An Inconveniently Timed Truth

I watched An Inconvenient Truth yesterday. Given all of the things I should have been--and should be--doing (uh, like memorizing the Hungarian national anthem? Cramming some last bits of memorization? Trying to master counting to ten in Hungarian?), perhaps it wasn't the most productive use of my time.

The movie was very illuminating. On the effectiveness scale, it fell somewhere between Michael Moore's documentaries and The Fog of War. It lacked the subtlety and poignancy of The Fog of War, but was more effective than Moore's in-your-face, preaching-to-the-choir style documentaries, which I tend to find a bit much. Which is not to say this movie doesn't preach to the choir; it does, even though it attempts to address critics and skeptics of his claims.

In the documentary, Al Gore presents a slide show on global warming. The slide show itself was excellent; had I seen Gore at Stanford or the Commonwealth Club giving this presentation, I would've given very high ratings for the lecture. His presentation was engaging; the slides were interesting; his main points came across well; he used very good examples; showed rather than told, etc. Although I had some issues with some of the claims he makes about population projections and about the Kyoto protocol, overall, his presentation seemed very well researched. I would've been perfectly happy with a movie that consisted of just his slide show.

The movie is also about the process of presenting the slideshow-- thus we see Gore toting his materials across airports, presenting it to audiences around the world, tweaking slides on the airplane, etc., while other times, we hear him thinking out loud. It was the addition of these extraneous clips-- his wistful reminiscing about the 2000 election situation; a very moving (but nonetheless distracting) story about losing his sister to lung cancer and how this affected his father's attitude towards their tobacco farm--which I felt detracted from the overall efficacy of the film. Take the 2000 election reference. At the opening of the film, he introduces himself as the former "next president of the United States", and then (jokingly) retorts to a laughing audience that he doesn't find this funny. This one reference to the 2000 election would've been fine, but then it is brought up again, halfway through the film. Although inclusion of this reference is probably the director's (and not Gore's) choice, I still found it detracting from an otherwise powerful message on global warming. Everyone who watches this film knows who Gore is. Even if he had not mentioned the 2000 election, the vast majority of us probably would've still made the association in our head (we already had one reminder of the situation from his self-introduction at the start of the film), which is why there is really no need to keep bringing this up. It is almost as if he implies that as a result of this devastating loss, he decides to channel his energies into global warming--or at least, I found myself making this subconscious connection, even though he mentions in the film that this topic has been a passion since his college days.

That said, although some of these tangential personal anecdotes made the film less effective for me, I still found his overall global warming message riveting. I also liked how in spite of its oft doomsday-sounding rhetoric, he ends his presentation by showing that this trend is still reversible, as well as concluding with a list of things we can do to change this trend. (A bibliography of sources and a longer list of things that can be done would've made me even happier.)

Finding a message "riveting" is not sufficient, though. There have been many positive reviews of this movie, which have led to many people going to see this movie, but one wonders whether this will lead to significant changes--whether among individuals or at the corporate or legislative levels. Those of us who are interested in seeing this film are probably already recycling, buying energy efficient bulbs, appliances, turning the water off while brushing our teeth, biking into work, and whatever else we can on the individual level. However, this is the kind of movie I'd want my ebullient co-workers and the very people who aren't likely to heed the warnings Gore gives to go see. The ones I not-so-jokingly harass when they (daily) toss an empty coke can or a newspaper into the garbage can, rather than into the recycling bin. The ones who think nothing of owning 9 mpg gas guzzling Hummers. The management of hotels that encourage you to reuse your towels, but yet do not have any recycling bins for paper, water bottles, pepsi cans, etc. (I stayed at 4 such hotels in the past two weeks.) Airlines that still don't seem to sort out their trash, despite the hundreds of thousands of cans and recyclable cups they must use daily. I doubt that any of these people or constituencies will be affected by this film, which is unfortunate.

Thus, in spite of its overall high ratings, I'm not sure if being "illuminating" or a "knockout success" is sufficient. Will anyone do anything differently as a result of this film?

Perhaps I'm asking too much of this film. But isn't this why Gore is has been giving this presentation to tens of thousands of people around the world? Not simply to rivet or impress, but to incite to act, to change?

In this regard, it seems to fall short of the unstated but clearly understood goal it sets out to achieve.

It's definitely worth going to see, but not something I'd add to my DVD collection.

Honey'd?

I got a box of "Honey'd Raisin Bran" from the store the other day. A certified organic cereal from Naure's Path.
I didn't actually catch the "honey'd", but I got it more because of the cereal's high protein and fiber content, and low sugar content and only noticed the "honey'd" after the fact. Once I noticed that this raisin bran was "honey'd" raisin bran, I tried to detect the honey taste. Not tasting even the slightest bit of honey, I got suspicious and checked the ingredients.

Well no wonder. Honey is the very last ingredient. After sea salt, and I can barely taste the salt in this cereal.

In fact, I got curious and tried to figure out exactly how much honey is in this thing. There are a total of 7 servings of cereal, and each serving has 240 mg of sodium. So total sodium content is 1680 mg. Each 1/4 tsp of sea salt contains 440 mg. of salt. So 1680/440 is 3.8. That is 3.8 1/4 tsps of salt-- which amounts to less than a teaspoon of sea salt in the entire box of cereal. If honey is listed as an ingredient after sea salt, and we assume that ingredients are listed in weight order, and we furthermore grant that honey is denser than salt, then it should roughly follow that there is even less than "less than a teaspoon" of honey in this cereal.

These are rough estimates, so I'm not claiming accuracy, but I think I'm making reasonable conjectures. It's quite a grandiose claim to describe something as "honey'd", when there is less than a teaspoon of honey in the entire box--about 5.25 cups of cereal.

By this logic, they could put less than a teaspoon of raisins in this cereal and call it "raisin bran".

Wouldn't it be more accurate to call this cereal sea-salted raisin bran?

Teaching History in Florida

The History News Network, a history blog that I follow from time to time, has an interesting post on the new legislation passed in Florida state on teaching "objective" history.

Says one part of the bill:
“American history shall be viewed as factual, not constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”

Actually, this passage seems to be over-quoted in the blogosphere, so at the risk of sounding trite, its oversweepingness and grandiosity got me thinking.

What does the bill mean by this, precisely?

I mean, for starters, aren't all histories "constructed"? And don't most high school history textbooks purport to teach "factual" history? Moreover, just because something is "factual" doesn't mean it isn't constructed. Are they suggesting that a history that doesn't teach the things they outline in the bill--the Revolutionary War, Civil War, etc. is "constructed", whereas a history that covers these topics is not? I'm not sure why it's necessary to point these things out in a bill. Does this mean that history taught in other states and previously in Florida is not viewed as "factual"?

It's as if by calling history "knowable", "teachable", and giving it a definition, the legislation is saying that history is definable and definitive, and in this particular case, touting one interpretation of American history as the authoritative version. Do the people who drafted this bill know anything about history? Or more importantly, about teaching it and about historiography? Are these same people who evidently know little about history the ones who get to determine which version of history is the "factual" one?

I am not saying that the Declaration of Independence, Civil War, etc. shouldn't be taught. Of course they should, as should the other topics this bill highlights--the holocaust, the plight of African Americans, contribution of women, and contribution of Hispanics. However, this bill already is a "constructed" history. Whoever wrote the bill chose to construct a history that doesn't necessarily include Native Americans, for example. I am not downplaying the importance of the topics the bill says should be covered. But what of the Vietnam War, the Palestinian-Israel conflict? In my recollection of k-12 history education, I remember it as being mostly dull, repetitive, inaccurate, monolithic and totally useless in the context of being an informed citizen in the world. From third grade till twelfth grade, 4-5 of those years were spent learning about the Revolutionary War and colonial history. (Yet, despite the repetition, I'm chagrined to say that I barely remember the details of American History. ) 2 weeks total (of those ten years) was spent on the Vietnam War.
And forget about different and alternative narratives of history. I had to wait till college/adulthood to discover those.

