Well obviously it isn't something you do to high-quality meat, any more than meatloaf or hamburger would be. As for the well-done ribeye, though, I'd be one of those people. I'd want it on the frontier between medium and medium well, but I've learned from annoying experience that the only reliable way to get a steak actually cooked anymore is to ask for it way more done than you really want.

A good chicken fry steak usually doesn't have the line of gristle in it, as the cook will get rid of it. IMHO, a good one also won't shed all of its breading just by the act of cutting it apart. I've seen places that tout good chicken fry, and the meat will end up sliding out of the breading on the first cut. That's a pretty good sign you're doing it wrong. Also, a lot of places that tout just the size of the chicken fry usually leave that line of gristle in, and that's pretty rank.

I think the only restaurant I've ever had chicken fried steak at is Perkins. Clearly I'm missing out, because I thought it was pretty good.

You just aren't cultured enough.

The Pentax O-ICK1 Image Sensor Cleaning Kit:

Yes, it's part number really is "Oh Ick (one)".

As digital camera sensor cleaners go, this one is kind of unique. It uses no liquid cleaners, and (properly used) is gentle on the hardware. This matters when the sensor is attached to a moving platform instead of bolted to the camera body. It uses a semi-sticky rubber thing to just lift the dust off -- particles and chemicals adhere to the rubber instead of the glass. Then, to clean the rubber, you get a pad of adhesive paper. There's enough paper for dozens of cleanings.

There are cleaning kits out there that cost over a hundred dollars and are only good for three uses... and furthermore, those that use alcohol have been known to leave spotty residues. Compared to those, this is a way better value, and safer. In fact, if you're looking for a bargain value, you'd think you could do a lot better than the $45 this kit costs, but it's surprisingly hard to find anything decent for less.

Test shots to measure the dust: before and after. Works pretty well. Sensor hasn't been that clean since I bought it, I bet. But: you really need to read and understand all the warnings before you use it. It takes care.

So I say this kit is a winner, for any brand of DSLR camera. But if you really want to go cheap, and are willing to take a chance, they say you can get surprisingly reliable results just by using scotch tape... I'm not willing to go there.

the American Air hot-air popcorn popper
The way a hot-air popper is supposed to work is that the air blows the popped kernels out, but the height of the air tube is such that unpopped ones fall back. This one doesn't produce enough air to lift popped kernels from anywhere near the bottom, but they've balanced that out by making it shorter. The result is that any time a kernel pops with anything else on top of it, an equal number of popped and unpopped kernels shoot out the spillway, often flying horizontally in such a way that no possible bowl can catch them. Makes a terrible mess and any batch you eat has to be fed back in for a second popping.


For a vastly superior popper, try the West Bend Stir Crazy. It probably also uses a lot less electricity. The tradeoff is that it's not oilless.

Dangerously Delicious Pies - you've seen them on the Food Network (or not) featured on 'The Best Thing I Ever Ate,' but probably never encountered them yourself because there are only three locations and two are in Baltimore. We went to the Canton location on Saturday because, you know, someone thinks it's the best thing they ever etc.

They have two kinds of pies - savory (i.e. main course) and sweet (i.e. dessert). They have about twice as many sweet pie varieties as savory. One curious thing we discovered early is that they are really not set up to do both - I guess most of their customers either get one or the other, and dual orders confuse and frighten them.

The pies themselves are tremendous. We both had a savory pie featuring steak, onions, mushrooms and gruyere cheese - fabulous. My wife had a creme brulee like pie for dessert, I had the Baltimore Bomb, which has a chess filling mixed with crumbled Berger cookies (an amazing locally produced cookie that is half shortbread and half chocolate icing).

The problem is, it's not really a restaurant, it's a pie factory. It's like buying a car at a Detroit auto factory instead of a dealership - they really don't have any concept of service. As long as you sit close to the counter (behind which all the pie action is taking place) they will pay attention to you. The farther away your table, the less likely they will remember you are there. In our case, our 'waiter' (who seemed to have a lot of non-waiter duties as well) forgot our order twice, brought out the savory pies, then forgot us altogether (I think he was tweaking). The owner should probably read "The E-Myth Revisited."

Plus, the menu is pies and nothing else - it would be nice to get a green salad with a savory pie for example. I suppose you could plan your evening to get salads in one place and the pies later. Fortunately you can forgo all this and have the pies shipped to you.

The service is somewhat better at the Federal Hill location, but Rodney does unfortunately have a history of hiring his buddies to work the shop, rather than people with any particular interest in, say, working.

We went to the Federal Hill location a few months ago but it was closed for remodelling. I understand it's been reopened.

My observation is that it didn't seem to be in anyone's job description to service customers. Just sort of 'well, someone's gotta do it, who's free now?'

