David Sedaris reading

I do David Sedaris (and myself) no justice by writing just now about the reading he gave at McNally Robinson on November 22.  Oh well.  

I'm adding an audio file, later tonight because it's taking forever to load, that I took of him telling jokes and relating stories from his book tour.

David "No Pictures" Sedaris, who for whatever reason we weren't allowed to take pictures of during the reading or the signing as McRobinson staff watched us like hawks, gave a reading from his new book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.   See how many people came to see him?  This wasn't even in front of him, these were the poor people who got pushed to the side.


                                                                      
Sedaris's new book is a book of modernized fables, minus
any tell-tale morals.  They're more of an anthropomorphism          
on how ridiculous people are.

He did his reading of the story, "The Squirrel and the    Chipmunk," about the squirrel that "got away."  Squirrel and
Chipmunk are dating, and the relationship is getting kind of
stale.  The Squirrel tells Chipmunk that he likes jazz.
Chipmunk has no idea what that is and agrees just for the
sake of agreeing that she's into that.  Chipmunk, realizing that   jazz could mean something terrible, like squirrel slang for anal sex.  Chipmunk's family is disturbed and force her to break it off.

Years later, Chipmunk and Squirrel have kids of their own
and Chipmunk finds out what jazz is, and she associates that
with all that she failed to appreciate in her life.



Sedaris's tour theme this year was, "jokes," because people come up during the signings and tell him the most ridiculous jokes.  If you listen to the audio file, when I get it posted, you will hear some of those, including the snail joke he told on The Daily Show.

David Sedaris is hilarious.  The book is actually very funny, I highly recommend it.  One of my personal favourites is, "The Toad, The Turtle, and the Duck," about the three of them being stuck in line at the DMV.  Pretty awesome.

David Sedaris is a writer, comedian,Grammy Award-nominated humorist and radio contributor.  Recognition came from his essay, "SantaLand Diaries."  He has made contributions to The New Yorker B.B.C. Radio, and Esquire. 



Anyway, I will get that audio file to you tonight.  Happy Holidays!
Photo of David Sedaris courtesy of DavidSedaris.net.

Boys Town by Jim Shepard, review

Jim Shepard is an American author whose works have been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's and Playboy, to name a few.  In 2008, his short story collection Like You'd Understand, Anyway, won the Story Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award.  Boys Town is from the short story collection You Think That's Bad.

Boys Town, which ran in the November 8, 2010, issue of The New Yorker, is the story of a man who just never measures up.  The reader follows the narrator as he struggles to pull together his tatters of a life.  He is a 39 year old war veteran who lives with his mother, who doesn't understand his personality, and who is divorced with a child he pays support for but is only allowed to see twice a year, at most.   His father walked out on the family when he was in the third or fourth grade.  He struggles to form any kind of relationship that doesn't have some deep-rooted tension.   Even his ex-wife complains about him to his mother, and his mother complains back.

There is a statement made by the narrator's mother about him possibly having a mental illness ["I think you got that thing they talk about on the news [...] P.T.S.D. Is that what it is?  I think you need to talk to somebody" (73)], but this isn't a story about mental illness so much as someone who's lost.  Maybe someone who's even been broken by the world.  Someone who's lonely, bitter, defeated, ganged up on, and who lets it happen because he seeks solace in isolation, whether in the woods or in his mind, so he doesn't have to take action.   When he does take action it borders on abusive, probably due to his pent up emotions and inability to get anyone to listen unless he does something drastic.

There are references made to the 1938 movie "Boys Town," the one thing that the narrator's mother had kept from her marriage.  References such as, "'Well, I'm nothin',' And the kid says right back, 'Then you can continue being nothin'.  And nobody cares,'" and, "'And when Tracy has to tell him that he doesn't have anything else, the kid goes, 'I thought you said that if we were good, somebody would help us.''  The movie seems to act as a self-reference, like the narrator can't relate to anyone in the world but the kids in that movie.  Father Flanagan built the orphanage Boys Town and let the kids determine the rules. Like the narrator, the kids were on the outskirts of society; however, someone in that story was kind enough to give them a voice.

The ending where he fires shots at his girlfriend's house and then hides from the cops I think is either a metaphor for how isolation leads to delinquency or maybe for what kind of actions it takes in this world to get attention sometimes.  Given the Boys Town references to work with, it seems plausible.

