Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in neil's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 6th, 2009
9:04 am	Another Product Review – Colgate MaxFresh Toothbrush Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. Contrary to what you might think after the last post, this is not a product review blog (well it’s not much of anything, as I am super lazy). However, I wanted to talk about this toothbrush I bought yesterday – the Colgate Max Fresh. I was spending the night in Sunnyvale, since I had to take my friend Erin to get some surgery done at 6:30 AM this morning, and driving down to Sunnyvale, then up to Palo Alto from San Francisco would have mean leaving home at 5AM. However, I left my tooth brush sitting on my couch at home, so I bought a new one. I can’t find a good picture of it online and don’t have a good camera ready and available to take a picture, so I’ll just point you to the official site. This is one of the fancy modern toothbrushes, with a rubber contoured handle and bristles that point off at various acute angles. The site lists some fantastic additional features, including a minty fresh handle to invigorate your brushing experience. I am not sure how much this adds to the experience when you already are most likely using mint scented dentifrice, but at least it has some humor value when you hear about it. The other feature, the tongue freshener, is what I really want to talk about. I guess it’s a not uncommon feature to have these days – a bit of rubber on the back of the head which supposedly cleans off the tongue, but there is more than just a bit on this toothbrush. The rubber ’stubble’ is also on the sides of the head, so when you brush you are constantly rubbing it against your cheeks. This is not what I call an enjoyable experience, and even a minty fresh handle can’t change it. To sum it up, as far as fancy new toothbrushes go, the Max Fresh is a dud. I much prefer my current Oral B CrossAction Pro-Health Toothbrush. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
12:50 pm	Product Review: POMx Iced Coffee Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. The makers of POM pomegranate juice (oh, wow, I just recall I have a POM branded pomegranate in my fridge, I should rip it apart and get the tasty arils) have decided to create an iced coffee beverage. I saw this while at the grocery store this morning, and I decided I would try one out, just for kicks. I bought the chocolate one, as the only cafe au lait at the store was in a very battered looking bottle. Anyway, the beverage’s ingredients are: nonfat milk, organic cane sugar, POMx (pomegranate extract), coffee, erythitrol (why another sweetener?), cocoa, natural flavors, caffeine and carageenan. From these ingredients, I expected it to be a sweeth, thick, chocolately beverage, like the iced Starbucks beverages in the bottles, and indeed that’s what it was. A bit too sweet, actually – I think they were tying to mask the tart pomegranate flavoring, which comes across as an aftertaste more than a taste. It’s not an unpleasant concoction, but not something I would choose to drink very often. I suppose you could be more unhealthy in a beverage pretty easily, but I’m not sure that this stuff is particularly healthy. Given a choice, I’d rather have one of their juice blends, or even their tea (which I liked a lot more when it came in the wide mouthed glasses). (Comment on this)
Monday, October 5th, 2009
2:57 pm	NANOWRIMO or NANOWRIWON’T? Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I’m trying to decide if I should do NANOWRIMO this year or not. For the record, I’ve attempted it every year since 2003, not getting too far that first year, due to job searching, but completing it in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 (in 2006 I only got to about 45,000 words, due to moving in November). I’m trying to fathom if I have the desire to go through with it again, knowing that if I want to I can complete it (most of the stuff I’ve done has been incredibly stupid, but hey, it’s easier to write stupid than smart). It’s a lot of hours of time blocked off, when I could just as well be doing something else, either more or less useful. I have a seed of an idea, but I would have to spend some time prethinking of it before I could actually write on it, which means even more time spent. Should I or shouldn’t I? I have 26 days left to decide! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
