Howdy! Another year gone and it was one filled with some great music. As usual, there were a number of albums that were good enough to consider for the Top 10 list, but just didn’t make it. The latest efforts from Surfer Blood ( Tarot Classics EP ), Washed Out ( Within and Without ), Beirut ( The Riptide) and Cunninlynguists ( Oneireology ) are all incredibly solid, but will have to settle for an honorable mention this year. Alright now, enough of the pleasantries. Let’s get to this years list. At number 10, is …
10) Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
High Notes: “Daydream”, “17”, “Posters”, “Afternoon”
9) Cults - Cults
High Notes: “Bumper”, “Never Saw The Point”, “Never Heal Myself”, “Most Wanted”
8) Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde
High Notes: “Dance Away”, “Still New”, “Only One”, “All Die Young”
7) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
High Notes: “Blue Spotted Tail”, “The Shrine/An Argument”, “Helplessness Blues”, “Battery Kinzie”
6) The Drums - Portamento
High Notes: “If He Likes It Let Him Do It”, “Don’t Know How To Love”, “Money”, “Days”
5) The Deep Dark Woods - Places I Left Behind
High Notes: “Virginia”, “Sugar Mama”, “Back Alley Blues”, “The Ballad of Frank Dupree”
4) Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin’
High Notes: “Just Don’t”, “Radio”, “Over You”, “The Answer”
3) Middle Brother - Middle Brother
High Notes: “Blood and Guts”, “Me, Me, Me”, “Middle Brother”, “Blue Eyes”
2) Kanye West, Jay-Z - Watch the Throne
High Notes: “Ni**as In Paris”, ”Primetime”, “Murder To Excellence”, “That’s My Bitch”
1) PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
High Notes: “Hanging In The Wire”, “On Battleship Hill”, “The Words That Maketh Murder”, “The Last Living Rose”
Alright, now that I’ve got your attention, read on.
Anyone remember Barbara Mandrell in ’80s commercials promoting clothing made with the Visa fabric? The major selling point (or so they hoped) was that Visa fabrics were used in honest-to-goodness american factories, by american workers, to construct clothes that americans would buy. I don’t know that they did well with this promotion, but I’m happy to tell you that there is, on the under, a vast selection of high-quality clothing and footwear that’s made in this country.
While I’m far from being labeled a style maven or fashionista, I can appreciate nice clothing, and have attained quite a shoe collection. While this habit may be viewed as harmless (except to my bank account), I’ve been trying a different approach to shopping. I am going to try my best to purchase from companies that make their clothes and shoes in the US. This is not easy, especially since you need to be willing and able to spend a bit more, but if you are in a position to do it, please take the time. From raw denim (Tellason, Left Field, Blackbird) to shirts (Hamilton), belts (Tanner) to shoes (Red Wing, Alden, New Balance) to more contemporary stuff (Band of Outsiders) … there’s plenty to choose from. Through A Continuous Lean, I found this tumblr. Pretty cool stuff I think. Read, and support by reposting this or sharing with friends if you’re into it.
I thought I’d write up a quick summary of our weekend away in wine country. Since my lady is pregnant, the wineries were out, and since she’s 7 months along, we weren’t going to be doing any super strenuous outdoor activities. This leaves only one thing to do. That’s right … I’m talking about eating.
We started our weekend with a poolside snack at the Hotel Yountville, which consisted of some house-made guacamole and chips, a nice salad with grilled apricots and a rather fancy grilled cheese with mushrooms. That night we strolled around downtown for a bit and proceeded to hit REDD for dinner. We decided on the tasting menu and took a seat in their extremely white dining room (I’m referring to the walls, fixtures etc… and not the patrons). The high points of this meal were the short ribs, pork belly and the tuna tartare. The real hit, however, was the dessert. The pastry chef created the most simple, elegant and delicious chocolate peanut-butter beignet with peanut-butter ice cream and caramalized banana slices. Damn!
The next morning I woke early (< 7am) in order to get to Bouchon Bakery and pick up some pastries and coffee for my hungry, tired and as I mentioned, pregnant wife. I grabbed a few coffee drinks, both savory and sweet versions of their Monkey Bread and a Pain Au Chocolate. For lunch we thought we’d hit Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena. Amy ended up getting the Duck Burger (incredible!) and I got a fried pacific cod sandwich. Both were awesome, as expected.