I loved this story.  I don't enjoy reading short stories very often but I made it through this one happily.  I liked the style of it, the interior monologue was quick and semi-circular.  One weakness was maybe the ending which seemed to pull quickly from lack of action to an act of defiance, but given the context it's completely understandable.  

I felt sympathy for the narrator, which is hard for me to feel for characters.  I'm not really sure if he is to be sympathized for or if he's someone that is "lazy," which makes him unsympathetic, but then we find out he's really a prisoner of his own thoughts and paralyzed due to self-consciousness, which I feel does make him sympathetic.  Every time I wanted to feel less sympathy for him, we'd find out how sympathetic he is or how hard he's tried.  I thought that worked really well.

New Blog Theme

K, new blog theme:  All the things Erica wants in her future house.  Here are two of them:

Mydna Bookcase                                      Iittala Fireplace


I've come to the conclusion that my house would be modern-minimalist meets Frankenstein.  

I pulled these from my most favorite website right now, Sweet-Station.  I probably won't want them in a week, so I thought I should just post them and enjoy them while I think they're great.  Or until I post my creative writing blogs, at least.  Check it out, find stuff, I'm always on there finding stuff.

Coolest Looking Slippers

I just wanted to say that I am a huge fan of these "loafers."  But they're not footwear!?  Why not?

dadadastudio.eu

#NonScaryHorrorFilmNames

Yes I know Halloween is over, but I was checking out #NonScaryHorrorFilmNames on Twitter.  Here are some good ones. 

1) Normal Activity
2) I Know Who Killed My Career
3) Lawn of the Dead
4) Right Turn
5) The Tesco Chainstore Mascara
6) The Found Boys
7) Middle Destination
8) I Know Who You Did Last Summer
9) Thursday the 12th
10) Rosemary's Baby Shower

The list goes on.  Come up with your own!  Fun times. 

short story about a bow. some people. the usual.

Let me know what you think.  I may need all the help I can get! (my psychiatrist hasn't got back to me on that one yet, so I might).   I read it again and I'll admit that it's quite depressing, now that I've had distance from it.  -E

The Bow

She’s wearing that ridiculous bow again.  There it is, on top of her head, with the thick red ribbon that she slides under her chin.  Thank God she doesn’t tie it in a bow under her chin anymore.  Jesus, she used to have a bow on top of her head and a bow underneath her head to match; one velour tumor growing off of her is enough.   She started wearing that thing two months ago, centered at the top of her head, but now it’s slid down a bit over the months to just behind her right ear.  She finally got the bright idea to cut the ribbon to length, glue the ends together, and slide it under her chin, like a bonnet.  At least she had one bright idea left in that vapid little brain.

And here we are again, another night, at the same Thai restaurant, in the same booth, facing the same direction.  I face the door, so that when I finally get the balls to make an exit I can make sure that no one is going to be in my way when I do it.  I don’t want to kill anyone in my mad rush to get out.  Well, not by accident, anyway.

_____________________________________________________________________________

We’re here again at Boon-Nam -- every girl’s dream restaurant  Every night that we get into the car to go for dinner I feel like I’m a dog, going to the vet, and I’ve been tricked into going.  I want to scratch my way out in the middle of the freeway and run like hell.  I always get Pad Thai.  I eat Pad Thai four nights a week.  I want to try something different but he just says, “No…that’s too hot for you,” or “no…you know that you don’t like to try new things, you’re not adventurous.”  Sometimes he embarrasses me in front of the waitresses when he says those things, because he makes me look stupid and incapable of making decisions. How does he even know that I’m not adventurous?  He never lets me be myself, so how would he know?  I’ve been to many places in my life; I lived in Suriname for 3 years for Christ’s sake.  How adventurous does he want me to be?  He makes me feel bad about trying new things.  I know what it is; I know that he wants me to be her.  I know that deep down he misses her.  He wants another pretentious little girl, one who’s been to Ethiopia or to India and saved the world, one diary entry at a time, or the girl who can ramble off book titles but can’t ramble off the content to back them up.  He wants someone like him, all titles and no content, all diary entries and no action.  Ugh, he wants the female equivalent of himself.

