Also, what about whether the server takes your plate "in the back" and brings you the container vs. just bringing the container and letting you shovel it in? I ask because my DW feels that when the server does the packing out of sight she often does not get everything.

I am not in the least ashamed or too proud to take home what I haven't eaten at a restaurant. And, trust me, I eat them - sometimes cold, sometimes nuked. Depending on the vegetable, I'll even take those. Mind you, these leftovers are usually consumed the next day either for lunch at the office or for an easy dinner. (French fries are never left on my plate.) I agree with EL about the desire to take home bread when it's good. I also agree with RinE - I always request the box (or "carry-out pack" as I call it) so that I can do my own packing.

One thing I always bring home in a doggie bag is leftover rice from a Chinese restaurant, to make fried rice a day or two later. It's always better with old, dry rice.

PF Changs does a nice thing with leftovers, packing them in the ubiquitous take out boxes and doing a cute fold on the paper bag that actually helps hold it all together.

Huzzah to John. You don't get a lot of food metaphors that involve mutant death camps.

Wasn't the doggy bag all about the bone? Didn't we used to eat a lot more food on the bone?

... and if they don't like you, maybe you get something extra.

Because I know that my "doggy bag" will sit in the refrig for DAYS, I always take it with me. Then, on the way home, I give it to the homeless begging for money. THey seem to appreciate it, I did my daily random act of kindness and I don't have to fill up my trash can with the stuff in 3 days...
If I don't see any of these aforementioned homeless people, then I do end up taking it home and possibly eating it for lunch...

I'm generally quite a fan of leftovers - if I have any. Since I live alone, any day I don't have the bother of cooking for one is good for me. But I do remember how back in high school I was always so humiliated if my parents took doggie bags out. I thought it made us look poor. The summer after freshman year, Dad was trying to tease and embarrass me about taking one, and I didn't even bat an eyelid. That year at college with my own budget had taught me the value of leftovers!

I am definitely one of those that has the best intentions when I bring leftovers home that I will eat them. Half the time I don't even want to eat leftovers of dinners I have made for ourselves at home! I'm just not good at eating leftovers.
As for the doggy bag, Peter Luger's steak house in Brooklyn NY gives you a doggy bag (upon request) to take home the huge bone to your DOG for your porterhouse that you had ordered to feed all 4 people at your table :-) (or you can order it in a size for 2 people or 3 people)

Leftovers--it's what's for lunch!

I take home leftovers all the time. Sometimes I order too much food in order to have leftovers!

And...I almost always take extra fries home. Chopped up and fried with some onions, they make a nice accompaniment for breakfast eggs.

My dog is too old to get much people food. Which is good, because I nearly always eat any leftovers I bring home from a restaurant.

The leftovers my sainted great aunt insisted on giving me after family dinners...well, those were a different matter.

Whoa - am I the only one seeing a "new look" on this blog that wasn't there this AM?

Hey, I'm just along for the ride like the rest of you. EL

Another vote for always taking the leftovers home. Usually eaten the following day for lunch or a light dinner. Portion sizes are so enormous these days, it's the only way to keep the weight off...

Plus, we bring our own plastic container so we don't have to add another styrofoam container to the landfill. No need for the wait staff to do it, we'll shovel it in ourselves, thankyouverymuch...

What's more bizarre is that, as I write this, the Rob Kasper and Sam Sessa blogs are still in the old-style layout -- only D@L has the new look.

It looks like there's a new version of the software up, version 3.36. I think the old version was the wildly out date 1.x or 2.x. Of course I just checked the s/w website and the current version is 4.2 The really pathetic thing is that this is open software that is FREE. The Trib IT goons can't even have a reasonably current version of free software? Shameful.

Now, here's the annoying part. I'm going to test out some html functions that didn't work in the old release to see if they work here. You can't trust the preview function, so I will be posting some nonsense below. Bear with me.

bold

italic

smallest font

largest font

courier font

arial font

blue

red

green italic bold

Right justify text

Center text

Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text Full justify text 

Bullets

• this 
• that
• the other

Numbered bullets

1. one
2. two
3. three

normal again

New skin. Hasn't anyone told the Sun that content is more important than looks?

