While some of us are busy gawking about who's next to be booted from Rockstar: Supernova, scientists have been writing papers to be published tomorrow in Nature about a supernova that "happened in February, 2006." (Why didn't I hear about this in February?) At any rate, the star's death lasted nearly 40 minutes, extraordinarily long, and as such, telescopes were able to capture the event. No, we don't get to see it, but you can read about the phenomenon and the theories it has sparked.

The funny thing is, the star is about 440 million light years away, yet the writer says it happened in February. Rather, we witnessed it in February, because it actually happened 440 million years ago (give or take a few months). It's so incredibly fascinating, though, to realise one can see back in time millions of years. I wonder what our part of the universe looked like back then?

Yeah I'm just rattling them off, tonight.
I might not be if I'd had enough butter, because I really, desperately wanted to make more apple crisp tonight. It's funny... I go most of my life hardly ever baking. Oh, mom, you are so good at it I didn't need to! And I put too much rum in the rum balls last year (and I don't even drink!).

I made banana bread recently, and, well, you can read about that disaster here. I've wanted to make apple crisp for awhile because it's just so damn good. I've started to like and consume oats quite a bit, and I knew I had all the ingredients (except cinnamon, but I rectified that pretty quickly).

Horrified, of course, to discover that we bought artificial vanilla extract... sigh... but I guess that's what ya do when you're living paycheque to paycheque. Tastes fine. Anyway.

I made some a few days ago, and not enough because it was gone the next afternoon. Yup. And no more apples. Got the man to pick up 12 today. He bought Galas... yum. The ones I used the other day were, uh, early something or other. I'd like to think early girl, but that's tomatoes.

Here's the recipe, from the book my sister so kindly passed down called "Cooking without Mom." No kidding.

I found this article on Dr. Mercola's website: "Politically Incorrect: The Neglected Nutritional Research of Dr. Weston Price".

You know, it's funny how seemingly misunderstood food, nutrition, and a "balanced diet" are, considering how important it is. I remember high school; the triangle. They were right about the sweets at the top, and perhaps the carbohydrates at the bottom have been challenged. HOWEVER, I've always found the low-carb thing to be somewhat preposterous because I was always told we gain a lot of energy from carbs. The painting contractor chickie makes an interesting point about the whole low-fat thing as well: "Fat free, lite and diet foods make people fat, by the way. Only fat people buy these products. Ever noticed?" If it doesn't make them fat it might kill them, because aspartame is deadly, and will kill ants... in case you have an ant problem. (Might wanna try boiled potato leaves instead.)

But I digress.

The article I referred to above is about the findings of Dr. Weston Price. He discovered that Native peoples with their traditional diets were incredibly healthy, and had "on average, less than 1% of tooth decay"! (I've heard about this before, but what are we going to do in our society anyway, since we're basically screwed.) Do read about his findings; I think they will surprise you.

My grad project will explore what the food industry has done to ruin nutrition. If I can, I'll be a little more politically charged and criticize the pharmaceutical industry as well. I think they're all in cahoots. It's capitalism. "But we are a capitalist nation!" you say. I can't remember the clever statement I had in response to that, but why should we deny our bodies what we fundamentally need, just because a handful of people are greedy? Are those people, too, eating foods abnormally high in sugar, and tomatoes that might as well be plastic? Cardboard potatoes?

Man, potatoes are so good, too. I want a vegetable patch! Is nothing sacred?

My boyfriend has been complaining for months about the smell of my Nalgene water bottle. Best friend told me, it's just old, that's unavoidable. So I finally decided to replace it, but bf could not find them at Superstore. I read on Mercola tonight a confusing article, but understood his comments about safe(r) plastics.

Plastics that are safer to use for storing food and beverages, none of which are known to leach harmful substances include:

Polypropylene, designated "#5 PP"
High-density polyethylene, designated "#2HDPE"
Low-density polyethylene, designated "#4 LDPE"

I was thankful, then, to find out that all our plastic containers are #5 PP. My water bottle, unfortunately, just says #7, and it's getting old. It's Lexan. I can't tell if it has discoloured because it's grey! (Say no to Lexan and polycarbonate!!!) It's not going to kill me but I feel a little uneasy. I still used (and re-used, once) bottled water we bought on our trip. We ended up buying 3 and didn't use as much on the way home. My 500mL bottle gets used up very quickly between the two of us and it was unfortunate that we didn't have two more, but at least we had cold water!