___________________________________________________________________________________

 Don’t try to be something that you’re not, please, just stop while you’re ahead.  Quit pretending to be cultured.   I want to say something to her about how ridiculous she is but I can’t speak; my tongue is frozen to my teeth.   The only reason I take her here is because she loves Pad Thai so much.  She has to love it, she orders it every night.  Sometimes she tries to order something else and I remind her of how much she loves it, and she always orders it in the end.  She’s so sloppy with those chopsticks, she doesn’t know how to hold them properly.  God, Lydia was so elegant with chopsticks; she made them look so easy.  I still have the journal that I kept from that trip and I still read the entries.  Lydia didn’t wear that bright red lipstick, either, and her eyelashes were a bit longer.  I think that Lydia was much prettier.  She never ordered Pad Thai at Boon-Nam, she always ordered Cho Muang.    She was so smart.

            ___________________________________________________________________________________

I’m trying to eat quickly, without saying anything, to get out of here as fast as possible.  My bow is unraveling, too – I can feel the ribbon dangling as a strip against my ear.  The reason I wear it is because I found it, from the first present that Rob ever gave me, which was a bouquet of flowers.  They were violets, my favorite.  He hasn’t bought me flowers since.  He sits there and eats Cho Muang, those little violet flower dumplings, and that’s the closest thing to flowers that I ever get from him.

He’s thinking about Lydia again.  I know he is because he always twists his watch around on his wrist when he thinks about her.  Whenever he’s about to bring her up he stares into the distance without focusing on anything, twists his watch for a few minutes, then says something about her.  I hope he’s not going to say her name right now, I don’t think that I can handle that.  What a terrible and selfish person he is to think about her, especially right now, at the same restaurant we’ve been going to for the last two years because he doesn’t want to show me off anywhere else.  I gave up everything for him.  I left my job, I left my home, and I left my family.  Hell, I even left my cats because he’s allergic to them; I had to leave them with my sister.  I have never felt so lonely in my entire life.  He climbed out of the emotional pool that we shared together so that he could dive right back into the mess that was Lydia. 

Journalism Stuff, From Someone Who Knows Nothing

I was watching all the journalists at the Sam Katz HQ last night, and I was thinking of all the things I learned from being a media sheep.  I am also extremely sleep deprived so I might ramble.
1) Scrums are not cool - they sound cool, but they're really not.  They're like a pack of lions fighting for the last steak.  Eventually some peace is restored..after the biggest lion gets the steak and you're waiting for scraps.  But scraps are food, take it.   It's a free for all.
2) Ask people their opinions RIGHT after something is said or happens so their emotions are high and they want to talk.  Some people will even seek you out, as they did last night.
3) celebrities, even minor celebrities, are all the same.  Or maybe it's the wealthy.  Not sure.  But bringing your girlfriend who I confuse as your daughter can lead to autofails.  That completely threw me up.  off.
4) You see the same people a lot, get used to them
5) Twitter IS one of the most useful inventions for journalism.  The credibility might not there, but I guarantee more people than ever are following the news.  Except for the whole journalists getting paid thing, that's no good, no opinions on that
6) Eventually I am hoping to become a cold hard adrenaline-less journalist who can take notes on the stairs and post an article within a half hour time frame.  Right now I'm kind of a mess.  I'm fairly calm but it's the adrenaline rush that needs to just go away.
7) surrounding computers is kind of frowned upon, I think
8) journalists are very nice in Winnipeg, for the most part, as they're saying "excuse me" politely to get a camera shot that they might miss in point 2 of a second.  They're also nice about letting you in to the crowd.  how long will that last? I assume it's because I am no rival.
9) rely only on yourself.  Don't follow anyone around hoping to get a story or rely on others for quotes, unless you're on a team.  Things happen so fast and there's so much to do in such a small time frame that relying on someone else is just a waste of time.

Do I think The Social Network Deserves my Full-Attention?

Yes!  Not even because I was the only person in the theatre and the ticket was $4.68, the least I have ever spent on a movie ticket.

The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Andrew Garfield as co-founder and friend Eduardo Saverin; and Justin Timberlake as nappy-haired Napster founder Sean Parker.

Mark Zuckerberg is a student at Harvard who is portrayed as a cold-hearted rational.  Mark insults his girlfriend for having a non-elitist education and she responds with, "you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."   She breaks-up with him, and this spurs Mark to blog about her in a drunken rage (hilariously on livejournal.com, the emo-diary of the early 2000s).  This then inspires Mark to create FaceMash.com, a college version of Who'd You Rather?, where two college girls' pictures are presented side-by-side and everyone on campus can vote on who's more attractive.  After receiving 22,000 hits in the first four-hours that it was online, a course of events take place that ultimately results in Facebook as we know it today.

