take me wif u

moar funny pictures

our multy, ahn

hooray for otters

i've always been a big fan of otters since a trip to the monterrey bay aquarium oh-so-long-ago, so it goes without saying that i've been a big fan of the cuteotters.com website since it started up. when we went to seattle, i went to the aquarium just to see their otters and get pictures to send in to cuteotters.com. i sent them off to the site's creator and dedicated otter fan, peter, last week and he just posted them today. so, go check out my otter pics on cuteotters.com and enjoy the rest of peter's otter-riffic (see what i did there?) site! hooray for otters!

Purses

Is there some new law that I'm unaware of that requires that purses be both ugly AND expensive? Sheesh.

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my vancouver photos

capilano river
Originally uploaded by lornababy

check em out on flickr

my seattle photos

moody space needle
Originally uploaded by lornababy

check em out on flickr

this picture...

...will probably scare the shit out of the flyover states. i love it.

orca squeak

just back from vacation and processing my pictures to put up on flickr (soon, i promise). in the meantime, here is the hilite of the vacation - an orca squeaking at us!



note that the collective gasping and awwwwing at the cuteness is louder than the sound the whale just made.

Happy 4th of July!

Spent the day enjoying the fine weather in Seattle with Tia at the Mariner's game.

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Guess where I am

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'bye, george

from the official record of the supreme court of the u.s. (438 u.s. 726, pp. 753-754):

The big one, the word fuck that's the one that hangs them up the most. [']Cause in a lot of cases that's the very act that hangs them up the most. So, it's natural that the word would, uh, have the same effect. It's a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. (laughter) Fuck. (Murmur) You know, it's easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with a kuh. Right? (laughter) A little something for everyone. Fuck (laughter) Good word. Kind of a proud word, too. Who are you? I am FUCK. (laughter) FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) Tune in again next week to FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) It's an interesting word too, [']cause it's got a double kind of a life - personality - dual, you know, whatever the right phrase is. It leads a double life, the word fuck. First of all, it means, sometimes, most of the time, fuck. What does it mean? It means to make love. Right? We're going to make love, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. (laughter) we're really going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. Right? And it also means the beginning of life, it's the act that begins life, so there's the word hanging around with words like love, and life, and yet on the other hand, it's also a word that we really use to hurt each other with, man. It's a heavy. It's one that you have toward the end of the argument. (laughter) Right? (laughter) You finally can't make out. Oh, fuck you man. I said, fuck you. (laughter, murmur) Stupid fuck. (laughter) Fuck you and everybody that looks like you. (laughter) man. It would be nice to change the movies that we already have and substitute the word fuck for the word kill, wherever we could, and some of those movie cliches would change a little bit. Madfuckers still on the loose. Stop me before I fuck again. Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump. Easy on the clutch Bill, you'll fuck that engine again. (laughter)

the first time i heard this, i was a sophomore in college taking a class called freedom of communication. we studied the famous pacifica case and not only was the above passage required reading, but my professor, geoff cowan, actually read the filthy words bit verbatim in class. unfortunately, though, i took the class a year too late. prof. cowan did the bit every year in class and, the year before, unbeknownst to him, george carlin's daughter, kelly, was taking his class. well, kelly told her dad that her professor was stealing his bit, and george carlin came to the next session and did the bit for real for the whole class! when we were studying for the final for this class, my friend, taleen and i, traded off reading this to each other. to this day, all i have to do is say "i am fuck, fuck of the mountain" and i can hear tal laugh all the way from san francisco!


sorry for all the f-bombs on my blog lately, but sometimes it just needs to be said. and george couldn't have said it better. 'bye, george. we'll miss ya. hope you're in heaven eatin' pork chops with jesus.

fuck you fox news

see Obama pictures

really? obama's baby mama? are you saying that because you think that's something that black people say? do you even know what baby mama means? i bet you do. so, you're really going to insinuate that an ivy league educated, successful woman lawyer is somehow the same as an unwed mother? really? pander to racial stereotypes much? so, to fox news, i say, fuck you. no, really. just fuck right off.

Only in l.a.

Cosmetic foot surgery? Seriously. WTF?
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Truth in advertising

Around the corner from the other building. Must be the same owners.

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Tell it like it is

The owners of an apartment building in my neighborhood apparently have a sense of humor.

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Guess where I am?

My favorite place in the world!

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You're how old!?

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Holy shit, it's raining

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i can't stop

this one almost made me do a spit take


more graph humor and song chart memes

this is beyond geeky

from a site i just found out about called graph jam: pop culture for people in cubicles.


more song chart memes

It's take your dog to work day

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I love how weird people are

Check out the collection of hot wheels in the background. This is at my local von's. One of the checkers is kinda special and he always sets these up at his checkstand. Haven't had the courage to ask why.

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this is why i got a camera-phone

i've noticed this truck on the road in my neighborhood a few times and i always wanted to take a picture. seriously, how big a celia cruz fan do you have to be to do this to you car!? for the non-spanish speakers in the hizzy, it says: celia, we'll never forget you! azucar was her catch-phrase - it means sugar.

azucar!

