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Astrophysics and cheese.

According to NASA the sun produces 3.8 x 10^33 ergs/sec or roughly 3.8 x 10^26 joules/sec. Over the course of a year that adds up to approximately 6.065 x 10^37 joules of energy.

One dietary calorie or “kilocalorie” equals about 4180 joules. Doing the math we conclude it will take 1.7 x 10^20 years for our sun to generate the same amount of energy as a cubic light year of cheese.

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Kitty Pryde lays it down.

Fleur de Lys (A review; a rhapsody)

As a way to celebrate some wonderful news, my hostess becca and I took our friends feyandstrange and digitalsidhe to dinner Wednesday night at Fleur de Lys, a French-themed San Francisco restaurant. I wore a black suit, shoes, shirt, and dress socks, with a dark blue tie proving just the right color accent (complete with a bobby pin McGyvered into service as an impromptu tiepin, when such proved necessary); becca had a lovely striped top and jacket, and dark blue pants. We were feeling fidgety and eager, and got there about 20 minutes early; we chatted until Fey and Sidhe arrived.

Fleur de Lys is arranged to look like a Moroccan tent, a look I found fascinating; between the decor, the delightful conversation, and the truly exemplary- the best I've ever experienced- service (neither becca's vegetarianism nor fey's wheelchair were in the slightest way an issue), the time flew until fey and sidhe arrived. Fey had a lovely black sequined dress with a vaguely '20s accent; Sidhe looked dashing in his own suit; the food...

...

...was a culinary miracle, a sensual experience I'll treasure forever. Avocado and frisee salad, along with seared watermelon; a trio of lamb loin, shank, and mergeuz "meatball"; jumbo Louisiana prawns with a tangerine sauce providing the perfect note of tanginess; the dessert was billed as "a fantasy of chocolate and praline parfait", and more than lived up to its name. Perhaps most of all, I'll remember looking around the table, seeing friends and loved ones transported in pure culinary bliss, celebrating the tastes, the moment, the company.

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As long as I'm doing reviews: Kayo Books, at 814 Post Street in San Francisco, is one of the best used book stores I've ever seen: an excellent crime novel section (including at least one John D MacDonald novel I'd never even heard of); wide-ranging science fiction; the best movie tie-in selection I've ever seen (until yesterday, I'd had no idea that All That Jazz had been novelized- by H. B. Gilmour, as it happens.) Well, well worth a look.