For dinner that evening, we had a reservation at Ubuntu. Oh, Ubuntu … how I love thee. They’ve already earned one Michelin star, and I have a feeling that they’re well on their way to earning a few more. We sat and felt slightly overwhelmed by the different menu options. Do we go for the 4 Course Prix Fix? The 6 Course Garden tasting menu? Or the 8 Course Grand tasting menu? We decided to go “balls deep” and got the Grand tasting menu. Everything was incredible! How their chef can create those sorts of flavors with vegetables alone befuddles me. It’s just … well, you need to go if you haven’t been there. It’s insane. At the end of the evening, Aaron London (the chef) came out to visit and talk with us for 5-10 minutes about the meal and our impressions. We were both in awe. Aaron was very kind, cool and obviously passionate about all things related to food. Ubuntu, I now know is my favorite restaurant of all time.
The following morning, we were all set to check out, but thought we’d try the hotel restaurant to get a quick breakfast before we hit the road. The name of the place is Hopper Creek Kitchen, and the food was absolutely amazing. At last we’ve found a restaurant that takes breakfast as seriously as we do. The closest thing I’d found before that day was probably Tableau in Wynn Las Vegas, but it pales in comparison to this hidden gem. I’ve linked the menu above, but all I can say is, just look at the breakfast tasting menu. We decided on splitting a bunch of different items, one of which was the Black Currant Hotcakes. Simply perfect. They started the meal with an Amuse Bouche of tiny english muffins, topped with bacon butter and a really nice fresh raspberry smoothie. This is the breakfast spot that, unfortunately, all others will be compared to for the rest of our lives. But wow, what a breakfast it was.
We left town a few pounds heavier and a whole lot happier than when we drove in. What more can I say, except, I love the Napa Valley. I will be posting pictures to my SmugMug site soon, so check back.
I noticed today that PHP arrays act in, well, let’s just say they do not behave at all as you’d expect when dealing with string values. If I have an associative array in PHP, and I want to get the value for a key, but incorrectly assume that my value is an array, guess what happens? Here’s a dump of my tests in ‘php -a’
php > $map = array(‘name’ => ‘dale federighi’);
php > if ($map[‘name’]) echo “name is set”;
name is set // expected
php > if ($map[‘name’][‘first’]) echo “first name is ” . $map[‘name’][‘first’];
first name is d // doh!
php > if (isset($map[‘name’][‘first’])) echo “first name is ” . $map[‘name’][‘first’];
first name is d // seriously?
php > if (!empty($map[‘name’][‘first’])) echo “first name is ” . $map[‘name’][‘first’];
first name is d // ok … wow!
php > if (!is_null($map[‘name’][‘first’])) echo “first name is ” . $map[‘name’][‘first’];
first name is d // why not.
php > if (is_array($map[‘name’]) && $map[‘name’][‘first’]) echo “first name is ” . $map[‘name’][‘first’];
php > // nothing … as expected with the more strict check
I know, you’re probably thinking, why wouldn’t you be checking with is_array before trying to pull out a value by key from the $map[‘name’] “array”? I understand the checks are in place for this sort of validation, but wow … this is basically mapping an undefined key to an index of 0 and thus pulling out the first character of the ‘name’ string? This seems completely screwed up.
Before I jump into this list, let me clear something up. I do not mean or expect that all guys would be blubbering while watching the entirety of each of these movies, but there are certainly scenes in all of them that will make you well up or even shed a few tears. If this is not the case and you are truly unaffected while watching these movies, then you are either insensitive or a robot. It’s a judgement, I know, but come on now. Some movies are sad and it’s ok to show some emotion. Here is my list, in no particular order.
Mystic River
Philadelphia
the last scene, with the old footage of him as a boy, jesus … I just lose it.
Toy Story 3
Again, if you don’t think the end is a tear-jerker, you’re a cyborg
Steel Magnolias
You might wonder why I’ve even seen this movie. Well, that’s none of your business
Rudy
My Dog Skip
Anything to do with a loss or injury of a pet, waterworks!
Brokeback Mountain
If you’re snickering, you need to grow up. It was a good film and the end is gut-wrenching
Boyz n the Hood
If you’ve seen this, you know what scene I’m referring to
Up
Especially the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes
