May 26, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Food and Drink
Six years ago, Karen and I heard rumors about a place in Bellevue that was serving up fancy food. For a long time, we regarded these rumors with some skepticism. Bellevue, after all, is a working class town that is pretty far out of the city. It seemed like an unlikely home for a wonderful high-end food experience. When we eventually hauled ourselves out there we found to our surprise that the rumors were true.
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May 25, 2006 · peterb · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
“I want a hamburger. A really good hamburger.”
This is me, talking to psu.
“Go to Tessaro’s. They have the best burgers in town.”
That’s psu, talking to me.
But Tessaro’s doesn’t have the best burgers in town. In the abstract, yes, a Tessaro’s burger is almost the platonic ideal of a great hamburger. The meat is cooked perfectly, over a wood fire. It’s big and juicy. It’s perfect. Except…
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May 23, 2006 · psu · 3 minute read
Games
I took Madden ‘06 for the 360 to Pete’s house the other day so he could get a look at the Zombie Peyton Manning. On a whim, I tossed in my controller, figuring that some head to head football goodness would be fun. After all, the controllers are wireless, they should just hook right up and go, right? Wrong. One of the few good moments you have when opening and setting up an Xbox 360 is pushing the big button on the controller and watching the console light up from across the room.
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May 22, 2006 · peterb · 12 minute read
Web
Note: Because of the formatting used in this article, it likely won’t look quite right in an RSS reader. I suggest reading the entry in your web browser.
When I first invited psu to be a co-blogger, the thing he was most leery of was the fact that Tea Leaves had support for comments. His previous blog didn’t. Pete claimed that he didn’t like comments because he didn’t want to read what people had to say, because most people on the internet were crazy anyway.
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May 19, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Culture
All fitness hobbies require appropriate accessorization. In many ways cycling is one of the most accessory-intensive activities that you can be involved in. As a public service, I will provide you with a list of things you need, and the real reason you need them. Gloves
There is no doubt that gloves are important. The gloves protect your hands from potential harm in a crash, and they have a thin and mostly useless layer of padding to shield your palms from too much pressure from the handlebars.
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May 17, 2006 · peterb · 6 minute read
Games
There is, as I alluded in my first article on the subject, plenty to dislike about Oblivion. If you read various reviews and comments on the game, you’ll discover there are two rough sets of comments on the negatives.
First, there are the opinions of people who actually identify and discuss specific problems in the game. Secondly, there are the opinions of people who make the broad claim that the big problem with Oblivion is that it is “dumbed down.
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May 16, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Culture
We were in the local Border’s a couple of days ago. I guess we hadn’t been there for a while, because all the books were in different places, and the store had cunningly replaced inventory with empty floorspace in order to maximize profit in some way that only makes sense to someone who has studied modern retail more closely than I have. I also noticed that the name of the store should be Borders BOOKS and Music because the selection of available CDs has been constantly shrinking over the last few years, replaced by new shelves of basically nothing, and more floor space.
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May 15, 2006 · peterb · 5 minute read
Games
I’ve spent a couple of weekends playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and that means it’s time to share my ignorant impressions of it with all three or four of my readers. The question is, since all of the cool kids have already discussed the game in depth, what more can I bring to the table?
Well, I have an angle. Let’s see if I can run with it. Actually, “running with it” is exactly what I want to talk about.
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May 11, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Food and Drink
Lately I’ve been in something of a food rut. A combination of too much to do and not enough time to do it has left me eating out for lunch a lot at work. Typically, it goes like this: I tell myself I’ll make lunch the night before and stick it in the fridge, but then I don’t have time, and in the morning I only have time to pack something like a sandwich or some cold cuts, which for various reasons I find more depressing than spiritually fulfilling.
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May 10, 2006 · psu · 3 minute read
Games
I took a couple of days off from Oblivion to play the two shooters for the 360. The two major franchise shooters currently available are Ghost Recon and Call of Duty 2.
