Coffee Klatch

It’s been several years since I flew and that was on a trip to Italy. Recently I got to fly on Southwest Airlines (yes, with all three boys, too). It was cool to find out that Southwest has general seating. You get assigned A, B, or C sections based on how early you check in. Since you can check in online 24 hours before the flight, I was able to get us into the A section.

They have boarding by section–first A, then B, then C. (go figure) We were in the middle of the A section, so when we got on, we could pick any seats we wanted. That was really cool. I like that idea a lot. Especially if you can get there early enough to get near the front of the A section. Since there’s no first class section, it’s all just one big area that you pick your seat in.

Southwest also still serves bags of peanuts (some airlines have stopped because of allergies, I think) and they also gave us snack boxes that have cheese/crackers, dried fruit, and Oreo thin wafers. That was more than I expected. Plus, they tell you that you can bring your own food since they don’t serve actual meals.

Here is another snippet from The Book of Ratings. This was a book I got for Christmas a year ago and blogged about shortly thereafter.

Today’s topic is a review of “Classic Video Games.”

Space Invaders
There were enough “invasion from the top of the screen” games to choke a junior high school, but Space Invaders had one thing that few others did: it got faster. As you killed off the low-res interplanetary menace, the remaining would-be conquerors, fueled by revenge and freed-up CPU cycles, would steadily increase in speed, until one last Invader would be zipping across your screen like a Yorkie on crystal meth. And if you managed to shoot him down, the whole swarm would return, but closer: Yay, paranoia! B+

Pac-Man
The real tragedy of Pac-Man, aside from a sequel addiction that made the Friday the Thirteenth movies seem restrained, was that the key to the game was not skill, reflexes, or even intelligence, but rather memorization. The video games section of Waldenbooks was filled with books that told you the exact moves to make at the exact time, making mastery of Pac-Man only faintly more impressive than memorizing the first hundred digits of pi. C-

Night Driver
Before video game makers figured out that what you really want to do is beat up on guys with names like “Goro,” they were busy turning some of the most unpleasant aspects of modern life into video games. Witness Night Driver, which was an uncanny simulation of driving a car at night when you can’t see anything. Whoo! Coming soon: Night Driver II, which adds a simulation of an overheating radiator and an eight-year-old throwing up in the backseat. D+

Donkey Kong
Frankly, I’m a little tired of everyone’s favorite digital Italian. I think it was “Mario Teaches Typing” that did it for me. But back when Mario was a bit player and video game names were routinely poorly translated from the Japanese, there was a little story of a jumping guy, a blonde, and a giant ape with an inexplicably interminable supply of barrels. This was great! The music was great! The sound effects were great! That one level (out of, like, four) with the conveyor belts and the pies was great! We were pathetic then, and we didn’t even care. A-

Tetris
If we ever meet up with an alien civilization, I’m betting they won’t have Tetris, which will work to our advantage:
“We have come to share the secrets of fusion, interstellar tachyon drives, and matter transfer. What do you have to offer us?”
“Um, ultimate Frisbee, microwave popcorn, and, um, Tetris.”
“Hmm. Tell us of this ‘Tetris.’ ”
“Here, give it a try.”
Six months later, everyone on their planet will be staying up till four in the morning mumbling, “All I need is a straight one. Just one.” And we’ll have infested the cosmos like fire ants. B

Pong
Look. Table tennis is not that interesting of a game. TV is not that interesting of a medium. I can’t imagine why combining the two was such a hit, but hey, it was the early seventies, when corduroy was king. I bought an ancient Pong game at a thrift store a while back, rushed it home, hooked it up, and within seconds I was bored. So I played “Sewer Blaster Kombat 64″ instead, which was also boring, but at least it was colorful. D+

Current music: Planet of the Apes Soundtrack, by Danny Elfman

There are a few really good music players out there. I tend to use i-Tunes for playing my personal music because I like how it handles customization, like tracking how many times I’ve played a song, allowing me to rate each song, and how easy it is to edit the metadata about the song.

