Why the Internet Exists

Well nothing has really been going on, so I thought I'd just post about one of the greatest things ever. Shaq's Twitter. Shaq, for those unaware, is a gigantic, barely literate basketball player, Miami police officer, platinum certified rapper, and occasional actor. While I'm sure many of you would love to read all of his Tweets, you might not have the time for such an undertaking. Luckily, I have a disgusting amount of time. So I present the Shaq Twitter highlights.

Typically, Shaq makes a point of telling you what city he's in for an away game, and what he's doing there. Examples.

• I went to alcatraz, i sat n the same cell clint eastwood at in
• Im n love with da city of toronto
• Bernie macs last movie soul man is the funniest movie ever, im watchn it now n denver
• Its co sold in porltand i catn even tpye srtaight
• Its so cold in porland the sun just sent me a text, yo shaq ill c u n may Schwwwwwww
• Why do they call minneapolis, the twin cities, nobody here looks a like, waaa waaa waaaaa

One of the more interesting parts about Shaq's Tweets is that he's following the world of sports pretty closely. He really likes the Cowboys, and always has something to say about other atheltes.

• Say it aint so what im reading about michael phelps....is this real
• Im n canada which teamate should i hit wit a snowball, i say robin lopez
• Is yao ming really a half a million all star votes better than me, my twitterish brothers and sisters
• Last nite i told greg oden , "we r not the same, i am a martian"

Another recurring theme is how Shaq can't sleep after the Suns lose. And he tells you this. Constantly.

• Anotha sleepless nite, n twitter land, aaaaaggggghhhhhhh, whyyyyyyyyyyyy
• ust lil tired, cant sleep after, embarassing losses/ shaqsomnia
• i could neva sleep aftera loss like dat, i have double imsomnia
• I cant sleep gotta get 2 walmart
• Cant sleep after a loss, watchn maury povich, i am not the father schwwwww
• Cant sleep i think i maay have mental imsomnia, plus im watchn the lost boys

Shaq also thinks he's a lot more of a philosopher than he actually is, and loves to post really deep quotes, a lot of time attributing them to himself at the end.

• I neva get bored just dnt want u 2 get bored wit me
• Question Should one b remembered 4 what he did Or what he is doing
• If you have done less than what i have done, how can u comment on what more needs 2 happen Shaquille oneal

And then there's just the miscellaneous goings on of a crazy man.

• Im not bored To much homework Workn on my doctorate Coming soon Dr shaq
• My son had a nightmare hes up wit me, he asked daddy how come u aint sleep, i told him, i dont sleep i dream
• Even the aliens no me, da ones real far, i speak to em like ibadablaa, Jigamagla, bockeraaa
• Just saw punisher, great bloody movie, aggggggh, dats what i , nevamind lol, aggggggh (growl) (snarl) spit
• How come i have the mr rogers neighborhhood theme song stuk n my head, iz he still alive
• Watchn true blood, thats were i was born and raised, dat vampire town, shaqula has been discovered aaaaggggh
• I get my neck cracked b4 everygame, today i felt a xtra clikadee clak
• I need help subway or schlotsskys for lunch, big game tonite
• ABOUT TO EAT DINNER, I PASSED UP 20 MCDONALDS TODAY. I COULDNT DO IT I'M ON A DIET,BUT MCDONALDS FRIES R THE BEST UM UM UM

There's a lot more good material on the page, and I totally recommend you check it out. Some of it is so absurd and inarticulate I couldn't post it here, it's just one of those things you have to experience for yourself.

My Brush With Fame

Food Find: So apparently a place has opened up in BCS (that's the Bryan/College Station area for those like...two people...reading this who are not from Texas) that sells "authentic Australian meat pies." If you'll remember, a few weeks ago I went to a place in San Francisco selling take-away meat pies. These Australian ones seem to be less experimental, and more traditional, but it's still an interesting occurrence. I haven't been yet (but I think I'm going on Saturday), but my dad went and ended up spending 30 minutes talking to the nice owner about the art and science of meat pies. That plus he ended up buying four pies (two shepard's, one beef and bacon, one beef and mushroom), four kolaches, a loaf of bread, and some cinnamon rolls. I think if pies end up being the primary food source in New Zealand, I can make a semester easy.
Popular Culture: While I fully endorse the fact that The Wire is one of the best television dramas I've ever seen (putting it up with seasons one and two of Lost and the Rob Lowe era of The West Wing), I think it may have ruined the entire genre of crime drama for me. Watching both Fringe and Life on Mars, two shows I healthily enjoyed pre-Wire, all I can notice is how un-authentic they seem to be. No chain of command, no studying of criminals, no methodology, people running off on assignments by themselves, it goes on and on. A friend of mine explained to me once why he would never try ecstasy, since "your brain could never chemically be that happy again, the rest of your life is just depression," and I think The Wire may have done this to crime dramas.

