distinctPixel.org

2006 Clos de los Siete

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:44:00 GMT

I also really liked this. It's a 45% Malbec, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 10% Syrah blend. I was expecting something quite a bit different, crazy and new world—but it's actually pretty subdued. A lot of lush cherry up front (though, not sugary which is nice). Some notes of dark chocolate, and a real surprising amount of structure. The finish is spicy and dry… maybe a little oak heavy, but not too overdone. Very nice—I'd totally buy it again. Paired it with a roasted pork with green peppercorn sauce, rough mashed fingerling potatoes, and sautéed asparagus.

It's also worth noting: the label, I thought was really nicely done.

(Cork'd Review: 91.0/100)

Working with PHP

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:18:00 GMT

Recently, I've come across a number of articles talking about problems with the LAMP talent pool, and some of the future predicaments of PHP. Since I recently started a new job that works entirely in PHP, I thought I might add my 2¢.

Many of these articles talk seem to point to academia as part of the problem. That the CS courses are all teaching Java/C++/C# (and not PHP), and they correlate that to a lack of genuine talented PHP devs out there. But I don't think that's entirely it.

A commenter on one of these posts says:

PHP has a good learning curve. I think most Java people can do PHP within 3 weeks. PHP people can't do JAVA in 3 weeks (most of them).

Which I think comes closer to it. Most Java, or traditional CS trained devs should be able to pick up PHP pretty quickly. The language and constructs in PHP aren't anything different or new; it's just a matter of remembering the names and signatures of the methods, and keeping track of the syntax subtleties. As an average C# guy, I was able to whip together a small web application over a weekend (before interviewing with the new gig).

But here's the thing… and I think this is the bit that the above comment almost hit: as a C# developer, there would be no reason for me to ever want to build anything in PHP—when given the choice. For me, there's no itch that it would scratch. To kill a metaphor: the grass doesn't even appear greener on that side of the fence.

If, left up to my own devices, I decided I wanted to work with something open source (and not pay the dreaded microsoft tax), I'd be much more apt to look into Python, or another language that's different, interesting, or had a lot to offer (Ruby, Smalltalk, etc). PHP, while light weight and absolutely functional, comes across as downright sloppy. And, since I'm just a developer (not an architect, CTO, or ops guy), writing good, clean, or interesting code is what really gets me off, not arguments of TCO, or scalability (all of which may be where PHP wins the most).

And I think that's the crux of it. There are plenty of talented devs out there that could work just fine in PHP (I am)… but PHP's biggest obstacle is the language, itself.

Domino Montenegro

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:29:00 GMT

World, meet Domino Montenegro.

Bonny Doon 2006 Vin Gris de Cigare

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 06:56:00 GMT

Wait… Pink wine? Barclay? For real?

Yup.

And you know what… it was damned tasty, too. Real fruity and sweet on the nose, but the sweetness stays off the palate. It's very dry, with just a bit of acidity, and the smallest expression of strawberry. At $10, this is a great summer patio wine. Different, interesting and fun.

(Cork'd Review: 89.0/100)

chester tracy loftus

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:26:00 GMT

My boy Chesterdog left us today. He had been quietly battling systemic histiocytosis, and it finally got the better of him.

There's so much to say. How can you express when your very best friend in the world passes? The void that's formed when his amazingly pure unconditional love is gone?

He really was the "best dog ever", and I reckon, I'm gonna miss him for the rest of my life.

Kim Crawford 2006 Malborough Sauvignon Blanc

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:33:00 GMT

Ah, the power of merchandising.

I had another bottle of sauvignon blanc in hand, and was walking out of the wine aisle in Draeger’s when the little tag hanging from the Kim Crawford bottle (expertly placed at the end of the aisle cap) screamed out “92 Points WS!”. And (I hate to admit) it totally worked. I put the other bottle down, and without even thinking twice grabbed this up. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a sucker.

So, first of all… 92 points? Boy, I sure had a hard time figuring that one out. Don’t get me wrong… it’s a fine bottle of wine… but 92? Yikes, I sure couldn’t get there.

There are some nice flavors of grapefruit and just a bit of peach at the very front, with a little butter, a little minerality, and a good bit of grass that round it out. Good enough, and at $14, it sure doesn’t hurt to try it… but 92? Nah.

One other interesting thing about this wine (one of the other reviews on cork’d mention this, and I completely agree) is that this is a hard wine to have in 750ml. The first glass was lovely great and fun, but by the end of the bottle my palate really felt worked over and tired. So, either bring it to a dinner where every one can enjoy just a glass, or just seek it out in a restaurant.

(Cork'd Review: 89.0/100)

Puerco Pibil

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:14:00 GMT

So, last week I ran across a video on digg from Robert Rodriguez that I apparently was on the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD. It basically consists of Rodriguez showing how to cook Puerco Pibil (pork butt in Red Achiote Paste). How’s that for being viral: something actually useful!

