I've added a few recipes to my How To page. This time, however, I've added enough that you can cook a full meal. Start with an appetizer of Pico de Gallo & Guacamole (if you live in Texas, United carries some really good fresh made tortilla chips). Move on to the main course of 3 Cheese Chicken Enchiladas with Cream Cheese Sauce (or Red Beef Enchiladas if you're a little short on time), with a side of Mexican Rice. For the perfect drink to wash it all down, make a pitcher of Irmaritas (better than Margaritas).

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Apr 30 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, these are very small changes to this blog, but I did a little playing around with the stuff over in that right sidebar. First, I figured it was about time that I added a blogroll, so I did. It's not very long, and I've limited it to blogs that I check at least once a week. I know there are lots of other good blogs out there that aren't on the list, but that's the way it goes.

Second, I redid the way the Archives show up in the side bar. I had been just going with the default that MovableType came set up with, which showed every month I had entries in. Unfortunately, now that I've had my blog for a few years, that list was getting pretty long, so I put it on a separate page.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 18 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

I've added a new recipe for Easter bread to my How To page. This is the recipe my mom made while I was growing up and passed on to me. Other than that, there's no deep family significance - I think she got it out of a cookbook, which got it from a convent in Pittsburgh. And I realize it's a little late for this year, but honestly, it was while my daughter and I were making the bread this past weekend that the thought occured to me to add it to this site.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Mar 27 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)

A very small update for today, but an update, nonetheless. About a year ago, when I decided to sell my RX-7, I made a note of it on my RX-7 page. However, when I did sell the car, I forgot to update that page to say so. So, I've removed the note about the car being for sale, and added a paragraph explaining that I sold it, why I sold it, and that I still like it.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Mar 14 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)

I've reimplemented CAPTCHAs (Wikipedia entry) for people wanting to leave comments. Basically, a CAPTCHA is one of those pictures of a random string of characters that users have to type in to be able to leave their comment, based on the fact that people are pretty good at reading these things, while computer programs aren't, so it should eliminate comments from automated spam programs. I think I've figured out my mistake from the last time I tried to do this - that time I only included the CAPTCHA code on the entry pages, but not on the comment preview pages, so when people were previewing their comments and then hitting submit, they were getting tagged as spam. I was sure to inlcude the CAPTCH code in the comment preview pages this time, and I've even checked it out with some test comments, so hopefully it will work right this time and all legitimate comments will get through.

I didn't want it to have to come to this, but spam comments had just gotten horrendous in the past couple weeks. Since I'd removed the CAPTCHA, I had been getting, on average, less than one spam comment per day making it through my other filters. That was pretty easy to stay on top of, and it wasn't cluttering up this blog. Recently, however, those comments have been through the roof (yesterday, for example, 27 made it through). Since my blog is set up to send me an e-mail whenever I get a comment, those spam comments weren't just cluttering up my blog, they were cluttering up my inbox, as well. Monday mornings, after a long weekend, were especially fun.

So, spammers, thanks for making everybody's lives more difficult. Jerks.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Feb 19 | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (0)