the tomgrom blog

We currently have no potable water coming through the pipes at home.  Instead we have some brown, icky stuff that smells bad.  Eew!

This means no washing, drinking, or cooking from the tap — something so ubiquitous that it’s practically taken for granted.

Thankfully we can easily get bottled water, but it certainly makes me think about ways to conserve more.  What’s it like for people who have to deal with this regularly?  What will it be like if we don’t preserve this precious resource?

My favorite find of that day was Wild Ginger, a new “Pan-Asian” vegan restaurant on the fringes of Chinatown and Little Italy in NYC.

One of the chefs became exposed to Chinese vegetarian cooking while he was a Buddhist monk, and extends it here by fusing their cuisine with Japanese and Thai dishes to make something quite extraordinary.

I can honestly say that the best salad dressing I’ve ever had is their Carrot-Ginger … a perfect accompaniment for fresh greens.  My entree was the Tofu Teriyaki Sizzling Platter, a dramatic and tasty blend where every element was wonderfully matched.

With the addition of a friendly, welcoming waitstaff, casual and cozy atmosphere, and extremely reasonable prices, I will definitely be returning soon.

I had the chance to check out this exhibit at the Japan Society in NYC last weekend, and it was fantastic.

From the Manga Pod and Classic Pac Man to the stunning wall of anime, this otaku was in heaven.

Try to time your visit for a docent tour, it’s definitely worth it for the added perspective and depth.

I had such a great visit to the city last weekend, I’ve been missing it all week, so I’m going to relive it a bit for the next few days by sharing some great finds…

So many of my favorite stores have come and gone over the years, but The Strand Bookstore on Broadway, just down from Union Square, remains the best place for books in the city.

Chaotic, certainly.  You have to go a few times to get the lay of the land, dealing with the towering stacks and crowds, but once you do you’ve opened your world to TONS of cool dirt-cheap books, including many off-beat, hidden treasures.

My last acquisition was an autographed, limited edition hardbound copy of Scott McCloud’s complete B&W Zot! comics for less than even Amazon sells it.

Amazing.

Oh, and they have a great bathroom, which is another rare and welcome find in the big city.

Doug turned us on to this great world domination game earlier in the week on his blog, and now I’m totally hooked.

Thanks for sharing the love!

It’s a lot like long-time favorite Dice Wars (or Risk), but with no dice and ominous music.

[via Seltzerlizard]

Techcrunch has the lowdown on the new service — as a GrandCentral subscriber, I’ve been waiting for this for a really long time!

I’ll be switching over this week, and will let you know if I get any invites.

Then, they actually topped it with Radiodread, a complete OK Computer done up in near-perfect reggae style.

Yes, I’ve blogged about both in the past, so I’ll spare you the endless accolades.

On April 14th, however, their next release is out, and this time, it’s the FREAKIN’ BEATLES!

Not just the Beatles, either, but SGT PEPPERS!

If the allcaps and exclaimation points don’t make the point quite enough, I’m really looking forward to this one.  I had a ska Beatles compilation years ago that was quite lovely — my hope is that the tradition of All Star excellence will continue.

Consumer Reports checks out these electricity-monitoring devices to see if they really can help us figure out how much energy our electronics are sucking up.

I’ve used one, and it was certainly an eye-opener.

[via Consumerist]

This episode of Independent Lens was riveting, and the man himself was both provocative and hilarious.

YouTube clips don’t do Petey Greene justice — check this out for the story of his extraordinary life.

Although I haven’t personally tested it yet, this site sounds extremely useful if it works as advertised.

It takes scanned images of text (and, presumably, uncopyable PDF’s) and converts them into text files — a service that used to come with scanners when you bought them, but these days bundled OCT software is often nonexistant or of such poor quality that it’s not even worth it.

[via VSL:Web]

A whole bunch of Whole Earth publications have been made available for free viewing online (or for downloading if you’re willing to pay).

It’s great to read these things, but I wish that the web interface was a lot better.  If the content wasn’t this good, I’d never stand for the abysmal user experience.

[via KK]

Here’s another “I can’t believe I haven’t told you about this yet” sites…

Find out about (and even download) new music from around the blog universe with this very cool streaming aggregator.

There’s a lot more chaff than wheat, but it’s still worth it to find a worthwhile new artists.

If you’re looking for a place to host your photos online, ImageBam offers free and unlimited uploading of files less than 3mb in size.

This is just the thing to enable you to include images in online ads, forums, blog posts, and profiles.

[via Lifehacker]