That’s right Obama/Jobs ‘08!

Okay, it’s not really true. But it might as well be. 

Both have mastered the art of wasting a great deal of my time.

Let’s start with Jobs. A few times a year, there’s a big Apple announcement of some sort where some exciting new product is going to be announced. Apple starts by cryptically emailing out these invitations to reporters. They usually consist of a picture, a mysterious tag line (e.g. “The beat goes on” or “It’s showtime”), and the time and place of the event. There’s a gallery of some of them here. Once these go out, they immediately kick Apple rumors sites into high gear, publishing all sorts of theories about what the great new “must have” item will be. If you’re an Apple junkie like me (admitting it is the first step), then you surf the rumor sites for a few days before the event. The night before, you can’t sleep. Your mind is racing. Since these events are inevitably held in California and don’t get started until 10AM or so PST, you end up spending the whole morning unable to concentrate.  Then the event begins.

But it’s not over yet. It’s not like Apple just broadcasts these things live. No, you have to rely on “live bloggers” acting like virtual stenographers in Steve’s court. Since there are actually a lot of people like me, the live blogging rumor sites can run into technical problems from the high demand and some go down. Obviously, you have to keep several of these websites open at once to stay on top of what is happening. After it’s all over, Apple finally releases a recording of the whole event. Even though you know everything that happened, you have to watch the whole thing again just to get the full experience.

Now Obama’s gotten into this too. Delivering the VP announcement via text message. Brilliant. I thought it would save me time, so I signed up. That way, I won’t be distracted (Macworld-style) and waste time reloading CNN, Politico, and Yahoo News continuously for updates. But then you’re at work and you start to wonder…what if the cell companies get overloaded with the text messages…maybe there’s a scoop right now on CNN…gotta check it out…

At least Steve has the consideration to TELL you when he’s going to make his announcements. Barack leaves you hanging. What a team they would make.

After reading this Wired article about the Clover coffee machine, I knew I had to try it. In case you haven’t yet consumed enough caffeine to get you through the article, the quick summary is that the Clover is a new machine designed to brew a single cup of coffee with great control of the variables that can affect a cups’ taste, including brew time, exposure of grounds to water, and water temperature. Those who have tried it describe a kind of re-awakening, as if they were tasting coffee for the first time. Colors seem brighter, smells more intense, and the world just generally seems to be a better place after a cup from one of these machines. 

The other day, a co-worker and I headed down to the nearest Clover-equipped Starbucks to see what all the fuss was about. (Starbucks CEO Shultz apparently bought the company that makes these after sampling the goods, so soon Starbucks will be the only place to try one). We entered expecting to see the place plastered with ads for the special brew, but there was nothing. In fact, we figured we had been duped, that the machine wasn’t even there yet. We reached the register and cautiously inquired.

“So…um…do you have the..um…Clover?” we asked in hushed tones, as if we were asking for something illegal.

“We do!” said the woman at the register, a bit too loudly for my taste. After ushering a geeky-looking coworker to the main section of the shop (presumably the only certified Clover-operator in the store), she led us to the machine. I got the feeling they didn’t let this guy out from the back very often, but he seemed harmless enough. He gave us a tour of the five types of beans selected for use on the Clover. We settled on the Costa Rican, since it was the freshest (my biggest complaint about Starbucks is that their beans often become stale as the sit on the shelf). 

The Clover operator carefully weighed the beans on a scale next to the machine. I noticed a stray bean sitting on the scale and wondered if I should tell him about it. I decided it would make me appear to be too obsessive so I held my tongue. He ground the beans and dumped them into a hole in the top of the machine and appeared to push a button. A jet of hot water (presumably exactly 202 degrees…or so) shot out of a tap and into the chamber. He reached for a rubber spatula to stir the concoction briefly (wait…didn’t the Wired article say he should use a wire whisk…). After some churning I was handed a cup of coffee.

I carefully sipped from the cup, bracing myself for a life-changing experience.

It was…ok. More drinkable than the usual Starbucks brew but certainly not the best cup I’ve ever had. I was a big fan of Starbucks’ Gold Coast blend in the past, though even that has now waned in quality as the beans have been allowed to steadily oxidize on store shelves. 

I haven’t given up hope. Apparently there’s still a non-Starbucks Clover shop in Cambridge somewhere, so I’m going to keep dreaming about that perfect cup.

There are times in our lives when we do things we are proud of and want to share these achievements with the world. There are other, darker times, when we lose sight of our values and stray from the path we have set for ourselves. I like to think of myself as a good person, an honest person. But I was truly inspired by John Edwards’ words tonight. “Edwards’ words” sounds a bit awkward, doesn’t it? Well, maybe that’s appropriate. Because this is awkward. Telling the truth that is. Anyway, John said that it’s no longer good enough to be “99% honest”. We must tell the truth. And so I am. Or will. Give me a second, here. 