9:23 pm	Things And Other Things Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I’ve been neglecting the blog this month. I don’t have any good reason besides a lack of much to say. However, now I do have a few things. Rock Band: After naysaying for a year and a half, I bought an Xbox 360 last fall. This turns out to be one of the best electronic purchases I’ve ever made, considering the use I’ve gotten out of it (mostly from watching video on it – either via playon , netflix or hosted on my windows machine (which died and had to be replaced recently, which caused me much angst, but…). However I’ve played a few arcade games, and two games I’ve purchased – Bioshock and Fallout 3. The latter I played the crap out of, but its time had come to get a new game. After spending a weekend playing Rock Band in Lake Tahoe (the first time I’ve played it in a year) I decided it was time to take the plunge. So I’ve been rocking out on Rock Band 2, and will likely get the Beatles version later this year. Where the Wild Things Are: I saw the second public showing of this evar last night – a benefit show for 826 Valencia, where I’ve been volunteering for the past few weeks. I won’t lie – the tickets were not cheap, but it was for a good cause, and for a movie I’d been wanting to see since I first saw a trailer. Spike Jonze, who directed and co-wrote the move with Dave Eggers (founder of 826), decided long ago that he wanted to do benefit shows at all the chapters before the movie was released (in fact the Chicago chapter had the first public showing the night before). The movie is out on 10/16 and I do recommend you see it, especially if you have children or enjoyed the book as a child. Also, I got a cool crown: Halloween: It’s coming in a few weeks. I don’t really have any plans yet, but I do have a costume in the making. It’s a costume not quite as obscure as my Zenmai Samurai costume from 2007, but not main stream either. Most of the implementation of it is complete, but I need to buy one more piece of clothing for it to be complete. Here is a hint – if you can figure it out from it, you will get a lot of credit: (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
11:42 pm	Banana Washing Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I wrote a piece about washing bananas. Please note, it is in jest, although there is some truth hidden in my rant.. How to clean a banana (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
12:42 pm	Pine Mouth and Me Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. Two weeks ago, on August 22, I had people over for dinner. I made this recipe for the Zuni Cafe roasted chicken with bread salad. The recipe/dinner itself would almost be worthy for a post in and of itself, but as you can see, Deb has already well explained the recipe, and I have something more important to talk about – Pine Mouth. I know, you are probably thinking “what the heck is pine mouth?” I would be saying the exact same thing in your shoes, if I didn’t have the unfortunate experience myself. I suppose it makes the most sense for me to explain this by way of a timeline, and fill in the information as I learned of it. Tuesday August 25, 2009 – I woke up for work (I work from home Tuesday mornings), and while I was brewing the coffee, I grabbed a gum drop from a plastic bin as a snack. It tasted a bit strange to me, extra bitter, but I thought maybe it was just a bad gum drop, and didn’t think much of it. The coffee, prepared in a Moka pot, also tasted a bit bitter, but I thought I had burned it some, and just kind of powered through. Neither of these tastes really made me think anything was wrong, but after I got to the office around 11, I noticed that there was a persistent foul taste in my mouth – a acrid, sour taste. I thought maybe I was having some reflux, not completely unheard of for me, so I had a Tums, which also tasted completely awful. When 30 minutes later the taste didn’t go away – in fact it was hanging there like a bitter blanket on the back of my tongue, I started to get concerned. So I did what any sane person would do, and I googled “bitter taste on back of tongue”, and found a bunch of very concerning articles – was my liver failing? Did I actually have a brain tumor? However, thankfully, I noticed, far down on the page, a reference to pine nuts causing a bitter taste. “I had pine nuts Sunday in the bread salad, in fact I had a bunch while cooking dinner too…” was in my mind. I did some more googling around, and found that wikipedia contains a reference to this outcome, as well as a link to a paper in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine describing this affliction. Interestingly enough, the paper is from 2001, but most of the 13,000 hits for “Pine Mouth” seem to be from the past 9 months or so. So what’s going on here? Well, no one knows, but I will talk about what’s known: Around two days after eating certain pine nuts, certain people develop a lingering, unpleasant taste sensation The pine nuts that have caused the issue appear to be mostly sourced from China, or other places in the East. European and American pine nuts appear to be precluded from causing this, for now The exact methodology of this affliction is not known (but I will discuss a hypothesis of mine shortly The affliction lasts for about one to two weeks for more people Seeing this all relieved me greatly, and also caused me to realize that the bitter taste was reminiscent of the bitter component to pine nuts’ flavor. I made it through the rest of the day eating food that tasted poorly, and just suffered. Wednesday August 26, 2009 – This mostly probably the worst day of the experience taste wise, because everything I put in my mouth, save for water, tasted like it was coated in dish soap. I was also a bit concerned by getting affected now (and note