My mind, and the places it goes

-- It's *cold* -- the high today is supposed to be about 20-25 F, with a wind chill of -10 or so. It's a right balmy 15 at the moment, according to my weather bug. And of course it's supposed to be in the 50s later in the week and we're supposed to get wet and sloppy weather on Friday. Ah, New England. :-)

-- An observation from yesterday: We have a heck of a lot of books.

-- On Thursday, on the way to mandatory fun our office's holiday party, I discovered that a coworker I've known for almost nine years is a major comic book fan. This pleases me.

-- I'm working on knitting down my stash, having now filled five decent-sized bins with yarn (I finally organized a whole bunch of previously unorganized yarn). I found a sweater's worth of yarn (all the same dyelot, even) I hadn't realized I had, so now I have to figure out what pattern I want to use.

-- Does anyone know the origin of the "five things make a post" idea? It's widespread, but I haven't figured out where it started.

mabfan and I are coming down to New York City for a couple days (18-21 September). Our time is a combination of already booked and totally unstructured, and you (yes, you!) can help us figure out what to do. Here's what we know already:

-- Thursday: Arriving mid-morning, dropping luggage, lunch with a friend in midtown, show in the evening.

-- Friday: mabfan has a 12:00 PM appointment to tape "Hour of the Wolf" for WBAI; I will be footloose and fancy free for two hours.

-- Shabbat: With friends chaos_wrangler and G., with bonus visiting with sdelmonte and batyatoon

-- Sunday: 4:00 PM-ish train back to Boston

What we don't know:

-- What to do Thursday afternoon between lunch and dinner (though there might be a trip to the New-York Historical Society)

-- What I should do with myself from noon until 2 on Friday while mabfan is doing his interview

-- What we're doing after mabfan's interview (and before Shabbat), and whether anyone wants to join us for whatever that may be

-- Where we might meet folks for lunch on Sunday (only parameters are kosher, somewhere not horribly far from Penn Station)

-- Which of you lovely folks are joining us for lunch on Sunday

So, if you were trying to hook someone on steampunk, what books would you recommend?

I'm looking to get a microphone that is compatible with my Mac. I'm thinking of this one, of which I've heard good things, but I don't want to settle for it just because it's inexpensive. Does anyone know anything about the Logitech mic? Or can anyone recommend a different one that's good and, say, $100 or under?

Last year, I asked people for suggestions of what I should photograph. I'm in the mood to do it again. So... I am now taking requests for random photos. As I take 'em, I'll post 'em.

mabfan and I are looking to buy a scanner. We'd love to get one that also can be a fax machine. But we don't know what are the best ones, so we figured we'd ask here. Our current technological parameters are:

-- Needs to connect to a Mac iBook G4 running Tiger (OS 10.4)
-- Needs to be able to produce good-quality digital renditions from color and black-and-white photographs

So? Suggestions?

So, it's been in the high-80s/low-90s all day, and I've got guests coming for Shabbat dinner. Do I put up the hot water for after-dinner tea?

[Poll #1029023]

Inspired by a typo in last week's similarly themed post and a subsequent comment by 530nm330hz, a memelet:

Help me plan my Shabbat menu in the comments. Then post your Shabbat menu outline in your own blog....

It looks like I'm making both dinner and lunch this Shabbat, with one confirmed guest for both meals and a couple of possible others. The basic plot meal outline is as follows:

-- Challah and grape juice (maybe offer remains of last week's wine, as well)

-- Starter

-- Main dish (meat)

-- Side (vegetable)

-- Side (starch)

-- Dessert

I'm leaning toward beef for one meal and chicken for the other, but I'm flexible. I have lots of sides recipes that are good either cold or hot. I haven't made a Yerushalmi kugel in a good long while, so maybe I'll make one of those.

Side note: similarly themed post? similarly-themed post? beths_stanley, any hyphen-related insights? ;-)

Suggestions, anyone?

...for me, at least, but could anyone out there hook a frum chick up with some otherwise-kosher-friendly recipes for things to do with cooked crabmeat, cooked lobster, or cooked shrimp?

Thanks!

OK, so. It's finally seeming like spring may be here for a bit. So, I've got the itch to be out and about. And I'm also in the mood to take pictures, but I don't know of what. So... give me suggestions! What, if anything, in the Nomi-verse do you want to see photos of?

(It occurs to me that I have no spring-y icons. The Sox is as close as I appear to get.)