Cash & carry

Compare & contrast, concerning the import of shoes:
US: http://hotdocs.usitc.gov/docs/tata/hts/bychapter/0701C64.pdf
Canada: http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/general/publications/tariff2007/01-99/ch64ne.pdf
Australia: http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/tariff/chapter64goods_a.pdf
Ireland: http://www.revenue.ie/pdf/04_12_CETI_06.pdf


Today's earrings: camels, coins

Bedtime reading: "The Mule," Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov

TC3

General impressions:
- Almost everyone there is a grown-up, and cooking is their day job. I have high hopes for the quality of the cooking this year. I do wish they'd spent more time talking about the food, though.
- Where's Ted? I was promised Ted.
- That dress Padma was in when she & Tom crashed the party was exactly perfect for her. Much better than the hoochie stuff they had her in last year. The outfit Tom was wearing later, though... a red v-neck under an aloha shirt is not a good look for him.
- They should have sent home the guy with the time-management problem. I think he dodged the bullet by being able to quote Bourdain back at Bourdain.
- Bourdain gives the fabulous prize of a bunch of his own books, and the promise of a drinking bout? Self-promoting bastard.
- The previews had way too much drama and not enough food porn. I want complicated dishes of expensive ingredients, lovingly described and droolingly photographed. I do not want to watch some New Yorker challenge the room to a dick-measuring contest.


Today's earrings: compasses

Bedtime reading: Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov

Victory

S's brother's wife had a little boy today. He's all small and scrunchy in the pictures, and very cute. Say it with me: awwww.


Today's earrings: flies, amber

Bedtime reading: Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov

em•pire

Pronunciation: (em'pīur; for 8–10 also om-pēr'), [key]
—n.
1. a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire, or Roman Empire.
2. a government under an emperor or empress.
3. (often cap.) the historical period during which a nation is under such a government: a history of the second French empire.
4. supreme power in governing; imperial power; sovereignty: Austria's failure of empire in central Europe.
5. supreme control; absolute sway: passion's empire over the mind.
6. a powerful and important enterprise or holding of large scope that is controlled by a single person, family, or group of associates: The family's shipping empire was founded 50 years ago.
7. (cap.) a variety of apple somewhat resembling the McIntosh.

—adj.
1. (cap.) characteristic of or developed during the first French Empire, 1804–15.
2. (usually cap.) (of women's attire and coiffures) of the style that prevailed during the first French Empire, in clothing being characterized esp. by décolletage and a high waistline, coming just below the bust, from which the skirt hangs straight and loose.
3. (often cap.) noting or pertaining to the style of architecture, furnishings, and decoration prevailing in France and imitated to a greater or lesser extent in various other countries, c1800–30: characterized by the use of delicate but elaborate ornamentation imitated from Greek and Roman examples or containing classical allusions, as animal forms for the legs of furniture, bas-reliefs of classical figures, motifs of wreaths, torches, caryatids, lyres, and urns and by the occasional use of military and Egyptian motifs and, under the Napoleonic Empire itself, of symbols alluding to Napoleon I, as bees or the letter N.
- Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc.,

Today's earrings: bees, flowers

Bedtime Reading: Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov

Pretty colors

Dinner at M's: M has painted her living room a lovely shade of pale taupe, and she wanted to show it off. We had baked chicken, dinosaur polenta, and a really good salad S made with kumquats, gorgonzola, and candied nuts, among other things. I've never had kumquat before. I've been missing out. We played pick-up sticks and hearts. Then S and I hit the North Berkeley Target. Consumerist heaven. Or perhaps, consumerist purgatory. (They were missing several of the items on S's list, and did not carry my brand of shampoo.)

The view, coming back across the bridge at sunset, was spectacular. No fog, and just a few scarlet clouds on the western horizon. The bay sapphire blue. The GG silhouetted in gold. Light enough to see the detail of Coit Tower, and just dark enough to see that it was lit up. Lights in the buildings... and I get to live here.