that none of the other 3 people at dinner got hit by this, so perhaps my extra snacking before dinner helped this along), since I had plans to go wine tasting in Napa the coming weekend with Mackenzie, and what’s the point in wine tasting if all the wine tastes like soap!? Thursday August 27, 2009 – The soap taste had receded a bit. It was now more of an aftertaste (and a most foul one at that), and I found that some foods had strong after tastes than others. In particular high carb/high sugar foods were the soapiest, and spicy and savory items were markedly less so. I had some hope that by the coming Saturday I would be “better”. Saturday August 29, 2009 – Sadly, I wasn’t all the way better by Saturday. The soapy aftertaste was certainly less strong, and it lingered far less, but my taste was still not up to par. I couldn’t trust any aftertaste in any of the wines I tasted (and, alas, port in particular was fouled by the soapy aftertaste, which made my otherwise fun visit to Prager Port imperfect. Wednesday September 2, 2009 – After brushing my teeth in the morning I thought to myself “hey, was this baking soda tooth paste”, because it had that sort of aftertaste. It was not, just normal minty stuff, but this also the last little whisper of the Pine Mouth distastefulness. I was, after this, free at last! So it lasted a bit more than 8 days for me, which seems to be right around the average, but the big questions remain – what the heck is this, how does it work? Of course, I can’t answer everything, but I can say that scraping your tongue, eating things like parsley, etc have no impact on this. It’s something inside (or chemically bonded) to your taste buds which causes this. And, I think this is the key to the one to two week duration – the life span to a taste bud is about two weeks. So, I, hypothesize that some chemical in these pine nuts from China or Korea or etc, binds with the taste receptors in some taste buds, and then over the course of 36 or 48 hours, metabolizes into some other chemical that blocks all taste except bitter, and perhaps even generates this taste. Now, as these afflicted taste buds die off over the next two weeks, your taste gradually returns to normal. That’s my story with Pine Mouth. I’m going to be hesitant to eat pine nuts sourced from Asia again, but I’m not going to completely avoid them. It’s entirely possible I will never face this again (and I hope so), but at least I’ll know what it is next time. Have you ever had pine mouth? What was your experience like? Let me know! (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
1:23 pm	The Second Trip First (Katie’s Wedding in Kansas City) Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I’ve taken two trips by air in the past few weeks. Because they were so close together, I didn’t have time to post about the first one before going on the second. So, I’ll be posting in reverse order. I went to Kansas City, MO for my friend Katie’s wedding. This was a short trip – my flight out of Kansas City was scheduled to take off 49 hours after my flight from San Francisco. I say schedule, because the latter was late – which made my trip out pretty annoying. We left about an hour late, which was bad because I had a connection to make in Denver, and only about 45 minutes to make it. The reason for the delay was mechanical – evidently a bird strike earlier required them to need to do extra maintenance. Anyway, once I got to Denver I had to go to the Frontier customer service desk to get a new flight. The guy who was working there must be the most patient man alive, because there were a lot of irate people in the line. Me included, but I kept my ire to myself. It wasn’t his fault. I got standy on a flight out 2 hours later, and confirmed on the flight 4 hours later. Either way, I was going to get in to Missouri a while after my friends, who I was supposed to meet up with and drive back to our hotel, and then on to the BBQ the night before at Katie’s Mom’s house. The BBQ was the reason that I woke up at 4:30Am, so I could drive down to Park ‘N Fly and make my 6:15 flight. SFO to MCI is not a very well serviced route – the only direct flight I could find was in the middle of the afternoon on Midwest, which would have gotten me in at 8:30 or so – too late for the BBQ! Well, I made it on the earlier of the two flights, but it was delayed so we didn’t actually end up taking off until about 15 minutes before the second flight was scheduled to. I have no idea if that flight was delayed or not, but based on my track record with Frontier, I have to assume so. So far they are 100% (2 for 2) for me. Anyway, I got in to MCI around 5:30, and after walking around pretty much the whole circular terminal, I walked outside to find out every door had a rental shuttle stop. Soon enough I was on the bus and over to Hertz, and and from there, it was a quick drive to Katie’s Mom’s house, and a beer! Luckily for my friends, Katie herself was able to pick them up from the hotel and take them to the BBQ, so it worked out well for everyone. The BBQ was fun, but man it was hot outside! At around 10:00 or so, we drove back to the hotel (The Q hotel and Spa in the Westport district). I checked in, and got one last drink in the hotel bar with Scott and Andrea before crashing hard at about midnight, and sleeping soundly until 8:30AM. Saturday, I just bummed about in the morning, getting an english muffin at the hotel breakfast, and then around 11:30 or so, I got in touch with Scott. I had decided to go to Okalahoma Joe’s BBQ in Kansas Ciy, Kansas, as an excuse to check that state off of my list of states. It’s also supposed to be about the best BBQ place around the area, as well as one of Anthony Bourdain’s 13 places to eat before you die (a fact which I didn’t learn until Sunday morning). The Hotel was only about half a mile from the state line, as is the Gas Station restaurant where scott and I ate lunch. We got there at a good time, because the line to order was only slightly long when we got there, but it was snaking outside into the parking lot by time we left [insert picture here]. It was pretty good but also mighty filling. We stopped off by the state line on the way back so I could take some goofy pictures XXX, before heading back to the hotel. Around 2:30 we met down in the lobby, dressed in our fancy wedding attire, and also ran into Phil and Michelle, who were also staying at the hotel. We all drove over to Screenland, the movie theater where the wedding was taking place. I was sort of surprised that Phil was still at the hotel, as he was the officiant for the wedding! It was a good thing I rented the car (I mean, I’m sure people would have figured an alternate out – the hotel had a car service, plus there are cabs somewhere in Kansas City, I’d reckon), and even though 5 people in a Yaris is not super comfortable, none of the drives were particularly long. It was also nice that I brought my GPS on the trip – sure, it confused me a couple of times, and I had to alter routes a bit, but it did a pretty good job of getting us where we needed to be, and in particular we got to the theater in plenty of time. The wedding itself was pretty neat – movie trailers, then a simple ceremony, featuring an infamous story about Lynard Skynnard as the “sermon”. Soon enough the bride and groom were kissing, and we retired to a decent sized room elsewhere in the building for the reception. The food was all vegan, and decent to delicious. For dessert there were cupcakes that Katie herself baked, which is pretty hardcore! Because I was transportation for Phil, and he was needed for some official pictures, we ended up staying to almost the bitter end (I have to admit I was pretty bored for a while at the end, because I only had a few drinks – I was driving after all). We made plans to go to this ludicrous bar right across from the hotel – America’s Pub, but well, we never actually made it there. After going to the hotel, we headed over to McCoy’s pub for dinner, and a couple more drinks, and met up with a couple more friends who were staying at a nearby hotel. Dinner was pretty good (they have excellent Macaroni and Cheese), and after that and some weird conversation (sorry), we headed back to our hotels and ended the night 11PM or so. Today, I was up at 6:30, and slowly got packed and checked out of the hotel. I was driving Phil and Michelle to the airport, as their flight was (so we thought) 9:30, and mine was 9:45. It was about a 30 minute drive to the airport, where we learned that their flight was 9:10 – they still should have had enough time to make it to the terminal from the rental car return, and the airport wasn’t very busy – and since it has security checkpoints for every 5 gates or so, I am pretty confident they made it on time. Anyway, I got a snack at starbuck’s before entering the secure area and boarding my flight on Midwest Airlines. The plane is a Boeing 717 – a model I’ve not been on before. I seem to have lucked out with a seat near the front of the plane, which is only 2 x 2 instead of 2 x 3, and as such has a wider seats. So far this airline seems to be pretty nice. Not very useful to me for most of the flights I take, but something nice to know. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
9:56 pm	Hoppy? Well… Not Really Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I bought a 6 pack of Budweiser American Ale this evening. I’ve been interested in trying it since they advertised on the This American Life podcast earlier this year, but I noticed it in a store before. So anyway, the six pack was $7.50 at Mollie Stone’s. Here is my assessment – this beer is OK. It’s completely unlike anything else from the Buddweiser line, but then again, it’s not an American lager, the most boring sort of beer around. It’s not really exiting, mind you – the claimed “hoppy finish” is hoppy only when compared to normal Bud, but still, it’s fairly tasty. Would be a good beer on a hot day, for instance. It’s just overpriced, as it’s not a real craft brew. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
