Two months ago, I received some Buzz Bites (a new highly caffeinated chocolate candy) to try out. I tried them with my friend Harold, wrote down some notes, and then prepared a brief entry on this blog for it and forgot to publish! Here’s what I thought about Buzz Bites:
I received two flavors Mint Chocolate and Chocolate. Each tin contained 6 candies or chews - each of which have the caffeine content equivalent of a cup of coffee. The texture of each of the chews is halfway between butterscotch and crumbly fudge. The taste however is something else - the flavor is really weird and a bit off putting to me (I do like the texture however). It started off fine - like an interesting chocolate confection. Interesting because there’s a different flavor - some extra bitterness that isn’t quite the same as chocolate bitterness - then the flavor deepens and some more flavors came out which made me feel like the Buzz Bite stopped being a sweet treat but something oddly savory. Then that sensation passed and I’m was left with an odd artificial sweetener + bitterness lingering in the mouth.

It’s half candy and half no-doze… I don’t think this is a food product that I’ll be having in the future - but for those of you looking for the next buzz, Buzz Bites might be something you’ll want to look out for. (  Click here to read the rest of Buzz Bites  )

Fry’s Electronics just had a the Samsung LN46A550 (46-in. LCD 1080p HDTV) for $400 off. We’ve been using my in-laws’ television for the last few years and because of their upcoming move, I’ve been keeping an eye on the television market. I was planning on purchasing the Vizio VO47LF from Costco for $1199, but when the Samsung TV came up at $1299, I decided to take a look at it. Shortly after running a few tests and comparing specs, I purchased the Samsung and took it home. Here’s my rundown of the Samsung LN46A550 HDTV.

I use an HD DVR (the one Comcast supplies) as my primary means of watching television. I also pretty much only watch HD content. In addition, I have a Playstation 3, DVD (a cheap one that plays just about everything including DVDs that my PS3 doesn’t seem to want to play), and a computer that I want hooked up. I used to have a VCR and a second DVR hooked up to the previous television, but haven’t used them in so long that I don’t think I’ll hook it up. For audio, I connect everything through a Dolby Digital and DTS enabled surround sound receiver.

(  Click here to read the rest of Review of Samsung LN46A550P3F  )

Last Wednesday, I swung by Costco to return a defective LCD monitor. After buying another monitor (to replace the one returned), I decided to eat lunch there (how can you turn down a Polish sausage with 20 oz. soda for $1.50?). The dining experience was fairly typical of any Costco lunch (except for the fact that this particular Costco’s dining/picnic area was inside the building). You collect your food, load it up with the condiments that you like (it’s deli mustard, ketchup, a little relish, onions, and just a bit of crushed red pepper for some extra kick), sit on a plastic picnic bench, and eat next to a bunch of random people.

It’s hard in these conditions not to overhear conversations or notice badges (most companies in the San Francisco Bay Area have their employees wear badges for security - but this also means that when they are not in their company, you pretty much see each person’s name and company). Usually, I’d think nothing of it, but since Tina and I have made our decision to leave the Bay Area in the next couple years, I’ve been paying a little more attention to some of things that might not happen in other areas of the country. While eating my sausage, I noticed several conversations ranging from an in-depth explanation of potential next generation network security technology that could be picked up by Cisco, the latest hiccup involving some South Korean game animation company and some new Electronic Art’s video game, and a harsh critique of both Intel and AMD (which I internally disagreed with). A glance around revealed a mix of people - mothers with three kids, a Hispanic woman telling two Asian kids not to make a mess and eat slower, the older gentleman next to me reading a book he just bought while eating his pizza, and the rest (about 14 or so men) were employees of local high tech companies ranging from those with names that I recognized to ones that I did not. 10 years ago, when I started working in Silicon Valley, this was the scene at Tung Kee Noodle House (an extremely low cost chain of Vietnamese noodle shops that have since split up and broken into various noodle companies). Tung Kee was a place where you could get a bowl of noodle soup for about $3 (a little more now), see other people in the tech industry dining next to you and listen to random conversations about the direction of semiconductors, the hottest stock performers, and even job interviews. Maybe Costco is the new cheap business lunch spot.

What I want to know is what a Costco lunch is like in your city?

(  Click here to read the rest of Costco and Business Lunches  )

I just built a new computer for Tina to use at home and decided to migrate her from Windows XP to a Vista Home Premium (mainly because I like to have a lot of OS’s around, but also so she could get familiar with Vista as an OS). Naturally, I wanted to migrate her Firefox setup from the Windows XP laptop to the new Windows Vista system. It wasn’t entirely straightforward, but it was by no means difficult. Here’s how I copied her bookmarks, stored passwords, history, and other info stored in her Firefox profile from XP to Vista.

