I hope everyone likes them…because they are staying! (Read, pricey.)

I apologize that there aren’t any pictures, but, well, FOOOOOOD. However, I hope to below list the order of food with my impressions of it. The “names” of the dishes are what I can either glean from the menu or remember from my head. There is also a chance I’ve missed a dish, but I think I got them all. Now, the food:

1. Three BBQ Meats/Marinated Delight/Platter: A platter of mystery meats. Our guesses were roast pork, roast chicken, and intestine/stomach/something. All quite good and yummy.
2. Watercress with Clam Soup: A soup chock full of clams and watercress. The broth was very good as was the watercress. The clams? Well, I’m not the biggest fan, but I was told these were good.
3. ByBa Duck (aka Pipa Duck): Perhaps the best roasted duck I’ve ever had. So good.
4. Fried Sliced Fish, Salt and Pepper Style: Slices of a white fish, coated with a crispy breading and fried. The breading itself had salty, spicy kick to it. In fact, it was probably the hottest dish of the day, spice-wise. Served with some preserved anchovies and jalapenos.
5. Oyster with Ginger & Scallion Roast Pig in Casserole: The first casserole of the day. Again, not the biggest shellfish fan, but the oysters I tried were yummy. The best part of this dish were the onions at the bottom. They had absorbed all the sauce and flavor…mmm.
6. Sauteed Abalone with Chinese Vegetables and Chinese Mushrooms: I really liked the veggies (mustard greens?) and mushrooms. The abalone? Eh. Still not a fan of its weird texture.
7. Braised Eel with Roast Pig Garlic Sauce: This too was very good. One issue I had was that the eel was not boneless or bone-cut, but rather just chopped. The eel had great flavor, but the picking the meat from the bones (the many, many bones) was annoying. However, see that “garlic” up there? In this dish were the most flavorful garlic cloves ever. I kept picking them out, perhaps to the consternation of my tablemates.
8. Salted Fish, Diced Chicken, and Eggplant Casserole: A classic of Cantonese casseroles. I’m a big fan of all the ingredients, add them together and you get a happy Matt.
9. Sauteed Kingdom Mushroom, Braised Tofu, and Snow Pea Shoots: The final dish of the day was a “on the board” special. It’s about what it sounds like, except the mushrooms were…odd. I have *no* idea what species they are, but the whole mushroom must be enormous. The slices of mushrooms were bigger than an Ike dollar. Still, a very good dish.

All in all, an amazing feast. The cost, while not cheap, was still a great bargain for the variety of dishes. In fact, the whole meal per person was probably about the same cost as one order of that abalone dish. And the kids held their own, let me tell you. They had their own table with, while not all this food, not exactly just a few dishes.

Now? Now I’m going to sit like a bump on a log and try and digest the feast.

My next question for you, the friendly masses, is what color to get? The frames above are the black version, but, I believe, they also come in gunmetal gray, blue, and satin brown.  If you’d like to see views of these colors, if I’m right, this is a link to the frames in question. If you select the colors down below the main picture changes to reflect your choice, so you get a good look.

I’m pretty sure I can’t pull off the blue ones, so those aren’t really on my radar. I suppose then the focus is on the brown frames.  Now, it’s hard to see in the pics I presented earlier, but the Guess frames are actually a brown/bronze/copper color, and Lady Optician of The Infinite Patience who helped me this morn seemed to think that the color suited my color better, and I think I agreed…but that could just be me agreeing with an expert.

Thus, I open the floor to the rest of my pool of experts. What say you?

First up are some Calvin Klein frames:

These are black, but I could get them in gray and brown as well, I do believe. Quite angular which I think I like with my potato of a head.

Second are some Guess? rimless frames:

These are brown and, of course, semi-rimless. I’m kinda digging the semi-rimless as well as the brown. I’m thinking, no matter what, I might go brown with the glasses this time.

Third are some Manhattan frames:

These are similar to the CK frames. A bit cheaper, which is nice, but not quite as angular as well.

Finally some plastic Bellagio (?) frames (sorry for the UPCLOSE pic):

I’m not the biggest fan of thick plastic frames, but I knew my sis would like these.

Well, folks, what do you think?

I know, I know, not that exciting, but, man, is it fascinating! The object of my focus this afternoon is the LA Public Library’s online Menu Collection. Just give it a whirl and I dare you not to be sucked in.  Marvel at what ten bucks would buy you 30 years ago compared to today.

I’m not the first to find this site, but I’m damn sure not going to be the last!

However, there is a bit of an issue with its integration, I believe. Namely: they give different answers!  I know this because I tried out an example in the first link up there, that of 2^2^2^2^2.  It turns out the answer to this is a bit vague, so differing solutions are not unexpected, but still…

Why? Exponentiation is not associative, unlike addition or multiplication (it might satisfy the Lie algebra equivalent of the Jacobi identity, I dunno), so the order matters. A lot.  Thus, while 2+(3+4) = (2+3)+4, and likewise for multiplication, 2^(3^4) !=  (2^3)^4. This being exponentiation, it really doesn’t. The latter is 4096, the former is 2417851639229258349412352. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit different. So without parentheses, things are vague.

Now how about the example in the article? We’ll get to that. Let’s start with 3 2’s. (2^2)^2 = 16, 2^(2^2) = 16. Phew safe. So, 2^2^2 is fine.

2^2^2^2? Given that, Bing outputs the “bottom-up” answer: ((2^2)^2)^2 = 256. W|A outputs the “top-down”: 2^(2^(2^2)) = 65536. Ah ha.