Well nothing too thrilling has been happening here, so I thought I'd relay a story which was cool at the time, but is seemingly more relevant now. About a year ago, I went to this legislative seminar with the USC Political Science department, where they flew about seven students up to Sacramento, and we met with state senators and congresspeople and just sort of shot the bull about laws and government and whatever. The trip itself was cool, especially since it was basically an all-expenses paid weekend vacation to Sacramento, with no real obligations on my part. But the best part was, afterwards, I somehow got on the POSC mailing list for cool, secret, events. This came up a week or so later, when I got an email inviting me to a private screening of a Ron Howard movie. Not one to pass up a free film, I RSVPed and found myself at the Ron Howard screening room in the Robert Zemeckis Digital Arts Center (or whatever it's called).
The room was this swanky little theater, seating about fifty, with cool red velvet chairs. Initially I sat in the back, and turned out to be a row right in front of Ron Howard. I did a little eavesdropping while he was on the phone, as he told someone that he wouldn't be able to work on a project since he would be in "Angels and Demons mode" at that time. Eventually I moved up front, and Ron introduced the now Best-Picture-nominated Frost/Nixon. The movie was basically a final cut, with Ron telling us that there wouldn't be any changes to editing or anything until it was released. The footage was a little grainy though, something I guess they clean up in post-production. Afterward he did a Q&A with the audience about what they liked: pacing, score, and a few other things. He really focused on some "Where are they now" slides which came at the end of the movie, asking us if we liked the text, if it fit, etc. A lot of the people in the audience were really obnoxious film types, trying to give legitimate and educated-sounding answers, but I did give some input (aka: got to talk to Ron Howard), which was pretty cool. He had told us that even though it was done, they were going to sit on it until Oscar season, and lo and behold here it is. I guess it's just part of the USC experience.

2009 New Zealand Open

ETD:So this year's Australian Open, although normally viewed as an appetizer for the three "real" tournaments, has been one of the most interesting grand slams of recent, comparable to even the 2008 NFL season (which by the way will finish with the Cardinals over the Steelers 41-38, bonus points to whoever recognizes that score). I honestly can't think of a single analyst who even came close to predicting anything accurately about the season. Women's tennis has been equally frustrating, with favorites Venus and Jankovic dropping eartly. I don't include Ivanovic because she's headed on the Kournikova path.

The real stories have been in men's tennis, who seem to be stirring up more drama than their wonderful counterparts. Remember when Roddick called Djokovic out for being "quick to call the trainer" in the US Open, only to lose in the quarters to Djokovic? It looks like the loss stayed with him (Djokovic jeered at Roddick in front of the Ashe-packed crowd), because Roddick dominated Djokovic, leading 2 sets to 1, before Joke-ovic retired because of "heat exhaustion." I'm biased since Roddick's serve-faster-than-speed-of-light, hit-a-forehand-no-matter-what style has always been fun for me to watch, but Djokovic has retired in way too many big matches - Deion Sanders would not approve. I'm just ready to see Roddick get yet another shot at Federer and hoping Tsonga can take out Nadal since Nadal-Federer would not be old at all. Speaking of Federer, it was fun to hear his pre-tourney comments on Andy Murray, who was picked as the favourite to win over him. Apparently Federer was confused as to why Murray was the favourite, labeling him as "unproven." After putting Berdych away in five sets (extremely entertaining for those who watched), Federer went on to say that he would "take [Murray] on any day in a five-setter," and that he'd "always favour himself" in a five setter. Murray's beaten Federer the last 4 meetings, and it's a bit sad that Federer won't be able to put the Scot in his place with Murray being taken out quite quickly by Verdasco. While we're on the topic of quick matches, the Federer-Del Potro match was absolutely ruthless, with Federer finishing him off in straight sets 6-3, 6-0, 6-0. News has it Del Potro enrolled in Dallas Academy the following day.

