There is nothing unappealing to me about this video. I love this Swedish man. I love his fancy Minority Report-style screen. I even love the weird, slightly abandoned-looking studio space they're in. Granted, it's probably better off that he has these things. I would most like to rollerblade around the building while chasing my cats, before settling down to knit and watch Interactive 30 Rock. Hans, however, has chosen to use his awesomeness to educate us about global health:



And I might have shared this before, but since it's so cool, I shall share it again:

http://www.visualizing.org/

Data visualization techniques make me feel fairly smart with minimal effort on my part, and all through some pretty little pictures.

I think I'll go to Boston

Boston lit their Faneuil Hall Christmas tree just two nights before this picture was taken. Shouldn't we save the intensive decorating for when all of the natural decorations fall off the trees?

All this walking around, and I'm still stuffed from all of the good food we ate. Cheap, yummy Thai food? Yes please. How about eating handmade pasta in the North End, while an adorable older gentleman plays the accordion and sings to you? Indian food? Crab rolls? Oh sure, but only because you're twisting my arm.



Chicken curry dumplings and something else that was way too delicious to ponder for very long

Pumpkin Rosemary Pasta

Following the weekend of pumpkin brownies (found on the gorgeous Tastespotting) I was left with half a can of pumpkin puree, and no desire to bake anything else ridiculously sweet. I also hate, hate, hate wasting food. I figured I should use this to my benefit and make something slightly snazzy for dinner. For the record, this means it would have to be more enticing than cereal, without moving much past the difficulty of say, scrambling eggs. A tight squeeze, but I know that sometimes I deserve a meal that does not get poured from a box. Cut to a few steps later:




I got the basic recipe from Martha Stewart. Be warned that her website features a tiny little avatar of her, staring at you judgmentally as you cut corners and substitute ingredients. I used small shells instead of penne and milk instead of half and half (cause that's what I had), omitted the wine vinegar (cause it was on a really high shelf and, as established above, I'm lazy), and I added cranberries at the end (because cranberries are always awesome). Don't skip frying the rosemary; it's a fun texture and it makes everything taste so yum.

I still have many cans of pumpkin puree in the kitchen, and I consider myself prepared for the worst. I read an article a few years ago about certain areas of the country completely running out of pumpkin puree around the holidays, instilling a moderate-to-severe panic among housewives of a baking inclination.

Remember this blog, and how things used to be?

Those were the days. I'm not even sure where things went wrong. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, but we began to drift apart.

My weekends started to fill up with other things. I didn't want it to be the case, but they took priority over you. And anytime I had a spare moment, I was too tired to communicate. I didn't feel like I had anything worth saying.

But things are different now.

Let's just jump back to June and pretend we didn't lose that summer to moving towns and other life events.

Let's start fresh.

We can take it slowly. I'll share a recipe or two - something pleasing to the eye, but not terribly insightful. You can bat your eyes and laugh at my jokes a little more than you need to. We can figure out where to take it from there.

I think we can make this work. Again.

I am everything you hate about the world...

...Except Marmaduke. I'm not Marmaduke.


If you haven't seen the trailer yet...well, I would say you should try not to, but it seems inevitable. Just brace yourself, remember that there still are good things in the world, and that this movie is just a showcase of bad, bad choices made by other people. (Owen Wilson? Really?)

Even scarier is the fact that these bad decisions can lead not-so-smart people to make their own bad decisions. In real life. With real dogs.

This would be slightly less disturbing if the movies that prompted these dog frenzies were at least, well, good. (No, I did not happen to catch Beverly Hills Chihuahua - no need, as the hundreds of dogs dancing on top of Mayan ruins in the trailer told me all I needed to know.) I'm hoping that once someone comes out with a movie starring an adorable CGI black mamba (hopefully voiced by Vince Vaughn), it will put an end to this sad subset of life imitating what passes as art.

I think we're looking at different things

Things that I hate more than anything:

- people up in my face
- BS
- being told I'm wrong when I'm right

This is where planning a wedding becomes problematic. I don't care what color the napkins are, but then I'm told I have to care. They're the napkins! I'm met with slack-jawed silence when I stutter that I don't know where the bouquet is being made...I didn't think I wanted a bouquet, but now I need to have one, and it gets "made" somewhere, like a car? I can hear the faint echoes of simplicity, but they are getting muffled under dance floors, DJs and floral arrangements.

