Hand Coding

I was walking around Snider Plaza last weekend and I was getting a bit peckish since it was nearing 3:00 at the time. At that moment, I passed by Plaza Health Foods. Normally, I'd keep on walking, but the lettering on the awning caught my eye: “Health Food * Vitamins * Sandwiches”. Curious as to what kind of sandwiches a health food store might have, I stepped in.

To little surprise, most of the store was shelves and shelves of vitamins and other elixirs. But, towards the back was a lunch counter. And as I walked closer, I saw a chalkboard listing the sandwiches available. Among them, there was turkey & swiss, ham & cheese and tuna. And, as I was reading it, the store owner walked up and asked if he could help me. I mentioned that I was just looking over the sandwiches and he offered that an additional sandwich not listed was their chicken salad sandwich.

I hadn’t eaten a chicken salad sandwich in quite a while and that did seem tempting. But, there was also a something-and-avocado sandwich on the board (“turkey and avocado”, I think) that taunted me. I just can’t resist avocado and I was drawn to it; but, the chicken salad still beckoned. Taking a chance, I asked the owner if I could get a chicken salad sandwich with avocado. He readily agreed and relayed my order to a girl behind the counter.

A few minutes later, my sandwich was ready: wheat bread along with chicken salad, avocado, lettuce and tomato. It wasn’t overstuffed or Dagwooderized, but just a respectable size. As I took a bite, I was surprised by how good thes sandwich was — the ripe avocado blended perfectly with the creamy chicken salad. But, the best part was the bread. It wasn’t that thick, maybe a quarter inch, but it was virtually unprocessed wheat. There were so many granules and knobbly bits that it was like eating wheat gravel.

I’ve had some good sandwiches in Dallas, but that was one of the best. It wasn't terribly fancy, but all of the ingredients came together so well. And, the bread was astounding in its own right — had I loaf of it at home, I could imagine just taking out a slice from the bag and nibbling on it plain. I wasn’t expecting much from a sandwich in a health food store — just some nourishment to keep me going — but this sandwich just about made my day.

I ran across a novel new use for PowerPoint today. I don’t want to say too much about it so as not to ruin it. And try not to look to far ahead along the outline on the left side of the screen. All the same, part of me wonders if it’s fake; then again, I think I’d still find it amusing even if that was the case.

Because it’s a web-based adaptation of a PowerPoint presentation, it does tend to look better in IE (as that browser also displays a proprietary next/previous bar across the bottom for PowerPoint documents). And if you normally use Firefox (as I do), you may find the Launchy extension useful — it adds an entry in the context menu for links to view them in a variety of applications (including IE).

(Due credit: MetaFilter)

Update 2005-08-13: URI fixed — thanks MetaFilter!

Preface: I’ve sent this letter to my parents and a few close friends. If you didn’t receive one, I probably thought you already believed as I do about this issue (this will make sense once you’ve read it). After changing the salutation, I now present this as an open letter to Hand Coding readers.

Dear Readers,

As you know, the presidential elections are coming up on November 2^nd. And, the two leading candidates are John Kerry and George Bush. But, this letter isn’t about John Kerry.

In the aftermath of September 11^th, George Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law (which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”). Among other provisions, the USA PATRIOT Act:

• Allows the FBI to obtain search warrants which would permit phone and Internet surveillance on every office and residence that an individual has visited over an entire year — without ever having to identify the suspect in question. This “roving” surveillance allows investigators to monitor those media whether or not other people who are not suspects also regularly use it. [Section 206]

• Reclassified voice mail to be governed under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Before this step, if the FBI listened to your voice mail illegally, it couldn’t use the messages as evidence against you. But the ECPA has no such rule; so even if the FBI gains access to your voice mail in violation of the statute, it can freely use it as evidence against you. [Section 209]

• Allows your phone company or Internet provider to hand over your messages (such as e-mail and voice mails) to any law enforcement agent without your knowledge or consent, so long as they reasonably believed that the immediate danger of death or serious physical injury required it to do so. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 later amended those requirements from “reasonable belief” to “good faith belief” and dropped the requirement that the threat to life or limb be immediate. [Section 212]

