early, and I’m glad to know I’m not exactly crazy (on this issue).
2. I also have lost the taste for Red Delicious—it’s also a texture thing, as they seem awfully mealy compared to some other (store-bought) apples. Let me second… no, fifth the recommendations of @Tokyokie, @hilzoy fangirl, @Bill Arnold and @Fern: Pink Lady is a fine apple.
3, 5. Wait, I must’ve missed a post: John has a PC to play Dragon Age on as well as a Mac? Or is he running Windows through Boot Camp or dual-booting? I’m on a Mac, but there are a few games that make me think about getting a PC / setting up a Windows boot: Dragon Age, Mass Effect, BioShock.
6. @lynxnight: Good Earth is very good, if you like very flavorful teas. My sig other likes to leave the teabag in the whole time while she’s drinking it, so that it gets progressively spicier and spicier.
Martin
First, present yourself, prostrate, before the Death Panel. If you are deemed to live, you have two choices:
1) If you feel like daring the insurance claims panel, call your doctor and in 4-6 weeks you can get an appointment. Since your cold is probably long gone, you can instead ask your doctor about your erectile dysfunction, lack of eyelashes, or jimmy-legs.
2) If you suspect that your cold will be identified as a pre-existing condition due to those sniffles you had when you were 3, go to your nearest emergency room. In approximately 24 hours, you will be seen, given an MRI and 3 prescriptions – one for Sudafed, the nations leading decongestant, and one of the sponsors of your local emergency room, one for Prozac, since colds always get people down, and one for Viagra, because what’s the point of having a cold and a floppy wiener (for the guys), or a cold and not getting boned (for the ladies)? In 3 weeks you’ll get your bill for $21,000, your bankruptcy will be completed 5 weeks after that, and you can make a clean start under a new identity with a shiny new Hawaiian Birth Certificate (short form only, sorry).
Martin
FYWP: stuck in moderation for mentioning the v-word.
San
Honeycrisp apples!
We buy 6 bushels from the local farmer and eat them all the way into March.
dSquib
@LD50: Surely tweezers are not necessary. I used a couple of dull dinner knives and the CD was tip-top…
Honus
John, you’re in Morgantown. Get some local apples from Romney.
The Other Steve
Let’s see…
Daylight savings time – A few years back they pushed it later. So it used to start a couple weeks earlier, so it wasn’t as dark at 5pm.
Apples—I don’t know. I’m a fan of Golden Delicious. you might try Gala, Fuji or Honeycrisp. The Honeycrisp is a Minnesota developed apple and very popular up around here. They’ve got a new one called SweeTango, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Mac—Seriously, get a Dell. They’d come to your house, not make you send it in.
Don’t know about dream weaver or dragon whatever.
Teas… I’ve always liked Celestial Seasoning Decaf Green Tea with Mint. Hard to find though for some reason, most stores only carry the Celestial fruity nonsense teas. BTW, their english breakfast and Earl Grey is also good.
Doctor Science
The word you want with apples is “local”. I get mine nearby—I haven’t bought a grocery-store apple in at least 10 years—and right now I’ve got Cameos, Jonamacs, Macintosh, and Idas. Empires are just in, but since the orchard stores them in Nitrogen we’ll be eating them all winter, so I’m sticking with the other varieties right now.
Dragon Age sounds … OK, but not a patch on Final Fantasy XII for complexity and characterization.
Gerry
As many above have already mentioned – Honeycrisp apples are terrific but you better hurry since they are probably about out of season. There should be some sort of Macarthur genius grant for the people who developed the Honeycrisp.
gnomedad
Discovered honeycrisp recently via Trader Joe’s. They rock. Thanks to those advising to stock up.
Alan
For those interested in fantasy, consider the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. He died a couple of years ago but left an outline and narrated scenes for the last book from his death bed. The series has been picked up by fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson. And is being edited by Jordan’s wife, who edited the previous eleven books. The last book has so many arcs to resolve that it’s been broken into three. The first part is currently #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. And is friggin’ awesome. Which is a surprise since it’s a different writer. Sanderson, evidently, is a huge fan of the series and has put his heart in it to complete it properly. Start with the first book, The Eye of the World.
AhabTRuler
There’s a certain sick justice to the timing of his death.
AhabTRuler
No, not justice, irony.
CalD
@Interrobang:
Thanks for the low-down on RoboHelp. I just started getting my ducks in a row to write a help file for a new software release and found I was two versions back on Help&Manual. With the dollar in the dumper vs the Euro, an upgrade to the latest version was pretty expensive and a new license for RoboHelp wasn’t all that much more. So I was toying with the idea of making a switch. Now I’m kinda glad I decided to stick with H&M. I was also a pretty big fan of CoolEdit Pro before it became Adobe Audition.
Alan
@AhabTRuler:
At least now we know when the series will end. :)
joes527
OK. I have exactly one experience with the genius bar, and I can’t say I was all that impressed. A friend had a macbook that wouldn’t boot and wanted to have it looked at on the way to dinner.
He had an appointment, but wasn’t pushy about getting served, so we were in the store about 40 minutes before he even got helped.
They booted his laptop off an external drive and then ran a canned disk repair utility. This took a genius? The macbook then booted off its own hd and all was declared fixed. And it was, right up to the next morning when it wouldn’t boot again.
Obviously a hardware problem, and understandably difficult to deal with on the spot … but the way everyone gushes over the geniuses you sort of expect something more than what you would get from MSFT support.
One data point does not a trend make, but I was left wondering what all the enthusiasm was all about.
Paul
@Gerry
The creators of the Honeycrisp apple work at the University of Minnesota. I’d never heard of them before I moved up here, but now I salivate waiting for them to appear every year.
The creators of the Honeycrisp have a new apple they are slowly rolling out called the Sweetango. There is some controversy over how the U is rolling it out, but its a darned tasty apple when i was finally able to find it.
