LOST PET ALERT: Friends of mine are missing a cat on Mud Island. He’s gray, yellowish-green eyes, gray and black striped tail. His name is Frank. If you find him shoot me an email at paul@paulryburn.com and I’ll get you in touch with the owners.
A site I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while is CodeAcademy. Have you ever wanted to learn how to code, how to talk to computers in their own language? This site has hundreds of interactive exercises that will teach you how. I spent some time on the site because so many WordPress plugins and themes use jQuery, a library that “makes magic happen” (slides page elements in and out, makes page elements appear/disappear, move, etc.) I had some familiarity with jQuery previously, but I wanted to be able to read jQuery script as easily as I read the Sunday newspaper. CodeAcademy’s tutorials made that happen. No tutorial is more than 5 minutes long and you can do them at your own pace. Best of all, the tutorials are entirely free.
Besides jQuery, CodeAcademy has tutorial sets for basic HTML/CSS, Javascript, Ruby, and Python. I highly recommend the basic HTML/CSS tutorials if you’re not familiar with those languages. The basics of HTML and CSS are stuff that everyone should know in this day and age. HTML is the language of web pages, and CSS specifies web pages’ look and feel. Next time you’re looking for a job, you’ll have a leg up on the competition with those in your bag of tricks.
Dining with Monkeys reviewed Arepa y Salsa recently. Arepa y Salsa is the new Venezuelan restaurant on Madison near Trolley Stop Market. I’ve linked to other reviews of the restaurant before, but I wanted to link to Stacey’s blog because there are so many good photos. You can clearly see what the difference is between an arepa and a tostone, for example. I want a tostone! I have got to try this place soon. It’s a 15-minute walk from where I live, or a 3-minute trolley ride (plus a 25 minute wait for the f-ing trolley).
In other food news, I visited Bardog last night. I timed my trip around shift change so that I’d get to spend some time at Panda’s day bar, and then at Melissa and James’ night bar. While there, the couple next to me ordered the antipasto platter ($14.99). I had never even seen that on the menu before – must be a new item. When it came out, it looked delicious – big slices of meats and cheeses in Italian dressing along the edge of the platter, with huge piles of olives and peppers in the center. It was presented so beautifully that I thought about asking the couple if I could take a photo before they started eating, but I didn’t know them at all and they seemed pretty into each other, so I chose not to interrupt. I’ll get my own platter soon and take a photo. Only thing is, it’s easily enough for two people, so there’s no way I will be able to finish it. Maybe I’ll eat half and get a to-go box, or order it when the Nuh-Uh Girl is in Bardog and accept her offer of “help” eating it.
Too bad I’m not at Slider Inn right now. They’re filming a commercial and extras in the commercial (including my “DAWG” John D) get free unlimited egg sliders and PBR.
Plans for today: I’m up early enough to go to brunch at the Majestic, so I guess I’ll start there at 11. Later in the day I need to wander over to Flying Saucer and drink my 200th beer. Then tomorrow I can file the paperwork for my 7th plate party. Despite the cold and the rain, it’s still Sunday Fun Day!