2006 Duffy's Hall Of Fame

Duffy's Tavern has always been the bright center of the local musical universe to me. Of course if one speaks that way of it, someone will protest by recalling the halcyon days of The Drumstick and The Brickyard, but those venues were just a wee bit before my time. To me they are just stories whereas Duffy's is an old haunt.

Yes, there was good music to be had elsewhere, especially at The Zoo, but those other venues, to me, provided sounds imported from far away. Duffy's, back in the day, was the best place to tap into original music that represents the community in which we live.

Fortunately, there are more such stages in town today, but still it has always been surprising to me that original & local is not what most people want.

Most people, if they go out at all, want to hear a particular genre, or they want to hear a particular band that's comming through on tour, or covers of songs they know, or bands that are obvious clones of bands they know, or whatever's danceable (where all other characteristics of the music pass through like so much Olestra), or the sort of musical "perfection" that the worldwide, mass-media, top-o'-the-charts filtration system has trained them to expect. For the most part, we seem to not want the real, local, original, fallible flavor of where we live.

On my flight back from Miami to O'Hare last week I heard a woman in the row behind me talking about all of the places that she has been, and how disappointing it is for her to go shopping for things that represent the local flavor. Everywhere she goes, worldwide, it's nothing but the same chain stores. The man she was travelling with kept taunting her: "why is that a bad thing?" Sadly, she was unable to articulate what's not to love about homogenizing the globe.

These were the thoughts that were going through my mind as I walked through the door of Duffy's to see the second annual Hall Of Fame recognition ceremony. The first thing I heard was the doorman saying that the show was sold-out and that only online tickets would be honored. My heart sank. It must have been visible on my face because they had mercy on me: "Are you alone?" "Yes." "Quick, pay the man seven dollars before he changes his mind."

I arrived just in time for Domestica (formerly The Mercy Rule) to take the stage and play a few of Trout Mystery's songs. Sadly, the trout crew could not make it, but their tribute was an excellent substitute. I was surprised and elated to recognize the songs. I hadn't heard them since 1989, but Jon & Heidi managed to conjur them up from the dark recesses of my nervous system. This was the most I was hoping to get out of the evening, so everything thereafter was gravy.

And what glorious gravy it was. I spent Sideshow's entire set perma-grinning, standing tip-toe to watch Bernie manhandle his bass. While perpetually humble, they were all in good form and together awakened more than their fair share of memories. While I don't know their material very well, I'm pretty sure I recognized "Option Refused". Between songs they were giving away a bunch of old, original vinyl that had been liberated from the basement of the now-defunct Caulfield Records. Nice touch.

Finally, the Self Righteous Brothers proved themselves to be the kings of fun with a short-but-sweet set replete with the somewhat-synchronized dance moves and stage antics that one would expect. They ended with their smash hit "Have Fun With Your Penis", which came with a well-endowed outro, during which Sweet Basil McJagger did a headstand on his keyboard. The crowd gave a valiant effort to to bring them out for an encore, but they swore they didn't practice anything else they could play. Leave them wanting more, eh?

Miami, Days 2 & 3

Yesterday's big goal was to tour the Freedom of the Seas, which was a thrill-and-a-half for this land-locked young feller.

Today's task was to talk shop with techies. Implementation details galore.

Miami, Day 1

The first flight was a small-ish jet from Omaha to Chicago. A large New York Yankees fan slept in the row behind us the entire flight, snoring. It sounded like a 7-ear-old aggressively trying to extract the last bit of chocolate malt, through a large straw, from a large paper cup which perpetually had two tablespoons of chocolate malt left in the bottom. How I wished that was an exaggeration. Somehow Doug managed to sleep quietly through the whole affair. I practiced writing unit tests in NetBeans in an effort to stifle my urge to giggle.

When we got off the plane in Chicago, there was an announcement over the loudspeakers about how the threat level had been raised to orange, and how we were to all be extra vigilant in some way that yellow did not imply. Though the second flight was delayed, it was uneventful. More unit tests.

Our lodging is Don Shula's golf course, not too far from anywhere in Miami. Doug loves to golf and chose this place so that he could squeeze in a few holes on Sunday morning. The first thing we noticed about the place was how all of the artwork on the walls are sepia-toned photographs of angus cows: eating, bathing, standing in the shade, being watched over by a rugged rancher, etc. This is in Miami, recall. Perhaps the scenes seem faraway and exotic to the owner. Or maybe they just have a cow fetish. (I later discovered that the rugged rancher is someone named Mr. Graham, related to Bob, whose family owns the entire area.)

