Have it all? Now try finding a place for it

A Review Of Massively Multi-Player Online Games.

Where did these games come from? Why are they designed the way they're designed? What's the deal with the monthly fees? What's the next big step?

GameSpy talked with experts around the globe to get a complete picture of the past, present, and future of massively multiplayer gaming.

"Espresso! My Espresso!"

An Ongoing Internet Novelette Documenting one man's journey into and through the world of coffee.

So far 69 short chapters of a man's journey to coffee knowledge. Unfortunately coffee is now off limits for me.

The key to quality espresso is control of the variables:

Grind
Dose
Tamp
Water Temperature
Water Pressure
Time

Maps of the Internet

See why they call it the web.

Friends of Fandom for October/November

Clif and Margaret produce a newsletter for Houston and the world science fiction and fantasy fans.

For Heart Disease and High Blood Pressure

Aspirin and low-cost blood pressure medicines beat more expensive treatment. You might want to add diuretics as U.S. News and World Report writes in this week's The End of Heart Disease Issue. They think this is a breakthrough time for heart disease treatments.

My latest weight update.

My stroke-like event was November 4.

Since then my low carb diet I wasn't following well has been modified to add lots more fiber, less red meat, no sugar, no caffaine, and lots more low glc fruits. I mainly eat apples, prunes, plums, pears and grapefruit as my fruit. At least 4 slices of whole-wheat high-fiber bread a day or equivalent such as low-carb high-fiber tortillas and/or bran cereals.

I've lost 10 pounds but have leveled off this past week. I get wrapped up in things and forget I am supposed to be eating six small meals or snacks a day and no big meals. That will be difficult today.

Speaking of Hugo's - 2003 Winners

From an email conversation I am having online.

Novel: Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor)
- his best book
Novella: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- modern dark fantasy, creepy - he thought it was a children's book

Novelette: "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick (Analog 12/02)
- online: http://www.analogsf.com/Hugos/slowlife.shtml

Short Story: "Falling Onto Mars" by Geoffrey A. Landis (Analog 7-8/02)
- online http://www.analogsf.com/Hugos/Falling.shtml

Non-Fiction: Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary (Between the Lines)
- terrific review with photos and book covers here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?S31E527A6

Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
- Asimov's and Best SF of the year
-his current recommended reading list
http://www.sfwa.org/reading/rec_dozois.htm
"This list was devised to point younger readers toward older stuff that they might not have heard of, or long out-of-print writers whose work they might be unfamiliar with..."

Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton
- http://www.novaspace.com/ORIG/Egg/Boborig.html

Dramatic Presentation: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Short Dramatic Presentation Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Conversations With Dead People" (20th Century Fox Television/Mutant Enemy Inc.)
- could be more than you want to know
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jenoff/btvs707.htm

Semiprozine: Locus (Charles N. Brown, Jennfier Hall, and Kirsten Gong-Wong)
http://www.locusmag.com/
Fanzine: Mimosa (Richard & Nicki Lynch ed.)
http://jophan.org/mimosa/
Fan Writer: Dave Langford
http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Fan Artist: Sue Mason
http://scifiinc.net/scifiinc/gallery/bio/Mason,_Sue.htm
http://www.plokta.com/woodlore/
Campbell Award (best new writer): Wen Spencer
http://www.wenspencer.com/

Something has happened with my main blog. I am unable to post. I wonder if it will spread here?

Added: It appears to be back but no time to update on Thanksgiving.

Review of Joe Lansdale's movie - Bubba Ho-Tep - contains spoilers.

Intel's new process preserves Moore's Law

Intel, the world's biggest maker of computer chips, has achieved an average feature size of just 65 nanometres for its next generation chip. The memory cells produced are half the size of the most advanced manufacturing technology in use today.

If the chip is manufactured by 2005 as planned, it will ensure that the number of transistors engineers can cram into a given area will continue to double every two years.

Not All Underwater Gliders Classified

Years ago a novel came out that revolved around a manned high-tech underwater glider. I've forgotten the name. I suspected then it was like Clancy using the stealth bombers in a novel years before the Pentagon was ready to reveal them.

The fledgling technology, barely a decade old, has produced robotic submarine gliders that move slowly, with the nimbleness of a blimp. Now next-generation gliders are being developed to fly just as gracefully as their airborne counterparts, diving and climbing on broad wings that slice not air but water.

The gliders are as efficient as they are stealthy, which has drawn the interest and backing of the U.S. Navy. Potential military applications include mine detection, surveillance and patrol, Navy officials said.

"What they bring to the table is a persistence, a long-term deployment capability," said Thomas Swean, team leader for ocean engineering and marine systems at the Office of Naval Research.

The aerodynamic principles that guide ocean gliders are the same that apply to airborne gliders, except the underwater versions can climb every bit as effortlessly as they dive.