10:22 am	The Story of Regibarto Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I think I should explain the origin of the name Regibarto, which you may or may not have seen me reference before. Probably not, but it’s worth explaining anyway. My sister-in-law (my brother’s wife), is pregnant, and due any day a few days ago. However, my future nephew is not here yet, so I still can and do refer to him as Regibarto. “Why Regibarto?” you may ask. The answer is that I am a cad. Earlier this year (March or April), my parents were visiting me from Chicago. One afternoon, when we were killing some time at my apartment before dinner, my mom asked me if I had talked to my brother recently about possible names for her upcoming grandson. Now, I had spoken to my brother, but he just said the same thing he had told me before, that they didn’t have a name yet, and I took that as a good answer. But my mom, she would have nothing of this, because I think at the time she wasn’t very happy with the names being bantered about. They were mostly gaelic names, such as Finbar and Brom. Names which my mother was not too pleased. Anyway, knowing this fact, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to create a name of such immense humor and power that any other name would seem normal. This name, I decided, somehow, was Regibarto. And so I told my mother that I knew of a non Gaelic name they were considering, and that it was on my brother and sister-in-law’s short list. Of course, being me, I could not do this with a straight face, so I was giggling sitting next to my mother on the couch. But somehow, she believed me enough to call my brother up on the spot and try to confirm this insanity! Unfortunately, my brother wasn’t in the proper game playing mood, so he denied that he had ever heard the name Regibarto. This might have been the end of the name, if it weren’t as awesome as it is. But to this day, my mother has been using it to refer to the still unborn nephew. And, I have to say, even once he is named by his parents, the poor kid is going to have to deal with a crazy uncle who refers to him as Regibarto from time to time! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
7:25 pm	Quick Update to the AV Post Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. Talking to Paul at work today, he surmised that it might be that the encoding was off, and instead of the receiver thinking that the dialog should go to the central channel (in phase on L and R inputs) it should go to the rear channel (out of phase on L and R inputs). I guess that’s a bit simplified for how Prologic works, but the upshot of this talk is that I hooked up my surround speakers to see if the audio was going backwards. Well, no, now it is properly going to the CENTER CHANNEL. Which is great, it works now, but that means that netflix had a bug the other night. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
9:55 pm	A/V equipment sucks Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I’m pretty annoyed right now. For reasons that I really don’t understand, This American Life Season 2, as seen by Netflix Watch Instantly on Xbox 360 Live was not working properly. The music was working fine, and some sound effects, but not the dialog. Now, I think I should explain a bit how things are wired up. The component output goes into the TV, and the stereo audio outputs WERE going into the satellite inputs on my receiver. This has worked perfectly fine since I bought the 360 last fall – but not tonight. I tried two separate episodes of the series, and both “failed”. I tried some other instant watchable Netflix and it worked. I futzed around with the surround settings on the receiver, and occasionally was able to hear Ira Glass, sounding like he was at the bottom of a well. I turned off the 360 in disgust. On a whim, I tried moving the audio outputs to the VCR inputs on the receiver, and lo-and-behold it just works. I really am not sure why the receiver input matters in this case, but there’s bound to be an explanation. Maybe one of me 5 readers knows. If not it will just be a mystery to me. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
6:35 pm	Apricot Liqueur Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. Much like my plum liqueur from last year, I’ve prepared a modified Umeshu. This consists of 1kg of apricots (organically grown in Brentwood!), 750g of rock sugar and 1.5L of shochu (basically 50 proof grain alochol from Japan). It’ll be ready in 6 months to a year. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
11:16 am	Parmesan-Rosemary Biscuits Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. This recipe is for a savory variety of biscuits. You can easily make it a less savory biscuit simply by not adding the parmesan and rosemary. It’s a very simple recipe and pretty much makes serving biscuits out of a tube ridiculous! [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] </img>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;"><strong>Originally published at <a href="http://www.squidopus.net/blog/?p=942">Starry Wisdom</a>. You can comment here or <a href="http://www.squidopus.net/blog/?p=942#comments">there</a>.</strong></p><p>This recipe is for a savory variety of biscuits. You can easily make it a less savory biscuit simply by not adding the parmesan and rosemary. It&#8217;s a very simple recipe and pretty much makes serving biscuits out of a tube ridiculous!