Tryphoon’s Lair

The Omnivore’s Hundred (Internet meme)

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on August 19, 2008

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I just received a note from a colleague of mine, probably mocking the fact that one of our main effort currently going on at the office is based on the name of a French delicasy I call “Andouillette” and they call “Stinky Sausage”. The note was pointing to some web site and contained this meme..

Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Having finished the list, I realise that having grown up in Europe and travelled around the world, some of my eating habbits got me to try at least once most of what on this list except some due to lack of chance to try them:
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
43. Phaal
59. Poutine
95. Mole poblano
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

Or some simply by choice…
42. Whole insects
89. Horse
100. Snake

Some things are missing from the list but as I’d love to still speak to some of my coworkers here in the US, I might prefer to not describe these here.

Now, your turn!

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Am I the only one left in the building?

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Tryphoon

on August 15, 2008

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I feel alone...

Just send an email out and got this huge list of OoO auto-replies! The worst part: I know of at least 5 people who are Out of the Office today and haven’t set up their auto-response!

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In which Camp Freddy enjoy a month of residency at the Roxy

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Tryphoon

on August 13, 2008

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Time flies… It has now been a couple of month since Camp Freddy took residency at the Roxy Theater for a full month. As memories tend to fade and it would have been to much to detail each gig, I thought I should give you a little video mashup of that month.

For those of you who don’t know Camp Freddy, who never heard of Camp Freddy or simply have a doubt, the band is made of several of the best rock musicians available these days. The current line up is made of:

Dave Navarro - Guitar (Jane’s Addiction, The Panic Channel and Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Billy Morrison - Guitar (Circus Diablo, The Cult and Doheny)
Matt Sorum - Drums (Velvet Revolver, Guns N’ Roses and The Cult)
Donovan Leitch, Jr. - Vocals (Nancy Boy)
Chris Chaney - Bass (Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, Jane’s Addiction and The Panic Channel)

Just this to me justifies to attend any of their gig anywhere in LA.

We used to listen to their radio show when we used to live in London (not in real time though) and I must admit that some of the life described during these weekly shows might have been one of the selling points when it came to move to California! And you have to agree that Sunset Boulevard and The Roxy, being two of the major landmarks of rock history, were the perfect place for these guys to enjoy a full month of residency.

What makes this band so special? Apart from the fact that they are possibly the best in their individual fields and sound terrific? They have tons of friends and the trademark of Camp Freddy is to have them perform randomly at each gig!

The list is too long to detail but the main acts I can remember during this month of gigs are Nuno Bettancourt (Extreme), Billy Duffy (The Cult), Billy Idol, Brett Scallions (Tools), Chad Smith (RHCP), Chester Bennington (Linkin Park), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Cypress Hill, Tommy Lee (Mötley Crüe),Duff McKagan (Guns’N'Roses, Velvet Revolver), Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains), Juliette Lewis, Lemmy (Motorhead), Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray), Robbie Krieger (The Doors… Yes, The Doors), Slash (Guns’N'Roses), Warren DeMartini (RATT), Wayne Static, Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard), MacQueen. Basically, 90% of my dream team when it comes to playing or listening to music!

I should have blogged on a weekly basis as so many things happened there but the highlights of this month to me were:

bumping into Lemmy on day one and being given “the look” as I was still dressed in “Corporate America” style (including a pink shirt)
a monstrous rendition of “Paradise City” by Slash, Duff and Matt Sorum (60% of the Old GnR), sung by Chester from Linkin Park. I went berserk!
a masterpiece version of “All Right Now” sung by Corey Taylor (Slipknot)
Tommy Lee breaking a drum kit (or so we were told, as Matt Sorum though he was too drunk to play another song)
having a couple of beers with Chad Smith (RHCP) and some of his friends (Sarah went nuts)

Most of the pictures for these gigs are to be found under the “PrettyPics” section, sorted by gig; Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 and Week 5.

