If anyone's a fan of blues, I cannot sing the praises of Roaring Forties highly enough. I mean, we're talking "Nessun Dorma" quality singing.

Served with slices of Haas avocados, kiwi, honeydew, figs, some pancetta or salami and a good red, om nom nom nom.

I am clearly not a foodie, because until clicking I thought Barb was saying that Roaring Forties was a singing group.

I am clearly not a foodie, because until clicking I thought Barb was saying that Roaring Forties was a singing group.

Me, too.

I mean, we're talking "Nessun Dorma" quality singing.

Tom Waits' favorite bit of opera, incidentally. (As introduced to him by Francis Ford Coppola.)

I'm not a big fan of Maureen Dowd, but her Sunday column is pretty good--"Are We Rome? Tu Betchus!" A stab at translating the Latin part is here.

Omnes de Georgio Busio Secundo colossale goofballo.

Paying at the pump just got more risky

Puyallup police say thieves snagged her account information — along with the debit card numbers and PIN codes of hundreds of other people — at two gas stations in the area.

They did it by installing their own hard-to-spot card reader, called a skimmer, on top of the card reader built into the pump. The skimmer is able to grab the account information from the card without interfering with the legitimate payment transaction.

The crooks used the stolen data to create (or clone) fake debit cards that were used at ATMs in Washington State over the Fourth of July weekend and in Northern California on Labor Day weekend. The bad guys like three-day holidays because it gives them more time to use the cards before the unauthorized withdrawals are spotted.

...

Police in Puyallup and Las Vegas now advise residents not to use their debit card at a gas pump because there’s no way to be sure it hasn’t been tampered with.

That’s smart advice and here’s why. Debit cards do not offer the same fraud protection as credit cards. If crook armed with a skimmer snags your credit card number and uses it to buy things, you can dispute the charges with the credit card company. You won’t owe a thing while they investigate.

If the crook grabs your debit card number, he can go to a cash machine and pull money out of your checking account. It could take days for the bank to investigate and put that money back into your account. During that time checks could bounce or you might not be able to pay your bills. That’s why the only way I pay at the pump is with a credit card.

I'm not a big fan of Maureen Dowd, but her Sunday column is pretty good--"Are We Rome? Tu Betchus!"

I wanted to like it -- I mean, come on, I'm the first to admit that I'm a huge intellectual snob -- but after the first few paragraphs I got bruises from being beaten over the head with references to Seneca and the highly desirable study of dead languages.

Because THAT will fix the economy.

In high school, I translated swatches of Julius Caesar’s “The Battle for Gaul” from Latin to English while nibbling cheese crackers.

Aw, Mo -- I bet people who are losing their houses can REALLY relate to that! Way to write an op-ed that cuts to the heart of the matter!

Latin??? Seriously??? FAIL.

I just liked the bits like the one I quoted that mixed modern idioms into pseudo-Latinate form. The rest of it I sort of skimmed, to be honest.

(I could never get through the edition of Pooh Bear in Latin, either.)

veni, vidi, fail-y.

I am clearly not a foodie, because until clicking I thought Barb was saying that Roaring Forties was a singing group.

Um, whoops? ::blushes:: I didn't realize-- figured the serving suggestions would imply that it was food, esp. given the cheesy tenor of the discussion.

Still... it's a really, really good blue cheese.