October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everybody!

This is my first Halloween without the decorating and door-answering I did at home. I just realised I miss the “rigging the door” thing I used to do, where I’d tape one end of a thread to the door, loop the thread through (and I perfected the method) a pipe cleaner attached to the ceiling, and onto my Einstein Ghost (tissue with feather on its head), that had a penny or two inside to weigh it down. So every time you’d open the door, down would come a ghost! Too bad it wasn’t bigger… hmm… maybe in the future 🙂

And maybe next year I won’t be so busy and I can go back to mom & dad’s for the spookfest… but the last couple years have been so quiet! Now that I no longer live there, and children in the family have their own neighbourhoods to haunt, it’s time to move on. However… I still carved a jack-o-latern!

I realised when I held it up to the windowsill before carving that the windowsill is much, much bigger than I had remembered. So I could have gotten a much bigger pumpkin… oh well. I guess it was all I could really carry, anyway! Plus it will be quite enough to make pumpkin bread. Yum. (I got an organic pie pumpkin, so it’s non-toxic.)

I can smell it burning from the tea candle… smells kind of nice, actually!

October 29, 2006

Tomatoes don’t grow on trees: Phase III, Prototypes

So my new blog (project blog) is looking extremely… BORING! And I have only a few days to fix it, but I think I know how. In the meantime, I took some time to create one of my concept images, which relies on an idiom. Idioms can be a problem since they’re highly culture-centric, but as a classmate pointed out, if you don’t know what it means, you can always ask! Or look online. I imagine the context of my site would offer clarification anyway. Fortunately, this particular one is fairly self-explanatory, but its meaning (having artificially optimistic appearances) should be known in order to lend a full comprehension of what I’m getting at with this:

Unfortunately, and I realised this only when I exported to a JPG for the web, the colour will be different everywhere and to everyone. Fortunately, the web version turned out a little more realistic than the one in Photoshop. (It’s just what Photoshop does.) To my eyes, it looks natural, and hopefully it won’t be too different everywhere else, but hey… any food image will be dealt the same fate. What can ya do…

So, what do you think?

October 27, 2006

What stress can do to you

By the time I visited my doctor today, my symptoms had finished wreaking havoc on me for a couple of days, though I was still fatigued. An extremely stressful day started it: a horrible, often unbearable pain in my stomach that I thought might be a stomach flu or an ulcer, or feared that it might be allergies. I ruled out the allergies after the painful bouts had stopped, and figured it probably wasn’t a flu. Ulcers feel better when you eat, whereas after anything I ate, I would immediately be in pain. Two extra strength Tylenols were nearly defenseless against the pain, and only sitting back or lying down would ease it. Walking about, going up stairs (generally exercising), and sometimes even standing would make it worse. I could not do anything but lie on the couch in front of the TV, or sit at the kitchen table doing crossword puzzles and Sudokus. (I’ve now figured out the strategy behind the latter!)

Continue reading What stress can do to you »

October 25, 2006

Why is it so hard?

I’m having a heck of a time trying to create something good, fresh, and exciting for my project. I may be getting bogged down by starting from an existing blog template. I thought about starting from scratch, until it started working well, and now it isn’t. I did it the same way with this one, but I established most of the colour scheme based on my site, where the colour came by accident.

I have these fantastic palettes of colour in Illustrator, and while together they look amazing, separately they’re… bland and boring. And yet, if I go for bright, it’s too much. I think that’s where the variable tonality of images comes in.

I have pictures in my head of what it could look like constantly going by, yet I think of the possibilities offered by boxes, and I’m just not feeling it. I mean, it looks fine. People can use it. Whatever… but it doesn’t feel like food. It feels like a twig of wheat. It’s too cooshy. Not edgy enough.

More time is spent thinking, reading, observing, and writing than form-building. Dobson says, just make tons of form. Make tons of crap and you’ll end up with something. I definitely made tons of really horrible comps on the last project, which is what a designer is supposed to do. Tons of bad ideas. Part of the pressure here, though, is trying to reach a certain threshold for what a grad project is supposed to be. Yet more ideas, but are they feasable? Is it me? Is it appropriate?

<<<Insert big frustration word here in all caps followed by several exclamation marks>>>

Oh, I know.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There.

*Sigh*

Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?

