Remember John Boehner

Someday, as we work to pass legislation around the world that will hopefully save the world, there will be an exhibit (preferably in the George W. Bush Presidential Library) to all the asses of history that tried to stop this legislation. It would be hard to discern one from the other as these (generally) Republicans all say pretty much the same things:

"But Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, used an extraordinary one-hour speech shortly before the final vote to warn of unintended consequences in what he said was a "defining bill." He called it a "bureaucratic nightmare" that would cost jobs, depress real estate prices and put the government into parts of the economy where it now has no role."

From this article in The Chronicle. Dear lord I hope that some day US Americans understand that energy and general existence on this planet actually costs something.

27 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: energy, politics, us america

The horizons are bright with homemade granola

Alright, so the truth is that the best granola out there is the stuff you make yourself and Bittman agrees. This has nothing to do with being cheap and more to do with making what is going to be a whole lot tastier granola.

Prior to actually making it myself, I was buying it at Whole Foods. Theirs granola selection is great, but Whole Foods is not. I enjoyed the "Rainforest Granola" the most and I thought that its mystical combination of ingredients would be impossible to copy. Turns out I was wrong and it's actually pretty easy to make once deconstructing all the flavors. Giving yourself one and a half kilograms of good breakfast material takes around an hour of time which is not bad when you work it all out. So, without further ado, here is the recipe (in metric of course) for "Rainforest Granola":

1kg rolled oats (not steel cut)

250g well-chopped cashews

100g all purpose white flour

10g salt

75g puffed rice (more if you like puffy, crunchy stuff)

350ml canola oil

350ml maple syrup or honey

15ml vanilla extract (more or less depending on your preference)

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then mix in the oil, syrup/honey, and vanilla. Toss it all together well and make sure that everything is coated with the liquid ingredients. If not, your oats will burn and suck a good deal.

Preheat your oven to 150C (300F). Get out two nonstick cookie trays and spread the mixture over them evenly. Put them in the oven once it's to temperature. Pull out the trays and flip the mixture every 10-15 minutes. If you have a proper convection oven, total cook time is 30 minutes. If you don't, give it 40 minutes and alternate the sheets for even cooking. Bittman says to use 175C (350F) for heat and cook it for 30 minutes, but it doesn't work as it cooks too fast and is considerably less than desirable. Basically, you want that thin layer of sugars and oil on the dry ingredients to caramelize and be melted when you pull it out.

Take it out and let it cool very thoroughly and the melted quality will harden up quite fast. Chunk it up and store it making sure to devour damned near half of it in the process as fresh-out-of-the-oven granola is most likely in the buffet in heaven. Store it in a sealed container and it will probably keep long enough to last a nuclear winter.

Obviously, you can substitute in a good number of other things for the nuts, puffed rice, and vanilla to make whatever you'd like to have.

26 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: better buying, food, recipes

Shitty for shitty is pretty fair

An amusing apartment swap that I saw on Craigslist. In prowling through all of this for the last couple of weeks (due to wanting to do a swap with my place in SF), I have to say that that has to be the most enjoyable one I've seen due to the frank honesty.

21 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: housing, new york, paris

Dennis Mccabe, can you punch yourself in the face please?

I wasn't really aware of it, but apparently a Spanish version of homedepot.com came and went while I was off doing other things that required more giving and a shit. They gave it something like four months before declaring it a failure. This goes to show that Home Depot will probably go bankrupt in the next year as they are full of monolingual MBA-ful idiots running the place. First, Spanish is incredibly important to them. There are countless migrant workers from Mexico and the rest of Central America working in construction. In fact, it seems like these are the only guys working in construction these days and for those who don't know, their first language is usually Spanish. Second, who the hell launches a website to cancel it in four months?!! I've worked on complete loser sites that stick around for years. Hell, this site has been around six years and it's just me blathering and posting pictures! Third, um, it's a recession that's hitting construction incredibly hard, so a) why launch the site now and b) again, why kill just after you do?

All of this is business idiocy at its best, but what really got me was the comment you see below. I can't believe that one comment can have so many offensive parts to it, but this Dennis Mccabe is obviously in a league of morons that has yet to be charted. Beyond the fact that he misspells "kowtowing" and is so belligerent towards anyone who doesn't speak his idea of Americanian, he just had to go and say that we're trying to, "Balkanize the US with different languages" I'm sure he felt really, really smart tossing in that word; almost BBC smart I'm assuming. He probably also didn't read this article either. My blogging reach is small I see, but this article talks about the whole issue of localization for companies in a much more professional manner. For starters, it doesn't tell a commenter to punch himself and only goes up from there.

