random stuff

Navy to spend 600 grand to obscure swastika nature of a set of barracks.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-swastika26sep26,0,2973328.story?coll=la-home-center

At 11:37pm tonight there was a bunch of police activity, cars whooping, three racing north on Grant and Lincoln, one east on 3rd.

I'm reading Stross's Halting State. A character goes online in a MMORPG as a D&D wizard -- but with a knife missile at his shoulder. I'm amused both by the continuing Scottish Incest and yes, the magical nature of a knife missile.

I've watched Avatar: the Last Airbender. I liked it a lot -- pseudo-Asian culture, nice elementalist fantasy, nice character complexity, some breaking of cartoon plot conventions.

Food

Sahara Mart and Bloomingfood's downtown (and probably the others) have great Valencia oranges. I've been cutting them into sections and eating them, the way I eat grapefruit. Sahara Mart is cheaper -- 79 cents each, vs. $1.49/pound for things coming in at 3/4 a pound. OTOH, as usual you want to look out for ex-ripe produce at Sahara.

Runcible Spoon started offering burgers when I wasn't around. Not black bean burgers for vegetarians (though those are still there) but actual beefy burgers. They're okay, no special Spoonness, apart from coming on whole wheat buns. Servers don't ask how I'd like the patty, so it's come fully gray-cooked. Don't know if they'd do rare if I asked.