Monday, May 28, 2007

Confession


I feel that honesty is the best way to keep any relationship healthy, so I guess it's about time I fessed up. I've been blogging for someone else.

Last week I began my internship at the Weekly Alibi, an event I was highly anticipating. And man, it's pretty awesome. I'm officially a web intern and my tasks are to webify (I'm still learning the jargon) and to blog. Webifying, in Alibinese, means to add links within a story or article. For example, at the beginning of this post, I made "Weekly Alibi" into a link. So I read through the articles, find things that I think people might want to read more on or just don't know about, and make those into links. It's actually pretty fun.

But the really exciting part is the blogging. I haven't had any of my writing posted on their blog yet, but I believe it will begin soon. If you check out the Alibi's blog, you'll probably notice that the content is quite similar to G&C, with the exception of more local news. This has proved to be a double-edged sword. It's great because since my topics I bring up on G&C are so similar, it won't be that difficult to write articles the Alibi will like. BUT, recently, since those ideas for posts have automatically been put towards writing posts for the Alibi, G&C has been suffering from my lack of attention. I've thought about double posting, for example, if I write something for the Alibi, I would post it on G&C too, or vice-versa, but I just feel like that's unfair. I want to keep both original and separate. That's easier said than done, though.

So I'm in a pickle.

If any of you have any advice, please share it. I'm open for any suggestions.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Documenting Zombies = Guaranteed Death


This is the kind of stuff I like to see. People getting creative in really outlandish, extensive and (oh yes) public ways.

On Friday, San Francisco had a surprise visit from a rather large plague of zombies (other fun collective nouns here). It appears they were able to create quite a uproar as they stumbled through town, transforming innocent onlookers into their own kind, leaving blood smears as they went and even managing to piss off a few Scientologists. Not a bad day if you ask me.
Check out the awesome photo journal of the entire event.

For those of us who don't follow the tenets of Vodoun or come from the Middle Ages, I think we can agree it's fair to conclude that zombies are a big fat myth.

So what was the real reason behind the invasion? Honestly, I doubt you would ever guess this one. A wedding. Awesome right? For some reason, when I found out this was actually a wedding, it just made me smile.

The zombies even got to take a short break from the killing spree and show off their moves on the dance floor.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Stop Hatin' On the Babies


Firstly I would like to apologize for my extended absence from G & C. I have no acceptable excuse, it was poor form on my part. If you so kindly choose to accept my apology I would like to share an interesting find with you.

Our beloved baby carrot has had quite a stressful last week due to a wave of bad publicity. It seems like everyone who hears the truth about the baby carrot has turned against it, choosing to never again indulge in such a satisfying yet healthful snack. If you haven't heard the news, allow me to fill you in.

There's no such thing as a "baby" carrot. Calm down, just take a deep breath, I'll explain. Baby carrots are whittled down from normal size carrots into their cute little uniform size that we all know and love. However, the carrots that are chosen to become the baby version aren't perfect. They're the ugly, abnormal, for lack of a better word, "special" carrots. For those of you out there that have ever grown carrots, you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to get those perfect carrots.

This should be a positive attribute for baby carrots right? If it weren't for the idea of chopping up these ugly carrots into little clones, these carrots would be tossed. That was the initial reason for baby carrots, to keep from wasting hundreds of unsellable carrots.

Of course, there are a few bad facts that come along with this. For one, baby carrots are more expensive than normal carrots. But that should be expected since they are processed more, such as being pealed, whittled down, etc. Also, since baby carrots come from less desirable carrots, they lack 30% of the beta carotene present in normal carrots. That means they still have 70%, not bad if you ask me.

So in my opinion, the good outweighs the bad. Although baby carrots aren't as healthful or cheap as their larger counterpart, the fact that they avoid a large amount of waste and seem to provide an alternative snack for many of our overweight, fast-food-addicted citizens, it a good enough reason to keep these little guys around.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Mother's Day for Peace

Here's a good option for those of you who have conveniently forgotten about the big M-Day mañana. The video is definitely cheesy at points, but the overall message is crucially pertinent to our world's current situation.

Friday, May 4, 2007

There's No Crying in Sumo Wrestling!


Mellow Monk's blog today featured a very interesting, albeit peculiar, Japanese tradition known as konakizumo or "crying-baby sumo". I'm dying to know what you're picturing right now.