I re-used your good old basic thin plastic water bottles for YEARS, from elementary school through to at least grade 10. I don't know how old my Nalgene bottle is, but maybe 3 years old. Gross... time to be replaced.

The best, they say, is still glass... but it's heavy and it breaks, so it's not that practical for use when I go out. Mercola made a good point, though, about the style of Nalgene bottle you might get: the wide-mouth ones can be CLEANED! I find it very comfortable to drink out of, although the biggest ones (1L) are a bit large. Great for day-long excursions and road trips, though.

We'll see if I can find them tomorrow, hm? And good thing, too, that we didn't get Lexan ones again because it's entirely possible they're not safe, or at least in the long run. The safer, but less trendy HDPE ones are cheaper on their website than the polycarbonate. I'd rather know that I'm not damaging my body than look cool with a water bottle in tow.

Any more evidence?

TOOL, GM Place, August 22, 2006

18,000 warm, anticipating bodies
formed a snake around the building

friends in the wrong line up met with friends
who met with friends long lost to other relationships

an introduction to the breath-consuming sourness
of another's disregard

feeling violated after the innocent perpetrator (just doing her job)
confirmed i was harmless

excited, searching every which way
for other friends long lost to busy lives, for now

we would not know tonight how isis sounds
as we zig-zagged through swarms, a dotted mess

a man with one right number found himself
with one wrong number, rightly mine

the seats were there to tell us where to stand
as the band embraced our ears and chests

pseudo candles, smoke in green lasers
a white stage lit with moving images

a paper candle nearby sends smoke my way
my lungs incapacitated temporarily in distress

intermission brings a rest, four people seated while
18,000 throats go hoarse and twice that, hands numb

two hours in five minutes disappeared, and it's over
we scream and exit in deafness

friends meet friends, and in cheering agree
the experience was more than worth what we spent

We didn't take many photos on this trip, but I'd like to share with you the water tower in Spirit Lake, ID — transformed into a teapot! When "mama" told us about this, we just had to see it.

As a graduation requirement, we must establish communication with a mentor during the course of our grad project(s). They can be a subject, technology, or production expert (with at least 5 years of professional experience) or a designer. "Mentors provide valuable input to Senior Projects to help validate topics and design solutions."

I've now decided to focus my grad project on creating/increasing (through a website) our awareness of the degradation of the quality of our food, in order to change our relationship with food, to change our attitude toward it. I'm also going to be exploring alternative methods of navigation within the frame of the website.

I'm looking for someone who can either provide expertise in nutrition -- and all that is wrong with the food industry and its products today -- or expertise in Flash/web design. If you are either, or know anyone who is, please contact me right away. Thanks!

Everyone at this point is aware of the airline terrorism plot, metro/train bombs, etc. I'm reading this article from BBC News about the remote possibility of agro-terrorism in the US.

Craig Watz, an FBI special agent who runs the agro-terrorism conference, says that when he talks at lunches or dinners, he emphasises how people need to change the way they think about food.

"How many people thought about the safety or security of food, who handled it, who prepared it, where it came from?" he asks.

"We do have to be vigilant not only getting on an airplane or in buses or train systems, but we also have to be vigilant in who's handling our food."

I think the first two statements make important points, but outside of "terrorism." (Personally I think there should be more emphasis on a term they've started using, "extremists.") We really don't know where our food comes from most of the time. We don't know what's been put on our fruits & vegetables. Industralized food often means a lack of nutrition, so we're forgetting that food EQUALS nutrition, not food equals edible stuff we can shove in our mouths to satisfy a hunger.

I wasn't surprised to see the name Steve Martin on the spine of a colourful book in the library. (I was, however, surprised to find myself in a library.) I heard about his film Shopgirl based on his book, so I knew he was a novelist. What I didn't know was he has more than one!

The story is narrated by a man in his early 30s, Daniel Pecan Cambridge, who has a number of odd quirks. He's essentially crazy, but not clinically insane. He makes certain rules and limitations for himself, and has an undeniable fear of "8 inch high curbs." (Eight inches!?) Apparently Santa Monica, where the novel is based, does not have many accessible curbs. Daniel gets around the long way by using scooped-out driveways. For some reason he has no fear of stairs! Anyway, he enjoys visiting Rite Aid, making magic squares in his head, and writing essays -- or at least he realised he was good at it when he won an essay contest... twice.

