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So let’s say you bought boots: nice Doc Martens, a few years ago. They were great boots – worn to the point that the soles were slick and the heels were cracked. But as good, well-used boots go, they are particularly useful in very dirty and heavily worked situations. So when you volunteer as a fire suppression team member at a bonfire-like event in a part of the country susceptible to wildfires, it’s not surprising that your duties include lugging heavy, water-filled hoses around, keeping the embers from landing on people; and using a pike to knock down too-tall parts of the burning structure. After several hours of this, the boots (and your clothing) are soaked – and aren’t done any favors by being wadded up in your luggage for a flight the next day. And if you’re particularly slow about unpacking all your things – a week in a plastic garbage bag tucked in your duffel won’t do these boots any favors. In fact, they might look like this:

Just a warning, kids: even good boots go bad. The mold won in this case, but Sam gave them a good life before they were consumed.

In the last month or so, Sam and I have explored and embraced three unique new tastes. In my case, I discovered a love for coarse-ground mustard (especially on a soft pretzel) and that Kalamata olives are actually pretty similar to capers, which I already put on a surprising number of foods. Sam is pushing me to accept green and black olives into my heart, but let’s not go crazy here…black olives simply don’t impress me on pizza, which is where I usually encounter them. And as for green olives, well, this is sounding more and more like a plot to get me to join Sam in his petty crime of stealing one or two olives from grocery stores’ olive bars. Kalamatas, however, I can incorporate into interesting dishes.

Sam, on the other hand, has a different new condiment love. It’d be an exaggeration to say he puts it on everything, but pizza, soup, pasta, bagels, chik patties, and maybe salads at least. It’s called Togarashi, or sometimes Shichimi Togarashi, or sometimes “Japanese 7 Spice”. In short, it’s a spicy powdered mixture that includes chiles, salt and seaweed. We discovered it through its requirement in a ramen-based soup, and since then, it’s dominated Sam’s foods. While it falls within my spice tolerance, I think most foods don’t have to have a delicate combination of chiles and seaweed to finish them off. Hey, to each their own.

On Thursday Madalene and I went to see the Olympic torch come through town. The torch is stopping at cities around the world, and is relayed from important person to important person as it is run, by hand, through each city, burning brightly.

The torch ran down Delmar Ave., near our house. We casually wandered the block down to the street, and then stood around for a bit as motorcycles and police cars drove down the street, heralding the approaching torch. An assortment of Samsung sponsored vehicles, including an H2 Hummer, blared music as they trundled along as part of the procession. Finally, a lady holding the torch and flanked by BMW motorcycles ran past. We clapped, and on the procession went. Then we got some sandwiches.

If that sounds a little anti-climactic to you, then you’d be right. It was all quite casual, and there weren’t many people out. The cheering when the torch passed was moderate, and the parade around the torch was measly at best. The torch itself was pretty neat though, a well crafted wood and aluminum device, with a sleek look.

I rememeber when I was in Elementary school how the Olympics was the biggest event I could think of. Each classroom chose a sport to follow, and we made charts of the progress. We dressed up in costumes of our favorite countries (at the time, my favorite country was Australia) and acted out the opening ceremonies. We even tried out different olympic events like long jump and soccer. The Olympics, and the events proceeding it, were several weeks of Olympic fever at my school.

But this event was rather lackluster. It was neat to see the torch being run along, but I was surprised at how little excitement there was, and how unexcited I was. Oh well.

Who here played Mario Bros. 2 in the US when they were a kid? Good game huh? Sure it was creepy, and filled with weird stuff that doesn’t make any sense (not that the original Mario made much more sense), but it was charming in its own way. Well, the reason the game is a bit of a black sheep is that it was originally called Doki Doki Panic, and was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System, which was an NES addon that included a floppy disk drive. I’ve never even seen one in person.

The game was bought by Nintendo, redesigned, and released as Super Mario Bros. 2 here in the US. All they did was tweak the graphics and music, and ended up with a final product. The original game is quite a bit weirder though, and just as amusing.

If you want to learn more about it, or get a ROM of the game so you can play it on your emulator, check out Poprocks and Coke.

After Monday’s debacle concerning the untimely consumption of an insect and Tuesday’s unceasing rain, I spent most of Tuesday playing Playstation games on my PC. The emulator project ePSXe has come along very well, and now plays most games very well. I’ve been enjoying Legend of Mana, which is a continuation of a game called Secret of Mana that I have fond memories playing with Dustin back when we were rotten little youths. I’m not usually into games much, but sometimes, when the weather is bad, I like to just kick back and do something unproductive for a little while.

