Hillary Clinton = Psycho Bunny-Boiler

Okay, so I'm no fan of Hillary. I really don't know if I will remain a registered Democrat if she steals the nomination from Obama. But comparing her to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Amusing, yes. Sexist? Very. (Full disclosure: I hated that movie!)

Carbon Concerns

It's very "in" now to be concerned about the environment, as well it should be. I recently heard a commentator lament that people want to do something about the environment without actually having to "do" anything. People don't want to sacrifice. Two issues have caught my eye recently - the low-carbon diet and vampire power - which I think have doable solutions.

The idea of a low-carbon diet has been around for at least a couple of years, so I'm disappointed that I heard the phrase for the first time yesterday. But I have certainly been aware of the concept: livestock production is incredibly energy and resource intensive, and the transportation of food hundreds and thousands of miles requires a lot of dirty, polluting fuel. So, to reduce your carbons, you should reduce your consumption of meat and animal products, aim to eat locally grown produce when possible, and reduce waste (plastic water bottles, I'm looking at you!)

In California, it's possible to eat very, very local. But for people who don't live in agricultural utopias, eating food grown in North America is local enough. That means cutting down on bananas, people! I'm still working on getting my lazy bones to local farmers' markets more often.

For more information on how our food choices impact the environment, I highly recommend reading The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. John Robbins has also written several books about the impact of our eating decisions, but he's a little more strident than Stringer and Mason. Although I must admit, Robbins' book Diet for a New America is what made decide to become a (wishy-washy, seafood-eating, bacon-nibbling) vegetarian. The Food Revolution is an updated version of that book.

And now - vampires! I had no idea that all the things we leave plugged in while not in use suck a lot of power. They account for 25% of our electric bill! I can look around my bedroom and see the TV, printer, computer, speakers - even when they're off, little lights that glow on the front mean they're leaking energy.

So the answer is to go around your house every night and unplug everything that you're not using.

No, wait. The answer, according to David Pogue of the New York Times, is to purchase APC's Power-Saving SurgeArrest surge protector power strip. It's designed for computers and all of their peripherals. The computer is the "master" - when it's on, your printer, speakers, etc. are on. When your computer is off or goes to sleep, power is cut to your peripheral devices. And there are separate outlets for things that you might still want to keep on all the time, like your modem.

Pretty nifty! And a little pricier than your plain old power strip, but according to Pogue the savings in your electric bill means they will pay for themselves in a year.

Pasta a la Mexicaine

I have been doing more cooking lately, sans recipes. For those of you who know how I usually cook - slavishly following recipes down to the 1/8 teaspoon - this is quite a turn of events.

Yesterday I made a pasta dish that I was actually quite happy with. I believe my father would say that I made it a hecho - just throwing together what I had on hand. The following is enough for one serving; adjust as necessary.

2 to 3 ounces pasta of your choice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 thick slice of onion, chopped
1 serrano chili, seeded and minced
2 Roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped
Dry white wine
6 to 8 large raw shrimp, peeled
Fresh lemon juice
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
Salt
Cotija or Parmesan cheese, for garnish

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet. When hot, sautee the garlic, onion, and serrano until fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes and add a splash or two of white wine. Lower the heat to medium and cook for a few minutes, allowing the flavors to blend.
   
2. When the pasta water is ready, add pasta and cook according to the package directions.
3. While the pasta is cooking, add the shrimp to the sauce and cook until pink. Turn the heat off and add a squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice. Add salt to taste.
   
4. When the pasta is ready, drain it and add it to the skillet with the sauce. Toss to coat. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle the fresh cilantro on top, and grate some cotija or Parmesan cheese over the pasta.

I used shrimp because that's what I had in the freezer, but you chicken-eaters out there can substitute cooked chicken, or just leave out meat all together.

See My Garage - On The Internet!

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I finally discovered Google Street View. When I looked up my house, I could see inside the garage! Is this really necessary?

Of course, it is kind of cool to look at pictures of Alaska. And stare at strange people's garages. Some pictures also have people walking around, like the maps of UCLA's campus. Could I be in some Google Street View map someplace?

Weird, weird, weird.

Night of the Living Dead

I feel like I'm in a zombie movie - I keep thinking Hillary is dead, but she keeps coming back! Why??

I still believe Obama should be the nominee, but whether he will be or not seems less and less certain. Yeah, he'll end up with more pledge delegates. And he'll probably get the popular vote. But those super delegates!

I don't understand why we have this snobbery element to our elections - there's the electoral college, and then these super delegates. In school I was taught that citizens were equal when it came to elections: one person, one vote. But apparently some votes are more equal than others.

Zucchini Zeal

I bought a big pack of zucchini from Trader Joe's and am still trying to finish it off. My favorite way to eat zucchini now is in salads. I got this idea from a recipe in Food and Wine magazine.

I cut the ends off of the zucchini, peel the skin off, and then with the vegetable peeler I shave the zucchini lengthwise into long ribbons. I throw this on top of some salad greens. And you can add whatever else you have on hand; I like to add carrots cut in the same way as the zucchini. I think fennel would also taste good, or thinly sliced apples.

And I like to top it off with some goat cheese, salt and pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Very tasty!

I also made some quesadillas with roasted zucchini and red bell pepper. I considered this dish a success because my dad, who always has something to say if he has to eat a vegetarian meal, actually said that it was good.

I cut up the red bell pepper and zucchini into thin slices, toss them with some olive oil and salt, and stick them in a 500 degree oven. You could also sautee them. Once the vegetables are cooked - I like them to get a little brown - put them in flour tortillas along with some pepper jack cheese. I like to cook my quesadillas in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil so that the tortilla gets crisp.

Finally, zucchini fritters make a great snack and are a delicious way to eat zucchini. Anything tastes good fried!

Colbert Con

When I heard that Hillary Clinton was going to be the special guest on The Colbert Report, I thought she was going to be the special guest. As in, she was going to sit down at the table with him and answer those wacky Colbert questions.

But no, she was just there to do a skit about fixing the monitor. Yawn.

I didn't know that John Edwards was going to be on the show as well, and he was hilarious. Of course they had to include Barack Obama as well, but he was on TV instead of in the studio. Not very exciting.

Lately I've been watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report pretty regularly. Along with Top Chef and Step It Up and Dance. Plus Hardball and Countdown on MSNBC. Me, watching TV shows regularly? I know my TV habits were changing when commercial jingles started getting stuck in my head.

Cross-Bloggination

I have a photography blog that is dedicated to my interest in photography and would be a marketing tool for my fledgling business, if anyone ever read it. I have already written about my Blended project on that blog - so go over there and read it!

I'm looking for people who are somehow "blended" - either mixed race people or interracial/intercultural couples and families. I took my first pictures for this project last Saturday.

If you know anyone who I can photograph, please send 'em my way! Eventually I will be putting ads out for people, but first want to start off with friends, family, and people they know.

Vacation, I Hardly Knew Ye

I'm on spring break, and it's almost over. The idea of driving out to Death Valley passed through my mind, but instead I've spent most of the week editing photos. I put an ad on Craig's List to try to get models for my portfolio. Maybe half a dozen people responded, and two people followed through and took pictures with me. I also took some pictures of friends and friends of friends over the weekend. So I have plenty of photos to keep me busy.

I'm not so thrilled about going back to school on Monday. When I'm actually in the classroom with the students, I enjoy it. But last night I dreamt that I was in a classroom even larger than the one I have at Pasadena (which is pretty darn big) and that it was packed full of students who were talking and goofing around and not listening to what I was saying or doing the activity I wanted them to do.

Typical teacher nightmare!

John McCain's Old - ha ha ha!

I'm getting tired of all the jokes about John McCain's age. They're not very interesting. Or intelligent. And I don't think it should be okay to make fun of McCain's age when it's not okay to make jokes about Hillary's gender or Barack's race.

After all, Bill Clinton seems to think that Hillary is pretty old, too.

The Departed

I've become obsessed with this movie. Not because I think Leonardo is dreamy (man, has he come a long way from that pretty boy in Titanic) but because I'm trying to figure this movie out!

I had seen bits and pieces of the movie before, so I knew how it ended. And then I caught it from the beginning one night on cable and decided to watch the whole thing.

