The Best Camera
Photographer Chase Jarvis has taken loads of photographs with his iphone, and rather than continue to use a variety of post-processing apps, he developed his own. It is $2.99 from the itunes store and it has lots of positive ratings. This is first prong of his three-prong approach, which also includes a book and a photo sharing site, thebestcamera.com.
How many kinds of Oreos are there?
Here are all the kinds of Oreos, brand extensions and licensed food items we found at the grocery store.
Oreos
Double Stuf Oreos
Peanut Butter Oreos
Chocolate Oreos
Cool Mint Oreos
Fudge Sundae Oreos
Halloween Oreos
Reduced Fat Oreos
Golden Oreos
Golden Chocolate Oreos
Golden Double Stuf Oreos
Oreo Fudgees
Oreo Fudge Rings
Oreo Cakesters
Oreo Chocolate Cakesters
Oreo Peanut Butter Cakesters
Golden Oreo Cakesters
Oreo Fun Stix
Golden Oreo Fun Stix
Sugar Free Oreos
Mini Oreos
Oreo Mini Cakesters
Oreo Thin Crisps
Oreo Snack Cakes
Oreo 12 Packs
Oreo Variety 12 Pack
Mini Oreo 12 Packs
Oreo No-Bake Jello Dessert
Oreo Pie Crust
Oreo Cookies and Cream Ice Cream
Oreo Marble Mix’ins
Oreo Cones
Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches
What I Have Learned Drinking Wine
My friend Ilina writes a blog called Dirt and Noise, where she publishes a regular Friday feature about a 5:00 cocktail. She recently asked for guest contributors, and I volunteered. I wrote about a wine that we tasted on NorthCarolinaWine.TV, but it was more about what I have learned by drinking wine.
Today’s 5:00 Fridays post is not about a cocktail you can make at home, but about a kind of wine. Actually, it is less about a particular bottle of wine, than about what I have learned drinking wine. And how good is life if you can learn things by drinking wine? I do a wine show on the internet (see shameless plug below), which should make me qualified to write a guest post about wine. As it turns out, I am a co-host on a wine show, and I am the one who is learning about tasting and describing wine in our show about North Carolina wine. One of the best wines we have tried in nearly 50 episodes (one bottle per show) is from Raffaldini Vineyards in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley. This is our concentrated wine region with over 20 wineries and the first of North Carolina’s American Viticultural Areas (AVA).
Tonight’s Homework
My daughter Grace gets a list of spelling homework choices at the beginning of the week and must choose 5 of the options each week. Tonight as she sat down to do her homework, she got out the computer and started working on something. After a few minutes I noticed her obvious frustration and asked if I could help. She said she was trying to find what English letter each letter of the Hebrew alphabet stood for.
I found a site with the Hebrew alphabet and started going through the letters, but told her that they did not all have an English equivalent. I asked her what she needed to do. She read me the choice from her homework sheet that said she needed to write 10 words in a foreign language and those same words in English. She told me that everyone was doing Spanish, and someone had already done Chinese, but she wanted to be different. Hebrew is very different.
So next we looked for simple Hebrew vocabulary sites that listed words in Hebrew and English. I showed her a few that I knew, like mother and father. She sat down with the computer and started looking through the words. She told me she wasn’t finding her spelling words in the lists. At this point a lightbulb goes on over my head. She doesn’t need to translate 10 random words. This is her spelling homework. 10 of her spelling words are what is needed.
At this point I showed her Google translation tools and we typed in 10 of her spelling words. I selected English to Hebrew and clicked translate. Lo and behold, Google returned 10 Hebrew words. And now it was up to Grace to write them down. Quite a challenge for a half-Jewish kid who has barely seen Hebrew, let alone tried to write it.
Three Goals, Shared Three Ways
In yesterday’s soccer game, my son Peter scored three goals. It was the second game of the season and his team lost 4-3. The impressive thing about this, as a proud soccer dad, is that he has not played organized soccer in 5 years. Soccer was his first organized sport at 4, and I was one of his coaches. He developed a love for football, and started playing when he was old enough (seven). Now that he has discovered he is more interested in watching football than getting pummeled in football, he’s back to soccer. And at the rec league level so he doesn’t humiliate himself. His words, not mine.
As a social media guy, I am armed with my iphone, ready to share his accomplishments with my online friends and followers. Who knew it would turn into a blog post about ways to share photos and updates? But isn’t everything in my life fodder for a blog post?
So the first thing I do when I arrive at a new place is to checkin on Brightkite. This way if I post any photos, they will be tagged to a location and distributed to my selected networks.