And even more interesting, here are links to a couple of videos I shot and YouTubed of Jerry Cantrell and Billy Duffy playing Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” and Juliette Lewis singing AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)”.

It is definitely good to live here when it comes to rock music!

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My Top 10 iPhone Applications and Games. What’s yours?

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Tryphoon

on August 12, 2008

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It has now been a month since the release of the firmware 2.0 (and subsequent 2.0.1) for the iPhone and I have over this period of time had enough time to install, uninstall, reinstall several of the new applications available for the Jesus Phone. As everybody else seems to have done on the Interweb and helping my buddy Miles who just bought his own iPhone, here is my top ten of the apps I have been running on my phone… And I mean not just seating there but being used at least once a day!

1 - AOL Radio

No doubt about this one! I use it every day when I go running, I use at home in the morning (to not wake the while family up) and even sometimes at night. All of the CBS and AOL Radios on, including KROQ as well as several stations only available today on HD Radio (such as KROQ2). The beauty of it is that if I hear a song I like on KROQ, I can simply purchase it immediately on the iTunes store or on the AOL Music store.

AOL Radio

2 - Twinkle

As much as I can rant about Twitter, I am still hooked to the damn thing and Twinkly is probably (for now) the best Twittin’ client on the iPhone, adding geolocation and finding other users twitting around you, which is fun and can lead to discovering interesting people living just around the block.

Twinkle

3 - Jott

This is the new best thing since sliced bread! I am pathetic with names, places or simply short term memory. I see and hear a million things a day about things I’d love to read, listen to, buy, visit, eat at, etc. So the only way for me to remember all these names, albums, addresses is to note them as I hear them. Sadly, I am not such a fast typer or often, I hear these suggestions on the radio while driving. Jott simply lets me dictate to my iPhone any sentence and will transcribe it and send it back to my to do list within minutes.

The beauty of it: It even works if you speak Franglaise…

Jott

4 - Evernote

Similar to Jott except that this one works with images and diagrams. Jott does speach to text. Evernote does OCR. The beauty in this one: It recognizes hand writing (even mine), making any search extremely easy.

Evernote

5 - Shazam

10 times per day I hear a song I like but I don’t know or can’t remember the name of it and am hence unable to buy it. Well, Shazam does this for me. Place the phone close to a speaker, wait for 10 seconds and “Shazam”, it gives you the name of the song, the album and a direct access to the iTunes store to purchase it. Welcome impulse buy!

Shazam

6 - Pandora

More music. More music… This one is the iPhone version of the now famous Pandora online service, based on the Genome Project. Ask Pandora for a play list based on a song, an artist, a mood or a variation of these and Pandora Radio will create youe little radio station, just for you. Then vote “I Like” or “I dislike” when ever a new song is played and your playlist gets even better, matching your musical taste even better…

Pandora

7 - Wordpress

Well, you’re on my little Blog. I run a couple of other ones (one about my baby girl and and another one (already started) about our second baby, for our friends and family abroad). Wordpress on the iPhone is a blessing. There are soooo many things I’d like to post but only so much time to write about it…

Wordpress

8 - Super Monky Ball

Game. Fab. Stuck at level 5 (Easy mode). I know, I suck!

Super Monkey Ball

9 - Exposure

Why oh Why Flickr haven’t released an iPhone app yet… Oh wait, their management might be busy trying to avoid hostile take over or major board fight. Well, someone else did and Exposure is a a simple Flickr viewer, making use as well of Geolocation, letting me find pictures taken around my location. Pretty neat!

Exposure

10 - The New York Times

Well, that’s it. It is the NYT, available in my pocket! I eat news whenever I can and this helps me find these precious seconds…

NYT

11 - Bubbles

I know, this is a top ten, but I couldn’t not include Bubbles in this list! This little app gives us minutes of peace when at the restaurant with Thia. She can pop bubbles and create more bubbles on the screen and pop them, and create more, etc…