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And now...a brief rant about technology, specifically the subnotebook laptop I bought in November 2003 because I wanted a sexy little James Bond-esque computer, and if it happened to be powered on a Transmeta Crusoe chip, that's just the price I'd have to pay for this sexy little computer.  Did I tell you how sexy it is?

Goddammit all to fuddy blucking hell.  What the hell is wrong with my ports?  Once upon a time, I started having trouble keeping the cable in the port; it would loosen, it would wobble around, I would lose connectivity.  It would be back in a matter of seconds, but in the meantime, I would lose any IM conversations I was having, and woe betide me if I posted a long comment to a friend's blog, or to a forum like Plastic or the Baking Circle at King Arthur Flour.  It got so bad that Lloyd finally ponied up for an Airport so that we could have wireless access.  I was in heaven for a week. 

Then our neighbors moved in.  They have a cordless phone.  They get lots of phone calls, including a call that seems to take at least two hours a night.  With every phone call, our wireless signal disappeared.  Lloyd bought me a new external port, which takes up one of my USB ports and ate my FinePix software, but hey!  Connectivity is back!

Only now I'm having the same goddamn connectivity problems I was having with my original port.  The frelling cable won't stay in.  I am pulling my hair out, trying to figure out what I'm doing to my computer to torque not one, but two ports.

Or at least I was pulling my hair out.  Lloyd has just done some research:  apparently he is the only person on earth who has never had trouble with his laptop.  There's just something about the ports that make them delicate little flowers, extremely susceptible to torquing.

Goddammit.

I think this afternoon, dear friends, we are going down the street to FreezePeach, the nicest coffee bar/internet cafe in Astoria, where the wireless is strong, plentiful and $3.00/hour, and you can get a glass of sage iced tea while you blog.

Okay, the cable and port are playing nicely.  Cross those fingers.

Dear friends,

Because my fellow 'thonners and I are responsible for 48 posts in 24 hours, some of my posts may seem a bit, well, brain-dumpy.  Your patience and continued good humor is appreciated.  You may have noticed that I'm a fan of the long-winded verbosity, particularly in foodish matters, but it usually takes me about 1/2 hour just to get the long-winded verbosity engine powered up.  I probably will not have the luxury of doing that today, although hell, I'll try to do what I can.  We are allowed to work on long posts, as long as we continue to post shorter posts in the interim, but Bog almighty, who would be lunatic enough to do that?

(Hi, my name is Jen and I'll be your server today...)

One thing I don't want to let slip by today:  I owe a lot of people a lot of love, including but not limited to my growing list of sponsors, who have collectively pledged over $400 to Windows of Hope.  Dearhearts, you will all be hearing from me.  And I want to give some public love to Angela, who will be monitoring my site today to make sure I'm playing fair.  Angela, I understand you're feeling a bit sleep-deprived.  Would you like me to fax you some espresso cookies?

Good morning, dear friends!

If you are a fan of the old SCTV series -- not the 90-minute network version that ran on NBC (although that version is also great) but the 30-minute syndicated version -- then please feel free to imagine that jaunty horn line playing as I announce:

Blogathon 2005 is on the air!

(But don't take the SCTV emulation too far and start throwing televisions out of high-rises.  We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.)

Even though I've mentioned it repeatedly, I'll do it again, just for refreshers' sake:  Today I will be posting every 1/2 hour, from 9 a.m. until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.  See me in all states:  The Efficient Baker!  The Caffeinated Loon!  The Longwinded Food Blowhard!  The Incoherent Mumbler!  All this and more, today on PTMYB.

(Do be sure to click on the webring on the top of my sidebar; it will take you to my neighbors, The Ant Hill Gazette and the John Spencer Estrogen Brigade, as well as the main Blogathon site.  There will be over 200 fabulous and interesting sites to choose from, and we're all doing it for charity (mine being Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund).

Dear friends,

As of this writing, I’m on my lunch break – really! I’m on legal blogging time here! – but in 21 hours, I will be dropping the checkered flag on the madcap hilarity that is Blogathon 2005.  To recap on the madcap, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. EDT, I will be joining hundreds of other posters in raising money for charity posting to our blogs once every ½ hour for 24 hours.  I will be blogging on behalf of Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund.  If you would be interested in sponsoring me, Blogathon will accept new sponsors through Tuesday, August 9.  If you cannot be a sponsor, then by all means stop by PTMYB and say hi.  I will accept all comers (although I reserve the right to draw the line at trolls).

Since I’m sure you’re bursting at the seams with curiosity, here is some random assorted PTMYB Blogathon trivia:

That nifty new button at the top of my sidebar is the Blogathon webring.  This is a kind of shortcut between participating blogs, and it is a neat thing indeed.  If you click on the link in the center, you will be redirected to the Blogathon home page.  Clicking on the “previous” and “next” links will link you to my webring neighbors:  on the previous side is the the charming Eric at The Fire Ant Gazette, blogging on behalf of Midland Fair Havens; on the next side are the raucous caucus at the John Spencer Estrogen Brigade Blogathon site, raising money for AIDS Walk Los Angeles’ Team Spencer.  Do stop by and say hi to them; feel free to tell them I sent you.  Feel free also to say hello to the hot little biscuit that is Bunni, who is raising money for the American Heart Association in memory of her father.

