spacekadet

Just returned from running the 24th Annual Schlotzsky's 5k Bun Run. I finished in 27:30.

My time was 57 seconds slower than last year, but given that I'm not running 5 days a week like I used to, and I've had an injury, I feel pretty good. And my ankle didn't hurt. Am I finally healed? Overall it was a good time. I love a races. Good energy, good exercise, and good shwag (bagels, powerade, bananas, cookies, and potato chips; how anyone could eat a bag of potato chips after running 5ks is beyond me, but people were doing it!).

Today was also the London Marathon. The BBC has an entertaining as-it-happened commentary, including this snippet about celebrity runner, Jade Goody:

0932: Distressingly Jade Goody, of Big Brother fame, has just revealed to Sue Barker the most she has run is half-an-hour on a treadmill in training. She revealed her training regime involved eating Chinese and Indian food as well as boozing. Her biggest concern is that her toenails will fall off!

Posted by monica at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sugary Sweet
Originally uploaded by codebleu.

Blame it on all those free-at-work Frescas* I've consumed lo these many months.

Last week, I was feeling off balance. The source of my sudden discombobulation was not immediately obvious to me, but then, half-way through a "Sprite Zero", I observed a slight turn in my tummy.

So I dumped the rest of my drink, tossed the Splenda packets I stashed in my desk and on the homestead, moved the diet soda to the back of the fridge on the bottom shelf well out of my line of sight (good to keep them around, though, for guests).

It's been a little over a week since I've consumed any diet soft drink or artificial sweetener of any kind. Since then, I've felt noticeably more energetic throughout the day, especially in the afternoons. Plus, no carbonated beverage bloat: a good thing.

Still, wtf? I thought Splenda was "made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar", which somehow made it not as nasty as aspertame. How wrong I was! I quick Wikipedia search revealed the following:

Splenda (Sucralose): It is 500–600 times as sweet as sucrose, making it roughly twice as sweet as saccharin and four times as sweet as aspartame. It is manufactured by the selective chlorination of sucrose...Sucralose is a chlorocarbon (an organic compound containing at least one covalently bonded chlorine atom), like many insecticides.

Also learned this interesting factoid about the NutraSweet Company:

Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. He discovered its sweet taste serendipitously when he ...In 1985, G.D. Searle was purchased by Monsanto. In this acquisition, Searle's aspartame business became a separate Monsanto subsidiary, the NutraSweet Company.

Having read all this, followed by a well-timed viewing of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Corporation, I am left paranoid that there is nothing left that is safe to buy/eat/wear/consume that also doesn't cause harm to myself or someone else (the planet and all of its living creatures qualify as "someones" in this case). Again, I ask - WTF?

* A special note to MC: it was Fanta, not Fresca, that was branded by Coca-Cola in 1939 and sold in Nazi Germany in order to keep profits during the war - tsk tsk. Fresca is also a Coca-Cola product, but wasn't introduced until 1963. Fresca was the favorite drink of Texan and former president Lyndon B. Johnson, who dispensed the stuff from a soda tap installed in the Oval Office.

Posted by monica at 11:00 AM | Permalink

My mom made me a mix CD for Easter. Her commentary on the track listing is superb:

Bruce Cockburn (what an unfortunate name!) is Canadian and I thought you might enjoy him given your love for Canada.

I must have sounded extremely excited when I talked about Vancouver. Oh right, I was really excited about Vancouver. Bad ass.

Also superb are the track choices themselves. It's scary how well my mom knows me...

Grapefruit Moon - Tom Waits
This Eye - Edie Brickell
Sandy - Harry Chapin
Hang Down Your Head - Tom Waits
Circle - Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians
Constellations - Jack Johnson
Burn - Ray LaMontagne
In Between Love - Tom Waits
Bright Sky - Bruce Cockburn
Gravity - Allison Kraus
Old Shoes (And Picture Postcards) - Tom Waits
Sweet Old World - Lucinda Williams
Happy Good Morning Blues - Bruce Cockburn
Me By The Sea - Edie Brickell
Do You Remember - Jack Johnson
A Montreal Song - Bruce Cockburn
Bittersweet - Ed Harcourt
Which Will - Lucinda Williams
Rainfall - Bruce Cockburn
Down Into Mexico - Delbert McClinton
She's Too Good For Me - Warren Zevon
Laughter - Bruce Cockburn

Posted by monica at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week, one of my housemates invited a few of us to go to dinner with her parents who were visiting from Huntsville, Alabama for the weekend. My roommate and I get along very well, not so much as friends, but more as two people who share many mutual understandings. We have similar hang-ups, sleep schedules, and the occasional tendency to obsess (fortunately, we don't share the objects of our extreme attention).