</p> <p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3345/3647826448_f9bee0612e.jpg"</img></p> <p><strong>Parmesan-Rosemary Biscuits</strong><br /> Courtesy Cook&#8217;s Illustrated, Issue 89</p> <p><em>makes 12 biscuits</em></p> <ul> <li>2 cups (10 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour</li> <li>2 teaspoons baking powder</li> <li>½ teaspoon baking soda</li> <li>1 teaspoon sugar</li> <li>¾ teaspoon table salt</li> <li>¾ cup (1½ oz) grated Parmesan cheese</li> <li>½ teaspoon finely minced fresh rosemary leaves</li> <li>1 cup cold buttermilk</li> <li>8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 5 minutes, plus 2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing biscuits</li> </ul> <ol> <li>Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 475. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, cheese and rosemary in large bowl. Combine buttermilk and 8 tablespoons butter in medium bow, stirring until butter forms small clumps.</li> <li>Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and stir with rubber spatula until just incorporated and batter pulls away from the side of the bowl. Using greased ¼ cup dry measure (or #16 disher) scoop level amounts of batter onto parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining batter, spacing biscuits 1½ inches apart. Bake until tops are golden brown and crisp, 12 to 14 minutes.</li> <li>Brush biscuit tops with reamining 2 tablespoons melted butter. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 5 minutes before serving.</li> <li>To refresh day old biscuits, heat them in a 300-degree oven for 10 minutes.</li> <ol> (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
1:56 pm	On Food and You Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. On Wednesday (May 27, 2009) I was lucky enough to be able to see a preview performance of the film Food, Inc. at the Metreon. It was actually a Yelp event, probably the best one I’ve been to. In addition to a preview of the movie, the filmmaker Robert Kenner, and Michael Pollan (well known for his food journalism as of late) were on hand for a Q and A after the screening. Since I’ve been interested in the topic of this film for a long time (at least a decade if not more), and have read several major books on the subject (Pollan’s, as well as another contributor to the film, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation), and I just saw Pollan speak at at a Long Now seminar just a few weeks prior, I didn’t really learn anything new during the movie. However, it was interesting to see things I already knew reinforced by the motion picture medium. The movie is a wonderful survey of the issues related to food health and safety that are in large part a product of the colossal agribusiness system in the United States. There are many origins for the problems we have now, including the “Farm Bill”, particularly how it evolved over the last few decades of the twentieth century; the “fast food” lifestyle of the population of the United States; and, most disturbingly, the vast curtain that’s been drawn across the populations eye’s by agribusiness and their friends in the government. Time is ripe for change in many areas, and we shouldn’t overlook our ‘food’ policy. There is a draft food safety bill currently in congress which addresses many issues of food safety that are cause for concern, but it is far from perfect. Of particular concern to me is that it seems to favor big business by the yearly fee structure, as well as the traceability requirements (particularly the interoperability clause in the bill. Now, paper or an excel spreadsheet should be interoperable, but…). $1000 a year per facility is nothing for big business, but for a small operation it’s a lot of money. True, there is an exemption for farms that sell directly to consumers and restaurants, but there are plenty of small producers who would be adversely affected. I don’t have the full picture of the economics, and I know that funding any changes is important, but this method is particularly regressive. Some sort of sliding scale based on revenue would be a better idea (or perhaps a corporate tax increase? there’s always hoping). There is also a call out to put in a requirement for facilities to self-test for pathogens and report positive results, which seems like a good idea, but not a panacea. I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly what this bill should do or how it should be changed to be most effective and fair. I did read this interesting blog post that argues that smaller is better, and in a lot of ways that makes sense at many levels (except the top, but frankly, feck them). Now, a small food producer is not necessarily safer than a large food producer, BUT any negative outcome of their production would be contained. And smaller generally means more local, which means savings in carbon output (but, well, this is a complex issue since the majority of carbon used in farming is in the growing of the crops, not in the transportation - and anyway, exploiting the various