(It might have been made by the Honeycrisp people, but it has a distinctly different taste—its more tart than the honey crisp and goes oh so well with hard cheese)
Chuck Butcher
@JK:
Grendel is a strange ride, not knowing your taste in literature I won’t make a recommendation. I like it, in fact there isn’t anything by Gardner I don’t like. If short stories appeal to you the collections Kings Indian or The Art of Living are good. The Art of Fiction is a writers guide.
Nothing Gardner does is straight forward, there is something going on in the background of everything, something he’d like you to figure out from the story. Sunlight Dialogues may be his strangest if Grendel doesn’t qualify, but Nickle Mountain and October Light while seeming more mainstream, aren’t really.
His death was a real loss to writing, if you can’t tell, I think he may have been one of the greats.
daveX99
Maybe it’s just me (I got in a pissing match around here wrt Linux a couple of weeks back…), but I think ‘genius’ is insulting. It insults the customer.
I’m sure Apple is trying to be hip or cute, but it’s condescending and certainly puts you on an uneven footing when you, a mere schmoe has to go grovel before the Genius.
My curmudgeonliness aside, I do note the glowing testimonials to the level of customer service the commenters here have found at the Apple store. Don’t underestimate that. I’d go and see them with an open mind – see what they suggest… from what I hear, they will probably just pop the thing out for you.
PeakVT
And is being edited by Jordan’s wife, who edited the previous eleven books.
I’ve read book ten. She is undoubtedly the world’s worst editor. The Amazon reviews on it are priceless.
Book seven of the Malazan series is even more bloated, but at least something happens.
CalD
The problem with the apples may not be so much the kind of apple as where it came from. Apples are like grapes in that they have good years and not so good years. They have more flavor in years when the area where they’re grown gets less rain. More rain: bigger apples with less flavor. Less rain: smaller apples with more flavor.
growingdaisies
Fuji’s are best for sweetness and have a great, crisp texture.
Honeycrisp are also sweet but a bit more tart, and have the best name.
This year I’ve discovered and fallen head over heels in love with Asian pears. They have the flavor of pears and the crispness of an apple (wonderful if you’re not a huge fan of the grainy pear texture). I’m buying them at the farmer’s market and they are worth every cent.
I remember reading, years ago, a great, long article on the Red Delicious and how orchards nearly ran themselves out of business by selecting for shape and color over flavor. I wish I could remember what magazine it was from. The New Yorker, maybe?
Obviously can find good apples now, but I think the Red Delicious never recovered from what was done to it. My remembered dislike of Red Delicious actually drives me away from apples that are too red.
Alan
@PeakVT:
I love the overall story. But yeah, the series slowed down quite a bit in the later books. But it has really picked up with Sanderson.
Martin
And a tip for those looking to get some service at the Apple store – we’re 2 weeks away from the busiest day of the year at the store in the U.S. If all else fails, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, brave your way to the back of the store show your laptop, grumble about all the things you’ve done to get it to work, calls to Apple, visits to the Genius Bar. Make it clear you have all day to soak up staff time and not buy anything. Apple Stores are among the most profitable anywhere. The 5th Avenue store alone made about as much money as Palm did last year. They’ll want to dispose of you as quickly as possible.
Odds are you’ll either walk out with a new drive or a new computer.
Comrade Mary
I tried an Asian pear recently and was actually rather disappointed. It was a gorgeous piece of fruit, and I loved the shatteringly-crisp texture, but it didn’t taste like pear to me, but more like honeydew melon—which is to say, crunchy, vaguely scented air.
So did I just get a bad one?
UnwieldyList
About apples: If you can find an heirloom variety called Margil, you have to try it. They’re small—perfect size for packing with a lunch—and they’re green with an ugly russet coating, like a bosc pear. I found them this year at our local Greenmarket, grown in Geneva, NY, and they taste like I remember apples tasting when I was a kid, forty years ago. Amazing.
My other favorites are Crispins and Winesaps. The Winesaps are at the market all winter long—they must keep better than the other varieties—they’re crisp and tangy.
Alan
@Comrade Mary:
That sounds a lot like my experience with pears lately. They look great but end up tasting disappointing.
ruemara
@Martin:
vagina? but that’s a universal good!
Martin
@ruemara:
Little blue pill – presumably also a universal good, but one that dare not be spoken.
glasseater
Fujis are the best apples. Discovered them a few years ago and haven’t had anything else since.
JK
@Chuck Butcher:
John Gardner is on my list of novelists whose work I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t yet done so. In addition to Grendel, I’m interested in reading The Sunlight Dialogues whose plot sounds like it would make an intriguing movie.
In addition to his novels, Gardner interests me because of the literary feud angle. I’ve read accounts of him leveling attacks on the work of John Updike, John Barth, and Thomas Pynchon. Have you read Gardner’s book On Moral Fiction? Do you share his views regarding Updike, Barth, and Pynchon?
dr. luba
Apples: buy directly from the orchard. I have one next to the hospital where I work, and make several stops there this time of year (as well as for asparagus and strawberries in the spring, and corn in late summer). If you ask, they’ll probably even let you taste a few.
Tea: any ethnic stores in your neck of WV? I buy from the Polish market, and get all kinds of fruit and berry teas, inexpensive and delicious. If you can find a Turkish store, or one that carries Turkish goods, their apple tea is good, as is their mint.
tootiredoftheright
@Comrade Mary:
Give you a hint sometimes asian fruits and veggies get names in the western world not based on their taste or scientific classification but on their apperance.
Umeboshi plums for example. They are actually more closely related to an apricot and are basically served after being pickled. A form of it is sold in shops as a sour candy. Pretty much like eating an incredibly sour apple taste wise.
J. Michael Neal
Two threads down, El Cid mentioned this article about Blackwater trying to bribe Iraqi officials to ignore that little shooting incident they had. This caused me to pull out my copy of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yes, I have a copy of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It’s part of a binder that also includes the 1933 Securities Act, the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act, Sarbanes-Oxley, and a couple of other potboilers. I live an exciting life. If you’d like, you can read it here.
