In decreasing order of preference, I’d like my fellow citizens to be:
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Well, we did it again; another juice fast. This time, for 10 days… er, not counting the unfortunate hot dog I had to eat on Day 6. We timed it to coincide with Sara’s wisdom tooth extraction, since she’d have to be on soft foods for several days anyway.

Our food log is below. It’s comprehensive–nothing that entered my body is omitted (except for copious amounts of water). Vegetables listed below were local or organic (in that order), where possible.

I was hungry for the first couple of days, but by the second half of the fast, I felt hunger only in very short (5 minutes) tolerable bursts, just once or twice a day. Surprisingly easy to bear. The cravings, on the other hand, were harder to bear. I just missed the taste of certain foods; oddly enough, they were mostly meats. Not a single craving for ice cream (my perennial favorite), but I was seeing lamb chops in my sleep.

Most memorable moment? Day 2: Sara passing out on the bathroom floor in front of me. Had I not been there to catch her, she very well could have smashed her head on the sink/toilet/floor. Ugh. (Note to all juice fast detractors: she more than likely fainted due to her strong pain killers and dehydration, not due to the juice fast.)

Without further ado, I present my food log:
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Let’s face the obvious: yesterday we were nerds, today we’re the cognitive elite. Let’s conquer.

—Chester G. Edwards

Do the words “core dump” make you shiver with fear? (My wife just giggles whenever she hears it.)

If I asked you to “debug an Apache vfork problem” (again, she giggles), would you know that I’m referring neither to an Indian tribe nor to a utensil?

If you answered “yes” to both of those questions, then I’ve got a job opening you may be interested in. (Location: Cambridge, MA)
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I want to talk to you about password security.

Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t want to talk about it at all. But I have to–someone has to. I’ve had two recent problems with password security, both of them shamefully avoidable.

Warning: I’ll be discussing how to securely store passwords on a website (or in a database). This is primarily for website architects and developers, not for the general public.
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(These are real flickr images. Idea and original code borrowed from kastner.)

Some things I don’t get:

1. Why spam is effective (i.e., who is buying that cheap Viagra, paying for those university diplomas, applying for “100% guaranteed” mortgages, etc.?)
2. Why people ask for (or tolerate) ice cubes in their water
3. Modern art

I’ll tackle the first two another time. This weekend I went to the Museum of Modern Art.

Ron Visits MOMA

For the impatient, let me just state my conclusion now: MOMA is the biggest ripoff since college textbooks.
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I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
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How to survive your wife’s ten-year high school reunion:

1. The Buddy System: Bring a Friend

Don’t attend the function unless there is at least one other spouse there whom you have previously met and enjoy talking to. (Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Dave!)

2. Superiority Complex: Have the Hottest Wife in the Room

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I’ve been listening to a few good cover songs lately, so I thought I’d post a list and ask for suggestions from you (yes, this means YOU) for some others which you think I might like.

(Wow, in doing research for this, I came across this excellent project.)

Suggestions?

A few months ago, I wanted to display a list of recent comments in my blog’s sidebar. After searching through the countless plugins which return lists of comments, I finally decided on Scott Reilly’s Top/Recent Commenters plug-in.

Unfortunately, I had to tweak Scott’s code to get it to work the way I wanted. One tweak led to another (you know how it is) until I finally just scrapped the original code and rolled my own. (You can see it in action on my blog’s front page.)
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2002

Road trip from San Francisco to Portland. Rains 10 out of 11 days. (Had a great trip!)

2003

Travelling around south Florida. Record cold snap. Temperature drops below freezing; orange crops destroyed. Our hotel room does not have a heater. (Had a great trip!)

Valentine’s Day weekend getaway to Newport, RI. Cut short by record-breaking blizzard. 6-hour drive home through thick snow. (Had a great trip!)

2004

Honeymoon in south India. The day of our train ride to Tamil Nadu, the Tsnuami hits. 289,000 people lose their lives in the worst disaster in modern history. (Had a great trip!)