Let me tell you, this is not the kind of movie where you can step out to get a snack, come back, and expect to know what's going on. I missed some pretty important scenes when it was on TV and I was in and out of the room.

So I watched it on DVD. Eyes glued to the screen. Beginning to end. And I think I get about 75% of the movie. Everyone is lying to somebody. But now I'm trying to figure out how people find out who's lying, and who's on their side and who's on the other guy's side. I might have to watch it a couple more times.

It's a really good movie. I usually don't care for cop/gangster movies with dead bodies everywhere, but I do love Goodfellas and I'd put The Departed right up there with it. Although Goodfellas has the better soundtrack, so it still has a slight edge in my book.

Final Four Blowouts

I just assumed North Carolina was going to beat Kansas. So it was with some shock when I saw, late in the first half, that North Carolina had only scored 12 points. They were down by 28 points - in the first half! I couldn't believe it.

So, while I do want to see Memphis lose only because they beat us, they've never won a basketball championship. Which means . . . I still want them to lose. But if they walk away with the trophy I won't be terribly upset.

Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride

I can barely stand it - three Final Four appearances in a row, three trips home empty handed.

Now there's nothing to do but hope Memphis gets the pants whooped off of them by North Carolina.

Statistics - Been There, Barely Survived That

I took an online statistics class through UCLA Extension. When I signed up for the class in late 2007, I had it in my head that I was going to go back to school for a Ph.D. in computational linguistics. I must have been smoking crack without knowing I was smoking crack, because just looking at the phrase "computational linguistics" makes my eyes cross.

After plowing through a beginning programming book, I realized that I don't think I have the right temperament (read: mental capacity) for programming. It's so tedious. My brother, who is a software programmer, would talk about programs with thousands and thousands of lines of code, and having to go through them and trying to find what's buggy. That would make me tear out my eyeballs.

But after realizing that computational anything may not be my cup of tea, I decided to take the class anyways because most likely, any Ph.D. program would require statistics. And it's one of those subjects that I've always wanted to learn, but never got around to.

So I understood the first half of the class. The rest is just a blur of really long formulas that I have no idea how to use. And somehow I got a B.

I don't plan on taking anymore online courses. I didn't feel like I was taking a class. It felt really weird to never meet my professor or classmates. And, frankly, if I'd had to take that final exam in a classroom, I would have b-o-m-b-e-d it. There doesn't seem to be as much academic integrity. My laziness got the better of me.

Whither now, Ph.D.? I'm not entirely sure I want to go back to school. I really enjoy teaching adult ed, and I don't think a doctorate would make much of a difference in that field. I don't think teacher training in adult ed requires a Ph.D., either. I haven't ruled it out - entirely - but right now a doctorate is pretty low on my scale of priorities.

My Meat Wish List

I've had meat on the mind lately. I did a little backsliding around the holidays; at a friend's house for noche buena I had a ham croquette and a nibble of pork. For my birthday party I bought some Spanish chorizo and serrano ham. I've been good since then, but I have these dark, sinister thoughts about Fatburger, Korean barbecue, and Chick-Fil-A. I also wouldn't mind a nice grilled hot dog.

The weird thing is that although I crave meat, I don't feel so good when I eat it. A few bites is okay. Any more than that, and my stomach lets me know it's unhappy. I don't get sick - nothing particularly unpleasant happens. I just feel kind of blah.

Yet when I eat mostly vegetables, I feel great. And I like vegetables; I crave salads and fresh corn. Fruit is a great snack. So you'd think my body, in all it's infinite wisdom, would tell my brain to knock it off with the meat cravings. But no. The smell of bacon brings me to my knees.

My attitude towards food is always changing. I'm at the point now of eating what makes me feel good, mentally, ethically and physically. Which means mostly vegetables, occasional seafood, some cheese here and there, and a few nibbles of meat when the urge strikes.

And sweets? That's another battle . . . .

Gonna Fly Now

Hillary Clinton has taken to comparing herself to Rocky Balboa. That she's not going to run halfway up those stairs and quit.

Okay, so she's going to run all the way to the top of the museum steps, but . . . hasn't she seen Rocky? Doesn't she know how the movie ends?