What impressed me the most about this movie was that it's a movie about social networks themselves, minus the internet.   It deals with love and loss, but also the little details of fate.  If one person didn't say one trivial little thing, Facebook would be nowhere.  For example, when Eduardo asks Mark if one of the girls in his class is single, Mark says that chicks don't just walk around with a sign that advertises their relationship status.  This sparks one of the nuclei of Facebook: the "relationship status" and "interested in" profile feature. The Facebook code itself, in a sense, is entirely constructed of micro-social networks. 

Even though Mark Zuckerberg was not particularly portrayed in a positive light, neither was anyone else.  There was no one who I felt that I could really side with.  Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is portrayed as an asshole throughout the movie,  but he's actually quite sensitive.  I think when his girlfriend left him he was terrifically lonely.  There's always mention throughout the movie about his isolation and the fact that he has very few friends.  I think of a lot of the Facebook foundation (in this movie) was Mark trying to come to mathematical terms with socialization because he felt so isolated.  Basically when his best-friend Eduardo gives him the algorithm for calculating a winner on FaceMash, it's metaphorical of all the formulas that Mark puts into Facebook that are representative of calculating social culture.

As for the other characters, Sean Parker, the Napster founder who was sued bankrupt but changed the face of music, was portrayed as a massive douche. But he gave Facebook some of the fundamentals, such as taking out "the" when Facebook was originally called, "thefacebook.com" and getting Mark money and California-bound.  Eduardo should have read through his documents but he was the most sympathetic character in the movie. TheWinklevoss twins should not have given their grand idea to a coder when they couldn't code themselves.  So the question is, how much ownership over what goes into the social code can anyone really have?  If I inspire someone, can I claim partial ownership?

Mark Zuckerberg says in the "PR Post" blog (http://prpost.wordpress.com/) that the movie was just, "fun."  He also characterizes the movie as fictional.  Which makes sense, because if Erica Albright broke up with Mark and he immediately went home to create FaceMash, wouldn't she be entitled to $1 billion because she broke-up with him and inspired the ideas that created Facebook in the first place?  Doesn't add up to me.  Mark Zuckerberg himself says he knows that his life isn't that entertaining or dramatic, which makes sense, because I dated a computer coder for four years and they really are exactly the way Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed: seemingly emotionless, insanely smart, deeply sensitive, and completely devoid of entertainment value.  But, regardless, I guarantee that Facebook hits went up 700% so that people could update their status to say that they had just seen The Social Network.

So while I think the events in The Social Network were stretched for dramatic purposes, it shows some good business lessons and maybe proves that there are algorithms that can calculate human relationships.  I never thought so, but considering the fact that Facebook is so wildly popular that they made a movie about it, there must be some truth to it.







.

Top Ten

Wow.  I just happened to look over at my calendar, which is still turned to July, and after looking out the window I realized it was halfway through October.  That and that it was dark out.  So that leaves...31-14 days until Halloween.  I can do fast math.

Here is a Top Ten list of things that scare me, now that I'm inspired by this almost being Halloween thing:

1. really fast treadmills
2. hoses
3. power-walkers
4. garter snakes
5. old chairs
6. Cheez Whiz
7. personal cheques
8. domestic disputes on public transit
9. gladiator outfits
10. fake nails

Buyer Beware: Rental Scams

There is a disturbing trend of rental scams emerging in Winnipeg.  Classified ad websites such as kijiji.ca and craigslist.com are used to target desperate renters. 

Scammers will post pictures of apartments that are low-priced for the area, pet-friendly, and all-inclusive (such as including all utilities).  Once the consumer makes the initial interaction with the scammer by expressing interest, the scammer will then ask that the consumer wire a damage deposit fee and the first month's rent to a foreign address.  The scammer is usually forced to be "out of town due to work."  Once the consumer wires the money, the keys to their new apartment will be couriered to them so that they can move in immediately.  Unfortunately, these apartments do not exist.

There have been reports in Winnipeg (the Winnipeg Free Press, for example) of consumers getting keys that don't open the door to houses that are already occupied and owned (unbeknownst to the owner of that property that someone has advertised their address as a rental opportunity).  Other reports include the scammer asking for more and more money before the consumer can receive the keys, and of consumers driving by addresses advertised only to find out that the description in the ad and the building on that property do not match. 