2005

Two days after we buy our tickets for Paris, widespread riots in the city spread throughout the entire country. Dumbasses around France burn 1300 cars in one night. (Will have a great trip!)

I recently came across a known bug in WordPress 1.5.2 (well, at least it’s known to users; I can only assume that the dev community is also aware of it). Just wanted to post my fix here, in case anyone else finds it helpful.

The Bug

Category exclusion is broken. The problem is that the category exclusion parameter (the 4th param) of next_post_link() and previous_post_link() is effectively ignored.
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My Restaurant Week, continued.

When we last saw our hero, he had just eaten a fantastic meal at Peter Luger. We pick up his story on Saturday morning, in a cozy booth at a small West Village restaurant:

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(full trip photos here)

Just returned from Israel and Ä°stanbul, and things are finally getting back to “normal.”

This was our best trip ever, and I hope to have time to write up some of our stories. For now, here’s a quick A-to-Z to commemorate some of the things we saw and did.

Israel: A to Z

1. Amos’ GPS
2. Bogus parking ticket at the Zion Gate
3. Cellphones everywhere (and what the hell is a Pelephone???)
4. Dodi’s cookies
5. Elana’s birthday present
6. Farochi hospitality
7. Golan Heights bunkers
8. Holy Sepulchre
9. Immigration/Passport Control trouble
10. Jesus Was Here
11. Katan Ve’Kalah
12. Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian borders
13. Moti Giladi was at Noah & Yishai’s wedding!
14. Neon green mosque lighting
15. OUCH! Sabra thorns!
16. Penthouse on the Mediterranean
17. Qute soldiers
18. Rimonim
19. Super hummus in Jerusalem (Old City–Mulsim Quarter)
20. Terrible Israeli drivers
21. Ugly rock rabbits
22. Via Dolorosa
23. Western Wall tunnels
24. Xtra-rich Dead Sea mud
25. Yakov’s cherry liquer
26. Zafed (or is it Sefad? or Tzfat??) and Acco

Ä°stanbul: A to Z

1. Ani Be’Shock
2. Blue Mosque‘s call to prayer
3. Cat pee on backpack
4. Digital photography by Dennis
5. Extortion by musicians at touristy Gözleme restaurant (Cennet)
6. Farsi works in lieu of Turkish
7. Gals bellydancing at Henna party
8. Haggling at the Grand Bazaar
9. Iznik tiles
10. Juiced pomegranates
11. Kitty city
12. Lokhum from Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir
13. Michael Jordan waiting tables in Havuzulu
14. Nicole Weds Kartal
15. Ottomans, Ottomans everywhere!
16. Pudding store was closed :(
17. Q‘oran
18. Rakı
19. Suzani hunt
20. Tree of Life
21. Ãœsküdar “tour”
22. Very close shave
23. What is sahlep???
24. Xfoliating at the hamam
25. Yummy simis
26. Zee best table: Dennis, Ronni, Andrew, Mariela, Zara, Elana, Sara and Ron

I keep hearing people complain about how expensive gas has become. More significantly, I’ve heard several news programs report that “thousands of motorists” are choosing not to travel this holiday weekend, due to those high prices.

I don’t get it. Are Americans mathematically challenged or something? (Oh, wait, I forgot–we are!) Here’s a little puzzle for all you prospective fuel misers:

Q: Should Alice and Bob consider cancelling their long-anticipated romantic weekend getaway due to “high gas prices?”

A: …read the rest →

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Sara’s Juice Fast: The Aftermath

I’m happy that we did the fast, and in the end, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. The desire for food and hunger pangs nearly disappeared after the first day and I was left feeling energetic, clear-headed and refreshed.

That said, I was really excited about eating today. :) I started off with some watermelon and an apple this morning, and had some carrot ginger soup for lunch. (The apple and the soup both gave me two hours of stomach cramps.) Tonight we’ll make a veggie stir-fry, which I hope will be less eventful.

Things I’ll do differently next time:
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