This project has been nothing but creative blocks and mental self-mutilation. “What was I thinking?!” “I wasn’t thinking!” “I misinterpreted what you meant by presenting with boards.” “Paper’s too shiny.” “God, that’s ugly.” “This isn’t good enough. You’re not good enough. I give up.” “You’re not spending enough time on this.” “Boring.” “I’m not feeling it.” “Sigh.”

I’m thinking maybe starting with the blog isn’t such a good idea. I’m also thinking about abandoning it being all done in MovableType, but we’ll see. I do just as well with XHTML. Maybe I’ll create a blank white box with a grey border in CSS and see what happens. Fill it in mentally with a pencil crayon. Go to my sketchbook with a set of colours that work well together and just muck around. It worked the last time.

Argh.

October 23, 2006

Fortified and enriched foods… are they really better?

I was lucky enough to be offered a free copy of the Vancouver Sun on the day (Friday) they published a long article about fortified/enriched “super foods,” the lead-off of which appeared on the front page. Now, I’ve always considered “Vitamin A & D Added” to milk to be a good thing. I have also noticed that (Lucerne) unsalted butter is, for some reason, a few cents more. It’s very easy to be seduced by products that boast health benefits. Do not be fooled by cereal boxes that boast about being made with whole grains and having all these essential nutrients if it’s packed with sugar! Admittedly, it’s better than cereals that are not, and have little to offer, and are still packed with sugar, but I digress…

The writers visited a downtown Safeway and found 12 “super foods.” Compared to their regular counterparts, they were either the same price or more expensive. The real debate is whether we need these foods. Basically the answer is yes and no. Yes if you’re anemic and need extra iron in your diet, or if you have other special circumstances. No, for everyone else if only we’d “do what we’re told” and eat a balanced diet! Of course, a balanced diet these days that is truly up to the recommendations would involve us having to eat about 5x as much fruits and vegetables as our predecessors 50 or more years ago due to the decline in vitamin and mineral content. (The report does mention the decline, and Thomas Pawlick’s book, but refers to the issue as “alleged,” essentially failing to acknowledge the fact that is also supported by federal food tables and books such as Randall Fitzgerald’s The Hundred-Year Lie.) At any rate, I try my best, but I’m still a little fuzzy about eggs. I’ve recently heard that the colour of the yolk is meaningless. I prefer to buy PC’s free run eggs because a) they’re free run (not the same as free range), b) they’re brown so I can distinguish shell from flesh easier, and feel like I’m eating something more natural, c) the packaging is transparent and brightly-labeled so I notice the carton in my fridge, and (best of all), d) the packaging is fully recyclable! Styrofoam is not, though it comes in handy at Easter.

Continue reading Fortified and enriched foods… are they really better? »

October 21, 2006

I found organic tomatoes!

The last few days I’ve been feeling sick on and off. It may be a stomach flu. As such I have had little energy (or time, even, due to other circumstances) for writing here, but after a talk with a friend and a stop at the local market, I’m feeling rather energized.

It was quiet by the time I got to the market around 6:30 (and even quieter when I left!). It was just getting dark and they had the lights on outside. It was my first time being there or even seeing the place at night. It felt good, it smelled good, and the air was crisp and cool.

I was disappointed that the main item I was there for wasn’t there; organic golden nugget potatoes that smelled like dirt and made incredible mashed potatoes. I regret not buying more at the time. I got local grown yukon gold, though, so even while they didn’t smell like anything at all, I knew I was supporting a good venture. I did manage to get organic buttercup squash (to add to my organic kuri), and… ORGANIC TOMATOES!!! And they’re only 70c more than the ones we usually buy, but the difference is striking. We usually get a pint of “cocktail” tomatoes (one out of over 6,000 varieties of tomatoes that exist). They tend to be better than the larger ones, but don’t always taste great. Those are $2.29. Seems like a rip-off right? They last a long time, and are great for just throwing into your lunch box, so whatever. These organic ones are $2.99 (I didn’t notice the price at the time), and I got one that weighed more. I was eager to have one when I got it home. Here’s how it went.

Continue reading I found organic tomatoes! »

October 17, 2006

Hello, Neighbour! + Grad project overview

I delivered the first set of my neighbourhood questionnaire yesterday evening, while waiting for the rest of them to print off. (Might have taken longer than photocopying, but it was easier to read and not messy.) I don’t know how many responses I’ll get, but if you happen to be here because you received my survey on your doorstep, welcome!