To avoid being victimized, avoid responding to ads or replying to e-mails with consistently bad spelling, grammar, capitalization and syntax; consistent religious references; or, references to living outside of the country and not being able to return in the foreseeable future.  If you can't make an appointment to see the apartment or to see the person face-to-face, never rent from them.

Sussex Realty recommends that consumers always make financial transactions through a trusted rental agency.  Never give money directly to another tenant.  They also recommend that you make an appointment for a walkthrough with the landlord of the building before renting.

If you think that you have found a scam ad, warn the web administrators on the website that you found the ad posted on.  On Craigslist, for example, you can flag the ad as "prohibited" on the right-hand side of the ad.  You can also report scams to http://www.phonebusters.com/ or http://www.419scam.org/.

New Gap Logo = Heaven Forbid

Gap unveiled a new logo in the past week:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/dont_mind_the_gap_or_the_square.php
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110957/gap-changes-logo-why?mod=family-kids_parents

Thoughts?  Will the new logo succeed in bringing in new customers, or will it simply alienate and disturb the customers who have the original Gap logo emblazzoned in their psyche?

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving because I love food.   One year (and this will sound like I was trying to give my family a heart attack), I put butter all over the turkey and wrapped bacon slices around it.  The concept is to hold the moisture into the turkey.  You cook it at a higher temperature at first, then lower it for the rest (don't quote me, but you do change the temperature).  You take the bacon off after about 20-30 minutes and reserve it for something else.  The butter crisps up the skin.  Anyway, the turkey was very moist.  Last year I brined the turkey, which was a semi-disaster.  I left it outside overnight in a bucket to brine with salt water, and my dog knocked over the pail.  I always bake apple pie, which I love baking because I have it down to taking about 20 minutes to make.  Except my Star-frit apple peeler that came with the slicer/corer broke, because I got the bright idea to peel a potato on it and I snapped the blade right off from the plastic.  The corer/slicer was my favorite thing until it cut my hand open, because it's so old the blades separated from the corer and I pushed down.  My aunty makes the best buns, too, she bakes them in muffin tins so they have these big muffin tops.  I think this year I'm going to buy a pumpkin and make scratch pumpkin pie.  The whole can thing kind of reminds me of cooking with dog food and I'm not sure why.  Probably because the pumpkin comes out of the can and slides out into the crust, or you have to take a spoon and scrape it out.  I don't know.  Another thing that seems traditional in our family is that someone has to go to the hospital (NOT from putting butter and bacon on the turkey).  I don't get why but someone always has some issue that requires a trip to the hospital, which is a 15-20 minute drive to another town.  Hopefully that doesn't happen this year.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to having an extra day off.  Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

The War on Mayor -- Facts are Where It's At

The post that I had been working for for 3 hours spontaneously deleted all of the content when I hit "publish post,"  so I have to summarize everything that I wrote about the mayoral forum.  You have NO idea how much that annoys me.  The content was there and it didn't even save as a draft.  Anywhere.  And I'm very tired.  


Because we have to choose between these two, because two of them didn't even show up (Brad Gross and Rav Gill), I would have to choose Katz for this one.


What I had written was that the mayoral forum this morning at RRC Princess St. Campus with Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis was educational, entertaining, and a rapid fire game of double dutch where they skipped around the issues.  I think that Katz had the stronger arguments when they did make arguments because his counter-arguments were more factually based.  W-L's tactic of hurling assumptions back at Katz as insults was ineffective.  I think that Katz is the better political chess player, as he played defense and offense throughout the debate, continually putting W-L in check after her every argument.  He defended his points, but played offense where necessary.  W-L was playing a game of strictly offense, rarely defending her own issues without basing them first on an attack on Katz.   I got out of the forum that W-L is relying on voters to see her as the "every woman," the "anti-businessman" who will personally tear down Katz and "corruption" in order to establish some kind of humility in City Hall.  W-L is the moral protector and Katz is the snake-oil salesman.   But what it comes down to is business and who can run a business most effectively, and I feel like W-L has no real platform, and if she has one, it's been created from a mish-mash of facts that weren't communicated well and anti-Katz propaganda.