The disparity is growing, but not bad. So adding one more ^2 shouldn’t be too horrible, right?

Wrong.

Exponentiation grows quickly so order reaaaaaallly matters.

2^2^2^2^2? As expected from above, Bing should do 256^2=65536 and it does. W|A? Well, it does 2^65536. This is a big number. How big? Well…

20035299304068464649790723515

602557504478254755697514192650

169737108940595563114530895061

308809333481010382343429072631

818229493821188126688695063647…

…8091458852699826141425030123391

That is a 19729 digit number. Big.

Therein lies the difference, but which is right? Hmm. Most mathematicians think of repeated exponentiation as “top-down”. So, my main question is why isn’t Bing using W|A as it says? Or is there some extra option I need to assemble?

Oh well. Just an odd thing I noticed.

My confusion is…why? Why couldn’t I just pour it into a half-filled tank and then fill the tank? It’s still one bottle of additive in one full tank.

My first thought is that maybe the additive isn’t very miscible, so it needs the physical action of the fueling to help mix? But, really, a fuel additive that isn’t miscible in fuel?

I suppose the real answer is that some yahoo had some overfilled gas tank and then added a bunch of flammable hydrocarbons to it and boom or something.

I dunno. Just irked me. Feel like they could just put “add to one full tank of gas”. But, well, we are the culture that came up with “Careful: Contents Are Hot” on a cup of coffee and all.

For many moons, I’ve been a member of both the ACS (American Chemical Society) and APS (American Physical Society), the former for ten or more, the latter for a few.  As a theoretical chemist, having a membership to these societies was quite useful. You get a subscription to a very good “popular” magazine, Chemical and Engineering News and Physics Today, discounted registration at conferences, and, perhaps most importantly, access to the respective job banks.

All this, though, comes at a cost. When you are a grad student and recent postdoc, the membership cost isn’t too expensive and the benefits well outweigh the costs.  But once you are a “professional member” the costs double–I think–at least to $140 and $118 per annum.

Okay, that’s not bad, not great, but not horrible. *But*, I am no longer a practicing chemist/physicist. I’m a code monkey. A membership to IEEE or ACM would make more sense, really. Heck, I’m kind of attending SC09, the supercomputing conference, next weekend.

But, but, but. I am a chemist. I am a physicist (according to Feynman, no less). I still think of myself as such and I suppose a part of me thinks one day I might be a practicing chemist/physicist again.

I’m not sure what to do.

But the main event: cookie making! Specifically, a recipe my grandma used to make back in the day for Christmas. There is a Don Rockwell picnic tomorrow and this is my contribution. Now, to the picto-recipe after the cut!

First things first, this is a messy recipe, so have an apron standing by. I imagine it’s also a great recipe for kids. Up until the end, it’s just mixing messy, gooey ingredients and forming messy, gooey balls. I imagine some kids would just love that.

First, 16 oz of Marshmallow Fluff (or other marshmallow cream):

Then, 16 oz (2 cups) of chunky peanut butter:

Finally, 4 cups of Rice Krispies (or equivalent puffed rice cereal):

Yep. Those are the three main ingredients before coating. Now you mix them…and don’t even think about using a spoon. Use your hand(s) and go to town. It’s gooey and all that, but it’s by far the best way:

After you’ve mixed it all thoroughly, it’s time to roll them into balls, say the size of small walnuts.  You’ll be rolling a lot of balls, around 70-80 depending on the size. Here you see two of three sheet pans with the balls.

Also note the wax paper.  It just makes life easier because we are now going to coat the cookies with a confectionery coating.  The type I use, because my grandma used it, is the semi-ubiquitous Candiquik which is also known as Almond Bark and many other things. In NoVA, Walmart’s about the only place I’ve seen it and at mine it’s called “Almond Bark, Vanilla Flavor“. It’s essentially Candiquik (bad-for-you shelf-stable fat with sugar and flavor), both are made by Log House Foods and they have the same directions.

Now I know, I know, I should be using real white chocolate or some such. Screw that. Candiquik is easy to use and, dammit, it’s what my grandma used. The artificial vanilla taste is part of the memory. (It also means you don’t use the “chocolate” Candiquik either).

Following the directions, melt the coating and then coat the balls.  Yes, melt which means small kids really shouldn’t be around for this. If you follow the directions, the coating really won’t be that hot, but if you overheat it, well, molten sugar and kids DO NOT MIX.

Back to the recipe, I melted my coating the microwave and then used two forks to help coat it. You could use your fingers if you have asbestos fingers, but it’s also less messy to use the forks:

I suppose you could use chopsticks if you are agile enough with them. I am not.

Finally, when all is said and done, you end up with 70-80 coated balls of peanut butter-marshmallowy-krispie goodness:

Let them rest until hard, then refrigerate them. You don’t really have to cool them in the fridge, but I find they can still start to melt by finger-heat if you leave them in a 75-80 degree room.

Of course, there is all the cleaning involved as well. Boo! In all, it takes about 1-1.5 hours of not-very-difficult work. But the end result is well worth it!

Yours in cookies,

Matt

Okay, that’s redundant.

Sometimes, when I’m in my apartment…

…

…

…I make car noises as I walk around.

Vroooooom! as I move forward.

Vreeeewww! as I turn a corner.

Skreeeeee! as I stop.

Sometimes I sound like an F1 car, sometimes a Cup car, sometimes a World Rally Car.

Yup.

See what you are missing, ladies?!

Yours in you know you do it too,

Matt