Their patio beats my patio

Fortunately, it's temporarily my patio too.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Merry Christmas...

...from Grasse.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Soap on a rope

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Puzzling time of day rates from Edison

I received two very similar slick mailings from Edison.  They want me to use my newly installed SmartConnect smart meter (which reports usage as well as time of day) and join one of three nearly identical new billing plans which they attempt to differentiate by calling them the "Quick Start Package", the "Go-Green Package", and the "Cost-Cutter Package".  All three plans have time of day pricing for electrical use where you can earn bill credits for powering down between 2PM and 6PM and you are automatically enrolled in automatic bill paying, which "eliminates paper clutter".  They then add on some slightly differentiating features that cost nothing: track your use online, meet a budget number, and so forth.

What's galling is that there appears to be only one plan, that direct billing or online payment is mandatory, and that they expect me to swallow the idea that, really, there's actually three unique plans.  I would so appreciate a straight forward list of new billing and payment options that I could pick and choose from cafeteria style instead of feeling like they think I can't read and determine for myself that they're selling the same thing with three different names.  The web site that they sent me to has even less information, just a click here to sign up message.

Why the slick sales?  Maybe its just to get me onto paperless billing and direct pay.  Certainly the steadier stream of bill payments would make it easier for them to manage cash flow.  But that's not a benefit to me.


see SCEPackages.com

Green beans braised 3 hours

I made Green Beans Braised 3 Hours as a test for Thanksgiving. 



I didn't measure anything, but I did follow the recipe ingredients. Sweat some onion with olive oil and some bacon pieces.



Cut up the bacon, add diced tomatoes, salt, pepper, fennel seed (crushed / ground), trimmed beans and braise on low heat for three hours.



I've never before used a long cooking process for green beans like this, having believed in quick cooking for my entire life.  Ed Bruske, who's recipe I am following, says that you can either have a taste like chlorophyll and pretty green beans or delicious green beans that don't look very attractive.
What I've found so far is that the beans were crisp after a few minutes in braising liquid, just the way I'd expect if I cooked them quickly.  After 20 minutes they were tough and a bit stringy with a bit of a wood-like taste, not crisp, and this is the way I've tried to avoid cooking them my entire life.  However, after 3 hours they were firm to the tooth but no longer stringy and the taste was quite good.

Breakup

Hello KKJZ -

We seem to be on divergent paths.  Perhaps I'm oversensitive to the more frequent breathy flute or the plethora of soft and meandering saxophones that I hear now, but I feel you've taken a move to the smooth.  I've always looked for a bit of challenge in the music I listen to, but I'm not finding it now. 

You've introduced me to some great music over the years - I started listening as a college student back in the KLON days.  Based on our long history I've given it the old college try for about a year, but I find that I'm less and less interested in what I'm hearing.

I know that you need to seek fresh audiences, but the whole smooth thing isn't for me.  I'll check back from time to time. 

In the mean time, I'd like to offer some suggestions for improvement:

1. iPhone app - I can't remember when I deleted this.  When I had it, I know that one thing I expected was that I'd have easy and clear access to your playlist.  Instead I found it easier to browse the jazzandblues web page using my phone to look at the play list there - but this was often slow and difficult on a phone.  One useful feature the app could offer (or a mobile version of the web site) is faster and easier access to the current play list.

2. Discussion forum - Where's the online discussion forum / message board?  This seems like a useful way to communicate between DJ and audience, at the very least. I can't be the only computer literate listener.  Twitter seems to be popular too, though I can't personally recommend it, but perhaps Twitter is a useful place to feed your play list.

"Holy Bible" down, "magical thinking" up

 

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=holy+bible%2C+magical+thinking&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Seen in Redondo

This sign has always seemed slightly icky to me. Not to many people, however, since Google search suggests CEF is more widespread than one might imagine. See, for example, http://www.cefeasttexas.com/

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Mixed messages

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Mysterious Galaxy Administrative Office

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Discount outdoor gear at The Clymb

I joined The Clymb today (free when you provide your email address).  They offer a ~50% discount on outdoor gear during 72 hour limited sales.  They have gear from several different manufacturers on sale at any given time.  We'll see if this works for me or not.

One of these things is not like the others

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Goodbye European imports

It was a shame to throw these out given their collective frequent flyer miles.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Bean pot

Though safely in the trash outside, there was still a pervasive smell of burnt beans throughout the house.



Fortunately even this cleaned up with Comet, elbow grease, and a metal scouring pad.

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

RSS Graffiti for Facebook

Some months ago Facebook shut down the ability to use blog feeds to import your blog.  Since I view Facebook as important but ancillary to my web presence, I've started using RSS Graffiti to post my blogs on my Facebook wall.