• On the Vista machine, I installed Firefox 2 (not entirely sure about Firefox 3).
• I then ran Firefox on the Vista machine logged in as my wife (so Firefox would create the profile directories) and then closed Firefox.
• I copied the contents of the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<only directory of indeterminate name> from the XP machine to the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<some random characters>.default folder on the Vista machine.
• I then relaunched Firefox and everything was successfully migrated.

(  Click here to read the rest of Migrating a Firefox Profile from Windows XP to Vista (passwords, bookmarks, and all)  )

My CEO at Fanpop, Dave, clued me in on this photoblog: Visions of China from Newsweek. The photos are outstanding, but what really captures my attention are the stories that the photographers tell.

One entry in particular captured my attention: Trying to Break out of the Olympic “Bubble” by Vincent Laforet. He tells the story of one day beginning with using China’s bureaucracy against itself so he could spend 30 minutes capturing an overhead shot of table tennis.

(  Click here to read the rest of Newsweek’s Incredible PhotoBlog of the Olympics  )

A couple weeks ago I had to head back up to San Francisco to do some work in our data center. After I was done, I took my wife to a Thai restaurant that Dave Lu introduced me to: Manora’s Thai Cuisine. The food there is excellent AND reasonably priced (around $10 a dish).

Manora’s Thai Cuisine (Google Maps)
1600 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 861-6224

Por-Pia-Sod (rice paper rolls stuffed with crab, shrimp, pork sausage, pork, cucumber and mushroom, topped with sweet and sour tamarind sauce). Highly Recommended.

(  Click here to read the rest of Dining: Manora’s Thai Cuisine  )

A while back I mentioned the existence of a product called Batter Blaster. I finally got around to trying it out. Using the product was a breeze, just invert, press on the tip until enough batter comes out, and stop. The rest is just like cooking pancakes (or waffles if you’re using a waffle iron) like normal.

(  Click here to read the rest of Batter Blaster  )

It was just a few years ago that celebrity chefs were rare and usually only popular in the small community of food enthusiasts. These days, for better or worse, Food Network has really expanded the food lexicon and awareness of the general public. I might not always agree with the direction their shows take and what aspects of food and cooking they promote, but I have to say they’ve really made food and food celebrities main stream. Here’s Mario Batali making a celebrity cameo in a music video (!) by the Blood Sugars. Do you guys think this is a positive trend or is the popularization of food culture negatively affecting the food community?

I’ve always used the dry powdered dishwashing detergent. It just seemed more economical and easier (since I didn’t have to keep making trips to buy more because each box of the powdered stuff holds more loads than a typical bottle of liquid). So, I’ve never actually tried the liquid dishwashing detergent until now. I got a bottle of Liquid Cascade and I really like it. We run the dishwasher fairly often (especially when I’m preparing something for an article on Cooking For Engineers or just testing recipes) and sometimes when I’m in a hurry and the box if full, it’s easy to spill some of the powdered stuff onto the ground (got to make sure your hands are dry before you try to pick up powdered detergent!). But the liquid stuff seems so easy to pour and control quantity - just squeeze until the right amount is in the cup and you’re done! The powdered stuff is a bit harder to control the flow of. This seems like a silly reason to switch, but after running a couple dozen loads with liquid, I’m seriously contemplating sticking with the Liquid Cascade for my dishwashing needs from now on. Also, I noticed that I don’t seem to need a rinse aid anymore - the Cascade seems to rinse of by itself really well even though we’ve got hard water.

So, Tina and I are in San Francisco celebrating our anniversary. I took her to Jai Yun and we had one of the best meals (if not the best - right now we think it’s the best but I’ll wait a few days before deciding). One thing it lacked was dessert and both of us had a craving for rice pudding. So on the walk back from Chinatown to Union Square (where our hotel is) we stopped at an E&O Trading Company.

They had a rice pudding with lemongrass, coconut milk, and a strawberry basil sauce. We decided to stay and ordered it. Unfortunately, the rice pudding was subpar - very mild, bland, and barely sweet. We couldn’t even taste a hint of lemongrass. Oh well. With this experience and our previous dinner (six years ago) that was entirely unmemorable (except for the corn fritters), what resulted was a new rule - never eat at E&O Trading Company.