Thursday, September 25, 2008

Get flight status notification, unless late or delayed


Apparently, on the Southwest Airlines website, you can't get flight information notifications unless you sign up well before the flight is scheduled to leave. If you find out the flight is delayed, and then decide you want to be notified, you get this piece of broken logic:
The flight information that you entered is for a flight that has either already arrived or departed, or the notification time that you selected is too close to the arrival or departure time.
Any programmer would advise against the ambiguity introduced by those "OR" statements.

Does it mean you can't request notification of arrival time after the plane has departed?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

New Nantucket Nectar bottle shape


New Nantucket Nectar bottle shape
Originally uploaded by manducasexta

I'm so sad to see this - I loved the big fat Nantucket Nectar bottle shape (left) and the printed letters on it, the old-fashioned shape and the non-rectangular label. Now it's the same smooth bottle you see everywhere.

Carhenge


Carhenge
Originally uploaded by yarnzombie

This is on my "places to go" list.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Friday, September 12, 2008

Dinner

Pork cutlets (from tenderloin, dredged in flour, egg, and fresh white bread crumbs)
Mashed potatoes (toasted 30 cloves of garlic on the stove top, used 2 cups 1/2 & 1/2; 2 sticks butter, 5 oz alouette cheese)
Salad (spinach, dried cranberries, candied pecans, goat cheese, some vinaigrette dressing)

Outcome: one guest, AS, said she liked the food so much she was "feeling romantic about it."

Yay.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Paddling the Long Beach canals


Kayaking in the canals of the Naples neighborhood of Long Beach (actually quite lovely in spite of Long Beach being the second busiest port in the United States), kc and I saw something I haven't seen before: people paddling while standing up on big floaty surfboards. Apparently it's a surfing thing, but these folks were just leisurely kicking around the canals. I didn't really get it - it seems like fun for waves, but very un-ergonomic for calm water.

Photos (admittedly not of stand-up paddlers) clockwise from top right by flickr users kris247, Mr Babyman, kris247 and Binary LA.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Gingergrass

In more food news, I went to Gingergrass on Sunday night. I've heard mixed things about it, but I was totally sold. Great company helped. I had the special shrimp and coconut, partially split with kc who had the clay pot curry vegetables with tofu. We also got a steamed noodle veggie dumpling, and our food pals got their favorite, the wok-tossed noodles. Yum.

Scoops: wonder-gelato

I finally got to Scoops tonight, after going to a live session of The Moth. The Moth was fun, but the gelato was fantastic. Scoops apparently avoids publicity, so I'll avoid linking to it. I had two flavors: salty caramel and orange chocolate. AR had two flavors too: brown bread and strawberry with poppy seed. Apparently, sometimes they have salt chocolate. Wonderful. The folks behind the counter were very friendly. We chatted a bit with our server, who had some good suggestions. While we were sitting inside eating, they closed up, but not before giving us a big to-go container full of coffee and green tea gelato. We briefly chatted up the guy who comes up with the flavors and makes them all every night (Tai Kim). I felt like I was in the presence of greatness. The flavors were all quite strong, an very fresh. Wonderful.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

bacon-chocolate crunch bar: Jonathan Gold says yes



Photo by Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The [LA]Times

J. Gold article