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Microsoft's Seinfeld campaign

On the shuttering of Microsoft's Gates-Seinfeld ad campaign: for my part, I actually liked the ads (one and two).

Well, okay--"liked" is a strong word, and it doesn't really describe how I felt about them. "Appreciated" might be more accurate, because it was a complicated feeling.

Or, maybe: they didn't feel like your typical Microsoft ads, which, at least, was something.

John Gruber sort of nails it in "There's Nothing There", when he writes:

But they "worked" only insofar as they said nothing and dropped the pretense of saying something. The spots said nothing and reveled in the nothingness.

And I suppose that, in the end, what the ads made me feel most was sad. Sad that Bill Gates, who, after all these years, and despite being (once again) the richest man in the world, apparently doesn't feel like he understands "regular people" or why they use his company's products; and sad that Microsoft who, despite their being (still!) so dominant, still feel like they're losing--and by what they seem to be measuring, they're right.

That just seems like the worst kind of torture.

Bucatini all'Amatriciana

One of the major benefits of having made a batch of basic tomato sauce a couple of weeks ago is that I can now make one of my favorite pasta recipes, bucatini all'Amatriciana, using Mario Batali's recipe.

I've been making this dish for a couple of years, after we ate it at local Italian restaurant and loved it. It's a simple dish, at heart, and it can withstand a lot of experimentation & tweaking: I've made it with bacon, as well as with pancetta; I've made it with a basic 28oz can of San Marzano tomatoes, as well as with the aforementioned basic tomato sauce; I've even made it, once or twice, with a pasta other than bucatini.

But I've never been as happy with the Bucatini all'Amatriciana as I was the other night, when I made it with lovely chunks of pancetta and the basic tomato sauce. It was simple, hearty, and delicious.

Not Boring

A gigantic tunnel boring machine, as featured in "The Long Dig" (abstract only, sorry) in last week's New Yorker:

Lil Wayne & New Orleans

David Ramsey's "I Will Forever Remain Faithful" (via Sasha Frere-Jones) is one of the best things I've read in a while, and does a better job than most critical pieces of explaining Lil Wayne's appeal & importance.

Every paragraph is quote-worthy, but I especially liked this:

An eighth grader wrote his Persuasive Essay on the topic "Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive." Main ideas for three body paragraphs: Wayne has the most tracks and most hits, best metaphors and similes, competition is fake.

Braised Chicken with Saffron Onions, Italian Couscous, and Dates

From the Lucques cookbook, dinner Saturday night, marinated for 24 hours or so: braised chicken with saffron onions, italian couscous, and a date relish. It was delicious, and our kitchen smelled incredible for hours afterward. The flavors all came together really well: tasted individually, the onions, date relish, and italian couscous (actually, fregola sarda) were just okay, but when they came together, they created a fantastic and fragrant dish.

I didn't take any photos, unfortunately. But Well Fed made this dish a couple of years ago and has some lovely photos.

Way out

David Foster Wallace is dead. That's truly, horribly sad.

One of my favorite quotes, from one of my favorite interviews ever, speaking about Infinite Jest:

And I don't think I really understood what loneliness was when I was a young man. And now I've got a much less clear idea of what the point of art is, but I think it's got something to do with loneliness and something to do with setting up a conversation between human beings. And I know that when I started this book I wanted-- I had very vague and not very ambitious...ambitions, and one was I wanted to do something really sad. I'd done comedy before, I wanted to do just something really sad and I wanted to do something about what was sad about America.

Lloyd: Lessons in Love

I'm loving Lloyd's Lessons in Love, even though there's something a little exhausting about it (in a reach-for-a-cigarette kind of way).

In addition to the always-fabulous "Girls Around the World" (best song of the spring/summer, I think), my current favorite is "Year of the Lover", which features this (slightly ridiculous) opener:

Don't make plans for dinner--
I'm a put you up on the stove and take off all of your clothes;
Girl, watch me cook.

And speaking of, um, mood music, I'm always reminded of one of my favorite Amazon reviews of all time, this one for MC Solaar's Prose Combat (a fantastic album in its own right):

Here is what I did: I took "Lover's Rock" and "Diamond Life" and "The Best of Sade" and "Seal" and a French Rap CD called "Prose Combat" by MC Solaar, put them all in my 5-CD changer and put it on automatic shuffle. I had this girl over for dinner who I met in a department store when I was downtown shopping. I got some oysters from the fish store, sliced 'em open on the half-shell, cracked open a bottle of Asti Spumante (that's Italian Champagne) and dimmed the lights. This whole scenario was straight out of this book I read called "9 Free Secrets of New Sensual Power" which is basically some kind of sex-memoir/instruction book for higher consciousness, that is DOPE! So she comes over and I light some candles, we start dancing to all that Sade music and that killer-sexy French rap (that the guy in the book also turned me onto,) and one thing just naturally led to another, just like it said he would ...

Hadrons

I had a tough time tonight trying to describe what makes the Large Hadron Collider (also known by its inevitable malapropism) so very, very neat.

There are the beautiful photos, of course, and for me, that's enough:

But also of potential interest:

• The top 10 ways the LHC will blow your mind
• Has the LHC destroyed the world yet? Spoiler: nope, not yet.

Thanks, Genius

Starting with Solange's "Sandcastle Disco", the new Genius inside my computer made a playlist for me that included Janelle Monae's "Violet Stars Happy Hunting!" (from Metropolis: The Chase Suite), reminding me how much bizarre fun that song is.

It's all androids and manic energy, and it's just what I needed.

And I think to myself
(Impossibly, they're gunning for me)
Wait, it's impossible
Now they're gunning for me (and the police are after you)
And now they're after you (For loving, too)

Ginger Syrup

Over the past couple of months, I've made a bunch of lovely drinks from The Art of the Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the Classics, written by bartenders from Absinthe Brasserie & Bar, including some that featured my beloved rye.

Yesterday, I made their recipe for ginger syrup: 2oz thinly-sliced ginger; 1 cup of sugar; 1.5 cups of water; and 1.5 tsp of whole black peppercorns. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 35-45 minutes, until the syrup is nice and strong and gingery. And then, use in your favorite cocktails that call for ginger syrup!