These Thick Pancakes, They Vibrate?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

I went to SXSW last weekend and got back to Dallas Tuesday evening. Then, the following day (Wednesday), there was the DFWBlogs March Cocktail Event at New Amsterdam Coffee Haus (which actually is a bar, contrary to what you might think). I actually wasn't sure if I’d go, but decided to give it a try as I had heard that there might be some new bloggers there.

I ended up getting a bit lost on my way there and wound up about ten minutes late. Now, even though ten minutes late is still “on-time” in the DFW-blogiverse, I still expected that there’d be a few people there ahead of me. However, as I walked in the door, I took a quick look around and soon realized that I was the only one there. So, I just ordered a drink and sat down at a table which looked big enough to hold several more people. And, fortunately, New Amsterdam has an excellent beer selection; I certainly didn’t mind a few quiet moments as I sipped my Chimay White.

As I waited, I peered around the place and took in their decor. Soon enough, a few other bloggers arrived — Leia, Matt, Julie and Andrew walked in about the same time. Each of them ordered a drink and, as we began talking, we soon realized that neither Leia nor I had dinner beforehand. Leia mentioned off-handedly that the last time the DFWBlogs happy hour was at New Amsterdam, the group went off to Cafe Brazil afterwards. That sounded pretty good, actually, and I suggested that we could go get some dinner there.

After finishing our drinks — and meeting new-blogger Heidi — we closed our tabs and headed off to Cafe Brazil. And, as an illustration of the goofy road patterns in the area, I recall that Matt’s directions to get to Cafe Brazil went something like this: “ Go left on Exposition Ave and then turn left onto Elm Street. Well, actually, you don’t need to turn left onto Elm — Exposition just curves around and then becomes Elm.”

We drove to Cafe Brazil and there were plenty of free tables; we were seated just about as soon as we got there. And, while I often order a make-your-own omelette when I go to Cafe Brazil (with chorizo, feta and sun-dried tomatoes), I felt like something a bit sweeter this time. I turned to the breakfast section of the menu and the pancakes caught my eye. Of course, the menu only said “pancakes” and didn’t make it clear whether fruit-filled pancakes were available (such as blueberry pancakes which would have hit the spot right about then).

When our server came around to take our order, I just asked him what kinds of pancakes they had. I recall that there were plain, chocolate chip and some third variety of pancakes. Well, that made my choice easy — I could hardly resist a dish featuring both pancakes and chocolate. And, just to ensure some protein intake within the meal, I also ordered a side of chorizo.

Our food arrived a little while later and I dug right in. And, I’m not sure if this is typical of all breakfast-is-our-specialty restaurants, but these were some enormous pancakes — each of the three pancakes was about 6-8 inches across and about a third of an inch thick. Sure enough, there were chocolate chips in there. But, the thickness of the pancakes worked to their disadvantage. I mean, let’s not kid around — this was a chocolate-chip delivery vehicle which happened to be in a circle and I just wanted as many chocolate chips in each bite as possible.

To the cook’s credit, it was evident that the chocolate chips were added as the pancakes were cooking (as opposed to adding right into the batter) as chips might have all sunk to the bottom of the mixing bowl otherwise. With this manual chip-sprinkling midway through the cooking process, the chips were evenly distributed. But, the pancakes were so thick that even a 2" x 1" slice — a throughput of perhaps two to three chocolate chips — still left me with a mouthful of pancake.

Perhaps some thinner pancakes would resolve this. Nothing crazy or crepe-like (not that I would be opposed to that) but perhaps something closer to a quarter-inch thick. That should be thick enough to remain structurally sound when transferring them off the cooking surface while ensuring the most favorable chip-to-batter radio. Not that these were bad pancakes — they were soft and delectable — but they did have that area for improvement.

Come to think of it, most restaurant-pancakes are pretty thick, if memory serves. Maybe it’s just that their customers like the spectacle of a pile of plate-filling pancakes. So, I suppose I’ll just have to make my own chocolate-chip pancakes to get them properly unthickified. (And, that reminds me of the DFWBlogs-breakfast which we had about two years ago. Everyone joined in and we cooked up a huge breakfast; I wouldn’t be opposed to trying that again sometime.)

SXSW 2005 Panels I’m Going to

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

It’s mid-March, and that can only mean one thing — it's time for another fun trip to Austin for SXSW 2005. For those not aware, South by Southwest (more commonly known by its initials, SXSW) is a music, film and interactive festival in Austin, Texas; I’ll be attending the Interactive conference.

