So apparently I’m not the only thing that’s gotten thinner over the last year as laptops are getting smaller and lighter all the time.  Recent Jason, Ryan, and I all got the new Macbook Air from Apple.  Wow, what an amazing machine.  Brad had one for a few days but just couldn’t get used to the glide pad (vs. the track point on a Thinkpad).  While I agree with him and hate glide pads the Air is just too amazing not to use.  It’s one of those products that you just have to hold, feel, touch, and play with to appreciate.

Yesterday when I got into work I was greeted with a new Lenovo X300 – this is the Thinkpad answer to the Air.  So how good is their answer?  Well on the coolness factor they aren’t even close.  While the X300 is an awesome machine it just doesn’t match the form factor of the Air.  Yes it’s very thin and light but we’ve seen thin and light laptops before (the X61 isn’t much thicker/heavier than this).  Where the X300 shines is in it’s features.  Let’s do a little side by side shall we?

As you can see from the specs it’s no contest, the X300 wins almost every category (other than CPU).  However with machines like this it isn’t all about the specs, not by a long shot.  The Air is just so much cooler, so much sexier that it just smokes the X300.  When I got my Air I knew the X300 was coming and I was really worried that I would love it to the point that I wanted to swap my Air for it.  Don’t worry Jason, I want my Air.  If I’d gotten the X300 first I’d be happy with it but after having an Air for a few weeks there is just no substitute.  I’ll be finishing the X300 up today and giving it to Brad tomorrow, we’ll have to wait and see what he thinks (my prediction: he’ll LOVE IT).

Here’s a few pictures I took of the two side-by-side.  Sorry they aren’t better, it’s the best I could get with my crappy camera.

I’ve been wanting to do some healthier tomato based dishes so tonight I decided to try a seafood cioppino (a cioppino is a seafood stew).  I headed to Whole Foods to see what looked good in the seafood department and fortunately they had fresh muscles.  I also picked up some fresh shrimp and some more of the fresh hake fish that I made last night.  The only thing I would change was using a red wine instead of cooking sherry (I didn’t have anything that I was willing to open and cook with).  I didn’t want sherry to over power the flavor so I used just a little and it came out great.  I think it would definitely be better with red wine (like a syrah) so next time I’ll plan a bottle with the meal.  Be sure to serve it with a nice french baguette or a good sourdough roll.

What you need
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 medium onion, quartered
3 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 California bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1 (14-ounce) can crushed roasted tomatoes
1/2 cups water
1/2 cup full-bodied red wine such as Zinfandel or Syrah
1/2 cup clam juice
1 1/2 pounds of fresh seafood (fish, shrimp, scallops, muscles, calamari, etc)

What you do
Coarsely chop the fennel, onion, and garlic in a food processor. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then stir in chopped vegetables, bay leaves, thyme, red-pepper flakes, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cook, covered, on medium heat, stirring a few times, about 4 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the tomatoes, water, wine, and clam juice and boil covered for 20 minutes. Stir in your seafood and add a pinch of salt then cook uncovered until the mussels open wide, 4 to 6 minutes (discard any that remain unopened after 6 minutes). Check your seafood frequently and serve as soon as the last pieces are cooked through (so you don’t over cook others).

So this is going to be a little bit of a rant as this is a huge pet peeve of mine.  Ever since I’ve been into electronics (AV stuff specifically) I’ve been a fan of just about the cheapest cables I can get.  I usually get my cables at Home Depot and the best advice I got a long time ago was to use lamp cord (you know the bulk stuff you can buy to rewire lamps and such).  I’ve argued this a lot with people, mostly with sales guys trying to sell me the expensive stuff.  There have been study after study (and even a $1 Million dollar bounty if you can prove the difference) that show that the human ear (or eyes) can not hear the difference these extremely high end cables give.

While this is a little hard to argue for analog sources, for digital the argument is totally ridiculous.  Recently a salesman at Best Buy tried to sell me a 3 foot $265 Monster HDMI cable.  I burst out laughing when he suggested it and tried to explain to him “if it’s digital, then it’s digital”.  He just couldn’t understand that if ones and zeros are flowing then ones and zeros are flowing – the fucking cable makes no difference whatsoever.  Then yesterday I find this great post on Engadget showing that not only can people not hear the difference between Monster cable and cheap cables they went one step further and used COAT HANGERS to connect the speakers!  And guess what, no one could hear the difference between the coat hangers and expensive Monster cable.  Hey, anyone want to buy some $100 coat hangers???

Next time you need cables get the cheapest ones you can find, especially if they are HDMI.  Don’t ever let the sales guy talk you into the expensive stuff no matter how hard he pushes.  If you need HDMI cables here are the ones I have, I have about 5 of them and they all work great (oh and they are $4.99 each!).

Sunday night I made yet another fantastic dish (man I am really on a roll I must say). It is a very easy dish to make, just a bunch of chopping and then baking.  I did some wilted spinach with roasted garlic and mushrooms on the side and it came out great too (just be sure the spinach is as dry as you can get it before wilting it).  I’ll definitely make this one again, very easy and very healthy.  Next time I’ll probably use trout or a slightly meatier white fish, the hake was a tad mild for this recipe (I’d never had it and they didn’t have any fresh trout at Whole Foods)

What you need
2 fresh white fish filets (trout, cod, hake, etc)
1/2 cup chopped seeded cherry tomatoes
2 green onions, chopped
2 large, fresh shiitake mushrooms caps, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 large garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
Fresh cilantro sprigs

What you do
Preheat oven to 400°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil; coat with nonstick spray. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper. Place fish skin side down on foil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Mix next 5 ingredients in bowl with a pinch of salt. Lump the mixture over fish, drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil, then top with cilantro sprigs. Bake uncovered (pulling the foil up around the edges to save a mess) until fish is opaque in center, about 20 minutes.