However, the real reason I’m making this post is to bring forth more information about the amount of insect parts found in common foods. Through Madalene, I got some good links, and some good information.

First, the amount of insect material in food products is governed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). They regulate all sorts of things related to food safety, but the documents we are interested in concern the Food Defect Action Levels program. This regulates the amount of insect parts, foreign plant matter, rodent filth and rotten parts that food can contain.

If you want to read a nice little article about the process, check out this Salon article called Bug heads, rat hairs—bon appetit. It is a pretty funny little read.

If you want some more detailed information, the main document, for your reading pleasure, is called the FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Level Handbook and it is quite an interesting read. For instance, here are the tolerances for peanut butter:

• Insect filth: No more than 30 insect fragments per 100 grams.
• Rodent filth: No more than 1 rodent hair per 100 grams.

• Grit: Gritty taste and water insoluble inorganic residue may not exceed 25mg per 100 grams.

  However, this last line is what I find most interesting (emphasis mine):

  DEFECT SOURCE: Insect fragments – preharvest and/or post harvest and/or processing insect infestation, Rodent hair – post harvest and/or processing contamination with animal hair or excreta, Grit – harvest contamination
  SIGNIFICANCE: Aesthetic

  Aesthetic? Well, I suppose its true, despite what some may choose to believe, a few rat hairs and insect legs isn’t going to hurt anybody! You might find it a bit bizarre to be eating insect crap, but really, its a small thing to our bodies. In fact, I’m willing to bet that decreased usage of pesticides and an increase in ‘organic’ farming techniques will only mean skyrocketing insect part levels in food. I’m not bothered by that prospect overly much. I don’t fancy eating bugs, seeing as how I am a vegetarian, but at the same time, a realization has to be made that bugs are everywhere, and invariably will end up in whatever you are eating. It isn’t cruel, its just the nature of being an insect who can crawl into anything, has 300 babies at a time and lives for two weeks. Plus, caterpillars have as much protein by weight as beef, but with much less fat, 10 times as much iron, and many other vitamins as well. I suppose accidentally eating a few isn’t really that bad of an idea.

  However, this still doesn’t address the question of how the insect parts are counted. For that, we need to look to another document, called the Macroanalytical Procedures Manual. This document contains procedures for doing all sorts of filth-tests. For the most part, it seems simple filtration serves to identify insect matter and excrement in the food products. Also, various methods of digesting the food product in acids, and then separating any undigested material (such as the insect heads). Happy reading.

Last night Madalene and I went over to Caroline’s for a little get together. The highlight of the evening came when a girl named Randy brought over a watermelon. Watermelon is one of my favorite foods, simply because of how fun it is to eat. Randy admitted that she wasn’t safe around knives, and suggested I help her get the watermelon open so we could eat it.

Now, as a little aside, I want to mention something primal that lives within all carnivorous animals. A desire to take something, bash it open and eat it raw by shoving one’s face into it and pulling out mouthful after mouthful of red dripping goodness with one’s incisors. Its an instinct that can’t be ignored. I however, have a little problem. As a vegetarian, I choose not to bash open and eat animals, which are the kinds of things one might think of when they get the urge to bash something open and feast on it. Watermelon however, is a perfect food to smash open and eat with one’s bare hands, scooping handful after handful of red dripping goodness from its center. That is why I like watermelon.

With that in mind, we began to search the house for implements suitable for opening a watermelon. Caroline’s house (which is also Dennis’s house, even though he isn’t in town at the moment) is a unique place of both sophistication and savagery. They didn’t seem to have any suitable knives for some reason. The best knife we could find was a 4 inch paring knife. Hardly appropriate for opening a watermelon.

A little more searching revealed a boon. Caroline is of viking heritage, and as such, owns a few weapons that emulate the types her ocean-faring ancestors would have wielded. One of these weapons was a huge claw made from welded steel, with three wicked tines, each over two feet long and 3/4 of an inch thick. The ends of each tine had been crudely sharpened and firmly welded to the steel hand grip. Here was our watermelon opening tool.

Feeling like Wolverine, I picked up the mighty claw. With one jab, I skewered the watermelon on the tines. I hefted it high and shouted a primal scream, as the others gawked from outside and took pictures. I carried the wounded melon out onto the porch, set it down, and began to jab at it furiously with the claw until we were able to rip it into two pieces. With the aid of the paring knife, I hacked off several large hunks of melon, handing them out to the waiting tribe. We ate well that night, with juice dripping from our faces and hands, and the soiled claw set off to the side, waiting for its next victim.