As the tradition goes, two sumo wrestlers enter a wrestling ring and duke it out man to man... holding babies... trying to make them cry. What? You're confused?? Allow me to explain.

There is an ancient saying in Japanese which translated says, "A child who cries will thrive." The origins of this came from back in the day when infant mortality was much more common. Parents were proud to hear their babies cry since it conveyed to them the baby was strong and healthy. Conversely, a quiet baby could mean malnourishment or some detrimental disease.

Soooooo, konakizumo emerged from that belief. In a match, the first baby to cry, wins! Pretty simple but seemingly entertaining as well. Just the thought of two gigantic men, each holding a baby probably 1/100th the size them, just trying to get the little fella to bawl. Priceless.

CNN has some awesome pictures of the whole ordeal, this one by far my favorite.


Those are some hardcore rug rats.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Finding Joy in Concoctions


While browsing through the list of 50 Ways to Find Joy number 14 particularly caught my eye:

14 Awaken your Inner Julia Child. Create a dish without a recipe from just the ingredients in your pantry. Discover your creative power.

As our kitchen is currently in a muddle of scarcity, I realized I successfully completed this task the night before. And yes, I would have to agree, it was a joyous experience. So joyous in fact, I would like to share it with you readers. Really, it's staggering what you can throw together from the odds and ends scattered throughout your kitchen.

Spinach Chili Pasta

In a skillet:
Cook: 2 cloves garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes
Add: - 2 cans tomatoes, retaining juice from one
- good spoonful of tomato paste
- a bunch of chopped green chili (As much as you want, I used a grip)
Thaw: 1 package of frozen spinach and add to sauce
Add: lots of basil, parsley, Pasta Sprinkle, and salt and pepper to taste

Let simmer for about 10 minutes
Serve over pasta, top with shredded mozzarella, and yes, believe me when I say, it was marvelously delectable.

Ohmygod... bee infestation! Must go!! I'll explain later!!!

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Angry Post #1


Once you've admitted to someone that you used to work at a tearoom, automatically you morph into their tea guru, no longer a simple, innocent bystander. Now you are someone able to answer all their (what they consider to be) "crucial" tea issues.

This has been my life ever since my short time spent working at a local tearoom (I am electing to NOT advertise for them on my precious blog, it's a touchy issue). Everyone seems to believe that tearoom employees somehow are filled with all knowledge pertaining to tea, like all tearooms have some Matrix-style rig cramming our brains full until we become mentors for all you novices.

Well I'm here to tell you all something: I'm sick of it! Honestly I don't know that much about tea, but to many of my devout followers, I'm like Tammy Faye Baker. Come on people! Don't believe everything I say!

I apologize for I digress. My point: Until I start receiving respectable questions about tea I will be referring all to this post, listing the 5 facts about tea that I'm sick of repeating.

  1. All tea (minus herbals) come from the same plant. Green tea doesn't come from the green tea plant while black tea comes from the black tea plant. They're all from the Camellia Sinensis plant and variations in tea are purely due to processing and/or variation in growing conditions.
  2. If you insist on using teabags, reuse them! While black teabags can usually only be reused 1 or 2 times, green tea as well as herbal teas such as spearmint can easily brew up to 5 cups. Saves money too.
  3. Decaf it yourself. No more excuses for not drinking more tea throughout the day. Even if you don't have decaf tea on hand, simply do it yourself. Steep the tea as usual but for no more than 30 seconds, discard the brew and then re-steep the same leaves and voilà! Decaf tea!
  4. Use boiling water! Duh, right? However I've seen several people boil water and then just let it sit there for minutes on end, cooling off! Finally they'll get around to making their tea, not surprisingly producing a weak, low quality flavor. If you're making black tea, when the water comes to a boil, pour it over the tea immediately, none of this cooling crap. If you're making green tea, either pour the water over the tea just before it comes to a boil or use it after letting it cool for 10-20 seconds after it boils.
  5. Yes, tea is healthful. Just get over it and admit it, tea is good for you. Obviously there's no doubt about it. Well maybe there's a minuscule, virtually invisible iota of doubt, but honestly, come on. Just taste the stuff. It's so unmistakably wholesome.