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i think it's time for a new keyboard

i've worn off a lot of the letters on my keyboard. it doesn't bother me, since i don't look at the letters when i type. but it really freaks other people out when they see my keyboard or have to use my computer. tech support hates me. the letters that are worn off are: e; r; t (mostly gone); u (mostly gone); s; d; f; h (mostly gone); c; v; and m (mostly gone). here's the weird thing, though, the letters aren't worn off evenly or even in a pattern that suggests use of more letters than others. more letters on the left side are worn off that the right. and yes, i am procrastinating, why do you ask?

mama's got a brand new bag

well, i finally found my way into a container store for the first time today. baaaad, baaad place for me to go. so many things i didn't know i needed! i think i did ok, though. but, i'm going to try to not ever go back. one thing i did find was pretty cool. i've been looking for a new briefcase-type bag to carry stuff to and fro the office. not a "nice" briefcase, i already have one of those, but one to replace the more casual bag that i have that i can throw my computer, files, dogs, etc. into. i didn't want to get a new leather bag, and the faux-leather one i had before couldn't take the wear and tear, but i didn't quite know what to get instead. here's what i found in the container store!



it's from the billboard series of bags from ecologic designs. it's made from reclaimed billboard vinyl, which is cool because it's really sturdy and easy to clean. plus, to me, it's even more cool to give a second use to something that is not recyclable or biodegradable, which vinyl is not. they've got a lot of other cool products made from sustainable, reclaimed or recycled materials, like rubber from tire innertubes, plastic bottles, hemp and bamboo.

p.s., that's one of my other reclaimed materials bags peeking in the background. it's made of plastic from juice pouches cut into strips and woven into a bag and it's currently my knitting bag.

loldog

before there was the joy that is multy and the unbearable cuteness that is max, there was buddy, the original loldog...


moar funny pictures

you can vote for his funny little mug over on i can has cheezburger by clicking on his picture and then rating how many cheezburgers worth of funny you think his picture is.

as a bonus lol, i'll tell you a little story about buddy. when we first got him, i was living at home (it was during my first year of law school and i was b-r-o-k-e - little did i know three years later how b-r-o-k-e i could get). anyway, we'd only had buddy a few weeks and he was still a wild young dog. first, the scene. we have this room in our house that used to be called the den but is now my mom's office and the scene of her recent "watch this" debacle. the den used to have this wide double door sized area that opened onto the living room but was blocked off with a bar (and there used to be those funky glazed mirror squares on one of the walls - the house was built in the 70s, you know). i had my couch from my old apartment in the den perpendicular to the bar. so anyway, one night, i'm studying in the kitchen (facing the living room) and my mom is on her computer in the den. buddy was all riled up for some reason and was running around the house like a crazy dog. all of a sudden, he runs into the den and i heard my mom yell at him. i looked up just in time to see buddy come sailing (and i mean sailing) out of the den over the bar. he had apparently run into the den, jumped up on the sofa and launched over the bar. the dog had lift, i tell you, he cleared the barstools on the other side of the bar and hit the ground running without missing a step before he did a few more laps. it was the funniest thing i ever saw a dog do, before or since.

pick-up lines not to try

so i'm waiting for the bus last week and overheard a great conversation. i love the freedom of earbuds. if you have them in, people assume you aren't listening or can't hear them, and just act like you aren't even there. if i overhear something interesting, i pretend to be adjusting the volume and then turn off my ipod so i can listen. i'm not often disappointed.

last friday's chance conversation was great. there was this very beautiful but very prim black muslim woman sitting at the bench waiting for the same bus i take. "perfect," i thought, "very low chance of crazy here, i'll sit next to her." i was right. she was not crazy. but she was a crazy magnet. right after i sat down i see this guy walk up and make a beeline for her and start to chat her up. from the get-go i could tell homeboy's elevator did not, shall we say, go to the top floor. he tries a few lines on her and then tries to talk a little islam with her. it seems he's been to a mosque once in his life, so he obviously feels he knows everything about the muslim faith. by the way she was shutting him down, he apparently did not. undaunted, he moves on. she had some papers in her hand which she was obviously trying to read; whether because she actually was interested in them or was just trying to give this doofus a hint mattered very little as he just kept talking. "whatcha reading? is that a job application? are they hiring at the mall?" "no," she replied politely, "it's about some insurance for my new job." "oh," he says, and then, apropos of nothing and without skipping a beat, he says, "i'm trying to get a gun." she didn't say a word but he just kept going. "yeah, i keep trying to apply but they won't let me have one. they said it's about all my prior misdemeanors. they say i'm supposed to file some kind of papers to get them cleared up or something but it just seems like so much trouble. i mean i know lots of places i could get a gun." she kept on kind of nodding and mmm-hmmm'ing at him very politely until he finally gave up, gave her a butchered salaam alaikum and wandered off. when he was safely in the distance, i just turned my head and looked at her and our eyes met and we just both shook our heads and went back to what we were doing.

oh the joys of being awake at 5am

according to the u.s. geological service earthquake site for recent earthquakes in california and nevada:

A microearthquake occurred at 5:13:17 AM (PDT) on Thursday, March 27, 2008.
The magnitude 2.4 event occurred 2 km (1 miles) WSW of Culver City, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 8 km ( 5 miles).