However, this awesome article clears things up a bit. In case you're wondering, the only right way to do things is your way.

Cartooning

This week's New Yorker cartoon, with some suggested captions below. These took not very long, and aren't very good, but are undoubtedly better than what will eventually win. How do we tie this one into martinis and/or the financial crisis?





What an abnormally large raccoon.

Alright fellas: it takes a varmint to catch a varmint.

I'm not sure if this is the right time to start a band.

Are you sure you're a rattlesnake?

Tarnation! First same-sex marriage, and now this!

Worst Wedding Songs Ever

Picking wedding songs is hard. People do it all the time, so you think that it would be easy. Part of the reason it can be easy is because Top 40 radio is peppered with songs that you can grab and insert into your meaningful moment of choice.However, if you're doing it right and making it meaningful and specific to you, there isn't necessarily an obvious choice. (As per this list, this excludes fans of Shania Twain, 98 Degrees, Michael Bolton and Celine Dion. However, you probably don't understand this post anyway, so you can feel free to stop reading.)

Here are some songs and bands that we have been considering, but had to put on the back burner due to creepy lyrics.

Grateful Dead - Ripple

"There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone."

Iron and Wine - Lovesong of the Buzzard

As if the title doesn't give it away.

The Mountain Goats - No Children
Extensive reasons not to choose this song, including the lyrics:
"I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die."


However, I feel better about the efforts we are putting towards this, when I see that there are people who don't really consider the nuances of disasterous lyrics. NPR held a contest to collect the top worst wedding songs from listeners. It was a good heads-up, as we were able to see that whatever we pick can't possibly be this bad. We also got the hint to take "Send in the Clowns" off of our list.

An open to letter to that well-behaved girl in the coffee shop

I'm sorry to hear about that horrible situation with the car. Every patron in the coffee shop was. By 'situation' you must know that I am referring to the fact that your daddy won't buy you one. I admit, I was a little skeptical that you were deserving of a car as well. However, when you started to yelp that the one accident with your friend's car was 'barely' your fault, and you took note of that one 'unlucky' time when you wrecked your dad's car, my heart began to warm. Not only did you have a history of facing the challenges of driving, such as watching what is around you when you do it, but you are reflective and thoughtful, and perfectly willing to note your mistakes loudly in public for all to hear.

Similarly, I was surprised when you yelled "I'm 21 and I don't have my driver's license!" I had been completely willing to believe that you were much younger. Say 15. Or 5. However, only someone with the wisdom of your years would be able to negotiate with phrases such as "I don't want to!" and "I'm not trying to sound like I'm asking for the world here."

I also completely agree that your dad could be spending his money better. You were careful to note that a 20,000 euro piece of modern art that he wanted to buy would be "like, the same as a car" for you. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you understand how conversion rates work. You were shrieking about how much your econ textbook would cost, so I know that you at least have plans in the future to begin learning about money. When you do so, you will finally be able to prove to your dad that a $35,000 piece of art does not have wheels and all of your John Mayer CDs, and is therefore an inferior purchase.

To your father: well done holding your own in this discussion. I especially appreciated the part where you contemplated defrauding the SPCA by passing off your daughter's cat as a feral cat so that neutering would be free. The pull towards economics must run in the family, since you encouraged your daughter to split the cost of her textbook with a bunch of people and scan all of the pages they would need, copyright laws be damned. I do wish you could be a bit more hopeful about Muslims; you may be right that "between the people, the culture, and the religion, they're all doomed," but it just really brings down the atmosphere in the coffee shop when you say it out loud over your MacBook, apple danish and $4 latte.

Despite all of this, I could still feel the universal bond of a father-daughter relationship. You only care for her well-being, no matter where she goes. I concur that when she goes to Mexico on a drunken spring break with her sorority sisters, she should in no circumstance get into a taxi. You put it just the way that I always have: "No one wants to be in a cab with some Mexican".