After Peter scored his goal, which was done at the far end of the field, he came out of the game and got some water. I took his picture with my iphone and posted it to Brightkite. Here’s how it shows up on the location-based service. And there is a place for people to leave comments. I have Brightkite set to post notes and photos to Twitter as well.
Here’s the post to Twitter, which includes a link back to Brightkite and an indication that this is a photo.
After he scored his second goal, again at the far end, I took a picture when he came out again to get some water. I asked him to raise his hands in celebration. He humored me. Since I take photos using the camera function of iphone, rather than within any application, I can take multiple shots and choose the best one, and even change how I want to share it. For this second photo, I chose to post it to Posterous. This site allows you to post by email, which is super easy. This is now my preferred method of posting photos, as it can function as a photo blog for my mobile photos, although you can post anything there. Here’s the photo. Again, a place for comments, and again it posts to Twitter.
Here’s the post on Twitter with a link back to Posterous.
When Peter scored his third goal, I did not have a picture to post, so I just sent an update to Twitter.
Additionally, when I post photos to either Brightkite or Posterous, I have them set to also post the photos to Flickr, my main online photo repository.
And, I have all Twitter posts set to update my Facebook status as well.
And finally, FriendFeed is set up to aggregate all my content, so this is what that looks like. Since my Posterous site is new, I need to link that here too.
So that’s one way the flow of sharing information that works for me. There are lots of other flows and connections as most sites can be integrated to others. My two comments are that you don’t want to overload people and connect everything to everything as that can create duplicate content, and don’t post updates to places where you never go and interact with people. You need to respond to comments or updates about your own updates.
Let me know if you have any questions, and happy sharing.
A Trip to NYC
I recently traveled to New York City to speak at a conference and had a full day to wander around and see the sights. It turned out that I only took photos with my iphone, so they were already online, but I will post a few notable ones here.
This is one of my favorite buildings in New York, the Flatiron Building. It sits where 23rd Street, 5th Avenue and Broadway comes together, creating a small triangle of real estate. One of the things that has changed in the area is the creation of public spaces where Broadway used to have three lanes of traffic. It now has one and there is a place with tables and umbrellas, planters and large rocks. It is nice spot to sit and rest after a long walk. New York is a walking city and they really seem to understand creating public spaces for sitting.
In the shadow of the Flatiron Building is Madison Square Park. Years ago, this was run down, dirty park, largely populated with homeless and drunks. Today it features a large grassy meadow with public sculptures, a playground, a dog park, tables and chairs for sitting (in addition to the ubiquitous park benches), and the best part of all, one of NYC’s trendiest burger place, The Shake Shack. While I did not eat anything at the Shake Shack, I did wait in line for a little while. Even their website acknowledges the line by displaying a live web cam view of it.
In addition to lots of walking around, I also dropped by my old agency to say hi. I worked there nearly 20 years ago, but as holiday cards transitioned to LinkedIn, I have remained in touch with my old boss, who is one of the agency principals now. It wasn’t that hard for her and her brother to wrestle control from their dad and uncle as they advanced in years.
But it was odd to see my old desk. I had to take a picture of it of course.
So after my friend, Kipp, arrived, we picked a place for dinner and started walking. One of the advantages of using review sites in NYC is there are lots of reviews. Just pick a type of food (Italian) and a neighborhood (Greenwich Village), and check out the results with the best ratings. We chose a place called Lupa Osteria Romana. It was opened by Mario Batali and crew in 1999, and is modeled after a traditional Roman trattoria, providing classic Roman cuisine in a festive atmosphere. Since we did not go to their website before eating there, I just discover this. I also found they are on Twitter and Facebook, but not very engaged. I had a raw tuna “cooked in vinegar” seviche-style with cannelini beans and red onion. We shared a fettuccine dish with chicken and pork. I had Saltimbocca for my entree. Everything was delicious, but the best dish was the crispy duck “agrodolce” that Kipp had. It had been prepared confite style, and then roasted. It was super tender and very tasty. I also had a glass of the Vermentino Colli di Luni Giacomelli 2006. It was drier than the NC one we reviewed from Raffaldini.
Next it was off to Little Italy to find cannoli. That night the Feast of San Genero was going on, but we still managed to find Ferrara’s. We got regular and chocolate covered cannoli. It was a long walk back to our hotel, but it was a nice night, so it wasn’t too bad. Well, except I was really wiped out from all the walking.
The next day was the conference and a flight home. We walked around some, but no notable sites or pictures. Here’s a link to all my photos on Flickr.
Cheese Singles: Only in America
I recently saw a commercial for Kraft American Singles that was shocking to me. Some of the copy in the spot included “This is America and this is our cheese.” Another statement was “Only in America could we make this cheese.” All I could say was wow.