But for playing music I don’t own, Musicmatch is it for me! Like many other programs, there’s a free version out there, but you can also pay something to upgrade. There are two main components: the Jukebox and the “Radio.” The jukebox is the program that plays the songs, whether your own CDs or MP3s or online streaming music.

The radio features are what have really won me over, though. Even with the free version you can play many of their channels and even create some customized channels of your own. But I’ve bought a subscription that I’ve renewed for three years now. Here’s what you get:

• Over 900,000 CD-quality songs
• You can play the songs individually (on demand) or as part of a collection
• Look up any artist, group, or composer and click a button to play just their music.
• Same thing but click a button to play similar artists, groups, or composers.
• Create and save your own custom playlists of favorite groups/composers (either just those or including similar ones).
• You can access those favorite playlists from any computer with Internet access.
• The built-in CD ripper/burner is FAST!
• And of course there are links to purchase the CD your song is from.

My personal favorite aspect of all this is the flexibility you get when creating your own Favorites lists. I can create them at home and listen to them at work. I can also add a couple of groups to a list and get recommendations for other similar groups. Very flexible and easy to use. Definitely worth $4.99 a month for me to be able to listen to unlimited music of whatever I’m in the mood for.

Highly recommended!

Current music: Road Scholars, by Spyro Gyra (a VERY cool CD!)

This Is True offers weekly emails include snippets of news from various media sources, often with a very brief commentary. These news stories are usually “stranger than fiction,” like only 68 out of 200 Anglican priests being able to name all Ten Commandments while 50% of them said they believed in space aliens.

I read this in a recent email from This Is True:

Evan Savoie, 15, is standing trial for the murder of a 13-year-old playmate in Ephrata, Wash. Because she’s a witness in the case, Lisa Sorger, the victim’s mother, is not allowed to attend trial sessions when she isn’t testifying. Therefore, the judge has appointed an attorney to ensure the victim’s family’s interests are properly represented in court — to cheers from victims’ rights groups. But Randy Smith, one of the lawyers for the accused, is fuming over the decision. “It’s a sad state of affairs when you raise victims’ rights to the same level as the constitutional rights of the accused,” he said.

Of course, we all know that the rights of those accused of crimes are higher and more important than anyone else’s, including their victims!

When cooking rice, it’s usually a good idea to rinse the rice. That gets the dirt, pollution, etc., off of the rice. I suggest putting the rice in the pan and then running water over it. Cover the rice by a bit and then use your fingers to swish it around a bit. Then drain the rice and repeat once or twice, until the water no longer turns white and cloudy. Then it’s ready for cooking.

I’ve heard that it’s possible to be non-specific when measuring the rice and water, just making sure you’ve got a finger’s width of water above the level of the rice. I’ve tried that and have not found it to be too successful. Instead, it’s usually a good idea to to add twice as much water as rice (e.g., 1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water or 2 to 4). Some types of rice, like basmati, should have less water, like 1.5 cups to 1 cup of rice.

15 minutes is usually an appropriate simmering time after bringing it to a boil. Don’t peek and make sure it’s tightly sealed. After that time is up, fluff the rice with a fork to allow it to expand and finish cooking. Let if “fluff” for 5-10 minutes and you’re good to go.

Some people suggest pre-soaking the rice, but I don’t go that far. If you do, make sure you draing it very well after or else count that water towards the amount you need.

This post is the beginning of a new category for Pfitz’s Miscellany. “Practical Tips” are mostly going to be brief tips to make life a little easier, that I’ve either experienced or read about somewhere. For starters, here’s a tip on opening bundled packages.

Plastic strips get used for bundling newspapers (if you’re a delivery person), for holding U-Haul boxes together, and for shipping boxes of paper reams. Many people think you have to get box cutters or scissors to get those off, but I discovered an easy way when I was delivering newspapers in high school.

