rantlust

Posted by meerkat on November 06th 2007 in Architecture, Art, Design
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Frank Gehry has been blamed for serious design flaws at Stata center in Cambridge. This seems to be the price you pay for having an unconventional building which looks stunning and for sure, breaks the monotony of the buildings.

From the article-
“Because Gehry’s so daring, you figure you’ve got to be daring, too, if you’re a client,” Campbell said. “You know if you hire Frank Gehry there are going to be new kinds of problems.” But he said clients accept the risks because “they’ll get a building like no other building.” (Read more…)

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Posted by meerkat on November 05th 2007 in Rants, Society, Technology
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I always thought all cubicles in the cube farm are bad for humans. But, some cubicles are really really bad. Here’s Wired magazine’s sad cubicle list.

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Posted by meerkat on September 22nd 2007 in Agriculture, Disease
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Just when I was all set for making more tomato dishes before the end of the season, looks like there is something else that is bringing an end to the tomato season, at least for my farmer, Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farm in Dixon.

According to the article in Sacramento Bee, Dixon in Solano county seems to be the ground zero for the Mediterranean fruit fly, which is a dreaded agricultural pest. In order to cease the movement of the fruit fly from the affected area, agriculture officials have placed a quarantine on certain produce within a 4.5 mile radius. This places Eatwell Farm within the quarantine, and they are not allowed to move any tree fruit, eggplant, tomatoes, or peppers off the farm. The potential cost to Eatwell Farm is about $8000 to $10000 for the next six weeks, until the summer produce runs out. Read my farmer’s blog for more insight.

An infestation by the fruit fly can make fruit inedible and cause it to drop too early from the tree. Supposedly, the fruit flies got a free ride from Hawaii in the bags of vacationers, who could not help bringing some mangoes back to California.

PS If the Sacramento bee asks for a login(damn!), try dontbugme/dontbugme as login/password.

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Posted by meerkat on September 19th 2007 in Internet, Society, Technology, USA
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I am looking to move to another apartment in San Francisco and boy, is that difficult! I am looking for apartments by browsing Craigslist and have set up RSS feeds on my home page. I constantly check to see if there are any apartments on the market. There are a few that come up now and then. It is not as straight forward as elsewhere in the bay area. There is this open house that you have to go to and there are so many people that show up there looking for a place to live in SF. The owner of the apartment gets to choose the lucky one from many many many applications. Owners’ market for sure. I have found that an open house is a waste of my time competing with so many people and try avoiding them altogether.

Then, I look for ads that do not call for an open house. There are no guarantees even here. When the owner gets too many emails from people looking for a place, they call for an open house eventually. This is what happens in most of the cases in SF. Anyway, I chanced upon an ad that sounded so good.

$1500 / 2br - Amazing apartment! W/D, D/W, A/C, 1300 sqft, all is included, parking (noe valley) (Read more…)

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Posted by meerkat on August 27th 2007 in Food & Wine, Trivia, USA
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When I read about the deep fried Pepsi, I could not believe my eyes. I have heard of deep fried snickers, oreos, reese’s peanut butter cups, cakes and what not. How does one deep fry pepsi?

Here is a snippet from the NY Times article,

“Jeremy Orme, who runs Fried Creations, the home of the Combo Plate, introduced a new item at this year’s fair: deep-fried Pepsi. He rolls out his Pepsi-based dough, dips it in a batter made with Pepsi and deep-fries it for 90 seconds. His oil, made of soybeans, is trans-fat free as required, and on the front of his booth he has posted a local newspaper’s account about the fair’s trans-fat ban”

Notice that it is deep fried for sure, but it is trans fat free. So, no guilt involved, even if you have to get yourself an all new wardrobe after the fair.

While on the topic of deep fried everything, I read that French fries are not really French. It is supposedly a Belgian marvel and the French stands for the type of the cut, which means to cut in thin, long strips. I guess a lot of time was wasted after 9/11 renaming French fries and French toast(which is also not French) to Freedom fries and Freedom Toast.

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Posted by meerkat on August 23rd 2007 in Agriculture, Food & Wine, Raves
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Wednesdays are my farm box day. I open the mystery box from my farmer(Community Supported Agriculture CSA) and I hope to get what I love. I see Swiss chard, blue potatoes, basil, plums, onions, corn, cucumber, summer squash and so many tomatoes- heirloom, red, orange, green , yellow cherry tomatoes and green striped ones. I am not all that fond of tomatoes. For sure, I do not like them raw. So, eating a salad is out of the question. I have to look for quite a few recipes to cook the tomatoes as it would be a sin to waste them.

These tomatoes are ripened in the plants and harvested 24 hours before it gets delivered to me, they are so juicy and flavorful when I cook them. I got to know tomatoes should not be refrigerated as chilling stops the ripening and kills the flavor of the tomatoes . That leaves a short and finite time before I need to cook them. I did try my favorite ones like the tomato pickle, tomato rice and the egg curry with plenty of tomatoes. I also had to find new ones to use up all the tomatoes and have been figuring out how to can the tomatoes so I can use them during winter. The New York Times had an interesting article with recipes So Many Tomatoes to Stuff in a Week, this will surely come in handy now.

Although the tomatoes have been overwhelming, I am very happy with the farm box without which I would never had the courage to try Swiss chard, fava beans, leeks, arugula or rutabaga(what a name!). I do not like all the vegetables I get, but I do try them and have liked many of them. It has been an interesting experience so far.

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Posted by meerkat on August 17th 2007 in Animation, India, Television
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This is a video from Doordarshan, Indian TV station, made many years ago. This video is called “Ek anek..” in Hindi. It starts with a child trying to pluck mangoes from a tree but fails to do so. He is dejected and turns to his sister when the topic of what is one, many and unity begin through stories set with simple music. We learn it all. This is a well made simple 2-D animation in the 70s. Another favorite 2-D retro animation of mine set in simple times is “Triplets of Belleville“.

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Posted by meerkat on August 14th 2007 in Farmers Market, Trivia
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I always used to wonder why Americans call an eggplant an eggplant.The word eggplant never made me think of the huge purple squash like vegetable that I see at the supermarkets, it sounded hideous and smelly. Then I came across bell peppers. Americans must be on to something. Call the vegetables just how they look. Still, an eggplant was a little confusing as it did not look exactly like an egg and was not a good fit for a vegetable I like to call brinjal or aubergine, they sound real nice and yum like I want to make it for dinner tonight.

The words eggplant and bell pepper always reminded me of the word bootstrapping from my college days, where you reuse the few words of a language to write something else. I like a little more imaginative words like brinjal, aubergine(sounds like a pretty girl’s name), capsicum(I don’t want to go there). (Read more…)

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