Last night, after arriving, we drove down to Miami Beach and walked around Lincoln Mall, which was a great place to watch people. This pale, geeky Nebraska boy was awestruck by the abundance of amazon women and alpha men, all dressed in a way that indicated either affluence or a willingness to go into debt, parading each other about. It was cartoonish. Indeed, there is an entire ocean of fish out there.

Doug just got back from golfing. It's 65 degrees here and the locals were complaining about how cold it is. Doug, wearing shorts, was telling them about the temps in Nebraska to help them appreciate the here & now.

trout mystery, sideshow, self righteous bros to be inducted, perform

This just landed in my inbox. I've seen Trout Mystery once. Same with Sideshow, I think. I've seen the Self Righteous Brothers more times than I can recall. And now, the chance to see them all again...

For those who have only heard about the rich musical heritage of the Lincoln music scene, and heard the epic sagas about the bands...

• Like the one about Mike Keeling single-handedly defeating the Gorgothons and saving the Earth
• Or the one about how Bernie McGinn saved all the baby seals on the planet by staving off crazed killer eskimos with only his bass and his courage
• Or the time that Terry Peiper saved the honor of all the nuns in Lincoln just by staying home
  

Sure, you've heard the stories, but maybe you didn't actually witness such things for yourself, because maybe you were too young to see them for yourself, or you didn't live in Lincoln at the time.

If that's the case then Duffy's Tavern is going to rectify that situation for you!

On Saturday 11/25, Duffy's is holding it's annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony to honor the great bands of Lincoln, and this year they're inducting 3 more awesome Lincoln bands: The Self-Righteous Brothers, Trout Mystery, and Sideshow

There will be a brief award ceremony followed by performances by the bands.

If you never got to see any of these bands, this is likely your last and only chance to see them again, Don't miss it!

You can learn more about these great bands (and hundreds of others) by going to the Starcityscene.com Encyclopedia of Lincoln Bands.

There's still video up on starcityscene.com of New Brass Guns acceptance speech and some of their performance from last year's ceremony.

jolly good

If I wanted to be a serious, modern media outlet there are two things that I'd have to start doing. One is that I'd have to phrase things as questions that I'm too timid to phrase declaratively. The other is that I would have to start reporting on the blog itself, as if it were newsworthy, when I've got nothing better to say.

So without further preamble...

Is the sudden spike in web traffic from the UK to this blog a prelude to invasion?

An unusual and sudden amount of HTTP traffic from the United Kingdom started flooding the backwards, jerkwater, podunk blog "Longstinger" yesterday. Analysts at the besieged Lincoln, Nebraska blog announced Thursday that the traffic spike was not expected, and came at a time when no new content was appearing on the blog.

When asked whether the Queen was attempting to use the internets to take away our freedoms, analysts answered: "The data shows that the referer URLs are predominantly searches for one specific article about some bloke named Tim Minchin, famous for songs like 'You Grew On Me', and poems like 'Angry'." Sources from the blog did not indicate why Elizabeth II would consider this article to be a strategically important target.

One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the brits will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new tea-time overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground crumpet mines.

go vote

the results are in

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The data has been collected. I ran parallel events with two similarly-sized pressure pots. On the left is a Kuhn Rikon 3.5 liter pan, and on the right is a Vinod 3.0 liter. Although they each claim a different capacity, the 2/3rds mark (the maximum capacity on any pressure cooker) comes to about the same amount: 8 cups in the case of the Kuhn Rikon, and 8.5 cups for the Vinod.

I filled both pots with 8 cups of water, placed them on large burners, turned both burners on high, and started a stopwatch. I then observed and recorded events. The only real reason that I ran both pots in parallel is that the Vinod does not provide a way to tell when it has come up to pressure. While the Kuhn Rikon has a second red line that becomes visible when it has reached 15 PSI, there is no clear indicator on the Vinod. I was hoping that both pots would come up to pressure at about the same time so that I could estimate how much time elapsed between achieving 15PSI and the first whistle.

Each pan has different instructions for what to do when pressure is achieved. The Kuhn Rikon is to have the heat reduced to "low", while the Vinod is to have the heat reduced to "medium". For the purposes of this run, I took that to be the midpoint of the dial on my stove, which is marked "5". Having no way to tell when pressure was achieved, I did this when the first whistle started.