More mass media coverage on private space flight development - Newsweek: Pushing That Frontier.

Over 60% of Major Fast Food Places had a Critical Food Health Violation in Last 18 Months

‘Dateline’ hidden cameras investigate cleanliness of America’s top 10 fast food chains

Taco Bell and McDonalds were the cleanest.

Burger King, Arby's and Wendy's were the least clean and safe places to eat.

The 100 Burger Kings we sampled rang up a whopping 241 total critical violations. Health inspectors cited a Virginia Burger King for 14 separate critical violations: employees not washing their hands, uncovered food in the fridge, grime and debris found on this ice chute, and on the drink machine at the drive-thru widow.

This was a national 'Slime in the Ice Machine' survey that covered about 1 out of 75 major fast food chain restaurant locations.

I have a Yahoo Public Calendar but I don't make most things public.

I am not pleased with the Yahoo Calendar. There is no UNDO, needed because many important settings for events are in a long form that scrolls off the scene. Poor design. For example, you need to check both a 'one time' box and the very seperate 'not a repeating' event box when creating or editing an event in order not to mess up your whole calendar. There is also not a broad enough range of display formats.

I had created this public version to experiment with having one Houston Area SF events listing. That is why all my events aren't published here - this is a temporary Houston SF Book event calendar.

Wired 11.12: The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick

How and Why PKD is conquering Hollywood.

Paycheck, opening Chrismas Day is based on a 1953 short story Dick sold to a pulp magazine for less than $200, will bring close to $2 million to his estate.

Interesting quotes: In response to a 1969 questionnaire, Dick described SF's greatest weakness as "its inability to explore the subtle, intricate relationships that exist between the sexes," adding that as a result it "remains pre-adult, and therefore appeals - more or less - to pre-adults."

In a 1978 essay he wrote: "We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."

The Art of the Bonzai Potato

Zen Without the Wait!

New York Times Article on HSX - Hollywood Stock Exchange

I used to play this a great deal - I think it is a year since I have checked my money. Hey, It's H$158,384,873.21.

Studios, along with academics, are interested in it as a way to predict which movies will succeed. Traders are working to turn the concept into an actual financial market, like those for futures in corn, oil and other commodities. It has also served as the model for a television show merging trading and music.

All this interest revolves around a fantasy game that allows online players to trade "securities" whose prices forecast the first four weeks of box office revenue for new and yet-to-be-released films. Late last week, traders could "buy" stock in "The Cat in the Hat" (released on Friday), at $130 a share, meaning that the market expected four-week box office receipts of $130 million. Or they could buy "Spider-Man 2," due for release next May, at $235 a share, or even "Spider-Man 3," which has not yet been made and won't be released for years, at $87.

The exchange's appeal lies in the premise that the collective wisdom of large numbers of traders can most efficiently determine the value of properties that would otherwise be hard to assess.

Earlier Mass Extinction also caused by meteorite

Deep in the layers of the Earth, ancient rock shows signs of a planet, 250 million years ago, teeming with plants, fish, reptiles and proto-mammals . Then, evidence of life around the globe all but vanishes.

IN A MERE 100,000 years, a blink of the eye in geological terms, 90 percent of the earth’s life disappeared. Now, an analysis of meteorite fragments described in this week’s Science magazine helps confirm one scenario—that space rock crashed into the earth at the end of the Permian period, devastating the environment in a catastrophe much like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 185 million years later.

The Cat in the Hat Movie Review

I will not watch it on TV,
I will not watch on DVD.
I will not watch on VHS,
I will not watch on CBS.

I will not watch it in a car,
I will not watch it in a bar.
I will not watch it with my dad,
I will not watch it when I'm sad.

I will not watch it in my bed,
I will not watch with my friend Fred.
I will not watch it on a box,
I will not watch it shown on FOX.

I will not watch it on a table,
I will not watch when it's on cable.
I will not watch it in a chair,
I will not watch it anywhere.

I wish I had not paid eight bucks,
This movie really really sucks.

The original source for this is Mark Krosky, first published on the
rec.humor.funny newsgroup and website.

Berkeley Breathed - The penguin is mightier than the sword

After being surprised to see him and his cartoons in the terrific family movie Second Hand Lions - I see Bloom County will return to newspapers. Sunday only, half-page.

The Salon interview.

> Last we heard from you, via the Onion interview a few years back,
> the odds of you ever doing a strip again seemed pretty slim
> (to put it mildly). What changed?

The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again.

> What are the advantages of a Sunday-only strip?

In my case, having a life. Ever see a seven-day-a-week cartoonist?

This is from his interview in The Onion from 2001.

O: Is the liberal stance of the early strips indicative of your own personal politics?

BB: Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.

Brent seemed to be talking about this last night at the Inner Loop Book Club Meeting.

Dial an Orgasm - attachments to turn your cell phones into sex toys.

