Argh! Joel! Pix! where are you?! I’m starving for some Cuban food, and you two are the only ones I can eat it with!

Sweet Baked Plantains – ‘Platanos Dulce’

Ingredients

4 extremely ripe plantains
1/4 cup light Bacardi rum
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 oz butter
ground cinnamon to taste
ground nutmeg to taste
Method

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Arrange the plantains in a covered baking dish.

Sprinkle the rum, sugar and cinnamon over the plantains. Dot the butter on top of the plantains. Cover the dish and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Turn the plantains over, baste, and continue baking uncovered for about 15 minutes, so that the plantains turn a golden-brown color.

Quotidian is a lovely little word that means daily, ordinary or everyday.

in other news, agent_orange made me snork-laugh with this

The @ symbol has become the emblem of an age. Not only is it the fulcrum of every Internet e-mail address, but also it has been widely co-opted to add the ‘Net flavor’ to almost any name or trademark. Who would suspect that @ is more than half a millennium old?

Britain’s The Guardian newspaper recently reported research by Italian academic Giorgio Stabile indicating that @ was created as an indication of weight or volume.

Stabile says that the first known incidence of its use is in a letter written by the Florentine merchant Francesco Lapi on 4 May, 1536. Sent from Seville to Rome, the letter describes the arrival of three ships bearing goods from South America.

In it, the @ sign represents an amphora, a measure of capacity based on the terracotta jars used to transport grain and liquid in the ancient Mediterranean world.

The distinctive loop of the tail of the ‘a’ is, says Stabile, typical of the mercantile script developed by Italian traders between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Stabile believes that the symbol filtered up the trade routes to northern Europe where accountants began using it as shorthand for ‘at the price of’.

It was this application that allowed @ to creep onto the keyboards of typewriters in the early 20th Century and, later, onto keyboards connected to the computers of the 1950s and 1960s. However, given that most of us are not accountants, it languished.

The relative lack of use of the @ symbol in day-to-day communication was a factor for Ray Tomlinson, an American engineer who is one of a select group of men who created what we now know as the Internet.

In March 1972, three years into the life of the first incarnation of the Internet, ARPAnet, Tomlinson completed the e-mail software, which he had designed to allow ARPAnet developers to easily communicate with each other. The move to the use of the network for personal use rather than data transfer or remote computing changed the world we live in.

In defining the way the e-mail software would work, Tomlinson had to pick a character to stand between the user name to the left of an e-mail address and the domain information to the right. He has since explained that he chose @ because it wouldn’t be found in a person’s name. As the symbol became ubiquitous in the 1990s, its look – in unconscious emulation of that old mercantile script – was even applied to other characters. IBM adopted an ‘e’ wrapped in its own tall as the brand for its e-business products. Proposed legal action by a hitherto unknown company called E Technologies, which claimed to have begun using the encircled ‘e’ in April 1997, four months before IBM, fizzled out.

Stabile told The Guardian that the 16th Century merchants of the Mediterranean would have considered the modern use of the symbol to be highly appropriate, saying:

No symbol is born of chance, this one has represented the entire history of navigation on the oceans and has come to typify travel in cyberspace.

The professor suspects that even older instances of the symbol’s use may be lurking in the archives of Italian banks. He urged the most venerable banks to start looking, pointing that ‘the oldest example could be of great value. It could be used for publicity purposes and to enhance prestige of the institution that owned it’.

Yet if the Italian coinage has become a key part of the Anglophone world of the Internet, we speakers and writers of English have failed to come up with a decent name for it. Its formal identity as ‘commercial at’ is hardly inspiring.

The Spanish have long had a word for it – arroba, which in the 16th Century indicated a weight or measure equivalent to 11.3kg (25 pounds) or 22.7 liters (six gallons). Modern Italian Internet users refer to the symbol as la chiocciola – the snail, used frequently around the world.

Names other Countries Use to Describe @

• The Germans call it klammeraffe (spider monkey).

• The Dutch, apestaartje (monkey’s tail).

• Danes refer to it as grisehale (pig’s tail) or snabel (with an elephant’s trunk).

• The official Norwegian name is krøllalfa. Some people say alfakrøll. Krøll means curl, alf is alpha hence Curlalpha.

• Finnish people call it kissanhanta (cat’s tail), which sometimes goes one step further to become miukumauku – the meow sign!

• Hungarians see it as the worm or maggot, kukac.

• The Thai word translates as ‘the wiggling worm-like character’.

• Czechs call it zavinac, which is a rollmop herring.

• The Hebrew term is strudel, the famous Viennese apple pastry.