I like Rodriguez, I like cooking, and mostly, I like pork. I could never, ever be kosher.

As the weekend rolled around and I was getting ready to go shopping, I had this recipe floating around in my head. So, I figured I’d give it a try (and let's be honest here… who doesn’t love cooking pig in banana leaves?).

I slightly altered the recipe he uses… I toasted all the spices before grinding them (I’ve actually been doing this a lot more lately), and also using a fresh orange rather than juice.

Given that I’ve never actually had Pibil before, it’s hard to say if I did it any justice… but whatever I made, it was goddamned tasty.

2004 DEWN Cigare Alternative C

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:31:00 GMT

Wow.

I reckon I should start by admitting that I wasn’t too hot on Bonny Doon. I think I had tried a couple of their lower-end Ca’del Solo house wines (which I wasn’t a fan of), and their Cardinal Zin (which also didn’t work for me at all), and I had got the impression from one of my more knowledgeable wine friends, that Bonny Doon was a lot more marketing than wine.

And, while we’re being honest, I’ll freely admit it: I’m a complete snob about the screw-cap thing. Sure, corks can spoil a wine—but I just love the ritual of uncorking a bottle… And no matter how you do it, cracking that screw-top is not the same.

Anyway, on our way down to the Hearst Castle the other weekend, I saw a sign for Bonny Doon along Highway 1, and figured: “It’s our vacation, It’s almost noon… let’s do some wine tasting!”. So we stopped in and gave it a go.

The flight that we had was a nice mix of reds and whites. There were some stinkers (I wasn’t a big fan of their 2006 Albariño or their flagship red Le Cigare Volant), but there were also a couple of real winners, in particular the 2004 DEWN Cigare Alternative C.

This wine just completely rocked the flight—it is fantastic. Lush flavors of plum and cherry, some nice tannins, and a good long finish of pepper, tobacco, and Asian spice. Wrap it all in a really nicely done label, and I’m sold. This is a great wine.

In fact, it was good enough for me to actually decide to become a member of their wine club (more on that later), especially since they were having a “join the club, and get a bottle of the Alt. C for $5” deal.

(Cork'd Review: 92.0/100)

Rails: paying for convenience.

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:39:00 GMT

So I’ve been tinkering for the last couple of days with adding a commenting feature to this blog. One of the things that I’m really starting to notice with rails (and perhaps this is terribly obvious) is that while a lot of stuff is really great, you sure do pay for convenience.

Having gone through the Agile Web Development with Rails book as an intro to rails, I had been working based on some of the patterns discussed there. It’s quite possible that I’m the idiot in this situation, but all the same, it’s a bit frustrating. For example in building comments, there are comments, which belong to entries. There’s also a commenter, which belongs to each comment—a simple enough set of relationships.

However as I’m building this, it appears that rails is going SQL crazy. First, it’s making the initial SELECT query to get the entry… that’s fine. And then another query to get the comments for that entry… also fine. But after that, rails decides to make an additional SELECT * query for each comment’s commenter (that's a mouthful).

I sure would have hoped that by using the has_many and belongs_to statements in the models, rails would have been smart enough to have seen this should be a join. Being the rails newbie that I am, I don’t seem to see any real way of making rails do that (outside of writing my own SQL—which isn’t not writing the point of using rails?).

I’ve finally decided to wrap a little of my own logic around it and specifically work with the commenter_id field in the comments table to avoid the extra SELECT statements which (frankly) seems like a bit of a hack.

Let me say flat out: I am no DBA or rails guru. So, maybe none of this really matters since the queries are small (I’ve always played by the rule of thumb to make your DB queries as efficient as possible, and count for as much as possible)…

Maybe the answer is that you can solve all of this by caching, so don’t worry about what kind of SQL rails is using…

And, then again, maybe I’m the idiot who’s missing something really obvious.

Ray’s Station 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon

blog@distinctPixel.com (barclay loftus) — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:51:00 GMT

So, if you read the little bit on the back of the bottle it talks about a sea captain who opened a “rough around the edges” tavern in the late 1800’s, and how this “broad shouldered” wine is named after him.

Now, not to be mean here, but I’ve got to say that this is the most pansy-assed wine I’ve had in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad… but, seriously, this wine is about as machismo as a kitten napping in a flowerbed filled with pink flowers. “Rough” is not a term I would ever use when describing this wine.

At any rate, it’s a total “new world” wine, so up front there’s tons of super ripe jammy-berry flavors (this is a cabernet?), a bit of a flabby mid-palate, a hint of green pepper, and a heavy oaked finish. Given that bleak description it sounds like I should be totally panning the wine… but there’s something that’s “just enough” working for it—something in it is right, and made it quite drinkable.

I paired it with a nice grilled tri-tip, some roasted new red potatoes, and fresh steamed broccoli.

(Cork'd Review: 86.0/100)