Last night, I played the co-op missions in Ghost Recon with tilt. As others have already written, the rendering in the game is remarkable. There are thousands of little details that the artists must have toiled greatly over. Dust flies in the air, cars beep with alarms when you shoot them, the streetlights blink in a completely empty and zombified Mexico City.
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May 9, 2006 · peterb · 6 minute read
Games
Well, that didn’t last long. This weekend I gave in and bought an Xbox 360. Here’s what you need to know if you’ve been considering one.
The Bad The industrial design on the Xbox 360 is beyond bad: it is a goddamned abortion. There are absolutely no redeeming features to how the console has been put together. It weighs a billion pounds, has an external power brick the size of Finland, a power connector that would look at home on a 220v refrigerator, it sounds like an Airbus A300 when the disc drive spins up, and it puts out as much heat as a pottery kiln.
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May 8, 2006 · psu · 5 minute read
Culture
Recently Jeff at work asked me where to go to buy a bike. As I recall, he didn’t really ask what kind of bike he should buy, but being the self- absorbed dork asshole that I am, I could not help but provide my opinion. My short answer to Jeff was: just buy a road bike.
The road bike is the perfect bicycle for almost all uses. The only use for which it really is not suited is riding around in the woods over ruts and logs and rocks.
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May 4, 2006 · peterb · 5 minute read
Games
When it coms to computer game design, small is beautiful. Big is bad.
I’ve mentioned my recent foray into casual game addiction before. Today, I’m going to talk about it again, with regards to a specific game: Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. “Small is beautiful” is particularly true when it comes to user interface mechanics, where small things make huge differences. Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who just bought a $30,000 car, and the one thing he couldn’t stop talking about was how the automatic windows would allow him to close a window with a single button press, as well as open it.
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May 3, 2006 · psu · 7 minute read
Games
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
I am generally skeptical about the quality of narrative in video games. For the most part, the games we play don’t provide a literary experience that is much above that of the simplest children’s story. Hero wakes up. Hero kills a lot of shit. Hero saves the world.
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May 2, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
Updates have been slow lately because I played racquetball on Friday, forgetting that men in my family have about as much athletic ability as the average brine shrimp. While playing, immediately after thinking “Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this,” I took a dive and landed on my wrist and elbow. Hard. I didn’t break the wrist, although from my completely pathetic fainting fits you would have thought I did. I eventually did end up going to the ER, and they say it’s a very bad sprain.
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Apr 29, 2006 · peterb · 2 minute read
Games
Phil Steinmeyer has released the Mac port of his word-hunt game Bonnie’s Bookstore.
Librarians: merely somewhat hot, or super- hot?
I might be biased, since I was a beta tester, but I found the game to be both pleasant and challenging. The art style is cartoony and fun. The game’s graphic design has “marketed to chicks” written all over it, but don’t let that stop you from playing – type in the right cheat code and you get to see Bonnie naked (footnote 1).
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Apr 27, 2006 · peterb · 4 minute read
Culture
It was just last year, in my mid-30s, that I learned how to tie my shoes. Yes, at a time when most other men are getting ready to buy a Porsche, get a stupid little French-style beret to cover their bald spot, and maybe start visiting a tanning salon, I finally learned how to tie my shoes properly. It’s not my fault, though: I blame society.
You Are Knot Alone Apparently, I am not the only person this has happened to, because when I showed my newly-found power of shoe-tying to an associate, she realized that she didn’t know how to tie them properly, either.
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Apr 26, 2006 · psu · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
In the wide landscape of available devices for turning ground coffee into an arguably drinkable liquid, the Moka Pot does not get its due. This strange device has the advantage of relative simplicity, and a long history of faithful service. I like them because they brew the coffee sort of inside out. In the marketplace, the moka pot is trapped somewhere between the cheap plastic every day Mr. Coffee type machines and the high tech ultra-modern multi-hundred dollar espresso extractors that you can pick up at your local William and Sonoma store.
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Apr 25, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Games
The inevitable backlash against Oblivion has started in earnest. With early reviews proclaiming that the game was something between the second coming and the invention of peanut butter on sliced bread, you can’t be surprised that a few people are deciding to stand up and call the whole thing nonsense. But, just as inevitable are freaks who go overboard.
