rice and other oddities

The Pot and how to use it: in which Roger Ebert tells you how to cook anything you want in a rice cooker.

We will begin with a scientific conundrum. You put Minute Rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. Minutes later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Tomorrow night, you put whole grain organic rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. An hour later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Both nights, the rice is perfectly cooked.

How does it know? There are no dials and settings on the Pot. As far as you can tell, there is only a heating element beneath. There doesn't look like room for anything else to hide. How does the Pot know how long to cook the rice? It is a mystery of the Orient. Don't ask questions you don't need the answers to. The point here is to save you some time and money.

Pigs is Pigs, a wonderful Disney cartoon from 1954 based on an equally wonderful short story.

---

Yay for exercising my right to a participatory democracy, in which I get to choose which millionaire I want representing me to the rest of the world!

Seriously, though. I woke up an hour early and walked to the polling place with uilos. Gorgeous fall day, friendly people in line, and not too bad a wait: 45 minutes and done, and the line was shorter behind us. I got to use a scantron ballot, and fill it in with a PEN instead of a #2 pencil.

I'm more calmly confident this time than I was four years ago. Some of that is because of what a wreck the last four have been, so that four (or even eight) Democrat years are at best damage control. Some of it's that it's just not as tight a race this time. Even the downticket items aren't that impressive: Mark Warner is using Jim Gilmore as a pinata, and Jim Moran is about as safe as it's possible to be. (Anybody else remember that NASCAR dude from Florida who ran against Rick Boucher four years ago? Good times.) Still and all, better late than never, and I'll have an enjoyable evening not throwing things at the television.

(And if you're panicking, via Uncle Jim comes this fine list of reasons to calm the heck down, already.)

---

On the suggestion of rbandrews I've been playing Spectromancer lately. It's good stuff: designed by Richard Garfield, playable in 10-15 minutes, highly tactical with some amount of strategy. Enjoyable and worth your $20.

The weird thing is, as with Darwinia, it sucks me in. I start playing and I lose track of time and my surroundings. I don't hear people talking to me or notice when people arrive or leave.

This doesn't happen with console games, only with stuff on the actual computer. Very odd.

(no subject)

CNN calls Virginia. That's 220 and California yet to go.

I believe my icon says it all.