15 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: language, morons, us america

Four stages of boredom at The Makeout Room

I was really not in the mood for going out last night. I just wanted to stay home and hide in code somewhere. This is what happens when I go out to events in The Mission in such moods. The last one is just before going home. Thanks for the patience to photograph my annoying-ocity, #1 Fan.

13 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: hudin, san francisco

Mount Lassen: Hiking dumbly unprepared

There is a certain degree of glory in knowing that #1 Fan and I were some of the very first people to hike to the top of Mount Lassen this year. The road just opened last Friday and so we decided that Monday seemed like a great day to make the hour and a half drive up from my mom's house to enjoy all that our National Park system has to offer.

The only problem in all of this is that while the road to the peak was open, the trail was still about 2/3 covered in snow. They warned of us this going in, but we didn't think too much of it until we got to the parking lot and saw that it wasn't a little dusting of snow, but a serious snow pack that made it hard to even figure out where the trail was. Being ever so curious, we stepped up the first switchback on the trail. Then we went on the next one and then the next. Before we knew it, we were about halfway up the 600 meter incline and we decided to go the rest of the way, passing a CAL Fire inmate crew on the way up who were carving the first real trail of the year.

It didn't end up being that bad. Tiring yes, as walking 600 meters in 4km is pretty intense, but it's definitely much more of a hike and not a climb. Hell, I even did it as a kid when I was about eight, so it really isn't that bad. The only real catch is that we weren't expecting to make the climb. We just started and then kept going. Amazingly we had the camera with us, but just one lens. We also thought to bring sunscreen, but in an amazingly bout of stupidity, didn't put it on before the hike, which given the altitude and glare from the snow has made from some very fresh, wicked sunburns. I'm actually sunburned on the front of my neck and under my chin. I don't think I've ever even been able to tan there much less get burned there.

Oh yeah, we also did this hike in running shoes because again, we were expecting a dirt trail and not the Yukon Territory. In the end though, it was worth it. The views are quite magnificent from up top there from 3230 meters. It's just a shame that the lakes around the peak were snowed over and still frozen. You can see what should have been Emerald Lake below, but instead was more of a skating rink. Usually, it looks like this when not frozen.

It makes me realize as I reflect back on my Hawaii trip last year, that apparently one of my new hobbies is hiking in the wrong footwear. I don't really know what to tell you about this hobby, but it's edgy and it gets you some funny looks from the people with the expensive hiking boots and poles. Sure, you can feel like a rebel in this new (dare I say, "extreme") sport, but one of these days you'll end up getting frostbite and then you won't feel like such a rebel anymore.

Check out my Lassen Photo Album if you want all the good stuff.

10 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: california, parks

Oh yeah, that's trashin' it for ya

When grabbing a quick bite while shopping at the IKEA in West Sacramento, I came across this large group (there were more swirling around) gettin' their eat on. Naturally, when heading out to the IKEA for your evening meal, you put on nothing but your finest sweats, comb out the mullet, and get out the trucker's hat with the least amount of chew stains on it. This, is the high life. Anyone who says differently, is far too ironic to talk to me.

09 06 2009      1 comment

Tags: california, culture, us america

A touch of the prav, First Class to Mali

I'm sending a small flash drive to Mali (it's a country in West Africa, if you're not aware) and having sent items through the Croatian postal system, I am always wary of mail handlers in general. So, I came up with the incredibly brilliant method of cutting some card stock to fit around the drive and to then slip it in to a small privacy envelope. On the one hand, I'm quite pleased with my stealthy spy mailing prav. On the other hand, I'm starting to wonder if there was some truth to my family getting out of the Balkans on forged documents. We're obviously a very crafty lot who are not to be trifled with.

05 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: praving

The cafe way to save water

For some reason, the servers at cafes the world over are always afraid to actually fill up a cup to the top. I mean, I love Nook for a great many reasons (such as outdoor seating, cheap drinks, and the joy of watching tourists screech around the corner on the cable cars) but even there, the servers never want to fill up my cup. Take a look at the tea I got on a recent outing below. That's something like 2/3 full. It's really not like they're saving money by doing this. The expensive part is that bag floating in there. It's the same for coffee as well in that they rarely fill up the cup and it's the coffee beans that are the expensive part.

Sometimes I'll ask to get a fill up to the top and they'll oblige most of the time without a huff or sigh. Other times, the place offers free refills, but will still give you these meager cups. I don't get it. I just don't get it.

02 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: rambling, san francisco, tea