« August 2003 | Main | October 2003 »
September 29, 2003
Fire
Sometimes you don't know how good you've got it until it breaks.
For months I've been using Fire as my IM chat client. It combines AIM, Y!, IRC and a bunch of others. Yahoo!, bless them, are trying to lock out spammers from their network. But they went and broke all third party clients.
I've been using their client since Thursday. To say their client sucks would be an understatement of huge proportions.
I'm very happy that Fire can now log into Yahoo! again. Happy enough to not complain about how slow and bloated Fire feels...
Posted by Samer at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Shake, Shake, Shake
I place this under food, but I am really not sure if I should.
It has disturbed me since reading it on Accordion Guy's blog. Now it must disturb you as well:
No, really, go ahead and click on it. DO IT.
Be sure to check out the menu/nutrition guide and the Meaty Mobile pages.
Can anyone confirm the existence of these things?
Now, I love my meats, but really... This is just bad.
Posted by Samer at 10:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2003
Zaytinya
Meant to get this review up earlier, but we've had a little storm.
When you enter Zaytinya, you notice that it is unlike any other restaurant you've been to in Washington. It is at once austere and welcoming. I'm not really sure I have the vocabulary for describing it. White, large, open, comfortable. But something about it makes me uneasy.
But as soon as you sit down, the comfort factor starts. There are local celebrities here, sitting across from us was one of Washington's best TV news anchors, Gordon Peterson. The tables are wide and a comfortable dark color. The room is huge, and a set of stairs leads you to an upstairs dining area.
Why am I fixated on the space? Because as elegant and strange and wonderful as it is, you instantly forget about it when the food comes out.
Zaytinya's specialties are the small plates of the Mediterranean. The mezzas of Greece and Lebanon. The small dishes of Turkey. Even the tapas of Spain. The menu is quite ambitious, but the food lives up to the expectations.
This shouldn't surprise anyone who has eaten at Jaleo. That's where executive chef Jose Andres has been plying his trade for while (and at Cafe Atlantico). Everything we ordered that night was well made and quite tasty.
The arayes, a Lebanese dish of lamb cooked inside a pita bread, was pretty good and not as greasy as it can sometimes be. (I should know, I make this dish myself).
The kibbeh (made with beef instead of lamb) was quite good. This despite my definite preference for lamb in Lebanese dishes. The kibbeh nayeh, which we did not order, is also made with raw beef. Traditionally, in Lebanon, this is a raw lamb dish.
The taramosalata, a dip of cod roe, was the best I've ever had. This is one of my favorite Greek dishes, and I've actually had so much of it one sitting to make me sick. This version of it is fantastic.
The calamari with spinach and the cod with skordalia, both Greek, rounded out our seafood selection. Both were good, but not outstanding.
Zaytinya, along with other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurants, excels at vegetarian dishes. And they have plenty of them.
Among the dishes we had was an outstanding domatokeftedes (a fried tomato dish with onions and mint), potatoes fried in olive oil and served with a yoghurt sauce, and a delicious spanakopita.
I honestly can't wait to go again, and I want to take my folks to it.
Zaytinya
701 Ninth St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: +1.202.638.0800
Posted by Samer at 08:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Awkward
I love words like awkward. The word implies what it means. It is an awkward word to pronounce and to type. It sums up how you feel when you feel awkward.
Like when you call someone in the hopes of building a friendship. Of connecting on a different level than before. And there's a whole lot of nothing going on. You have very little to say, she has even less. Neither of you know where to start or what to delve into.
"Anything going on?"
"Nah, just a hurricane. You?"
"Preparing for a party. You?"
"Uh."
Awkward. Maybe I should try to build things up with e-mail. Drop her a note when I've got something to say or something to ask her. Maybe I should just drop it all together. Argh.
Posted by Samer at 08:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2003
Isabel
The image on the right is of Isabel's progression from September 13 until early today.
Isabel blew through here with some high winds and heavy rain last night. Not quite the storm it was early on (then a category five hurricane), by the time it hit Washington sustained winds were only in the mid-40 MPH range. The highest wind gusts were around 58 MPH. We get that for short bursts during severe thunderstorms, but this lasted for hours.
Other than busted travel plans and a lack of sleep, Isabel did no damage to my area of town. Buildings across the street were without power, but we were fine.
----
Images from NOAA and Goddard Space Flight Center at NASA
Posted by Samer at 05:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 12, 2003
Love Is a Burning Thing
Since we are on the subject of Mr. Cash's amazing music, I have to ask: What's "Ring of Fire" really about anyway?
I mean, here are the starting lyrics:
Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
and it continues:
I went down down down
And the flames went higher
And it burns burns burns
I should probably let you make your own conclusions, but could he be singing about sexually transmitted diseases?
Nah, that can't be it...
Posted by Samer at 07:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Cashing Out
Johnny Cash is dead. His music lives on.
Go listen to him again.
Posted by Samer at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2003
Fear
Everyone has something they fear. Not just a healthy fear of a loaded gun, but something that, on the face of it, should not be fear inducing. Most people have a fear of rejection and a fear of failure.
For some, they shrug it off and plod on. For others, these dual fears shadow them through life, slowing things down. And for a group of people the fear is so palpable that they freeze, unable to function for fear of something going horribly wrong.
