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By J.Ho, December 3, 2007 7:25 pm

There is more info regarding this posting — see it here after you read this.

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First off, I’m with my lady friend and she’s evaluating some software for a project she’s working on for her company. She is seriously the biggest computer nerd that’s ever walked the earth. But she’s damn cute and one hell of a saleslady. Anyway, she’s making me use one of her project’s shitty laptops. How shitty can a laptop be you ask? It’s a Fujitsu-Siemens laptop with a French keyboard layout running Ubuntu Linux. That’s how shitty. What’s even weirder is I’m allowing her to make me use this thing. But seriously, what am I going to say. I’m weak to her species.

She doesn’t actually like Ubuntu software or the silly Japanese-Eurotrash hardware it’s wrapped in. She says Ubuntu Linux smells like ass and she’s actually going to prove it to a big group of other nerds who make decisions regarding multi-multi-multi-million dollar defense related technical solutions. She’s a former Sun chick and she feels Solaris could have saved the world if Sun wasn’t so freaking stupid. If she doesn’t like that hardware/software setup then why torture me? The reason is obvious: she probably enjoys it.

Anyhoo, this idea for a post just hit me. There are some great restaurants in Beverly, MA, the town just south of where I live. Beverly has a great bar, music and social scene too. Not that I’m a miserable, cynical prick or anything, but for some reason the worst of the worst appetizers in Beverly restaurants are stuck in my head. Just to show I’m a kind hearted guy and I’m not all about being negative as I have been against the Indigo Bar & Grill, I’ll also add info about a good appetizer at the restaurants. Deal? Good. Here we go…

Nothing can kill a dining experience faster than a lousy appetizer. Receiving a poor greeting when you arrive at a restaurant and bad service rank right up there too. But when an appetizer sucks, it will ruin a meal. No matter how good the next courses are. These are the top five appetizers in Beverly restaurants that must be removed from the earth as fast as freakin’ possible. The very thought of ever experiencing these apps again make my blood boil.

#5 – Cheese and Fruit – Brenden Crocker’s Wild Horse Cafe

• Three cheeses, grapes, apples, guava paste, toasted almonds, honey and crackers – $13.00

I swear to Jah. Cheese and fruit for $13. In Beverly. It’s not that cheese and fruit are bad or shouldn’t be on a appetizer menu, but come on peeps. $13? In Beverly? The last time I paid close to that for a cheese and fruit tray was at The View Lounge on the 39th floor of the Marriott in downtown San Francisco. I didn’t mind it then since we were getting more than just the food. This place has a freakin’ spectacular 360° view of San Francisco! Robin Williams was drunk off his ass and doing one-acts at the bar. And I think Keith Sweat was crooning with the house jazz band. The ambiance was worth the overpriced food and cocktails. All the ambiance you’ll get at the Wild Horse Cafe is seeing the snobby people you’d usually run into at SOMA.

One good appetizer at the Wild Horse Cafe is the huge plate of nachos, but with house-made potato chips instead of Doritos or something. Smothered in melted cheese, bacon, scallions and sour cream. I didn’t see it on the online menu, but I always get it. Believe it or not, nachos are an easy thing to screw up and the Wild Horse does them perfectly. The first time I had them the girl I was with asked for the bacon be placed on the side. She didn’t eat bacon. When I heard that all I could imagine in my head was a big red X over her face and a buzzing sound like on the Family Feud.

#4 – Crab Cakes – SOMA

SOMA was actually the first bar I went to when I moved out here from California. I had a mediocre overpriced martini and absolutely offensive crab cakes. They sucked. Plain and simple. I lived in the Washington DC area for some time and I had some pretty good Maryland crab cakes down there. The crab cakes at the Black Cow in Hamilton are tasty. However, the crab cakes at the Pacific Café in San Francisco are the best I’ve had in my entire life.

One decent appetizer at SOMA is the Caesar Salad. It’s probably good since it’s not too difficult to make.

#3 – Chile Con Queso – Acapulcos Mexican Restaurant

• Rich, spicy Mexican cheese dip in a bowl with tortilla chips

Imagine Velveeta with Tabasco Sauce. After living in California for so long, I’ve become a Mexican food snob. I can’t help it though. There is absolutely no decent Mexican food in the Northeast. I challenge anyone to steer me towards some. Please.

One decent appetizer there is the Camarones De Ajo – Shrimp sautéed with fresh mushrooms in butter, garlic and spices. Not great, but not that bad.

#2 – Sopa Cielito Lindo – Cielito Lindo Grill

• Black bean and corn soup garnished with onions and fresh cheese

Absolute shit. It seemed like it was made with canned black beans that were rinsed and then mixed with a broth made made of 100% hot tap water. I know how to make a black bean soup. Even though mine is the best in the world, it’s pretty easy to make. It isn’t magic.

