Today, I made the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever experienced. I feel compelled to make a note of how I did it. (It always saddens me when I reflect on the fact that every time I'm really proud of something I cooked, it involves dairy and/or gluten, and so many of my friends have a hard time with one or both of those.)

2 slices Nature's Own Butterbread (we're off to a healthy start already!)

1 tablespoon of butter

1 slice of deli gouda

1 slice of pepper jack

1 ounce of fresh mozzarella, sliced thin enough that it makes a layer all its own

1 slice of muenster

2 thin slices of onion

1 medium slice of a gorgeous tomato that happened to be almost as big as the bread

Melt the butter over medium heat. Sauté the onion in the butter until glassy, and remove from butter (trying to leave as much butter in the pan as possible). Place the bread slices in the pan, and on top of them, the cheese (2 types of cheese on each slice of bread; I did gouda and pepper jack on one, mozzarella and muenster on the other, but I don't imagine it matters much), then the onion - one slice of onion on each side. My rings of onion fell apart, so I tried to spread them out a bit. Reduce the heat and leave it on the stove for a while, then put it under the broiler for a while. Put one slice on a plate, top with a tomato, and then put the other slice face down on top. Press down, let cool for a minute, and eat over a plate to catch the juice. If you're the kind of person who doesn't just stand over a plate in the kitchen wolfing down a sandwich without ever setting it down, you'll probably want a second plate to set the sandwich down on so you're not laying the toasted side of the bread down in the drippy juice.

I saw Interstellar last night and made three tweets about my experience.

• Interstellar was okay, except the score. Koyaanisqatsi had all the deafening pipe organ arpeggios anyone ever needed, this was inexcusable.
• Also Matthew McConaughey has seated himself on Marlon Brando's throne as Crown King of "Acting With Mouth Stuffed Full of Toilet Paper"
• That said, Anne Hathaway's performances were excellent, and the story was a bit hokey but very nicely paced. Go see it.

I got a response to my first post on Facebook (which gets copies of my tweets) from someone who complained that I always point out negative things, and then said that the science and visuals were awesome and they'd love to see it again, with earplugs. (I'm not quoting because that's probably rude.)

There's a lot I could unpack here that would probably be fairly tedious reading but I would like to make a couple points anyway.

I don't think there are any true spoilers here, but I do mention a couple of plot points in a very abstract way, and those two paragraphs are clearly identified below in point three.

First, I will complely own being a "complainer." Actually, that's just a side effect, when I'm feeling talkative. I absolutely am one of those people who is often profoundly disturbed by seemingly minor negative experiences. I actually feel this is a fairly useful skill in someone who designs things for a living. If I couldn't perceive the details about what was wrong with a situation or an object or an experience, how would I know when it was right or know how to fix it? So, yes, I can focus on negative things. This doesn't mean I don't experience good things. 

Second, for any form of professional endeavour, from an appliance to a restauraunt meal to a game to a movie, to there is a bar that one is expected to pass, and that bar is fails to suck. You don't get five stars if your product doesn't suck. You get two, maybe three. And in a triple A product, like a movie with a $168 million dollar price tag, I expect there to be no major and very few minor flaws. That's the price of admission: failing to suck.

And so when I have to strain to hear the dialogue because the lead actor is constantly mumbling (and it isn't relevant to the plot, like a story about someone overcoming a speech impediment), that violates my expectations for a triple A product, and I will call it out, because it sucks. Similarly, if the soundtrack for a movie is so intrusive that it repeatedly distracts me from the plot and visuals through sheer deafening volume and also renders essential if not critical dialogue sequences as basic exercises in lip-reading, I will call it out, because it sucks.

I consider "being able to understanding the dialogue" and "a relevant and complementary soundtrack" to be key components of a dramatic presentation. Interstellar failed on these fronts, and I said so.

Third, I don't consider scientific accuracy to be a key component of a dramatic presentation. A documentary, yes; I would expect it in a documentary. But not Interstellar. So though my interlocutor brandished that aspect of the movie as a positive, I can't accept it as more than a "nice to have". 

[ very mild spoilers next two paragraphs ]

And if one really wanted to dive into scientific accuracy, really the only accurate part of the movie was the visuals, which were not essential to the plot. When it came to plot beats, science was both used and abused willy-nilly. In general, it's a movie about the consequences about the time dialation aspects of general relativity, and I'm sure they did ran some equations that made the passage of time to be reasonably realistic.

