The Blog of Many Hats

My inhaler ran out on Friday. On Sunday, I started feeling a little fluffy in the chest, so I went out to buy a new Primatene Mist inhaler...only to discover they're pretty much impossible to buy around here (i.e., Charlotte, NC) anymore. I went to three different pharmacies and they all told me the same thing: "We want to stock it, we keep ordering it, but none ever shows up." I went to Eckerd, CVS, and Wal-Mart.

One of the pharmacy assistants offered "I think they're trying to make it better for the environment or sumpin'", which is in line with an article posted on Fark several months back about the federal government requiring manufacturers of these inhalers to stop using CFC propellants by 2008.

After searching several online drug stores, CVS.com finally offered to sell me an inhaler, so I bought 2. The next day they canceled the order and, when I asked why, sent me a mystic e-mail that said they were unable to discuss the reasons for cancellation by e-mail. WTF?

Finally, yesterday, I found one of the SMALL bottles at a CVS about 10 miles away from my house. It was their only one, and the pharmacist told me they only get about 1 bottle/month.

Does anybody know what the hell is going on with this stuff? The manufacturer's website is silent.

Came to the computer, needing to print. Hit print button. No joy. Look at the display. No display. No flashy little lights on the console. All symptoms point to loss of power.

Can't be loss of power. Printer's had power non-stop for almost 2 years. It's even on the UPS.

Look around the room. Computer on. Lights on. House has power. But printer acts like it has no power.

But it can't be power loss. Printer's had power non-stop for almost 2 years.

Scratch head. Apply Occam's razor. Simplest answer is that printer has no power. Sigh. It's pointless and time wasting, but try anyway. Check power connector on back of printer. It's snug. Follow cable. Follow cable over bookcase. Follow cable under chair cushion. Finally get to wall.

Fuck. Printer not on UPS. Printer not plugged in. Wife unplugged printer to charge cell phone. Why cellphone charger needs uninterruptable power? Question for another day.

Sigh. "That's why we ask stupid troubleshooting questions."

Dammit.

Sorry for the lack of posts. The MBDU (that's Marital Bliss Dispenser Unit, for my non-geek friends) and I have been gearing up for baby!

But while I have your attention: Walter Williams has an excellent piece on Townhall today talking about idiotic ideas like "if it will save just one life, it's worth it." He wisely points out that people who do things to "save just one life" see only the benefit while ignoring the cost. Check it out here.

Okay, listen up restaurant owners, because I'm only going to say this one more time:

Stop using nasty ketchup!

There is only One True Ketchup^tm and that is Heinz. Hunt's is allowed if you can't find Heinz, but there are no other acceptable ketchup brands. At least not in the USA.

Now, those of you who care to look will find messages from me in alt.ketchup from the late 80's and early 90's extolling the virtues of mustard over ketchup. But I wrote those messages when I was still a teenager, and didn't understand that while off-brand mustard is palatable, generic ketchup is pure evil. Please forgive my youthful ignorance.

I just picked up a burger and fries from a local mom-and-pop burger joint. They gave me "House Recipe^(r) Tomato Ketchup^(u)". And it is fucking gross. ARGH!

Listen, people: I know that buying the right ketchup is a little bit more costly. But saving a few cents per burger is not worth alienating customers by feeding them toxic waste. STOP DOING IT AT ONCE.

Oh, and let me end by saying that there is a special circle of Hell reserved for you restauranteurs who refill Heinz bottles with generic ketchup-esque puke. Really, you people should just eat kittens and get it over with.

Update 2/10/07:

Today, my wife and I sat down to lunch and I put a brand new bottle of Heinz on the table. Cecilia is from Argentina and has only been in the USA for 3 years. She is not used to a lot of American brands. When she saw the Heinz, she said to me "I'm so glad you got that. I've decided that that brand is my favorite." I tell you, folks, I haven't been so proud since she and I watched Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking at the last Republican Convention and she told me that, if she was allowed to vote, she would vote Republican.

The folks over at Drivl have a very funny blog about what code doesn't do. As opposed to what movies tell us it does

Check it out.

