k3v0.net

Phillies are the 2008 World Series Champs!

Congratulations to the Phillies on winning the 2008 World Series! I would never have throught we would be in the series when I was freezing my ass off at the preseason game I went to back in March. This year was a great year to have a Sunday package of tickets. Here are some pictures of the mob that followed the game, with videos to follow shortly. Click k3v0’s picture above to go to the full gallery.

Tags: Phillies, World Series

WPG2 hackery, gallery2 upgrade

I’ve been busy like a beaver improving the old blog lately. Yesterday I upgraded my gallery2 installation to the current version and also edited the WPG2 to add the sidebar. Previously the gallery code was overlapping the area where I wanted the sidebar to be, so I removed the left sidebar items in gallery2, then added the code to enable the sidebar in the WPG2 pane. I updated the code I changed in the gallery2 wiki here.

Today I realized the ShareThis link wasn’t showing up in my WPG2 pages, so I edited the WPG2 footer information in the plugin with the ShareThis script. Now you can share galleries and pictures with reckless abandon if you so choose.

Next on my list is selecting a gallery2 theme that is complimentary to the wordpress theme. The one I’m currently using is decent but I’d like one that does a popup window for the full size picutre, or maybe I’ll see if there are any fancy ajaxy ones.

Tags: Gallery2, internets, wordpress, Wpg2

GO PHILS

Props to the Fightin Phils for winning game one against Tampa Bay last night.

Tags: Phillies, World Series

k3v0.recipe: lamb stew

This is a tasty lamb stew I created from a conglomeration of recipes I found on the web.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs or so of lamb
• 2 bay leaves
• rosemary
• oregano
• basil
• dried minced shallots
• thyme
• garlic powder
• crushed red pepper
• a can of white kidney beans
• a large can of peeled tomatoes
• i cup of lentils
• 1 tray of baby bella mushrooms
• 1 fennel
• 1 large or 2 medium yellow onions
• 2 large shallots
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 4 red potatoes
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• balsamic vinegar
• 4 slices of bacon
• chicken stock
• 2 medium sized zucchinis
• butter

The first step is to make a marinade for the lamb. I did this the day before using some olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder and balsamic vinegar. I first trimmed excess fat from the lamb and removed the tough connective tissue. Then I put the meat in a freezer bag and added the spices and then shook it up to ensure even distribution. I then left this in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day I heated up my stew pot with some olive oil, then I put in the slices of bacon. Once the bacon was fairly cooked I began browning the lamb in the beautiful bacon grease. Make sure not to put all the lamb in at once because it won’t brown as well if the pot is crowded. I browned it all in 3 batches or so, removing the browned meat as I went.

After the meat was browned I began working on the aromatics. I added some olive oil and butter and began sauteeing the onions and fennel, then the shallots. Once those were almost done I added the garlic. When the garlic was nice and fragrant I chopped the mushrooms and added those to sautee for a little while.

Once the mushrooms had softened I threw in the can of tomatoes. I increased the heat and began to simmer the mixture with the tomatoes and paste they came in. After they simmered for a while I added the chicken stock, beans, chopped zucchini and chopped potatoes.  I also added a little salt and pepper, as well as basil, thyme, oregano, crushed red pepper and rosemary. Once all the seasonings were added it was time to put the lamb back in the pool. I then put the heat on low and covered it with a lid, stirring occasionally.

After 2 hours or so add the lentils. I added mine too soon and they didn’t stand up well to the 3 hour simmer. At this point I removed the meat so I could take it off the bone. Please note the meat will be really hot so you should let it cool until it’s safe to handle.

After taking the meat from the bone put it back in the stew. I let it stew for around 3 hours total, until it reached a nice thick stew consistency. The meat was super soft and delicious. At this point it is primed and ready for you to enjoy with some bread and butter.

Tags: recipe

is buying an apple more expensive than a dell?

With the release today of the updated MacBook I was discussing the cost of the new computers with someone. They said they thought the MacBook is overpriced and that they could buy a comprable Dell for $600. I decided to go to Dell’s website and to build a comparable machine to see the price.

I started with the inspiron 13 option. There is a comparable chip and speed (Intel core 2 duo at 2 GHz) but the front side bus is slower. I think I’m going to have to go with an XPS configuration to get a closer match for the FSB and on chip memory specs.

I picked an XPS M1330 core 2 duo. It still has a slow FSB but a slightly bigger cache, which is a little more competitive with the MacBook. In order to compare apples to Apples (i kill myself!) i’m selecting a 2.4 GHz chip. The Apple has a 1066 MHz bus speed compared to the Dell’s 800 MHz, but we will just have to live with that 200 MHz difference.

Vista home premium will be the OS on the Dell, vs. OS X 10.5. I selected the slim and light LCD and webcam to compare with the Macbook LCD and iSight. As far as RAM goes I’m selecting 4 gigs for both the Apple and the Dell. One new difference is that the Dell RAM runs at 667 MHz, which is slower than the system bus. This means the RAM will be slowing down the rest of the computer, which doesn’t make much sense to me. For storage we go for 250gig SATA hard drive which spins at 5400 rpms on both machines. On the video side I selected the 128 Mb Nvidia 8400m to compete with the 9400m on the Apple. Everything else was stock (no modem, stock battery).

The final tally:

Dell

Starting Price $1,886
Instant Savings $352

Apple:

$1749

Going by the raw price Apple wins, but with the magical instant savings the Dell is $215 cheaper. I do not know how consistent the instant savings is, or if it is permanent so your mileage may vary. The Apple has a faster bus speed which most people would want, and the super magical multi touch track pad. Additionally you cannot take your Dell to a Dell store to get serviced, as can be done with the Apple at an Apple store. Aside from that, the computers are fairly similar.  I can’t see the physical dimensions of the Dell to accurately compare that aspect of things. I can say though that the Dell doesn’t look nearly as sexy as the Apple.

I will admit I am an Apple fanboy, but I would prefer to spend a little more $ for a computer that will better components. Part of that is due to the quality of the hardware that I have seen from Apple in my previous purchases, and another part of that is due to my dislike of Windows Vista and my appreciation of OS X.

This concludes my entirely unscientific and totally biased report

Tags: Apple