Author: Jeff Tabaco

It’s almost spring, so along with other semiannual tasks like switching clocks to or from daylight saving time (Apr. 3), or getting my teeth cleaned (Apr. 14, like you really need to know), it is time to get my hair cut. I didn’t really plan it like this, but for the past few years, I’ve gotten my hair cut only twice per year, as you can probably tell. Call it style, or call it laziness.

Tonight Thom and I are going to Studio 2000, his regular salon at Dupont Circle. I probably won’t have any photos of the new ’do until this weekend, when we’ll be at Sheldon and Gretchyn’s wedding, which is the main impetus for this haircut.

Speaking of beauty and whatnot, I should give a shout out to Sephora, specifically their customer-service people. Last month I bought a gift certificate for Susan‘s birthday, but only yesterday did I realize that the e-mail address I had for her was no longer valid. So I contacted Sephora and gave them the new e-mail address, and they resolved the matter quickly, closing out the old order and crediting it toward a new one. I tell you, I think my expectations for customer service in general are so low that when things do go right, it’s practically a joy. I may even write to the company and commend the specific people who helped me, which is something I never usually take the time to do.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Whaddya know, my site is already green, so I’m good on that front. No pinching your computer screen.

Tonight we’re having dinner out then seeing An Ideal Husband, which is somewhat appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day, as Oscar Wilde was born and raised in Ireland. This production by Fountainhead Theatre runs through Saturday at Theatre on the Run, in Shirlington. Potomac Stages loves it, but the Post calls the production “stilted.” We’ll see. (By the way, an excellent movie adaptation of An Ideal Husband was released a few years ago, starring Jeremy Northam, Cate Blanchett, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, and Minnie Driver.)

I got the theater tickets at Ticketplace, an excellent source for half-price admission to selected arts events. Tickets for some shows, like this one, are available online the day of the show, but yesterday I thought, hey, I have some time to kill, so I visited their new location on 7th Street, near the Archives Metro station. Their booth used to be in the Old Post Office Pavilion. Anyway, the people who work at Ticketplace are so friendly (as I’ve said in these pages before), and it’s always a pleasure to drop by.

I was all ready to write about how fonts look so much better on Macs than on PCs until I found out about ClearType in Windows. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think fonts look gorgeous on my iBook, right out of the box: no fine-tuning necessary, which makes for a superior experience. But at work I use a Windows machine and thought I’d just have to live with those jagged little edges. That is, until I turned on ClearType, which is different from the standard font smoothing, and the extra resolution gives each letter more nuances specific to its font. The difference is supposed to be more dramatic on LCD screens. (I have a flat-screen CRT at work.) You can turn it on by using a web interface (which includes a fine-tuning tool) if you have XP, or manually by right-clicking on the desktop, then going to Properties > Appearance > Effects… and choosing ClearType instead of Standard to smooth fonts.

Speaking of typography, a while back I changed some of the specified fonts for Rebel Prince. On most Windows machines you will still see Georgia as the main body font, but I’ve also specified Hoefler Text, which is more prevalent on Macs. I love this font. It’s so distinctive. I especially like the italic capital Q, which resembles a cursive 2. I also like the numerals, which, like Georgia, descend below the baseline where appropriate. For secondary text (date headers, entry titles, sidebar, etc.), I’ve specified Lucida Grande and one of its Windows incarnations, Lucida Sans.

I’m rather fickle. (Who knows what this site will look like next week?) But I’m also rather lazy. (The same.)

Rufus Wainwright’s EP Alright Already (Live in Montreal) hits the iTunes music store today, with new recordings of six previously released songs: “Poses,” “This Love Affair,” “The Art Teacher,” “Rebel Prince,” “Crumb by Crumb,” and “Gay Messiah.”

And on the official site, there’s a five-minute preview for the documentary All I Want: A Portrait of Rufus Wainwright, which aired on Channel 4 (UK) and will eventually be made into a DVD. Looks good. They pulled out some big guns for this; there’s Elton John and Sting, among others, singing the praises of our boy.

Tina and I had fun at the food and wine festival on Sunday. While we did taste a few wines (of the hundreds available), our preferred MO was flitting among the several cooking demonstrations and of course sticking around for the samples, which is mostly the point. I brought back a few recipes and at some point will try to re-create some dishes. There was an ambrosia cheesecake that seems manageable; at the other end of the spectrum, another tasty dish, “fragrant curry-dusted pork tenderloin with pineapple mint quinoa cake and homemade mango chutney,” has, as you might guess, a billion ingredients, and is a bit more daunting.

The photo above is of me and Tina after the festival, outside the Mt. Vernon Square Metro station.

Last night on the way home from the Metro station, Thom and I listened to part of a segment on All Things Considered about women wounded in Iraq. Listening to one woman’s story–her injuries and her brave recovery–got me crying for a bit. Every now and then I get so sad and angry about this war.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled today that California’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional (text of decision in PDF). Amen. I remember, back in 2000 when I lived in California and voted against Proposition 22 (better known as the Knight initiative, which limited recognition of marriage to that between a man and a woman), I thought it would never pass. But to my shock it did. Today’s news is definitely a step in the right direction. (An appeal is expected, no doubt.)

A couple of years ago, I went to see (and hear) This American Life on its “Lost in America” tour, and got to see part of “Lost Buildings,” a fascinating collaboration between Ira Glass and Chris Ware on “the true story of a boy named Tim Samuelson, who became obsessed with old buildings, especially the buildings of Louis Sullivan in Chicago, during the 1960s and 70s when they were being torn down.” It’s been made into a DVD. Cool! There’s an article on the Apple Pro site about its production and the role of media designer John Kuramoto (link via kottke.org). It’s available as a premium during pledge drives (for now, at least); I don’t mind donating to public radio, but I wish there were a more expedient way to get my hands on this DVD.