I should actually carefully peruse the full text of this legislation (some day when I'm not prepping for a trip with our choir or memorizing music, etc.), before interpreting/judging it, but this is just a stupid bill.

The meaning of "I have to go"

To my landlord and other people who have a penchant for maundering on and on on the phone. . .

If I say to you, "I have to go", please let me go. Please don't talk my ear off for another fifteen minutes. My attention span is about 5 minutes unless you are really scintillating. (Note: most of my friends are scintillating, but most landlords are not. ) If I am changing subjects and sounding restless and prompting you to make your point quicker, that probably means my attention span is shot. You really don't have to repeat the same phrase and rework it four times. Once is enough, really. Twice is annoying, but FOUR times? This is why a conversation that ought to take 5 minutes ends up taking 19 minutes and 22 seconds.

This is why I never bother answering my phone anymore. B/c people from this area can't comprehend the phrase, "I have to go".

There are 4 different types of "I have to go".

The first is more like a 10-minute warning (because I learned the hard way that after I say "I have to go", I typically get talked at for 10 more minutes. ) The tone of my voice is restless, but at this point, probably not annoyed-sounding. But really, I do want/need to go. So this is not a time to start asking me how my job is going. Take it as a warning bell to wrap up your yakking.

Then there is the non-commital "I should probably get going". That means, "I've been on the phone long enough, but it's not absolutely necessary that I get off." I might say this as I'm making one "last" point or something so as to indicate to the listener, that yes, there will be an end to this point soon. Or I might say this if I feel like I've talked someone else's ear off.

The third type is a more urgent "I have to go". At this point, I'm starting to get antsy and am really not paying much attention to what you are saying, but I'm staying on to be polite. I think my voice might sound agitated, but still somewhat under control. At this point, you should really let me go in under 2 minutes. Ideally in under 1 minute. Besides, if I'm not really listening to what you are saying, then you're kindof wasting your breath anyway.

The last type is the type where I sound audibly annoyed/agitated/miffed, etc., and the one where I'm so annoyed that I couldn't cut you off earlier that I might throw the phone across the room in frustration after I get off with you, or if I could get away w/ slamming the phone, this is probably what I'd do at this point. Either that or gripe about it on a blog such as this. You really don't want to hear this "I have to go", or if you do, you really want to let me get off the phone or let me go within ten seconds. This "I have to go" usually happens if I have a certain expectation that discussing x,y,z should take s amount of time, but instead, the conversation ends up taking 5s, and the amount of talking I'm doing is about .25s.

I can talk people's ear off. So if I'm not talking much, and all I'm saying is u-huh, or "ok, so--" (to prompt you to get to your point, or "right right" or "got it got it got it", that's probably a sign that your conversation is taking longer than I'd like.

So when I say "I have to go", for heaven's sake, let me go.

How media can affect Whole Foods shopping bag design

I don't know if any of you (hmm. I say "you" as if I am imagining some sort of audience. . ..) have been following Michael Pollan's online food blog on the NYT. His most recent (as of this writing) posting is a rebuttal letter he wrote to Whole Foods in response to a long letter the CEO of Whole Foods wrote to address some of the things that Michal Pollan wrote in his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Read both (and now there appears to be another rebuttal letter from Whole Foods in response to Michael Pollan's rebuttal. Wow. I am lagging behind.), since I couldn't possibly do justice to the various threads by simply summarizing their arguments, but one of the main things both letters address is the idea of "local" food. I haven't read Pollan's book yet, but the first letter from Whole Foods basically goes on about how the company is indeed doing what it can to support local producers, etc.

Pollan's rebuttal letter challenges Whole Foods' claim that 45 percent of its products are "local". He raises the interesting question of whether Whole Foods counts the 3 big-corporation organic companies that are included in this 45 percent count. I still need to read Whole Foods' rebuttal letter #2, which seems to address Pollan's questions.