Friday I bottled some of the beer I’ve been making. Last week I had racked the beer to the secondary fermenter, but I had five gallons of beer, and only a 3 gallon secondary fermenter. How this had slipped past me before I am not sure. Needless to say, 2 gallons of beer had to remain in the primary fermenter. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, since many people advocate not using secondary fermenters at all, and just bottling straight from the primary.

One problem with leaving the beer on the primary fermenter is that is that beer likes to condition in bulk for as long as possible. Conditioning is the part of the fermenting that takes place after all the sugar has already been consumed. Most of the yeast goes dormant, and the little that is left runs around cleaning up byproducts of fermentation, many of which aren’t very palatable. This improves the flavor over time.

However, only a small portion of the yeast is doing the conditioning work, most of the yeast has gone dormant and fallen to the bottom of the fermenter. If you let beer condition for a long time in the primary fermenter, then all this dormant yeast and precipitated protein on the bottom of the fermenter (called the “trub”) can cause trouble. The proteins can get shaken back up into the beer, potentially adding undesirable flavors. These proteins can also be eaten by yeast that hasn’t gone dormant yet, which produces unpleasant flavors. Also, the yeast can autolyze, which is a form of yeasty suicide, which releases so much disgusting stuff into the beer that it usually becomes undrinkably bad.

Moving the beer to a secondary fermenter keeps only the small amount of active yeast that is still in suspension, and leaves behind the potentially trouble causing trub. Now conditioning can progress unhindered. I had to bottle the beer that was still on the primary fermenter this weekend, before something bad happened. However, the beer that I got into the secondary will be bottled next weekend, benefiting from another week in fermentation. My hope is that the two sub-batches will both be of equal quality. Theoretically, the beer that made it to the secondary will be a little better, but that is just theory. This is actually a good thing, because it will give me an opportunity to directly compare beer that had a chance to ferment on a secondary fermenter with beer that had gone straight from the primary to bottles. With something as variable-rich as brewing, theory sometimes has to take a back seat to a simple taste test.

Anyway, I’ll probably be using the bottles as gifts for people who aren’t in St. Louis, because of their universal portability. For the St. Lunatics, I’ll be kegging the beer, saving me the trouble of saving up, cleaning and washing another 30 bottles. I’ve ordered a small keg-like system, called a Tap-A-Draft that uses 6 liter bottles and a small CO₂ injector system that is used to keep 15 PSI on the beer at all times, keeping it fresh and carbonated. Instead of using big tanks like real kegging systems, this one uses 8 gram cartridges. The system is pretty cheap, and has gotten some very good reviews. It looks ideal for someone like myself who wants to keg beer, but doesn’t have the money or the space for ‘real’ kegs. It can theoretically ‘force carbonate’ beverages, which means taking an uncarbonated beverage and exposing it to high CO₂ pressures while chilled in the fridge, with the effect of carbonating the beverage overnight. However, its ability to do that is suspect, because typically more pressure and better regulators are required for such a process. However, I will be keg/bottle conditioning my beer anyway, which means adding a bit of corn sugar to the brew immediately before bottling or kegging. The few remaining yeasties eat the sugar and make a tiny bit of alcohol and some CO₂. Because they are now sealed tight in the bottle or keg instead of being in a fermenter with a bubbling airlock, the CO₂ they create carbonates the beverage automagically. The process takes between 2 and 3 weeks. After that, the beverage is either consumed all at once, as in a bottle, or consumed in a system that can maintain CO₂ pressure on the container so that the carbonation isn’t lost, like the Tap-A-Draft. I’ll let people know how the system works once I get it.

Like every other damn blogger, I’m going to review the Matrix: Reloaded, just because I can. The full review will contain spoilers, so only read the extended entry if you don’t mind them or if you’ve already seen it. If you haven’t seen it, here is my mini-review and commentary just for you.