• Authorizes the use of “sneak and peek” search warrants in connection with any federal crime, including misdemeanors. A “sneak and peek” warrant authorizes law enforcement officers to enter private premises without the occupant’s permission or knowledge and without informing the occupant that such a search was conducted. [Section 213]

• Allows the FBI to request your personal information from businesses — including financial records, medical records, student records, even your library records — without ever having to prove that they have probable cause to suspect you of a crime, or even that your records are relevant to an investigation. Furthermore, these demands for records come with a “gag order” which prohibits the business from telling anyone, ever, that they received such an order. [Section 215]

While this wouldn’t be the first time that federal government passed dubious legislation, I took specific exception to the USA PATRIOT Act. Though I supported the Bush administration up until this point, I found that I could no longer stand behind a president that championed the removal of so many of our freedoms.

I’m not necessarily asking you to vote for John Kerry. But, I am urging you to not to vote for George Bush. Personally, I’ll be voting for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate. I can imagine what you may be thinking — if John Kerry is elected, might he raise our taxes or otherwise increase the size of government? Yeah, that is possible. But would you rather have higher taxes or fewer freedoms?

All the best,

[signed] Alex

To put this letter in context, both of my parents are registered Republicans (as Pennsylvania law requires registering with a political party in order to vote in primaries). They’re both conservative and have voted for Republicans for as long as I’ve known them.

I agree with some things that the Republican party stands for (lower taxes, for instance). But, this time around, I felt that I had to make an effort to change their minds — this election was just too important. And, if you would like to write a similar letter to your friends or relatives, I’m also granting permission for use of this letter as a starting point.

The folks at TV Barn have written up a summary of the fall’s upcoming tv season. For some time now, critics have lamented the passing of drama on television (in lieu of reality shows) but it never really hit me until I saw “Wife Swap” listed among the Best Shows. Yikes.

The description for Complete Savages looked promising at first — “The season’s most above-average new comedy comes from one of TV’s funniest couples, veteran ‘Simpsons’ producers Mike and Julie Scully.” But, I then realized that it's airing on ABC and — not that it’s impossible to have a good sitcom on ABC — but I can’t even recall the last show of any kind that I watched regularly on ABC.

Another show which initially intrigued me was Quintuplets (Fox). It was listed in the Best category and the inclusion of Andy Richter (of Late Night with Conan O’Brien fame) was a good sign. But, a quick perusal of the show’s website dashed all hope.

In particular, I loaded up the link for “The Quintuplets Take America By Storm” video (which I would have linked to if it wasn’t Flashified). I was expecting a fluff piece, to be sure, but it was worse than I could have imagined: the video describes the shows mall tour (yes, mall tour) where the cast goes to malls to promote the show to potential viewers (which apparently consists mostly of screeching teenage girls).

When even the “Best” shows looking as mediocre they do, you can imagine what the rest of the list (“The Ok” and ”The Worst”) resembles. This just doesn’t seem to be a terribly strong fall season. Maybe it’s time to start that Greencine subscription (at least that way I can rent DVDs of some genuinely good shows).

There’s an Albertson's nearby our office at work and and I occasionally stop by if I’m going out for lunch anyway. And, I recently needed some peanut butter which I figured would be an easy purchase — I’ve only had natural peanut butter for the past couple years but it’s readily available in stores these days. Or so I thought.

I walked over to the peanut butter aisle and looked for the big glass jars of natural peanut butter (for some reason, natural peanut butters always seem to be in glass jars). But, I didn’t see any. I was about to give up when I saw a jar of Carb Options Creamy Peanut Spread. It had a small “Skippy” banner in one corner so it appeared to have a reasonable pedigree. And, while my previous gripe with regular peanut butters had been their sugar content, this one was sweetened with Splenda :).

The other issue I originally had with non-natural peanut butters was their trans fat from partially hydrogenated oils. Now, as it turns out, I later learned that even regular peanut butter may have negligible trans fat content; but, by then, I had become quite accustomed to the full-peanut flavor of natural peanut butter.