I went to Whole Foods today after work to pick up some stuff. I usually ask for a plastic bag, but today I was in a paper bag mood. I immediately noticed their new bag design: there is a picture of a ear of corn, with the text "LOCALLY GROWN" sort of diagonally written across the front. Then on the sides of the bag, there is a list of "a few of our local growers". On the back of this bag (well, as much as these sorts of bags have an actual "front" and "back"), there is a blurb about "Our regional growers" bringing us the freshest seasonal produce, etc. etc.

I can't help but wonder if this bag design was inspired by the recent exchange that has been transpiring between Michael Pollan and Whole Foods about the notion of "locally grown". I feel like I've only seen this design debut fairly recently.

Sales can bring out the stupidity in me

I am declaring a moratorium on clothes shopping. Last week I spent all week eating. This week, I feel like I spent all week shopping.

I'm not actually much of a frequent shopper (I'm a frequent browser, but a less frequent buyer), but I needed some stuff for work, travel, and running, and this was the week that everyone from Macy's to REI seemed to be having a sale, so I kept going and spending.

In fact, I bought a skirt that I can't imagine ever wearing. On the surface, it seemed like a perfect buy. It looked really cute, it was on sale for like $25, down from $140, and they had my size. However, there were several problems with the skirt. First, due to size inflation, it was way too big. Second, this skirt had pleats all along the front, and I don't do pleats. One or two, I can tolerate, but gosh, all across the front? That's so 1982. Or at least, that was the last time I wore such a skirt. Third, it was a dry-clean only skirt, and unless it is a very versatile clothing item, (which this wasn't) I don't do "dry clean only" apparel. Fourth, I wasn't crazy about the color: this skirt had pale pinks and pale greens. I'm not necessarily excluding pinks and greens from my wardrobe, but these shades of pink and green, I don't typically do. Last and least (since this was the most remediable of problems), since I don't typically do these colors, I suspected I didn't own a single thing that would match this skirt.

But for $25, one can be duped into a false sense of flexibility.

The back didn't have pleats, and actually, if the skirt was like that all around (pleatless), that would solve problem 1 (b/c it would look less silly as a low-rise skirt. Can skirts be "low rise" like pants?), 2, and 3 (the pleats would make it impossible to hand-wash, b/c I also don't do the ironing thing, but w/o pleats, it can easily be hand-washed and line dried).

So I bought the skirt, because it was only $25, and if the front looked like the back, then a,b, and c (see previous paragraph for values of a, b, and c).

Last week, I kept the skirt out to see if I would be inspired to wear it to work, but no such inspiration came.

I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I thought "well, if the front of the skirt were like the back. . ." The very same thought transpired when I tried on my skirt again at home a few times. But how does this help me? It's kind of like saying, "well, if I had a million dollars. . ." Well, yes, but I don't, and the skirt isn't. Except that I never base my decisions on a hypothetical million dollars. So why did I buy a skirt based on this kind of ridiculous logic?

I blame it on the $25, and the display mannequin who made the ridiculously pleated skirt look so cute and fashionable. When I wore the skirt, I looked nothing like the mannequin. See what happens when stores use mannequins that are size zero amazon women? We start flattering ourselves and buying unflattering things we normally wouldn't think of buying, b/c we think we will look like the mannequins. This seems like a perfectly complain-worthy point, except that I think that is the whole point of having unrealistic-sized mannequins. Where are the mannequins with love handles? Where are the mannequins that are 5'4''?

Well, that was just the start of my shopping rampage. I also ended up getting a few more items over the weekend. I went to Union Square yesterday, then to REI today. But after spending more $ on things I would actually wear, I decided that even though $25 is a steal deal for a skirt that was originally $140, it's still a wasted $28 (by the time you add tax), if I won't ever wear it.