Non-sports related knowledge that I learned today: getting a running start and "sidewalk surfing" after it snows is an immediate giveaway that you are from Texas.

Black Violin

Sports thought: SC announced that they'll have a home and home with Minnesota in 2010 and 2011. My initial sentiment is...disappointment. While it's nice to at least be playing a legitimate opponent (not everyone gets the opportunity to beef up their National Championship resume with a 70 point performance over the Citadel), and obviously it's going to be impossible to schedule big marquee games every season (see: Ohio State, Nebraska), it still is...Minnesota. The same Golden Gophers who lost their last five straight (including one to a Michigan team trying to rewrite the book on the term "rebuilding season"), and muscled their way into the Insight Bowl (wowwww) on a 7-5 record. Now granted that was 2008, and we don't see them until 2010, but if I had to chance SC's national title shot, I'd feel a lot more comfortable saying 2010 then 2009 (since we'll probably have a second year starter at QB, potentially a senior Joe McKnight, and some returning starters on defense), and we can take as many big wins over big programs as we can come by. So I guess...let's all hope Notre Dame gets better? Ha, yeah right.
Texas appreciation: I think people who stay in Texas most of their lives don't really savor the fact that kolaches--arguably the greatest breakfast option of all--are virtually nonexistent outside of the state. For those unfortunate enough as to never having been introduced to a kolache, it's basically a dinner roll (i.e. some soft, sweet bread), filled with jam, fruit, delicious cured meats, or cheese. If I really had to lower myself to a comparison, the fruit ones are like a danish and the meat ones are like a Hot Pocket. Except that really doesn't do a kolache justice. Their excellence comes in the fact that the bread is really light and doughy--not the sort of glazed, flaky examples you find in other breakfast foods. Although they don't get a lot of respect in terms of Texas cuisine, I would argue that kolaches easily deserve a place up with Tex-Mex or brisket.
Music: Do people actually listen to Tom Waits? And if so, how??

So tonight, thanks to my A&M contact and good friend Kathryn, I scored tickets to see a group called Black Violin on campus. We didn't really know much, except that the show was billed as a "hip-hop violin duo" and that the tickets were free. The first thing I noticed, milling around the foyer before the show, was that the crowd who had shown up was noticeably hipper than I expected. Now I'm going to have to choose my words carefully here, but in my mind, A&M students have a certain...look to them. This may or may not include crew cuts, camo hats with fishhooks in them, and Wrangler jeans. Now while not all students look like this, I think you'd be hard pressed to get a group of fifty or so in a room, and have nobody fit this description. Except that was absolutely the case with the Black Violin show. Maybe 200-300 students, and they were all...well...cool. I pointed this out to Kathryn, and she was, understandably, offended.
Now what we didn't realize was that Black Violin was here as a part of a bigger show. So we sit down and here starts a sorority doing about a fifteen minute step routine, followed by two more. The effect/reaction on the crowd was awesome--people were shouting and hooting back at the performers, doing the stepping and clapping motions along with them, and dancing in the aisles. This was, admittedly, my first step show, but it was a pretty excellent experience. They had these whole elaborate skits played out, used canes and props, costume changes, the whole works.
Black Violin came and played after this. The group (which was actually one violinist, one violist, and a DJ) predominantly played rap covers on their instruments. The DJ would play beats from a lot of current, popular things (Lil Wayne, Usher, Akon, etc.) and the guys would do the vocal equivelents and a whole slew of flourishes. This was the first, and most likely last, time I've ever seen a dance pit form at a violin concert, complete with the obligatory grinding. The guys also did some hip-hop classical covers (most notably Brandenburg 3), and their version of a rap battle on their instruments. The musicians themselves were hilarious, and put on a great stage show. I went home and got their album, which isn't nearly as good (part of the problem is I assume they don't have the rights to all the songs they play in concert, so can't put them on a record), but the show itself was a blast. I don't think I'm ever going to get to see people dancing in the aisles to violin music again in my life, so this goes down in the record books.

