Hand Coding

With the recent news that regular peanut butter may not have trans fat after all, I’ve had peanut butter on the brain. Now that regular peanut butter is ok again, I’ve been contemplating the various peanut butters that I could try.

What first came to mind was that a sugar-free peanut butter could work well — there’d be the thick texture of regular peanut butter but without the typical sugars to get in the way. But, even though I haven’t been to the supermarket recently, I’m not getting my hopes up about finding such a product.

However, I got to thinking that maybe I should give crunchy peanut butter another chance. I’ve had creamy peanut butter for years and it’s been quite a while since I last had crunchy. Back when I was a kid, I preferred creamy since the nut bits in crunchy would tend to get stuck in my teeth.

So, on our last collaborative grocery run, I had Mike pick up both creamy and crunchy peanut butter for me (just the natural variety for now). Since I still had a few days worth of the old supply, I’ve only tried the crunchy just recently. And I’m not sure if the natural peanut butter itself is a significant factor, but this crunchy peanut butter had some good peanut flavor.

Of course, a spoonful of peanut butter is one thing, but I wanted to do some real-world tests as well. And, I couldn’t really come up with a canonical test for peanut butter. Sure, I could try something like apples with peanut butter (still a favorite of mine), but that only combines peanut butter with one other ingredient.

After some thought, it occured to me that peanut butter & jelly could work well. So, I whipped up an open-faced peanut butter & jelly sandwich for myself (though I actually used sugar free blackberry jam). Having made the sandwich, I paused to consider my testing method. Still, my main concern was whether the crunchy peanut butter would end up stuck in my teeth. So, I decided to not chew carefully to test whether I’d be able to induce some to get stuck.

Pleasantly, the peanut bits were fairly tender and they broke easily as I munched them. And, I didn’t really have any problems with the bits getting stuck. More than that, the peanut bits gave a degree of extra peanut flavor over creamy peanut butters. So, I may do some further testing, but perhaps crunchy peanut butter could become my peanutty spread of choice.

Earlier this month, the Plucker project released Plucker 1.6. I've written about Plucker before and, for those not aware, Plucker is an offline web browser for Palm. The package includes the Plucker Desktop for your PC which can be set to run on a schedule to download web pages during the day which are are installed onto your Palm during your next Hotsync.

In addition to support for anti-aliased fonts and experimental support for tables, I consider this to be a really solid release — while earlier releases had a few quirks, those have all been fixed in this release. In particular, has much lower CPU usage than older versions (which tends to help on an Athlon 700).

Plucker is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. All you need to download is the Plucker Desktop. And, though I’m fairly sure that the Plucker Desktop includes the Plucker Viewer (the application that runs on your Palm), you can always download that separately if you need to (from that same page). And, as always, feel free to make use of Plucker on this page.

I recently started a new freelance gig at Mercer Human Resource Consulting. I interviewed with them on Tuesday and started yesterday. It’s for at least four weeks, but could last up to a couple months — it all depends on how much the client wants to have implemented for Phase 2 (the “four weeks” comes into play if they opt for nothing, which I’m told is unlikely).

Mercer’s office is downtown, so the drive isn’t too bad. They’re in the Bank One Center which is approximately at Main St. & St. Paul. For the moment, I’m parking in the lots behind Plaza of the Americas, primarily because one of the lots takes credit cards (that way, I don’t need a wad of one-dollar bills to last me through the week). However, that lot isn’t very close by to the Bank One Center, so I have about a twelve minute walk over to the Bank One Center (which, other than the time it takes, I don’t really mind).

I’ll probably check out the lots on the walk back to my car one evening. With any luck, one of the smaller lots will have a reasonably priced monthly plan — that way, I won’t have to to worry about having enough greenbacks every day. I’m open to suggestions on any lots around that area; in particular, I’m looking for one that doesn’t often fill to capacity since even a monthly pass couldn’t help me there.

