Any of you folks know more about decent brands of PC computers than I do? I haven’t done much shopping for the other side of the fence, so any input you PC-wise folks can provide would be welcome. Here’s what Dad had to ask:

Speeking of computers, I will be looking for a PC to
complement the Mac. Much of Meara’s work in webmaster
class and other classes are on a PC platform. Any
suggestions that combine the best in quality, features
and affordability?

Popcorn is the best snack in the world, and here are several axiomatic truths to help you enjoy it more:

1. Popcorn is intended to be popped in oil. Air popped and microwave popcorns are but a pale imitation of the true glory of oil-popped corn. If you’re into redundancy, corn oil works well, but I prefer olive oil. You know why movie theater popcorn tastes so good? It’s because they pop it in coconut oil, the most saturated, least healthy oil you can get that doesn’t come from a dead animal. (Exception to this rule: microwave caramel corn, which can be glorious, but is also pretty tough to find. Additionally, it’s not really wonderful because of the corn, but because of this gooey caramel stuff and the convolutions you have to go through to get it distributed across the popcorn evenly, building oddly shaped apparatus out of tinfoil that burn your fingers before dumping the piping-hot caramel-popcorn mixture all over your new carpet. But I digress.)
2. Popcorn is versatile. Though butter & salt, the old standby, works pretty well, one must experiment to make the most of this snack of all trades. Some of my favorite flavorings include Lowry’s brand seasoned salt (accept no substitutes!), Tony Chachere’s cajun seasoning, parmesan cheese, and chili powder & salt. There are also various powdered cheeses available at finer popcorn stores everywhere that are good if you like that sort of thing.. (Heaven knows I do.) And now that I think about it, experimenting with curry is probably worthwhile too. I’ll let you know.
3. Finally, the very best part about popcorn is after you eat most of the fully popped kernels and get down to the unpopped ones at the bottom, and find the rare barely-popped kernels that have just a bit of white peeking out of the husk. They only comprise about 2% of any batch, but they’re the best part of the whole experience, something akin to eating fish eyes for an eskimo, I suspect. Why doesn’t Frito-Lay make a barely-popped-corn snack? Would having them removed from the rest of the batch of popcorn somehow cheapen their specialness? A question for the ages, I guess, since nobody seems inclined to pick those kernels out for me. We can put a man on the moon, blah blah blah…

To summarize: popcorn. It’s yummy. Eat it.

I’ve got a few more eBay auctions going now, so go buy my stuff and help put my kids through elementary school. Items on the block are an Airport Base Station and a big chunk of my game library, which I’m a bit sad to see go. Sniff.

Warning: Incomprehensible Geekiness Ahead

I picked up a LinkSys Etherfast broadband router today so that I could have multiple computers share a DSL connection. (Necessary, since my ISP uses a loathesome PPPoE system.) I just got it installed, and am hugely impressed with it. Not only does it allow sharing of the connection as advertised, but its built-in PPPoE client software is evidently much better than the skanky Enternet client that my ISP provided, as my transfer speeds are markedly faster. (Up from about 75Kbs to 115Kbs!) Definitely a worthwhile addition to the studio.

EA.com, the guys who sign my paychecks, just announced that they’ve acquired pogo.com, which has a strong lineup of online games and a very active user base. Seems like a good fit with the directions the ea.com site is headed. Now if they’d just provide better support for the Macintosh, I’d be clam-happy. Oh, yeah, and release Majestic.

Yesterday’s good news: we secured refinancing on our house at 1.5% lower interest rate than we had been paying, which will save us a significent amount monthly on our house payments. Hooray for liquidity!

Yesterday’s bad news: it will take several months’ worth of savings on the house to replace my guitar, which suffered a fatal accident last night after church. Alas, poor Yamaha. I knew him, Horatio…

Continuing with today’s Egyptian theme, here’s an interesting excerpt of an email my good friend Jason Myre sent to me today after spending his Christmas holiday in Cairo:

I guess I’ll briefly share with you the
three cool things I learned about the ancient Egyptians. The first was
the fact that the hieroglyphics were painted in color. There’s quite a
few examples of paintings that are still intact.

The second, related
to the first, is that the paint they used was made with fruits,
veggies,
herbs, etc. To keep insects from eating the paint, they added toxins.
After thousands of years of being sealed in an air-tight vault, the
tombs were full of dust from the poisonous paint. So… The first few
people to enter the tomb die of poisoning. The mummy’s curse revealed.

Third thing, little thing, is that they commonly wore mustaches. (That
may not be news to some, but it was to me.) You can visibly see them
on
the better preserved statues and paintings.

Another of the books on tape I’ve borrowed from the library to while away the long commute, The Seventh Scroll is a servicable Egyptian tomb raiding story. Though neither the plot or characters are particularly remarkable, they manage to be a little bit more than cardboard stereotypes.

