Monday, July 21, 2008

Street meat showdown in midtown Manhattan


Those who know me personally are aware that I'm a huge fan of street meat, both here in my home in New York City and around the world. When done well, it can be an inexpensive, delicious, and filling meal - be it at the taco trucks of Woodside, the Uigher kebab vendors in Flushing, or the Red Hook Ballfields for some ceviche or baleadas.

While Latin American and Asian vendors tend to dominate the outer boroughs, the keystones of the Manhattan street meat scene are the aptly named "lamb over rice" and "chicken over rice". Served up by Indians, Pakastanis, Israelis, Greeks, Trinidadians, and more, this platter generally consists of just a few staples: Grilled chicken or lamb; rice; a small salad; and a choice of several sauces - white, green, red, and hot, to name a few. (As for what each sauce contains, I have no idea - each of their flavor profiles can be summed up by their description - the white sauce tastes like "white", the hot sauce tastes "hot", etc.)

My wife works in midtown, and as such I've had the fortune to sample a few of these vendors. Each of us has our favorites - I tend to go for the more Caribbean spiced version from the Trini Pak Boyz on 44th, where my wife prefers the Kwik Meal cart on 46th and 6th. However, we've sampled little outside of those two carts, and certainly not as scientifically as in Midtown LUNCH's excellent Street-Meat-Palooza: A 13 Cart Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown. A team of 20 street meat fans sampled 13 vendors and rated them on the individual components and overall package.

My favorite cart came in 7th, while my wife's came in 5th. All I know is that next time I'm in midtown for lunch, we'll both be making a trek up to 53rd and 6th.

Street-Meat-Palooza: A 13 Cart Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown (Midtown Lunch via Eater.com)

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

What would Alanis say?

I've become a big fan of downforeveryoneorjustme.com in the past few weeks. My connection bugs out every once in a while, and I never know if it's just me or not. However, this morning I tried Amazon.com, which was acting wonky for me. What did I get?

Ironic, huh?

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

With my freeze ray I will stop ...


Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - Act I is out and it's brilliant. Is there anything NPH can't do?

And in case you're tempted by the iTunes store, which charges $1.99 for this 14 minute clip, it's available for free on Hulu.

Looking forward to Thursday when Act II debuts ...

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Beating Microsoft's XP ban


Every where I look, people are having problems with Vista. My parents' computer has had a malfunctioning Internet Explorer for months. (They've been using FireFox, but certain tools they use require IE.) Even my co-workers at dealnews, who are a rather tech savvy lot, are having issues - one just recently lost an afternoon to a bug with Vista, FireFox, and our custom back end. And that's just the tip of the iceberg - the Internet is full of horror stories, gripes, and general disgust with Vista.

With all of these issues, you'd assume that you'd still be able to order a system with a stable, tried-and-true operating system such as Windows XP Home. (While XP definitely has its share of issues, most of them are known and are easily fixable.) However, on June 30, Microsoft essentially killed off XP Home, ending its sale through computer manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Several loopholes exist, such as the availability of XP Home on UMPCs such as the ASUS Eee PC, and the "downgrade rights" included with the purchase of Vista Business or Ultimate. But for those people who need something more powerful than a subnotebook, or can't bear the thought of spending $150 or more to upgrade from Vista Home Basic to Vista Business or Ultimate, just to downgrade it to XP Professional, there isn't much of an option.

Or so I thought ...

I'm in the market for a beater computer for my Huntsville office and I've had nothing but good luck with Dell so far. While checking out a deal on its site recently, I ended up in the Dell Outlet. There - staring right at me - was an Inspiron system with XP Home pre-installed. Sure, it was a factory-refurb, but it still had a one-year Dell warranty. After a little digging around, I discovered a treasure trove of XP Home and Pro systems, with prices starting at $229. Of course, that miserly sum scored a miserly system, however - Sempron, 512MB RAM - the dregs, essentially. But there were loads of decent systems, too, with prices heading north of the $2k mark. I'll definitely be able to find something at a decent price point and put off the dreaded Vista upgrade for a few years to come.

As of the time of this post, there were 47 Inspiron desktops available with XP Home, as well as 114 Dimension desktops with XP Professional. So, if you're looking to score a new(ish) system with XP, it's worth taking a gander at Dell Outlet.