Stopped by Kinko's and saw my brother after the meeting at La Madelaine. Didn't feel well and just got word my finances are totally screwed up. Looks like I'll have to sell my car.

Another Tie - Kasparov vs machine chess series ends

World number one chess player Gary Kasparov's latest attempt to conquer a computer program has ended in a tie.

He drew the fourth and final game of his match against X3D Fritz, which had voice-recognition and virtual reality features.

Kasparov, 40, said after the week-long match at the New York Athletic Club that computer programs were stronger now than the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue he took on in 1996 and 1997, the benchmark for man vs machine contests.

"Machines are getting better but we humans are also learning," said Kasparov, considered by chess experts to be the best player in the history of the ancient game.

"Today, I know much more about computers than six years ago."

The grandmaster and the computer's programmers agreed to a draw in the fourth game after about 90 minutes and just 27 moves, the shortest game of the series that began with a November 11 draw.

X3D Fritz won the second game when Kasparov blundered. The grandmaster won comfortably on Sunday.

In February in New York, Kasparov tied a six-game match 3-3 with Israeli-built world chess computer champion Deep Junior.

A version of German-built Fritz tied an eight-game match 4-4 last year with world champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.

Azerbaijan-born Kasparov lost his world title to Kramnik in 2000 but is still rated number one in International Chess Federation rankings.

X3D Fritz is a combination of Fritz software that is sold commercially and the New York-based X3D Technologies company's virtual reality software.

STATE OF THE ART -- More Megapixels for the Money

To find out just how far we've come in 24 months, I challenged Canon, Casio, Fuji, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, Kyocera, Minolta, Olympus, Pentax, Samsung and Sony to name their best 2003 cameras with street prices under $300, and then compared the choices.

Looking over their specs, you'd conclude that their makers all worked off photocopies of the same feature list. Except as noted, every model has 3.2-megapixel resolution (enough for spectacular 8-by-10 prints), a 3X zoom lens and a 1.5-inch color screen on the back, a selection of shooting modes (sports, nighttime and so on), a self-timer, a flash, a TV connection, rudimentary digital movies with sound and even a microphone for adding voice annotations to photos. And they're all silver.

Most models now take AA batteries instead of expensive, proprietary bricks that, when spent, end your shooting for the day. Not that you'd ordinarily use alkaline AA's, which die in a digicam faster than you can say "Neveready." No, you should use AA nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) rechargeables, which last much longer. But you'll rest (or shoot) easy, knowing that in an emergency a set of drugstore alkalines will buy you another 15 minutes.

There's a terrific camera in here somewhere for just about every sort of shutterbug, including the technophobe (the Kodak), the style maven (the Minolta), the outdoorsy types (Pentax), the quality diva (Canon) and the bargain hunter (Casio and Samsung).

US breadmakers hold crisis talks over impact of Atkins diet

Consumption of bread plummeted in America in the past year with an estimated 40 per cent of Americans eating less than in 2002. The US bread industry is to hold a crisis "bread summit" tomorrow to discuss measures to curb falling sales.

Patrick Davis of the National Bread Leadership Council, which organised the summit, said that it was unclear whether the fall in bread sales was a temporary blip or indicative of a more permanent change in eating habits. The average American eats 54lbs of bread a year, barely a third of the quantity consumed by the French and Italians.

My new diet requires lots of fiber - four slices of whole wheat/bran bread a day, lots of fruit and vegetables, legumes. Carb count the Atkins way - subtract fiber and also consider the GLC index.

Family Guy may return

In a sign of the growing importance of DVD sales to Hollywood, 20th Century Fox is considering a plan to resume production of Family Guy, a sometimes crude animated comedy that the Fox network took off the air more than 18 months ago.

As many as 35 new episodes could return in January 2005, marking the first time that a canceled series has been revived based on strong DVD demand and ratings in syndication.

I was surprised at the bitter, cynical, subversive comedy and gradually became a fan after the Cartoon Network picked it up for its adult programming.

Family Guy premiered with a big audience — 22 million viewers — and some controversy after Fox's 1999 Super Bowl telecast. In the pilot episode, Stewie, a talking toddler with a clipped British accent, was openly contemptuous of his loutish dad and bent on killing his sweet-natured mother in a quest for world domination.

Current Reviews

DVD The Two Towers- Extended reviewed in Salon "Crime-fighting Ents, the Iggy Pop-Gollum connection, Aragorn's love for a transvestite, and other delights lurk within this ragged, messy extended-edition DVD."

Four Alien Movies on Nine Discs in NYT -- Played end to end, the package runs more than 62 hours.

On the Far Side of Credibility -- Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World is massively historically inaccurate but looks good and wet.

