school daze

a new semester has begun once again. this may well be the last time that i make that statement as it directs to my life, as my degree requirements will be completed in may. the two courses that i am enrolled in are: economic theory; business ethics. the first class in theory was fantastic, actually. excellent instructor, good reading, good discussion. fixing to me a mighty fine semester, i'd say.

the ethics course will commence later in the week. i suspect that it will be most enjoyable, too. however, the text for the ethics course is rather inaccessible. i hope that the instructor will provide more clarity.

roti and avam

last week, on our trek home from the gym, we stopped off at trinadad gourmet to give it a shot. dispite having to peek through the safety glass window to order, we had a nice conversation with the owner as our veg roti was being prepared. mr. owner gave us a sample of his homemade side sauces: green mango chutney, tamarind chutney, a medium habenero sauce, and a super hot habenero sauce.

the roti came out and was an amazing mountain of varied flavors that we took home and ooh'ed and ahh'ed as we dove in. super good eats and with a six buck price tag that can't be beat. 9.3/10.

this weekend we went down to the visionary arts museum. we browsed through the permanent collection, which has a series of quite moving pieces created from all untrained artists. the cornerstone piece being a carved apple tree limb that is fashioned into a tall thin man with shoulders that jet out and a spooned out chest. the narrative states that it was carved by a man who long suffered from tb and was made while in a rehabilitation facility. he had never been known to create any art previous to this piece.

much of the raw art at avam can be described as art therapy. each piece brings a sense of the creator straight into your being. it is accessible, it is real. not the pretentious canonical stuff that we're supposed to savor at a museum. the works at avam are unique and real.

caution: product endorsement

i tend to have an allergy to most material goods, as most of what is produced on our forsaken planet is cheap dimestore crap. yet i house within a special place in my heart a warmth and appreciation for quality engineered and designed items and gadgetry. one such item has recently moved into our humble home.

i must profess that now, a full month after my folks gifted us a sonic toothbrush, i have been enlightened to a new sense of dental elation. what have i been doing for countless years scrubbing away with a analog toothbrush? my teeth have only felt this clean after professional cleanings prior to using the sonic brush. the enamels brightened after the first few days of brushing and have continued to gleam. i am a convert to this technology and cannot foresee ever turning back. simple pleasures, yes, but damn important.

haircut

after careful deliberation over the past few weeks, i was persuaded by my special someone and then the better nature of myself to venture out to the barbershop. now, i have not paid for a haircut since early 1995, just about 12 years ago. this was initially due to the growth of a long college mane that was obligatory at the time. how i wish i still had such full hair to play with, alas nay.

the mane stuck around until fall of '97 when i used a small electric beard trimmer to shave my head. after this first attempt, someone pulled my mother aside and asked if i had had a brain operation. this would be due to the scuffs of not having a length guard and an unsteady hand, taking the shaved stubble straight down to the skin on a few select spots.

through the years, i upgraded to an electric hair trimmer and have cut my own hair on either the #2 or #4 setting every few months, length depending on the season.

so i set my sights on the beatnik barber in mt. vernon that trimmed up my head in about 10minutes and you get a free cup of italian coffee with the cut, all for $15. i enjoyed sitting in the chair again. although when the cutter asked me the last time i had my hair cut, i bit my tongue to say 12 years, and realized that she was asking more specifically about when was it actually cut--not when did i last see a barber. good times.

shit on a shingle--vegan-style

when growing up in the middlewest, my mother would infrequently make this famed dish that my dad would base spare stories about his naval tour of vietnam around. the colloquial "shit on a shingle" was a pasty dish of corn-starchy white gravy intermingled with cured, chipped beef atop a slice of toasted white bread. my memories of this dish are not only of the novelty of eating something named after excrement on a roofing material, but of the whole experience. dad always got a bit excited to eat the s.o.s. dish.

this braw memory was the first thought that popped into my head on sunday morning. i jumped up and proclaimed to my dear sweet that on this morn, i would be making vegan shit on a shingle.

i started with a fairly basic white sauce using equal parts soy milk and water, added some veg bouillon, fresh rosemary, a splash of obligatory garlic, potato starch, a pinch of corn starch, and a dash of whole wheat flour amongst a few other errant spices tossed in. meanwhile, tempeh simmered in a soy sauce and chipotle maranade in the pan adjacent to the sauce--all being thrown together once the toast was browned. a bit heavy for the a.m. meal, but nothing a bit of muddy coffee can't help cut through.