One decent appetizer: TACOS! How hard are they to screw up? This restaurant also links their online menus to PDFs. Christ.

#1 – Grilled Portuguese Octopus – SOMA (yes, SOMA again)

• Served atop chick peas, baby tomatoes, roasted fennel, preserved lemon and mint. Tahini and homemade yogurt drizzle.

Seriously, I think that description should speak for itself. If aliens and terrorists teamed up and sent us an appetizer that would bring our nation to it’s knees, it might look something like this. They also spelled fennel and drizzle wrong on their online menu. See it here. But they did spell fennel correctly on another appetizer description. See. Inconsistent.

I seriously have to stop typing. I’m still using this French keyboard and it’s driving me batshit.

Les Yankees sucent! (Yankees suck!)

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By J.Ho, November 15, 2007 5:21 pm

I know of several ways to roast a turkey.  But only one or two ways that actually yield a delicious, juicy bird.  I was cruising the Boston Globe’s online Food section.  What do you know.  They have a roasted turkey recipe.  Since I’m one always willing to learn something new or something old, yet effective, I clicked on the link.  Look at it for yourself here.

Now I noticed the article was dated 2006.  It’s not like I’m expecting a turkey recipe from 2007 to be irrelevant in 2007.  The roasting method seemed pretty simple and straightforward, which is the typical methodology for cooking anything delicious.  Three times the article refers to a chart for gauging the roasting time.  Something that’s pretty important in my opinion.  Anyone can season a bird and slap it in the oven.  The mystical part of roasting a turkey is figuring out how damn long the thing needs to be in the oven, and at what temps and stuff.

The chart they are referring to is not found anywhere on that page!  What the hell? If I had to guess, and I hate having to guess, I would say this article was originally published in the paper version of the Globe and reincarnated as a short article for the web a year later.  Someone’s lazy ass did a simple cut-and-paste from some database (or maybe it was an automated system) and simply syndicated the article.  But somehow forgot to, or intended to leave out the important roasting chart.

Typical, TYPICAL Boston Globe journalism for you.  Lots of fluff that everyone knows and leaving out the things that we might actually need.

Yankees suck!

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By Anna, November 13, 2007 12:35 pm

By Anna, Senior Analyst, pleasurecooker.com

Scrutinizing a bag of Trader Joe’s frozen organic vegetables doesn’t normally rank in my top ten things to do but that is exactly what I was doing the other evening. There seemed to be no cooking instructions anywhere to be found, not even after donning reading glasses or checking the wine bottle to make sure I hadn’t had a little more than I thought. I never did find any instructions but something in small black print did catch my eye: PRODUCT OF CHINA.

Not to be vegetablly-incorrect or anything but there seems something incredibly perverse about a broccoli floret traveling 7000 miles to get to a dinner plate (although some five-year-olds would argue NO distance is justified). On the flip side, if it was the bag that was from China, might this not be even more disturbing given recent events? Organic veggies, after all, are only as wholesome as the rat poison not lacing the package lining. As far as the quaint farm pictured on the bag? Probably a graphic artist’s creation made on her Mac computer and the real farm is a diesel-dusty field alongside an office park in Beijing.

The point is: 1) knowing where your food comes from is a good thing, and 2) vegetables and fruits freshly harvested from a local farm are a lot tastier than those that have spent weeks in the dark hull of a cargo ship.

Supporting local farmers is a win-win: good for helping preserve our open space and farmland and good for the economy. The alternative is ugly as more and more farmers are forced to sell their land to developers. And last I checked, McMansions don’t offer much in the way of nutritional value (a few years of firewood perhaps but that’s it).

You may not be able to find locally grown blackberries in November but at least your state representative or senator’s Blackberry is always in season. Email him or her today in support of “Buy Local” initiatives in your area. Yankees suck and they should start eating their broccoli — preferably from China!

Comments (2)

By J.Ho, November 12, 2007 5:05 pm

Seriously. I’m an IBMer now. Yeah, IBM, you know, the masters of innovation. IBM just announced it’s bid to acquire my company, Cognos, for nearly $5 billion. See IBM’s press release here and our press release here. I’ve been selling against IBM for nearly my entire professional life. Hell, a two-time previous employer of mine is Apple. So this should be an interesting adventure. GO BLUE!!! And I don’t mean Michigan.

This morning my Blackberry was blowing up from e-mails regarding IBM’s tender offer for Cognos and multiple phone calls from colleagues, business partners, customers and prospects. I attended to the concerns and then logged on to a conference call with Cognos executives discussing the terms of the acquisition. The executive representing IBM was Ambuj Goyal. On the call they pronounced his name as “Ambush.” I was like are they serious? I can only imagine that introduction: “Hi, I’m from IBM and I’m here to acquire you. Oh yeah, and my name is Ambush!” I was surprised to learn this acquisition is the largest ever undertaken by IBM.