My reviews Sir Apropos on Nothing and The Wold To Wuin. A massive fantasy with more on the way. Peter David, mainly known for his Star Trek novels, creates a cynical anti-hero anti-fantasy fantasy series. Peter tells a good story but the anti-hero main character and length drag the first book down. Surprisingly, he has a very good ending that makes up for a lot in my view. Then he tops it off with a 5 star 20 page epilogue that is a bawdy sendoff of the Lord of the Rings.

Eagerly launching into the sequel The Wold to Wuin you will be disappointed to learn there are only about five additional pages of what happens when Sir Apropos accidentally kills a misshapen dwarf with very large and hairy feet. While searching for any valuables he discovers a large ring magically engraved with "One thing to rule them all" on the inside. Too large to fit on his finger, a detail I noticed from the movie, he soon discovers it is a magical cock ring. The bawdy quest to destroy the ring quickly follows. While this episode is over quickly and is almost a throwaway parody the consequences of being possessed by the ring continue for all of this book and likely the others to follow. What I would call part two combines ownership of a tavern and a long chase leading to him being near death in a desert. Part three resumes with him missing months of memory. He is now an all-powerful barbarian warlord with a magical jewel embedded in his chest and many pages detail his struggle to understand what he has become. The ending did not seem as affective as the first book. The last paragraph is particularly bad and reflects the lack of the depth of David's world.

I am not a big fantasy reader and I judge this series not worth me continuing. Other people may like it better. The character is a typical cynical anti-hero often moving the plot along by losing his temper. The books do score some witty and true remarks about fantasies, but the background lacks depth.

Who might like this series - Peter David fans from Star Trek novels who like fantasies but are cynical about them. Read the first book which includes the parody and you have the best. Ratings SAofN - 3 1/2 stars, TWtW - 2 stars.

How to Prevent Your Blog From Being too Public

The Onion -- In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.

"Apparently, Mom typed [Widmar's employer] Dean Healthcare into Google along with my name and, lo and behold, PlanetKevin popped up," Widmar said. "I'm so f*cked."

In an e-mail sent to Widmar Monday, Lillian reported in large purple letters that she was "VERY EXCITED :)!!!" to find his "computer diary," but was perplexed that he hadn't mentioned it to her.

Upon receipt of the e-mail, Widmar mentally raced through the contents of his blog. He immediately thought of several dozen posts in which he mentioned drinking, drug use, casual sex, and other behavior likely to alarm his mother.

Have No Fear - Blogger Offers Advice to the Panic Stricken

Use a Pseudonym
Go Multi-Lingual
Change Your Blog Address, Keep Your Readers
Search and Destroy Modify
You know how faces are sometimes blurred on news programs to protect peoples' privacy? You can go that same route with your blog by searching for potentially incriminating keywords and editing for a softer, more Mom-friendly vocabulary. For example: "I got really drunk last night" becomes, "I got really marshmallow last night." It may not make sense, but it does give you plausible deniability, which could help. Every little bit counts.
include a disclaimer on your blog
"Nothing in here is true"
Remove your blog from Search Engines

Of course, my advice is to grow up.

While I worry about my diet and prescribed high blood pressure drugs Science marches on:

Scientists create artificial virus that reproduces

Creating living humans "probably won't happen in this decade."

‘Liquid Drano’ for the arteries

Intravenous doses of a synthetic component of “good” cholesterol reduced artery disease in just six weeks in a small study with startlingly big implications for treating the nation’s No. 1 killer.

The treatment used a laboratory-produced version of an unusually effective form of HDL, the good cholesterol that helps protect against heart disease by removing plaque, or fatty buildups, from the bloodstream.

“This is clearly on the level of a breakthrough that will have far-reaching implications,” pointing the way toward a rapid treatment for fatty buildups, said Dr. Bryan Brewer, chief of molecular diseases at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

The surprisingly quick results, though preliminary, shatter a long-standing belief that heart disease is a slow-progressing disease that takes a long time to undo, said Rader, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

A pint of Guiness also works.

A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.

Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from Wisconsin University told a conference in the US.

In England, post-operative patients used to be given Guinness, as were blood donors, because of its high iron content. This practice continues in Ireland.

Of course, the Mediterranean Diet Fights Heart Disease.

A Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil and low in red meat can combat inflammation that silently simmers away for years inside blood vessels, lowering the risk of a heart attack, a new study suggests.

Many people have questioned whether previous benefits attributed to the Mediterranean diet were actually due to other lifestyle factors -- such as increased exercise -- in people following this diet. But the study clearly shows that this heart-healthy effect was independent of any other lifestyle factors, including exercise, says Demosthenes Panagiotakos, PhD, lecturer in the department of nutrition and dietetics at Harokopian University of Athens in Greece.

"The Mediterranean diet, independent of any other factor, reduces levels of inflammation related to heart disease risk," he tells WebMD.

According to Lichtenstein, the heart-healthy benefits most likely came from the Mediterranean diet as a whole, not from specific components.

