MAIDEN! MAIDEN! MAIDEN!

Their US tour was just announced:
6 OCT USA - Agganis Arena Boston, MA (at BU)
Tickets for this show go on sale 12th August

Accompanying Iron Maiden on the USA tour (excluding the Hartford and Los Angeles ) are new UK metal sensation, Bullet for My Valentine, who have been receiving rave reviews while on tour with Guns N’ Roses throughout Europe.

Their new album (A Matter of Life and Death) comes out in early September per the band (wikipedia has an earlier date listed). Here's some info on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Life_and_Death_(album)

For the foodies

Brian and I had an excellent rice cooker. It was a large microwave version that we bought at a corningware outlet store in North Conway, NH years ago, and did rice and steamed veggies. The thing worked wonders, cost us less than $10, but alas, finally gave up the ghost last month.

We bought one from Target to replace it - an electric Oster. It was one of the mid-range models, and we thought it would work fine, but after a few failed attempts at both rice and veggies, we threw it in the trash (we owned it too long to return). I'm planning on buying another of the type we had before http://www.amazon.com/Metro-1623-6-Piece/dp/B000C4JF46/sr=8-6/qid=1153830470/ref=pd_bbs_6/102-5563128-9170549?ie=UTF8 as low tech as it is. But, do you have one you absolutely love that I should check out first?

Also, how do you grate ginger? I remember Alton giving some tips, but the grater we have isn't up to the task. We've been chopping it instead, which leaves you with some huge chunks (which isn't bad on its own, but would be much better smaller for sauces and such).

EDIT: Thanks folks! I went ahead and ordered a microplaner (our cheese graters haven't worked well) and the same microwave rice cooker that we loved before.

Journey

I found this via Will Wheaton's blog, so funny:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004364.html