The interactive conference runs this Friday through Tuesday (March 11th-16th) and their schedule of panels is online. Here’re some of the panels which I’ll be attending:

Saturday March 12th

Sunday March 13th

Monday March 14th

Tuesday March 15th

  • 11:30 am — Notes From the Underground: The Rise of Remix Culture. I get a kick out of mashups — an art form where someone superimposes one song on top of another to form a brand new song — and I’m looking forward to seeing what they cover in this panel.

  • 2:30 pm — Accessibility Shoot-Out. In this panel, URLs are thrown into a hat and then accessibility experts look over the site and give advice. I’m concerned that I may not learn much new out of this one, but you never know.

So, those are the panels which I’ve penciled-in so far. SXSW is a great time every year and I can't wait to get to Austin!

21st Century Dental — Friendly Dallas Dentists

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

I’ve been working full time for RD2 since the summer and prior to that I worked for myself. And, at the time, I gave myself benefits, though they were largely of the in-case-I-get-hit-by-a-bus variety. I didn’t give myself dental benefits and so it had been about three years since I had last seen a dentist. But, now that I had a full time job with benefits, I thought that I should have things checked out at a dentist. I hadn’t felt any tooth pain or other obvious signs of tooth anomalies (otherwise I would have gone to see one earlier) but I didn’t know what they’d find either.

There aren’t many things which I fear, but dentists are probably one of them — I’m the kind of guy that winces at the sound of hearing a dentist’s drill on tv (really). So, wanting to educate myself, I Googled around for new dentistry techniques on repairing tooth decay on the chance that there might be something which could be used in lieu of a drill (on the off-chance that I had a cavity after all). And, I came across a technique called air abrasion which, in simplest terms, is like microscopic sand-blasting on your teeth:

Air abrasion works by blowing a stream of powerful dry clean air, mixed with minute abrasive particles of aluminum oxide onto the surface of the teeth. Air abrasion uses the kinetic energy principle, in which particles bounce off the tooth and blasts the decay away. […]

Air abrasion procedures are virtually painless eliminating the need for an anesthetic injection. Air abrasion systems produce no vibration and no heat from friction. The technology can’t harm soft mouth tissue and they operate very quietly.…

“Ah, that sounds good&rdquo, I thought to myself. Of course, I didn’t know if I had a cavity at this point, but I knew that I wanted to go to a dentist that offered air abrasion on the chance that I did have a cavity. The next step: search for dentists and air abrasion in Dallas. I looked through the first few links and 21st Century Dental seemed the most promising. I think I was hooked from the introductory sentence in which they described themselves as a “dental spa”. Among other things, they tout televisions in every room, massage mats on the patient chairs and fresh fresh Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.

So, I scheduled an appointment with them which was earlier this month. Laurie was my hygienist and she was very friendly. One of the first things she did was to take my pulse (with one of those automated arm-cuff machines) and she remarked that mine was a bit high. I commented that I “wasn’t really a ‘dentist person’” and that I may have been a bit nervous to which she replied “I don’t think anyone’s really a ‘dentist person”. And, after a few seconds pondering, she added “… well, except for me” with a smile.

She took x-rays of my teeth with digital x-ray which then displayed the images on an overhead LCD monitor hanging from a multi-jointed arm. And, once she got to cleaning my teeth, she handed me a remote control which set the LCD monitor to television duty. As she worked away, I flipped through the channels and settled on CNN Headline News. Not that teeth cleaning really hurts, but the scraping sound can sometimes be a bit disconcerting; and, watching tv helped get my mind off of the sharp tools in my mouth.

After the cleaning, she called in Dr Roy — Jeff is his first name — who examined the x-rays (back on the LCD monitor, so that I could look over them as well) and informed me that I had a cavity. Well, I wouldn’t say that I was pleased to hear this, but it’s not something that was completely unexpected either (considering how long it had been since I had last been to a dentist).

So, I scheduled another appointment to get the cavity filled, and that appointment was yesterday. And as I drove there, I wasn’t too nervous; but, I was a little uneasy by the time I got to the waiting room. However, the waiting room, to their credit, includes at least one hanging waterfall which actually helped a great deal. Soon enough, Michelle called me back to one of the dental chairs. And, right off the bat, she asked whether I would like laughing gas to help me to relax, to which I readily agreed.

She placed a nosepiece over my face and started the gas. And, after a little while, I did feel a bit more calm. Then Dr Roy came in to anesthetize the tooth (one of the upper-left molars). He used a machine with a jointed mechanical arm which delivered anesthetic to just that tooth (and it made kind of a purring sound in the process which I suppose is one of the better sounds a dental machine can make). However, they needed to wait a few minutes for the anesthetic to take effect. Both Dr Roy and Michelle walked out but, before leaving, Michelle asked if I wanted anything to drink while I waited. She named a few drinks including Diet Coke which is what I settled on.