This post will give you a bit more insight into my grad project and the issues surrounding the decline of food quality in North America, also called The End of Food, so named by Canadian author Thomas Pawlick. I stress that it is not a doomsday book so much as an encouragement to make changes in your lifestyle to counteract the changes in industry.

Continue reading Hello, Neighbour! + Grad project overview »

October 16, 2006

Yay for farmer’s markets!

I was very pleased with myself to have been able to buy local, BC grown, and organic foods recently at my local farmer’s market. No hope of finding organic tomatoes this summer, but I did pick up organic potatoes, squash, and broccoli (all they had was organic!). They also had their own butter lettuce and corn, which I bought as well. The mashed potatoes we made with those organic potatoes (79c/lb, golden nugget) were SO GOOD! And the potatoes actually smelled like dirt, unlike the non-organic red ones (69c/lb.. they tend to be cheaper regardless) which… don’t smell like anything. The peppers are BC grown, grown without sprays, and not waxy like BC Hot House peppers. Earlier in the year, we figured the price difference between BC Hot House ($$) and farmer’s market produce (79c/lb for green up to $1.29 for red and yellow — red is on sale for 79c right now) was to do with having to pick through the not-so-good ones for the nice ones. Recently, however, they’ve all been spectacular! And they’re all light-weight.

Continue reading Yay for farmer’s markets! »

October 10, 2006

Cheese & crackers just got lazier

“It’s perfect on a cracker. Almost too perfect. Explore the secrets of one of the world’s most unnatural foods”, says Patrick Di Justo of Wired.

It’s squirt-on cheese from Kraft, called Easy Cheese. No kidding. Who needs a knife and a cutting block when you can squirt on cheese?

Read the short article which outlines its major ingredients, including “twice the sodium of typical organic cheddar.” Oh, and it’s an “excellent source of calcium,” too, but only because they added calcium phosphate… to make up for the effects of sodium phosphate.

From Kraftfoods.com:

Ingredients: MILK, WATER, WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, WHEY, CANOLA OIL, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF SALT, SODIUM CITRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, LACTIC ACID, SORBIC ACID AS A PRESERVATIVE, SODIUM ALGINATE, APOCAROTENAL (COLOR), ANNATTO (COLOR), CHEESE CULTURE, ENZYMES.

By the way, annatto, a common food additive that produces a yellow colour, “often produces allergic symptoms like skin rashes and large wheals on the skin. In one patient written up in the Annals of Allergy, his morning breakfast of Fiber One cereal with milk produced these symptoms, plus severe low blood pressure. Annatto is also known to cause blood-sugar levels to rise precipitously, producing damage to the energy-production sites in the liver and pancreas.” [From The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children, by Carol Simontacchi.] The source she sites is from 10 years ago. Annatto is “extracted from the seeds of the tree Bixa orellana…” a reminder that not everything from a natural source is good for you.

Continue reading Cheese & crackers just got lazier »

October 9, 2006

How a girl feels in high school

I’m organizing the neglected parts of my office since I moved in here. In a stack of papers I found a sheet I must have ripped out of my “Poetry” binder from the early days. This looks like it was written around grade 8. I don’t usually share this stuff but I found it striking that I would feel this way when I was 13, 14 years old. (I think the teasing stopped after that until grade 12, at which point it was friends of friends. Great.) By the way, for those of you reading this that aren’t local, we do high school grade 8 – 12, no middle school. That was probably a good thing for me.

Betrayal’s all I’m ever getting these days

Poor hopes, lies, friends not really friends at all.

or

Lies are all I’m ever hearing these days

Poor hopes, getting betrayed

Freinds who take advantage of the gullable one

I guess not friends in the end — swayed

Thought I’d get a great bargain

Thought I’d get a good deal

All they want is a junk food meal

Maybe a few sour grapes on the side

Wine and dine in this steel inferno

Like a porkchop in a synagogue, poor thing…

Pity on them they don’t see the harm they’re doing

(Too busy with their own thoughts and hair

        Do they care? Whatever… yeah, so?)

Destroying their little company

Rumours of all sorts spreading rapidly

Spreading their diseases and drug-addicted drugged hope

Long gone in their pathetic world