The crime portion of the debate was ok, but I have never heard the words "community centre" so many times in my life.  W-L kept throwing "we have to deal with the root cause of crime" around loosely, then backed it up by saying that the $2.7 million she has pledged toward community centres, if she is successful, would somehow solve the root cause, without ever telling us exactly how.   Funding community centres may help prevent crime to some degree, but they won't magically eliminate the root cause.  They're not enough in and of themselves.  While Katz threw around the term "root cause" loosely as well, I felt that he has the more effective strategy by pledging funding toward community centres in conjunction with adding more police.  I think that the enforcement and initiative tactic will be much more effective than just the initiative when it comes to dealing with crime in the city.  I didn't feel that W-L sold herself on the issue of crime as well as Katz did.


When asked about the new police helicopter, W-L gave a very washy answer, basically saying that the decision of the helicopter was made in haste but she wouldn't cancel it if elected, she would do an "annual cost-analysis" to see if it was effective or not.  Katz straight out gave some facts: one helicopter in the air is the equivalent of 12 squad cars on the ground.   It was a succinct, factual answer --  this is why it's here and this is what we're going to do with it.  At least he gave an answer.


Then there was the increase in property tax issue, which annoys me that W-L wants to end the freeze to raise revenue.  I can semi- understand why Katz is slow to respond to the question of whether he is going to increase property taxes himself, because there are many better ways to increase revenue than resorting to increasing property taxes.  There is a lot of money in City Hall that can be diverted, so it's almost irresponsible for W-L to announce that she will, in fact, increase property taxes before being elected and pushing it through the levels for approval.   I would hope that Katz is looking into a more effective strategy than that.  Plus the two per cent raise for the next four years she's proposing is nowhere near enough to fix the infrastructure problem, in all honesty.  


 Both Katz and W-L were extremely vague on waste management issues and transit issues.   They talked about what they wanted to see, but didn't really leave me with the impression that they were going to implement anything.  Actually, I felt that W-L gave vague answers for almost everything while Katz at least tried to explain the issues within his time constraints.   I also think that the "where were you 6 years ago, Sam" argument is tired and illogical, because some of these issues are extremely hard and lengthy to push through.  LRT is not going to just magically pop-up in a city with a crumbling infrastructure and a strange density set-up.  These are all issues that, if elected, W-L won't push through very fast, either.  


While I believe W-L to be a strong woman, I feel that Katz has the business acumen to do what's right for Winnipeg and to make the smarter decisions based on facts and experience.  

ramenbox.com - the college student's dream come true?

Ok, I'll admit it: I love ramen noodles.  I like adding things to ramen noodles (such as meat or extra vegetables) and I like that they're easy to make.  I like eating them with chopsticks and feeling all exotic and like a show-off when I do it.  I found the website ramenbox.com by accident while researching sushi (weird).  Anyway, the concept of the website is that you choose a regular-sized box (20 slots) or a large-sized box (40 slots) and you choose your ramen like it's slot machine.  You pick your flavors and brands and they pack it all up and ship it to you.  Each ramen has a "slot" size, so you get 1, 2, or 3 slot ramen (so the bowls might take up 2 slots while the packages take up 1).  Then they charge you $24.95 for the regular-sized box and $44.95 for the large-sized box and slap on a shipping charge of $5.

Keep in mind that this is a U.S. company, but I'm posting this because I thought that the underlying concept is neat and could apply to many different genres.  However, just because this mix-and-match concept is cool, that doesn't mean that the Ramenbox idea is not somewhat flawed:

1) Aren't those prices high?  Does anyone remember getting 3 Mr. Noodles packets for 99 cents?  I used to get 3 Mr. Noodles packets for 99 cents.  Not only that, the bowls take up 2 slots, so instead of 20 packs of ramen you might only get 10 if you order only bowls.

2)  Doesn't every place sell ramen now? I think they sell it in gas stations.  Do they sell it in gas stations?  They usually sell it in convenience stores in universities and colleges.  This isn't Jenny Craig, right to your door, portion-sized foods, these are all ramen that you can find in the supermarket.  You can get them at Superstore, minus the shipping charge and extra effort (even though this is in the U.S. and doesn't apply to us).

3) Ramenbox only runs in the U.S., but it excludes shipping to Alaska and Hawaii.  Alaska is cold, Alaskans would benefit from a nice hot bowl of noodles!

4) The goal is to ship to college kids, but in the FAQ it says if you're in university and living in a dorm, you need to have a pick-up point because they don't deliver to PO boxes or dorms.  This makes sense, but all that extra effort for a box of noodles that will last 1.5 weeks?  I wouldn't want to trudge through the snow to my pick-up point in the cold just to carry my box of ramen that might be delayed in transit, especially when I had to put it on my credit card and pay shipping.  Should have just went to the store, then.