Magnitude 2.4 - local magnitude (ML)
Time Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 5:13:17 AM (PDT)
Distance from Culver City, CA - 2 km (1 miles) WSW (242 degrees)

no duh. 1 mile wsw of culver city is pretty much right under my house. i was "lucky" enough to be up catching up on some work and i heard the glasses on the shelf behind me rattle for a second or two, then i felt and heard the jolt, then some more rattling for a second or two, then it was done. a mild event to be sure, but, as i said, basically right under my house. i was standing by the time the jolt hit, but it was over so fast, i didn't have time to get to a doorway. and of course, there's there's always that first second or two where you're standing there frozen like a deer in the headlights wondering how bad it is going to get. thankfully, not so bad.

the madness of march

i love march madness. it's been 13 years, but this is still one of the best buzzer beaters in the history of the tournament. it is also one of the best moments of my life.

i love paris in the spring time

on my google home page, i have the widget that shows the eiffel tower cam in paris. every morning when i start my computer, i save a screen capture from the web cam for some yet-to-be-announced project that i probably will never put together.

anyway, today's picture was just perfect. it's 4 pm on a sunny friday afternoon in springtime paris. doesn't it make you just want to get on a plane?

serenade

i work on the 7th floor of a 12 story office building and we get our windows washed by those guys on the hanging scaffold every once in a while. even though you know it's coming, it's always a little shocking to look out your 7th story window and all of a sudden see a person standing there. and there's a weird 21st century etiquette problem. do you look at the guys? do you acknowledge them? this morning's window washing was extra-surreal, as one of the guys was singing (mexican ballads, of course) so i got serenaded for a few minutes while i was working.

tell it, kitteh

doggy bag

multy eats his way through a bag of dog food.

ethan's first bruin basketball game

ethan's first bruin basketball game
Originally uploaded by lornababy

imagine that

got some cool news on tuesday and thought i'd share, just in case you don't read peanut butter etouffee, the food blog that i do with my mom and aunt. pbe was selected as a "blog of note" by blogger. don't ask me how. it's not like we submitted the site for consideration or anything. anyway, we'll get pimped on the blogger home page for probably about 10 days, which will drive a lot of traffic to the blog, much more than normal. on a good day, we'll get about 50 or so hits; today we got 3,000. being called a blog of note is no oscar, but i'm kind of flattered. pbe was just something that we decided to do for kicks and the benefits have been in the enjoyment we get in cooking and writing about cooking, in keeping in touch with each other in a new and interesting way and in meeting new cooking friends all over the world. we have a handful of regular readers, strangers that have become friends, but to know that we might now expand that circle is kind of cool. imagine that.

vote

i know it's been a long time, but i've been incredibly busy. this is what's been on my mind lately. if you live in a super tuesday primary state, i hope you'll vote today and i'll hope you'll vote for barack obama...

no way

u$c might relocate their football games to the rose bowl? i won't stand for it.

on that note, the big game is this saturday. we've been pretty bad this year, but we've also taken out two top 10 teams, so why not u$c? they've shown they can be beaten [cough-stanford-cough-cough] this year. and, oh wait, didn't we humiliate them last year, as well?

here's a fairly detailed history of "one of the most intense college rivalries in the United States" on (you guessed it) wikipedia.

and, finally, just for kicks, my favorite commercial ever!



go bruins!

you're all geniuses

apparently, my blog's reading level is:

Get a Cash Advance

i don't know what the criteria are for giving it such a designation (other than typing in my blog url and hitting enter), but i won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

so, if you're reading this, you're probably a genius. yay, you!

globe trotting

after visiting the fine cities of san francisco, london and washington, dc all in one month...i'm a little tired.

i was sick as a dog for the trip to sf, so no pictures.

but here's london:



see the rest at my london flickr set.

then, we hit dc on the way back to witness the wedding that many still can't believe actually, finally happened:



and then i made my bunky schlepp to the dc zoo to see the pandas and much squeeeeeee-ing did ensue:



check out the rest of the photos on my panda flickr set!

Fred Goldman is on our flight

Yes, that Fred Goldman. Hope he's flying first class on OJ's money! 
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how could you not love that face?

multy
Originally uploaded by lornababy

here's multy patiently enduring me trying out the new camera.

IMG_0001

IMG_0001
Originally uploaded by lornababy

my first photo with my new canon powershot sd750. london, here we come!

UCLA beats Cal - or why my voice is gone

UCLA vs. Cal
Originally uploaded by esthereggy

oh, the trials and tribulations of being a bruin fan. how many times have I complained that we play to the level of our opponent? on a bad day, that means a humiliating loss to a winless notre dame (which apparently is so upsetting, it sends some bruin fans into labor). on a good day, it means staying neck and neck with and ultimately emerging victorious over one of the top college football teams in the country. and sometimes, it means walking into the rose bowl just hoping the team doesn't embarrass you. it's a psychological trick bruin football fans use to keep from being tremendously disappointed, embarrassed, suicidal, etc. it's really kind of sad when you think about it. the bruin faithful should have the right to expect the greatest out of our teams - we were the first school to win 100 national championships, weren't we? but when the bruins exceed your expectations, boy, does it feel great!!!

such was the case on saturday when we watched the bruins embarrass cal at the rose bowl...again. we started out a little shaky, but finally got a rhythm and really had a competition with cal. sure, we don't have much of a pass defense, but we successfully contained their running game (which makes me wonder why tedford kept it on the ground so much during the second half). by the 4th quarter, bunky and I were agreeing that, even if we lost, we'd still be happy to put up such a good performance against cal. and then cal had the ball and there was about two minutes left and they were near the 30 yard line on a third down with five yards to go. all they need is a field goal to go ahead and there won't be enough time for us to score again. and then longshore throws it and verner intercepts it and i screamed the most high-pitched, horror-film scream for all 76 yards that he ran it back for the touchdown and for several minutes thereafter.
and that is why i had no voice for two days straight! go bruins. please don't embarrass us in pullman on saturday.

p.s. thanks to flickr's esthereggy for sharing her photo of the scoreboard.

welcome ethan

the newest addition to our tailgating crew, who will be carpooling with brian and sarah, arrived on sunday, october 7, 2007...

