Mark's blog
Sporadic blog posts on a wide variety of topics, by Racine, Wisconsin web designer Mark Czerniec.(Also check out my weekly entries in Another Week.)
Erasing José Padilla, United States citizen
In his special comment about "sacrifice" last night, Keith Olbermann spoke of the way President Bush has been able to "deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong...
Braunschweiger or liver sausage, Kemen brand liverwurst is best
It was about a year ago that Amy's sister Donna, who now lives "up north," stayed with us. She had been instructed by her husband to bring back some honest-to-goodness Braunschweiger, which, like honest-to-goodness Mexican food, cannot be found in their vicinity....
Edward R. Murrow: ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ (2005 movie)
As a lifelong news junkie, I think of Edward R. Murrow as a divinity. I don't feel all that strongly about George Clooney one way or another, but I was interested to see what he would do as a director. (I have always meant to see his directorial debut, Confessions of...
Happy New Year with Emeril’s Hoppin’ John recipe
Amy and I visited New Orleans in the spring of 1992 on a road trip through Arkansas and Louisiana, and immediately fell in love with the culture of the whole area, which has had a lasting impact on our cooking, reading and musical tastes. Another road trip in 2003...
Where to find music?
It was simple when I was, say, 17. I could tune my radio to 93 XRT and just leave it there to hear my favorite music and some exciting new stuff at any time of the day or night. Now, it's been years since I listened to WXRT. If I look at what they're playing this...
US broadband speed is slower than Slovenia
I was standing in my nephew's bedroom a couple of months back, waiting with my sister-in-law for a YouTube video to load before unpausing it. "Is it this slow for you?" she asked me. I believe they're using DSL from the phone company, but...
‘Junebug’ (Amy Adams movie, 2005)
Junebug (2005) was nominated for one Academy Award®, which is how I came to hear about it, but it was not talked about very much, and it stars nobody whose name I recognize. Now it is one of my favorite movies. It's the story of a...
‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ (animated movie, 2004)
You know how you watch the annual Oscars® telecast and notice a few clips of some animated films you've never heard of and think that you would want to see these movies? Well, thanks to Netflix, you can add them to your queue on the spot,...
Earthworms eat dead vegetation, improve the soil
Today, our yard is under about a foot of snow and the temperature this morning was 7°F. A week ago, I mowed the lawn wearing a T-shirt. It wasn't so much that the grass needed cutting, although it was green and growing a little. It was just that I wanted to mulch up...
‘A History of Violence’ (David Cronenberg movie, 2005)
A History of Violence had several elements that attracted me. The clip that was shown on the TV talk show circuit — a small town diner scene in which the proprietor's identity is questioned by an intimidating visitor — was very compelling. Viggo Mortensen, who plays...
Excellent Tuscan chicken and beans recipe
After a couple of days near 70°F. last week, cold weather is back in southeastern Wisconsin this weekend, so we're turning to hearty, savory dinners. Beef is on the menu tonight, and Friday there was a veal meat loaf, so I wanted something...
What’s on my iBook?
Sometimes you can be so busy performing all of your daily tasks on your computer that you never stop to think about how amazing the development of computers has been and how much you have come to depend on them — until your computer suddenly dies. [includeme...
‘Shopgirl’ (2005 movie, Steve Martin, Claire Danes)
I had imagined Shopgirl would be pretty good. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars. Steve Martin wrote the novel and the screenplay, and he's also the leading man. Claire Danes co-stars, and Jason Schwatzman has a supporting role. I like both of them. There's...
Hummingbirds and hummingbird feeders
The radio show I work for is in Mexico this week — and so, with luck, is the little bird at my nifty HummZinger hummingbird feeder in the photo above. The weekend after Labor Day, he was right outside my window. As I have mentioned before, Amy and I are backyard...
Keith Olbermann’s special comments
I watch TV news all day long for a living, so it's unlikely that I would want to watch more of it when I'm finally off work at 7 p.m., and yet that's what I find myself doing these days. Radio legend Steve Dahl was a very early enthusiast of Countdown with Keith...