Food

Sports thought: So I'm infinitely happy that the Eagles aren't going to the Super Bowl. Apart from the fact that they're an NFC East team not playing in northern Texas, and thus a sworn enemy, this also comes from a culinary standpoint. Every year, my dad and I make a big food production for the game based on the cities the two teams are from...and I was not going to be eating cheese steak. No way. I'm a little disappointed that crab is out with Baltimore, but Arizona still leaves us a lot of southwest, Meixcan-y options. And Pittsburgh has uh...you know...steel cut oats? There's gotta be some sort of regional cuisine for them.
Weather: It was like 65 degrees today. Texas is awesome when it wants to be.

This long weekend has been filled with various cooking escapades. Starting Friday (and continuing into Saturday morning), I made some scratch cinnamon rolls. Next time you go into a bakery and buy some cinnamon rolls, make sure you thank the makers/bakers profusely. So much more work went into these things than I thought possible or expected (although part of the reason was it was an Alton Brown recipe, which have like eighty more steps than you think should be necessary). The basic steps are make dough, let dough rise, realize three hours later that dough hasn't risen at all so do it again, knead and roll out dough, fill with sugar and roll into cool nautilus shape, cut into rolls, refrigerate overnight, put in empty oven and steam for half an hour, bake for half an hour, make icing, ice rolls, consume. This was definitely one of those recipes that will be made once and only once in my life, because it was so much work for so little payoff. When you can buy a tube of Pillsbury (as much as it pains me to say this) and they taste just as good (it's the delicious preservatives), then you really don't need to be making cinnamon rolls.

The next two meals were much more successful than that breakfast. I've been reading a lot of articles recently how it's getting really trendy to put fruit in hamburgers (food trend right here: fruit hamburgers and bacon desserts. I'm calling it), so we pulled a blueberry hamburger recipe. The ratio is like 1.5 lbs of meat to 1/2 a cup of blueberries, so you don't taste them at all. They really only exist to moisten the meat, which they do magnificently. I think I could serve the beef ones (what my dad ate) in a restaurant, since the black flecks of the berry pretty much disappear, but mine (turkey), looked like a moldy patty (although not tasting as such), and I don't know if the general public could be down with eating that. But seriously try it--you don't taste the fruit, it's full of antioxidants, and you can get away with a leaner cut of beef, since the blueberries add so much juice.

Today I made two different types of molé, which we ended up using for enchiladas. For those unaware, molé is basically just a general Mexican sauce, usually full of thousands of flavors and assorted ingredients. I made two different ones today, a green and a red. The green was pretty basic (well as far as molé goes...still pretty weird on the whole)--essentially tomatillos, cilantro, jalapeno, honey, assorted spices, pumpkin and sesame seeds all in a blender. The red is a lot stranger, but usually what people think of when they think molé. It had me roasting garlic, then blending it with dried ancho peppers, raisins, almonds, cocoa powder, onions, cinnamon, turkey broth, and probably other weird things I'm forgetting. This may seem like a lot of random things, but the end result is this awesome sauce, with really (ok sorry if I sound snobby-foodie here) complex layers of flavor going on. I would definitely make the red molé again...if it didn't involve me soaking dried peppers, blending various sauces, working things through a sieve, watching/stirring a sauce for 45 minutes, etc. You get the idea. Maybe someday for a party, but it's in no way casual food. We ended up making spinach and chicken enchiladas, using both of the sauces. Turned out pretty phenomenal. And just ask if you want any of these various recipes. I stand behind all of them. Except cinnamon rolls. Just go buy a tube.

Internet Goings-On

Food Find: I made some wicked chicken salad today. And we're talking the kind you put in a sandwich, not a salad that happens to have chicken on it. Someday when I open my restaurant/bakery/universal trend-setting-hub, I'll serve seven different chicken salads, one a day. Or maybe eight, that way people who only eat there on Mondays can try each flavor.
Weather: People keep saying it's about to get oppressively cold here. Well, I'm already spending all the time indoors, might just continue on with that.

Got home last night, and I've already run out of things today. Today I spent a lot of time with two websites--kiva.org and couchsurfing.com, both of which are really brilliant examples of the power of the internet, it breaking down physical barriers, getting people in contact with others, yadda yadda. Kiva is one of the coolest things I've seen; basically it has postings by entrepreneurs in third-world countries who need loans, then users on the site can give them 'micro-loans,' (starting at $25), which are interest free and are paid back usually within the year. In return, we, the lenders, get some assuaging of our hippie, liberal guilt, and periodic updates on how their businesses are doing with our money and so forth. I spent a while looking at the various people asking for money (which is hard, since the money is flowing in and, as a result, the people turn over all the time), and ended up giving to Dilorom Nurmatova, a bazaar owner in Tajikistan who needed a loan to buy more sweets (!!), and this baller Stephen Asare, a grocery store owner in Ghana trying to expand is inventory. To read more about Kiva, there was a pretty amusing editorial in Time a month or so ago by Joel Stein.