John Edwards admitted that, in 2006, he had an affair. Despite this, he thought somehow he could run for president after this. That doesn’t sound like a great idea to me, but hey, what do I know. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, right? Well, it’s time to lay it all on the table. Not that I’m planning on running for president. Besides, John Edwards waited until after he lost to admit his wrong doings, while I haven’t even started campaigning for anything. Does that make me a better person? I’ll let you judge. You being the American People. Unless you’re reading this from outside America. Then I guess you’re a citizen of the world. So, I’ll let the Amiercan People and the citizens of the world judge me. Happy?

Here’s the situation. I could tell you a “99% truth”, that all I did this evening was cook some salmon and broccoli, and add a little couscous for a healthy meal. And that’s true. But it’s not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It’s just part of the story. Not really a lie, but still misleading. Is that all the food I ate? Well, that depends on what your definition of is is. Or actually what your definition of food is. After all the lights were out, I snuck into the kitchen for a snack. I’m not really sure what happened…it all went by so fast. It’s almost as if I was outside myself, watching someone else take the actions. 

I found myself with a piece of bread on a plate and some fresh-ground Whole Foods honey-roasted peanut butter. I started making a peanut butter and should have just stopped there, but no, I had to go on. As if moved by some unseen force, I opened the cabinet, took out a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and sprinkled them liberally on top. I’m already ashamed and wish that was the end of it. But it isn’t. I then took the resulting Frankenstein-like monstrosity and placed it in the toaster oven. I cannot bear to give you the details of how I toasted it, took out the bread, folded it in two, and ate it in one sitting, but if you can stand it you can look at the evidence. 

I understand if you never want to read this blog again. Or let your children read this blog. Or let anyone you know read this blog. I can’t promise you I’ll be perfect. But if you’ll give me another chance, I will do my best to re-earn your trust. Thank you.

Thou are much hotter and much more likely to inflict pain.

Burritos are a routine part of the dietary cycle chez Infobhan. Give me a Whole Foods, a good knife, and a decent cooking set up, I can take care of the rest. And so it was this weekend. I headed down to my usual organic paradise to pick up the necessary items:

Lime - check
Avocado - check
Cilantro (organic, natch) - check
Onion - check
Tortillas - whole wheat
Meat du jour - got it
Beans - in the can
Tomatoes - vine ripe
Jalepeno…

Where could it be? I paced back and forth through the vegetable aisles, knowing there must be at least one hiding somewhere. But nothing. Not even the an empty basket and sign to suggest a jalepeno smuggler might have just cleared out the lot. I was about to ask one of the workers when I had a sudden fear that this would turn out like “The Forgotten”, the Julianne Moore movie from a few years back where everyone acts like her son never existed. Except this would be with jalepenos. They would just stare at me blankly. 

“Sir, we’ve never had any jalepenos.”

I grabbed the closest replacement I could find and scuttled off to checkout.

Fast forward to a few hours later at home and I am “enjoying” some extremely hot salsa and chasing it with large amounts of water. Turns out that my replacement was a raging-hot habanero, widely respected as the most fearsome of all peppers. My mouth still burns just recalling the episode.

I hope this salmonella scare passes soon.

As the challenges of living with a young child have tested my daily endurance, I have become increasingly reliant on supplements to my usual one cup coffee habit to make it through the day. There is a maxim about lemons and lemonade, but I don’t particularly like lemonade, so I’ve applied to rule to coffee. If I’m going to consume northwards of three cups, they might as well be good ones. And I might as well learn something along the way. I’ve ordered up a large variety of beans from Sweet Marias. The remaining challenge is how to brew the stuff.

The French press (or should it be “freedom press” now) has been touted as a way to fully extract the range of flavor from the bean, but my initial experiments have come up a bit short. One particularly unsatisfying aspect of the experience has been the rate at which the coffee seems to go from drinkable temperature to uncomfortably lukewarm with the accompanying blandness that seems to emerge when coffee has been sitting around too long.

As there’s no stove in the office, I’ve used the hot water tap from our water dispenser to brew the coffee. I hoped, though in the back of my mind I suspected it was a foolish hope, that it would be perfectly calibrated for brewing coffee (200 degree Fahrenheit). I realized that there is only one way to know for sure, so today, I came to work prepared:

Just as I had suspected: 46 degrees too cold. Now the only question is: how crazy will my coworkers think I am if I bring in an electric kettle just to get the right temperature hot water?

Since trying out MacSpeak Dictate, I found a useful feature called “text macros” which allows you to link a block of text to a voice command. Say the command, and the text is magically inserted. One problem: MacSpeak applies it’s own rules to the formatting of the text, so words may not be capitalized the way you originally entered them. Solution: use an AppleScript instead, which can also be linked to a voice command.

I’ve been searching high and low for how to get AppleScript to type a block of text on command. There’s the “keystroke” command but this is extremely slow for entering a lot of text. The solution I came up with involves saving the current contents of the clip board, inserting the text you want to insert on the clipboard, and getting AppleScript to paste it. Finally AppleScript restores the original contents of the clipboard. I had to use a delay before restoring the clipboard because sometimes the restore goes through before the text is pasted.

tell application "System Events"
	set currentClipboard to the clipboard
	set the clipboard to "Ishir Bhan, M.D., M.P.H."
	keystroke "v" using {command down}
	delay 1
	set the clipboard to currentClipboard
end tell

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