It is illegal under US law to offer a bribe to a foreign official in order to influence the performance of their jobs, with a few exceptions that don’t apply here. There’s no need to worry about international jurisdiction, like we have throughout this sorry saga. Erik Prince could violate the law while sitting in Virginia.
Now, it is slightly unfortunate that Blackwater is not a publicly traded company. If it were, it would automatically be regulated under the 1934 Act. As is, they have some possible outs. To establish federal jurisdiction, under the interstate commerce clause, they must have used the mails or “any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce” to further their bribery attempt. The chances of them not having done so is pretty small, but it has to be provable that they did.
The penalty for a willful violation is a fine of up to $100,000 or up to five years in prison. We may get to since Prince take the perp walk.
Mark S.
This really has to be seen to be believed:
The Five Most Excruciating Minutes of Ian McKellen’s Life
For once, Hasselback didn’t come across as the dumbest person on The View, but it was close.
AJ
My favorite apple is the Pink Lady. My partner’s grandmother got me on them. They are very sweet and juicy, but don’t have the think, chewy skin of the red delicious and others.
AJ
My favorite apple is the Pink Lady. My partner’s grandmother got me on them. They are very sweet and juicy, but don’t have the thick, chewy skin of the red delicious and others.
moot23
1.) Daylight Savings—it starts earlier than it used to and ends a bit later. The contrast definitely seems more extreme than in the olden days. Also, if you’ve migrated farther north, that would fuck with it a bit.
2.) Apples in California are better than they used to be, and you’ve just got a kid memory of Red Delicious. They were never that good.
They were just sweet and your kid palate probably picked up a few notes you’re now missing, but Red Delicious, meh. I’m all for Fujis, Jonagolds and Braeburns, and sometimes Golden Delicious hits the sweet spot, although there’s not much complexity. I think the pear suggestion offered by others is also a good bet. And for a cooking apple, you still can’t beat the Granny Smith. Just saute some thin slices with a little butter, a little brown sugar (maple syrup also an option), a dash of cinnamon, and just the tiniest pinch of salt, and it’s awesome comfort food.
3-6) Got nothing
Journeywoman
Tea recommendation: For something really different, try Island Rose Long Island Cola tea. Herbal with no caffeine. Best with sugar, but quite tasty – it’s fruity and spicy, but also has a distinctive cola flavor.
It can be hard to find, though. My grocery store has carried it at times, and other times I’ve resorted to Ebay (it looks like there’s one seller with a couple boxes at the moment). You can get it from the main distributor for the company as well, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it – when I ordered from them years ago, it took a month or more to get to me, and there’s a bad rating for them on resellerratings.com from 2007.
Their Strawberry Vanilla is pretty good, too.
http://www.island-rose.com/tea.....sland_cola
RSA
Global darkening?
I don’t remember it getting this dark this early either, but I blame my sieve-like memory. Other thoughts:
I liked Gardner’s The Art of Fiction and Grendel, but thought he went overboard in On Moral Fiction; although he made some good points, the book might well have been titled, Moralizing on Fiction.
My aging PowerBook doesn’t always give back CDs, for mechanical reasons. As has been suggested, holding the keyboard so that it’s vertical and prying the opening up a bit is a workaround.
I’m okay with the Mac genius bar; they’re good at what they do. I suppose it’s sad in general that competence should be equated with genius, though.
Violet
Another vote for Pink Lady apples. Very sweet and crisp. I’ve gotten in the habit of buying any new variety of apple I see. Currently in the fruit bowl are Macoun and Empire. I tried a Macoun last week and it was excellent.
Chuck Butcher
@JK:
On Moral Fiction is on my bookshelf
AFAIC Updike i think he missed his calling as a televangelist. I’ve tried him twice and thrown the books away – literally in the trash can. Gardner is a master of spare language – he uses words for a reason not some silly effect. He wants you to believe and understand the characters – think that might be work in Grendel’s case? It isn’t a case of like the character but to have empathy.
Yes I agree with Gardner, morality or philosophy should be carried in the story not be its feature. Observing that in the character’s behavior in the process of the story is different from preaching it, and it may not even be more than the point of failure of the character.
I give you the opening of October LIght
“I was in the State House Yard when the Declaration of Independence was read. There was very few respectable people present.”
Charles Biddle, 1776
1
The Patriot’s Rage, and the Old Woman’s Finding of the Trashy Book by the Bedside
“Corruption? I’ll tell you about corruption, sonny!” The old man glared into the flames in the fireplace and trembled all over, biting so hard on the stem of his pipe that it crackled once, sharply, likce the fireplace logs. You could tell by the way he held up the stem and looked at it, it would never be the same. The house was half dark. He never used lights, partly from poverty, partly from a deep-down miserliness. Like all his neighbors on Prospect Mountain – like all his neighbors from the Massachusetts line clear to Canada, come to that – he was, even at his most generous, frugal.
A taste.
housofunk
I work at an Apple Store. Here’s what you can do before your GB appointment if you make one:
-Restart your computer holding while holding down the trackpad button (or the eject key, same function). This forces the optical drive to eject if all mechanics inside are working correctly. You can also use disk utility in some cases if the CD will not unmount.
-A tip that I saw one genius use to get a CD out if you’re really adamant about getting it out is to insert a strip of tape if you can find one rigid enough into the slot, and shimmy it back and forth until it adheres to the CD and then slowly pull it out.
-GB appointments are always free, and there will be no cost for getting the CD out if that’s all you want, assuming the drive isn’t damaged. And it will probably take less than 10 minutes.
If the drive is failing, repair is done instore, and it is one of the more time-consuming repairs done on a macbook, depending on your store the turnaround time could be anywhere from 1-5 days, but it is definitely not a same-day repair like the above commenter’s top case. Cost is dependent on your warranty coverage.moot23
OK. Just browsed the thread above, and I had forgotten Pink Lady and Winesaps. Pink Ladies are pretty awesome, but I haven’t seen many this year. Winesaps have a deeper flavor profile. Some are great. I’ve had a few that just tasted weird. Clearly, Honeycrisps are something to look for, and I think you just need to be hitting the farmer’s market and tasting the samples.
cathaireverywhere
I love Fuji and pink lady apples. Had a Jonalicious from an apple farm on the coast and it was great. They also had fabulous heirloom red delicious, but the west coast may be a bit of a trip for an apple…
I like Good Earth’s sweet and spicy tea. The herbal one is decaf and it is intensely cinnamon-y. I usually use only two bags for a whole pot because the cinnamon can overwhelm.