I'd say I was somewhere between the last two groups. I'd pass on things or take the easy way out because I was afraid of failing. Or of being rejected. I almost always take the safe and sane path in anything. So it is, especially, with relationships.
But something changed in me with 'A'. I was not afraid to take the risks involved in getting things started. More importantly, every time I thought that something might be wrong, or that the relationship might crash and burn, instead of letting it and moving on, I pushed forward.
Early on, she thought that this three week fling might not be the right thing. Instead of just agreeing, I managed to talk to her about her fears and, it seems, managed to tame them for a while. Why did I do that? I'm really not sure, but I think that 'A' brought out the best in me. She made me feel good about myself and that made me feel good about her.
She's also damned creative, beautiful and smart. Instead of thinking myself not worthy of her attention, I dove right in, figuring (correctly this time) that it would not really matter if I failed or if she rejected me. Tossing off these dual fears, I felt more free than I ever have.
When she said that she did not want to talk to me in order to get over me, I thought it through. The safe and sane route would have been to let her go. And I did that for a few days. But that I realized that I wanted her and I overcame my fear of the unknown, of failure, change and rejection, and I wrote her a long letter telling her I wanted to give it a go. Telling her I would certainly consider moving for her. Anyone who knows me knows how big of a step that is. I'm comfortable here after 15 years. Moving, changing jobs, buying and selling homes, these are not things I want to do.
But I hope I treated her in a way to ease her fears. I know I did for a while. But this wide gulf, this 2800+ miles between us, makes it difficult to have the talks about our fears. I'm not even sure that she's afraid of anything other than incompatibility, but the distance and the amount of work required to bridge it makes it difficult to do anything about it.
I miss her deeply. Of all the amazing things she showed me in such a short time, the gift of being able to challenge my fears is one I hope I will be able to use time and again.
Posted by Samer at 01:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2003
Alone
I was a big fan of loneliness.
I travelled the world alone. I drove up and down the East Coast alone. I enjoyed being by myself to read, to write, to eat, to be. Just to be.
Then 'A' entered into my life. And for a brief, but astonishingly intense, moment I was not alone. I no longer craved being alone. I no longer needed to be alone.
When she left, I felt at a loss. I wanted to go home and relax, but my mind was craving human interaction. I would go out for nights in a row, or spend hours on the phone (an activity I hate).
I let her into my world and she pulled me out of my cocoon and made me want to be with people again. And now she's gone physically from here and the budding relationship we had is over. And I am, once again, alone.
This time I fear it. I don't want it. And while I have bunches of good and great friends, and while my folks are coming to town soon, and my family will be all around me, I still feel very much alone.
I want another 'A'. I want to be not alone. I want to be understood. She understood me, I think (hope).
Posted by Samer at 11:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Regrets
My relationship with 'A' started very very fast. We went from not knowing each other to 60 in about two days. It was the most intense start to a relationship I've ever been in.
I thought it was to be nothing more than a Summer fling. A fun time. It turned out that those ugly things, feelings, got somehow involved. When you have an intense relationship, it is very hard to turn that off.
Here's the thing though, I just don't regret for a moment how it got off the ground. I don't regret for a moment how fast or intense or deep it got. In fact, I would not be bothered to do it all over again, with out any changes.
But if I could change one thing, and only one thing, I'd want her to not be leaving after those three weeks were up. I think that if she lived here, or if I lived there, the long term possibilities would be a lot less bleak than they are now. Of course, if we lived in the same town we probably would not have been off to the races like we were.
So, no regrets. What good would they do?
Posted by Samer at 11:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2003
Clipping Service
Google News rocks. Now, Google Labs have gone and created Google NewsAlerts.
Basically it is your own clipping service. Go do a news search and then create an alert out of that. You can set them up for topics that interest you or for competing companies or for products that you like. I've got one set up for "beer" right now. Check out the FAQ, it answers some questions.
I'd love to see this turned into an RSS feed service. You could set up channels for whatever news interests you and then put it up in your blog.
Again, I must add, Google rocks!
Posted by Samer at 11:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2003
Empty
So it seems that this chapter is closed.
'A' called tonight. We talked about all sorts of things, but there was a bit of uneasiness in the air.
She's decided that she can't put in the effort required for a relationship that she's not sure that she wants to be in. Yeah, I know, not quite what I was expecting either. She could not tell me why the change from just a couple of weeks ago.
All she could say was that it was easier to want to be with me and feel the emotions and have this relationship when it seemed an impossibility. But it scared her now that it was a reality, that I might be out there some day soon. Kind of ironic that I've been missing her so much the last few days that I could tell you the prices and departure times for most airlines going to Portland.
I don't know where we went wrong. I'm not sure that incompatibilities, socially and politically speaking, couldn't have been bridged. All I know is that I could not be the man she wants in those areas, and the only way to change that would be to change me.
And yet, after all that, I still want to watch her, be with her and see her triumph. I want to know that I will someday hear that voice of hers sing and read more of her poetry and prose. If we cannot be in a relationship, then I do want to be in a friendship. And we will give that a whirl and it will settle in and work for us eventually. I hope to be a damn good friend for her. And I hope she for me. Eventually.
Right now though, I'm feeling kind of empty. It is a strange feeling. I should be sad or upset or angry or something. Anything.
Instead, I am just empty.
Posted by Samer at 11:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack