Random, somewhat food-related thoughts

Just to save myself the trouble of posting several things. I should start doing this more often:

• Apparently there is a Readability Test for blogs, which is not so bad but a little humbling. According to the folks at the seemingly new blog Learning Disabled Yet Smarter than You (and please remember that people with LD are just as smart as anybody else, but that goes without saying), most area blogs are at an elementary or high school readability level. Not mine! This blog registered as "Undergraduate College" - I do try to make things easy for y'all, my readership. I doubt its credibility though. I just checked mine again, and it now comes up as "High School". So clearly either its algorithms are a little fuzzy, or else your readability can change from post to post. Of course, that's equally plausible.

• OMG I am just enthralled by YouTube. Once in a while I just surf from video to video, much like the early days of web "surfing". In just the past few hours I have viewed, among many other videos:

1. "It's Hot Up Here" from the PBS/American Playhouse recording of the 1984 Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George (I'm getting ready for the trip to NYC this Friday);
2. The always-excellent Raúl Esparza in a 2003 performance of "Finishing the Hat" from the same musical, caught on some guy's camera phone;
   
3. About half of the 1990 Lincoln Center performance of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, including the uninspiring performance of Sally Ann Howes in "You Must Meet My Wife", the wonderfully complex "A Weekend in the Country", and great performances by opera legend Regina Resnik ("Liaisons" - I find this song DULL but I just could not turn this version off) and Susan Terry ("The Miller's Son");
4. You can tell I'm a Sondheim freak, can't you? I just saw a piece of "Getting Married Today" sung by Amy Heather Laws, in a clip advertising the upcoming Great Performances airing of the most recent Company;
5. "Baby Got Back", a la Gilbert and Sullivan;
6. Dilbert makes a crappy clip art blue duck, and suddenly it's ART (don't tell George in 1 and 2 above).

• My cat no longer eats crinkle-cut French fries, but he's just WILD about spaghetti and whipped cream (not at the same time);

• Over the next few weeks I will be touting the Mid-Atlantic's Premier Culinary Expo, the Great Tastes Show. Why, you ask? Because several other Bawlmer food bloggers and I will be featured in a panel of - what else? - Baltimore-area food bloggers. Thanks to Dana at Dining Dish for spearheading this. My first panel! Expect a blurb in the side column very soon.

• Oh, and Varla rocked Charm City at the Hippo on Friday night.

That's it for now.