In fact, you should be sure to visit Bunni all day tomorrow, because her site will be a stone cold groove.  She has picked a superlative theme, which I will not give away here because really, you should go visit her; she will be blogging from the bucolic splendor of the Hudson Valley, while I sit on my lumpy armchair under a hot laptop in my dirty living room; and best of all, while she is doing this, her mother is hosting a margarita party.  Oh, yeah, this is the girl you want to dance with.

So what are you blogging about, Jen?  Let’s just say that I don’t have a consistent theme so much as three or four themes.  There will be food here, yes, but there might also be some words about books, movies, television, current events, all the novel ways that New York City Transit finds to piss people off, maybe some nudie pictures if you’re very, very good.  (Well, no.  I just threw that last one in to see if certain people were paying attention.  Give it a rest, you perverts.)

How in the world are you going to stay awake all night?  You’re no spring chicken, you know.  Thank you for your input.  I am going to be well taken care of on this ‘thon, thanks to the advice and counsel of the staff of the Upper West Side Lush store.  Yes, I know that I’m running the risk of turning into a whore for bath products, but I can’t deny it:  Lush stuff is good stuff, and the staff of the UWS Lush are the nicest people in retail, or at least tied for the nicest people in retail award with the staff of Kitchen Arts and Letters.  Under their tutelage, I have amassed a stash of soaps, lotions, creams and unguents that will charge my batteries and make me smell like the best dessert you’ve ever eaten, including but not limited to a temple balm; a seawater-based toner living in my fridge; a yogurt-and-lemon face mask also living in my fridge; a shower gel that is literally jelly, a quivering luminescent slice of jelly in my fridge (which was actually donated to me by the store manager from his own private stash – Brian, have I told you that you’re a gentleman and a scholar?  Would you like to hear it again?); a lime-and-grapefruit-based liquid shower gel in case I need a few extra cold showers;  a cinnamon-and-clove-rich massage bar currently living in my freezer; and other assorted stuff that may not keep me awake, but will keep me – and the apartment – smelling gorgeous.

I will probably also get over my vague distrust of Red Bull and try a few cans of that.  Hey, it’s once a year.  And if it doesn’t do the trick, there is always Lloyd, maker of pressed coffee that sits in the press for half an hour before we drink it.  This is the reason I married him.  (Well, actually there are three reasons that I married him, but the other two are probably best left unshared.

What it’s all about, Alfie:  To date I have raised $290.00 from eight sponsors (for some reason Bunni’s donation shows up on another page, not my main donor page, but trust me, she was right there from the beginning) for a really, really good cause.  To everyone who has donated, you will hear from me after the Blogathon is over, but in the meantime, thank you all for opening those hearts and wallets.  You have done a good thing here.  Thank you, a hundred thousand times.

Because I am neither a fan of blind spots (those little items in gossip columns that dish dirt without actually naming names) nor of trash-talking about other food blogs, I will not mention by name the site that made its disdain for "what we had for dinner" blogs obvious. Not that I'm not a fan of thoughtful, sophisticated prose; to me, it doesn't get much better than Edward Behr's scholarly, shimmering quarterly The Art of Eating, to which my mother renews my subscription every year on my birthday, but sometimes you want a little brain food with your food food, and sometimes, to quote my beloved Nigel Slater, you just want to make yourself something to eat.

Every year when fresh corn season rolls around, I find myself living on dishes that require it, which means eating one thing for six weeks and then spending the rest of the year craving it. Usually the corn dish of choice is Ismail Merchant's Spiced Corn, which I found in Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking. It is easier than pie: melt some butter into a skillet, cut fresh corn off the cob, saute it in butter, add salt and as much cayenne as you can stand, and finish the whole thing with cream or half-and-half. Between that and our no-frills market-day lunches of steamed corn on the cob and tomato/mozzarella salad, I've been pretty satisfied with the good thing we have. Then last week I received my new Penzeys Spices catalog, and the corn salsa recipe enclosed was just too good to pass up.

Thus was the birth of the dish we have eaten five days out of the past week, which I have christened the Cornbread Thing, as in "Is it okay if we just have the Cornbread Thing again tonight?" The corn relish varies slightly from the Penzeys recipe, in that I have skipped the optional chipotle powder and roasted red pepper. (Admittedly, it was because I forgot to buy them, but in hindsight this was a smart thing, as I'm not always in the mood for smoke, and I don't think this salsa suffers for the lack of it.) The corn bread comes from Molly O'Neill's New York Cookbook and was contributed by a mystery writer named Sarah Shankman. Ms. Shankman's recipe instructs you to pour the hot oil into the cornbread batter and blend it before spooning it into the skillet, but I find I like this better if I just leave the oil in the pan; the resulting crust is darker, crunchier, just plain better. You can add fresh corn, chilies or cheese to this cornbread, whatever suits you, but please fight the urge to add sugar to it. This is a dense, savory, tangy bread, terrific in the cornbread and prosciutto stuffing I put in the turkey at Thanksgiving, but even better when you split it into layers and turn it into one of the nicest summer dinners you can make.