• The word Pita, a type of bread, is often used in Israel.

• Swedes use kanelbulle (cinnamon bun) and snabel-a (a with a trunk).

• The French go with escargot which translates as snail.

The amazingly useful @ symbol is also used in CAD software to distinguish relative co-ordinate measure from absolute. In AutoCAD it works like this: if you are standing on the point 50,50 and give the command @20,20, you will end up at coordinates 50+20, 50+20 = 70,70. If you just put 20,20 without the @, then you will end up on the point 20,20.

Lord Byron interlude

SHE walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One ray the more, one shade the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o’er that brow
So soft, so calm yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Junky’s Christmas by William Burroughs

long text on a hard to read background.

Christmas is officially approaching, now.

Time to think about how many, who to make and get presents for.

10 people to get presents for.

Cards

4 other folks to send cards to…. would anyone else from my LJ like a card? send me an e-mail at scott_vonberg@yahoo.com and let me know!
If you want to send me one, e-mail me, and I’ll send you my addy! 🙂

*note to self, put an “eyes only” entry with gifties list.

side note, when I hear the term, keep your eyes peeled, I think “peel” in term of the lid, thus, keep your eyes open.

Tomorrow would’ve been my father’s 55th birthday, were he still alive.
It’s odd, he’s been dead for just over twelve years now, and I still miss him quite a lot at times. In another span of the same, I’ll be as old as he was when he died. About now I start thinking about where I am compared to where he was at the same time.

Much of what follows happened before most of my friends on LJ were even born. I don’t feel old!

Things about my dad at 31, to the best of my memory. The year was 1976. Billy Beer was bought and sold as a drink. To quote my Dad, “Bleah. Urine.” His favorite movie that year was Murder by death, which I really only remember because we all saw it together during summer vacation. He had two boys, 7, and 3, and was happily married for the last nine years. Between what the wife was making as a hairdresser, and his job as engineer there was enough money to keep everyone comfortably fed, clothed and housed in a 4 bedroom home in Richmond Virginia. The family had three cars, one for the mother to run errands and work (green chevy duster), one for the father to run errands and work(yellow corvette stingray), and one for father and his pals to tinker on weekends..(unknown, but it was loud and rusty the whole time I remember it. (they didn’t drink Billy beer. The beer of choice at that time was Bud.) ) He spent every Sunday with the family, reading the comics with the kids, and going fishing at least once a month, “just the boys”. Fish was caught most weekends, and grilled that night. If nothing was caught we picked up burger meat at the local A&P, with the same results. That year, we vacationed in Mexico, and my father was hurt by a sting ray, diving. The only other folks out on the boat was myself and a friend of his, Roman. Roman was useless, (on reflection, he must’ve been either drunk or high) so my dad had to do some creative surgery on himself with a knife to dig the stinger out, tie a tourniquet on his leg, and drive the boat all the way back to shore, with me there, very frightened the whole time. (mother and my little brother were ashore, shopping). He turned out ok, but had a 4 inch scar on his thigh from then on. At that period in his life, my dad was a whiz at math, history, and things mechanical. Some of his weaknesses I remember were a complete lack of depth perception, a strong sense of “what’s Right”, and a powerful stubborn streak.

Compare:

Me, at 31, to the best of my memory. The year is 2000. Corona’s are bought and sold as a drink. Bleah. Urine. My favorite movie this year is best in show. and perhaps that sticks in my minds because I’ve seen it recently. I have no children or wife, but there’s someone I find very special. I’m living in a studio apartment in South Florida with a cat, and in my job as data architect/ programmer, I get by reasonably well with food, room, and clothing. I have no car, and spend a healthy chunk of the weekend surfing the net, seeing movies and playing with Newt. I don’t get together with the guys weekly, but see folks on occasion, and am working on having Sundays return to boys night with my brother and I. I tend to get takeout every Sunday, usually Italian, or Chinese. (I wish there were more Mexican/Spanish delivery places). This year, I’ve vacationed briefly (a weekend) in Disney, where thankfully I needed no self-inflicted knife wound to survive, but most of the folks I went with were stoned to pieces, so it’s just as well. At this period in my life, I view myself a whiz at trivia, history, and most computer stuff. Some of my weaknesses are my sleep disorder, a strong sense of “what’s right”, and a tendency to snap-judge inside the first minute of knowing people.

I can’t imagine having a wife and two growing children at this point in my life! I’d enjoy it, I think, but the life change would be so drastic, who knows what sort of situation things would be in? I do want to live more than an additional 11 years. I still have my spleen, so I think I’m reasonably safe from going the same way pop did.

