We ate a delicious dinner tonight at The Stanton Social, after a quick drop by at Helen Mariënto pick up a new bag. We had oysters, a nifty spinach and corn salad, potato pierogies, a Kobe beef slider (which I had to follow up with two pulled pork sliders, I'd forgotten how small they were), French onion soup dumplings, and butternut squash and pumpkin ravioli. Beverages ranged from an orange gimlet (which started fine but wasn't so enjoyable), Sapphire & tonics, and a forgettable after dinner port and a nice Oban.

The trend in New York last year was to convert hotels to condominiums. Confusing matters this year is the trend of converting apartments to illegal hotels. Perhaps they could skip a step and just go directly to condos.

Apparently the Washington Post fact checkers think the capital of Australia is between Jackson's Landing and Botany Bay. In an article touting U.S. hegemony in East Asia: In East Asia, meanwhile, U.S. relations with Japan grow ever closer as the Japanese become increasingly concerned about China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. China's (and Malaysia's) attempt to exclude Australia from a prominent regional role at the recent East Asian summit has reinforced Sydney's desire for closer ties. That, or Premier Iemma has succeeded in propelling NSW to the forefront of East Asian diplomacy. [Via Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] I can understand the mistake. Canberra was selected as the capital in 1911. If only there were a service where one could search for such mysterious facts.

Apparently the most blogged about wine of 2005 (perhaps) is coming to the U.S., however it's blowing off New York so I'll keep to the Shiraz and Rioja's I've been chugging.

We're going to Miami on Thursday for the weekend, missing the Wine Australia Festival amongst other Australia Day events. Then again, I've managed to miss every Australia day except for 2001, when I was so sunburnt from falling asleep on Coogee Beach that, well, I couldn't celebrate much anything.

I'm in a weird early-90's flashback mode tonight. Listening to 1980-1990s hip-hop and recalling various misadventures at IBM's Myer's Corners Lab (aka MCL or MCR depending on your perspective). For instance, there was much discussion on the P-Aisle of Building 921 of whether or not Can't Touch This was a rip-off of Super Freak and whether the beat was dah dah dah dah duh dah dah or dah dah dah dah (pause) dah duh (pause) dah duh.

There was much prankery in the ID section of 921. The worst thing you could do was to walk away from your terminal without locking it. I was generally innocent. Though there was one time I modified a colleague's copy of TM EXEC. We used TM to I/M people on the IBM internal network (this was over RSCS/SNA, not TCP/IP). In this instance I was getting retribution for something which I've since forgotten, but am obviously so thrilled with my brilliance to remember my prank: I modified this colleague's copy of TM so that every message he sent appeared to also be sent to RHQVM20(JAKERS). I guess you had to be there. Learning later that year that, while JAKERS AT RHQVM20 was a valid address, JAKERS himself did not actually have a computer or a terminal in his office lessened the value of the prank. 'Course by then we were being warned that the lab may be shutting down so there were other concerns on our mind.

Here in present day New York City, the Transit Workers Union have kneecapped their leadership. I don't see how they get out of binding arbitration now, which is what the union was adamantly trying to avoid.