Glad to read the Mac info. Mine has been acting a little weird- every so often it will refuse to get mail, prompt me to enter my password and won’t do anything even when I do enter my password. I usually just hit cancel now- the problem generally goes away as mysteriously as it came. Safari is not affected by this. I don’t think we have an Apple store, but I will have to bring my Macbook with me next time we go to a place that does.
Comrade Mary
@tootiredoftheright: I can see that Asian “pears” may not really be pears, but it was a real shock to taste melon that day, then see growingdaisies say that they taste like pears. De gustibus, eh?
jayman
Honeycrisp Apples!! Sweet Tango are also good.
Red Zinger Tea.
Enjoy!
JK
@Chuck Butcher:
Thanks for that excerpt from October Light. It tasted pretty good. I’ll add that title to my reading list. I haven’t read any novels by Updike, but I’ve enjoyed several of his short stories. Do you have an opinion regarding John Barth and Thomas Pynchon?
YellowJournalism
Gala, Fuji, and cameo apples are wonderful, but the best I’ve ever had were the ones that grew on the trees in our backyard. The people who bought my parents’ house tore down the trees, sadly. I’ll have to ask my mom what kind of apples they were. They made the only applesauce I’d ever eat as a kid. We called them tie-dye apples for their pink- and red-streaked skin. Inside was very creamy white.
I’ll second the suggestion for pomegranate tea. Wonderful stuff. I’m thinking of picking up some vanilla-infused tea I’ve seen on the store shelves sometimes.
Phoebe
Tea:
I love [but can never find] Roastaroma by Celestial Seasonings. I settle for Bengal Spice, by same. Also good.
Chuck Butcher
@JK:
I say there failures in my mind are those of Updike, not so much an inability to write and interesting story or use pretty good language, but an arrogance that they must explain and explain rather than let the story and characters do the work. Preaching.
Michner’s Tales From the South Pacific may be some of the truly great short stories – his novels are flatly exercises in self-indulgence and paid by the word excess. Updike has less room in short stories to play at Preacher.
Chuck Butcher
EDIT????
UncleTravelingMatt
Second, third, or whatever the Fuji idea. The weird summer in the NW means the Red Delicious are not so great right now, but the hops are supposedly outstanding.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Mary: I can’t pick a good pear to save my ass. I’m like 0 for 20 the last couple years.
Sometimes I cry a little inside.
dougie
Yogi’s Ginger tea is beyond great if you’re looking for something new and unique. No other ginger tea I’ve tried comes close. The Yogi brand are like $5 a box, but our Trader Joes has them for $2.50. Yoink.
cathaireverywhere
Forgot to mention- love Nutella on apples. And peanut butter. And almond butter.
I recently read Michael Pollan’s book, The Botany of Desire. The first section has to do with apples, and I found it fascinating. The explanation of the ruination of the red delicious encouraged me to try the heirloom red delicious at the apple farm. If you are interested in apples, you might check it out or watch the excellent PBS documentary about it.
Midnight Marauder
Is there a combination of shows (on a cockslap of a network, to boot) more infuriating to conservatives than How The Earth Was Made and The Universe on The
HitlerHistory Channel? I swear, every 5 seconds, they’re making some kind of reference to The Big Bang, The Beginning of Everything™.Honest Question: What would happen if wingnuts/teabaggers were forced to watch 24 consecutive hours of alternating episodes of How The Earth Was Mde and The Universe, Gitmo-style? How quickly, and violently, would their heads explode?
+8
burnspbesq
All the good Red Delicious apples on earth were quietly bought up by Goldman Sachs. They are in Lloyd Blankfein’s office.
JK
@Chuck Butcher:
According to John Gardner’s Wikipedia entry, he discussed On Moral Fiction in an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. Maybe some day, this interview will turn up online or on dvd.
I also miss the edit function.
slightly_peeved
You say “Herbal?” I say “No Thanks!”
Herbal? No Thanks!
Herbal? No Thanks!
Comrade Mary
@Corner Stone: Awww. I ate pears a LOT about 20 years ago, and found that I could get near-perfect Bosc pears in the big grocery stores that needed to sit out only for a day or so to be absolutely perfect. But there have been a lot of bad pears since.
One thing fruit lovers might consider is seeing if there’s a community picking group in your area. Here in Toronto, Not Far From The Tree gets volunteers to harvest all kinds of fruit—including some great pears this fall—from trees on private property. A third of the fruit goes to the owner, a third to charity and a third to the volunteers. Quality is generally very high. Plus, it’s fun and free!
tripletee
Seeing lots of recommendations for Honey Crisp and Pink Ladies here. I knew there was a reason I liked you people – you have excellent taste.
Re: the other Apple, my few trips to the Genius Bar have been uniformly fantastic – next to Nintendo, they have the best customer service I’ve used in the past 15 years or so. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that are going to be manning the “Guru Bars” in the Microsoft Stores – trying to troubleshoot the vast variety of PC hardware/software while maintaining a comparable level of service to the competition sounds like a complete nightmare.
Anne Laurie
@RedKitten: Poor munchkin! Is there any chance he, or you, may have ingested something not previously on the menu over the last couple of days? Because it sounds like bowels (although of course at Sam’s age “bowels” is the all-purpose excuse) and it’ll be easier on all parties if tonight’s unhappiness was due to switching from rice to barley cereal (or switching formula brands). If it is true colic (shudder) the other thing that can help, besides warm baths, is joggling him on your knee or in a bouncy-chair (assuming those are legal up there)—remember the Banbury Cross nursery rhyme? Good sharp jounces, not gentle rocking, strong enough to provide a counter-rhythm to his guts spasming on him.
