Month: January 2004

Keeping priorities straight

Scalzi points out the news story of the week.

Russia has sent in the army to bolster a week-long struggle to rescue 10 tons of beer trapped under Siberian ice, Itar-Tass news agency said Tuesday. A lorry carrying the beer sank when trying to cross the frozen Irtysh river, and a rescue team of six divers, 10 workers and a modified T-72 tank from the emergencies ministry have so far failed to save the load.

Dead nations on the Internet

Following the near-annihilation of the tiny island of Niue (.nu), the latest Viridian mailing from Bruce Sterling points to a fun Register article on the history of top level country domains and how barren and uninhabited places like Bouvet Island (.bv), Heard and McDonald Islands (.hm), and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (.tf) received a top-level domain name.

Archaeologists mistake 1940s patio for Viking village

Ummmm… Oops?

Archaeologists have admitted to having been made to look “very silly” after mistaking a 1940s sunken patio for a 9th century Viking village.

Fife County Archaeologist Douglas Spiers says his team concluded the slabs found in the back garden of a Buckhaven home had originally been hauled by Norse settlers from a nearby beach.

Even the discovery of a Second World War gas mask on the plot failed to deter them from their theory that this was the first evidence ever seen of Viking homes built on mainland Scotland, reports the Daily Mail.

It was only when the site had been completely cleared, and all the stones exposed, that the truth became apparent.

Onion soup

Saturday night was onion soup night. I used Rachael Ray’s recipe as a starting point also, but switched a lot of things around also. I skipped the sherry and used beaujolais as my reduction sauce along with my usual allotment of leeks and shallots in addition to the onions. The end result didn’t have much complexity, but what tastes were there were wonderfully strong. Nice full-on rustic soup:

onion_soup

I made a second bowl with a less oily comte cheese in places of the “grocery store grade” gruyere, and it was fantastic. Nothing approaching The Best French Onion Soup On This Continent, but a good start.

Which dead Russian composer are you?

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Sergei Rakhmaninov.

I lived in the early Twentieth Century and was well known for my compositional, conducting, and piano skills, yet I am melancholy despite this talent. My famous works include my nearly-impossible piano concerti.

Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test