I think my roommate and I would be friends if we didn't live together. Indeed, we often invite each other to various social events, but usually decline because the event isn't quite right for some reason or another.

So to break the trend, I said yes to her offer without considering the restaurant of choice.

We ended up going to The Salt Lick which, in case you didn't know, is one of Austin's premier BBQ joints. As a pesco-vegetarian, I'd never been. Was this really the best way to start my initiation into my roommate's social life?

When we arrived, there were hundreds of people outside drinking beer and waiting for a table. Literally, hundreds. Something about Easter weekend, I guess.

It's BYOB, so everyone hung out on the patio with coolers and were slowly getting loose and meaty on Bud Light and Shiner (our cooler contained Corona Light and Dos Equis). One group even had a keg. The crowd was mixed with college students, parents, kids, and Texas natives. Lots of beer bellies.

The wait was over an hour, but I didn't mind (I'd had a sandwich before hand). When we sat down, outside at a picnic table in the warm summery breeze, the food came in massive quantities. Plates of meat, brisket, sausage, and sauce. I had some cole slaw and potato salad which, by the way, was some of the best cole slaw and potato salad I've ever had. No mayo. The cole slaw was simple, with a basic vinaigrette and toasted sesame seeds. The potato salad was some kind of mustard thing with cumin and onions. I was impressed. I also tasted the bbq sauce with some bread - also delicious.

It was a fine evening with beautiful weather and lovely conversation. But after witnessing the gorge fest, the dripping meat, the massive guts, the bleary beer-soaked eyes, the smell of meat in the summer, I'm definitely ready to put Texas behind me.

So I've given my notice to work and the plane ticket is just as good as purchased. I'm moving on May 31st. Destination: All over the goddam place.

First stop: Chicago, with a possible multi-day layover in Houston to visit with the coolest chixx0rs in the world and get INKED.

Stay tuned.

Posted by monica at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This afternoon I decided to mix some couscous willy-nilly with some other stuff I had around. The result was very yummy! I bet it will be especially tasty tomorrow once all of the flavors have mingled.

1. Put veggie stock and saffron into a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Remove pot from heat, add couscous, cover. Wait ~10mins or until water is absorbed.
3. Add everything else, mix, let sit for a bit to let the flavors blend. Enjoy hot or cold!

Posted by monica at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pandora is freakishly cool.

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the music universe.

(Thanks to Jim who pointed it out to me.)

Posted by monica at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just seconds ago, I heard Google had a calendar feature, and I had to check it out...

First thing I saw was a "Quick Add" link. I clicked it, which gave me a text box. I typed "Move from Austin May 31", clicked the "+", and sure enough, it added the event "Move from Austin" on May 31.

That was hot. I wonder what else it can do better than iCal.

Posted by monica at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a wonderful bbq last Saturday with Rachel, Dave, Matt, Michael, Francesco, and Courtney. I've been overdue for a bbq for a while, and Courtney's visit from Boston was a fine excuse to reignite the grill.

As is usually the case, there was an abundance of food, including veggie dogs with spicy mustard and sweet & sour pickled carrots, grilled portabellas, and spinach salad. Matt brought sweet potato and black beans, which is as simple as it sounds: black beans mixed with mashed sweet potato and some salt (if anything else was included, I couldn't tell). It's delicious, and silly Matt forgot the leftovers in my fridge. This spawned an interested lunch recipe…

Black Bean / Sweet Potato Quesadillas

1 tortilla
1 scoop of sweet potato/black bean mixture
5 strips of green bell pepper
A few leaves of spinach

Spread sweet pototato/bean mixture allll over the tortilla. Distribute the green pepper and spinach on half of it. Fold tortilla in half. Heat up on the stove, flipping it over and cooking 'til both sides are crunchily delicious.