Chuck Butcher
@JK:
Grendel
1
The old ram stands looking down over rockslides, stupidly triumphant. I blink. I stare in horror. “Scat!” I hiss, “Go Back to your cave, go back to your cowshed – whatever.” He cocks his head like an elderly, slow-witted king, considers the angles, decides to ignore me. I stamp. I hammer the ground with my fists. I hurl a skull-size stone at him. He will not budge. I shake my two hairy fists at the sky and I let out a howl so unspeakable that the water at my feet turns sudden ice and even I myself am left uneasy . But the ram stays; the season is upon us. And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war.
The pain of it! The stupidity!
“Ah well,” I sigh, and shrug, trudge back to the trees.
Do not think my brains are squeezed shut, like the ram’s by the roots of horns. Flanks atremble, eyes like stones, he stares at as much of the world as he can see and feels it surging in him, filling his chest as the melting snow fills dried -out creekbeds, tickling his gross lopsided balls and charging hi brains with the saqme unrest that made him ffrrer la
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
wouasj;nbrtvu and oudnae;ljfv
WTF?
Comrade Mary
You’re on a Mac, right?
ducks and runs
asiangrrlMN
Honey Crisp, bitchez! Homegrown and everything. Oh, and Fuji.
It’s always been this dark here, but I don’t know about there.
Healthcare reform and Democrats: It’s pretty much this simple. We are a Big Party Tent, but THE main issue that defines the party (or did) is affordable healthcare for everyone. If some Blue Dawgs can’t get behind that, then they are not Democrats. Yeah, I said it. So sue me.
Tea: I eleventh Rooibos. YUM! Or just have what I’m having—hot cocoa.
OK. Gotta run and write. Later, bitchez!
asiangrrlMN
P.S. Beautiful, happy doggie!
Chuck Butcher
@Comrade Mary:
Hell no. And my CDs eject. I was cleaning a typo and submitted for some reason.
Anne Laurie
I was going to recommend Asian pears as a replacement for mealy overbred storage apples, but I see that opinions here have been quite mixed. This spring I had to replace our brave, stunted triple-graft Asian pear tree (which survived twelve years of smog & salt after I stupidly planted it too close to the road, but not the Spousal Unit’s relandscaping thugs) and I put in a four-way old-fashioned apple sapling at the same time. (Our entire lot is 75×80 feet; we don’t have room for multiple pollinators.) It took the apple almost 3 months to leaf out—I was just about to demand my money back—so I don’t expect to see any fruit for at least the next five years, but someday I hope to find out for myself what Fameuse and Roxbury Russet taste like!
MBL
John, I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the part where you rescue the Circle Mages in their tower, but play everything else in the game you can before you go there. I have never gone from “Game of the Year!” to “Fuck this, I’m trading it in tomorrow” so quickly in my entire life, and I’ve been playing video games for 25 years. Yesterday I would have told you DA was the best game Bioware has made. Tonight I’m done with the damn game and wondering who in playtesting was out to lunch when this quest got put in. I think legally I have the right to beat the shit out of someone.
Also, Fuji apples.
IndyLib
@Comrade Mary:
Nope, that’s exactly how they taste to me. My daughter fell in love with them when we lived in Japan and I couldn’t figure out what tasted so good to her. They were really juicy, but bland, bland, bland.
Omnes Omnibus
Shorter John Cole: You kids get off my lawn!
Chuck Butcher
@MBL:
I ordered it today in Xbox360 collectors ed. about a week.
I’ll remember that piece of advice. I’ve found it to be true of Oblivion and Fallout 3, if you move too quickly you’re under-armed and under-experienced.
I’m about to blow in Quake 4, I have a VOSS problem that I’m not getting past – close, but no seegah.
asiangrrlMN
I love Asian pears, especially the ones I’ve had in Asia. Crispy, light, not too sweet. Just perfect.
KaffeeMeister
Try Tazo Refresh. Spearmint with lemongrass. Outstanding!
Available at Starbucks or Whole Foods.
janeform
I want to reference Just Some Fuckhead at 44, but I have no idea how to do it so this will have to do.
That’s our floor and our rug and it IS our dog. JSF —did you get your rug at ABC carpet??
The dog is named Ramsey and we got him several years ago from Michigan Sheltie Rescue. His Petfinder description said “he’s a fun dog to be around,” which describes him exactly. He barks and twirls around when we look like we’re going to use the microwave, coffee grinder, or drill. It’s really funny, trust me!
Thanks for posting the pic John. We hope it brightens everyone’s day.
Chuck Butcher
@janeform:
you click the little curved arrow above and right of the post.
It will give you this:
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
well no it won’t.
AT lft arrow href=#comment – xxxxxxxrt arrowNamelft arrow/art arrow:
Mark S.
@janeform:
Use the arrow by the date and time on the comment you want to reply to.
Your dog is very cute. Collies are awesome dogs.
Mary
@LD50: When you use tweezers to pull out the CD or DVD, you are only touching the edge. I have not messed up anything yet. Eventually, though, I will take the machine in and get the drive replaced. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also agree that tipping the machine helps.
With so many people having the problem of CDs and DVDs getting stuck with the new macbook, it appears to be a design defect. I had a feeling that was the case.
Al
Three optical drives before it went out of warranty? Even an extended one? At that point you question the hardware, and yeah – under those circumstances, an extended warranty is a “good deal” – or more accurately, a deal you can’t refuse.
Luckily, most apple h/w ain’t as bad as that in my and my friends’ experience. But I’ve seen it – with optical drives specifically – in even my small crowd.
Disclaimer: myself, I tried Apple, but it’s not to my taste, so I’m not someone you could interpret as knowledgable on Apples specifically, except to the extent that I’m pretty knowledgable on computing and h/w on many platforms in general.
Don’t interpret me wrong – Apple’s good, and for the most part the h/w is top notch (despite the above commentarty) – i just prefer linux to OSX, m’self.