It's funny that it sometimes takes spending an extra $200 to arrive at this seemingly common-sensical thought--or in other words, I need to spend $200 to not spend $25 stupidly.

I concluded my weekend shopping spree by returning this skirt.

A rebuttal to my pink lady theory

Sometimes I wonder if people actually read these things, but evidently they do.

So earlier, I posted about my speculations on what kind of apple Eve ate. I said Pink Lady, hands down.

Gerswin, whose real name is Gershwin, except that he cannot spell, so now he is Gerswin. . . actually, in real life, he's neither of these identities, but on the pretense of being quasi-anonymous, my real-life people get pseudo-monikers, but I digress--anyway, so Gerswin, a lapsed trumpetist who won't tell me which non-quotidian-sounding composer dude whose name begins with an R wrote the double trumpet concerto in E-minor that I like and thus want to get a recording of, wrote back this interesting rebuttal:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowing your penchant for detail, I was astounded to learn that you would
believe Eve's Apple to be a pink lady. Although I quite agree with you on the
quality of the apple, I think we had this discussion before, I would believe someone
as pedantic as you would have done your research. To help you out, I
have provided a cut from a website:

Pink Lady--
Yet another import from the land "down under" this variety was
originally named Cripp's Pink. Developed and bred by the agriculture
department of Western Australia in 1973, Pink Lady apples are a cross
between Golden Delicious and Lady Williams. Introduced to the United
States by way of New Zealand in the late eighties, the fruit is medium
in size and conical in shape, with a distinctive pink blush over a
yellow background. The fine-grained flesh of this apple is crisp and
crunchy and, because it does not brown easily after being cut, Pink
Lady is a desirable addition to fresh vegetable and fruit salads. When
eaten out-of-hand, the first bite tastes pleasantly tart and is
followed by a delicious sweetness. Pink Lady ripens in September and
can be found in most markets right through late spring months.

http://www.appleorchardtours.com/fruit.htm

You realize that by identifying Eve's apple as being a pink lady, you
throw off the whole evolution/creation debate by adjusting Genesis to
somewhere around the mid 60's, assuming of course that Adam and Eve
had the opportunity to hang around a bit before being banished from
Eden. Not to mention to what you do to throw off the values on carbon
dating. :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting. He has a valid point. I'm not going to go into my religious beliefs, but if this is the same god person who created the universe and managed to populate the earth with humans all in 6 days, and somehow his 6 days corresponds to the human timeline of several billion years, isn't it perfectly plausible that this same god can have a post-1960s-dated pink lady apple tree in the garden of Eden? I mean, we're not talking about a normal passage of time here. . ..

Confession and Continuation of Rant about Zeros. . .

I went to the shopping center yesterday and have a grave confession to make. I parked my Camry in a parking spot clearly marked "SMALL CAR". Horrible, aren't I? Actually, if it weren't for the fact that it aggravates the heck out of me when SUVs do this, I wouldn't feel so guilty about doing this.

Also, I once wrote an essay for one of my classes (half in jest, but half serious, actually) about why Americans can't do math-- and one of the reasons I gave was that large Hummers park in spaces marked "compact". (I mean if a 50-year old adult can't get the spatial perception thing, we expect 9-year olds to figure out proportions? ) By parking in this space, I feel like I'm contributing to math illiteracy.

Granted, my car is hardly a Hummer or the 5 mongo SUVs that were parked next to my car in spaces marked "SMALL CAR", but I still felt a twinge of guilt as I pulled into the parking space clearly marked "SMALL CAR". However, the reason I chose to park here, in spite of my guilt is perfectly logical: my sense of resignation exceeded my sense of guilt--so much so that I only hesitated for about 10 seconds contemplating my hypocrisy, before I thought out loud, "well, if these 6 mongo SUVs and Hummer, and this ginormous truck is considered a small car, then for sure my Camry is a midget." In economics jargon, my marginal resignation exceeded my marginal guilt. However, if my marginal guilt had exceeded my marginal resignation, I wouldn't have parked in the small car space.