Oh, and while we're dispelling code and coder stereotypes, I'll toss in my two cents: real programmers abhor animation of any kind. Yes, games are animated. And graphics designers and movie makers need to deal with animation. But we do not build our tools to contain needless, stupid animation. Mostly, we just want to get our work done and animation just slows us down. So when you see a movie guy click a button, or press a key, and a remarkably complex piece of animation plays to indicate that work is being done...yeah, that's bullshit.

I made duck last night.

It's not something I do often because it's kind of a pain in the butt to do it right.

I decided to do it the Alton Brown way. 100% by the book. No variations.

To sum up the procedure:

1. Remove wings and back from duck.
2. Cut duck into quarters.
3. Soak quarters in brine for 2.5 hours or so.
4. Steam quarters for 45 minutes.
5. Crisp skin in a "NASA Hot" cast-iron skillet in the oven.

A major plus for this technique (steam then sizzle) is that a huge amount of precious duck fat collected on top of the steaming water. I managed to collect about five ounces of fat by boiling off the rest of the water. I'm going to use it to fry up some potatoes later this week.

The meat on my duck was delicious. The skin that touched the hot skillet was delightfully crispy. But the rest of the skin was just plain soggy and nasty. I'm going to have to figure out how to fix that.

On the other hand, my friend Rich ate his part of the duck like he hadn't eaten in weeks. So maybe I'm being overly critical.

If I have one beef with the fine folks at CAO Cigars it's that they have too many different cigars to choose from.

Right now, my humidor contains the following CAO offerings: Italia, Brazilia, CAO Cameroon, CAO Maduro, Criollo, and, of course, the CAO MX2.

There are three more CAO cigars that I don't have: the CAO Gold, the eXtreme, and the CX2.

With a line as extensive as CAO has, it's sometimes hard to keep track of what you like and what you don't. Lots of folks rave about the Italia. I don't particularly care for it...or wait, was it the Brazilia I don't like? They both end with "lia" and they're both from CAO and they have very similar bands. It's very confusing.

But there's no confusion about the MX2. I have 20 of them. I just bought a box yesterday.

The MX2 (which stands for "Maduro times 2") delivers lots of full-bodied goodness. It has Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper, a Brazilian maduro binder, and lots of full-bodied fillers (from Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Peru).

This is my current favorite "second course" cigar. Some folks call it medium-bodied, but I think it's on the full side of medium-full. I really can't handle fuller-bodied cigars unless I have one after I've already had something milder. The MX2 is great for my second course because it can deliver good flavor to an already beleaguered palate.

The MX2 has lots of rich smoke. I really love that. When I take a deep draw, I want my mouth to be filled with smoke (delivering flavor all over my palate). MX2 delivers that. It is also supremely well constructed: tonight when I lit one, I did a bad job, but the cigar still burned evenly right until it was burning my fingers. The draw is exactly as I like it: not too easy, not too firm.

But even if it was poorly constructed, you'd have to love the MX2 just on flavor. It gives and gives and gives. It starts out very spicy and rough and smooths out about a third of the way in. It's hard not to smoke it too fast because it's just so wonderful.

Oh, one more thing: the MX2 looks beautiful in your humidor. The wrappers are super shiny and oily, and the band looks like it belongs on the set of Star Trek. I don't place a lot of stock in a cigar's prettiness, but the MX2 has that in addition to all its other great qualities.

So, bottom line:

Strength: Medium-Full
Taste: Excellent
Draw: Excellent
Price: $80 for a box of 20, $4.50 if bought individually.

Go out and try one. Have one of your regular sticks as an appetizer and have the MX2 for dessert. You won't be disappointed.

Mike from Barely Legal has a new blog called In It But Not Of It.

Today, he writes a post that only a man could write. It's about the death of a dear piece of consumer electronics.

I say it's a Post Only a Man Could Write because, really, women don't anthropomorphize things the way us men do. If a woman's favorite hairdryer breaks, she might be sad about it, but you'll never hear her say something like "Oh, Doris! <sob!> You were so good to me!"

But when my 1980 Honda Accord died, I said "Goodbye, Hubert!" and gave a little sniff when the tow truck hauled him away.