Well colander for a brain me just did a refresh, got the new look and sort of like it. If I remember, we lost a column (of adverts, on the left?) I've trained my eyes to pretty much ignore all adverts on the web (I know the trolls will love to read that.) Now if only the blogware would be improved.

Howdy, Sandbox. I see you're all reacting to the new design. This is something that all of our blogs are going through, tied in part to the paper's redesign that launches this weekend, and it's been in the works for a while. I know it'll take some getting used to, but I like the new design very much. The text field is larger, the font size is larger and easier to read, and the right rail/sidebar is larger and can fit more into it, including a video player (as warranted).

@hmpstd The reason Elizabeth's blog was changed before Rob's or Sam's is simply because only one person is making the changes, and she can only do one blog at a time. (We're about halfway through all of our 40-plus blogs as I write this.) So cut her a little slack, if you would. :)

@Owl Meat Beta Tester Your test was quite poetic!

@Lissa This just makes the already-great content on D@L stand out better.

@MEMary -- no problem, so long as you aren't using EL as a guinea pig. ;-) (BTW, as I write this, I see that the updating process has reached the Kasper blog, but not the Sessa blog as of yet.)

Hello!

I'm the one (and only) putting the blog redesigns together. Thanks for your feedback and testing (Owl Meat Beta Tester).

Mary's right - we've been working on the redesigns for a while now. The first part is to get all the new templates set up, then we're going to be able to add more content to the rail. Also, the entry space is much larger, so bloggers can fit more content into the space and it's easier to read.

I hope that you enjoy it - Midnight Sun is next!

At the time of writing this, the text in the blog entry proper is too close to the left edge of the window and could use a bit more margin. It's a little disconcerting to read the way it is.

The text in the comments to the blog doesn't have this problem.

Hasn't anyone told the Sun that content is more important than looks?

That's adorable.

So much for testing. Still stuck with bold and italic. So sad. I feel I could really express myself if I could do it navy blue.

One improvement is that people posting URLs now have their names in bold. Before I could only tell if I ran the cursor over one.

The text field and font look the same to me. "The entry space is much larger" ... no it isn't - it's 10 lines by about 34 characters across. As David Byrne might say, :Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was." The text box width is approximately one third the width of the displayed comment field.

One improvement is that people posting URLs now have their names in bold. Before I could only tell if I ran the cursor over one.

Owl Meat, what browser do you use? People posting URLs have had their names in bold for a long time as viewed with IE 7.

Owl Meat -- for those of use who use the dreaded Internet Explorer 7, the names of commenters with URLs were always displayed in a blue bold font, just like the adjoining date/time entry that contains the URL for that specific comment.

Hal -- I get 1/4" of space on the left margin before the text of EL's post, with slight more space to the left of the comments below. But, then, what do I know -- I use the deaded IE7. (Either that, or Blog Designer Lauren responds to feedback with blinding speed.)

Hey Multimedia Editor Mary...are you related to Multimedia Editor Emeritus John? If so, do you know anything about cheeseburgers?

Also, could you expand the "Most Recent Comments" section to include more than five? Five is fine for most blogs, where there is one topic and, maybe, two comments posted per day, but D@L has gone waaaaaay past that. The only way I can see all the most recent comments (unless I check the blog every 10 minutes or so)is to go to the current month archive, where I can see...I guess...the most recent comment for every topic that month.

That's kind of a pain to have to do.

Thanks, in advance, for taking care of this.

So advertising has a more prominent space, but we poor bloggers are still stuck in an HTML ghetto, where The Man will only let you italicize and bold, where be can never be finale of seem.

Sing it Elvis ...