Some of his quirks remind me of things I did as a child: "don't let the grown-ups see you!" or not allowing myself to have either foot on the floor when a car went by, while waiting for someone. Or eventually being oddly decided to not take a book out of the high school library for a full year.

Try spending a few days without saying any word that contains the letter e. He may be crazy, but he's a genius.

Next up: Citizen Girl and Le coeur est un muscle involontaire
Previous favourites include: L'Amour Mallarmé (Guy Moreau), Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto), and A Far-Off Place by Laurens van der Post. (You may remember the movie of it starring Reese Witherspoon, but the original story's hero is a young man.)

At last, I've created my personalized blog in MovableType, and launched it coinciding with the redesign of my portfolio. All posts from my old Blogger blog have been transferred over, but unfortunately the comments have been lost. Anyway, hope you enjoy this one. If you see any broken images or links, please let me know!

You know you're a nerd when you rejoice over your victory over Internet Explorer's quirks and antics. You also know you're a nerd when you put "DAHAHA! I have conquered Internet Explorer's antics!!!" in your MSN name even though only 3 other people (out of, um, 70) will actually understand what you mean.

Actually, I still have a couple odd things to fix... but I'm pretty damn happy of some of my discoveries tonight. You'll see on my main page when it's launched that each section has an underlined title nestled above the text box. It was a pixel too low in IE compared to Safari, so I thought, hmm, since type varies across both, what can I change? Line height. I made it the same px height as my text, nudged the positioning back down a bit, and VOILA! Poyfect! My satisfaction is knowing I figured it out all on my own. That is the reward for any frustration in this game and one reason I like it so much... it feels REALLY GOOD when it WORKS!!!

BBC News has posted a story with some shocking details about the health of English children. I was aware of the proliferation of sugar in processed foods but wasn't aware of the decrease in fibre. Maybe I'd have less sugar cravings if I ate less sugar, period. Hmm... anyway. "One in four children in England are obese, official statistics published earlier this year showed." If this doesn't tell you there's a problem, I don't know what does. I feel bad for overweight kids I see, and not all of them have similarly overweight parents. And, for pre-teen and teenage girls, on the one hand you've got stick-thin models and actresses, and on the other a source of food that is not ready to promote a healthy body. Even the agricultural industry tends to prefer lusty-looking, big fruit lacking in nutrients and taste. Potatoes are now cardboard, and you're lucky if you find french fries made of potatoes. I have a feeling that I'm a rarity to have grown up eating McDonald's on shopping outings and now avoid it and tend to say 'no thanks' to fries. When it comes to the ice cream in the fridge, though... it's hard to resist. For those of you with my problem, try replacing some of the ice cream with a banana, or other fruit like strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries.

My bananas, disappointingly, went spotty before they even ripened. At that point, they're too sweet and squishy for my taste, so I decided to make some banana bread. Mm-mmm. I bought two small loaf pans today. They're non-stick and I hope they're not teflon, but it doesn't say so. Anyway, they're SO slippery that when I got the pan out of the oven with my oven mitts on it SLID OFF MY HANDS and fell on the floor, spilling my almost-done "bread" on the floor. If it were done it might have slid out but not been ruined. I figured out I had too much banana, as the recipe said 3 or 4, and I had 4 so I used them all, but they were large. Next time I want a cup measurement!

It's in the oven again, what remains of it. No longer perfect. It's mushy and now I'm wondering whether it'll be burnt before it solidifies, and of course, while the chocolate is liquid it's not going to be solid in there. What a disaster!

The good news is... IT TASTES AMAZING!!!

I used this recipe but added milk chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Other recipes included nuts but required bigger pans and more ingredients.

At least the Angel Food Cake turned out pretty well...

Something as tiny as a fry is difficult to photograph, but my boyfriend captured this one that I then zoomed in on and added an arrow to point out the little critter. We have 7 or 8. Unfortunately when he discovered the hatchlings' presence, he was doing a partial water change of the tank and siphoned one into the bucket. It then went down the drain... oops. He says by morning we'll have 50 more. We thought the eggs would be eaten before they could hatch but apparently not, so the two of us are rather excited.

By the way, for non-blogger member readers, there is a "scheduled outage at 4:00PM PDT" tomorrow for 45 minutes. So if you've tried to visit my blog and it doesn't work during that time, IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT!!! Just kidding... I'm not bitter. Really, I'm not. It's an incentive, though, for me to get my Movable Type version up and running.

Flash, no flash. What a difference in depth!