the littlest bruin: ethan riley

minutes after our humiliating loss to notre dame, ethan announced that he would be arriving soon. coincidence? i think not. rumor has it he already knows the eight clap.



congratulations, brian & sarah!

so, tell me, how long DOES it take to get to lake tahoe?

simple flight to reno, right? wrong. my 5:30 flight was said to be "on time" on the departures board when i arrived at the airport at 3:00. by about 4:00, however, it was cancelled due to "mechanical issues." they , apparently, made an announcement, which could not be heard where i was waiting (ahem, the bar). when i arrived at the gate at 4:30, i thought i had more than enough time. around 5:15, when they still hadn't called my flight, i decided it might be worth asking, what was going on, which was when i learned the flight was cancelled. they could put me on a 9:15 flight tomorrow morning, but my meeting starts at 9. the only way i could get into reno tonight was to get on a flight to seattle, then catch a connection to reno. and an hour and a half direct flight suddenly becomes a five hour marathon. when i arrived in seattle, i was pleased to discover that i had less than 30 minutes to make my connecting flight and the gate where i landed and the gate for my connecting flight were at complete opposite ends of the airport and required me to take a series of four trains to get to the right section of the airport. round about train three i could hear them paging me for last call for the flight. after the fourth train, i got to run up three flights of stairs to get to the concourse and then, of course, my gate was at the complete opposite end of that. so i got to run through the airport in high heeled boots with my luggage flapping, then down another flight of stairs and across the tarmac to the plane. they slammed the door right behind me. the flight on the prop jet to reno was bumpy and we came down through the most amazing rain storm to land. great, i finally got to reno at 10:45. then there's still the hour and a half shuttle ride to south lake tahoe and of course, i was so thrilled to learn that the next shuttle doesn't leave until 12:30...which puts me to the hotel at 2 am...which is roughly 12 hours after i left the office to go to the airport today. i think i could've driven here faster.

still waitin' in the airport

left the bar, now at the gate. crazy woman literally running around the boarding area picking up newspapers from chairs and ground. don't know why. i'll probably find out, tho. odds are good she'll be sitting next to me on the plane, as i am a known crazy-magnet.

drinkin' in the airport bar

waitin' on my flight in the airport bar, sitting next to two little old ladies (in their 70s for sure), drinking whisky with beer chasers. i hope i'm that cool when i'm 70.

only in l.a. ...

...could a house cause a traffic jam. apparently, someone was moving a house on a truck via the 101 freeway and they got stuck because they couldn't fit it under a bridge. d'oh. so they left the house at the side of the freeway and, of course, because it is a blank vertical surface, some jackhole tagged it overnight.



thanks to curbed la for the pic.

five years ago today...

happy anniversary, bunk!

penguin smorch

penguin smorch test

constitutional spam

ok, since those fuckers in congress decided to make warrentless wiretaps (which includes email, not just phones) legal, i decided to take bill maher's joke seriously and am going to start emailing myself a copy of the constitution on a regular basis. maybe that way there's a chance that someone in the government will actually read the constitution. [i heart bill maher.] anyway, i sent the first one last night from my gmail account to my work account and i just realized that it wasn't in my in box. so, i start looking around for the email and it was...wait for it...in my spam folder. yes, you heard me. the text of the u.s. constitution triggers the spam filter yet the eleventy-two million penis enlargement-canadian pharmacy-replica watches-nigerian "investment" opportunities-incest porn emails somehow slip by? seriously. wtf?

btw, i'm changing my band name on guitar hero rocks the 80's to "constitutional spam" as soon as i get home tonite.

baby mcgrashoppersons

i found this little guy in my garden...

calling dr. freud

usually my dreams are really weird and don't make a lot of sense. things that have been on my mind may percolate up and show up in the dream in little bits, but i rarely have one of those dreams where i wake up and know that my subconscious is trying to tell me something. well, i took a nap yesterday afternoon. cue dream sequence...

i'm in a cement courtyard or plaza type area surrounded by buildings. for some reason i'm trying to wrestle a stick of dynamite away from someone, i don't know who and i can't see their face. i get the dynamite but in the process of doing so, the fuse drags along the cement and sparks. the fuse is now lit, it looks like a sparkler, and i start trying to put it out. i blow on it. it doesn't work. i lick my finger and thumb and pinch the fuse like a candle wick. that doesn't work and now i've burnt my finger. i try to stomp the fuse out. no luck. i wildly look around and see a fountain. i plunge the dynamite under water. it keeps burning under water and now starts burning faster. i have the idea to pull the fuse out of the dynamite. it doesn't work, it's like the fuse is welded in there. all the time, the fuse keeps getting shorter and shorter and i keep getting more and more panicked. i'm yelling for the person that i got the dynamite away from to help me, but they're gone. finally, the fuse is getting so short, i know the dynamite is going to explode, so i just throw it. it goes into a building and the building explodes. i realize the building is a hospital.

this is the perfect metaphor for my job. people come to me with their problems and i have to help solve them and when their situation goes badly, it's suddenly all my fault, because, by helping them, regardless of the fact that i did everything right, regardless of the fact that i did everything i could to help them, regardless of the fact that they caused their own problems in the first place, i was the one holding the bomb when it blew up.

