list: last 10 bookmarks

Clear Creek Williams Pear Brandy (Eau-de-Vie) - unadulterated essence of pear in a bottle. Most eaux-de-vie are two steps short of paint thinner; this stuff is heavenly. Enjoy wisely.

Original Iron Chef episodes at DivX Stage6 - these are the Food Network dubbed episodes, as opposed to the "current" Iron Chef America shows. I recommend Natto Battle featuring Iron Chef Michiba-sensei vs Kuniyuki Ishikawa.

Mister Nice Hands - next time you have a dinner party, turn up the volume on your computer, bring up this website, maximize the screen, and walk away. Sooner or later hilarity will ensue. Almost as much fun as filling up your medicine cabinet with marbles.

Dupont Cider - the traditional way to enjoy Norman cider is in a ceramic cup roughly the same shape as a teacup but larger. The nice people from Etienne Dupont are well-known for their calvados, but they also make a terrific traditional country-style cider. If you are so inclined you can buy so-called "traditional" cider mugs here.

Fortune for Mac OS X - there are a few distributions of fortune for the Mac OS X. This one includes strfile, which you'll need if you want to make your own quote files. Oh, and you'll also have to save text files in something other than Mac or DOS format - Text Wrangler works like a charm for me. And you'll want to load GeekTool 2.1.2 so you can display a fortune every 60 seconds on your screen background. When the time comes to move files around on your machine, expose your hidden folders. Open Terminal and enter:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

When it's time to re-hide all of your hidden folders, enter the first line with the argument FALSE, then type killall Finder again.

Valley Games Titan - the old Avalon Hill version of Titan is not just hard to find - when you do find it you can expect to shell out $100 or more for a good copy. Somehow I doubt the folks at Valley Games will manage to reproduce Dave "Wormy" Trampier's cool art.

The Freesound Project - because sometimes you just need a really nice copy of the Wilhelm Scream (registration required) for your next ringtone.

Kyotaku - where you can "find out all you always wanted to know about the kyotaku or long shakuhachi", groove on a cool picture of Koku Nishimura, and learn about the artist Tilopa.

Madame Patate - Klimperei's C. Petchanatz played in concert with her in Lyon back in October; it's magical. If you've never heard of Klimperei, go find Tout Seul Sur la Plage en Hiver. Or just enjoy the first track on the album, Les pinces à linge, here. Two especially interesting tracks on this album are Les Rubans (track 21) and La Ronde Des Coccinelles (track 22).

Kung Fu Cinema - Shaw Brothers FTW.