The Underground Man

proud uncle

This morning, I'm a proud uncle. My sister called last night to say that the pinewood derby car that my father and I put together for my nephew took 3rd place in his Boy Scout tournament.

He's six, and really wanted to win something. At that age, you can't really handle the power tools to put one of these puppies together. We picked up a kit at the local Ace Hardware (pinewood derby is BIG in Texas) and spent the Christmas weekend shaping it, hollowing it out, glueing in weights, setting and lubing axles, etc.

Very tedious with minimum power tools and I was quite frustrated because I have all this knowledge on how to build race vehicles that I was sure was going to come to naught.

But lo and behold, he had a grand time, and was 3rd out of 12 entrants and 8th out of 58 (the entire pack). So he get's a nice little trophy.

And I get to do it again next year.

This is just strange

I keep seeing ads for the film The Pursuit of Happyness and I'm finding it pretty jarring.

As far as I know, happiness is spelled with an "i", not a "y". A quick check on dictionary.com shows no such word.

I'm dumbfounded.

A check of the movie poster shows it spelled correctly, it seems to be reported everywhere with a "y" though.

Jim Alchin slates Vista

This appears to be a pretty old letter. I was looking for his email exchange (now part of the public record) where he disses Microsoft efforts to come up with an MP3 player competitor to the iPod.

I found that exchange but then I also found this one. It's quite interesting, and it helps to know that the LH that he refers to is "Longhorn", aka Vista.

I think that its to Microsoft's credit that someone as senior as Alchin (co-president of the Microsoft Platform division) is this frank about the shortcomings of something as important as Vista. One just hopes that he is as frank when talking up as well as down.

Eric Rudder, to whom the email is addressed, is now the Senior Vice President, Technical Strategy at Microsoft.

It snowed last night..

We got a couple of inches of fresh snow last night.. the first of this entire winter, to my knowledge.

Driving to work wasn't too bad - but I worry about the return trip as the temperature falls and the roads get icy.

Now I get to see if the 300lbs of sand in the back of my car works to increase traction.

Petit Louis

I ate there a couple of weeks ago for the first time with a good friend.

Food and service were quite good, and the wine unfortunately was very poor. Now when I say that, let me give you some background.

I’m not a sommelier, I don’t even play one on TV. However, I have frequented a lot of bistros, having lived in France, and I invariably order one of two dishes when I visit a bistro for the first time. Steak tartare or steak frites. I like to compare apples to apples - if I want to know if bistro A is better than bistro B I try out one of their staple dishes (every bistro in France does a steak frites). By the way, steak frites is just a fancy way of saying steak and french fries. Of course, the results can range from ghastly to sublime, but that’s why you read restaurant reviews, right?

Now, the fellow who chooses the wines at Petit Louis (located in one of Baltimore’s ritzier suburbs) is the husband of the owner, chef Cindy Wolf and a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur. So one would think that the house wines would be decent. It’s like a law of bistro cookery - you have to offer a competent red and white house wine at a reasonable price. You can have all the fancy wines you want, but when you buy a dinner it had better come with a decent house wine.

I ended up trying four of their wines by the glass before I found one marginally acceptable (at $13/glass!). Now, while I don’t know French wines anywhere as near as well as I know California reds, this is pretty horrible.

After all, these were the house recommendations.

Notwithstanding the awful wine choices, the salad romaine was truly mediocre (chopped bits of romaine with an admittedly flavorful goat cheese added).

On the plus side, my steak frites was exemplary as was my flan dessert.

But I find myself quite reluctant to recommend the place. While the food was quite acceptable (overall), the house wines weren’t and when you throw in their extraordinarily snobby attitude toward bringing one’s own wine (bad attitude is never acceptable but I suppose the reluctance to allow outside wines in is if you have good offerings yourself) it just moves the restaurant into the category of one this reviewer is unlikely to visit again.

Petit Louis Bistro
4800 Roland Ave
Baltimore, MD 21210
(410) 366-9393

Good choice..

I live in an old house (about 1926). Lots of footage of wood floors and not a lot of insulation. So I have the top two floors and I have a housemate who has the flat below.