seasons across the country makes sense. Just because I live in CA and can get fresh produce year round from local farms doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t export our food to the rest of the country). We’re used to some things in this country. Super cheap junk food, cheap meat, and expensive vegetables. This leads to a particularly awful, unhealthy, and ecologically unsound diet. A little bit of change in the way americans eat (and the way our food is provided), could have vast implications in our health, and environment. It’s a very tangled web, and I could probably talk or write about this for hours and still be making almost no sense to anyone who is new to the issues. But the important thing I want to do is get people thinking, because thinking about these issues brings up some inconvenient truths. And I can’t see a better way to get this into the mainstream than Kenner’s movie. I urge everyone to see it, and to suggest it to everyone they know. I also urge you to contact your congresspeople and urge them to give us a useful and sane food safety bill - something that’s been needed for a long time. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
12:34 pm	Hummus Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I had people over yesterday, and one of the things I provided to eat was hummus. In general, I think it’s a great party food because almost everyone likes it (and I don’t think I want anyone who doesn’t like it at my place!), it’s healthy, and it’s actually pretty easy to make. Here is the recipe I used, which I think I grabbed from Cook’s Illustrated, but I am too lazy to go look that up, and I already had it pasted in to my email for some reason. Note: this can easily be doubled Restaurant Style Hummus 3 tablespoons juice from 1 to 2 lemons 1/4 cup water 6 tablespoons tahini stirred well 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus extra for drizzling 1 (14 ounce) can chickpeas, drained or rinsed 1 small garlic clove, minced or pressed (about 1/2 teaspoon) 1/2 teaspoon table salt 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin pinch cayenne 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro or parsley leaves Combine lemon juice and water in small bowl or measuring cup. Whisk together tahini and 2 tablespoons oil in second small bowl or measuring cup. Set aside 2 tablespoons chickpeas for garnish. Process remaining chickpeas, garlic, salt, cumin, and cayenne in food processor until almost fully ground, about 15 seconds. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. With machine running add lemon juice-water mixture in a steady stream through feed tube. Scrape down bowl and continue to process for 1 minute. With machine running, add oil-tahini mixture in steady stream through feed tube; continue to process until hummus is smooth and creamy, about 15 seconds. Scrape down bowl as needed. Transfer hummus to serving bowl, sprinkle reserved chickpeas and cilantro/parsley over surface, cover with plastic wrap, and let stand until flavors meld, at least 30 minutes. Drizzle with olive oil and serve. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
10:01 pm	Star Trek Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I saw Star Trek (2009) twice - once with my parents while I was in Chicago (on IMAX), and then again when I got back to San Francisco with Mackenzie (35mm). It was worth seeing twice, honestly. Which means I’m already saying I like the movie before I start talking about it. So, without any spoilers, I will just say that J.J. Abrams hit a home run with this movie. It’s far from perfect - if you spend enough time thinking about the story, you’ll get a bit disgruntled, but then again, it’s Star Trek - meaning it’s supposed to be entertaining and one hopes that any literary deficiencies in the movie would not get in the way of that. And this movie succeeds in spades in that regard. The casting is quite good, with the actors capturing the essence and feeling of the roles they are replaying - oh and the villain is good too. And cool special effects. Yes, I liked it. 7 out of 8.1 rabbit turds. (Comment on this)
10:46 am	The Outcome Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. So, I failed in my quest to babble about all six ballot props, but you can rest assured that 1E was as misguided as the rest of them. I guess the populace wasn’t really hearing it either, since the results of the election were pretty pathetic (source: Secretary of State’s Web Site): outcome Proposition Title Yes Votes % No Votes % N 1A “Rainy Day” Budget Stabilization Fund 1,334,724 34.1% 2,569,677 65.9% N 1B Education Funding. Payment Plan. 1,460,630 37.4% 2,435,276 62.6% N 1C Lottery Modernization Act 1,376,145 35.4% 2,507,236 64.6% N 1D Children’s Services Funding 1,331,624 34.3% 2,550,562 65.7% N 1E Mental Health Funding 1,299,638 33.6% 2,563,412 66.4% Y 1F Elected Officials Salaries 2,874,524 73.9% 1,016,557 26.1% The only thing that passed is the “useless anyway you look at it” Proposition 1F. But really as a whole, you can see this election as a referendum on the Legislature. They aren’t doing what we are electing them to do, and I hope that people remember this at the next general election and vote them out. In the meanwhile, maybe they’ll do their job. This goes double for the GOP members who have to learn that occasionally one must “disagree and commit”. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
