News You Can Bruise for 2004 August 30 (entry 0)

(5) Mon Aug 30 2004 20:36 PST Kerry selling his vote on e-Bay to pay bills: I made some changes to Dog Bites Dog to make it get better (ie. "gramatically correct more often") headlines but most of my attempts backfired. I think I improved the average headline quality a little, though. I'm now into heuristic territory (while "man" can be a verb, it's exceedingly unlikely that it is the verb in a headline).

Also, I had a dinner party last night, and I made an ice cream pie which was one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. Also an artichoke-spinach-cheese dip which I'm having for dinner tonight with my first loaf of French bread. Anyway, at the party were Riana and Seth and Riana's friend Alexey. Riana and Seth have this parrrrrpetual Talk Like A Pirate Day thing going on when they're arrrround each other. Like that. Eventually I pointed out how easy it would be to add a mode to the Eater of Meaning that did the same thing, and well, one thing led to another and before you could say "Let us time how long it takes for you to implement the mode of which we have been speaking", Seth had started his stopwatch and I was running to the computer room. Elapsed time: 3 minutes. Though I put some more time into it afterwards fixing edge cases so that you can discuss things like the aRRRRRTs sound server.

Also, the Eater of Meaning goes further and further off its original goal of destroying all human communication, and is quickly becoming just a framework for writing web filters really quickly. I swear I don't plan these things, they just happen.

Comments:

Posted by Brendan at Tue Aug 31 2004 00:09

I would be interested to see your artichoke-spinach-cheese dip recipe (I am aware it's not the most complicated recipe). Maria and I have one we really like, slightly modified from a Philly cream cheese box, and I would be interested to see how the two compare.

Or if you also just modified the recipe from the Philly cream cheese box.

Posted by Leonard at Tue Aug 31 2004 00:15

I used this one
http://vegetarian.about.com/library/crockpot/blspinartdip.htm

Modifications: I used Fontina instead of Monterey Jack because I think Monterey Jack has no flavor, even though it's the only cheese named after a place in California. And I used garlic instead of garlic powder because I don't have any garlic powder. And no salsa. And I baked it in the overn for about 30 minutes.

I'll post recipes in an entry tomorrow since I'm trying to go to bed early tonight.

Posted by Adam P. at Tue Aug 31 2004 10:17

Heh, "Sumana Harrrrriharrrrreswarrrrra"

Posted by Brendan at Tue Aug 31 2004 13:15

That's actually pretty similar to the Philly recipe, but the use of heavy cream instead of light mayonnaise (as in our version) is interesting. Also we grate large amounts of queso blanco into and over the dip, because it adds some nice stringiness, and because I don't like most other kinds of cheese.

And you can use neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese for a somewhat lighter and healthier dip!

Posted by Riana at Tue Aug 31 2004 17:53

Adam, that's just what I said!