Don’t listen to all those people saying it doesn’t have the magic of the original. If you take a book, and open it up one third of the way in, and read it until you are two thirds of the way through, it won’t seem very magical. In a story, there is an introduction, where the story is set up, the characters are introduced, etc. Its called the exposition, I believe. Then there is the continuation of the story, then a climax and a denouement. The Matrix trilogy is not a series like the Naked Gun series, or Diehard or anything. Those are essentially movies that are just different films with different stories, they just happen to have the same characters and occasional transparent references to the previous films. The three movies of The Matrix are linked so closely that you can’t watch one without seeing the ones before it. It would make no sense at all (even less than when you actually watch them together). They are actually parts of one huge six hour film, broken into three pieces so that short attention span consumers can take it. Keep that in mind, because it is a critical distinction from many of the ‘sequels’ American cinema often produces. The Lord of the Rings trilogy would be another recent example of the same idea, and the Star Wars movies as well (though their success as creating the interwoven stories is debatable at this point).

But I digress. The second movie is the continuation of the whole story. There is a lot of meat here, and a lot of great movie, but the ‘magic’ isn’t the same, because exposition ended in the first movie. The exposition is where all the great discoveries and revelations come, now we get to the heart of the matter. If each movie was just mystery after mystery, then there wouldn’t be any deep story. It would be easy to just throw curve ball after curve ball and keep everyone in the dark, but it wouldn’t be a good story. Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing ideas, discoveries and mysteries in Reloaded, but they aren’t of the same character as the mysteries from the first movie. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, its a good thing.

So don’t worry, and go enjoy the movie! My strong recommendation to you is to go watch the first Matrix shortly before seeing the new one. Madalene and I saw The Matrix eight days ago in a theater by our house that was showing it as a midnight movie. Seeing it so recently made me think of the sequel as just a continuation, jumping in right where the last left off, rather than a different movie that was somehow supposed to stand on its own in competition with the first. The Matrix is a movie in three two hour acts, not three separate movies. Remember that, and many of the artistic decisions will make more sense to you.

Also, stick around for the entire credit roll. At the very end, after the credits are done, is a trailer for the final movie in the series, Revolutions. Its a neat thing to see, and a good way to psych up for the next one.

So, if you dare, read on for a more detailed review and thoughts that will contain spoilers. Continue Reading »

Lazyweb, I invoke thee. We are looking for a book Madalene remembers from her childhood. The book contained photography of women’s breasts, and then a story about the woman, her life, her experiences, etc. on the next page. It was paperback, though hardcover versions may exist. The title was something like “Breasts” or “The Breast”. She would like to get this book for inclusion in the Washington University’s Women’s Resource Center library. If anyone remembers or has a book like this, that would have been published earlier than 1994, we would love information on it, such as author, title, ISBN number, etc, so we can hunt down a copy. Thanks!

UPDATE: The book has been found! Good suggestions in the comments yielded some very interesting books, but the exact book we were looking for was finally revealed to us by Madalene’s mother who was actually able to produce a copy for us. She’s, you guessed it, a librarian! Here is the information on the book, in case anyone is curious:

Title: Breasts: Women Speak About Their Breasts and Their Lives
Editors: Daphna Ayalah and Isaac J. Weinstock
Published by Summit Books, New York in 1979
ISBN: 0-671-40021-5 hardcover and 0-671-40095-9 paperback.

Andrew requested more information on Set Theory, a branch of music theory that Forte Night deals with, in a comment to my last post. I was going to email him, but figured I’d post about it instead, so that anyone else who is curious can also partake of the information.

Now, IANAMT (I Am Not A Music Theorist, to those of you who aren’t hip to the latest in Internet acronyms), and what I know is mostly from the perspective of having to write a program about it. Hence, I’m quite clear on the mathematics behind Musical Set Theory, but not very clear about the practical applications of it. However, I have a few friends who are very clear on it (they are composers) and I’ll query them for more information which I’ll add to the post later. I’ll also forward specific questions people have about it along to them, just post them in the comments. Read on if you dare, things will get a little complex as we go. Continue Reading »

...So I guess I’ll have to rent it! Three points to whoever gets the reference.

However, it is true that money can’t buy the things that truly make us happy, those things being compassion and empathy for all living things. However, it is helpful for maintaining a standard of living that limits suffering that stems from poor nutrition, poor housing, poor sanitation etc.

Also, there are some services that one often must pay for, but that can bring contentment and happiness. For instance, say that happiness to you includes being tied up and spanked by a man in clown make-up and leather underpants, then you can rent the Professional Adult Clown services of Ouchy the Clown. Though, for those of us who need something other than the irreverent antics of a scantily clad clown wielding a riding crop to make us happy, the search goes on. It is my hope however, that someone out there reading this thinks to themselves, “I’ve always wanted a naughty clown to take me to the limits of desire,” and is able to partake of Ouchy’s services. Such a person probably feels pretty alone, since I can’t imagine that a very large portion of the population desires such treatment, let alone from a clown, but folks, Ouchy is here for you. Ouchy understands. Ouchy cares.