So far, the job is working out well. I’m in a cubicle, but it’s at the corner of a grid, so at least it’s a little quieter since people aren’t walking past it all the time. And, the desks all have Aeron chairs, though I still haven’t figured out how to get mine to tilt back properly (it’s not locked, but the tilting action is fairly firm and only tilts back a few degrees).

An unexpected perk is the soda machines in the break rooms — they don’t require any money (you just press the button and soda comes out). I’ve been making good use of that, though there are only so many cans of Caffeine Free Diet Coke you can drink in a day ;). The other sodas are Coke & Diet Coke, Dr Pepper & Diet Dr Pepper, Country Time Lemonade, Mountain Dew and Fanta. I suppose Diet Fanta would have been the icing on the cake, but you can’t have everything <g>.

I saw the ads for Bulletproof Monk back in April and it looked pretty good at the time — Chow Yun-Fat, dual pistols, what’s not to like? Its PG-13 rating should have been my first warning, but Mike and I decided to add it to our Netflix queue.

I was aware that it got 39/100 at Metacritic, but there have been times in the past when Metacritic has been off. But, it wasn’t off this time — we watched it over the weekend, and Bulletproof Monk just wasn’t what I was hoping it’d be.

In short, every good scene is encompassed by the trailer. And, I don’t just mean “every scene” loosely — yeah, some movies put most of their good scenes into the trailer, but this one really had all the good scenes in the trailer. And, the non-trailer scenes were just not up to that level.

One gripe I have with the flick is that the trailer prominently shows Chow atop a car with guns in both hands (a good sign, or so you’d think). However, the trailer cuts out the following part of the scene: Chow uses the guns only to shoot the weapons out of the hands of the bad guys. And, that’s the only scene where the main characters even hold guns — according to the making-of featurette, the producers did that on purpose for the “sake of the children” in the audience.

And, in general, the PG-13 rating just gets in the way. In one scene in particular, a Nazi general executes several monks in a firing squad (this happens in the first ten minutes, so this doesn’t spoil anything). However, the view is framed so that you only see the shots being fired followed by the sounds of the monks taking the hit — lame.

It looks like the trailer got the best of me this time. Is this worth buying? Nope. Is it worth renting? Well, only if you really like Seann William Scott — and even then, only maybe.

I’ve been enjoying natural peanut butter for about a year now. I first turned to it so I could avoid the trans fat in regular peanut butter.

Trans fat is created when liquid oils are turned into solids by adding hydrogen. And, food manufaturers like hydrogenated oils since they don’t separate like liquid oils. However, trans fat is also the worst kind of fat — it raises the “bad ” cholesterol while lowering the “good” cholesterol (even saturated fat leaves doesn’t affect good cholesterol).

You would think trans fat would be included on food labels, but that only goes into effect in 2006. So, in the meantime, you just have to look for “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” oils among the ingredients.

So, to avoid the trans fat, I went with natural peanut butter (which isn’t hydrogenized). However, I’ve learned that a study by the Agricultural Research Service — a part of the USDA — says that there’s no trans fat in peanut butter (natural or otherwise).

To see if the rumors had any validity, Sanders prepared 11 brands of peanut butter, including major store brands and “natural” brands, for analysis by a commercial laboratory. He also sent paste freshly prepared from roasted peanuts for comparison. The laboratory found no detectable trans fats in any of the samples, with a detection limit of 0.01 percent of the sample weight. […]

When I switched over, it took some time to get used to natural peanut butter; in particular, since its oil is in liquid form, the peanut butter can more easily slide off foods (such as apple slices). And, this study may be reason enough to switch back. In fact, just this weekend, I made an Elvis sandwich with regular peanut butter. And, that made for a tasty sandwich.

But, after tasting some regular peanut butter with a spoon, I realized that it didn’t quite have as much peanut taste as the natural peanut butter. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I soon realized that the sugar in the regular peanut butter may have masked some of the peanut flavor. So, I may look for some regular peanut butter next time I’m in Target, but I’m not sure if sugar-free regular peanut butter even exists ;).