However, they completely ignored other aspects of general relativity and astrophysics that, had they been considered, would have made the plot not work. In particular, the extreme redshifting of signals transmitted near a black hole would have mooted any justification for visiting the first planet, thus throwing entire plot in disarray.  Even worse, the vast amounts of high-energy radiation produced by matter falling into a black hole, especially a large one with a massive accretion disc, would instantly fry any humans or electronics that got anywhere nearby, which would basically have ended the movie right at the beginning of the second act. 

[ end spoilers ]

So they used some science to tell a story and ignored some other science to make that story work. I'm okay with that. It's called suspension of disbelief, and it's why I can enjoy a superhero movie. I don't poke holes in dramatic presentations for scientific inaccuracy, because science isn't why I'm there.

Fourth, I also said some nice things. I said the movie was "okay"; it passes the bar for AAA dramatic presentations: the acting was good, the cinematography was decent, the script was pleasant, the pacing appropriate, characterizations seemed on target, and the story engaging.

I also said that Anne Hathaway turned in some great acting; not just acceptable, but really worth watching.  I said the story was a bit hokey; its beats are just a bit too familiar to be really compelling, but not actually bad. And I said the pacing was very nice; it's a 3 hour flick, and it uses the "silences" between the words as effectively as the words themselves (I scare-quote silences beacuse the soundtrack rarely offered us any silence), and it didn't feel rushed or draggy.

And I said "go see it" which I stand by. It's worth seeing on the big screen with the understanding that you might be sticking your fingers in your ears one moment, and straining to hear Cooper's dialogue the next (and some times both), and if you do you'll enjoy a nicely paced if a bit hokey story with good acting all around as well as some inspired work from one of the next generation's best actors.

I would probably give it a somewhat resentful 4 stars on Netflix because I couldn't give it 3.5 and if I was using Ebert's star scale I'd give it ***.

I have a few PNG (thank you, Tom Boutell) files that I want to put on top of a simple PDF template and save as a new PDF. Positioning and size are important to get right. Word won't open the PDF template, I tried GIMP for an hour, read the tutorials, manual, couldn't get layers to move around without smooshing into each other, couldn't get images in any way besides layers.

I tried Preview on the Mac, because I read that could work, but I could not get it to work.

What am I looking for?

A. Image editing software

B. Graphic design software

C. Desktop publishing software

D. Something else

Thank you in advance, Rob

I was contacted today by the lead recruiter for an IT development company located in King of Prussia who needs a content writer. We emailed back and forth and chatted on the phone and - hurray - I have an interview tomorrow. 

In preparation, I checked out the company website, read some copy, scanned a few blogs. Oh boy, do they need a writer!

And the recruiter just emailed back thanking me for "conformation" of tomorrow's interview.

Yikes!

yes, it came out just as i typed it.

hese boxes seem to multiply.t

There's a new post in my blog, Harbinger of Doom, in which I talk about the plight of new players in boffer LARPs creating rogues, knaves, and ne'er-do-wells.

Saw a truly good production of Hamlet today, at Hedgerow Theater. It made me have more sympathy for Laertes and Horatio than before. Horatio in this case is the deeply-friend-zoned would-be lover (played by a woman, an inspired choice).  And poor Laertes, the guy goes through all Hamlet's hell in less than an act. 

Got to see it with my favorite smart 12-year-old, and it was wonderful to experience it with him. 

I wish someone would make a cinematic first-person shooter of Hamlet. Seriously. 

I also wish (and I hate to say this, but I will) for a 25-year moratorium on Shakespeare.  I'd be willing to allow universities to do one Shakespeare play a season, but only if no white people are cast in the production. I love Shakespeare, but I think not enough other work gets a chance. I also think we need to let a generation roll over and see it with fresh eyes. 

that being said, it was a lovely show. 

I've been a huge fan since I discovered his work in 1988. What has impressed me so much, recently, is the way little bits from his earlier work (phrases, ideas, images) keep popping up. As if the first time I saw them he was just planting them, and now they're mature. And as much as his work changes every decade or so, it still seems like a sharper and sharper iteration of his first stuff.

I'm imagining a writer who keeps going back in time, killing himself, and releasing better and better versions of his first novel.

Anyone is welcome to use that idea, if they want to make fiction based on it. No one is allowed to actually do it, please.

I keep seeing memes after last week's midterm elections that make me despair for how little Americans understand their own democracy, or, in many cases, respect it.