If a Hummer qualifies as a compact car, then the next time I rent a compact car, can I request a Volvo station wagon as a compact car? I surely don't want to drive a Hummer, but surely a Volvo is a compact far more legitimately than a Hummer is, no?

How come the rental car companies never confuse "compact" in this way?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In an earlier post, I questioned the sizing practices of Banana Republic, because they claimed that zero was a legitimate size. I went into Banana Republic to look for basic t-shirts (hey, they might not have the size thing down quite right, but I still like their clothes. . .), and as I was rifling through the sale racks, guess what I saw? Something more egregious than a size 0.

Can you possibly guess what size they had? 00! That's double-zero, which is even smaller than a size 0, if one can fathom that.

I'm trying to wrap my brain around their logic (Yes, I've been doing a lot of brain-wrapping lately. . ..) of why 00<0.
Well, ok, technically, zero is zero is zero, so regardless of whether you have one of them or a googol of them, it is the same quantity.

Fine. I'm a flexible person. I can suspend my mathematical scruples for a while to try to comprehend this. Let's suspend this perfectly logical arithmetic notion that 0=00=0000000000000000 and treat zero like a number that has a value--a 1 or 3, for example. But even then, 1<11<111 and 3<33<333.


But the Banana Republic sizing folks are saying the converse. Wait wait. I think I got it. They are saying that a 00 is "more zero" than a regular zero. More quintessentially zero than zero, if you will. But then this brings us back to 1 and 11. Based on their logic, I'm confused as to whether 11 should be smaller or larger than a 1.

If Banana Republic keeps inflating their sizes, at some point, they will have to come up with an even smaller size than a 00. Will they just keep tacking on more zeroes, or will they start having negative sizes?

Telling time in Hungarian

I got up earlyish this morning and decided to study Hungarian in lieu of going running. So I take out my Teach Yourself Hungarian book and flip through. This book is not structured in a way that is terribly useful to me, so I end up skipping around.

For example, in one of the earliest lessons, you learn, "You speak Hungarian very well."

Now tell me.

I can barely count in Hungarian. I still haven't done my full lesson on ordering food (I know how to ask if a table is open, and say, "I'm very hungry" or "I'm a little hungry", but that is about all), and I'm just today going over dates/times. In what situation would I possibly need to know how to say or comprehend this phrase?

Well, ok, I can think of two scenarios. 1. I speak this phrase to someone--for ex, I compliment someone on their Hungarian speaking abilities. Who? A native speaker? Would someone whose vocabulary is 30 words ever praise a native speaker for their ability to speak their native tongue? Besides, I don't understand enough Hungarian to know if someone speaks Hungarian well. So that's out.

2. I need to understand this phrase, b/c someone is saying this to me. As of this writing, I know maybe a dozen phrases, so I don't think I need to worry about that.

So this begs the question, why do they put "you speak Hungarian well" so early into the book?

Why can't they put something more practical like location and time vocab words?

As I was saying, I was flipping through the book to look for time/date words--days of the week, months, today, tomorrow, yesterday, and time. The first few items were easy enough (to copy and comprehend, but not necessarily to learn). Then I got to time.

5:15 is "a quarter to six"
and 5:45 is "3/4 to six"

shenme? (That's not Hungarian, btw.)
I decided that I needed to quit my lesson at this point and revisit it during lunch. So I went into work.

6 hours later, the logic part made more sense--you just envision a pie and 5:15 is 5 and 1/4; 5:45 is 5 3/4. So it's like saying 3/4 on the way to 6 o'clock, except that mathematically, that's not exactly correct. "3/4 to 6 o'clock" is really 4:30 (I think), so I'm having a minor hangup here, but if I can overcome that, this logic roughly makes sense.

In fact, they write their time 1/2 6 van (5:30) and 3/4 8 van (7:45).

