Another weekend. Neither especially good nor bad, but some of each. On Friday I cooked up the salt encrusted chicken recipe from Jamie Oliver. It came out pretty well, but I don’t think I’ll do it again. Eight bucks for the bird, but ten for the spices, herbs and salt (half of which is for the fennel, which goes on the outside of the bird, and didn’t contribute much flavor I could taste), so it’s not a cheap recipe. Plus it’s hard to get the right grind of salt here. The rock salt is way too chunky (and might have things in it that aren’t good for you), and kosher salt is too fine. So even though the bird came out tasty, between the hassle and the cost, I don’t think I’ll do it again.
Satuday, was a day for being social. I went out to Burnsville with Mark and shot up some paper, then we grabbed Jim, and went down to Dulono’s to watch Cousin Dad. We ended up seeing Kari there, too, and between chatting with her and enjoying the music, we stayed through a set and a half. Should have called it a night at that point, but Jim wanted to swing by Manning’s. We did, and then headed to the Sporty for another. And a few more. Sunday was a pretty lazy day, as a result.
Today, I’ve got some more work to do, and I think it’s time to get serious about looking for a long-term solution to the work thing. I either need to get started on a project that I can sell soon, or I need to update the resume so I can shop myself around more effectively. The big question that remains is whether I’m open to a full-time job working for someone else, and I think I might be.
- With more on the Possible cold medicine ban: Get out your hankies? the Strib clarifies Friday’s article. The ban is on pills only, so gel-tabs and liquid are still okay. Also, the Senate version doesn’t ban Sudafed pills, but simply requires it to be sold by the pharmacist (without a prescription). That’s the current situation at Target, and I can live with that, though I don’t especially like it. The St. Paul paper says Meth bill gets mixed reviews. The more I think about it, the more upset I get about this. Yes, I know that meth is bad, but I don’t see how banning Sudafed is going to make a difference. It’s only the most common precursor, not a mandatory one. If you ban Sudafed, people will switch to using other precursors.
Besides, I’m still mad about when the FDA yanked Dimetapp Extentabs from the shelves and then they were reformulated into something that worked less well. All because one of the ingredients causes a slight rise in the chances of heart attacks in some women. Well, I’m a guy, and it was a damned effective medicine for dealing with my allergies, and it’s gone. Even if it increased my odds of a heart attack slightly, I would probably take it. [strib, press-patch and papascott] - In other news from the Minnesota legislature, the MN Senate, in S.F. No. 606, proposes raising the tax on kegs of beer from $4.60 to $37.52 per 32-gallon barrel (see section 13.32), and from $2.40 to $35.32 for 3.2 beer (section 13.29). The brewer would get a rebate on the tax for the first twenty-five thousand barrels, but the consumer? We’ll see that added buck-per-gallon tax at the tap. [fark!]
- Burt Rutan has a vision in flight, but doesn’t really know what space-flight will be good for. Then again, people who were messing about with personal computers in the 70s weren’t really sure what they’d be good for, either. He does think that if government would get out of the way, there would be a lot more people messing about, and that would be a good thing. Or maybe he doesn’t. [claire]