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
'cause if there's one thing that she don't need
it's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

People, don't you understand
the child needs a helping hand
or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
are we too blind to see,
do we simply turn our heads
and look the other way

Well the world turns
and a hungry little boy with a runny nose
plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto

And his hunger burns
so he starts to roam the streets at night
and he learns how to steal
and he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Then one night in desperation
a young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
tries to run, but he don't get far
And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man
face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

As her young man dies,
on a cold and gray Chicago mornin',
another little baby child is born
In the ghetto

I use the current version of Opera for Windows (9.51), identified as Opera. IE makes me ill. If I had to use IE to view the blog I rarely would. That's just how I roll.

I see the same size left margins as hmpstd. It's way too small. It looks very amateurish - just what The Sun needs. On the whole it's more annoying for me. If you're going to be part of this reinvention of the Sun, at least have current software and set up the pages with normal margins. Does anybody else see a much bigger text entry box? As far as I can tell, no thought has been put into how to improve things for US, just advertisers.

Aw, now I'm all cranky. Serenity now indeed. Thank God tomorrow is Funstastic Thursday.

I just compared the text box here to Dan Rodrick's blog who has the old format. They are both exactly 31 by 10. No change.

I like the new layout and thank you Lauren. I was wondering how this was working, since I visit Schmuck's blog and saw he got the makeover a week or so ago.

so, the Sandbox gets some new curtains!

And another thing, jl's Shallow Thought. Yes, I certainly remember doggie bags as something in which you put your leftovers.
Nowadays, I think the term belongs to another kind of doggie bag. The one people carry when they are walking their dog.

ewwwww.

Hmpstd said: Hal -- I get 1/4" of space on the left margin before the text of EL's post, with slight more space to the left of the comments below. But, then, what do I know -- I use the deaded IE7.

Ah, I figured it out. If the browser window is sized small enough that a horizontal scroll bar appears, the left margin gets shrunk. This behavior happens in both IE7 and Firefox (not sure what version).

Owl Meat Grumpy-Person, you might be happier if you compose your screeds in Notepad or something and then paste them into the edit window.

Hey OMG, are you Kirkin' out on us? I think you need a big dose of Happy Hour. Or this. You go to your happy place. I'll meet you there.

I have a 15.4" wide screen laptop. I have about 1/2" white space on left and right, but all text in the body is just about left justified with the various blue banners, maybe 1/4" in. Since I'm wide screen that space (or lack thereof) is not a problem. BTW, I using Firefox 3.0.1.

I fully agree with Buckster Bob: 5 most recent comments is not enough, but as we have learned in the past, the limitations of the blogware are infinite. Its features, about 7. Ms Blog Designer Lauren, don't claim more than graphics design changes to the blog. Even your mother would hate you if you actually were responsible for writing the basic code for the blogware. And that would be sad because you are probably a very nice person.

BTW: before I end this rant, the font for the information at the bottom of the page (amNY ... Privacy Policy ... ) is about 4 points too small. It looks 6 bold. Really hard to read (not that there's anything down there worth reading). Try 9 point Roman. (Typeface is fine. Its a nice change from some variant of Helvetica.)

Okay, one more thing: Your Imperial Royal Majesty: get delayed on your trip and go missing Monday and Tuesday. If blog graphic design changes get this many comments, the new McSun (can you say My Weekly, ops I mean Daily Reader?) could melt the servers.

Hey Multimedia Editor Mary...are you related to Multimedia Editor Emeritus John?

Rob't from TBRS (nee Bucky), titles aren't hereditary. Oh wait, that's not actually true...

RtSO -- is it the Daily Reader, or the Daily Worker?

The great day of victory over the running-dog lackeys of newsprint has arrived!

Long life to the Tribune REIT, which has won this brilliant victory!

Glory to our great people, the Workers of Tribune, who own the means of production through the REIT!

Eternal glory to our Great CEO and Dear Leader, Chairman Zell!

Oh, crap...I got so engrossed in the new look and feel, I forgot all about jl...

(Yesterday, I was pissed off all day because there was no Shallow Thought until, at about 2:00 pm. MDT, I realized it was just Tuesday.)

Anyway...my question is this: You really HAVE left-over french fries that you have to decide whether or not to pack home with you?

I don't think that's ever happened to me.