In addition to having olive oil with most meals, the typical Mediterranean diet is very high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and cereals; moderate in fish intake; and has lower amounts of meat and dairy than the typical American diet. Drinking alcohol is also a frequently practiced dining ritual.

"God knows what sorts of interactions take place within the foods, and we need further research to pinpoint them exactly," Trichopoulos tells WebMD.

"But typically, people in Greece eat twice as many vegetables as Americans -- nearly a pound a day. And you really can't eat a pound of vegetables a day unless you have olive oil to make them appetizing. My advice is to try to double the amount of vegetables and fruits you currently have, and eat more fish, legumes, and non-refined cereals."

Mi Pueblito Restaurant

Details: Changua: $3.50 warm milk, poached eggs and white bread soup with a slice of queso fresco

Bandeja paisa: $6.45 mixed grill well-done steak, chewy chicharrones, coarse chorizo, a perfect fried egg, sweet and gooey fried plantains, an avocado slice and a cold hockey puck -- okay, an arepa

Churrasco: $10.95 exceptional, inch thick and very tender with parsley pesto

Picada para dos: $8 sampler plate for two with chicharrones, well-done steak, gristly chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), candy-sweet fried plantains, starchy fried yucca and delightful little round Colombian yellow potatoes. The morcilla looked and tasted like black boudin.

Trout a la plancha: $10.50 Typical S.A. too done - add limes and salsa from table.

Where: 9425 Richmond, 713-334-4594. Hours: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Checkmate: Kasparov loses second game of virtual chess series

After a three-hour battle against a computer, international chess master Garry Kasparov made a mistake late in the game and his challenger "pounced."

X3D Fritz, a 12-year-old German program, defeated its IBM rival Deep Blue in 1995. Kasparov was world champion between 1985 and 2000; he beat Deep Blue in 1996, but an upgrade defeated him the following year.

The next match will be Sunday, and Game 4 on Nov. 18. Live on ESPN2.

Great Robb Walsh article on the Pleasure in Eating Crabs in Houston

The difference between an oyster bar and a crab shack has more to do with the attitude than the menu items. Both Captain Tom's and Blue Water serve raw oysters, fried shrimp, stuffed crabs and other seafoods. But nobody lingers too long at an oyster bar like Captain Tom's, and that's why they don't serve boiled crabs here. With all those people waiting in line, you wouldn't enjoy them anyway.

Blue Water Seafood is a crab shack. The staff expects you to come and hang out for a while. Crab shacks are disappearing because they don't turn over the tables fast enough, one crab shack owner told me. According to restaurant industry analysts, the average table turns over in 50 minutes at dinnertime. At a crab shack, the average stay exceeds two hours.

Eating blue crabs is part of an older, more relaxed Gulf Coast culture that's slowly slipping away. "It's too much work," people say. "It takes too long." When it comes to food, we have become a nation of efficiency experts. We know how long it takes to nuke a frozen dinner, and for many, anything that takes much longer is just a waste of time. In other cultures, spending several hours at the table is a normal way of socializing. But for the puritanically efficient eaters we Americans have become, sitting over a meal for hours on end seems sinfully unproductive. And as for conversation, well, if you have something to say, then just say it. We haven't got all day.

To shell and eat a crab, a certain knowledge of its anatomy is required, but after a little practice, it's as easy as eating grapefruit. As we were finishing up, the Simpsons special ended, and something else came on -- so I can say with some accuracy that it took us an hour and a half to eat our half-dozen crabs. Not bad at all, and no major injuries either. Sure, Julia's fingers were all pruney, as if she had just spent time in the bathtub. And I was bleeding slightly from my left thumb where I'd stuck myself with a sharp body part. But we won the war -- I can guarantee that not one skinny little crab leg went into the bucket unsucked.

Eating crabs can't be understood in terms of an effort-to-reward ratio. It's silly to undertake the task with the idea of getting as much out of it as quickly as possible. Rather, it's a culinary pastime, like eating nuts as you crack them with a nutcracker. The point is to take your time and appreciate the slow process of eating as its own form of entertainment.

Pat Van Houte used to go crabbing when she first moved to Clear Lake. She finally decided catching and cooking and eating them was too much like work.

One of my favorites is Stingaree Restaurant and Bar (1295 Stingaree Road, 409-684-2731), a barbecued crab shack on Bolivar Peninsula that looks out over a magnificent view of Galveston Bay (see "Blue Crab Standard Time," September 6, 2001). The idea is to show up and order the all-you-can-eat crab special about an hour and a half before sunset. Then you can crack crabs in the lovely fading light and watch the sun slip into the water. If you're hungry, you may still be cracking crabs when the stars come out.

