For several years, Firefox has been my default browser. Firefox’s extensions have always been its paramount feature for me, but its per­for­mance and developer tools came close. I’m very happy with it, for the most part.

The one thing that makes me unhappy is Firefox 3’s CPU con­sump­tion. Time and again, I find it running at close to full uti­liza­tion of one CPU core on my MacBook Pro. The tipoff is usually the warmth of the metal case. Killing the Gmail tab tends to help, but not enough. In Firefox 2, the worst problem was the memory leaks. Within hours, it would have chewed up several hundred megabytes. Memory usage is better …continue.

I made my Christmas Cake back in November, but am only now getting around to putting on the icing. I’ve kept it moist with several ap­pli­ca­tions of whiskey.

Last year, I made marzipan from scratch. Never again! It was a huge amount of work to blanch the almonds and the stiff mixture of sugar and almonds caused the food processor to seize up more than once.

I didn’t use up all the marzipan that I made that time. I put the remainder into a sealed container, placed it in the fridge, and forgot all about it. When I took it out of the fridge yesterday, it was still good. Oh, the top half-inch had hardened and …continue.

Eight years ago, the Onion published a supposed speech by then President-elect George Bush, called ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’. How prophetic!

Finally, the long national nightmare of the George W. Bush presidency is over.

Barack Obama took the oath of office today. His inaugural speech was somber, reasoned, cautionary, and in­spi­ra­tional—of a piece with the man.

He faces enormous dif­fi­cul­ties. There are enormous op­por­tu­ni­ties too, if he can but seize them. The polls say that the American people do not expect overnight miracles. I hope we will all remember that a year from now.

Here’s to Obama and his presidency.

Twenty years ago tomorrow, I attended Bush Senior’s In­au­gu­ra­tion. By accident.

I was on my first solo trip to the United States, having arrived in New York the previous week. There I had purchased a 30-day unlimited standby ticket with Delta. It cost me only $400, as I could produce my round-the-world ticket.

For no par­tic­u­lar­ly good reason, I decided to start the 30 days with a trip to Washington DC. There were museums there and it was nearby.

I hadn’t been paying close attention to the news, and it was only when I got to Washington that I realized that George H.W. Bush’s in­au­gu­ra­tion was to be be held the next day. Even so, …continue.

Milk was a middle-aged closet case who moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, became po­lit­i­cal­ly active, and started running for office, un­suc­cess­ful­ly at first. “The Mayor of Castro Street” was elected to the San Francisco Board of Su­per­vi­sors in 1977, the first openly gay man to hold public office in the United States. A year later, only days after the anti-gay Cal­i­forn­ian ballot initiative, Propo­si­tion 6, went down to defeat, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered by ex-Supervisor Dan White.

Sean Penn is convincing as Harvey Milk, an ordinary man who became an im­pas­sioned gay activist and an in­spi­ra­tional …continue.

Seattle’s Metro Transit is changing a number of routes in South Seattle. They’re proposing to close the #39.

Here’s my letter to Metro:

To: metro-feedback-se@kingcounty.gov

Subject: Please keep the #39 open

I live two blocks from the busstop at 15th and S. Nevada, served by routes #39, #60, and #36. Metro is proposing to close the one really useful route, the #39 which takes me to work in Pioneer Square. The #60 gets me to 12th and S. Jackson, nearly a mile from work. The #36 only runs down 15th in the evenings; otherwise it runs through Jefferson Park, half a mile away.

The new #50 route will be a poor re­place­ment, getting me only as far …continue.

Paul Krugman:

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of possible crimes by the Bush ad­min­is­tra­tion. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any con­se­quences if they abuse their power.

…

There’s much, much more. By my count, at least six important government agencies ex­pe­ri­enced …continue.

I’ve always been a fast reader, faster than most people. I’ve read and reviewed 176 books in just over two years, or about two books a week. That doesn’t count newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other online reading.

When I was 10, I had an operation on both my feet and I spent all summer with my legs in plaster. My mother had to go to the library every day because they’d only let her take out three books at a time for me. On the flight back from Ireland two weeks ago, I read two 500-page books. My personal best, though, was the long, long night that I read seven short novels.

I’ve known …continue.

Sequel to The Purity of Blood.

Captain Alatriste has rejoined the Spanish army in Flanders, besieging Breda in 1625. Íñigo, his follower and later biographer, is still too young to bear arms, and serves as a forager for Alatriste’s squad.

There’s no glory in this war—Pérez-Reverte is a former war cor­re­spon­dent. The Spanish empire is on the decline. Spain has been fighting in the Spanish Nether­lands for sixty years to suppress the Protestant heretics. The Spanish troops are mutinous and close to starving; they haven’t been paid in a long …continue.

I seldom get bad colds, but I caught one on the plane back from Ireland, and it’s left me drained of energy for the last ten days. Jet lag and Frank’s death surely con­tributed too. Feh!

Maybe I’ll be up to cycling into work tomorrow. Between the snow, being in Ireland for two weeks, and this cold, it’s been almost a month since I last rode in.