Also, naturemade's comment about giving her (his?) doggie bag to the homeless reminded me that I wanted to relate this story to y'all:

In preparation for the Democratic National Convention, our dusty ol' cowtown has spent several million dollars sprucing up the downtown area, and the Pepsi Center where the convention will be held, and Invesco Field, where Obama will give his acceptance speech, and all the streets and roads connecting all those places.

We want to look pretty, I guess, for all the out-of-towners coming for the convention.

Anyway, things were running a little ahead of schedule, and they had to time look around and see what else they could spruce up, when somebody spied a few homeless people.

So--and I'm not making this up--on Sunday they gave free shampoos and haircuts to any of the downtown homeless people who wanted them.

Yes, check it out with your delegates after the convention is over and they get back to Maryland. I'm sure they will say, "Oh, it is so nice in Denver. The sky is so blue and the mountains are so snowcapped, and the streets are so clean and...OMG...they have the most well-groomed homeless people you've ever seen in your life!"

Did anyone catch the cover story of today's City Paper about the changes having occurred at the Sun? It's an interesting read.

My Irish grandmother would say be grateful that you even have a blog space in which to comment. Back in the day, if you wanted to comment on something in the newspaper, you had to walk miles, barefoot, in the snow, to the one bar in town and yell at the reporter in person. Good for nothing drunk.

BTW - I don't understand any of the technobabble that puter dudes such as OMG are talking about. I merely reacted to the opening screen of D@L and became confused when I had to scroll down to reach the body of the blog. (Please don't yell at me; I use AOL.)

Left margin is extremely narrow in Firefox, both Linux and Windows, on a 20" monitor and on my eee.

I do like the addition of white space, and hope it doesn't get filled with ads (it is my policy to adblock all blinking, spinning, moving ads).

@Lissa

Oh, gods. It'll be those newfangled smileys next.

I work back and forth in Safari and Firefox because the blogware takes so long to rebuild, and it's quite disconcerting how nice it looks in Safari and not in Firefox. EL

When I was growing up, my dad constantly used to try to talk my mom into putting the rolls/bread into her purse. She usually refused, but the one time I remember her finally acquiescing, the whole family was giddy giggling while we walked out, as if we had stolen something. One of my more favorite childhood memories.

We should have had a separate post to discuss the blog makeover, so that we could appropriately focus on jl's shallow thoughts.

I recently stopped taking leftovers home because I never eat them, and it was a hassle anyway. But I'm finding that my new tactic almost always causes the server to ask if something was wrong with the food, are you sure? and then I have to explain... no, it was great... I just won't eat the leftovers because of some personality flaw that causes me to waste food and then feel really guilty about it...and I'm trying to simplify my life....etc. & etc. It's actually more trouble than just taking the leftovers and throwing them in the nearest trash can outside.

OMG wrote: "where be can never be finale of seem."

Say it isn't so, love.

hmpstd, I was thinking more on the lines of what would work best with crayons. As Chairman Zell's lapdog said content is not the driving force, its the sizzle (my paraphrase.)

Ms. LJ's you're probably right about a separate comment for the blog re-make. But just wait until Monday: all Hell will likely break loose. EL is only going to have to open a comment, no topic and we're off to the races.

The redesign starts Sunday, as I understand it. The reinvention, Monday. EL

"When I was growing up, my dad constantly used to try to talk my mom into putting the rolls/bread into her purse." LJ, my girlfriend's late mother used to put ashtrays, cream pitchers and salt and pepper shakers in her purse (pewter at that), saying "oh, for heaven sakes, they expect you to take things! You're paying for it, believe me!"

Joyce W. -- in one episode of The Sopranos, Paulie had to drive his "mother" Nucci (and two of her nursing home friends) into Manhattan for a Broadway show and dinner. At the end of dinner, the ladies proceeded to grab the rolls, condiments, and anything else they could manage to fit into their bags.

Oh, Owl Meat GhettoStyleHTML, if only you'd sing that for us in the style of Cartman.

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.
-- Joseph Stalin