This month’s DFWBlogs cocktail event was at Mike’s Treehouse. Though their URL is fairly straightforward (MikesTreehouse.com), it took me a little bit to find it. I generally search Google for this kind of thing, just in case the restaurant have a goofy URL such as MikesTreehouseDallas.com.

As it turns out, their website is the third hit on Google for “Mike’s Treehouse” and I’m not terribly surprised — the only link on the splash page is JavaScript-based, so search engines are only able to see the splash page itself.

Looking up their address in MapQuest, it was only about two miles down Greenville from my apartment. In my head, lower Greenville seemed like more than two miles from here and I was hoping that’d be the case (since parking is such a hassle in that area of Greenville). As I drove there, I soon realized that it was in lower Greenville after all; fortunately, Mike’s had its own parking lot.

As I walked inside, I found our group right away (near the entrance). And, after a few more people arrived, we moved to the “rooftop” seating area. And while I looked over the menu, I ordered a Dos Eqis. It arrived shortly (with a lime, natch), but in a cheap plastic cup. That surprised me, actually — the vodka-and-cranberry that someone else ordered arrived in a proper glass, but the beer was served in a plastic cup (go figure).

Quite a few items on the menu tempted me. A club sandwich is always a good bet and it’s not every day that you see a blackened tuna sandwich. But, I was in the mood to try one of their burgers.

In contrast to their online menu (which lists several burger variations), the printed menu included just the Build You Own Burger for $5.95 (with any combination of toppings). There were about ten toppings to choose from and I selected a few easily (tomatos, pickles, ketchup, mayo). I would have selected a cheese as well, but none of their cheeses interested me (just American, Jack, and perhaps a third cheese).

Bacon was also on the list and I hesitated at first — but I then realized that the burger would cost the same with or without the bacon. So, I had nothing to lose and added that to my list as well. I also had to choose between waffle fries and onion rings; as I’m not much of an onion-ring person, I defaulted to the waffle fries. Satisfied with my choices, I placed the order (which our waitress took to memory without having to write it down).

The food arrived soon and I started with the fries. With a dash of pepper, they were great — hot & moist and still somewhat flexible. These days, it seems that many restaurants don’t put an effort into their fries, but these were some of the best I’ve had in a while.

The burger itself was also good. The bun was a bit boring and white-bready, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. And, as a whole, the burger worked out very well. The warm and crumbly beef was arranged in a pleasantly thick patty — some restaurants shape their half-pound burgers as just a huge flat patty, sticking out the sides of the bun, but that helps no one.

And, as a welcome surprise, the bacon was above par. I find that most bacon used on burgers tends to taste as if it was cooked earlier in the day and only added onto the burger at the last moment (which is likely the case). But with this burger from Mike’s, the bacon was tasty and crispy (not the usual soggy bacon-wannabes that often end up on hamburgers). So, I was especially glad that I didn’t hold back on the bacon among my toppings.

The food at Mike’s was better than I expected. And, the wait staff was fairly attentive. But, I’m still not sure if I’d go there again. The plastic cup didn't even have the pretense of keeping my beer cold and I’m still wary about the parking situation in lower Greenville (sure, Mike’s had its own lot but what options would I have if that filled up?).

I went to the Soler guitar recital on Saturday at the SMU Meadows Museum. It was a free concert and it was just held in one of the longer exhibition halls — the staff set up some chairs and the surrounding art gave a pleasant ambience to the recital.

I arrived at the museum around 2:30pm in order to ensure that I could get a good seat. Sure enough, I was able to get a second-row seat. And, with no one sitting in front of me, I had a clear view to the performer. The concert was scheduled to start at 3pm and it nearly did.

As 3:00 rolled around, there were a few introductory words by the organizers, including an introduction by the museum’s curator. At least, I’m guessing that it was an introduction — he spoke entirely in Spanish. I later read in the program that the concert was in commemoration of National Day of Spain, which explained both the Spanish introduction and the many Spanish-speakers in attendance.

After the introduction, Soler strolled in and took his seat. His seating arrangement was rather modest — his chair was the same as the audience chairs and his only peripheral was an angled foot-rest. After tuning his guitar, he began his set (all of which were by Spanish and South American artists).