My first thought, and the point of this post, was that American Cheese represents all that is soulless about American food manufacturing. Kraft is touting a highly-mechanized, plastic-looking product that includes wasteful packaging as emblematic of America. Over 230 years of dynamic national history and pride reduced to an orange processed cheese product.
I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Unwrapped on the Food Network, which shows how processed most American food is, but I have never seen a show about American Cheese singles. I don’t think I would want to see a cheese-related liquid rolled out in sheets or poured in molds, or some other manufacturing process to make these singles. As it turns out, “these ’slices’ are actually individually poured onto each plastic wrapper and then set to emulsify.”
I did an internet search on American Cheese. According to Wikipedia, the first use of the term American Cheese was used by the British as a derogatory term to refer to what they thought of as inferior Cheddar Cheese made in the former colonies. The term took on a new meaning once James L. Kraft patented cheese processing in 1916 to stop the aging and spoiling of cheese. According to American Heritage, “Kraft stormed the consumer market with an advertising barrage that gave cheese one of its first recognizable brand names. By 1930 more than 40 percent of all the cheese consumed in the United States carried the Kraft label.”
Further inquiry into this quintessential American product yields the government regulation surrounding the terms that can be applied to various forms of processed cheese. Again, from Wikipedia:
In the United States processed cheese is defined, categorized, and regulated by the Food & Drug Administration under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 (Food and Drugs), Section 133 (Cheeses and Cheese Related Products). Pasteurized process cheese can be made from a single cheese or a blend of several cheeses. Cream, milkfat, water, salt, artificial color, and spices may also be added. The mixture is heated with an emulsifier, poured into a mold, and allowed to cool. The definitions include:
- Pasteurized process cheese (100% cheese which includes “American Cheese” and “Pasteurized process American cheese”), (e.g., “Kraft Deli Deluxe American Cheese”, “Land o Lakes American Cheese”, “Laughing Cow”)
- Pasteurized process cheese food, which contains at least 51% cheese
- Pasteurized process cheese product which contain less than 51% cheese and cannot be advertised as cheese by the FDA (e.g. “Velveeta, “Kraft Singles”)
- Pasteurized process cheese spread (e.g. “Cheez Whiz”)
And drilling down into the processed cheese links more, I discover a product called Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC), an unregulated, non-food product imported from overseas that is taking the place of milk in many American singles. Now I’m not going to get into the family farm debate about this, but even the existence of the debate points to more things about this product that confirms Kraft’s statements in the commercial.
Due to a history of food processing, advertising expertise, government regulations and complex trade regulations, it turns out Kraft American Singles could only be made in America.
Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at NC State Fair
Join us on Thursday, Oct. 22 at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the N.C. State Fair. Read more
Did the Universe Just Change? Mom Leaves Blog Comment!
Several years ago, when I still had a blogroll I added the blog of Danny Miller. He is a freelance writer living in LA, but he is also the brother-in-law of Wilco frontman, Jeff Tweedy. I would visit the blog occasionally, but my mom became a regular reader. She recently forwarded me an email she received from Danny Miller in response to a comment she left on his blog.
Danny and his wife gave birth to a premature son, and as bloggers are wont to do, he thoroughly documented it on his blog. My mom followed along. I periodically checked in on updates, especially as they intersected with Spencer Tweedy’s blog, Jeff Tweedy’s teenage son. Visits to LA with Wilco tours always have links to Uncle Danny’s blog.
Below is the comment my mom left on the blog when Danny announced that his son Charlie was coming home from the hospital. My mom felt a bit uncomfortable leaving the comment, but she was so moved by the emotion of the story that she had to share it. In that moment of leaving her comment, she understood why people blog and how you can make real connections online.
you do not know me…i got to your blog because my son is a wilco fan…i started reading it when kendall was pregnant and have lived through all your trials and tribulations…i cried along with you…i am a jewish grandmother living in southwest florida and have 8 grandchildren…i still cannot stop crying after reading about charlie going home…he is a beautiful baby and hope to read only good things…mazel tov…
And here is Danny’s response to her via email. There are pages of comments and I’m sure he replied to every one.
Oh, Marjorie, I am so moved that you’ve been following our story and I so appreciate your support! Especially from a bona fide Jewish grandmother–I am so sad that my mom is not here to enjoy Charlie in the flesh–she was such a great bubbie.
I appreciate your taking the time to write!
All the best,
Danny
And you thought Chia pets were out of touch
I am sure that this little novelty would be snapped up by Chia collectors, but would an Obama supporter really want a Chia pet version of their president? Thanks to Handmade Gone Wrong.