Mattazuma's blog

Sometimes I do rash things.  In this case I was watching the "No Reservations" show on the Travel Channel.  Anthony Bourdain, the host, was up in the Pacific northwest, Portland and Seattle mainly, and near the end of he show he visited Salumi, a deli and Italian salami store.  The store is run by Armondino Batali, who happens to be Mario Batali's father.  Armondino retired from his job and went to Italy to learn how to make traditional Italian salami.

So I watch the show and think, "Gee, it would be great to try some of those traditional salamis, I wonder if I can order them online."  Sure enough, you can.  They are $15/lb plus shipping via Fed Ex 2nd day air.  I ordered them without really thinking about how much shipping would be.

It turns out shipping 3 pounds from Seattle to Chicago is $26.  I didn't think shipping would be anywhere near that much.  So the total for the 2 salamis I ordered was $64.  Thank goodness they are incredibly good.

Here are a few pictures:

The Finnochiona is amazing, the fennel gives it a great flavor.  The Winter Salumi is more "normal" and also very good.

How do you pass the time during a flight?  What do you bring in your carry-on?

The only standard thing is I get a car magazine to read on the plane.  The airport is the only time I buy magazines at a newsstand.

Lately, I've been bringing an ipod full of podcasts as well.  It also helps pass the time.  More interesting than music for the most part.  Audiobooks are nice, but they are usually too long for the flights I'm on.

The McDonalds in Long Lake, Minnesota, has a strange admission relating to their food.

Click the link to see...

Hat Tip - Consumerist.

This picture is priceless:

The phone was taken from Flickr.

Hat tip, Merlin Mann.

Jonnell is gone for the week, so I can watch whatever I want on TV.  Last night I watched a DVD I bought a year ago, but had never gotten around to viewing. 

It is "The Train", and it stars Burt Lancaster as a Frenchman working in a Paris train yard in the waining days of World War II.

The basic plot is the Germans are going to take all of Paris' art treasures back to Germany in a special train as they are leaving Paris.  Lancaster's character is a weary agent in the French resistance who tries to save the paintings.

The movie was great, I didn't recognize any of the actors other than Lancaster, but they were all very good.  The movie also showed the grim fate for many people working in the resistance.  John Frankenheimer directed, which usually is a sign the movie will be good.  This is also based on a true story.

Generally "The Train" could be considered the polar opposite of another 1960s WWII movie I like, "Kelly's Heroes", which told a silly story about heist during a similar point in the war.

If you want to see a gritty very realistic movie about life in wartime Paris, this is a great example.

Who's the hardest person to shop for on your holiday list?

My Dad is very difficult.  He doesn't overtly want anything, and I (and probably everyone else in my family) have no idea what things he'd find neat.  I guess clothes are ok, but what;'s the fun in that?

I am looking forward to hearing my sisters complain about me.

Well, I did it, I went and bought a Mac.  A refurbished black MacBook, to be precise.  Here it is coming out of its box:

You can't tell that it isn't 'new', the Mac was perfect when I took it out of the box.  Either it was DOA when it was purchased the first time, or it isn't really refurbished.

I've used it for a few hours now, and I generally like the Mac.  I've never used a Mac before, so setting things up is a struggle at times.  Setting the windows network settings was non-intuitive, but I guess they aren't obvious for new Windows users, either.

The things I will need to get used to are related to Apple's 5% market share.  There aren't drivers for my Dell laser printer, I'm going to have to install a kludge to get the printer to work.  Also, the only poker site I use with Mac software is Full Tilt.

I also hate the trackpad.  That is more due to my seven years of using IBM Thinkpads with their little joystick thingy than any real problem with Apple's trackpad.  This may be the one thing that will make me return the Mac, I am giving myself 2 weeks to get used to it.

I'm going to try to record a video tomorrow using the built-in webcam, I'll post what I come up with.

Go watch these amazing videos on YouTube.

They are promos (kind of) for a company named Blendtec, who not surprisingly make blenders.  But not ordinary blenders, they make super powerful blenders that can pretty much destroy anything.

Here's a sample video:

What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.

Nerd question!!!

1. Civilization (I-IV) (PC) - I have purchased every edition of this game since it originally came out as a DOS game in 1990.  Civ 4 is a great game.

2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2/XBox/PC) - The best 3rd person shooter ever.  The whole "Hot Coffee" thing was dumb.  This is the greatest game.  Yeah it's violent, yeah, it's vulgar, yeah, you play a pimp for a while, it's still great.

3. Wolfenstein 3-D (PC) - The original 1st person shooter.  Still a fun game.

4. System Shock (PC) - I really enjoyed this game.  Probably the first game with a "cyberspace" element.

5. Microsurgeon (Intellivision) - One of my favorite Intellivision games.  Yeah, I'm showing how old I am.  Travel through a body in a mini spaceship blasting tumors.  Probably one of the first 2 person collaborative games.  One player steers the ship while the other person shoots the tumor.

Apple has announced iPod integration with airline seats.

Being able to watch videos off your iPod on your seatback video screen is pretty cool.  If I flew internationally, I would definitely use the airlines with the iPod jacks.

On a related note, why haven't any other MP3 player companies started using the iPod dock connector?  It is pretty much an industry standard and there are thousands of accessories for it.  Apple can't win a lawsuit against you since it isn't difficult to reverse-engineer how the connector works.