Bits and Pieces

[firstfrost]

• Last night, a spammer sent a million billion (well, I don't know the exact number, but I got ~1800 myself) messages to a bunch of MIT lists. Many of them went to RT, which flooded it enough that it's thrashing and failing, preventing people from being able to respond to the other many messages complaining about having gotten a million billion spam messages.
• And the heat is off in N42!
  
  
• Craigie on Main has changed their bar and dining room to not use each other's menus. Sniff! No more tasting menu at the bar. I bet the bar has gotten too popular, what with all the recent articles about their Most Amazing Burger Ever; there's always a line for the bar at 5:30 when it opens. The other night, ilhander asked for something "dark and brooding" and got a drink titled "Living to old age and dying happy is a hope, not an inevitability." (For those reading now without reading comments, the change has been reverted. (the best bartenders ever plus all the choices of the best food ever, so yay!))
  
  
• Last night, mjperson was meeting Mirris & others for dinner at Journeyman, when I got a phone call from him.
  "I'm standing where my iPhone tells me the restaurant is, but I can't find it. Help!"
  "Are you in the alley already? Go down the alley, there's a door on your right."
  "I see a door for (some other restaurant)."
  "No, go farther than that. It's an unmarked big door."
  "There's a plain wooden door... ahah!"

  Later, tirinian noted that listening to the conversation on my end, he couldn't tell whether it was about real life or a video game someone was lost in.

Comments

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

Hee. I find myself looking at the ocean sometimes and thinking "Wow, that graphics engine does a great job with water textures"...

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

I worry that one day reality will look wan and pale compared to CGI... I think Myst was the first game that gave me a glimpse of that possibility (especially that bit where one walks down this stone staircase and comes around a corner to look at a tropical beach with a couple of something-a-saurs sunnings themselves on a rock who slip off into the water)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I used to do that all the time when I was at Looking Glass. Real world textures are still pretty darn good. And mostly non-repeating!

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Man is that place hidden. I arrived within 20 feet of the door, and then spent a full five minutes and one phone call searching for it.

Journeyman

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Heh. :-) How do they get any business if they are so hidden? Or is that part of their marketting schtick?

Re: Journeyman

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

They only open 2 months ago. Currently all of their business seems to come from word of mouth advertising originating in friends of the various owners/employees/investors.

I suspect they need to fix that part pretty quick if they want to be sustainable. They have gotten some decent reviews in local food columns though, so maybe they'll turn that all around.

Re: Journeyman

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

They're still quite new (so I'd guess there may be a sign coming), and have a very strong word-of-mouth and blog/twitter/etc network.

This (http://stuffboston.com/dining2010/archive/2010/10/04/the-biggest-balls-award.aspx) describes the place as "hard-as-a-speakeasy-to-find".

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

I want to know whether it's actually any good.

Union Square hasn't had a really good restaurant since the Union Square Bistro closed and Elephant Walk left.

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it. It was tasty, but you only get to choose between the two prix fixe menus, so you're pretty much at the mercy of chance as far as what you will be served.

I found the portions a tad small, but I often do with prix fixe menus. If I want more in the future, I'd up to the more courses option.

They seemed to be full on a Sunday night, so it's pretty popular though there's a "just started" surge that I expect will drop off unless they hustle a bit to polish up.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Do you have to take all one menu or the other? When I look at their posted menus there's often a course where I'd like to punt to the vegetable...

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

They definitely allowed punting to the vegetable version the time I was there.

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seemed like the stated policy was no substitutions, but my table certainly substituted a couple of things.

[probabilistic.livejournal.com]

Number of spams that made it to my inbox: 1846
Number of new spams in my spam quarantine: 500

go go gadget brightmail! :-P

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think 500 is the number that Brightmail stops counting at, but still, yeah, it really doesn't react very fast.

Craigie On Main Bar Menu

[(Anonymous)]

We have been doing some tweaking because people found our many menus confusing. It is now more or less back to the way it was a couple of weeks ago. Tasting Menus at the Bar are A-OK!

Re: Craigie On Main Bar Menu

[desireearmfeldt]

Wah, firstfrost, the internet is stalking you again! Or is that reverse-stalking? :)

Re: Craigie On Main Bar Menu

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

And now I feel bad that I didn't say nice things about them when they googled! They must know I love them, right? :)

[hr-macgirl.livejournal.com]

I wondered what was wrong with RT this morning. The spamming explains it!

As for the heat being off, just think of the wonders of your new abode. The HVAC will work better, I promise you that.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Wow, did you *not* get hundreds of messages advertising spam software? The lists must have been much more clumpy than I realized.

I certainly will be happier in a better-behaved HVAC system - I've kind of gotten resigned to the random 80+ days in the summer, but this was the first no heat day I could remember.

[hr-macgirl.livejournal.com]

I didn't get a single spam message. I only have four new messages in brightmail and one is a mailman bounce. I wonder what lists they targeted. I manage 300+ moira lists and a whole pile of mailman lists, not to mention a dozen or so RT queues. Evil spammers!

[kelkyag]

I didn't get more than the usual one or two that sneak past brightmail, and not much more than usual in brightmail. I guess I'm on all the right (wrong?) mailing lists?