That review, and others like it, complain about the A.I. and various issues with “realism” and “immersion.
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Apr 24, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Culture
The little boy had been off by himself for a while while the rest of us were near the stream pretending to fish. When he came back had a net full of frogs. “Now, you be sure to put those back,” said his dad. “Well,” the little boy said, “I have to keep one, because he peed on me. So I have to keep that one in the net, as punishment.
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Apr 19, 2006 · peterb · 4 minute read
Photo
I decided to try Adobe’s DNG converter for the same reason that I can’t help picking at scabs: I’m always curious about how a new workflow will feel. This, of course, is because I am a dedicated amateur and wanker. If I were a professional, the chances that I would risk my livelihood on a new workflow before it was tried and tested would approach zero.
DNG, for those of you not aware of it, is Adobe’s new semi-open standard for “raw” digital photographs.
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Apr 18, 2006 · psu · 5 minute read
Games
I have not been posting because I’ve been running my Breton/Dark Elf Mage/Fighter/Thief guy around in the woods looking for all the different things to do. I think I finally have a good feel for this game, even though I really still haven’t scratched the surface.
Therefore, it is time to complain. To be fair, there really isn’t that much to complain about. This is the most engaging “Western” style RPG that I’ve played since KOTOR.
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Apr 14, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Games
As it turned out, one weekend after opining about the viability of the “current generation” consoles, the Xbox 360 finally appeared in reasonable numbers. Suddenly they were everywhere. Coincidentally, I was getting tired of low resolution Madden 06. Yes, my defenses are that thin.
There isn’t much to say about the console itself.
1. It’s not really any smaller or better looking than an Xbox.
2. It is a LOT louder.
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Apr 13, 2006 · peterb · 6 minute read
Games
Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Elder Scrolls.
Not Oblivion, mind you: I’m far, far too cheap to have purchased an Xbox 360 yet. Instead, I’ve been playing the previous game in the series, Morrowind. My initial thought was that this would be an effective way of curbing my urge to buy an Oblivion-capable PC, or an Xbox 360. You know. Kind of like how smoking lots of opium makes you not want heroin so much.
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Apr 11, 2006 · peterb · 4 minute read
Food and Drink
A lot of Americans don’t like olives. This is because the olives most of us are subjected to suck.
I probably didn’t have a truly great olive until I was in my twenties. Now, they are almost a staple food in my diet. I’d like to share some of my opinions on the subject with you, and describe some types of olives that you might want to try, if you haven’t yet.
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Apr 10, 2006 · psu · 2 minute read
Culture
We heard some good new music at the PSO this weekend. I can see all of you out there rolling your eyes. “New” Classical Music is assumed to be some soulless abstract exercise in collecting clever compositional tricks and throwing them out at the bewildered audience, while very little of actual interest happens. Well, this piece is different.
Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra is a five movement work that moves from sections for the whole band through solos in all of the major areas of the modern orchestra.
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Apr 7, 2006 · psu · 1 minute read
Food and Drink
It finally appears that Spring has sprung. After some false warmth, followed by a pretty cool week, we came to a Friday afternoon with temperatures in the balmy 70s and pale blue skies.
By tradition, my wife and I wait for this first day of real warmth, and walk from our offices at at CMU into Oakland for dinner. Our destination is Dave and Andy’s, because adults are allowed to have ice cream for dinner.
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Apr 6, 2006 · claire · 3 minute read
Games
Ok, I admit it, I’m woefully susceptible to hype. Rant and rave about how great a game is and I’ll be intrigued; get others to do the same and I’m convinced. So you can guess the effect a 10+ page thread extolling the virtues of Ouendan must have had on me. I was convinced I’d love the game even before I had it. But even if you weren’t so predisposed to fall in love, Osu!
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Apr 5, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
Is: “How well does The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion run on an iMac (Intel) running Windows XP via BootCamp?”
Mouseketeers, discover this information for me, and report in!