It would be fun to have him DJ at a party though.

Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing Dennis’s concert. Him and several other new composers had written music that was being premiered at the fabulous Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis. The cathedral is a massive structure, over 130 years old, with a mighty pipe organ, and an amazing acoustic presence. Dennis had two pieces, one was based on a set of four ‘glosses’ which are short poem-like additions added to ancient texts, usually written in the margins. Think of them as Irish haiku. They describe things like the wonders of nature, the meditative peacefulness of reading a book in the forest, the song of a bird, things like that. His second piece was theme and variations on a traditional Irish tune, written for flute, string bass (which Dennis played himself) and harp. The piece was beautiful, utilizing all the best parts of the various instruments, and even using some parts that you wouldn’t expect, rapping on the wood, tapping and clicking the keys, etc.

There were also fabulous organ pieces, wonderful choral works, piano pieces, and more. It was a great concert, set in a great hall, and a wonderful opprotunity for some new musicians to get their pieces performed. I feel confident that there is a new generation of composers and performers coming into their own that will please and astound everyone. Its great to be a part of their beginnings.

While Madalene was shopping on Amazon, she took this interesting screenshot. Apparently their automated system of suggesting related products to you has taken an interesting turn. Apparently they now differentiate customers based on whether or not they wear clothing. Customers who go naked get offered other products, you might think. I find it particularly amusing that the first entry is “Clean Underwear” which is clearly the staple of any clothing wearer’s wardrobe

The pomegranate is a very special fruit. The original ‘fruit of passion,’ there are many who believe that the fateful apple mentioned in the Book of Genesis, the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was actually a pomegranate. Apples were not available in the area of the world at that time, and the pomegranate has many cultural connotations as a passionate fruit. A fruit of wild abandon.

Eating a pomegranate is an interesting experience. First you must pierce the outer shell. I used a knife to hack it open, which earned me a squirt of bright red juice. Then, I pried away the outer layer, exposing the tiny red seeds like so many amphibian eggs. I don’t know about you, but I eat the entire seed. Some people spit out the little white inner seed, but I crunch it up, and enjoy it with gusto. Prying open the pomegranate with too much vigor will cause the seeds to burst, spraying you with juice. This happened to me several times while eating this pomegranate. I’m now covered in tiny droplets of red juice. My clothing is surely stained, and my face is sticky from the repeated spritzing.

I enjoyed it though. Quite a bit of delicious excitement for a small fruit.

There are lots of wonderful things made from pomegranates as well. Such as pomegranate juice. Or Grenadine syrup. Or even colorful dyes. A friend of mine once dyed her hair red with pomegranate juice. Another friend of mine inadvertently dyed his pants red by placing a pomegranate in his rear pocket, forgetting about it, and then sitting on it later. The color was quite vibrant however, and looked quite well on him.

I’ve been getting messages sent to the entire library by one of the staff members who is compiling a recipe book. They intend to make the book out of recipes from library members, then sell the book and donate the money to charity. I probably get an email every day requesting more and more recipes. So today I finally broke down an gave up my secret family recipe. Now that it is out in the open, I might as well let you folks see it as well:

I’m not much of a cook, but here is my one soup recipe.

Ingredients:
One can condensed soup (any variety).
One glass or bottle of cold water.

Remove the label from the soup can. This will prevent it from catching on fire, which may taint the flavor of the soup.
Open the can of soup. If you do not have a can opener, a screwdriver or large knife can often be of aid.
Turn a stovetop burner to medium, and place the can directly on the heated surface.
Use a spoon to stir the soup frequently, to prevent burning the soup.
When the soup is warm, remove the can from heat. You may need to use a hot pad, or a pair of pliers, because the surface of the can will be very hot.
Alternatively, you can simply turn off the stove. The burner will continue to put out heat for a few minutes, but you won’t have to touch the hot can. This is especially useful if you do not own a hot pad, and can’t find your pliers.

Enjoy your soup by standing over the stove, putting a large spoonful into your mouth, and then washing it down with a swig of water from your glass. The hot condensed soup will mix with the cool water in your mouth, forming a warm, delicious and convienent mixture, ready for immediate swallowing.

Enjoy!