Somewhere on the strip the ends had to be fused or glued together. That spot is usually on the bottom of the package. If you try to pull the end that’s on the outside, it doesn’t often work. Instead, twist that part around so you can grab the end that’s on the inside of the strap. THAT end usually comes up much more easily. No sharp utensils required.

Okay, I just found this funny little song from a source of many funny songs and flash movies: AlbinoBlackSheep. It’s a little song called “Pie Hole.” It’s kinda funny the first time you see it, but watch it again after a little while and it gets funnier the more you see it. It’s not real long, but it is pretty funny. And clean.

The more I watch it, the more I laugh at it. Check it out!

Here is a quote from G.K. Chesteron, a man of whose quotes I am very fond, and a thinker among thinkers. The Quotations Page gives us a huge list of quotes from him.

Also, here’s a site that lists people, journals, newspapers, and song lyrics that quote Chesterton.

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types—the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins.” -G. K. Chesterton

Insightful as always.

Current music: Il Solazzo: Music for a Medieval Banquet

Awhile ago I heard a report on NPR about a new movie coming out this summer starring Samuel L. Jackson: Snakes on a Plane.

What’s the movie about? Look at the title and take a guess. Jackson said that it takes two common fears and puts them together, so if you’re afraid of heights and of snakes, you’ll get a double whammy.

What is so interesting about this film is that it developed a huge fan base on the Internet long before its release (scheduled for August 18th). So much talk and blogging went on that New Line Cinema actually took some of their suggestions and went back and shot some scenes over to integrate those ideas. As far as anyone knows, that’s the first time that anyone has actually changed a film to incorporate fan ideas like that. At least from the Internet.

Most of the discussion of ideas and the potential for this a movie with this title was generated by Snakes On A Blog, a weblog dedicated to this film. Yes, back in January, seven months before the film was scheduled to open. Here’s a link to their first post that explains it all. Check it out! It’s very interesting. There are even collections of fan creations, like songs, poems, and audio and video trailers.

And, mostly because of this blog, the movie has become a huge Internet phenomenon way before its release. There’s Snakes On Everything now! You’ll have to check out Snakes on a Blog to get the full effect.

Current music: 1492: Conquest of Paradise – The Motion Picture Soundtrack

Leo Banks is an author for the Tucson Weekly. He recently wrote a very interesting story about how illegal immigrants are affecting the beef industry in Arizona and he told it from the point of view of a rancher whose property is along the border and whose fences get cut every night.

But before you go and read that article, here’s his perspective, again from the point of view of local residents, of what’s going on in the big picture.

“I know how to kill the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and the illusions that inspire it. We need every citizen to spend a day at John and Pat King’s Anvil Ranch in southern Arizona. The experience would create an overnight revolution in America’s view of this domestic crisis.

The Kings live every day with barking dogs, vandalism, guns at their bedside, trash on their land, and most tragically, human remains. The bodies of seven illegals were found on the 50,000-acre Anvil last year. During their April watch, Minutemen spotted 1,501 illegals on the Anvil, and of these the Border Patrol arrested 500. But it turned into a circus. ACLU volunteers showed up every day to monitor and harass the Minutemen, at times sounding car horns and flashing lights to alert the illegals that the Border Patrol was coming.

This is the border crisis in microcosm—confused Americans rush to defend lawbreakers while ignoring, even demonizing, law-abiding citizens who suffer daily affronts to basic liberties on land their family has tended for 115 years….

Ask yourself: Would the Altar Valley be a war zone if McCain lived here? If Kennedy’s Hyannis Port compound were magically transplanted to southern Arizona, how long do you think it’d be before he rewrote his bill? The first time Kennedy saw 30 illegals dashing across his property, he’d trip over his Guatemalan lawn guy rushing to the Senate floor to demand enforcement.

That’s one of the American tragedies at play here, the abandonment of ordinary citizens by our country’s elites, and most strikingly, the abandonment of the very laws they themselves have written.”