week 07, 2002 archives

this piece from slate (via msnbc) details the economics of st. valentine's day in public schools. “i choo-choo-choose you!” sometimes i am very grateful that i apparently got through the public school system before it went all sideways with silly self-esteem boosterism and management-by-standardized-testing.

the weekly world news got a surprising amount of press when they went 'offline' and had a ed anger rant about wanting people to buy subscriptions. (mentions at places like luckedcompany.com, the end of free, and the wall street journal). looks like they're back. nice publicity stunt. shame about the site design.

flipping through my voter information booklet for the upcoming state primary and local elections, i'm reminded how much of a joke the election process for superior court judges is. there's seven positions with 19 candidates. only two of the candidates bothered to file a statement to be printed in the booklet (and they're running for different seats). i can only assume that the election results hinge entirely on the endorsement of various organizations like the los angeles police protective league. the metropolitan news-enterprise appears to be the only local media with any coverage of the races. (shame about the design.)

i think the lesson here is:

“if you are tall, don't drop your food.”

i bet shaq has this problem all the time. (this is hilarious—unfortunate release date, “super friends”, “classic” album. learn to shoot free throws, you buffoon.)

sometimes it seems the local media are obsessed with putting a local spin on news. like the coverage from the minneapolis star tribune and the los angeles times (last blurb) about who it was that dubya talked to via cell phone from the olympic opening ceremonies. kudos to the startrib for acknowledging that their local athlete wasn't the only one with a cellphone.

does ralphs really think they're helping anyone with their various ethnic food sections? all it really seems to mean is that there is four different places to find rice in the store, two different places to find beans (guess who just noticed that they've been hiding the big bags of black beans on the mexican food aisle?), and i still can't find the damn miso (so i can try the pesto recipe here).

now that i think about it, i bet i forgot to check one of the special little sections where they hide some of the soy products. calling the store's organization scattered would be generous.

cloned cats. just what the world needs, more of these vermin roaming around. (the evil part of me wishes it could hatch a scheme to extract money from people who own pets. it would certainly be easier than extracting it from rational people.)

happy st. valentine's day!

i love banana chips, but i only end up buying them after i've forgotten that they're fried. (and thus should not be mistaken for health food.) but here's a recipe for baked banana chips that i'm going to have to give a try.

the scientific name for banana is musa sapientum, or “fruit of the wise man.” according to stories, it got that name from wise men in india encountered by alexander the great that subsisted entirely on bananas.

and here's a site with 208 banana recipes (either on the site, or as links).

mmm, bananas.

this polar bear looks so content, you almost wouldn't realize that, despite it being december, the weather was quite warm for a polar bear.

then again, if all i had to do is lay around all day and wait for people to feed me fish, i could probably manage to look content even when it was unseasonably warm.

while i was relieved that abc's new a charlie brown valentine wasn't a total sell-out, it really could have used a real script. it just felt entirely too much like a series of animated comic strips. and too much peppermint patty, and not enough snoopy (and no woodstock!).

somebody at eidos is a damn genius. they are buying the rights to odd japanese video games from sony and will sell them in the us market. no sign of vib ribbon being released state-side, though.

on to chart two.