toastykitten

1. Work has been insanely busy. That's good for me, because I am no longer bored.
2. I've been listening to NPR a lot. I don't listen to the stream, because I know it'll just piss me off. Instead, I picked the stuff that looked interesting and listened to those, such as Rebuilding Chinatown After the 1906 Quake, Gauging the Benefits of a Living Wage in L.A., and A Chat with Beverly Cleary
3. It's Beverly Cleary's 90th birthday! Her publisher is celebrating by declaring today Drop Everything And Read Day. I loved her stories, especially Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and the Mouse & the Motorcycle.
4. No Good For Me is one of my favorite fashion blogs. When did she start doing one for Jane?
5. Kaitlin is a card shark with more skills than Chinese men who've been playing for decades. While playing Chor Dai Jee (or Dai or Die or whatever the hell you call it), she beat me, my sister, Mark, and her mom several times. Too bad we cannot take her to Vegas with us.
6. Hey, remember when you were drooling over the revelation that the next Toyota Prius might get close to 100 mpg? Well, I took a random old issue of Dwell magazine with me to read on the train today, and came across this little nugget:

The VW 1-Liter Car

One mizzling day in April, Dr. Ferdinand Piech of Volkswagen broke an uncommon world record on the autobahn. His tortoise-like jet-black car consumed less than one liter of gas per 100 kilometers -- 239 miles per gallon. A concept car last spring, the 1-Liter is embarking on new developments. The two-seater is not a hybrid, but conserves through engine redesign, weight-saving measures, and aerodynamics. Updates at VWVortex. (I don't see any mention of this car on the website but I haven't dug very far.)

Yah, so this little blurb is from Jan/Feb 2003.

7. Did taxes. That was painful.

Anyway, I gotta pack. Later.

What the fuck kind of question is "Do you want the poor to come back to New Orleans, or is it better if the poverty is spread out a bit?"

I was listening to NPR today - did Rumsfeld actually say what I think he said? Because that was basically an admission of failure.

Ordering Chinese food.

My favorite new TV show now is 30 Days, produced and hosted by Morgan Spurlock, the happy-go-lucky dude who did Supersize Me. Supersize Me was, in Spurlock's own words, "a really great bad idea" in which he decided to experiment on himself and eat McDonald's food 30 days in a row. He's been compared to Michael Moore, favorably and unfavorably, but I think he's a lot more fun. He takes so much obvious joy in what he does - it's like he lucked out into the best job in the world and is wickedly gleeful about it, like a little boy running around after being told he can have all the video games he wants.

30 Days is about taking random people and placing them in other people's shoes for 30 Days. It's like they created a show just for me! Originally Spurlock wanted to do all the experiments himself, but his girlfriend told him he wouldn't "have a girlfriend for long" if he did that. Which is just as well. He and the girlfriend did do one episode - the opening, where the two attempt to live only on minimum wage for a month.

I think everyone needs to see this episode. It is so great, and sad, and brought back so many memories. All I could think was, I am so glad I'm not poor anymore.

One of the things that they brought up was the fact that during this time, they were basically living from check to check. They didn't have any money for anything, including the unexpected health care issues.

While I was watching, I couldn't help thinking that they weren't strategizing very well. They go to a dollar theater, but then Morgan stocks up on a bunch of snacks that cost as much as at a regular theater. I was like, fool, sneak the food in! This sparked a fight between the couple that was pretty familiar-the money fight. (Parents don't necessarily want to have this fight in front of the kids, but they're so tired and stressed and cranky that they do it anyway.) I cringed as I watched the vegan chef girlfriend chop up some broccoli and totally throw most of it out.

I cannot wait for next week's episode, where a hardcore Christian guy has to live with the Muslim family for a month. From the preview:

Christian guy walks away, waving his hand.
Muslim guy: "Did he just flip me off?"
Muslim girl: "No, he did like this. That was the peace sign, dude."

For some reason, that just totally cracked me up.

Alton Brown has a new show! Feasting on Asphalt follows Alton Brown as he tries road food on Route 66, traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles. Dammit, I want his jobs. I want to get paid to eat and travel.