A Powerful Necessity

Every Sunday morning, Danielle and I have a routine--we wake up around 7, go to the supermarket (after having planned our week's meals Saturday night), come home and read the papers and eat breakfast and drink our coffee. Danielle usually winds up going back to sleep and I tinker around in the kitchen, straighten up the apartment, and catch up on the DVR (At The Movies, Reel Talk, Sports Reporters). Since I've decided to make blogging a serious part of my day and actually give people a reason to read my writing, I've decided this time would also be perfect to get in a mega-post, about whatever and ever, and call it something. The Sunday Review? That sucks. I'll think of something better in the future. Here we go:

-Danielle alerted me to this article in the Westchester section (I know it says it's from the NJ section) of today's Times:

For Baby Boomers, the Joys of Facebook

It's not the best written article, but it's brings up some interesting facts about who exactly is using Facebook. And I've been complaining recently about how there seems to be a spike in the amount of "adults" who use FB, to which Danielle replies every time, "Joe, you're an adult, you idiot."

-There were two really good reviews in the Times Book Review today, and yes, the fact that they are two of my favorite authors did influence my opinion. Sue me.

First is the review of Tracy Daugherty's Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme. Anybody who has read Barthelme would agree with me that his stories (and novels) are fascinating, intelligent, funny, and damn original, and so I'd expect nothing less from his personal life. I'll be picking this up for sure, and I'll let you know how it is.

Second is just big news. Huge news. I knew Mary Robison had a new book coming out soon, but I didn't know when, and because she's not a B&N wonder-child, lord knows they're not going to send me an e-mail reminder that I've "bought titles from her in the past" (even though I purchased every book in her catalog within ten minutes of finishing "Why Did I Ever," which you should read. Like, yesterday you should have read it). Well, the wait is over. "One D.O.A., One on the Way" is here. The review, written by the Lemony Snicket dude, is a good one, ending with:

"Mary Robison's work has always felt like a glorious amenity, but 'One D.O.A., One on the Way' is a powerful necessity."

Sounds like D.O.A. is quick read (166 pages) and written in the same super-short chapter style of "Why Did I Ever" (which you really, really should fucking read. Like now), so I'm pretty pumped for this. MR is a genius.

-On the iPhone front, things are good. Things are great, actually. Already loaded up with a bunch of apps--nothing too crazy yet, just catching up with the usual suspects like Weatherbug, Atomic Fart, I Can Has Cheezburger, Hockey News, Twitterrific, Pac-Man Lite, UrbanSpoon, Yelp, Facebook, AIM, Midomi, Google, and Vlingo. Twitterrific is definitely the best Twitter client so far (thanks again, Woost) although there's more I will try and even one I might pay for that's been getting good reviews--Tweetie.

In terms of the phone itself, I've been a little disappointed with the way that it just eats through the battery, but I knew that coming in. Also, could the camera be more barebones? Took this picture before:

That's a container of sliced red onions that I'm pickling. Very simple recipe--vinegar (I used white wine and apple cider), sugar, and two serrano chiles. Bring everything but the onions to a boil--make sure the sugar is dissolved and don't burn the vinegar--and pour it, still hot, over the onions, then stick the container in an ice bath. I won't touch them for at least a day or two, but they'll probably be best in a week. We'll use them on sandwiches, meat, chicken, fish, whatever. I love the little bounty of produce in the background that we picked up this morning.

Please feel free to hit me up on twitter or in the comments here with some more good apps. I'm only willing to pay if it's worth it. A couple of people have asked me what's going to happen to the Storm--Danielle's going to take it. We'll put her pink 8330 on ebay.

(And I'll follow it with the ebay app. Heh.)

That's all for now folks. I'm still working on The Soul of A Chef, and it's quiet here for the moment, so I'm going to take advantage. I'm going to do a sports post later today or tomorrow. Go Rangers. Tannenbaum, get Cutler.

And with that, the first edition of The Sunday Review is completed. Shit, now I kind of like that name.

Happy Sunday, kids.

JS