The Three Faces of Dr. Crippen - presented by the Strange Tree Group in the Steppenwolf Garage Rep, Chicago.
I get a similar thrill from finding great indie theater productions as I do discovering unheralded movie gems from the great crop of b-movies and independent features. One of my most cherished memories of visiting Philadelphia was attending a production of Bat Boy: The Musical by the 1812 Theatrical Group. This is theater that is willing to try new things and unveil new productions and, most importantly, benefits from usually being dirt cheap, as compared with the large scale main stage productions. My ticket was just barely $20 and I got to see a terrific show.
Three Faces of Dr. Crippen tells the story of Hawley Crippen, a physician convicted of murdering his wife, the laughably failed vaudeville actress Belle Elmore. Dr. Crippen's character is portrayed by three actors representing the Public Dr. Crippen, Private Dr. Crippen, and Fantasy Dr. Crippen. The three actors, working from an excellent script, represent Crippen's own internal struggle and the ambiguities and uncertainties that surround his famous case.
It is ambiguous in terms of who actually commits the crime, but the crime itself is only part of the point. Its an excellent black comedy in the grand guignol tradition playing out a balance between reality and perception. Events continue to get foggier and more unreliable as the play moves on until the entire theater is wrapped in a haze of fog.
The haze actually gets irritating by play's end. It was a metaphor played way too heavily. I think somebody was enjoying playing with the fog machine a bit much. But the show itself was first rate and I reccomend catching a production of it if it manages to achieve touring status.

Just the tings for eliminatine tiny vampires.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv ... fOyE5b2jh4

Bavaria Filmstadt - a short subway & tram ride from downtown Munich is the Bavaria Film Studios. Though mostly a working studio, the site has guided tours and some sort of interactive rollercoaster thing we didn't bother with. One tour a day is in English, and since we visited somewhat off-season we had the guide, Franzi, to ourselves.

These days most of the productions are German films and TV only, so wouldn't be familiar to most outsiders. We did see a few ambulances racing by at one point but they were in fact part of a medical daytime soap that shoots there! We also saw a rebuilt bunch of sets and props from Die Wilden Kerle 5 - Hinter dem Horizont (The Wild Things 5 - Beyond the Horizon), the last in a series of massively popular German movies about kids who have adventures while playing soccer. The final movie sees them playing a bunch of Twilight-style vampires. It looked silly but fun. There's also the viking village and longship from a German movie adaptation of the old animated show Vicky the Viking, which was a big hit there, and some sets from the first live-action Asterix movie which used the studio for the German part of the production.

Of more interest to us westerners would be a few of the films that have traveled abroad, thanks usually to some critical acclaim. Downfall and The Baader-Meinhof Complex both shot at the studios (there's part of the prison set from that movie), and Paul WS Anderson's sure to be definitive version of The Three Musketeers recently wrapped greenscreen work on one of the biggest stages.

The studio's most famous production was Das Boot, and you can walk (just about - it's tiny) through the scale U-Boat interior. There are also models and other sets from the film including the full-size conning tower (and the famous swordfish emblem of the boat is available as a plush toy in the gift shop). Wolfgang Petersen used the studio quite a bit, so you can ride on the dragon from The Neverending Story* and walk through a corridor from Enemy Mine, both made there.

*normally the latter is reserved for kids, but since our party was only 2, and I was clearly excited about the Petersen connection, Franzi let me have a go

That's it, apart from a tour of their standing outdoor street set, currently being used for a German soap, and a fun bit where some guy from one of the main tours got to do some acting with pre-recorded footage from the local telenovela Sturm der Liebe (Storm of Love). If you're in town I'd definitely recommend a trip out here.

Amtrak
If you want a big roomy seat and a smooth quiet ride, it rules. If you want it to arrive on time, or even within twelve hours of on time, use anything else. They don't even tell you that your train is hours and hours behind, even when that line has consistently been getting put this far behind for fifteen days and counting.

Airplanes and airports may be horrid soul-deadening monuments to the elevation of profit over human dignity, but at least they make a point of keeping their customers adequately informed about what's going on. Amtrak pretty much assumes that only people who already know all about trains, and are perfectly willing to live with whatever half-assed failures they deliver for your ticket price, are ever going to ride them.

. . .

Also... even to someone with as many nerd interests as me, railfans are kinda creepy.

River of Music Party (ROMP) Bluegrass Festival, Owensboro, KY - I attended this is June, so its been a long time to remember the event. But I included this as a general comment on why I love these types of music festivals. ROMP benefited this year from one of the best music line ups I have ever seen for this type of festival. While many of the names may be generally unknown to the majority of the world - especially to those not into the realm of bluegrass, newgrass, or some variation of so-called alt-country or folk - the line up was a great combination of the latest hot names: Trampled by Turtles (who really really delivered on the promise of their studio albums. WOW!!), The Infamous Stringdusters, Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers, Mountain Heart, Sara Jarozc, Emmylou Harris, The Punch Brothers (Chris Thile), Carolina Chocolate Drops, with new talent and strong up and comers like the 23 String Band, Harpeth Rising (lovely, lovely progressive acoustic band who is not anywhere near bluegrass), Doctors of Bluegrass (featuring a former President of Yale University), The Vespers, and, most notably, Cora Lee and the Townies and and a slew of traditional bluegrass bands bound up in the traditional Bill Monroe mode. Monroe styled bluegrass can be a bit tiresome , but I find it rather telling that many of the hot new acts cite the great songwriter John Hartford as their foundational inspiration. (To be absolutely accurate about it, Hartford may be their spiritual foundation, but their "new grass" roots are connected more directly to John Cowan, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas.
I spent three days camping out in a two-person ten at Yellow Creek Park and will gladly do the exact same thing again and again. Absolutely worth the time.

Berger: Think you might like this. The song is cool enough, but Bethancourt is a great string player, including the banjo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qIQxV2Bpmg