Anticipating: I know, I know – I’m not trying to “convert” anyone one way or the other. It’s just my pref. So bite me.
burnspbesq
If I can extrapolate from my own experience, optical drives have been the Achilles heel of Apple laptops for several years. On my current MacBook Pro, if you open up “about this mac,” there is a telling abbreviation: the manufacturer of the optical drive, is shortened to MatSHITa.
Blinkum
1.) Yeah, you’re just not remembering. I go through the same thing every damn year.
2.) Red Delicious? You’re doing it wrong. Honeycrisps and Jonagolds.
3.) Can’t help you, sorry.
4.) Great news, can’t relate.
5.) One of these days, I know I’ll play a video game again, in much the same way an alcoholic hopes and prays he won’t but knows he will one day taste booze again. Hopefully, by then they’ll be so good that I won’t notice when my wife leaves me.
6.) Rooibos. Passionflower. Mulungu, if you’re hardcore.
Linkmeister
@Alan: Wow. Sanderson? I really enjoyed his Elantris.
Joel
@currants: i love those varieties, but winesap especially is a pretty tart, not very sweet apple (by comparison to what many people like).
i’m all about farmer’s market apples, though!
Yutsano
Obligatory statement here:
PUPPEH!
That is all.
Brick Oven Bill
Tonight we honor the Founding of the United States Marine Corps. This particular organization came to us from a bar in Philadelphia . I think it has been 234 years. This is a long time.
Yutsano
@Brick Oven Bill: Good point BoB. I think I’ll give mine a big ol’ kiss to celebrate.
tripletee
@Mary:
I think it’s just a hazard of slot-loading drives in general, rather than MacBook specific – every slot-loader I have (Mac, PC, car, Wii) has gotten a stuck disc at one point or another. The tweezer method hasn’t failed me yet.
jharp
WereBear
“I’ve found that the more the red apples look like a lovely piece of furniture, the better they taste.”
Interesting. I’ve found the opposite.
My fruit buying strategy is the cheapest and most plentiful. And I’ve found them to be the best.
Being in the Midwest I’ve had good luck with gala apples.
And who ever said that the harvest varies from year to year is exactly right. As an example this was a bad year for tomatoes.
And I’m planting trees tomorrow. I highly recommend it.
The Populist
We know this, troll. Unfortunately chickenhawks like you hate America and it’s troops. Stop telling us what to do. We all honor our troops in our own ways.
BTW you owe the forum an apology for the lies you keep spreading.
The Populist
Here’s a question for a chickenhawk like Bob:
What is he doing for the troops? Sitting on the computer calling liberals un-American? Telling others they are wrong when they are most likely right? Telling others to STFU because many of us CARE what happens to our troops in useless wars and occupations?
I own a business. I give money to troop causes, donate food to widows of soldiers who died for this country. I bug politicians to honor the vets by coming up with more ways to help these brave souls. They should NEVER have to worry about where their next meal comes from or where they will be living. NEVER.
Bob would have you believe, like many on the right, they care about our troops. I question that. I think many of them talk the talk, but they sure as HELL do not walk the walk.
steve
Get Fuji apples, John. The non-waxed, individually wrapped ones from Northern Japan are the best, but expensive. New Zealand Fujis are really good.
John, what do you play Dragon Age on? Console or PC?
Doug
I am an apple aficionado. Have eaten apples all 57 of my years and constantly search for the best. For four or five years now my favorite is Pink Lady. Lately, another apple is running tied with Pink Ladies – Honey Crisps. You should be able to find these apples where you live. Galas are very uneven; most often they are tasteless. I gave up on Red Delicious years ago; too mealy. Same with many Golden Delicious and Jonagolds. Macintosh have a distinctive flavor which some people really like. Pink Ladies and Honey Crisps are reliably tasty and juicy. Seldom have a eaten a bad one.
Doug
Addendum: A good Fuji is indeed good. But, many aren’t so good, and even the best are not as good as a good Pink Lady or an Apple Crisp.
RedKitten
@Anne Laurie: I don’t think it was colic—that goes on for hours, from what I’ve read. This was about a good 40 minutes or so (which was certainly long enough), but after the bath, he was fine, if still a little weepy.
Of course, for the last two nights he’s been waking up at 4am again, instead of sleeping until 7:30 like he used to. Two steps forward, a step back…good times.
Nancy Irving
The Red Delicious variety has been ruined by supermarket chains’ demands for only dark red, uniform-color, shiny fruit.
The growers obliged by breeding for these characteristics, but in the process they lost the traditional Delicious taste and crispness we loved when they were first marketed—in the sixties, I think.
Try Fuji. They haven’t ruined those yet.
patty gann
my husband and i have two macbook pros; we bought extended warranties on both and they are well worth the money.
the apple folks are awesome and it probably won’t cost anything to have the cd removed and they can probably do it for you right at the counter.
we also bought the one-on-one sessions and they are well worth the money. if you have general questions or a project you are working on, they will walk you through it. you can see them once a week for a year.
also, their telephone help is awesome also. apple really cares if you are satisfied with their products and will bend over backwards to help.
Gravenstone
@MBL:
Just out of curiosity, why the venom for that subquest? I just completed it tonight and thought it quite challenging, but also quite solid – once I’d gotten the hang of things.
linda pare
Nice Dog. In CT it gets dark at 4:30
MBL
@Gravenstone:
There are three major sins: first, it breaks the rules of the game as you’ve played it thus far, and it breaks them for HOURS. You’d played the entire game working with a party and, presumably, creating strategies to deal with various and sundry different situations. Sorry! You’re alone now, but at least you can shapechange into a mouse. Second, random inexplicable difficulty spikes. Here, fight six mages at once! You have to be Fire Dude to enter this room, so they’ll be using ice spells—but they can walk through the flames in front of the door with no problem. Enjoy this battle with three golems! By yourself! Third, and this might be the thing that pissed me off the most, it’s narratively atrocious. The Circle Tower was already long enough. To randomly get thrown into the Fade for, again, HOURS, just as I was reaching the top of the Tower and ready to square off against the boss, threw me out of the game and pissed me off to no end. The first time I counted the nodes on that stupid glyph you have to navigate and realized that they expected me to conquer, what, nine or ten different maps before I could GET ON WITH THE DAMN GAME I just about stopped playing right then and there. It’s narratively pointless, advances the story not one whit, and completely destroys any momentum the story has had to that point.