However, it's one thing to passively understand the logic; it's another thing to attempt to apply this to come up with an actual time. For example, it is 11:22. How would one say that?
5:20 (applying the same logic above) is 1/3 on the way to 6:00. So by the same logic, would one say, haromed (if 4 is negy and 1/4 is negyed, since 3 is harom, I'm wildly guessing that 1/3 is haromed.) hat van?
(That would make Hungarian a very logical language.)

Sajnos, nem tudom.
Or I didn't have the patience to think this through, so that was where I ended my Hungarian lesson.

Perhaps I ought to learn numbers first. . . (Tomorrow. Oh wait. I learned that today--holnap.)

A non-foodie's past week's gastronomical highlights

Despite my love for good food--both eating it and talking about it--I must not be a real foodie, because if I were actually a foodie, I'd remember to bring a camera to photograph my gastronomical adventures. For example, this past week was full of such opportunities.

Sunday--I went to Project Open Hand's nth (I think n=6) annual Dessert First (note: this is the website for last year's, b/c they don't have this year's up yet. You can get the gist of the event from looking at these pictures from last year.) w/ some friends. This has become a sort of quasi-tradition for me; I think this is the fourth time going with them. (Interestingly enough, I think that every time I have gone to this function with these friends, there is a new addition to their family. Well, the "addition" between the first and second times might be a bit of a stretch, but the first time, I think they were just dating; then they added each other (i.e. got married); then child #1, and this time, child #2. Hmm. Ok, enough of a digression.)

This would've been the perfect bring-your-camera opportunity, but I missed it. Imagine a beautiful array of aesthetically pleasing desserts of all varieties lined up for miles and miles. Ok, maybe not miles, but several hundred square feet worth.

Wednesday--I made ratatouille with basil dumplings. The brilliant hues of the various veggies--red, purple, bright green and bright yellow--serving as a backdrop to the green speckled pale yellow dumplings looked very colorful, and would've made for a good photo, but again, my mind was on other things--like eating this before it got cold.

Thursday--I went to Vung Tau II in Milpitas. Excellent Vietnamese food, and no pho! Not that I have anything against pho (except cilantro, which I detest, despise, abhor, etc. etc.), but it's like Japanese food and sushi. Many people here think Japanese food=sushi, teriyaki, and tempura, b/c that is all they serve at most restaurants around here. So I imagine the same is the case w/ Vietnamese food. We did family-style, which I don't usually get to do w/ Vietnamese food. I got to try more dishes this way. They didn't have banh xeo, but they had other stuff that was very good. Here was another occassion where I would've liked to have taken pictures of some of the stuff we ordered--lotus root salad, shrimp cupcakes, lemongrass shrimp, seabass dish among others--just because it's not your typical bun, pho fare. (Plus it would make for a much more interesting read with photos)

Friday--I had my friend Verdant over. We were supposed to "cook" together, and I had planned a menu of pasta w/ herbs from my garden plus an herb souffle that I had recently cut out, but it was sweltering hot in my apartment, and I was in no mood to increase the temperature of my apartment by another 20 degrees (F). Thus I decided to change the menu to cold sesame noodles, a summer staple. It's sort of Japanese food, but not really. Well ok, they serve it in Japan, but they call it "cold Chinese-style noodles" or 冷やし中華. I'm sure it's a Japanized version of a Chinese dish. There wasn't much to do except boil noodles, and julienne slice some veggies, make a salad, thinly slice cucumbers, so I ended up finish much of this before Verdant came over. The arrays of different colors again called for a photo-op, but again, who thinks, "Oh wait. I just finished cooking. Let me preserve this moment on camera" when one is starving and winding down with a chilled glass of Asti Spumante, not to mention dying from oppressive heat? However, I did get some silly (It's impossible to not be silly when there are only two of us, and we are trying to take a picture of the two of us. Half of the photos were useless and utterly silly-looking.) shots of the two of us.

This was actually more eating out than I usually do in a month (or sometimes even two-- including lunch outings which I didn't mention here)!