5) Isn't ramen full of empty calories and sodium?  Ramen is great but it's not something to subsist on.  I just think of some college kid with $800 worth of Ramenbox stacked to the ceiling.

The reason I like Ramenbox, though, is because of the concept, like I said.  I like the mix-and-match concept and the boxing concept.  I wish places like Staples would pre-box school supplies and sell the boxes to grade-school students (even though school supply shopping is super fun).   I wish sometimes that underwear stores would offer boxes with 6 or 10 slots so you could mix and match underwear and walk out with it already neatly in the box.  Little things like that.   Well, and plus I like ramen.

Three Cheers for Coffee

I woke up this morning (sorry if that is cliche) with 100% appreciation for eyes that work properly.  I could barely open mine.

If this is what life is like for a CreComm sign me up -- but I hope the Lord takes pity and sends $500 in coffee cards.  The sad thing is we're barely into the program, so there's no reason to be tired.  We've barely had any homework.  Pretty pathetic.

Anyway, I just thought I would share that for some reason.  I know I'll just get "go to bed earlier," "manage your time better," etc.  Which is fine, those are valid points.  Entertaining posts to come!

Twitterdee, Twitter-dom @ericastef

Top 10 of my foray into the Twitterverse:
1) Every combination of "Erica Johnson" is taken, to the point that my name would be unrecognizable.  Like ERiCaJohNson?  Or EricaJohnson656?  Not happening.  "ericastef" is the only name relevant to me that I can remember enough to sign in with. 
2) I use twitter primarily to follow the news and Stephen Colbert.  Also to challenge to my wit.  Probably thanks to Stephen Colbert.
3) Twitter is a good communication tool because it forces people and companies to get to the point in 140 characters or less (optimal for short attention spans).  When you're following someone who tweets every nano-second, eventually your short-term memory will be ingrained with their message
4) I have no intentions of tweeting my inner-angst.  Which I don't have, by the way, and which I find extremely annoying. 
5) If it's annoying on Facebook, it's annoying on Twitter
6) "Followers" sounds strangely like a cult, but I get it. 
7) I use the hashtags #epicfail, or just plain #fail, for ridiculous posts, and then #success for good posts
8) the failwhale is cute
9) No live tweets from space, unfortunately
10) I'm going to make the world a better place -- one tweet at a time

Rambling on Scrambling

I know this is going to sound whiny, and probably no one cares, but nothing annoys me more than when you order scrambled eggs with your breakfast at a restaurant or a cafeteria and they scramble your eggs by frying the eggs into one large omelette and then hack it to death on the grill with a spatula.  I ordered "scrambled eggs" not "murdered eggs," ok?  Then they add insult to injury by serving these flat chunks of fried egg next to over-buttered toast and two pieces of flabby, flaccid bacon.   This has actually happened to me many times at many different places.

I am going to say a couple of things about how to scramble eggs well.  Any kids doing science fairs, take note and further my science.  I have no culinary training but I have been cooking since I was eight and I've been cooking eggs this way since I was 15, so this is just theory but it's effective.  I'm going to list the main points and then explain the science.