not your father's ukelele

check out jake shimabukuro doing a pretty amazing version of the beatles' "while my guitar gently weeps"... on the ukelele. i'm not joking. i'm not very forgiving when it comes to people covering beatles' tunes, but this kid is downright rad:

dog personalities

as i was feeding my dogs last night, i realized that one of my dogs, multy, always seems to have this impatient, incredulous attitude as i'm setting down the food. he looks at me like he'd like to say "come on, bitch, i can't believe you haven't put down the food already!" if only he could form the words with his furry little lips. i can barely get my hand out of the way before he's diving for the bowl. max, on the other hand, always seems very skittish and waits for me to put down the food and leave before he will eat...like he can't believe that i won't take it away. as i have said many times before, one of these dogs should really be black, they are so different.

update: upon re-reading this, i realized that the last sentence only makes sense if you know that my dogs both have all white fur. also, what kind of mental problems do i have that i think my dogs have expressions on their faces? i guess we'll leave that one for another day.

in honor of july 4th

a cartoon video about the father of our nation. apparently g-dub was a badass. who knew? this is nsfw and nsfawieooodhasoh (not safe for anyone who is easily offended or otherwise doesn't have a sense of humor). it is damn funny, though.

f&*% the dos and the uscis

that's really all that needs to be said about that.

liberated of his watch

some pickpocket fleeced dubya of his watch while he was shaking hands with a crowd of "adoring" albanians. check it out, at about :46 into the video, you can see dubya's wearing a watch on his left wrist and at about :55 you can see someone tugging on his arm and then the watch is gone.

a new lens for my camera

my bunk got me a new lens for my (ahem, his old) camera for my bday, so i thought i'd visit with the bees in my nasturtium this morning...







[it's worth it to click thru to my flickr page and see the original size photos for close ups on the bees.]

memorial day weekend in bed

so, who gets a cold in the end of may? i do. this sucks. so, i'm in the fold out bed in the guest room with the sore throat and the stuffiness and the completely plugged up right ear. did i mention this sucks? i'm completely wired, though, so i'm not at a loss for entertainment or communication during my banishment. i've got my laptop, my blackberry and my zen mp3 player. i've got my trillian instant messenger going on my laptop so i can buzz my cutie to bring me tea, if i need it. it's like a 21st century bell! and i've got the slingbox connection going, so i can watch tv from my laptop while in bed. on the low tech side, i've got two white furballs taking up some space on the bed doing their best to keep me warm. i'd like to think they're concerned about me, but they're just happy to have any excuse to sleep on the bed. right now, i'm watching the indy 500. there's three women driving this year (sarah fisher, danica patrick & milka duno) - how cool is that!?

samaritans too busy these days?

as i was walking up to the bus stop this morning, i saw a woman in a car pull up next to another car and start honking. "oh, she must know the person in the other car," i thought. then she really started honking. the light was green, so she was holding up traffic and the other car wasn't moving either. i was starting to be annoyed by this traffic-blocking reunion. after a few seconds more, the woman drove off, but the car in the other lane was not moving. i looked up and then i saw that the driver, a man in his 30s or so, was just sitting there, his head slumped forward onto his chest. just as the car drove off, another woman approached the car on foot and started knocking on the driver's side window. nothing. no response. the guy did not move. not good. i got out my phone and started fumbling with my phone to call 911. i told the kids sitting on the bus bench to look around for a cop car and flag it down if they saw one. as i was still fumbling with the phone, the woman who had been knocking on the window came over to the sidewalk and, just as i was asking her if she had tried to open his door, the guy in the car snapped his head up and drove right off like nothing happened. he must have been asleep or having a george michael moment or something. now here's the kicker, after the guy drove off, we were all talking excitedly and one of the kids said, "oh yeah, he was like that for about five minutes." i can't believe that a man could be slumped over in the seat of his car on a busy city street for five minutes until someone did something.

garden

a bee visiting the nasturtium flowers in my patio container garden.

do not name the well...

one of my favorite websites is cuteoverload.com. it's like a little vaction in the middle of a bad day. you can go the site and see cute little kittens and puppies and hamsters and you can't stay mad after looking at a few posts. seriously, they should do up a mobile web capable version so you could calm down people in arguments, etc. by just pushing your mobile phone in someone's face with one of the pictures on the screen. or broadcast it on giant screens all over baghdad. whatev. anyway, there was a podcast that had an interview of the site's creator, meg frost. the interview remarked on how positive all the comments are and i have to agree. i don't generally read too many comments on blogs that i read, except in a few circumstances: cuteoverload; some food blogs; and knitting blogs, like crazy aunt purl. in all these kinds of happy blogs, you tend to get really positive, supportive and funny comments. it restores my faith in humanity. but on critic sites and hipster sites like chowhoundchowhound or mefi, you just get people trying to take the poster and/or the other commenters down a notch. and some of these "cute" sites have huge numbers of readers and tons of comments. it's kind of like web 2.0 providing new proof of the old adage that you draw more flies with honey than vinegar.

...from which you will not drink. oh my god. i've turned into my mother.

otter smooch

cuteotters.com had this picture on the site today (the photo is by flickr member zeul):


look at the smile on the face of the otter being smooched. it kind of reminded me of this picture of me and my bunk:



[i normally don't like to post photos of myself online, but i thought it was a pretty cute parallel.]