She brought back a chilled can of Diet Coke and then left me to wait. Really, this wasn’t that much fun. Sure, I had sugar-free refreshment at hand, but I could only ponder the upcoming cavity-filling. I sipped the soda and looked out the window, trying to think of anything but stuff related to teeth. Fortunately, the lights in the patient rooms are always kept dimly lit — about what might come to mind if you were to think of the lighting in a stereotypical web development shop (and the hygienists and dentists use those overhead mouth-spotlights for light when they’re working).

Dr Roy and Michelle eventually returned, about 10-15 minutes later, and they reclined my chair. I asked if I’d be getting an air abrasion filling or a more traditional filling and they said that it would be a regular filling. I was aware of that possibility as not all cavities are suitable for air abrasion; still, I just reminded myself that I needed the filling and that I would just have to stick through it.

Before Dr Roy and Michelle began the procedure, Michelle offered me a variety of Internet radio stations which were listed on the LCD monitor. I asked for some jazz with the provision that I didn’t want “any of that smooth jazz”. She flipped through a few of them and I settled on a jazz classics station. And, after having chosen that, I noticed a browser window in the background which I recognized as DigitallyImported.com. I briefly pondered what it might be like to get a filling with Euro Dance pulsing in the background but thought better of it.

There was some drilling, of course, but it wasn’t as bad as I had envisioned. I was pretty relaxed from the nitrous oxide in ways that I hadn’t anticipated (not that I’m complaining). I could hear the sound of the drill but it was if I was just listening to someone’s cordless drill — my brain wasn’t making the connection of “hey, that’s a drill I hear… in my mouth!”. And, after they finished digging the hole in my tooth, they filled it with a tooth-colored resin.

When it was all done, I felt less bad than I thought I would. I had some numbness but it was mostly just that one tooth which they had anesthetized. And, my jaw was a bit stiff from having it propped open while they worked, but nothing really hurt. I walked back to the main desk and, before I left, they offered me a milkshake in a choice of vanilla, strawberry or chocolate. I asked for strawberry and they brought one by shortly. They also motioned towards a plate of the warm chocolate chip cookies under a glass lid and I helped myself to one of those as well.

I still don’t know if I’d call myself a “dentist person” but this was almost pleasant, all things considered. I found Dr Roy and his staff very down-to-earth and that really helped put me at ease. Everyone was very friendly and not once were they condescending (which is probably my number-one pet peeve of dentists). I have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday and, while I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it, I’m not fretting about it. And, if anyone needs a dentist in the Dallas/Irving area, I can’t recommend these guys highly enough.

Tony Romas: The Place for Slow Service

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

Leia, Matt and I went out for lunch yesterday. We didn’t have a particular place in mind, so we just started wandering around the West End (since that’s where our office is now). We came across Tony Roma’s which sounded pretty good; so we walked in.

It was maybe 1:30 at this point, so the restaurant was fairly empty. We were seated at a table near the bar and I soon noticed the above par number of beer bottles featured along the shelf behind the bar (but, I just ordered water with lunch, natch). The menus were tri-fold glossy jobbies, which is about what I expected. And, as I started looking through the menu, Leia helpfully pointed out that they had blue cheese burgers. “Well, that makes my choice easy!”, I said as I refolded my menu back to its compact form.

We placed our orders and the food arrived didn’t take long to arrive. Leia had barbecued chicken with broccoli on the side, Matt had a barbecue chicken sandwich and I had the blue cheese burger (also with broccoli on the side). From that point forward, the experience became a bit surreal. As we ate our meals, we couldn’t help but notice the awful music piped over the speaker system, a smattering of mid-80s not-really-hits, if I recall. And, what was even more bizarre, as our server came by to fill up our glasses from a pitcher of water, I noticed that she was quietly humming along to this schlock.

But, back to the food. I ordered the blue cheese burger, of course, and even though blue cheese alone is usually enough to entice me to order a dish of Ingredient X + Blue Cheese, I saw when I was reading the menu that their blue cheese burger also featured bacon — which was only a further bonus. Jumping back in the timeline a bit, when the food first arrived and the server was handing the plates from her servers’ tray to our table, the burger whet my appetite: the blue cheese was sprinkled liberally across the face of the patty and the buns appeared to be toasted as well. I soon learned that appearances could be deceiving.

I was initially pleased that the burger included not one but two slices of tomato. However, they proved to be largely useless — they were about a third of an inch thick each and, even with one slice, the hamburger was too tall to fit my mouth. The tomato slices were soon placed to the side. And, as I gripped the bun, about to take a bite, I couldn’t help but notice that the bun was actually a bit sticky. It didn’t leave a residue on my fingers but there was definitely some adhesion to my fingertips somewhat similar to the effect of Post-It notes.