I’ve always enjoyed classical guitar and Soler’s Spanish guitar was particularly pleasant. I was probably no more than three meters from him and I was able to appreciate his guitar technique as much as the music itself. In such a beautiful environment, the music seemed to just flow around me.

Most of my experience to classical guitar has been through CDs. So, I’m not sure if this is atypical, but Soler didn’t use a guitar pick but rather strummed the strings with his fingertips. More than that, Soler also used his guitar for percussive accompaniment — from time to time, he tapped and thumped on his guitar with the fingers and palm of his right hand. Impressively, he occasionally continued playing pizzicato with his left hand while adding the beat with his right hand.

The recital lasted about and hour and a half and Soler added about three encores after successive rounds of applause from the audience. After the show, he walked off stage to pack up his guitar (which really meant that he walked to an adjacent room in the gallery since there wasn’t actually a stage in the first place).

He seemed approachable and so I walked up to him and introduced myself. I didn’t want to take too much of his time, but I expressed to him how much I enjoyed his recital. He smiled graciously and thanked me for my comments (I’m not really sure if he spoke that much English).

In all, this was just what I needed for a Saturday afternoon. And, the price (which was free) was hard to beat. On my way out, there was a table setup selling some of his CDs and guitar tablature books. Considering that I paid him nothing for the concert, I was only too pleased to buy one of his CDs (if you’d like to hear a track, I’d be happy to send you an Ogg or MP3).

My most recent freelance work was as lead developer for PlainsCapital’s relaunch of its site and subsidiary sites (PlainsCapital Bank, PlainsCapital Insurance, and others). Formerly PNBFinancial, the company decided to redesign its sites as part of its company-wide rebranding.

The sites launched last week and its standards-compliant layout includes valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS (just CSS for layout). I’ve also added a section to my portfolio which explains several of the CSS techniques used throughout the site.

The New York Times reports on the UK’s newest superhero: Angle-Grinder Man. In short, Angle Grinder Man is an Englishman who was fed up with the wheel-boots employed by the parking authorities. So, he decided to apply some street justice through missions of removing motorists’ boots by force:

Long-haired and lanky, he is becoming well known in some parts of south London. About a month ago, 25-year-old Petite Tendai arrived home to find a boot on her illegally parked car. (“There were no signs saying ‘no parking,’ ” she declared.) She had barely begun to rail at the injustice of it all when Angle-Grinder Man suddenly appeared.

“Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and said, ‘If anyone can, Angle-Grinder Man can,’ ” Ms. Tendai said in a telephone interview. “Then he just started sawing it off. It was wicked.” He was gone almost as quickly as he came. “It was just a ‘good luck,’ and what-not, and then he was off,” she said. […]

In many ways, he appears to have the complete superhero persona — even including gold lamé underpants and a cape. Still, it would be even cooler if he could convince They Might Be Giants to compose a theme song for him ;).

Last July, I went to the Meadows Museum at SMU for their Silver Sculptures exhibit. And, at the time, I signed up on their e-mail list for new events.

In their most recent mailing, I learned of a guitar recital on Saturday afternoon:

Guitar Recital
Saturday, October 11th
3:00 p.m.

“From Spain to Latin America” by Francesc de Paula Soler

Experience the Meadows Museum collection of Spanish art accompanied by the melodic, expressive sounds of “The Poet of the Guitar,” Francesc de Paula Soler. Hailed by critics around the world, Soler is considered by many to be the most notable name of the new Spanish guitar. He is currently touring the United States, while preparing his second CD, El Polifeno de Oro, a collection of Spanish music for vihuela and guitar.

Free • Seating is available on a first come, first served basis

I’m a fan of John Williams (the classical guitarist), and I wasn’t sure if this would be similar. But, I talked it over with Josh and he thought I’d enjoy it since Spanish guitar is a subset of classical guitar anyway.

So, I think I’ll try to make it to this. Feel free to join me — I’ll probably aim to get there around 2:30pm in order to ensure that I get a seat.