Chicken Attack

"Police said an Ypsilanti man is accused of stabbing his mother with a fork and hitting another woman over the head with a frozen chicken"

Like they say, you just can't make this stuff up... read the article here.

The Kitchen Report

With the extra time I have right now I've been experimenting in the kitchen...

Sure I've burned a few things and some stuff hasn't come out as great as I'd hoped, but it's relaxing and I feel like I'm learning... learning at my own pace even.

I've fallen in love with garlic. I've always loved garlic, but I'm ashamed to say that I've always just bought those big containers of pre-minced garlic at Costco. It just seemed so much easier that way. Recently, however, I've discovered how satisfying it is to peel and mince a clove of garlic, then to sauté it in some olive oil. It makes me happy.

Tonight I decided to make some soup with stuff that I had lying around the kitchen. With the help of Laurie, who always has great culinary advice, I managed to make this:


Okay so it looks kind of awful in the picture, but it was actually pretty good. I started off sautéing some garlic and onions in olive oil, then I added some rice, then water and vegetable bullion cubes. Then I added some potatoes, pepper and oregano, then finally some TVP (texturized vegetable protein, AKA fake meat). With the current temperature in Porto Alegre dipping into the 40s (Fahrenheit), it was a great night for soup.

Another experiment that I came up with last week turned into this:


To prepare this one I drained a block of tofu overnight (wrapped in paper towels and then in a clean dishtowel in the fridge). I sautéed some garlic and the tofu in olive oil, then added onions and a couple of cans of basil tomato sauce. I added some oregano, pepper, salt, and red pepper flakes and then cooked it for a while while I boiled some penne, then I mixed it all together and, to my delight, it was actually good. Of course there was so much that I ended up having to put a lot in the fridge, and something like this is never as good the second time around, but I still enjoyed the leftovers the following afternoon.

So that's the kitchen report. If you have any great ideas for more culinary experiments I'd love to hear them!

Penelopsky Aaryonna Goldberry

That's pretty much the best name ever. Full story here:

Virginia groom passes as bride, could face charges

Bof fri fleu

On one hand this is serious and some good advice delivered in a catchy manner that you're sure to remember... on the other hand... well... bof fri fleu.

Here's the original PSA:



And the extended version:



I think it's from 2005 and it's VERY Boston... does anyone else see that?

Abomination time!

With the backlash of Christian conservatism surrounding the legality of same-sex marriage in California, this blogger reminds pious folks what else they need to watch out for:

A word on the word "abomination"

This is pretty funny

Many Hawaii McDonald's Drive-Throughs Use Workers In Texas

I wonder if Waianae is included... if so I could just sit there all night, listen and laugh at Texans trying to speak/understand in proper moke fashion! =)

Very interesting!

I just found this through Reuters...


"10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Cell Phones"


#10 is really interesting...

"10. Half of Japan’s Top Fiction Was Written on Mobile Phones

Absolutely nuts. Turning the publishing industry on its head, this trend’s subscriber models are thriving and making significant money for aspiring writers, in turn fueling the phenomenon. Authors tend to be young women sharing fictionalized aspects of their lives. Five of the top ten works of fiction in 2007 were written on mobile phones. Japan, you never cease to amaze me."

One thing... one thing... leads to anoooooother!

Well with all the blogging about eating and stuffing my face, you knew I had to end up here...

Yes... the gym.

Around May of 2006 I decided that I was fat and that I needed to make a change. Looking at old pictures from 2005, I can verify that I was indeed pretty porky. It started with evening powerwalks around the track at Kalani High School in Aina Haina (Honolulu). Luckily I had a great group of friends who were very supportive and joined me each evening for a 4 mile adventure! Kori and I would "take a trip down memory lane" and reminisce about the olden days while coming up with an evil theme for the track and its surroundings (oh there's Satan's shish-kebab (the basketball hoop), there's a pile of dead bodies under that big mound of dirt, and then... best one... we had to NOT be the last one to yell DOUBLE DEVIL PITCHFORK as we ran past this huge metal thing that looked like two pitchforks). Soon we had lots of other friends joining us on the track. Mike, Deanne, Lauren and many others would make these nights fun and more like hanging out than working out. Some nights it was just me and my ipod, which was fine too.

Before I knew it, it was August and time to go back to school. By then I'd lost a significant amount of weight and was loving the reaction I was getting from everyone at school. It was then that I decided that physical fitness would need to be part of my life forever. I couldn't imagine carrying around all that extra weight anymore.

When I went to visit my parents in Boston over winter break, I joined the gym there for a few weeks, which was scary at first (being my first gym experience since...umm... high school), but I learned how to use the machines and found out that the gym wasn't so scary after all.

In Germany I joined McFit, which was only €16,90 per month, and learned more about machines and how to get the most out of my gym experience. With my faithful workout buddy Michal from Poland (who was more often than not just a pain in the ass), I managed to stay in decent shape another year.

Getting back to Academia Bodybase (academia means gym in Portuguese)...

I joined up in February last time I was in Porto Alegre and enjoyed the more personal approach to fitness. The trainer I'm working doesn't speak any English, so it was great that Will was able to translate for us.

This time around I have to go to the gym alone because of Will's work schedule, but between my infantile Portuguese vocabulary and a lot of hand gestures and embarrassed smiles, the trainer and I can pretty much understand each other. I haven't really messed anything up...yet.

So yeah, I love to stuff my face, but then I just try to build a little muscle and burn a little fat at the gym without overdoing it and I basically break even.

It's also a great way to totally immerse yourself in a new culture and language. Sometimes I feel like I'm a total voyeur, intently observing the social interaction between different kinds of people while trying to understand what they're saying (or not saying) to each other. Gym culture is strange anyway, awkwardly polite but not too friendly, but I guess that's the same everywhere (unless you're at one of those gyms where everyone's wacked out on steroids...)

That's about all I have to say right now... I've recently noticed that each time I go to the gym (I go five times per week at roughly the same time every day) and I'm on the treadmill, this song comes on:



Hey I guess it's not SO bad... it's got a nice little fitness theme to it!

On Friday I was trying really hard not to laugh because I just knew that it was going to come on when I was on the treadmill... Monday will be yet another struggle!