4:49 pm	Proposition 1D - kid’s can’t vote Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. This proposition is pretty much everything I abhor about the proposition system. 10 years ago, Proposition 10 was passed, which created a tobacco tax to fund early childhood development programs. Now, only a bit more than 10 years later, the legislature is telling the electorate it wants to raid this fund, clearing out the current savings, as well as using current revenue for general fund purposes. Of course, it is claimed that the money will be used to help fund children; Proposition 1D Protects Children’s Services Funding. Helps Balance State Budget Temporarily provides greater flexibility in funding to preserve health and human services for young children while helping balance the state budget in a difficult economy. But if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. The budget is broken, and it needs to be fixed, but robbing Peter to pay Paul isn’t the way to do it. The state needs new sources of revenue (not just new ways of shifting spending), and this can only be accomplished with new taxes - oh which the legislature is doing, but underhandedly, since they don’t require voter approval, but imposed in a very unfair way. With income and sales taxes as the most profitable revenue sources, the budget is going to always be doomed to follow whatever fate consumers are feeling. Without a strong corporate and in particular corporate real estate tax base, there is no real solution. Until I see a real effort of compromise from the state GOP, I’m not going to take anything of this sort seriously. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
2:55 pm	Proposition 1F (aka the feel-good Amendment) Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. I’m going to go out of order here and post about 1F before doing 1D and 1E in the next day or two. Here is the text of 1F from the ballot: Proposition 1F. Elected Officials’ Salaries. Prevents Pay Increases During Budget Deficit Years — State of California (Legislative Constitutional Amendment - Majority Approval Required) Encourages balanced state budgets by preventing elected Members of the Legislature and statewide constitutional officers, including the Governor, from receiving pay raises in years when the state is running a deficit. Directs the Director of Finance to determine whether a given year is a deficit year. Prevents the Citizens Compensation Commission from increasing elected officials’ salaries in years when the state Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties is in the negative by an amount equal to or greater than one percent of the General Fund. Fiscal Impact: Minor state savings related to elected state officials’ salaries in some cases when the state is expected to end the year with a budget deficit. I guess I can’t really argue with this in substance. There is nothing wrong with the Legislature not getting raises in deficit years, but this is also a brain dead amendment which we shouldn’t need. Putting this on the ballot is to let the electorate pat themselves son the back and make them feel like they did something good - although, as Chris Rock says, you don’t give people credit for not doing what their not supposed to do. It seems that there is a pretty good chance that this is the only measure that will pass. And well, I don’t really care either way on it. It’s not going to really fix anything, but it won’t hurt either. So yea, let’s all feel-good! (Comment on this)
Monday, May 11th, 2009
10:09 pm	Proposition 1C - The Lottery Fiasco Originally published at Starry Wisdom. You can comment here or there. From what I can tell, the Lottery in California is considered to be a failure. It passed in 1984 (Prop 37) as a way to raise more money for education without raising taxes, but the general sentiment is that it hasn’t been particular effective. And because of this, the legislature now wants to bet that it will be successful in the future, and borrow against this future success. Oh, and and the same time, the limitation towards only spending the proceeds towards education is going to go away. Instead the legislature would need to appropriate general fund revenues equal to the 2009-2009 lottery year (adjusted for inflation, student counts, etc) per perpetuity. So, a bumper crop of lottery would mean nary for education. The real purpose of this bill is to allow deficit spending (a violation of the current balanced budget amendment passed in Prop 58). Borrowing agains the future to pay the present is clearly the proper solution to any sort of budget. Never mind that future revenues are unpredictable. Never mind that the reason the lottery likely passed in the first place was that it was designed to fund ONLY education. It’s just “slight of math” to look impressive and do nothing of true value. (Comment on this)