And this is the rant after I’ve had a chance to sleep on it. Last night there would have been a hell of a lot more swearing. Today I’m just going to put it away and wait to trade it in for Assassin’s Creed II. Video games don’t get to piss me off this much and expect me to keep playing.
MBL
Oh, and because you can’t pick up anything in the Fade, ever, all of my useful items are completely gone. With what I know is a major boss fight coming up as soon as I’m out of the Fade. I suppose there’s a chance that there will be a cache of healing poultices as soon as I’m done, but I started the Fade with thirty-something healing items and a mess of grenades and such and now I’m down to nearly nothing.
bcinaz
FUJI Apples, organic if you can get them.
Gravenstone
I guess it didn’t put me off to any large degree mainly because I’ve only got about 30 hours in and know there is so much more to be done. Also, the splitting of the party seemed to me consistent with the effects of the demon in that it was affecting the minds of each separately (as you learn once you find them). I do agree that it was painful to expend your potions and such with only the nodes available for in the instance to recover health/mana. If you didn’t complete the Fade, then you will find that the game makes efforts to help recover expended health pots at least, as you’ll find more in the remainder of the tower. Also, with Wynne in your reconstituted party, the requirement for pots in battle is (for me at least) drastically reduced.
LC
For tea try any Tulsi tea, all caffeine free made by organic india….I like the Original or Sweet Rose.
gelfling545
For an evening drink try Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time – like chamomile but more interesting.
Re: Apple Store Genius Bar – Call ahead & make an appointment. They are very good on the whole.
Er: apples – I never liked Red Delicious. I eat only McIntosh which are at their peak now in my area.
Blue Neponset
Same here. Thanks for the heads up. Great game. Bioware rulz
I killed a high dragon last night that I had no business killing (I never thought I would write words like these). My party wiped except for Morrigan. She had a sliver of health left and I moved her directly under the dragon’s belly and just spammed the hell out of Cone of Cold. It took me about 15 minutes to kill it but slowly but surely its got weaker and weaker and then dead. Lots of good loot.
Also, before anyone asks…no, I don’t wear a retainer.
growingdaisies
@Comrade Mary: Huh. The asian pears I’ve been eating definitely don’t taste like honeydew melons (I don’t like honeydew). They do have what I would describe as a more delicate pear taste than regular pears, that takes a little getting used to if you’re expecting that kind of full-mouthed flavor. I had to try two before I decided I really liked them.
But there are different varieties. I like the ones with the thinner, yellower skin (as opposed to somewhat thick and brown). I feel they’re more flavorful.
RememberNovember
Re #3 – there is a way for them to go into the firmware and eject it- if it’s stuck due to mechanical failure its covered under warranty/Applecare. Just so long as you didn’t coat the disk with lithium grease thinking it would spin faster.
Tempted by DA… I like Bioware’s stuff. Just too much invested in WoW raiding atm.
if you have an Apple questions feel free to pick my brain- I was a “genius” for a couple of years. I even made it into the WWDC video one year.
RememberNovember
and fwiw I also have a friend who works in the APP div. he’s my inside guy.
Mattski
Answers to your winter Time Doldrums. Dork factor is meduim low
Earliest Sunset approx Dec 8th
Earliest Sunrise appox Jan 5th
Explanation in the linky
HarleyPeyton
The genius guys will handle it.
But before you go, restart your laptop while holding down the trackpad. That usually does the trick.
mario
Anyone recommending an apple other than honeycrisp needs to disclose whether in fact, they’ve ever eaten one.
When the hc’s were first available here in NJ some years ago, they were of a very consistent variety. It looks like as they’ve spread to other orchards, we’re seeing some variations. Maybe this happens to all new apple varieties, but I think right now we’re in the golden age of the hc – it doesn’t matter where you buy it, it’s a great apple. But I don’t think that’s going to last.
Anyone know anything about the apple business? I assume orchards start growing new varieties through grafting, but what affect does the type of tree you’re grafting on-to have?
twiffer
the change in what date the clocks turn back is what’s screwing you up. instead of a few weeks getting used to the sun setting earlier and earlier, it flipped over a weekend. friday it was light leaving work, the next monday it was black.
i’m not happy about it either.
WallyCurtis
When a CD-R gets stuck in my Mini, the force-eject sequence is to restart the machine, wait for the apple logo, and then hold down on the mouse button.
Probably not the same on a Macbook, but FYI.
yoda
In Arizona, we don’t even have daylight savings time—it always stays the same time throughout the entire year. If you think about it, there really isn’t any need of it. Our way of life is much different today than it was like 150 years ago! Honestly, does the dark or light outside affect what you decide to do during the day? Of course, it does get dark earlier (about 6:30), but for us Arizonans it’s only because it’s cooler now (hallelujah!), and so the days are naturally shorter!
Thad
If you are looking for classic apples like you used to eat years ago (and not modern hybridized mutants engineered to survive long truck rides), you need to visit this place:
http://www.westonapples.com/
It is an orchard of antique and heritage apple trees, donated now to the village but still run by the same family for generations. They are friends of my girlfriend’s family actually… we just visited and were allowed to pick a whole bag of classic apples that you can’t find in the store anymore.
You also be able to have apples shipped to you. I know they ship stuff out to a few restaurants in New York.
yoda
By the way, that dog is sooooo cute!
Corner Stone
@RedKitten: I don’t know if someone already suggested this but – did you check him for a bite mark? There may have been an ant or something in his jammies and the bath soothed it a little.
Corner Stone
@dr. luba:
Sigh.
Skalite
Apples suck these days for the same reason most fruit and vegitables suck, as well as most other food we get. It’s all genetically modified or loaded with preservatives. They are selected and bred for appearance, not flavor, because good looking apples sell.
