telescreen.org

Atrium Snapshot, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

From my trip to MoMA a few weeks ago with my cousin and her boyfriend.

Yes, I need to blog more. No, I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere. (Work kicked my ass last week, and I'm slowly recovering.) More TK. Really. (Soon's I get the A/C installed and can bear to hang out in the room where I keep the computer.)

"All my life I just wanted to work and feed my family and support my mum and dad. I work over 50 to 60 hours a week, and for them to come into my house like that, to shoot me in my chest and to say I am a terrorist - that really hurts."

I'd think so.

By the way, if you're trying to get hold of me at vidiot at telescreen.org (or any other address @telescreen.org), there seem to be some problems with the domain forwarding.  (Though www.telescreen.org resolves where it should.  Go figure.)

Try vidiot at gmail dot com instead, and hopefully we'll be back to normal (or some semblance of it) soon.

Just a reminder that, as threatened below, I’m co-hosting a trivia game tonight at the Baggot Inn (82 W. 3rd St., between Thompson & Sullivan) at 7:30p.  You can win various and sundry prizes, including your bar tab; hope to see you there!

(oh, and feel free to pass this along to anyone else you think may be interested.)

Pork Chops with Rhubarb, Onion, and Raisin Chutney, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

We did some cooking this weekend to use up our Hellgate CSA vegetables. (Actually, we ended up having to go to Whole Foods to get some more vegetables because we needed more leeks and rhubarb than we got in the share, but hey, eating more vegetables ain't bad.

The above, which we had Friday night, is from this Gourmet magazine recipe. (Go here for step-by-step photos.)

We had them with chive mashed potatoes -- complete with chive flowers, which are edible and fairly intense. (B. did the presentation, as I suck at arranging food.)

Saturday, we headed downtown to the Crumpler Bags store for their first annual Beer For Bags event, which is governed by a very simple principle: instead of giving them money in exchange for bags, you give them beer. And then they share the beer with you. B. exchanged two six-packs of Brooklyn Lager for a nice purse-like shoulder bag, and Chico exchanged a bottle of nice tequila and two Foste's oil cans for a really sharp messenger bag. Unfortunately, the bag I wanted wasn't part of the deal, so I ended up exchanging my MasterCard for a messenger-style laptop bag, which I especially like because it's got a padded laptop sleeve built right into the wall of the bag. The Crumpler staff offered us beer and invites to their party on Sunday, and a good time was had by all.

Of course, we had to follow this up with a bit more conviviality, so we adjourned to a nearby bar before poking around the West Village a little more and heading home.

Sunday, Chico and I went to our local Chinese-owned, Mexican-operated pizzeria (oh, how I love New York City) to watch Mexico beat Iran in World Cup play. After that, B. and I did some more cooking, making cock-a-leekie soup. We were going to head out to the Crumpler party, but decided we were pooped and wanted to have a quiet evening at home.

More cooking was the result -- I wanted to try Mark Bittman's recipe for rhubarb-orange soup. We followed the recipe faithfully, but the rhubarb never lost its stringiness as promised. (I think that next time, I'll cut it into half-inch lengths instead of the indicated two-inch lengths.) It clumped into a gloppy snot-like mass on the whisk, and so we ended up straining the soup, then having it with creamy Greek yogurt. Very good as a dessert soup. And then an episode of "West Wing", and thence to bed.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention -- tomorrow night I'll be hosting Tuesday Night Trivia at the Baggot Inn on West Third Street in the Village. C'mon out -- you have nothing to lose but a few brain cells...and you could even win your bar tab. Hope to see you there.

Henry Rollins' love letter to Ann Coulter.

Thomas Hawk reminds us again that photography is still not a crime.

I don't care how many thugs out there insist that they can control everything they want to -- the law is the law, and photographers have rights.

Hell Gate CSA Share: Week 1, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

B. and I joined Hell Gate CSA, which is a "community-supported agriculture" organization. Here's how it works: We paid $270, and we get fresh seasonal vegetables from a Long Island organic farm once a week for 25 weeks. The veggies are picked the day before we get them, and every Tuesday they're delivered to our favorite local coffeehouse.

This was our first week's share: three stalks of rhubarb, a big bunch of flowering chives (I'd never seen the flowers before; apparently they're edible), a head of red leaf lettuce, two big leeks, and a pint of really good strawberries.

(Anyone have any good non-pie rhubarb recipes?)

UPDATE:  Actually, this one looks pretty interesting...

Hellmouth on E. 28th, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

In honor of the date.

Beware the Oozinator:

Some linky goodness for you:

• The single best Diet-Coke-and-Mentos video ever.  (I still like this one as a close second, though.)
• Kid just isn't quite cut out for Baby Einstein?  Try Baby Bush.
• Great video on the history of the "Amen Break", a six-second drum break that has been sampled countless times since 1969.
• Check out Matthew's Celebrity Pixies Tribute.
• And Stephen Colbert's commencement address.

Our ride home, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

F-OJTN, our ride from PPT to JFK.

WANT.

Yesterday I ran across a great cocktail blog, A Dash of Bitters.

What a fantastic find...and I was especially impressed with the latest entry, which reams the Post for printing a decidedly substandard Manhattan recipe:

Step one: Fill the shaker three-quarters full with ice.

Step two: Pour in 2 ounces bourbon - preferably Woodford Reserve.

Step three: Pour in three-quarters of an ounce of sweet vermouth. Then pour in same amount of dry vermouth.

Step four: Add 3 dashes of bitters, then a dash of maraschino cherry juice.

Step five: Put a pint glass on the top and shake vigorously for 20 seconds or until the shaker is cold with a slight frost.

Step Six: Strain the drink into a martini glass and garnish with a pristine cherry.

So right, and yet still somehow so wrong. Use rye, stir it, and skip the fuckin’ cherry juice. What is this, a Slurpee?

(Actually, I like my Manhattans shaken.  And I like bourbon Manhattans, but they're even better with rye.  And WTF?  Cherry juice?  It's not like the bourbon's not already sweet...)

"The Simpsons", described.