Concern

This host has been accessing this web site continuously; it declares its user-agent as “*WAPT 4.0*”. Its referring URL is always “jargon.tuxedo.org/”. No ports on the host seem open, but the netblock is owned by “zjnetcom.com”.

Anyone have any idea what this is? ESR isn’t referrer-log spamming, is he?

This host does appear in other sites’ public logs.

• Enough steak to serve.
• Olive oil.
• Coarse sea salt.
• Ground white pepper.
• Tomato paste.
• Cooking sherry.
• Common spice blend (garlic and onion salt).
• Ground cayenne pepper.

Dash salt and pepper on steaks; brown whole steaks in oil, in a medium frypan; when brown, remove from heat and slice into 1/4 inch slices; combine meat, sherry, tomato paste, spices (cayenne pepper to taste), and a dash of water into frypan; simmer for about 10 minutes, or until steak is cooked through.

It tastes a bit like chili, but a little more sour thanks to the sherry. Fresh onions and garlic could probably be added, and you could thin the sauce more with some beef stock or something. I only used a touch of cayenne pepper (you can’t take it out, after all), so it wasn’t that spicy. A bit like a curry (rice or noodles would be a fine side dish), but with a different kind of taste.

I dubbed it “antigoulash” because I set out to make a goulash-like dish, but had none of the ingredients. It winds up looking a bit like goulash, but tastes completely different.

The set of “women I find remotely attractive” is, in fact, a proper subset of the set of “women who are in relationships.”

Lazyweb edit: is there a word that means “a person who asks questions that they already know the answer to?”

Car ownership continues. The continuing saga:

The miles-per-gallon meter is fun. I always have it selected in the display, and it (I think) calculates the miles per gallon you are getting for the current trip. It’s fun to explore different gears and speeds, trying to get that number as high as I can. My personal best (which has me in sixth (!) gear at around 2500 RPM at 65-70 MPH, and fifth or fourth at 55-60 going up the hill, and in fifth and pretty much coasting down the hill) is 35 MPG.

Cars are OMG dirty! I cleaned the wheels off today, which already had a light coat of fine, greasy black dirt. I really want to take care of this car, so I’m going to try to keep a tight regimen of detailing. I’m not sure how often I should get the car washed and waxed, though. The Intarweb tells many a story, from every two weeks, to monthly, to 1-2 week washings and bi-yearly waxings. What, dear lazyweb, is a good washing scheme? Remember that I’ll need to go to a professional to get it done, so high cost and frequency are both negatives.

I ordered some heavy-duty rubber floor mats, which arrived yesterday. They say “Jetta” on the driver and front passenger ones. If they said “GLI” instead, that would kind of rock, but they don’t seem to be available. Volkswagen floor mats are neat because there are clips on the floor, near where the seats meet the carpet, that hold the mats in place. Anyone who has had a car that had floor mats of any kind knows, this is brilliant.

Sigh. Even after adding the answer-a-math-question plugin for WordPress, I had a spat of comment spam this weekend. All of them were from AOL, so it’s unclear if this is a smart bot, or a legion of AOLer’s doing some dirty work.

Completely forbidding any post from AOL, ever, would be a fine solution as far as I’m concerned, but I don’t see any way to do that. Instead, I’m just forbidding anyone from using the word “ringtone” in any comment. It won’t get moderated, I won’t be notified, it will just be silently deleted.

So don’t offer me any ringtones. I have an inoffensive one for my phone, and I’m happy with it.