He complains about the noise my cats make or my TV or my computer. Because I've lived under inconsiderate people in my life, I didn't want to be one. So I've gone to great lengths to keep the peace. Bought carpets, keep the TV down, don't assemble the 5.1 sound system, keep the cats out of the living room during the night (they love to play at night), stuff like that.

So I bought a set of Sennheiser HDR 120 headphones the other day. They're wireles headphones with a really good reputation. They arrived from Amazon two days ago and I charged them up for the requisite 24 hrs.

I'm wearing them as I write. The AV receiver is muted, but I've got really good quality stereo sound coming from the headphones. They work well throughout the house, and the sound is as good as I've ever gotten from my 5.1 system.

I heartily recommend them for the times when you want to crank up your games or TV and you have people you don't want to offend.

Weekend predictions

I was 4-0 last weekend. But this weekend is a tougher pick:

San Diego v. New England

New England fairly easily. Much better quarterback, more experienced
team.

Ravens v. Indianapolis

Ravens easily. Their real weakness is corner Samari Rolle but for him to be exposed Manning has to have time. He'll get the short passes but I doubt he'll have the time to make the long strike.

Bears v. SeaHawks

Seahawks in a walk. Grossman has been exposed and Seattle will take advantage of his inability to hit the outlet receiver over the middle.

Saints v. Eagles

Tough one. I hope the Eagles linebackers will contain Reggie Bush and I think Garcia is the better quarterback. Eagles are on the rise as well, so Eagles.

Of course, nothing is for sure - otherwise they wouldn't play the game, right?

When players have too much power..

I don't follow Scottish football, it's all I can do to catch Liverpool games. That said,
I was sorry to read this morning that Paul Le Guen has left his position as manager of the Rangers (one of Scotland's two great teams).

In a rift with the team captain and important midfielder, Barry Ferguson, he stripped Ferguson of the team captaincy and sat him on the bench for undermining his authority.

Before you think, "Oh..but Le Guen doesn't play and Ferguson does." realize that this is the same coach that led Lyon to three successive League 1 titles in France. The guy knows how to coach - and at a high level. He may have had issues at Ibrox, but we all know that foreign players can take time to adjust to the British leagues.

Of course, one might argue that a coach should adapt more quickly, but he needs to have the support of management as well as the players. As a manager, I completely understand Le Guen's position and lament his having to leave the team.

I can only hope the result would have been different had his team not been in 2nd place by 17 points. The rivalry between Celtic (the other big Scottish team) and Rangers is such that it is never acceptable not to be challenging for the number 1 position. Perhaps the Ferguson issue is just a stalking horse for a change in management but I still believe that a coach with such a good record should have been given at least one full season, preferably two, to see whether his methods would bear fruit.

We see a lot of indiscipline in sport these days and if upper management doesn't have the courage to support coaches in addressing it where will the game end up?

I'm sure Le Guen will end up coaching a first-rate team elsewhere - and will make a good go of it.

there is yet hope

I note that with the same number of games played (22), Liverpool is now only eight points behind Chelsea for the 2nd place (and guaranteed spot in the Champions League).

This is, given the run of form of both teams, definitely surmountable. Chelski will be visiting us at Anfield on 20 January.. A huge game where we will have the chance to pick up 3 points.

Chelsea seem quite weak at the moment with only Drogba shining for them. An opportune moment to strike!

a short week

Thank God.. it's been difficult to whip up any enthusiasm for returning to work. I suppose the extended time off around the holidays reminded me of what a work-life balance is. I kind of miss it, I confess. I've been working such long hours since I got to Baltimore that I haven't really expanded my circle of friends beyond work (not really me) nor have I really been able to take the time and travel to nearby cities (like DC and Philadephia) which is part of the attraction of having moved here.

Heck, I haven't even gone up to NYC, though I must somehow figure out how to fit that into a 48hr trip - most likely by train. I imagine that once I've done it once, it'll seem easier. For some reason, I don't trust the American train system the way I did the ones in Europe - perhaps it has something to do with the trip between Seattle and San Francisco taking 18 hrs via train (something I could do in 12 in a car).

Be that as it may, apparently the trains drop one right in Manhattan. So I just have to pick the right time of year (like now) and figure out if there is a Broadway show or musical I want to see.

I suspect it would be refreshing to see Metropolis again.