a) Introduce air into the eggs and add volume
         You can do two things.  You can leave the eggs whole (ie: crack them into the pan so it looks like you're going to cook them sunny-side up) and skip to step c, but one of the best thing to do is to gently whip the eggs with a fork before cooking,  Duh, how else will you scramble them.  This is the most obvious step but seriously, it's important.  Don't just stir the eggs, actually turn your wrist to incorporate air into the eggs.  What you want to do here by whipping them is denature the protein in the eggs (which essentially is unraveling the protein strands).  Once you incorporate air bubbles into the eggs, the proteins that have been unraveled due to force start forming new networks with the water already in the egg and the air bubbles, which then stabilizes the air bubbles into this new matrix.  Not only does this add volume to your eggs, it makes them light and fluffy.  Beat the eggs too long and you begin to destroy the protein networks through force.  Don't do that.  Just whip until the yolk and white are incorporated and until you can see air bubbles.  If you want even more volume, add approx. 1 tbsp of fluid (milk or water) per egg used.  Then incorporate air into the mix.
b) Don't salt them now
     Salting your eggs now will draw out moisture, which is what you don't want to do.  You want that moisture IN your eggs, which is why my eggs suck so much when I order them at restaurants.
c) add eggs to buttered pan on medium-low heat
    for those who skipped step a and moved to step c, this is where you begin
d) fold eggs over each other with a spatula
    the thing with eggs is you really risk over-cooking them, hence why my eggs suck when I order them at restaurants.  And you don't want to mash them either because that destroys all your hard-work of introducing an air bubble matrix.  So what you do is fold the eggs slowly and constantly over each other with a rubber spatula.  No scraping once it's half-way fried, no stirring it in circles in the pan from the centre outwards, I mean constant folding from sides to centre from the start.  If you left your eggs whole and started mixing them and folding them now, you're still introducing air bubbles, which is why it's ok to skip the other steps.  The point is that you want even heat throughout without breaking too many of the air bubbles you are introducing.
e) take the pan OFF the heat
    probably the most important step.  Once your eggs start to solidify a bit (once you see curds) take the pan immediately off the heat and continue folding.  The heat remains in the bottom of the pan and is distributed throughout the eggs, which will continue cooking them. 
f) put the pan back ON the heat
  what you are essentially doing is putting heat into the pan and then using that heat to steam the eggs when you take it back off the heat again.  You want the air bubbles to expand due to gas and you want the eggs to coagulate (form new protein bonds, which is what scrambles them) together gently.  Too much heat would force too many bonds, which would make the eggs tough.
g) don't put the pan back on the heat once the liquid is gone
    once the water has evaporated out of the eggs (and cooked into them), and the eggs are semi-solid, NO MORE HEAT.  They will overcook and be dried out.  The heat that is left in the bottom of the pan is sufficient enough to finish them off nicely.  Now you can salt them and add whatever you want to them because the moisture has been cooked into the egg.  Salt inevitably draws out moisture but the damage isn't that bad now.

If I have missed anything let me know.  Once you start cooking them this way you get hooked.

Steve Jobs won't sell me an iPhone but I still think he's sexy

An Apple Store a day keeps the iPhone away.  I keep going to the Apple Store to get an iPhone 4, my one true love.  Alas, we are separated by hype.  The devastation!  I'm not going to pull a Juliet but keeping me from the iPhone 4 because of our class differences (if I buy the phone outright it will be pretty much $800, which to me is $1 million), drives that dagger a little bit closer to my heart.  Everytime I go at 4 pm to the Apple Store so that I can stand around like a schmuck only to have a Blue Shirt tell me to line up tomorrow at 7 am for the 9 am opening, I die a little inside.  But Steve Jobs is still hot.

This is Steve Jobs' fault.  Everytime he does a Keynote presentation in his uniform of black sweater and jeans, his "goin' to Starbucks in my Mercedes with mocassin slippers on" uniform, I melt a little inside.  If he wasn't so hot in a creepy logical-beatnick kind of way, I wouldn't want his phone.  I bet he reads beat-poetry with a beret on, in binary code to the beat of a metronome -- which is hot, by the way.  It's not only that, it's his sexy user-interface.  An infant can appreciate Apple's UI.  I think that might be my child's first words: "U-I."  But U and I are not meant to be together. 

I am such a good Apple customer, PLEASE, Steve Jobs, quit building hype.  Quit being so good at marketing.  Separate yourself from your brand so that people don't love Apple so much; so that I can be with my one true love! For $269.

Cute

Welcome Wagon

First post!  I guess the first post is the deepest?  Ironically the most difficult.

There are so many things that I intend to do with this blog.  I get excited about little things (hence "Inspiration Superstation") so I want to share everything I can that makes me keep breathing.  Little things, big things...anythings!  I don't intend for this blog to be selfish.  Inspiration is sand, one second it's cupped in your hand, the next it has slipped through your fingers and you barely remember it existed.  I need a place that is safe where I can prevent the moment from disappearing forever.  

I need to document my ideas and my progress with these ideas because otherwise they will never come to fruition.  Not only will this blog have videos, pictures and insights, it will act as a push for me to get things out.  I do a lot of things, such as cooking, painting, writing, drawings, etc, and I am quite a perfectionist.  Why make cupcakes when you can make the most complicated souffle EVER?  So if you are prepared for hilarity to ensue you can follow my attempts at progress.  Because I have this blog I might just do something extremely complicated...