SimplePhrase Blog

Beemster Classic is an aged gouda cheese. It is somewhat hard and has crunchy bits. Its complex flavor is difficult to describe, but I really like it.

Cahill's Porter is an Irish cheddar that is flavored with, you guessed it, porter. The appearance is striking, with dark streaks going all through the cheese giving it patterning like a stone wall. Here's an image.

It's a firm, creamy, tangy cheese with porter undertones. In particular, it has the same slightly bitter finish that porters or stouts have. A really interesting cheese. Quite delicious. It's too bad I don't drink anymore, because I think it would be awesome with a Guinness.

Amazon link.

The writer/artist spent two months in the capital of North Korea and created a graphic novel about the experience. I have a fascination for North Korea, so when I saw this book while idly browsing one day I knew I would have to get it.

I was not disappointed, but neither was I bowled over. It was "only" very good. Very conversational tone and casual presentation, juxtaposed with some heavy subject material. This was not a document about North Korea, but more a story of how visitors are treated in the capital city. Fascinating stuff. A very good read.

Amazon link.

This is a book about groundbreaking and controversial psychological studies. Each experiment is discussed in a conversational, narrative style that really draws you into the social and political ramifications of the experiment. (Not political in the sense of world government, but in the sense of how others in the field of psychology reacted to the experiments.) The author includes relevant personal experiences as well. The result is a fascinating and moving read. Recommended.

"The Cats of Ulthar" and "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" have been added to Stories by Lovecraft. Also changed the alphabetization of the stories by title.

Wikipedia Link.

This cheese is yummy. It has a creamy texture with some crunchy bits, and a mellow sweet flavor. A very pleasant cheese.

Amazon link.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I did Flight. Flight had some good stuff, but was marred by what I like to refer to as "artsy-fartsy horseshit."

I'm quick to point out that I respect art and artists. Some of it, however, is really really not to my tastes, and such was the case with some of the Flight material. I guess I'm just unsophisticated, but at least I know what I like.

But Flight Explorer is geared towards children, which means that there is no artsy-fartsy horseshit, because kids don't like that stuff. Instead, you've just got nifty comics.

"The Rats in the Walls" and "Under the Pyramids" have been added to Stories by Lovecraft. Also fixed some character formatting problems.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb. The densely cross-hatched, scuzzy-looking artwork of the legendary R. Crumb serves to illustrate what we suspected all along: The book of Genesis is spectacularly weird. Recommended.

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. It's fairly brilliant, and I liked it, but not enough to continue with the series. At least not any time soon.

I've added a new page to my website: SimplePhrase Top Five. It's a series of top five lists. I figure it may come in handy when people (or, more likely, social networking sites) ask me what my favorite X is. Now I can just point them to this web page. It's fun to mess with, so I anticipate somewhat frequent tweaks and updates. You know, until I get bored with it.