Blue Water Seafood
Details: Raw oysters (dozen): $5.99
Roasted oysters (dozen): $7.99 (Wow!)
Boiled blue crabs (half-dozen): $10
Boiled dinner: $18.99 (Good, except for soggy corn on the cob)
Fisherman's platter: $15.99 (So-So because of mushy "redsnapper")
Where: 6107 FM 1960, 281-895-9222. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

New State-of-the Art Home Must Have

The Pioneer TiVo-DVD Recorders

The TiVo part means that you can freeze, rewind or instantly replay whatever you're watching; record a show (or, rather, a lot of shows) on its built-in hard drive for instant playback at any time; and skip over ads. Above all, a digital video recorder, or DVR, like TiVo permanently disconnects the broadcast time from the viewing time. By the time TiVo zealots - which is pretty much everyone who has ever bought one - blip over the ads, credits, recaps and promos, they can watch a one-hour show in about 35 minutes. No wonder they never, ever watch whatever junk happens to be on at the moment.

These Pioneers are also first-class DVD (and CD) players, made all the more likable because you control a disc's playback with the same buttons on the remote that you use for TiVo playback. If your TV has so-called component-video inputs (inexplicably labeled Y, Pb and Pr) the DVD player rewards you with progressive-scan output. (Translation: very high video quality found in fancier DVD players.)

But the real magic happens when you highlight a recorded show in the TiVo's Now Playing list and press the Copy to DVD button. A graph of the blank DVD fills up as you select more shows to record onto it. (If a movie is too long to fit on one DVD, the TiVo will even split it onto multiple discs for you.)

Another button press begins creating your very own homemade DVD. That may sound like a serious technical business, but on this machine, it's every bit as casual and effortless as using a VCR. The result is a disc that plays on any standard DVD player of recent vintage.

If this method of burning a DVD sounds simple and obvious, you've clearly never tried one of the other set-top DVD burners. For example, the TiVo already knows each show's name, so you don't have to type in the title of each show you're copying - a grueling exercise on other DVD recorders, given the absence of alphabet keys. This is the only DVD burner that approaches the simplicity of a VCR, and the only one you'd ever wish upon, say, your parents.

And now, an important digression into video-recording quality. Like any video recorder, the TiVo offers a choice of recording speeds. At Extreme quality, which looks spectacular, the "80 hour" Pioneer holds only 14 hours of shows. It holds 80 hours only in the lowest-quality mode, Basic, also known as "yucky."

Now, hard-drive capacity isn't nearly as important on this TiVo as it is on a regular TiVo, because you can always offload your recordings onto DVD's when the hard drive begins to fill up.

Even so, the different recording modes become important when you begin copying shows from the Pioneer's hard drive to a DVD, because the quality setting determines how much video will fit on a disc. At Extreme quality, each disc holds only an hour; at High, two hours; Medium, four hours; and Basic quality, six hours.

Using blank DVD's labeled 2x or 4x, it takes about an hour to burn a DVD. DVD-RW (erasable) discs take longer, and so do the older, 1x blank discs. (In any case, you can continue watching TV and using the TiVo while the burning takes place.)

The Pioneers can record onto both DVD-R discs (about $50 for a 25-pack) and DVD-RW discs, which you can erase and use again. That feature makes it easy and practical to dump some shows onto DVD for, say, a car trip with the kids, and then use the same disc later for a couple of "West Wing" episodes for your plane flight.

A delicious new TiVo option lets you record old VHS tapes and camcorder movies directly onto the hard drive, and burn them from there onto DVD's. In the process, you give your video a new lease on life with a much longer life expectancy. Trouble is, you have to hook up your camcorder by using analog connectors.

Finally - are you lying down? - there's the matter of the price. Pioneer's suggested price for the 80-hour DVR-801H is $1,200 - and for its 120-hour Elite DVR-57H, a staggering $1,800. Has Pioneer gone stark, raving mad?

You can find much better prices online - $725 and $1,400, respectively. But that's still a lot.

And that's not even the whole price story.

To attain your Pioneer's fullest potential, then, you're talking about $725 for the 80-hour box, plus $300 for TiVo Plus. This holiday season, the rafters will echo with the voices of livid spouses: "You want to spend $1,025 on a VCR!?"

One possible counter-argument: "Yeah, but we'd pay pretty much the same amount if we bought the components separately" ($300 for an 80-hour stand-alone TiVo, $300 for the lifetime service, $450 for a DVD recorder). Don't forget that business about saving space, clutter, cables, and remote controls, either.

The bottom line is that the Pioneer TiVo is far better designed and easier to use than any other DVD recorder. The question isn't whether or not people should buy it; the only question is whether or not they can.

My Cholesterol Drug Is In The News

My doctor immediately put me on Lipitor to prevent any more 'stroke-like events'.

The latest study compared two popular statin pills, Lipitor and Pravachol. It found that Lipitor did a considerably better job of both lowering cholesterol and controlling the insidious buildup inside the arteries when given to people with serious heart disease.