Apr 4, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Games
Originally, I bought the PS2 for a few specific games that were not available on my “main platform”, the Xbox. At the time, I figured that me and my Xbox- live crew would naturally make the progression from Halo 2 on the Xbox to whatever was like Halo 2 on the Xbox 360. Between that, and the periodic Madden roster update sequel, I’d be all set.
Things never go according to plan.
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Apr 3, 2006 · peterb · 4 minute read
Culture
It started, as it always does, with a random connection, a set of neurons in my brain that misfired in an amusing way.
Someone was talking about how someone they knew was wearing hideous pants. The word “hideous” made me think of a book by the execrable C.S. Lewis (yes, the Narnia one) called That Hideous Strength. This book is about the Asskicking Jesus. Earth is under threat from space aliens, so the Asskicking Jesus flies to Mars to beat them up until they stop.
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Mar 31, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
Once again, Tea Leaves is proud to be one of the few sites on the web that doesn’t have a stupid and irritating April Fools' joke.
I say “Bah, humbug!” and I’m proud to do so.
Mar 30, 2006 · psu · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
For two years in graduate school, I lived in North Carolina. One of the things you learn about when you live in North Carlina is what good pulled pork tastes like. Good pulled pork is pork shoulder, or the whole pig, cooked over a low smokey fire for many many hours. In the part of North Carolina where we lived, the meat is also marinated in a vinegar and pepper sauce.
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Mar 29, 2006 · peterb · 2 minute read
Games
There are a few funny things about my craving to play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. First, I won’t really like it. I had this problem with Morrowind, the previous Elder Scrolls game. I mean, I played it. It was “interesting.” Mostly, I think I was in awe of the sheer audacity of the game – the scope and size of it, the varied environments, and architecture, and clothing styles. The intricate magic system and the wonderful, wonderful books scattered all throughout the land.
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Mar 28, 2006 · psu · 5 minute read
Food and Drink
Over the weekend, the New York Times published [ this depressing profile](http ://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/national/26supper.html?pagewanted=all) of a growing service in the food industry where you pay someone to be your prep cook. Apparently, the way this works is that for a nominal fee, you are given use of an industrial kitchen space and told how to “assemble” your dishes from the vats of ingredients that are given to you. This article is just the latest indication when it comes to food, certain Americans suffer from three pathologies: sloth, ignorance and denial.
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Mar 27, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
My new column, Retrograde, appears in the latest issue of Played To Death. Feel free to check it out (PDF, 42 Mb).
This issue’s topic: everyone’s favorite Playable Classic, Ultima IV.
Mar 23, 2006 · psu · 5 minute read
Games
I picked up the new Metal Gear Solid 3 special edition because the promise of playing the game with a real third person camera intrigued me. You have to give Kojima credit. If nothing else, he has a sense of style, and he does not take himself too seriosuly. Things happen in the latest Metal Gear game that you just can’t imagine happening in, say, Splinter Cell because the latter game puts up a pretense of being a serious take on the action/stealth genre.
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Mar 22, 2006 · peterb · 7 minute read
Games
It was, quite arguably, the best game of its era: X-Com: UFO Defense. It had everything. A gripping plot. An approachable, iconic art style. Furious, deadly combat. An easily-learned user interface.
It spawned a number of official sequels, and a few imitators, but none of them had the impact of the original. And you can understand why: if you want to play X-Com, you can play X-Com. It’s a game that comes so close to perfection that it’s hard to argue that you even need a sequel.
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Mar 21, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
“With an iSight, some chlorine bleach, and two pairs of latex surgical gloves, nothing is impossible.”
More context would just ruin it, I think.
Mar 20, 2006 · psu · 1 minute read
Games
I’m 4 or 5 hours into the new Shadow Hearts. Currently, I am breaking Al Capone out of Alcatraz, only Alcatraz is in Chicago and I’m with Al Capone’s bodyguard, who is a gigantic talking white cat. Who knows Drunken Master Kung Fu. Did I mention the talking cat? I can’t really say any more without spoiling the more unique aspects of the plot.