‘The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ (documentary film, 2003)
One of the things I love about Netflix is the concept of the queue. A movie is mentioned on the radio, or we see a trailer, or a friend makes a recommendation, and these titles are all added to our queue. Eventually, they will show up in...
My website fell asleep
Holy smokes! Six weeks have gone by. There was a phone call at the end of August about developing a small Web site. The next thing I knew, I was sitting down in my office every morning at 6 a.m., walking downstairs for dinner after 7 p.m.,...
my arms fell asleep
i woke up in the middle of the night, and i must have been lying funny, because both of my arms had fallen asleep. this sort of thing has happened before, and usually there's a painful 'pins and needles' phase while the limbs come back from limbo, but not this time....
Hungarian Goulash recipe
My sister-in-law Marianne mentioned our Hungarian Goulash the other day. She says our nephews love it. It's a great, beefy stew that really hits the spot in autumn, or on a rainy evening like yesterday, and the kitchen smells fantastic as it gets close to done....
‘Brothers’ (movie, 2004)
Monday night we watched Brothers, a Danish film directed and co-written by Susanne Bier. The title refers to two of the main characters. One of the men (Ulrich Thomsen as Michael) is a straight-laced, married soldier with two little...
Earworm infestation: ‘Danny’s Song’ by Kenny Loggins
Lately, I haven't been listening to music as much as I used to. The weather is perfect, all the windows are open, and I want to be a little considerate about inflicting my playlist on my neighbors. Also, sometimes it's just nice to enjoy the natural sounds of chirping...
‘Step Into Liquid’ (surfing documentary, 2003)
Last night's Netflix offering was Step Into Liquid, a so-so 2003 surfing documentary by Dana Brown, the son of Bruce Brown, who made the granddaddy of all surfing films, The Endless Summer, back in 1964. Overall, Step Into Liquid is a bit...
‘Tokyo Story’ (1953 movie)
Last night we watched Tokyo Story, a 1953 Japanese movie by Yasujiro Ozu which is often included in lists of the best films of all time. Previously, we had seen Ozu's 1959 work, Floating Weeds, which included a very illuminating commentary by our favorite critic,...
Tomato hornworm caterpillar? No, tobacco hornworm
As detailed here in the past, we'd like to keep our yard organic and hopping with life — food plants, flowers, birds, butterflies, earthworms, shrubs, trees. We're not using chemical fertilizers, weed killers, or pesticides. We are using compost, cow manure,...
‘Cooking Light’ magazine: It’s what’s for dinner
"To be or not to be" is not The Question. The real, agonizing, impossible question confronts us every single day of our lives like someone we knew we couldn't avoid running into. It is: "What should we have for dinner?" There was a time when we ordered carry-out...
Yew shrubs: Toxic taxus, poisonous plants?
Yews. We had them at all three of my parents' houses when I was growing up, and there they were again when we were buying our own house — two big ones along the foundation in the back, and some smaller ones at the foundation in front. I had always referred to them as...
At home in Racine
It seems strange now, but growing up in the city immediately south of here, I never got very familiar with Racine. In fact, I spent four years attending middle school in Racine, but never saw much of the city beyond The Prairie School campus out on Wind Point and the...
‘Sin City’ (2005 movie)
Amy and I used to go to movie theaters a lot. I would check Rotten Tomatoes, then we'd hop in the car and run down to the Century CinéArts 6 in Evanston or Landmark's Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park, or up to the Oriental Theatre or Downer Theatre in...
We are gardeners, and it is good
Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. From the soil, Yahweh God caused to grow every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of...
Memorial Day: Suddenly, it’s summer
Here in southeast Wisconsin, we no longer have the gentle, blossom-scented springtimes of my youth. Thanks to the New Weather, we now get six weeks of 40-degree fog one year, suffocating heat and humidity the next. This time around we had a hurricane or two,...