Most absurd has been, "now that people voted for Republicans, the Republicans have to X", where X is "govern" or "work with the President", or a variety of other verb phrases that mean, "get things done", because "that's why people voted for Republicans."

This is hogwash.

List of reasons to vote Republican, not Democratic in the 2014 elections:

• anger at Democrats
  
• preference for Republican point of view and for Republican policies to be enacted
  
• preference for gridlock / divided government
  
• dislike of local Democratic candidate
  
• affection for local Republican candidate
  
• strategic vote so that if Republican President elected in 2016, comes alongside large Congressional majority
  
• generic subcultural affinity for Republicans
  
• the benefits of incumbency
  
• interest in how Republicans might govern if given the chance
  

All of these are valid reasons, but their preferred outcomes vary dramatically.  Only some of them imply a preference

And that's okay! 

Similarly, there's been a striking number of people saying that 2014's election was "historically" bad for the Democrats, which shows a surprisingly tiny window of "historical" knowledge, given that the outcome was not exactly different from 1994's midterm elections, or (for a six-years-in election), 2006's.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-year_itch)  I realize that looking a whopping eight or twenty years into the past is a challenge, but I do wish political reporters and the people who transmit their drivel could do so. 

We tend to eat 'clean' here in the moveable house. 

And by clean, I mean as little processed crap as possible. Of course, we have a freezer full of chocolate, and there's 3 boxes of Krispy Creme sitting on our bench after the trip to Canberra; I mean we aren't strict, we simlpy prefer to eat well. (Which means we tend to shop from the edges of the supermarket rather than the middle isles. Very little that is good foor you is found in the middle isles of the supermarket.) 

Last nights dinner was steak and salad. In summer, I like to add fruit to our salads. It seems to make them crisp, light and refreshing. 

Last night we had watermelon and rocket salad. Which is just rocket, a few finely chopped mint leaves, balls of watermelon, cucumber, danish feta and cooked proscuito. (If it was just me eating it I would have also added some sliced black olives, but I am the only one in this house that eats olives so I omitted them.) The dressing is balsamic vinegar, runny strawberry jam, salt, pepper, a sprinkle of sugar if needed and olive oil.  A friend of mine got a thermomix lately and has been making all sorts of stuff in it. She made strawberry jam and gifted a jar of it to me. It's rather runny for a jam, but makes a nice sauce. So I fgured it would work well in salad dressing and it did. 

I have no picture. It was demolished at break-neck speed. 

But breakfast this morning is not a clean meal. Not by a long shot. (And it's something I rarely eat, but the family loves it, so I endeavor to make it at least once a fortnight) We're having Dutch Pancakes.  My pancake mix is a little different to regular pancake mix. 

1/2 cup of condensed milk

3/4 cup of hot water

(I mix these two ingredients first, then go have a cup of tea while it cools. I usually make a double mix because my boys are pigs, so to save time I add 3/4 cup of hot water and mix then add 3/4 cup of cold water from the fridge.) 

To that I add

20grams of melted butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 cup of plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg. 

(Even when I double the mix, I still only use one egg. But that's because we have our own chickens and they lay massive eggs. so depending on the size of the eggs you buy, you may need to experiement.) 

I mix it all up and pour it into a large squeezy bottle.  This is just easier for use with the dutch pancake hot plate. Melted butter on the plate is super yummy, but I just use spray oil to cook the pancakes. They are quite small bite sized rounds of pancake. My plate makes 14 at a time. With this mix you can get 6 plates out of it. I usually double it because the man will eat 4 plates worth on his own. With cream and maple syrup. My little guy will eat 2 plates worth (sometimes 3) but he likes his with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. (They taste like donuts when you eat it like that.) On the rare occasion that I do eat pancakes, I like mine with lemon juice and sugar. 

So a double mix will make 12 plates of 14 mini-cakes. (we usually do have some left over and they are delicious eaten like pikelets with jam and butter.) 

If I get the chance to take a pic before they gobble them up, I will. 

(If I make this on a weekday morning, I make the mix up the night before. I used to put it in the fridge overnight, but the mix would go a little weird sometimes so I only put it in the fridge over night now on really hot nights. But these pancakes are surprisingly quick and easy to make. Its the prep work that takes the most time.) 

Not a good pic, but this is what 1 plate of naked dutch pancakes looks like. 

(Note, this is a side plate not a dinner plate.)