twothirds

A webform was not working for me on a random website. Hmm. Let’s see what the javascript console says…

Yup. There’s your problem!

I ordered a multi-console connector from consoleshop.com toward the end of 2007. Guess who charged my credit card, sent me a shipping confirmation and ignored inquiries about order status? Yup–consoleshop.com.

It looks like I might be requesting my first chargeback. They have until Thursday…

Why did I not see this before I ordered? I really suck at the Internet.

Update: Chargeback initiated. Good thing I used a “virtual” credit card number.

Update++ (31 Jan 2008): Holy crap! The merchandise finally arrived. It only took a month to get here.  While the site may not be a true scam, it sure as hell is sketchy and not worth the hassle.

For a holiday dinner this year we made Beef Wellington. For the meat, I purchased a whole Filet Mignon from Costco which I butchered into a large roast for the Wellington. In addition to some left-over steaks that went into the freezer, I also picked out all the edible meat from the “side chain,” the gnarley grizzly piece that runs along the side of the tenderloin.

With a Good Eats episode as my muse, I raided the freezer for the chain and made some yummy steak sandwiches with cheddar cheese and semi-carmalized onions. Semi? Yeah, I was hungry. I did not want to wait the full 45 minutes for the onions to turn into a gooey mess of goodness. I just wish I had some mushrooms in the fridge to complete the sandwich. Oh well–next time.

Cheese Note: Yeah, cheddar is not “traditional”, but I have had odd cheddar obsessions recently. Next time I will go for the traditional cheese whiz.

Now if only I had a Tastykake and Yuengling Lager to compliment the meal

The past few months have seen many failures on the Campari front. I should just pre-print the drink recipe and hand it out when I make the order to cut out all the overhead.

Isa SF

Isa actually had a Negroni on the drinks menu. “Sweet!” Unfortunately, they only have a beer and wine license so it was actually a faux-groni. WTF?!?! How do you mock a Negroni without a sprit? I bunted and asked for a wine list. I was not up for a $9 experiment.

Melting Pot San Mateo

“You want a what,” asked the bartender? I explained the drink and now the 20-something bartender knows what the hell a Negroni is. The drink actually turned out alright, if not a bit small.

Tanglewood

The waiter had never heard of a Negroni before and had no idea what I asked for. Five-minutes after taking my order, he came back and said, “the bartender does not know what a Cargroni is.” Hmm. That’s probably a good thing. How about a “Neh–groni” instead. The drink had a lemon twist which pissed me off a bit, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the drink. The meal on the other hand—well, let’s just say I will not be going back.

(Incidentally, Tanglewood is owned by Left Bank. Since I have a strong dislike for Left Bank, my Tanglewood experience makes a lot of sense.)

PF Chang’s

Yeah. What the hell was I thinking ordering a Negroni here. It was at least 60% Vermouth. I drank half of it and punted. Shame on me. Next time stick with a beer from a bottle.

Great google ad in the wake of the dreamhost billing disaster.  Props to McKremie.com

Tonight will be an official “geek-out” so I can get the hell off of this host.

…run by asshats.  I gotta get off this host.

I spotted what looked to be a green lady bug farting around my parsley plant the other day. Here I thought the little red lady evolved to blend in with all the green. Am I witness to evolution in front of my own house? Nope–it was just a Spotted Cucumber Beetle which I should have killed on the spot. Oh well.

From wikipedia:

The spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) is a major agricultural pest insect (see also cucumber beetle). In the adult form it eats and damages leaves of many crops, including cucumbers, soybeans, cotton, beans and many others. In the larval form, which is known as the southern corn rootworm, it tunnels through the roots of young plants, stunting or killing them. These native pests have a wide range of host plants, but will readily infest a field of crop plants, most notoriously corn.

So, I just canceled auto-pay for my cable bill. Or, at least I think I did. How’s this for ambiguous:

***This message confirms that changes to your recurring payment plan have been received. This is a copy of either your automatic recurring electronic fund transfer authorization or cancellation***

I guess comcast IT has not learned about “if” statements yet.
if(status == cancel)
confirmation="cancellation";
else if(status == active)
confirmation="authorization";

At my fathers birthday lunch this weekend, I was served some “chicken tartar.” Even if it was “perfectly safe to eat” as the manager insisted, it is not something I wanted to eat. Bloody chicken is not too appealing. Dinner tonight was Garlic-Roasted Chicken with Fingerling Potatoes and Bacon to redeem this weekends travesty. Mmmm. Bacon.

Whenever I use fresh thyme, I am reminded why they call it thyme. It takes a hell of a lot of time to get the littlest bit of fresh thyme. It took me at least 25 minutes to separate and chop a tbsp of the herb. Good thing I had some garlic to roast since that accounted for 45-minutes of dead time.

The chicken was pan-fried and then thrown into the oven. The potatoes were only supposed to be boiled, but [soon-to-be] Mrs. M decided to throw them into the oven with the chicken for a bit. This gave them a bit of chicken fat and radient heat to brown them up nicely.

The final product (fingerling potatoes looked bad so new potatoes were substituted.) with a side of wilted spinich.

And the “macro” photo (I have to use the features on the new camera!)

Sunday’s dinner was Spicy Vietnamese Crab and Garlic Noodles. The concept was good, but it is one of those meals where the effort and cost overwealm any potential enjoyment.

The crab was procured live from the local market. This gave me the pleasure of being judge, jury and executioner. I followed some directions off the interweb and…

First, place the crab on it’s back and hold it in place with a large cleaver or french knife positioned on the center-line of the crab, between the two sets of legs. Strike the cleaver a sharp blow with a rubber mallet or similar tool; chopping the crab in half and killing it instantly.

I lack a rubber mallet, but a rolling pin was a great substitution. Previous adventures with live crab had me follow directions of, “…strike the head against a hard object and rip off its top shell.” Yikes! Not easy.

At this time I should point out that a recently live crap cut in half will have involuntary muscle spasms. This is common sense and I was already equipped with this knowledge, yet I still let out a “little girl scream” as 1/2 a crab body managed to leap out of my hand during cleaning.

Without too much fuss, I was able to de-leg the crab, cut into quarters and pan fry it. Aromatics were added and it was placed on top of noodles. The finished product looked yummy, but then I remembered I had to de-shell the beast.

I always enjoyed crab as a child. I am not sure why it seems like so much more work these days. Maybe my hands are too big? Either way, after 30-minutes of cracking, poking, cursing and swearing, I was finally ready to eat.

I would make this meal again, but I would use bulk lump crap to save time and money. I do enjoy the taste of crab–I just hate all the fuss required to enjoy it.