The only way to get fruit that tastes like it use to is to pick your own at local orchards, or from farmer’s markets. It’s so odd that we in America think we should be able to eat a seasonal fruit the whole year round…how in the world would that NOT effect quality and taste? You really think those “fresh” grapes you buy in a super-duper-mega-ultra-market in the middle of January are anything like what an actual grape tastes like? Something we’re going to have to learn to accept…you can’t get oranges in the middle of winter and not have them taste like crap. Some things are worth the wait, so maybe we should just accept that there are certain things we should only eat at certain times of the year.
JWeidner
A long comments thread, and I’ll admit I didn’t read it all, but in regards to apples: There’s a ton of shit done to our produce these days, all in the name of delivering it year-round and in a visually appealing way. Apples in particular are routinely stored for months after picking, either in warehouses with reduced oxygen content and higher CO2 levels (which can lead to loss of flavor and mealy textures), or sprayed with a product called SmartFresh. See also this New York Times article on the stuff. It can allow apples to be stored for far longer (according to this article Europeans were buying apples up to a year old).
Personally, I’d say buy from a farmer’s market if possible. Find a vendor whose apples are crisp and flavorful, and if, during the course of the year, he or she runs out of that particular brand because the season ends, well, that’s the best sign of all.
Geoduck
Ditto JWeidner’s comment. Go to a farmers market and try several varieties. Be aware that the quality/taste can change week to week even with the same variety.
Tiparillo
Re apples – this year I stumpled on to Honeycrisp apples. Crisp and crunchy and sweet. Fuji apples are another favorite.
LongHairedWeirdo
The secret to buying apples is to smell them first. Sometimes, an apple with no scent is good, but an apple that smells good, is good.
I think supermarket apples are usually under-ripe. That’s the only reason I can think of to account for their lack of scent.
KEN
HOLD DOWN THE TOUCH PAD OR THE MOUSE WHILE REBOOTING. WILL EJECT.
ALSO AS NOTED, SOME OF THE ENTRY SLOTS FOER THE MAC DVD GET OUT OF ALIGNMENT AND ANYTHING THAT HELPS YOU TO SPREAD IT MINIMALLY AT THE CORNER WILL ALLOW YOU TO GRAB THE DISC AS IT COMES OUT.
JWeidner
@LongHairedWeirdo: Check out this article from the New York Times. SmartFresh is a spray that specifically reduces the scent of an apple while maintaining ripeness for longer periods. No idea if that’s what’s used in all supermarket apples, but it is widely used on apple crops.
JerseyJeffersonian
Regarding the apples, do yourself a favor and find your way to a local Farmers’ Market and patronize a LOCAL grower. The difference between a locally-grown fruit that has been permitted to ripen on the tree and those fruit-like things shipped in from far, far away that were picked way too soon for the full flavor to have a chance to develop will be a real eye-opener, I assure you. After you find a conscientious local grower, then experiment with the different varieties on offer. Ask questions of the most knowledgeable person concerning the suitability of each type for different purposes – cooking, eating out of hand, etc. – and you will see why going to the Farmers’ Market beats most chain store produce departments hands down. Getting accustomed to eating what is locally in season is a good thing. My wife and I are spoiled by the growers at the market in our home town of Collingswood, NJ, particularly the folks from Schober’s Orchards who supply us with our apples, peaches, and nectarines, all to die for by the way. Apples at the supermarket? Eh, maybe. Peaches or nectarines? No, because they have generally been picked way too soon.
Our local market is dog-friendly, so long as they don’t snarl or decide that this would be an appropriate time to pee or crap. Another place to take Lily if your local market has a similarly welcoming policy.
And yes to rooibos-based teas (sometimes referred to as red teas). Naked is good (I like Twinings), but there are also nice rooibos chais and such. Twinings has some nice herbals in their line. They also offer some of their regular teas in a decaffeinated form. Finding them locally can be a problem, but they have an ecommerce site that we use. Celestial Seasonings also has plenty of herbal teas from which to choose. Visit their site for more information (they too have an ecommerce capability if local availability is a problem). A couple of personal favorites from CS: 1)Roastaroma (herbal) has much of the body of a coffee but not the caffeine; 2) Morning Thunder (not herbal) is a mix of black tea and mate. Less than half the caffeine of coffee, with a very interesting nose. Both of these can be enjoyed with a bit of honey and/or milk.
The secret to good tea is having the water at the proper temperature, and steeping for the proper length of time in order to extract the flavor. Generally, herbals will benefit from a longer time being steeped. Regular teas – white, green, black – are more time-sensitive, and a steep that is overlong will result in a cup too bitter to enjoy.
RememberNovember
@Mirthless Chopper – Frmrly TheFountainHead:
Its Cmd—Opt—P—R
you can also hold down the Opt key on startup, which wil give you the Startup Manager boot drive selection screen- single click the drive ( if it comes up) and hit the eject button.
Batocchio
On your Macbook, you should be fine if you have Apple Care – no charge. Earlier this year, my MacBookPro had a disc stuck in it and wouldn’t even turn on. I tried everything I could think of, it didn’t work. The Mac Store geniuses tried a few things, none of them worked, so they shipped it off. I had it back the next day or the day after. They just installed a new disc drive, and noticed a ding in the screen, too, so they replaced that as well. No charge for any of it. Out here in LA, most stores are busy and they ask you to come in in person to set up an appointment, and in my case it was for the next day. But everyone I’ve dealt with has been nice and competent. Good luck.
HernCo
Pink Ladies are currently the best apples in existence. I’m from Washington State, so I know. So there. :) They absolutely do not taste like the red apples you and I and everyone over thirty enjoyed as kids, though. Maybe try organic?
Right there with you on Dragon Age.
CambridgeKnitter
This is probably much too late, but there is actually tasty decaffeinated real tea (Camellia sinensis) available. Upton Tea (www.uptontea.com) has several kinds of water-process decaf black teas available that actually taste like tea. They got me through pregnancy. Customer service is great.