I'm told that few people cook anything longer than 4 whistles. Despite this, I collected data for 10 whistles just to get a feel for how regular the intervals between whistles is. A whistle is really a loud hiss. It sounds like "PSSSSSHHHHHT!". Each one starts suddenly, goes on for about 12 seconds, and abruptly stops.

• 00:00 start
• 06:23 I could hear the Kuhn Rikon making some noises
• 08:22 The seal on the Kuhn Rikon sets, and the indicator moves a bit. It becomes mostly quiet.
• 09:08 The 8 PSI line makes its first appearance on the Kuhn Rikon.
• 09:19 The 8 PSI line is fully visible.
• 09:48 The 15 PSI line makes its first appearance.
• 09:57 The 15 PSI line is fully visible.
• 10:05 I turn the heat on the Kuhn Rikon down to low, or "1".
• 11:10 The Vinod begins to whine like a mosquito. I turn the Kuhn Rikon completely off.
  
• 13:14 Water droplets appear at the base of the vent tube on the Vinod.
• 13:59 Steam is visibly comming out of the vent tube, out from under the pressure regulator.
• 17:56 Whistle #1 begins. I turn the Vinod down to medium.
  
• 18:08 Whistle #1 ends.
• 19:22 Whistle #2 begins.
• 19:34 Whistle #2 ends.
• 21:27 Whistle #3 begins.
• 21:39 Whistle #3 ends.
• 23:04 The 15 PSI line on the Kuhn Rikon starts to disappear.
• 23:46 Whistle #4 begins.
• 23:59 Whistle #4 ends.
• 24:35 The 15 PSI line on the Kuhn Rikon is completely gone. At 8PSI now.
• 26:11 Whistle #5 begins.
• 26:24 Whistle #5 ends.
• 28:37 Whistle #6 begins.
• 28:49 Whistle #6 ends.
• 29:?? Whistle #7 begins. Distracted by a curious child.
• 31:04 Whistle #7 ends.
• 33:14 Whistle #8 begins.
• 33:30 Whistle #8 ends.
• 35:36 Whistle #9 begins.
• 35:47 Whistle #9 ends.
• 37:55 Whistle #10 begins.
• 38:06 Whistle #10 ends.
• 38:26 Turn the Vinod off. End data collection.

Ok, now to recall what our goal was: pressure cooking recipes in the west tend to be phrased "bring up to pressure and cook for n minutes". (Apparently the time on the stove prior to achieving the target pressure is considered negligible.) Whereas recipes from India are phrased "cook for m whistles". So for a given m in an Indian recipe, what would an approximate n be?

Making a model presents some difficulties. The worst being that there was no clear indication of when the Vinod came up to pressure. The documentation does claim that the pot can "maintain" a pressure of 15 PSI. However, we know from the nature of the whistle that the pressure is actually oscillating, with peaks being the whistle events. For the purposes of my model, I am assuming that the pot came up to pressure about 1.5 minutes prior to the first whistle. I chose this baseline because it was approximately the interval between the first and second whistles. I'm also assuming that the oscillating has no appreciable impact on cooking time.

Based on the averages, it appears that there is an interval of about 2 minutes and 20 seconds between whistles, with the first couple of intervals actually being a bit shorter than that. Nevertheless, 2.3 minutes-per-whistle would be a useful conversion rate for reading an Indian recipe and executing it in silent pressure pot.

So, in conclusion, it looks like Jon Conradt's amazing analysis wins. If you missed it, go back and read it. Kudos, Jon!


Sadly, in order for wilbj's estimate to be correct, one would need to be able to maintain a sustained rate of 3.35 headbobs-per-second, which is a bit fast even for Mr. Golla.

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dead man pedaling

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My secret life in the world of international culinary espionage takes a back seat to my career. I did collect data last night, and am getting ready to blow the lid off this story...as it were.

But work comes first.

Please, any guesses? Let's make this a guestimate game so that I get to have a little fun before I meet my grim fate.

"Forgotwhoiam" amended their 5 minutes-per-whistle estimate, and now has a guess in the 3-4 minute range. (Please, commit to a more specific estimate...for entertainment's sake.)

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shiny new vinod

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I went back to the grocery store and bought the one pressure cooker they had on the shelves. This 3-litre Vinod ('fun size' candy bar included for scale) is imported from India. And it does whistle periodically.

How often?

I'm not telling.

Yet.

I'll be collecting data. This is your chance to make suggestions about the methodology.

If I die under mysterious circumstances, you'll know that it's because I am about to unveil a closely-guarded secret.

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