My first couple bites were mostly bun-filled, but that’s not uncommon for hamburgers in general. As I ate towards the center of the burger, something seemed awry with the burger but I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Then, as I noticed myself having to wash down a bite with a sip of water, it dawned on me that the patty was of the subsaharan variety. Imagine for a moment chomping down on a dry kitchen sponge placed inside a hamburger bun; that would approximate both the texture and moisture content of this hamburger. Now, I’m not saying that this was the worst hamburger that I’ve ever had. Oh wait, yes I am.

After braving through our meals, we set out to pay our bill. Leia and Matt opted to use cash while I paid for my portion with a credit card. At this point, it was probably after 2:00 — we were almost the only people in the restaurant — but it took what seemed like 10-15 minutes for our server to run the card. All the same, while my hamburger may have been less than ideal, I might be willing to give Tony Roma’s the benefit of the doubt; maybe they were having an off-day, or maybe hamburgers just aren’t their specialty. So, if my coworkers want to go for lunch there again sometime, I may just give that a try. But, I’ll probably order a non-beef entree from their menu ;).

It Takes a Thief

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ve recently been enjoying a new show, It Takes a Thief, on The Discovery Channel. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what channel it was on until I Googled for it — when I first heard about the show from a network spot while I was watching another show on my TiVo, I paused the show, added It Takes a Thief as a Season Pass and resumed watching the first show. And, since then, I’ve just been watching the series as recordings appeared on my TiVo.

Anyway, the basic premise is this: the show stars two former ex-burglars, Matt Johnston and Jon Douglas Rainey. Each episode, they scout out a house in the tri-state area which looks like it might have poor security. Then, Matt knocks on their door, explains that he's part of a tv show, and asks the homeowners if they would allow his ex-burglar parter to rob their house in exchange for a security revamp.

Sounds simple enough, right? Jon only gets 10 minutes to break in, “rob” the house and make out with the loot. Of course, it’s all pretend and the homeowners aren't really losing their stuff. After the robbery, the crew helps sweep, organize and generally clean up any messes. And, the homeowner’s house gets a full security update after that — new window or door locks, motion-sensors on any expensive paintings, thorny bushes planted below any tempting windows and the like.

“So, how bad could it be? Only 10 minutes? Ok, sure”, so says the homeowners.

You may already see where this is going, but the show may as well have been called The Schadenfreude Robbery Show. Here’s how it generally plays out, after the homeowners agree to the premise:

  • While Matt is talking with the homeowners (and getting a tour of their house and its security measures), Jon waits outside so as to give Jon no additional advantage (not that he needs any help, hehe).
  • A video production van is parked on the street outside the house to which wireless video cameras which are setup throughout the house send live video from the house.
  • The homeowners are instructed to completely lock their house and then meet host Matt in the van.
  • Once everyone is inside the van and the video monitors are cued up, Matt confirms with the homeowners that they're ready to go through with it.
  • After confirmation, Matt calls Jon’s cell phone and gives him the go-ahead. The clock starts and the homeowners view the break-in as it happens.
  • In the first minute or two, Jon tries the obvious entry points such as the front or side doors (in case they’re actually unlocked).
  • Shortly thereafter, Jon gets in and robs the place as if he were really robbing the place. Bookcases are cleared in a search for hidden trinkets. Cookie jars are smashed on the tile kitchen floor, just in case money is hidden inside. Mattresses are overturned on the chance that valuables may be hidden between the mattresses or under the bed.

Of course, the homeowners are horrified, not only at how easily Jon got in but of the complete destruction of their house. Surely they must have been made aware of what could happen, but they probably didn’t realize just how much damage a burglar can do in ten minutes. Generally horrified, they then walk back in their house and view the carnage. Matt consoles the homeowners as, even though it was a fake robbery, it’s still fairly traumatic for them.

A little while later, they get all their stuff back and begin to put their house back in order. And, in the days following, they get the security updates to their home. I wasn’t sure what to make of the show when I first saw the teaser for it (and set the Season Pass) as the spot was fairly vague, along the lines of “See what happens when a burglar is allowed to break into a home” However, I’m really enjoying the show and I think it comes down to two aspects of the show.

Firstly, I find the burglar’s entrance fascinating, as he tests the house’s weak points and manages his way in. And then there’s the denouement of the episode where Matt works with the contractors to close all the security loop holes which a burglar might use to get in to the house. And I’ve learned a few things that I’ll probably put to use whenever I buy a house (for instance, they recommend snipping the garage door opener release cords as a burglar could break a garage door window and then yank on that cord to release the garage door).