The O'Jackass Factor

hfcs on the outs?

economics to the rescue? hfcs may become more expensive as ethanol companies drive up the price of corn (don't even get me started on ethanol), which could prompt soda makers to switch back to sugar. via accidental hedonist.

now if we could only get them to stop using it in every other damn product on the market. this just in, though: trader joes has both ketchup and bbq sauce that are hfcs-free. my momma got me a bottle of ketchup for easter. thank you easter bunny! bok bok!

oh, for fuck's sake

so it's possible that the artificial sweetener splenda is basically 99% made from hfcs. seriously, people. i tried so hard to avoid hfcs for lent and it turns out i may have been consuming it all along. the irony is, i only use splenda in the regular coffee at my office, but i don't use it in the cappucino. i never used to drink the regular coffee and only started drinking it to replace the cappucino, because the cappucino mix had hfcs in it. can you hear me screaming in frustration?

from green republican's post on splenda:

Since sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, they have to use bulking agents to manage the sweetness. Those bulking agents are dextrose and maltodextrin, which come from high fructose corn syrup (pure sugar). And not just a little bit... Since sucralose is SOOOOOO sweet, 99% of the powder in those little Splenda packets is bulking agent.

i say "may" because i can't easily put my finger on information showing that dextrose and maltodextrin are made from hfcs. dextrose is just a form of glucose (sugar). maltodextrin is made from corn starch, but that doesn't mean it's made from hfcs.

but while we're on the subject, let's talk about splenda, which apparently has more in common with pesticide than it does with sugar. from the woman to woman article "sugar substitutes and the potential danger of splenda" by marcelle pick, ob/gyn np:

Splenda is the trade name for sucralose, a synthetic compound stumbled upon in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new pesticide formulation. It is true that the Splenda molecule is comprised of sucrose (sugar) — except that three of the hydroxyl groups in the molecule have been replaced by three chlorine atoms. (To get a better picture of what this looks like, see this image of a sucralose molecule.)

While some industry experts claim the molecule is similar to table salt or sugar, other independent researchers say it has more in common with pesticides. That’s because the bonds holding the carbon and chlorine atoms together are more characteristic of a chlorocarbon than a salt — and most pesticides are chlorocarbons.

the article goes on to state:

So, is Splenda safe? The truth is we just don’t know yet. There are no long-term studies of the side effects of Splenda in humans. The manufacturer’s own short-term studies showed that sucralose caused shrunken thymus glands and enlarged livers and kidneys in rodents. But in this case, the FDA decided that because these studies weren’t based on human test animals, they were not conclusive. Of course, there are countless examples of foods and drugs that have proved dangerous to humans that were first found to be dangerous to laboratory rats, and then again, countless others that have not. So the reality is that we are the guinea pigs for Splenda.

even stevia (an herb that is being promoted as a sweetener, of which i have a big jar at home) is not without it's problems, possibly causing reproductive and metabolism problems and, perhaps even, cancer, according to a nutrition action healthletter published by the center for science in the public interest.

sheesh. i give up.

hfcs update

it's been a rather successful lenten season in terms of the giving up of the hfcs. it wasn't hard to give up the sugary sodas, i rarely have those anyway. but i really miss the flavia cappuccino drinks at my office. i've been good about looking at labels, too, and actually spit a chocolate chip cookie into the trash after finding hfcs in the ingredient list on the package. for those of you that know me, that's pretty much the absolute limit of my willpower. one thing that i've found that has been suprisingly difficult to avoid is ketchup; it's so innocuous sitting there on your burger or waiting for your fries. i'll admit to slipping up a few times with that. i've also been surprised by how ubiquitous hfcs is in items that are supposed to be healthy. for example, it is the first ingredient in power bars and is in hansen's "natural" sodas.

the main reason that i'm really against hfcs is the political aspect, namely the corporate welfare that is involved. corn subsidies and sugar tariffs make corn sweetener really cheap to use. you can't blame companies for using hfcs when its several times cheaper than sugar. however, you can blame the government and the mega-agricultural companies like adm and cargill who conspire to exploit the corn subsidies designed to protect the american family farmer and fatten themselves at the trough of u.s. taxpayer dollars. seriously, someone should bring a r.i.c.o. suit against these people. for your reading pleasure, here's a really good article on the economic realities of hfcs.

in the meantime, only a few more days of lent to go, but i think i'm going to try to keep up with this.

great serialized fiction

i know i've mentioned this author before, but if you didn't listen to me and still aren't reading the blog of cheeseburger brown's serialized short fiction on a regular basis, you need to get with it, people! the most recent story, tim, destroyer of worlds, just linked in with cbb's novel, simon of space (which was written and posted serially over the course of a few months during the summer of 2005), in the most amazing way. this is some of the best writing out there and definitely some of the best stuff on the web and, amazingly, it's free! i can't recommend it enough.

uk comic relief

a spot that ricky gervais did about kenya for the british comic relief. it's 8 1/2 minutes, but watch it all the way to the end, it's worth it...

go bruins!

the tournament starts in just a few minutes. boy, do i love me some march madness. i've got my "howland is my homeboy" shirt on and i'm ready to cheer on my guys! goooooooooooo bruins!

the corn mafia has found me

and it didn't take long.

so i received an interesting comment on yesterday's hfcs post. apparently, someone calling themselves marylandbluecrab has found my humble little blog. nobody reads it except my mom and my aunt and a random canuck or two, so i found it really interesting that someone would leave a comment on my hfcs post, especially one that so resoundingly stated that there's absolutely nothing wrong with hfcs. hmmm... a blank blog with a profile that simply states "female, marketing, washington, dc." could it be any more obvious that my new blog reader is some toady working for a marketing firm paid by a hcfs industry group or perhaps the american beverage association to search the interwebs for bad references to hfcs on a regular basis and post responses that spout their propaganda?

and i beg to differ, marylandbluecrab, that "there's no study out there..." sure, studies that are funded by the american beverage institute and the corn refiners association support your claim. but scientists in the pocket of tobacco companies said smoking is safe for you, too. what about independent studies, such as this one: "Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity," in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 79, No. 4, 537-543, April 2004)? the study's authors state in their abstract:

"The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis. In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain."

simply put, it appears that hfcs doesn't trigger the signals that your body puts out to make you feel full, as opposed to glucose, which does. so, you can drink a lot more hfcs-sweetened coke before you begin to feel full than you would if it were sweetened with sugar. seems like a perfect solution for coke, now doesn't it? yes, americans are chronic, excessive consumers of food (and many other things). but you can't ignore the correlation between the increasing prevalence (i'd almost call it ubiquity) of hfcs in our food and the corresponding rise in obesity and diabetes in this country.

so, welcome, corn mafia. happy reading! i'm glad at least that someone not related to me is reading this blog. ;)

UPDATE: i'm not the only one who has had this experience. check out this guy's article. you can see another corn mafia response in the comments to his article.

high fructose corn syrup

so, i have decided that high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) is the root of all evil. it's in absolutely everything and it appears to be really bad for you. the rise of the use of hfcs and the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in this country have happened at the same time. coincidence? i think not. ever the conspiracy theorist, i'll also point out to you the link between giant agribusiness (adm, cargill) and u.s. government corn subsidies and sugar tariffs that make sugar prohibitively expensive to import.

i'm really sick of being the victim of giant corporations' greed, so i have decided to give hfcs up for lent and see if i can stick with it after. the problem is, hfcs is in freakin' everything and lots of stuff you wouldn't expect. cokes and sodas, candy and off-the-shelf baked goods: it's pretty easy to guess that those items are loaded with the stuff and are pretty easy to avoid. but hfcs lurks everywhere, like in ketchup (which i discovered after eating some fries the other day) and in the mix for the cappuccino for my office's flavia coffee machine (realized that one several days into the process; very upsetting to have to give that up).

i'll be posting lists of products that i find it in as i go along and maybe some articles about hfcs. if i end up dead, you'll know it's the corn mafia and will avenge me, right?

you're on my list

look who stephen colbert has put on notice now...



who knew stephen and i hated the exact same things!?

gravity

john mayer doing a live version of gravity. the audio quality is so-so, but you get the point...

our disposable society

i was just kvetching the other day about the countless plastic bottles associated with my newfound bikram yoga habit: bottles of water; bottles of gatorade; bottles of vitamin water; bottles of propel fitness water. and then the path to freedom urban homestead folks had this little post: bottled water is like driving a hummer. they suggest purchasing one of their stainless steel water bottles as an alternative (yes, these hippies are serious capitalists). i'd try that, except after a bikram yoga class, i'd expect that my water would be hot enough to make tea! i've been lugging around one of those faux-nalgene bottles for a while, but if i forget it, i just buy the water before my class. now, i'm going to make a serious commitment to keep it by my side and try not to be tempted by the fancy vitamin waters and sports drinks. i'm sure by pocketbook will be happier, too.

how i buy it

"At age 41 you will die from wounds delivered by a blender after trying to make your sixteenth magarita [sic] of the day. (And it's on 3:00pm, shame on you!)"

The Amazing Death Predictor would seem frighteningly prescient, except i drink my margaritas on the rocks, not blended.

more knitting

a friend of mine is having a baby, so i thought it would be fun to knit a baby blanket. i'm kind of scarf-ed out for now, you see. although a baby blanket is kind of like a big, wide scarf, now that i think about it. anyhoo, here is the finished product:



and here is some detail:



for all of you knitters out there, here's the specs. it's a seed stitch border with seed stitch "spacer rows" (for lack of a better word) and stockinette stitch squares in between. it's nice because it looks like patchwork, but it's not separate squares (after two granny square afghans, i vowed never again would i stitch another blanket together). the pattern called for merino wool, but i used a 50/50 merino-cotton blend so it would be nice and soft. i thought i had my gauge correct, but it turned out a little bigger than the 21 x 24 inches; mine's more like 25 x 27 inches, or so. it could have something to do with the cotton blend. i knit it on size 3 circular needles.

this project became quite an obsession, as i started a little late and bit off a little more than i could chew. i was knitting for about two solid weeks from when i got home at night until i went to bed and at every spare moment in between: at lunch, on the bus, during half-time at the basketball games! there are a bunch of mistakes, but i don't think the baby will notice and hopefully it makes the gift that much more "charming."

a poll...

in which order do you put your shoes and socks on?
	sock-shoe-sock-shoe
	sock-sock-shoe-shoe
	shoe-shoe-sock-sock, like jebus and president bush intended
	don't know, don't care
pollcode.com free polls

?se habla espanol, suc "student" athletes?

i fear this blog is fast becoming one long rant about why i hate suc, but they just make it so easy. apparently, it turns out that some of their football players, the dumbass song girl who cheered for a texas touchdown and several other athletes can't hack the courses at suc, so they tried to take the easy way out with a guaranteed a (or b, if you're lazy and don't show up for class) with a former suc grad who teaches an easy spanish class at l.a. trade tech.

rabbit kicks snakes a*$

...or why i will never, ever walk under a tree again, ever.

oh please oh please oh please

suc may have their national championship taken away because of reggie bush and his greed. ha ha! [say in nelson voice]

video game violence?

so bunky and i have gotten a little hooked on the new xbox game viva pinata. it's vaguely japanese, in that it is a mix of strange and cute. however i'm getting a little worried that it's starting to affect us in the wrong way. our new favorite phrase? "i'm going to whack that guy until the candy comes out." hmmm...

arron afflalo's game winning shot against suc

new year...