The story centers around the discovery of a set of scrolls, the seventh of which details the previously unknown location of one of Egypt’s richest pharaohs. As news of the discovery gets around, a race to find the tomb ensues among the scientists and scoundrels who find the prospect of a previously undiscovered treasure hoard intriguing.

Altogether, an ok read if you find yourself trapped in a stairwell with nothing to do, but not particularly worth seeking out unless you’ve exhausted your other options.

This past weekend, I spent 3 days in Muscatine, Iowa where Steve Johnson and I had the opportunity to play a concert for the church where Steve’s friend Paul Rekward serves as the Pastor of Christian Education. The trip was a good one, though exhausting enough that I’m glad to be home once more.

The flight up was fairly uneventful. The curse of the travel gods rested lightly on my shoulders, and the only unusual happenings were the fire trucks and police vans on the tarmac at O’Hare, and the abrupt abort of our landing due to the fact that, as the captian told us, “one of the lights that shouldn’t be on was on.” Hmmm. Oh, yes, and the baggage monkeys threw my guitar around enough to do in the battery terminals I’d recently resoldered, the dastards.

Upon our arrival, Paul and his wife Christie made us very welcome, treating us to chicken fried steak (in Iowa!). Paul and Steve and I then went down to the church to check what equipment was available and what we’d need to rent. After getting all of that squared away, we drove around Muscatine to see the sights, visit with some of the local storekeepers, and promote the concert a bit. One of the most distinctive aspects of that time owed to the grain processing plant that was upwind from town that caused my nose to wrinkle as my nostrils were repeatedly assailed by the distinctive odor of vegemite.

On Sunday morning, we joined in to help with the worship service, playing several tunes before it officially began, and joining forces with the choir and organist for Be Thou My Vision, the opening hymn. (Mental note: choir, guitar, pennywistle, and pipe organ is not necessarily the optimal ensemble for this particular hymn.) We then went down to Children’s Church, for which Paul was responsible, and played and sang with the great lot of kids they had there.

After a quick lunch, we came back and set up everything for the afternoon’s concert. Dan, a local music fan, had very generously offered to tape the concert and put together a video for us, which he would air in a few weeks at the public access cable station where he worked. We helped him get his gear set up and chatted with him about the local music scene for a while, in the process learning a lot about the area and its history.

Finally, the concert began. It was a little off-putting for us, being used to playing in coffee shops where there are lots of distractions, to have the undivided attention of a few hundred people, but Steve, as our dynamic front man, rose to the occassion admirably. It’s a funny thing, but I don’t get stage fright as long as I don’t have to be the person doing the talking. If I can sit quietly, play my instruments, and do some singing, I’m clam-happy.

The concert went well, though I was happier with the front half than with the second set. We got a lot of enthusiastic feedback from several of the church members, and sold a good number of Steve’s CD’s. After helping Dan tear down his gear, we adjourned to the Rekward’s place once more to enjoy another bit of Iowan culture: a Taco Pizza from Happy Joe’s. I’ve had other taco pizzas, but this one easily topped them all, with crumbled taco shells, lettuce, and little packets of taco sauce all included. Yummy. We then partied until the wee hours. (The previous was a code to salve my ego. Translation key: “partied” = “watched Godzilla 2000 on pay per view”; “the wee hours” = “9:15pm”.)

On Monday, we returned our borrowed gear and went poking around Muscatine some more. One of the interesting stops was the dam and lock, where barge traffic is raised and lowered to the different levels of the Mississippi river. There are evidently 29 of these dams and locks along the river’s length, creating a liquid stairway across the country. Since the areas near these dams are one of the few areas of the river that don’t freeze up during the winter, great droves of fish-eating bald eagles tend to congregate nearby during the winter. Though there were fewer than usual this year, we were still able to pick out a number of the majestic birds in the treetops along the way.

We finally made our way to the airport, where we discovered that United had cancelled our flight, and we’d be rerouted to a TWA flight with a layover in St. Louis. At last, we saw the welcome lights of Austin. After pulling our bags from the carousel, we met up with Steve’s mother-in-law Carmen, who had driven out to pick us up at 11:00pm. I made it home a bit after midnight, and after kissing my snoring children and sleepy wife, fell gratefully into bed.

Of all the books on tape I’ve listened to, Steve Alten’s Meg is easily among the worst. (See? It’s so bad that I’m not even linking to it, as I want to spare you the possibility of accidentally buying the thing.) The story gave the distinct impression that it was written after reading the Thrillers chapter of Writing for Dummies, with cardboard stereotype characters, a big scary prehistoric critter, a trite, predictable story arc, and a ridiculously unrealistic ending. Alas, the audiobook version compounded these sins with its sound track. Hmmm, where have we heard a two-note rising half-step motive in the low strings associated with a shark before? If plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery, then John Williams should be feeling pretty good about himself right now. (Though since Williams swiped it from Dvorak, I guess we should extend some grace here.)

Steve Alten, in spite of his evident desire to topple Michael Crichton from the top of the thrillers list, doesn’t even manage to register on his radar. Steer clear, my friends. There be dragons here.