Exactly why, though, is unclear. Researchers wondered if some other property of Lipitor, such as its stronger effect on inflammation, accounted for its more potent effects.

Medical experts said national guidelines were unlikely to be changed until additional studies found that more aggressive cholesterol lowering resulted in a reduced risk of heart attacks and death.

My Emergency Heart and Blood Pressure Diet.

This is related to the DASH diet and a diet mentioned in one of my Carbo-Addicts books. So far I am losing a pound a day on it. It is supposed to be lowering my blood pressure and preventing heart attacks and strokes.

Link is to my liberal politics and religion blog.

Today I took it easy and went to Crenshaw Park and looked at the ducks, turtles, and people and then took an early dinner at the Noodle House with Pat. I had 1 1/2 spring rolls with mint, vermicelli, shrimp and chicken in rice wrappers with peanut sauce and carrots. (My brother doesn't like spring rolls, he says they taste like condoms.) I also had 2/3rds of a large bowl of Beef Pho soup. Vermicelli is permitted on my diet as well as all the lean meat and fresh greens I add. I guess the traditional eraser meatballs count as lean meat as well.

I also watched Pat's neighbors - two kittens. She is down to two gray cats - one long-hair and one short but a neighborhood cat has had kittens.

I thought I was supposed to go complete my county paperwork but I misheard the day as Tuesday. Wrong - I get to start again tomorrow.

I didn't feel like going to a con meeting. They are discussing a convention for next summer. Either the pills or lack of exercise was making me tired after walking a mile around the lake at Crenshaw Park - about one mile, I took a shortcut.

I think Pat went to get a Perm tonight, first time in three years. She says she is getting ready for job interviews as well as speaking to city council about the Strawberry Road extension. She went to Towne Square mall talking with department store managers this morning to persuade them to contact city hall. The extension will divert traffic away from the Mall - contrary to stated goals of the transportation plan. The 2nd Century Committee have also taken Pasadena Blvd. improvements off the plan which would have helped the mall.

My Adventures in Health Care Begin.

The above link is part two of the previous story. Part two is on my much more popular politics and religion blog.

Part one of my adventures since Saturday are below...

I Have A Good Excuse


There has been a reason for the lack of posts the last several days. Bear with me for the story.


The Party and The Cold

On Saturday we had a meeting of the Clear Lake Book Group. A little lighter in attendance than usual but not unusually so. It was at Leisa and Angie's house and it was also supposed to be a surprise party for Angie. Originally it was also going to be a costume party and possible sleepover but that got cancelled, or more accurately never planned because of Leisa's busy life. Pat and I came in one car and we had optional costumes in the car, her Red Cross Vest and my Roman Toga. Only Angie was in a witch costume but not wearing the hat.


I almost messed up this surprise party, too. I have a habit of doing that. On my Houston SF event calendar I am playing with I had that meeting LISTED AS SATURDAY PARTY. At first all Saturday meetings were listed as Party because of another mistake. At least it didn't say Surprise Party and Angie had limited Internet access that week.


The party was very good. Angie received gifts from myself, Cherie, and Brent. I gave her two Tanith Lee books, and the Robinson's Star Dance set, all used. Cherie gave her a nice home library set, and Brent gave her a Whelan art book. It turns out the cover of the Whelan art book was an alternate cover of one of the Tanith Lee books I gave her.


I had planned to go to the other Saturday Party held for the Houston Inner Loop SF&F people because I knew that would go on till quite early but the party in La Porte got out late and I was tired.


The next day, Sunday, I had a cold. Headache, slight fever, tiredness, dry cough, slight sinus drainage. I immediately went on aspirin, liquids, vitamins, anti-histamine and lots of rest. I was doing OK, for having a cold, except for the headache, which was doing worse. Sunday night I awoke several times because of the weird headaches which seemed to be getting still worse. The headaches were annoying ice pick sized pains for just a second or two.


Monday morning I decided I needed the next remedy is to gargle with salt water, both throat and nose, but couldn't because I have no regular salt in my house because of my high blood pressure. Instead I would just add the zinc lozenges I skipped yesterday. I also decided that I would switch to Tylenol instead of aspirin and cancel the anti-histamine; both can make sinus conditions worse.


Monday I just felt crappy but also gradually getting better except for those blasted headaches that are usually like quick jabs with an ice pick. Monday night I just have some salad, chicken sandwich meat and yogurt for dinner. Monday night I couldn't sleep because of the headaches.


Slowly moving Tuesday morning I am debating the small Doctor's Clinic down the street because I don't have an illegal source of the good dope for pain. I think I need a trip to Mexico.