Mar 17, 2006 · peterb · 3 minute read
Games
Hi. Glad you could drop by so we could have this little chat. Have a seat. Yes, that one there, right next to the Playstation 2 console. Here, have a cup of coffee. It’s my special blend. Now, if you could pick it up – no, don’t put that in your mouth – and look at the front. Yes, the front. That’s the part with the buttons. Right. Good. Take a look at the lower left part of the console.
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Mar 16, 2006 · psu and peterb · 7 minute read
Food and Drink
Why do we go to Toronto? Mostly to eat. Sure, there are other attractions and cultural activities. But we go there to eat. And we’ve been there enough to develop some favorites. Bonjour Brioche (psu and peterb)
This is a French breakfast and pastry place which is a couple of miles to the east of downtown on Queen. The neighborhood is a bit iffy, but the croissant and baguette are not.
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Mar 15, 2006 · psu · 5 minute read
Games
Here we are, six months into the “next generation” of game consoles, and what should be a headlong charge into a future of gaming nirvana now seems more like a head first dive into a concrete wall. Without a helmet. The Xbox 360 came out of the gate almost stillborn. There were shortages. There were hardware problems. There were no games. Sony’s new machine is nowhere to be found, no doubt bogged down by Sony’s quest to exploit “convergence” in the living room.
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Mar 14, 2006 · peterb · 8 minute read
Games
It was a game I had been looking forward to playing for quite some time.
When my review copy arrived, I was thrilled, simply thrilled. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. That evening, I perused the manual as I installed the game on my PC, ready to be transported into an exciting new world.
And then, as the install process finished, a window popped up informing me that the “StarForce” copy protection software/malware had been installed, and that I should reboot to complete the installation process.
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Mar 13, 2006 · psu · 7 minute read
Culture
If there are two things dorks like to do more than anything else in the world, it’s tell you why their favorite widget is the best one to ever grace human existence and why your thing is just barely better than the organisms breaking down the compost pile. They will back up their opinions with arguments that use repitition and vociferousness to make up for what they lack in facts. Usually, they all boil down to putting up a one or two aspects of a product’s performance over all others as the sole determiner of quality.
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Mar 9, 2006 · psu · 3 minute read
Games
We’re going to Toronto for a long weekend, so this is the perfect time to flush out the state of my game playing and mix it up with small nuggets of confusion. In other words, a “clip” article. MMO(SP?)RPG
Recall that the “M” and the “M” in MMORPG stand for “Massively” and “Multiplayer.” With this context, consider the following complaint that I have read in multiple gaming forums and [web sites](http://www.
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Mar 8, 2006 · peterb · 5 minute read
Food and Drink
We all have them. Maybe you wore a denim jacket all through Junior High school. Maybe you think, when no one is looking, that Cyndi Lauper is actually pretty cool. Maybe you memorized the order in which Star Trek episodes first aired. Whatever your particular secret shames are, rest assured that everyone around you has their own as well.
We spend a lot of time and effort on this weblog talking about food.
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Mar 7, 2006 · psu · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
Today two short notes based on reader feedback. First, in the area of crackers, I was finally at the Geagle and remembered to look for the special British crackers that Kim mentioned in a comment on cookies. [McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits](http://www.perennialtearoom.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWP ROD&ProdID=103) are, indeed, the real thing. They are slightly sweet, and wheaty without being grainy. They are also less crumbly than the Carr’s knock off. I love this kind of cracker for blue cheese and such.
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Mar 6, 2006 · peterb · 1 minute read
Culture
…And, in an amusing bit of synchronicity, my copy of the abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo arrived in the mail today.
It confirms my prejudices. Read the full version of the book, or don’t read it at all.
Mar 3, 2006 · psu · 4 minute read
Culture
I was going to rant and foam at the mouth tonight about the sorry state of the current battle in the consumer electronics industry over “convergence” of entertainment devices in the living room. Unfortunately, I’m just not interested enough in the problems to really build up to a good froth.
So instead, I’m going to write about something light, friendly, and enjoyable. A couple of weeks ago, we went to see Curious George.
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