Sorry about the rage circle, msbelle. That sounds exhausting.

Julie Benz? That's really you? [link]

I thought it was Laura Linney!

I did some yardwork which seemed to help. Then knocked out on really tedious work task which did not help at all. Good news is that I have already put in 4.5 hours today, so I could just shove off in another 30 minutes, but I should probably just chug on and get in as many hours as possible.

Just dropped off Noah at his first day of preschool. Such mixed feelings.

I guess working through it is a good idea, msbelle.

Good god, I'm still trying to process Noah being old enough for all this. I just realised I dreamt about him again, because I have a picture of him in my head I'm pretty sure I've never seen. It's cute, though.

Why must my installation of Visio default to saving stuff in Visio 2002, which ruins what I've been working on? Now I pretty much need to start again from the top.

Tetris-inspired furniture. If only you could get a row of it to disappear when you made it all red.

Insulated Babies Grow Faster (Apr, 1933)

TO MAKE your baby grow faster, insulate his crib against the electricity of floor, walls, ground. To slow down his growth, ground his crib with flexible bands of metal. This is the extraordinary conclusion reached by M. Vies, of Strasbourg, France, who conducted such experiments on two groups of three babies. The insulated set grew more rapidly than the grounded trio, presumably pointing to the fact that the electrification of soil and air has a real influence on human growth.

eta: "Two groups of three babies"? Um, that sample size is a bit... small.

That furniture would be fantastic for kids.

This restaurant review has made me hungry for goat.

Stephanie Izard: America's sweet tart

Two years ago, after Izard had emerged victorious in the fourth season of "Top Chef," I joked that she should get out of the restaurant business, reasoning that "she hasn't ruined a sauce or overcooked a fish in three years."

Four weeks ago, I made my first visit to Izard's long-awaited restaurant, Girl & the Goat. It reaffirmed what I wrote five years ago, and made me happy that she ignored my advice two years ago.

...

"It's fun," she says, "to get people to try things they're afraid of."

Which explains the presence of Escargot & Goat Balls on the menu. These are not, thankfully, goat testicles (though Izard says she considered that), but merely ground-goat meatballs with a sausagelike texture, bolstered with pieces of escargot and anchovy under romesco sauce. It looks prosaic, but there are layers of flavor here uncommon to most meatball dishes.

The menu also lists Crispy Pig Face, a variation on head cheese that offers more textural contrast than traditional versions and is a very tasty dish besides; if you can say the name out loud, you're home free.

Anyone want to join me for some Escargot & Goat Balls and Crispy Pig Face? (Seriously, the Crispy Pig Face sounds tempting.)

Tommy, next time I'm in Chicago, we can totally go.

Cool!

And this is intriguing:

Servers bop around in black, goat-logo T-shirts with goat-themed phrases, some more printable than others.