bike accident

so, on the bike commute into work on friday, a gentleman in a large green suv coming in the opposite direction crossed the center line of the two-lane road i was on and headed straight for me.

a moment before he was driving normally, and then the last thing that flashed through my mind was "he's trying to kill me."

voluntary instincts took over quickly and i swirved toward the curb, but not before i was clipped by the truck and thrown in the air landing in a patch of rocky soil alongside the road.

the real kicker was the driver of the car kept going for awhile. the woman who was in the car behind him stopped to see if i was alright. my right bicep was throbbing as it smashed the driver's side mirror and sent schrapnel flying along the road. i suspected that my arm might be broken, and then decided to test it. no, it didn't feel broken. i said that i might be o.k. to the woman, and we looked up to see the perpetrator continuing to drive away, however slowly. the woman said that she was going to chase him down to get his license number. when the suv saw her speeding after, he decided to stop and return to the scene. i assessed my secondary damages, my left hip was definately cut, as my bike pants and undershorts were both ripped. the damage was more of an abrasion caused by clipping the front quarterpanel of the truck.

the ambulance came within 5 minutes, several passers by stopped to see if they could help. the emt assessed that i was lucky and if i felt symptoms of a concussion to go to the hospital. a cop came and took a report of the incident. never did the suv driver take responsibility of his actions. he said that bikes should be on the sidewalk. i tend to disagree. nevertheless, i feel grateful that i was able to walk away from the accident. it could have been a lot uglier.

here is a shot of my left arm. it is a much deeper black and blue now, but is thankfully just a deep bruise. (i'll spare you the shot of my arse)

a pretty good film

idiocracy is a must-see for any species-loathing humans who wish for a sneak-peek into the bleak future of the world, as told by mike judge. a utopia for fast-food junkies and mindless morons, judge creates his world on the fact that the intelligent are not procreating at near the rate that the sub-intelligent are. if you've got two bucks and 90minutes, you'll be entertained for the evening with this one. 7.9/10

alllll the chicken balls...

these faux-poultry balls of gluten made their way into pasta sauce last night. perhaps not quite the right application, as atop a hoagie bun may be more suitable for their nasty mock-meat character. from the pasta sauce, i pulled them aside and doused a healthy splash of habenero elixir atop each bite.very, very doubtful that we would ever purchase these again. caveat emptor.

january?!?

so just to recap on the weather here the past few days.
saturday night, we were able to watch a video at 10pm with the front
door wide open. sunday, i wore shorts and a longsleeve-t for a run in
the light rain that was more like an early june rain, ~60 degrees. today, i am sitting on the porch in a t-shirt quite comfortably. this continues to be confusing weather in the so-called winter.

in other news, we hosted a successful vegan brunch for a gaggle of folks yesterday starting at 10:30am, the last person left at 5pm. the coffee was thick and muddy on that day, i can tell you.

chia garcia? the only thing that chia garcia grew was a healthy patch of mold on his ungerminated seeds. it could be a user problem, or it could be because the seeds are 10+ yrs old.

when sysadmins ruled the earth

not sure why this short story captivated my attention the way it did, but it is worth a read if you've got a few minutes to dedicate to a post-apocalyptic reality where the survivors are all knowledge management administrators.

inane leader of the free* world

i place my faith in congress to scrutinize and snub this horrific plan.

*some restrictions apply

good asian food store in philly

the 1st oriental supermarket just south of the italian market in philly is fantastic. mock meat galore for the junk-food vegan. and a clamorous selection of cookwares to stumble over with your eyes and feet.their hit counter seems to be inactive, unless it is their way of making you feel special, "you're #1, baby."

chia garcia!

two dudes.thanks to anne p. for this fine accoutrement.

vegan scone

in a feeble attempt to finish up the manhattan vegan eat-out saga, i bring you this tasty and filling scone...
purchased from a small vendor with other assorted baked goods at the union square farmer's market, this flakey cranberry pastry was a fine complement to a day of wandering the streets. i tucked the hearty lump of dough in my bag and nearly forgot about it until unpacking at the hotel, where i perched upon the edge of my bed savoring each morsel and gazing down at the times square orderly chaos below.

what to say of this random baker's scone? not too heavy as scones tend to be, not too sweet as some make the mistake of, but a nice balance of all weighing factors. 8.5/10

slappy knew ear?

good times in iowa in late december with the sacks and the rossi-bachs. a side trip to the o'rouke in minneapolis whilst in the middlewest. then a trip to philly for new years with sean. the sky on the delaware river lit up...... and the tour de major metropolitan vegan joints continued...