Entertainment

Why does Google News put all of it's stories about the drama that has usurped the lives of Tiger Woods and his family into the "Entertainment" category of it's website?  The available categories for news include "World, ""US," "Sci/Tech,""Business,"" Sports," and "Health."  Clearly, this tragedy doesn't fit in any of those categories either, although "Sports" may be the most appropriate since that is where most of the previous reportage about the golfing legend has appeared until recently.

But it definitely does not qualify as "Entertainment."  It is definitely not entertaining.

Steal This Recipe

Okay, here's the deal.  This is why Mark Bittman is so cool.  This recipe couldn't be easier, but it is an incredibly amazing rendering of brussel sprout deliciousness.  Watch this short video and just do it.  There is bacon involved.  Watch it now.

Cut and paste this into your browser if necessary:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/dining/281mrex.html?ref=dining

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did add a couple of tablespoons of pine nuts. And, check it out, I didn't have any dates.  But I did have figs and everyone knows that figs and dates are functional equivalents.  They are basically the same thing, really, so if you don't have dried figs, used dried dates.  And I added some chopped red bell pepper for color. 

Do it.  Don't fear the brussel sprouts.  Embrace them.

(Yes, I stole that picture from the internet.)

New Audio Technology Stuff

The National Association of Music Merchants (forever hereafter referred to as NAMM) winter show was last week.  While, typically, it is the summer show that is the musical instrument manufacturing industry's biggest event, the tradeshow last week revealed some cool new products.

First, check out the Akai Synthstation.  It is a powerful, feature packed synthesizer and music production application for the iPhone and iPod.  This is crazy!

Also, there is the iPK25 keyboard controller.  It's so new, you can't hardly find it on the internet, but go check out this really cool video on the Electronic Musician site.

And here is an interesting video on some new studio isolation products from Primacoustic, which is a part of the Radial Engineering family of companies and a real leader in acoustic design technology.  I was really impressed with the simple and creative design of some of these little problem-solvers.  Some clever, thoughtful new tools that will really work well in many studios and performance applicatons.