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Mahler's Ninth

Natsuko and I saw Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the San Francisco Symphony in performance of Mahler's ninth symphony tonight. This was my first time seeing (or hearing) the ninth and it was pretty overwhelming. I don't consider myself an expert, but having roomed with classical musicians during most of my years in school, I've had the basic cello and piano repertoires instilled into me along with many symphonic pieces. So, while I enjoy the usual favorites like Beethoven, Dvorak, Mussorgsky and the like, I'm fortunate enough to have been forced to listen to composers like Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Kodaly until I liked them. I'm not sure if Mahler will grow on me in the same way -- it was grand, but there were so many changes in direction of the piece that I had trouble getting situated. We'll give it a few dozen listens and see what happens.

Seeing "Moneyball", live...

Most of my adult life, I've wondered why all the fuss about baseball? I'd go to the occasional game and would be underwhelmed by guys standing around, mostly chawing, spitting, and generally not breaking a sweat. Being used to watching and playing tennis and basketball, it hardly seemed a sport. Recently, a friend gave me a copy of the book "Moneyball" (by Michael Lewis) with a personal note to the effect that I would be doing myself a favor to read it. I'm glad I did. It is, as has been reported elsewhere, not only a great book about baseball, but about life and business. And you'll never watch an A's baseball game the same way again.

Tonight, I finally got the chance to go out and see a real live A's baseball game played, no less, against the Mariners (who continue to be the losingest, highest-paid team in the AL West). We were there primarily to see Ichiro Suzuki, a national hero in Japan because he's the first non-pitcher to make it in US baseball (based on his hitting and fielding). He's currently the holder of the record for the most singles hit in a season and is on track to break the record for most hits (of any type) in a season. When watching Oakland's museum of oddities (e.g., Chad Bradford), it's hard not to think Ichiro really belongs on their team, with his (as the guy behind me kept yelling) "princess" stance. I wonder whether Oakland has gone looking for talent in Japan...

Dulcinea

Tonight, an unusual mix -- Chicken larb, a favorite family recipe that mixes chicken, peanuts, thai spices, eaten with rice inside a butter lettuce leaf. *yum*. Second on the menu, a Dulcinea "pureheart" watermelon. The watermelon is unlike any you've ever had -- it has almost no rind and it's sweet and juicy all the way to the edge. Cooking Master Boy-esque dialogue aside (i.e., "fruit of legendary perfection"??), if you want to treat yourself this late summer, try one of these. Make sure you eat it soon after buying -- we waited a week and the seedless watermelon grew a few seeds. Also, these are not genetically modified.

Thawte Notary!

Thanks to Jordan Reed of BitSmart, I now have enough web of trust assertions to be a notary myself. Definitely not your everyday social network, but, in my book, it's doing the right thing. As an aside, a curious result that's happened every time I've started providing digital signatures with my email is that I get complaints because all manner of MUA's flail while trying to handle S/MIME. It's hopeless to try to get everyone to upgrade to a sane MUA, so for the time being, I turn off encryption for important messages that have to get through reliably to a large audience...but I can't help thinking: doesn't this compromise the whole spirit of digital signatures? With the rash of identity theft, Nigerian email scams, and such, you'd think that people would be screaming out for provably secure access to their accounts, email and otherwise. In short, is there any point to, as Bruce Schneier suggests, go through the trouble of putting my public key on my business card?

Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve

Natsuko, Plato, and I hiked the narrow, meandering Huckleberry path in the East Bay today. We chose to visit the Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve based on this review by Bay Area Hiker. The self-guided tour is really well done - we learned about over a dozen different local plants and trees and how they slowly convert the chapparal into a woodland. The path is very moderate - about 1.7 miles - a little dry, but has tons of edibles along the way. Here's a picture of a chinquapin nutlet that we saw while we were there.

Risi e Bisi

Natsuko continues to amaze with her command of the kitchen. Tonight's indulgence was "risi e bisi", a Venetian risotto dish made of rice, peas, prosciutto, chicken broth, green onions, parmesan, parsley, and black pepper. Of course, a little butter and olive oil are mandatory. If you know Italian, you know that this dish is primarily about the rice (risi) and peas (bisi) -- and like a good split pea soup, the ham is the perfect salty complement to the sweetness of fresh peas. Apparently, risi e bisi is best made with arborio rice, a short grained Italian rice that releases lots of gluten during cooking. This, combined with the butter, parmesan, and chicken broth create a heavenly creaminess that keeps your taste buds jumping...

Thawte Web of Trust

About five years ago, I created a Thawte Freemail account so that I could sign and encrypt my email using X.509 certificates. At the time, it was pretty hard to find web-of-trust notaries, so I decided not to pursue assertion of my identity. Things have changed. Today, thanks to Dan Greening, Ron Lussier, and Andy Fyfe (all of BigTribe), I was able to get 65 points in a single visit, traveling only 3 blocks from where I work. Tomorrow, Fazal Majid of Kefta has been kind enough to agree to meet me and add another 30 points to my total, bringing me to within 5 points of becoming a notary myself. Although not surprising, it's curious that web-of-trust notaries have such a high average moment-of-technical-prowess.

Roto Frizzante

I like drinking soda - a lot. Many years ago, I realized that I can't drink regular coke all the time because I end up on a high-fructose-corn-syrup-induced blood sugar roller coaster ride. So, I started drinking diet coke to avoid the up-n-down. That worked well for a few years, but something about it hurts my stomach now, so that went out the window too. Lately, I've been drinking San Pellegrino and that works well enough, but it lacks the punch I want in soda. Recently, I ran into Roto Frizzante at Taylor's Automatic. It's a pleasingly blended bitter soda with a hints of sour and sweet in it. It's shocking that it's not stocked in any San Francisco market - maybe a lot of people haven't tried it yet. Anyway, it's on my list now when going to wine country.