Today's purchases:
8" fry pan
12 pack Ivory soap w/ aloe
1/2 gallon cranberry juice

Today's earrings: abalone footballs
Bedtime reading: Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov

Schadenfreude

is corrosive to the soul. Ill-wishing is not a beneficial practice. And yet... the sight of an spoilt overgrown child being taught that there are people with the power (and the will) to punish her for being disrespectful makes me chuckle.

I am not a good person.


Today's earrings: swords, Celtic knots

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Semi-precious

http://www.kyotouae.com/colorchart/


Today's earrings: sapphires, peridots

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Tempest

Top Chef 2-nite. I still hate Dave, and my precious Tiffani is vindicated! In fairness, I should say that however whiny Dave is, he's whining while doing his best to pull his weight for the team. Not like the morons from S2, who know how limited Ilan is and still stuck him with the duck. And didn't bother to coordinate their menu at all. And didn't even try to talk Marcel out of the pre-puddles he calls foams and gelees. Twerps.


Today's earrings: mice, teapots

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

God Bless America

Today in Walgreen's, I saw a little plastic jeep with two little plastic hunters inside and a little plastic deer strapped to the little plastic hood. Press a button, and the deer raises his head and sings "Sweet Home Alabama."

What I don't get - do they really think the target market for this merchandise is going to be shopping for tchotchkes in the Walgreen's at the corner of Bush and Sansome?


Today's earrings: bees, lizards

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Rosewood

So I'm in Stacey's, checking to see if Matt Ruff has a new book out (no) when a guy in a wheelchair speeds by and stops at the reference desk. Dude is mad. He's bitching loudly about the homeless guy. The staff at the reference desk calls for the manager.

(The homeless guy, for those of you who aren't evening regulars at Stacey's, is there every evening. The management at Stacey's lets him keep his cart in a storage closet near the front of the store.)

I've passed up that Tanith Lee I keep passing up and moved on to looking for new titles by Margaret Maron & Nancy Martin (no), and the manager is trying to placate the guy in the wheelchair. Somehow they ended up right next to the mystery section. He's offering to help the guy in the wheelchair get any title he likes. The guy in the wheelchair is talking loudly about how the homeless guy is in the way and junking up the place.

(The homeless guy can be in the way if you want to get a look at the Dan Brown or Agatha Christie at the same time he's pulling his stuff out. And he's obviously a homeless guy, and unaesthetic. I'm not convinced it's a wise business decision to let the guy store his things there - but it's a decision they've long since made.)

The manager is trying to tell the guy in the wheelchair that the homeless guy has been coming in for years, and... I don't know where he was going with that, because the guy in the wheelchair interrupted him to say that he doesn't care; he will be filing suit against Stacey's under the ADA. The manager says he's sorry to hear that. The guy in the wheelchair says again that he's filing suit under the ADA. The manager says again he's sorry to hear that, apologizes that wheelchair guy feels inconvenienced... and walks away. Wheelchair guy is totally sputtering. I brush past him into the next alcove to check whether there's a new Donna Andrews (no), and there's the homeless guy, kinda in the way. I didn't talk to the homeless guy (I never do; I have class issues), but y'know, I suspect that if asked, he'd move his stuff out of my way.

Dude would rather cause a scene and threaten a lawsuit than talk to a homeless guy. I shake my head.


Today's earrings: roses, wood rounds

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Matinee Idylls

M and I played scientist today, and we now have experimental evidence that Spiderman 3 is less fun that watching paint dry.

Other observations:
- Nice effects. Too bad they went on too long.
- The only actor with any subtlety was JK Simmons. A one-dimensional role, and he plays it broad - but he's the one who got some nuance out of the lousy script.
- Stan Lee did a nice cameo.
- Rebound Girl going, "You asked me out to annoy someone else. Get bent." That was nice.
- If they do make another, I hope against hope that "MJ" got some of that space goo on her.
- No final decision has been reached on the taupes, though yellow has been definitely rejected.


Borrowed The Foundation Trilogy from M.


Today's earrings: spiders, men

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov