Reading: Analog, March 2005
Music: Bad Religion
TV/Movie: War of the Worlds
Link o' the Day: Tangent Online

I spent some time with the fiddle yesterday, trying to get it tuned up. I have a nice Korg chromatic tuner to help me with the specifics, and I use my mandolin to help me find the range. I got the thing tuned up, and within five minutes it was already out of tune. I’m not overly concerned about this as, as with any other stringed instrument, new strings take time to adjust. If this continues to be a problem, I’ll assume that I was given cheap violin strings and just buy some replacements.

It's a devilishly tough instrument. Granted, I've only been at it for less than a day. And I _did_ manage to squeak out a couple of bars to the B part to "Trip to Sligo." It's gonna take time.

I have to put my UPS-tirade on hold for a couple of more days. Apparently I have one more item, a deep-rimmed, tunable bodhran, in transit to me via the boys in brown. Let's see if I actually get it in a reasonable amount of time.

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One of the sleeper presents from this past Christmas has been the Fry-Daddy. It’s basically a bucket that heats cooking oil. You dunk things into it. Stir every now and then, and voila! Deep-fried food. It has changed our lives. Baked fries were never that good. Neither were oven-heated homefries. Forget making anything like a parougi. Now all I have to do is plug it in, wait ten minutes, and I'm in business.

The crock pot has been fun as well. I've only used it a few times, but the food cooks pretty well, and it's a very different sort of result than what I get out of my oven. There’s a lot of potential for creativity.

Of course it makes Pretty Maggie's Gazelle exercise machine all the more needful. I need to log some time on that.

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I've recently joined up with the team at Tangent Online. They are one of the few places online that specialize in reviewing short fiction, and they've proven to be a pretty reliable buying guide for me. Now I’m going to get in the act. I've been a reader for years, and a subscriber for just under a year. they have had a number of server-related problems in the past which made access, even to subscribers, dodgy at times, and much of the energy surrounding the site seemed to fade a little after Dave Truesdale stepped down. This new team seem full of energy and are doing some great things with the layout. I'm very much looking forward to working with them.

Cheers!