This is an cool, well-done video of Bruce Lee playing ping pong with nunchaka; it was apparently done as an ad for Nokia. Love it.

Our good friends Chris and Leslie threw a lovely going away party for us last night, themed "B(ac)on Voyage" (Chris lost the party naming with his entry of "Chor-revoir"). Obviously the theme of the evening was bacon. Leslie really outdid herself, making bacon-infused bourbon to power the Bacon Old Fashioned cocktails -- a delicious blend of bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup, bitters, and orange. It was meant to be a bit of a joke, but they really turned out well. The bourbon was just a bit smoky and a great match with the maple syrup and bitters. (The real proof of excellence is that Michelle stole my drink after tasting it.)

Leslie also made bacon-maple-chocolate chip cookies, which tasted for all the world like chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup and bacon -- yummy -- as well as BLTs (always delicious). There were a whole host of other good foods too, but I admit, I only had eyes for the bacon flavored treats (no surprise).

Once we were fed and watered, the guests rocked out to Rock Band 2 (with the hot new Fender Precision Bass ). This was a surprisingly good group of Rock Banders, especially given the high average age of the party-goers. There are definitely some good songs in RB2, so I think we'll have to get a copy before we go.

For another view of the evening, here's Leslie's account.

Obviously, huge thanks to Leslie and Chris for hosting the party and to all our friends who shared the evening with us. We're lucky to have such great friends and will certainly miss them once we move to Beijing. Hopefully, we'll see everyone a bunch both in Seattle and Beijing.

The boys and I went to the South 47 Farm in Woodinville last night to go through their corn maze. Every year, the South 47 makes some cool five acre, mile-long corn maze; this year it was in the shape of a tractor.

On Fridays and Saturdays, they open the maze up at night so you can go through with a flashlight -- way more fun! The boys and I have done this on and off for the past few years. When you're in the maze, there are clues to help you find your way out; if you answer these farming related questions properly (e.g. "what % of land is spent raising feed and bedding for horses in a horse-powered farm?" or "which is faster, a bee or a chicken?") you'll be directed the right way. To make finding the dead ends more fun, they have eight stations hidden in the maze; if you find all eight and punch the card they give you, you can get a small gift at the end. The maze is open until October 31.

This year, some of the corn was blown down by the big windstorm we had a few weeks ago, but it's still very fun. I highly recommend it. If you go during the day, stop by the Root Connection (for great veggies) and Minea Farm (for the best cider in the world), both just north of the South 47.

South 47 Farm
15410 NE 124th St. (corner of NE 124th St. & the Woodinville-Redmond Rd.), Redmond, WA
425-869-9777

Thanks, to The Leslie Show for this nice post, "For Tony".

This is a great video. Where the Hell is Matt?

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Thanks, Angie.

Craig's Movie Blog pointed me to Wordle, a site where you can build cool word cloud images in different forms. This one is a cloud made from the text of my Best Way to Cook Bacon post. Very fun!

I'm one of those people who actually click on ads in Facebook once in a while. An ad just now lead me to Cordarounds, makers of some cool clothes including the Reversible Smoking Jacket -- a corduroy jacket on one side and a crazy silky smoking jacket on the other. I think I'd look ridiculous trying to pull of that look, but I'm sure it would look good on someone.

I love the look of some of the details, but more important, the naming of their stuff is great. We're suffering through feature naming on IE8 right now, so I'm especially aware of feature names. We'd never be able to get away with a feature named "Vagisoft" to describe a soft liner material. Awesome.

Our friend Joe clearly has too much time on his hands. At least he put it to good use. Here's a great video of his very cute son, Alexander, playing all four parts of Can't Stand Losing You in Rock Band (the greatest game of all time).

My friends Hillel, Jenny, and Walter at Jackson Fish Market built a lovely site called CarbonGrove, a carbon reduction reminder service and launched in Earth Day this year.

You answer a few questions then they give you some tips on how to reduce your carbon emissions. You can then plant one of the beautiful trees Jenny designed and then watch it grow.

One of the cool things they did on the site is build a WebSlice that let's you easily watch your tree grow in IE8. (WebSlices are a new feature in Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 that allow you to subscribe to part of a web page.)

Here's my tree (named "Chortle"):

Check it out!

(Disclosure: my team helped sponsor this project.)