Also, I signed up for and starting perusing Couch Surfing. The basic premise is you volunteer your couch for wandering travelers, and at the same time are given access to a huge global network of people doing the same. Right now I'm trying to find somewhere to stay in Auckland, since I gave myself an intentional layover there of about three days. It's a pretty overwhelming process; there are hundreds of people in the city offering places to stay, ranging from 20 to 60+. Essentially, I'm trying to find someone who I think I would get along with and would be cool to be around for a few days from what is essentially a Facebook profile. I'm going to start corresponding with a few people in the upcoming days, and hopefully something will connect. And then superhopefully when I get back to LA, some cool, exotic travelers will come crash on my couch.

More Bay Area

Food find: Going off another excellent recommendation, we set out to find the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. The way the factory location had been described (and confirmed by the fact that my dad's only knowledge relegated it to lore) put this place pretty close to an urban legend. Basically, the instructions I initially received to get there were to "wander around Chinatown...walk through all the back alleys...and eventually you should find a little room that's a whole cookie factory." We had an address, but it was just "Ross Alley." But luckily, the power of the internet helped us narrow the quest down, although the instructions were still pretty much the same. We parked on the outskirts of Chinatown, and weaved through the stores, all selling identical Chinese crap (slippers, two dollar t-shirts, wooden umbrellas, Chinese finger traps), until we got to this sketchy, possibly smoke-filled alley. One of the doors opened to the cookie factory, which was seriously four ancient Chinese ladies folding the cookie discs into their shapes as they came off this gigantic steel machine that took up most of the space (albeit a five by forty or so room). There was a nice man who gave us free samples (essentially just hot discs), but pictures were fifty cents. We bought a bag of throwaways (discs that didn't make the cut, since they were too small, fused to one another, etc.) and a bag of adult fortune cookies, which mostly have bad, quasi-sexual puns. The best has been "Sultan who has ten wives, nine of them have it pretty soft," which isn't to show you how high quality the jokes are, but more how dismal the quality is. They just don't make adult-themed cookies like they used to.
A Bad Joke: Since this morning was dominated by Chinese stereotypes and offensive accents, we'll keep it up "Confucius say man who go through airport security sideways is going to Bangkok."

So perhaps the highlight of this Bay Area trip came yesterday when we went to visit one of my dad's oldest friends in Los Altos Hills. The explicit purpose of the trip was to see the vineyard he'd planted in his backyard, but mostly it was just to see all the surrounding craziness. We toured his house, which was more like three adjoining buildings, as he told us about his extensive plans to knock out bathrooms and bedrooms to create a bigger living room, dig under the house (which was built pretty unstably onto a hillside) to put in more bedrooms and an office, and other pseudo-whackjob renovations. He took us out to the vineyard (complete with a beehive to pollinate of course, which also happens to yield 25 pounds of honey a year), which was about nine months old, and yielded a handful of grapes this season. Mostly, it was a bunch of three foot-or-so long vines hanging in a big pile of foot high grass. And of course you can't grow wine in such a shabby lawn...so he had a whole family of goats to take care of it. He had originally bought a pregnant female and a nasty looking ram six months ago, only to find out that the female simply fat and not pregnant (isn't that always how it happens...). But luckily, she just gave birth to four goatlings, which are about two weeks old. These guys can't really do anything except bleat and scamper, so needless to say they were pretty incomparably cute. We played (read: cradled) with them for thirty or so minutes, saw the vineyard, and then managed to find our way back to the goat pen to play with them some more. If anyone has the opportunity to get some baby goats, you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't. Although the main downside seemed to be that the mother and (especially) the father were the antithesis of cute, being grumpy and ugly and not at all interested in us. These goats were really just another part of his plan; every time we turned a corner there was a new idea, from building a wine-tasting gazebo to fixing up an old Porsche and a Mustang, to knocking out the entire driveway to build a cul-de-sac. And of course, we all left with business cards for the wine company so we can someday buy his locally grown and pressed