Getting back to the Carb Options Peanut Spread, I checked its label and, even though partially hydrogenated oils were listed among the ingredients, the Nutrition Facts portion confirmed that it had no trans fat. I figured that it would probably resemble the taste of regular peanut butter but without all the normal disadvantages; so, I added a jar to my basket.

Upon returning home, I decided to put it to the test. I still had a jar of natural peanut butter in the fridge and so I could compare them directly. It took me a moment to come up with a meaningful procedure, but then I recalled that a peanut butter & jelly sandwich — in addition to being tasty — would work well as a testing platform. So, I pulled out a slice of low-carb bread along with sugar-free jam. Then, I spread some natural peanut butter on half the slice and Carb Options Peanut Spread on the other half. Finally, I spread jam across both sides.

This dual-testing configuration allowed me to directly compare peanutiness bite-for-bite. I also had a glass of water on hand to cleanse my palette in between tastings. I started on the Carb Options side of the sandwich and took a bite. At first, it seemed fine: I could taste both the sweetness of the blackberry jam along with the peanut flavor of the spread. From there, I moved on to the natural peanut butter side — and I couldn’t help but notice a more intense peanut flavor.

I soon finished the sandwich and, while neither side was bad, the natural peanut butter side was more organically peanutty. As I looked more closely on the Carb Options label, I soon realized why it was called merely a “peanut spread” — it only had “65% peanuts”. And, considering that the natural peanut butter (Ingredients: Roasted Peanuts, Salt) was probably 99% peanuts, it was a little disconcerting to ponder what the other 35% was within the peanut spread.

The second stage of my testing battery was the sliced-apple test. I had some apple in the fridge that I had sliced earlier and I had hunch that it could be more nourishing with a little peanut butter on top ;). Once again, I made use of both peanut spreads — some slices had one and some slices had the other. And, even though the natural peanut butter was more intrinsically tasty, the Carb Options spread did have a slight edge in one sense. As it contained partially hydrogenated oils, it was a semi-solid product. So, while the natural peanut butter tended to flop over the sides of the apple slices (and even ooze off), the Carb Options spread obediently remained affixed to the slices as if it was some kind of peanut Jell-o.

Finally, I had to taste the spreads alone, without the influence of other food items. Spoon in hand, I dove in. At this point, there was no contest. The natural peanut butter was creamy (yet grainy) with a pleasant saltiness. And, the Carb Options spread, while resembling peanuts, just didn’t compare. In fact, it was as if I was eating some other food — it seemed like a familiar flavor. Finally, I figured it out: the Carb Options spread tasted just like peanut-flavored butter. Really.

Nutrition line-item for nutrition line-item, these peanut spreads are fairly similar: 190 Calories each, 16g fat (natural) vs 17g fat (spread), 4g net carbs (natural) vs 3g net carbs (spread) and 8g protein (natural) vs 7g protein (spread). So, if I ended up liking the spread more, I could have eaten it without guilt. But, the natural peanut butter was the easy winner in this case.

The US Open is currently underway and it’s the last tennis major of the season. I can't say that it’s my favorite of the tennis majors :-/. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I think it may be the harsh lights that make it harder to watch (since many of the games are scheduled at night).

In any case, I found the tv schedule posted at CBS Sportsline (for both the CBS airings and matches shown on USA). Posting all of the times here could be lengthy, but here are the QF/SF/Final matches:

• Tue, Sept 7, USA, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm: Men’s 4th / Women’s QF
• Tue, Sept 7, USA, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm, Men’s 4th / Women’s QF
• Wed, Sept 8, USA, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm, Quarterfinals
• Wed, Sept 8, USA, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm, Quarterfinals
• Thu, Sept 9, USA, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm, Men’s QF / Mixed Doubles Final
• Thu, Sept 9, USA, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm, Men’s QF /Women’s Doubles SF
• Fri, Sept 10, CBS, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm, Men’s Doubles Final / Women’s SF
• Sat, Sept 11, CBS, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm, Men’s SF
• Sat, Sept 11, CBS, 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm, Women’s Final
• Sun, Sept 12, USA, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm, Women’s Doubles Final
• Sun, Sept 12, CBS, 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm, Men’s Final