Love is but a song we sing, fear’s the way we die
You can make the mountains ring, or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wind, you may not know why
Come on people now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go, you will surely pass
When the one who left us here, returns for us at last
We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass

Come on people now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song we sing, you will understand
You hold the key to love and fear, all in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both, it’s there at your command

Come on people now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on people now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Try to love one another right now
Try to love one another right now…

And now, the Dr. Suess Bible!

One day God said
This is what I will do
I’ll send down my son
I’ll send him to you
To clear up this humpity
Bumpity hulabaloo

His name will be Christ
And he’ll never wear shoes
And his pals will all call
Him the King of the Jews

He didn’t come in a plane
He didn’t come in a jeep
He didn’t come in the pouch
Of a high jumping vo veep

He rode on the back of a black sasatoo
Which is the blackiest creature
You ever could view

He rode to Jerusalem
Home of the grumpity Jews
Where false prophets are worshipped
Some even in two’s

There was Murrary Von Mer
And Genghis Vo Vooze
The one you could worship
By taking a snooze

Christ spoke from a mound
Which is a pile of ground
And people gathered around
Without making a sound
And thus he spake

Sin in socks
Socks full of sin
How do we quiet this
Jehoviadin din

Do unto others as
They do unto you
That includes you
Young Timothy Foo

One pharisee said to another he knew
What do we do with this upitty jew
We can wash him in wine
And make him all clean
And into Sam Zittle’s
Crucifixtion Machine

Twirl the gawhril
And relase the gavlease
And in go the nails
As fast as you please

And it is said that he
Said as he bled:

Forgive them Father
For they know not what they do

For they walk through this life
In toe crampity shoes.

Do you?

Amen.

If I was stranded on a desert island, and I could only have one person, one book, and one record with me,

I’d probably die of exposure.

Something you might not know about me is that .. I have a good attitude towards menstruation. That’s right, I’m the guy! The guy with a good attitude towards menstruation! Oh, I know a lot of men are made uncomfortable by this monthly miracle. But not me. No, I embrace it. Embrace it the way the way some men embrace the weekend! Why I anticipate it the way a child anticipates Christmas!

Did you know that, uh, in a lot of native Indian cultures, menstruating woman were forced to leave the village, lest their *powerful* magic should overwhelm the Shaman? If I were Shaman, I wouldn’t be so competitive. I’d be more open and giving. I’d be a shaman with…a good attitude towards menstruation!

‘Cause after all, what is it? a cluster of blood vessels, awaiting a fertilized egg. Providing a safe warm place for that egg to grow. And if a life does not occur, the whole thing is flushed away, and the cycle begins again. Now is that anything to be ashamed of or disgusted by? No, this is the nesting stuff of Humanity!

That’s why the woman I shall love will be able to menstruate as fully and freely as she desires. Even if her monthly flow should build in intensity to a raging rust colored torrent! An unbridled river of life giving blood flowing from between her legs! An awesome cataract plunging off the edge of our couch. I wouldn’t be fazed! No, no, even if coureur de bois would come up stream, battling the rapids, and singing a ‘jaunty song’! I would take no offense, rather I would ford across that mighty womanly river, and fetch herbal tea and Pamprin. And then I would mop her brow and admire her fecundity. For I…Have A Good Attitude….Towards MENSTRUATION!

I’m home.

actually got to leave early.

now I have nothing to do.

Where is my dearest one? Must be off non-computing somewhere.

Very strange, semi-biblical flash of dream at the end of sleep.

In the desert at night, walking alone, I came across a burning bush, its stubby trunk a core of fire, molten twigs snapping and bursting brilliantly into flame, sharp cracking sound, the sound of light. And all the leaves fell like stars, shooting down with faint seared firework traces of light in the darkness, burning for a second then fading away, leaving their ghosts in ashes behind them to sink to the ground slowly, lighter than air, and disappear. The heat haze shimmers and shifts in the sand, which appears to be moving as the shadows spread in waves across it. And if I stare at these shadows, and then into the heart of the fire, my eyes start to see something almost like a face, speaking, and the crackling and hissing of the flames are a message, which I could decipher if only I could make it out..
Wait. And watch. And listen.
And then dawn comes swiftly over the desert, the horizon all around me. The whole sky is on fire, and the light is blinding, and I fall down in the sand to hide my eyes, still desperately trying – to listen – and, when I look up again, the fire has gone out. Flakes of ash settle and disappear, all burnt up to nothing. The silence is as heavy as the weight of the sand in the desert, a silence in which no sound could possibly be imagined.

Woke up wondering if there was a message. But there was only tea, and toast.