Get this, I’ll have to go back to using IBM’s Lotus Notes software for internal e-mail and collaboration. Which sucks. I’ve been using Microsoft Exchange/Outlook for so long I finally got used to it. I got used to Microsoft’s complexities, inefficiencies and overall suckiness. Now I have a whole new suckiness to get used too. Hopefully it won’t take me ten years like it did with Microsoft. I think I might no longer have a completely company funded Blackberry mobile phone too. That sucks more. Oh well.

I can’t freakin’ believe I’m now (or will be once the acquisition is complete) working for Big Blue. I’ve fought the good fight vigorously against IBM for who knows how long. Now I’m one of them. One of the flying monkeys. So many friends have already e-mailed me asking how thick the irony is getting. One friend sent me a message saying he can’t believe I now work for “big brother.” I responded saying I’ve always worked for big brother. I AM BIG BROTHER! Before I was an undercover mole mingling with all the under-people. Then reporting back to headquarters about your technology knowledge, wants, desires and what you like to do when you get drunk at bars. My spy work is complete and now I’m heading back to my righteous seat aboard the mother ship. For real, yo!

Anyway, there’s an axiom which has helped make corporate computing extremely boring for many years: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” After IBM’s hardware business began to wane the claim has been applied to software of all kinds like Microsoft and Oracle. In my world of selling enterprise-class software for business intelligence reporting and analytics (I know, sounds boring), I will now finally be able to see if that sales pitch works. Never underestimate the power of instilling fear.

It still doesn’t feel natural for me to be working for a former archenemy. I would feel weirder if I went to work for EMC though. When I worked for Network Appliance, destroying EMC was my mission in life. However, like most people with a functioning brain, if the IBM paychecks clear, I’ll get over it pretty quick! All kidding aside, IBM is a great company to have on my resume and I’m very excited about the opportunities that lay before me. I’ve worked for some of the best companies in the industry. It looks like I’ll continue this trend. I can’t wait to get my IBM business card and IBM.com e-mail address! Let the Blue-washing begin! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, November 10, 2007 1:48 pm

232 years of service …

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By J.Ho, October 29, 2007 6:39 am

Boston Red Sox | 2007 World Series Champions

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By J.Ho, October 21, 2007 8:52 pm

And she was all like, “It’s about time you updated your site, J.Hizzo. And wrote about something other than that lame ass Blue Smoke. And wrote about how sucky that rotten Ingrid Hoffman really is. She’s horrible. Thank Jah her ratings are in the basement. Can you believe some people are referring to her as Rachael Ray with different seasonings? Are you friggin kidding me? My right earlobe has more clout in this business than she does. Does she have four shows on the Food Network? Does she have her own daytime talk show produced with Oprah? Does she have her own magazine? Does she have her own line of cookware and knives and shit? Does she have gobs of product endorsement deals? Does she have a library’s worth of best-selling cookbooks? You can answer all of these questions with NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!”

I can’t even get a word in. Rachael keeps on spewing, “Yeah, she’s me with different seasonings. You know what seasonings she could use to be on my level? Dash of paprika, pinch of cumin and a billion dollars worth of revenue from all sorts of industries. I’ve made more multi-millionaires out of more Food Network executive bums than you could dream of, dude. The only reason that skanky mariachi puta has a show is because of the industry I built. I built this thing. Who put this thing together, huh? You know who owns this world? ME! ME! That’s who! ME!”

“Dude, the other day my agent forced me to watch one of her retarded episodes. I felt as if I was getting dumber by the second watching her shake her head around and talk to her bottle of oil. Yeah, she actually talks to her bottle of oil. She talks to it like she’s seen the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe backstroking around in there. What’s worse than that is she’s using Mexican jumping bean oil or something. EVOO is the standard I’ve set!”

“Oh, and the culinary television critic tards give me grief for not being a formally trained chef or for taking cooking seriously. Yeah, that’s the point you friggin wangs. I wasn’t formally trained. And I don’t take cooking serious. And my recipes suck. But I still own the entire friggin universe. How ya like me now?!? This Ingrid bitch probably never refried a bean in her life before she took on this show. I read that she owned some dress boutique/oil change shop in east LA or something. And she’s always saying ‘DONE!’ after she finishes making something stupid in the kitchen. You know what’s DONE? Her freakin lame excuse for a TV career. Sayonuchi, as they say in Panama!”

I finally get to cut in and tell Rachael it’s no big deal and this show will be a distant memory not too long for now. And I’m all like Rache, slow you’re roll. Don’t let that lame ass show steal your joy. You own the world and stuff. You so cute and have an incredibly beautiful butt. What more do you need? Yeah I know your husband cheated on you, but he’s a numb nut and a midget. So I tell her I have to run and my cel battery is dying.

I’ll cheer her up by sending her some more recipes she can dumb down for the mass audience that knows nothing of good taste. Yankees suck!