...new version of blogger, new mp3 player, new laptop on the way.

so, i finally switched to the new version of blogger. or, as mooncrazy said it, "jumped to hyperspace." [have you ever really thought about how much "star wars" has influenced our culture?] let's see how this switch goes. i have recently found myself concurring with mooncrazy's recent rant on the topic; blogger is not very high on my list of favorite people right now. what with all of its recent problems, it's like blogger's getting treated like a discarded wife now that google's gone all mid-life-crisis and got youtube as its, younger, hotter, more popluar trophy wife. get it together, google. i'm just sayin'.

so as not to sound like a complaining harpy, i'll turn this post toward the more positive topic of my new mp3 player that was a gift from my bunky for christmas. as you may recall, i killed my ipod a few months ago. i thought it had come back to life for a brief period, but that was apparently a cruel trick inflicted upon me at the hands of the ipod gods, because it's definitely dead now. so, anyway, bunk surprised me with a shiny, new creative zen vision m for christmas. very generous, wouldn't you agree? especially, considering he also got me a new food processor which could liquefy a small planet in about 30 seconds. apparently, i'm spoiled! :) anyway, i'm just getting used to the player. it's no ipod, but that's not a bad thing, because this player is compatible with the rhapsody monthly subscription service. that means i don't have to buy too much new music because i can put as many songs or albums as i want on my player as long as i keep my subscription current. it's a good way to discover new music that you like (like, arctic monkeys) and yet not waste money on something that you didn't like (umm...belle & sebastian) and fill out holes in your record collection (can you say everything otis redding ever recorded). they don't have everything, though (dmb, beatles). the zen also can display photos and videos, which i didn't have the ability to do before, so i'm looking forward to playing with those features.

so, what have i been listening to on my new player? right now, i'm stuck on the new john mayer album, "continuum." i tried to like john mayer before (circa "heavier things," but couldn't really get into him. this new album, however, is great. first, it's an album - all of the songs are good, not just one or two. second, it was fairly accessible, fairly quickly. i don't have a lot of patience and if something doesn't catch me right away, i'm done. jm seems to be branching into a more bluesy direction. hespent some time with bb king recently, and you can tell. skip the radio-friendly "waiting on the world to change" single, although it's good (and i really like the line "and when you trust your television, what you get is what you got, cause when they own the information, oh they can bend it all they want") the standout tracks on the album are: "gravity," "the heart of life," "bold as love," "in repair" and "i'm gonna find another you." his live album (as john mayer trio) is also very good. his singing has a different quality, not the pretty, lyrical voice on his album, but a grittier, stevie ray vaughan (but on key) quality and he just generally rocks harder. anyway, give the "continuum" album a listen, i don't think you'll be disappointed.

i can knit

so i've picked up the trendy new chick hobby of knitting. see stich and bitch. i had been knitting scarves like a madwoman when i decided, "why should my friends and family be the only ones to suffer from my new hobby, when i can torture my dogs, too?" and thus began the search for an easy dog sweater to knit. i found this one online. i like it a lot; it is quite simple and only took me about a day. granted, it was all christmas eve day on the couch watching christmas movies, but it was a day nonetheless. max was the first victim. here he is modeling his new garment...


squinty mc squintersons


side view

multy, you're next. mwaaa haa haaaa!

life is good

a client sent some see's candy to the office and i ate BOTH the chocolate butters. i'm just sayin'.

bollywood thriller

this is the best thing i've seen all year...



thanks to reynolds for bringing this into my life.

square wreath

we were at the flower market this saturday and i found a square, boxwood wreath. one trip to moskatel's later and this is the result...



[this makes more sense if you know that i also have square dinner plates]

go students

video of the end of the game from the student section

how dumb are the u$c song girls?

they are so dumb, one of them was caught cheering for the wrong team...again...



although maybe she's actually really smart and just cheers for the better team! go bruins!

scoreboard

here's us celebrating our victory in front of the scoreboard...



this may very well be our christmas card this year!

the celebration

go bruins

ok, so, apparently, my mobile blog post sent from the rose bowl is going to take a while to show up (as long as my tom jones concert posts did, i.e., a few days - thanks for nothin', blogger.com), so let me just say this in the meantime:

we are the mighty bruins,
the best team in the west [well, l.a., anyway].
we're marching on to victory,
to conquer all the rest.
we are the mighty bruins,
triumphant ever more.
and you can hear,
from far and near,
the mighty bruins roar!

u-c-l-a, u-c-l-a, f$%@ SC!

yeah, bruins! 13-9! usc's not going to the national championship game! ha!

[photos to be posted soon!]

Fsc!

It's a great day to be a Bruin! 13-9 baby!

Sent from my blackberry from the Rose Bowl!

F@&^ '$C!


--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry

shame on you, ucpd

a ucla student was tased repeatedly by ucpd officers for allegedly failing to show i.d. in powell library. this is just sick and wrong. at the end of the video, when a witness asks one of the officers for his name and badge number, he's told to shut up or he'll get tased, too. this is the police state that we live in now...

United in Denver is lame

Sitting on the tarmac in Denver waiting for a gate. What's the use of being early if there's no gate available? And now we've learned that the plane that is supposed to leave our gate is having some maintenance issues. We're not the only plane waiting for a gate either - I can see another one on our right. I wonder if it will be like a showdown for a mall parking spot during Christmas when the gate opens up. Personal to United - buy some scheduling software! And soon, cuz I hafta pee!

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.