Adventures in the Shower


Well, wouldn't the humidity in a nice long hot shower be great for the cold or virus? After a long hot shower, shaving and two shampoos, I was trying to decide if plain warm water up my nose would be good or bad for me when my body rudely interrupted my thoughts. My right side was no longer supporting me. My left side had a problem trying to keep me propped up without help. I don't know if it also got weak or just had problems with the load.


The next minutes are a bit confused. I remember thinking I should carry on with my normal routine. The next thing I would on a normal day is weigh myself on my digital scale that is beside the tub on the left, the right is the shower wall. The scale requires you to apply weight, remove it, and then step on it again. I could kinda move my right arm and leg over the tub rim and onto the scale but couldn't apply pressure to activate the scale. I could do it with my right arm or leg but I realized I would have to come up with a plan to get me on the scale. Fortunately, now I was getting strength back on my right side. I believe I just stood up, tapped the scale, and weighed myself. Yippee, down 2 pounds since yesterday! Too bad it is the average that is important. And then went to my PC and recorded the weight.


This seems like it took ten minutes from the collapse to walking again but was probably less.

The Blessings of Soup


Since I was going out to go to the doctor, I logged online to prevent mailbox overflows as I couldn't remember when I had last been on and I also checked to see if a check had cleared as I needed to pay the rent. After dressing and finding my Mother's cane I walked out and picked up the mail, got in my car, paid the rent, I had the date wrong - it could have waited, went to the Clinic down the street and found he was out to lunch.


I drove down Southmore, lots of doctors around here, but decided part of my overall weakness problem might be low blood sugar. We have a terrible Chinese place on Southmore but they have the advantage of very low prices and OK-to-good soups. One large Egg Drop Soup (huge - maybe four cups) and a large Ice Tea later, I haven't had a head pain in an hour and I feel like a new man.


I also remember since I am unemployed and have been for quite a while maybe I should check out the County Clinic for a lower cost alternative. After walking around a bit at the wrong location, I want the exercise, the County Clinic says to come in at 7:30 tomorrow to apply for a gold card. I go back to the first Clinic that was empty at lunch time. It is now packed. I feel good so I go home and take two aspirin, vitamin C, etc. and fall asleep. No more bad pains. I had chicken and stars soup for dinner, diet C fortified soda, and a lite yogurt.


That night I had a few short headaches but I am not sure if these are sinus-related or not. They are not the ice pick head pains I had at first. They are broader and milder and are no longer only on the right side of the head.


What's the diagnosis? This is a chance for the audience to play doctor.


To be continued, adventures in Health Care begin.

I will say I had been under a lot of stress lately and have shut down my Dean and Democratic activities for the last couple of months for that and to devote more time to job searching. I should shut down watching news and opinion shows because I get mad at hearing at least FOUR lies an hour, I measured one day, from the conservative speakers. OK, it might be a bit high because it included a religious anti-porn crusader who perhaps doesn't know the difference between good and bad scientific studies.

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Alien -- The horror, the horror

Unlike its increasingly baroque series of sequels, Ridley Scott's original 1979 "Alien" is a film about human loneliness amid the emptiness and amorality of creation.

Watching these scenes on the big screen, for the first time since cutting high school in May 1979 with a few friends to see the film on the Friday it opened, I recognize how few horror movies I've seen before or since that ever manage to capture such a tangible feeling of menace. "Alien" was only Scott's second feature and it remains his best, even compared to "Blade Runner" (which is a more important film, in the sense that it affected not only the future of movies but the future of urban design).

Strikingly, knowing what's going to happen -- and one can only assume that the audience for "Alien: The Director's Cut" mostly won't be virgins -- does little to dampen the experience. If anything, this digitally cleaned-up and remastered version, with a rejiggered six-track stereo soundtrack (and one grotesque, never-before-seen scene in the Alien's "nest"), makes you appreciate the delicacy of the film's symbolism, the masterly composition of shot after shot, and Jerry Goldsmith's subtly unsettling but never ham-handed score.

When I first saw "Alien" I could see no connection between it and Joseph Conrad's great novel "Nostromo," a philosophical adventure yarn about a corrupted Latin American revolution -- the naming of the ship just seemed like a little literary in-joke. (Nostromo is the name of a revolutionary leader in the novel, not of a vessel.) But nearly a quarter-century later, "Alien" has acquired a classic quality of its own, and seems to offer some of the uncategorizable fatalism and pessimism of the book, even if it's an entirely different kind of story.

I think that accounts for the dread we still feel at the end of "Alien," when Weaver, memorably clad in that bikini underwear, locks herself (and her irresistible cat, Jonesy) back into that plastic egg for the long ride home. She has survived, but toward what end? And the world she is returning to is the one that betrayed her in the first place.

EL Digest of Salon's review. I still think that Aliens 2 is a better film as well as a more crowd pleasing film. But then I like action better than horror. Except for this film I really don't like horror and this had to have a great sequel to grow on me.