The bean/potato serves as the cheese here, binding the ingredients and the tortilla together. I ate these with guacamole. They were interesting, though I'm not sure that the guacamole is quite right. Tomorrow I'm going to try drizzling some hatch green chile enchilada sauce on the innards before folding over the tortilla.

The 'dillas fostered the discovery of a useful work-lunch trick: reheating the quesedilla triangles in the toaster. Mmm, crispy edges!

Posted by monica at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Tuesday I woke up to a flat tire on my bike. Groggily, I changed my tire and headed off to work. Upon my arrival, I noticed that the wheel was slightly out of alignment, so I reset it.

No problem.

But did this minor incident set off this latest bout of paranoia? I've been feeling a little off balance on my bike lately. No doubt this is due to my recent commuting with only one pannier and a head cold that may be causing an inner-ear thing that I don't quite understand but skews my balance nonetheless.

Evidence: a sudden inability to balance on one leg in yoga class. Progress: stunted.

Given my recent instability, last night's dream is no surprise:

I'm riding my bike to work. Clumsily plodding along, having extreme difficulty keeping the wheel straight. When suddenly, I loose all control, the wheel spins around and I fall to the ground (a gravelly patch of road I am not familiar with). I look at the bike and both wheels are warped, reminding me of the time a car backed into my bike while it was parked at the Dog & Duck. I suddenly remember that a new bicycle shop has opened near work (this is not a figment of my imagination – a tiny little bike shop recently opened on Guadalupe & MLK, and I've always been curious as to how a bike shop could operate in such a tiny little space).

I take my bike into the shop and the tires are there, as if they were waiting for me. They take my bike into the back and tell me to wait in the back room while they fix it. I walk around the counter, through a door, and immerge into what looked like a giant LAN party (my dork side always seems to shine through, even in my subconscious). There were swarms of people, some seated around clusters of computers, others kicking back on a couch. Each cluster of computer was intended for a different activity: digital music-making, programming, I can't remember what else. A lot of it was very artsy and hipster-esque. There was music. And someone I worked with was there, showing me around this secret clubhouse. A woman I didn't recognize was trying to sell me on a pair of hipster cycling shoes (red 80's high-top sneakers).

The shoes set me off. "Fuck this hipster shit," I thought. Get me out of here.

Fortunately my bike was ready. When it emerged, it looked nothing like the bike I had brought in. It was kitted out with all sorts of weird do-dads, like a saddleback that was basically a sheet of black plastic that folded over onto itself, drastically inferior to my Ortlieb bags. They had changed the bike seat into this ultra cushy number. And after a few moments, I realized they had completely redesigned my Jamis to be one of those incumbent bikes.

I was PISSED.

That's when I woke up, relieved it was only dream…

…and even more curious about that bike shop on the corner.

Posted by monica at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lions Gate Bridge from Stanley Park
Originally uploaded by spacekadet.

I might have some stories to share later. But for now, here's a drink recipe I learned at a semi-eurotrash tapas restaurant in Vancouver's west end. Enjoy this fine beverage while you check out my photos. (You'll need the booze to dull the jealousy.)

Dark and Stormy

1.5 oz dark rum
4 limes, juiced
ginger beer

It all goes in a tumbler with some ice. It's superb!

Posted by monica at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At long last I've thought of a simple programming project that will be both useful and instructive.

I use my Amazon.com Wish List to remember books and CDs I'd like to explore. I often wish I had the list handy when I find myself shopping at, for instance, Half Price Books, ready to spend some money, but unable to remember any of the authors or titles on my list. It would be nice to be able to export my wish list to a simple text document that lists my wish list items by category. Then I'd have a simply formatted copy of my wish list that I could print out and carry with me in my wallet or "Hipster PDA" (were I to carry such a thing).

Nicer still would be the ability to sink the list to my iPod. I'm not even sure if that's possible, but I'm going to find out.

Posted by monica at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)