I bet you were thinking, Man, what’s it going to take for Patrick to BLOG again? Something ridiculous and big huge, I bet!

Well… you’re wrong! Wait, no, the other thing: totally right. You’re totally right.

(Also, I hope you’re reading this via RSS or something, ’cause I’m sure no one ever visits this ghost town in person any more.)

Because I only take to these forgotten corners of the intertubes to share some big freakin’ news. I’m… well…

…To Liz. I mentioned her before. I know I have, because she has her own tag already.

(I picked out the ring — see above — all by myself. I think I did a pretty good job. It’s handmade by a gentleman I found on Etsy. Already thinking about commissioning two more matching pieces…)

I feel like I had a lot more to say, but I guess not. It all went down last night. I got the ring in the mail and wanted to wait until we went to Amsterdam (more on that in the near future; leaving March 5th), but I just couldn’t. We told parents/friends today. (That had to be taken care of before telling the internets.)

More info… well, as soon as we make it up. We’re planning on a small ceremony, but I bet my dad will livecast it if I ask him to.

P.S.: The iPhone corrects “girly” to “gorky”. I just thought you should know that.

Post title taken from this excellent article.

Absolutely. [The regulations are] Anti-cyclist.

I’m all for the sidewalk-riding law, though $300 is way too steep. Leave it at $50 and enforce it, and that’ll be enough incentive for people to not be lazy (i.e., people ride on sidewalks when the street is going the wrong way) or to get over mostly-irrational fears and bike in the bike lane. Yes, accidents occasionally happen when you bike in the road, but they’re far more likely on the sidewalk.

The anti-fixie and registration regulations are sheer public-appeasing prejudice, though. There’s no question that people who ride brakeless are almost certainly able to do so. Registration won’t prevent anything. It’s a tax on a currently-unpopular minority that will overwork the PPD far past its benefits.

And here I go on a bit of a rant, unrelated to the regulations in question:

I’m sick to death of non-bikers screaming for stop-sign and red-light enforcement of cyclists. What about for cars, people? Have you ever seen a car not do a rolling stop at a stop sign? How about buses and taxis (and others) inching (or more) onto the crosswalk and into the intersection when they think a light is about to change? Bikes can be dangerous, yes, but they don’t have a literal ton of metal behind their motion. Bikes are not cars. They are lighter, more maneuverable, and afford much much better visibility.

And speaking of the differences, don’t get me started on cars (especially taxis) that floor the gas from stoplight to stoplight, easily reaching 40-45, then slamming on the brakes 10 yards from the traffic light. Not only is this terrible for the environment (air and noise pollution), but it exacerbates the gas crisis to no end, and probably causes more accidents in a year than bikes do in a decade.

Enough has been said about pedestrians already. They appear from nowhere and jaywalk across the street, ignore red lights at intersections, then have the gall to act like cyclists are the only/biggest problem with Center City traffic? Infuriating.

This is all to say… if drivers and pedestrians were saints, then I would not chafe at calls for a crackdown on “scofflaw cyclists”. But with rampant lawlessness by ALL travelers who believe that saving a few seconds (at most) is worth lives, well… PPD has bigger problems than a cyclist rolling through an obviously-clear intersection.

Or maybe I just like being lazy and watching other people work.

I’m a bit hesitant to do this, because I’d like to keep it all to myself. But then… I know it wouldn’t be around very long if no one shared the awesomeness.

There’s a new food cart on Penn campus. I found out about it from Under the Button and my friend Stephanie. I checked it out at about 2:30 this afternoon. It has an awesome name: Coup de Taco. The “storefront” looks like this:

Awesome logo too, no? But. BUT. The even more awesome part is the food. I had the Chicken Tikka Masala and BBQ Pulled Pork tacos. The latter looked something like this:

It had diced apples in it, people. DICED APPLES. IT WAS FANTASTIC. The fact that I only remembered to take a picture 75% of the way through my second one should say something.

The most happy I’ve ever been from a $6 purchase? It’s possible. Laced with something? A Prozaco? Also possible. I will be going back. Probably tomorrow. Until then, there’s the blog. I’ll recommend a Twitter account when i go back.

(If I forgot anyone in the Philadelphia area, let me know if you’d like to stop by. It will be fun and delicious.)

DEAR FRIENDS, ROMANS, COWORKERS:

THE TIME IS AGAIN UPON US to put more formerly-alive foodstuffs (yes, soybeans count*) into my beautiful vertical water smoker oven contraption. (* Because if turkeys and I both have souls — a big if — then so do soybeans.)

THE CONCEPT FOR THIS EVENT will be something of an early Thanksgiving. A warmup, if you will. A practice round. The centerpiece will be a brined, smoked, basted, delicious turkey. Apparently smoking is a really nice treatment for turkey, and the recipe is coming from the same cookbook as the pork shoulder from last time (i.e., I have high high expectations).

I WILL ALSO SMOKE A TOFURKEY (or something similar) for the herbivores, and probably sausage, mushrooms etc to make meat and vegetarian stuffings (though it won’t actually go into any avian orifices).

THEREFORE, GOOD PEOPLE, it is incumbent upon you to bring your favorite Thanksgiving side dishes. Or beer. Beer is always good. Last time we had 2.5 cases and went through them like they were, well, beer at a barbecue. (That is to say: very quickly.) But I have good, tasty, easy recipes for mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, sweet potato dishes, and various vegetables if you would like to flex your culinary muscles.

THE DATE OF THIS SHINDIG is to be November 21st, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. (Probably. If there’s a popular uprising against the 21st, the 14th may be considered.) The festivities will begin at 5 pm to catch the last of the late Fall twilight. Come early to soak up the sun (along with the best of the beer selection). I live at 1130 S 26th St. It’s a bit out of the way, but very easy to bike to (I have space on my back patio to secure bikes) and there’s always plenty of parking.

PLUS ONES ARE WELCOME. Please RSVP (again, yes, I know that’s redundant) when you can; let me know if you’re bringing anyone, any dietary restrictions, and let me know what you might be so kind as to bring along.

YOU WILL BE REMINDED approximately a week before the event.

CARRY ON, GOOD PEOPLE.

–Patrick
(Henceforth known as Señor Coconut. See below.)

So we’re going as Han Solo and Princess Leia. I have a costume on order, but since it comes with a holster (a badass one), I needed a blaster. Instead of paying through the nose for a replica (on eBay, no less), I figured I could make this toy a little more authentic. (It looked like this when I got it.) The results:

I think it turned out pretty well. I used the replica as a guide, and the only part I’m not really happy with is the grip. I need to darken the brown, which I may be able to do by wearing away at the brown paint (there’s black underneath). If that doesn’t work, I’ll get darker brown spray paint and use the leftover black to try to give it a bit of a gradient.

The article that the headline links to, though, is awfully depressing, and makes me very very thankful I have a job.

Speaking of which, I should probably get back to that…

This is the recipe I’m using. (Probably this one too.) I can barely look at it without my mouth starting to water.

And now, just because, a piano that was hacked to talk… almost intelligibly:

I sat there and giggled for five minutes straight (Liz will confirm) because it’s a treatment invented by one of my favorite scientists — certainly one of my favorite neuroscientists — V.S. Ramachandran. I credit his excellent book Phantoms in the Brain (along with a few excellent professors) for getting me into neuroscience, and the mirror box features heavily in that book.

So check out the episode when it hits Hulu. It was also good to see House’s old team back together— I hope it holds up. The dynamic is priceless; I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

They’re all pretty solidly head-desk-y (especially the baby cage). Worth a click through.