Slate covers dumplings. Obviously it’s time for me to learn how to make my own xiaolongbao. Apparently the trick is to make soup, chill it until it turns into a gel, dice the gel (quickly, so it won’t melt), and mix it into the filling.
Then the gel becomes a soup when you steam the dumpling. Ideally the dumpling should be very, very hot when eaten.
My newest page on TTS is the Top 10 Sources for Housing Bubble news, blogs, etc. Check it if you’re a real-estate investor or, like me, merely a spectator. Mmmmm, realtorlicious.
I mentioned the other day that housing problems are especially noticeable in my neighborhood– that there’s a house on Wallace Street with an asking price of $789k and a Zestimate of $532k.
Well, that discrepancy isn’t because the house is overpriced– or at least, not all of it. Part of the issue is that Zillow’s got old data. Zillow’s description shows a 1365 sq-foot, three-bedroom, 2.5-bath. In contrast, the listing on Somerville.com shows that the seller has turned it into a 1500-sq-foot with three full baths and the requisite granite countertops. I saw the place at an open house and it really is an impressive renovation.
(An aside: Granite is going to be this decade’s avocado green. Sadly, if Somerville’s ongoing love-affair with vinyl and aluminum siding is any indication, it’ll be the hot thing around here for at least another fifty years.)
I don’t know if fancy counters, a stainless fridge, and a new tub are worth enough to explain the difference in price, but they justify at least some of it.
Zillow is now accepting homeowner updates and corrections, so we’ll see if that has any effect …
Yet more gloomy housing news— and potential bad news for the entire economy — from Econbrowser.
Now that I’ve started looking at this stuff, I can’t look away.
Hey look, new features: when you add an item, you get room for more detailed notes and a list of all the tags you’ve used in the past.
Jim Moore likes it. He does think that this means it’s becoming a blogging platform, and that being a blogging platform is great. I’m not sure I agree. Having detailed notes is nice, sharing them with your friends is nice, but I don’t know that the world needs another blogging platform any more than I agree with JWZ’s assertion that every application will eventually grow until it can send email.
It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about real estate. But the number of places in my neighborhood for sale keeps piling up– $500k condos, $900k single-families, that kind of thing. So thought I’d look around to see if there’s any news about that impending real-estate disaster I keep thinking is just around the corner. Remember, I’ve been thinking it’ll happen any day now for at least three years. As my 7th grade history teacher used to say, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.
Highlights from the last couple weeks of real-estate Jeremiads:
I’m feeling kind of optimistic: I might be able to buy a home sometime in the next two years.
I love the Discovery TV show Dirty Jobs. The premise is that buff, avuncular Mike Rowe goes around to help various regular joes out on dirty jobs: coal mining, crawfish hunting, disaster cleanup, whale autopsies, that kind of thing. At the end of every show, they ask viewers for their suggestions of new dirty jobs. None of my ideas, however, would be suitable for television:
House of Reps opposed to killing horses for food.
I don’t see why killing and eating horses is any different from killing and eating cows, chickens, goats, llamas, or buffalo.
““They’re as close to human as any animal you can get,” said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C.”
No, that’d be chimps, dumbass.
“Added Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.: “The way a society treats its animals, particularly horses, speaks to the core values and morals of its citizens.”
I agree that treating animals well speaks well of a society, but we kill and eat a lot of animals in this country. We also have secret prisons, export people to be tortured, and execute our retarded criminals.
And unlike the oil bills and agricultural bills so forth, I don’t even understand what possible constituents reps could be pandering to. How many six-to-twelve-year-old female voters could there possibly be?
I’ve been digging Chartreuse (Beta), which has a very intelligent tone, a great layout, and good analysis of what’s going on in the media world.
In contrast, NYT Mag this week asks us: “Does shopping for weird new stuff make you subversive?” No, no it doesn’t.
In its defense, the Times also has several really delicious looking recipes for chicken wings, and no media commentary blog ever made me that hungry.
The new model is the largest-displacement Ninja yet, at 1.4 liters. The real key, however, is apparently the aerodynamics. Regarding the wind resistance, the reviewer says “I was a bit surprised when I noticed rather more wind buffeting than expected as I started my test ride. Then I looked down at the speedometer; it said I was already going 110 miles an hour — in third gear.“
Secretly Ironic 