Not everybody likes Starbucks

I saw this slightly altered billboard on my say to San Francisco yesterday morning. I felt compelled to pull over and take a picture...

Those Wacky Finns #6

Did you know that Finland, home of the world's weirdest sporting events, also hosts The Annual Air Guitar World Championship contest? Yes, this contest is a big deal in the town of Oulu, Finland. Contestants come from all over the world to participate.

The Annual Air Guitar World Championship Contest was first held in 1996 as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival. Participants from all over the world competed in skills of playing air guitar. The ideology behind the event was that "wars would end and all the bad things would go away if everyone just played air guitar". The once so absurd idea has bloomed into an international media event that attracts a wide international league of contestants, audience and media representatives to Oulu, Finland.

In 2002 a couple of Americans heard about the contest. David “C-Diddy" Jung (whose costume includes a Hello Kitty backpack used as a breastplate) and Dan “Bjorn Turoque" Crane discovered that there had never been an entry from the U.S. to compete in this prestigious event. They set out to change this shameful fact and made a documentary film of their efforts.

The film, Air Guitar Nation was released a couple of months ago and is making the rounds, but not in a theatre near me. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the film, here's the trailer. C-Diddy, who competed in the contest, is a master of this performance art, check him out here.

Passport Problems - Help from our congressman and a guy named Chris

If you are having problems getting your passport processed contact your congressperson NOW! They want to help you.

My sister and her boyfriend applied for their passport renewals approximately twelve weeks ago. At that time they were assured that they would receive their new passports within the 10-week timeframe quoted on the National Passport Information Center. Two weeks ago they began to get nervous, especially when our friend Synthia told us it took her 13 weeks to receive her passport. Sister Sonja and Erik have plane tickets to France this coming Monday and they could feel the Acme anvil hanging over their heads.

Sis called the National Passport Agency in San Francisco FOUR times and was given bogus info each time. Finally in desperation they decided to go up there in person to have their passports processed. "You can't come up without an appointment." "Then we would like an appointment." "There aren't any appointments available now or in the foreseeable future." This news was in direct conflict with what she was told and what she read on their website.

Sis googled "passport problems help" and read a number of blogs discussing this issue. It seemed that the most effective way to expedite one's passport was to contact one's congressperson. On Wednesday sis contacted her congressman, Mike Honda, and spoke to a guy named Chris (in the Campbell district office I believe). Chris listened to her story and promised to do what he could to help out.

Today their passports were delivered via FedEx. She logged onto the National Passport website and the update indicated that their passports left yesterday, July 12th, and that they paid a premium for expedited delivery. Sis paid no premium so that means Mike Honda's office paid it.

She discovered that many congresspeople address this passport problem on the home pages of their websites.

Sis wants to thank Mike Honda and the guy named Chris who saved their trip to France by getting them their passports in 48 hours. She also wants to thank all those folks who blogged about this screwed up situation so that she could figure out how to solve her problem.

With so much fighting going on about people who want to get into the country, we didn't realize how hard it is to get out.

In Bad Taste

I heard the funniest interview today on NPR's Fresh Air. Dave Davies was interviewing a teacher/scientist named Massimo Marcone, whom Davies described as the Indiana Jones of the food world. Marcone says he is more like Mr. Magoo. Nevertheless he has spent the past few years traveling the globe, dodging disease and danger, to collect and taste food that people of different cultures consider to be delicacies.

In his Mr. Magoo voice he described some of the more interesting (i.e. disgusting) foods that he has come across:

Kopi luwak coffee beans scavenged from piles of poop dropped by civets. Marcone said this coffee, which sells for $600 a pound, is notorious for being cut with regular coffee and sold for a high price.

Marcone with a prized bird nest and coffee bean poop:

Argan oil from the kernel of a fruit eaten by goats. In Morocco, argan "nuts" are collected from excrement, roasted and pressed to extract a golden-red oil. Almost as bizarre: the fact that it all starts with goats climbing trees. One of my favorite gourmet websites sells it for $26.50 for 250 ml. They never mention in the description that it's shat from goats. Rather, they say it is collected by Moroccan women. Marcone claims that since deadly scorpions hide in the dung a number of collectors (women) die each year.

Escamoles, the eggs of red ants, are called Mexican caviar. This is a hugely popular delicacy and is served by the best restaurants when in season.

King Scorpions - tastes like crab not chicken.

Italy's Casu Frazigu takes the concept of smelly cheese to new heights (or depths). When it's cut, thousands of maggots crawl out. The mess is smeared on flatbread and washed down with red wine. On his way to taste some, Marcone could smell it as he approached the door and heard the clicking of maggots against the cheese container six metres away. He said it was quite good.

Casu Frazigu after being mellowed and tenderized by millions of tiny maggots:

He probably described more yucky food but these are the only ones I heard him discuss. He wrote a book about his adventures and findings called "In Bad Taste." He claims his book is a study of why foods become delicacies. Ultimately, it is the story behind the food, rather than the food itself, that people find irresistable.

Wow, that story really grossed me out. I think I'll go comfort myself with a bowl of dried and processed seed heads soaked in the bodily fluid of cows and topped by bee vomit.

July 4 2007 - We had a flag but no pole

What to do with a single-side-band antenna when the boat's not using it:




Put a flag on it! I hope everybody had a great Independence Day!!

Inflatable Home For a Princess

Yesterday morning I awoke to the sound of a giant fan blowing on our front lawn.

Last summer (I think it was last summer) our neighborhood had a block party. Somehow our front lawn ended up being the perfect location for a bounce house for the kiddies. Ever since then our lawn has remained the "perfect location" if anyone needs to set up a bounce house. Here is the latest iteration, a Pink Princess Palace for the next door neighbor's birthday party:



We don't have kids, but I have to admit it was great fun watching the neighborhood kiddies enjoy playing in this inflatable sculpture. It even has a slide inside.

Tamburitzans!!

Every year the Duquesne University Tamburitzan dance and music troupe visits our state as part of their nine month tour. If you have never seen this Tamburitzan show you are missing something spectacular. According to their website, the Tamburitzans are "America's longest-running multicultural song and dance company, the Duquesne University TAMBURITZANS is a unique ensemble of talented young folk artists dedicated to the performance and preservation of the music, songs, and dances of Eastern Europe and neighboring folk cultures."

Wednesday's show started off with a group instrumental that highlighted many of the diverse instruments and beautiful costumes:










All the musicians play numerous instruments, some common and some not so common, such as this nose flute:








Needless to say, this got quite a reaction from the audience.






This year the dancing acts weren't as athletic or exciting as in years past, however we all agreed that the costumes were the most beautiful we had ever seen:

The dancers and musicians are are undergraduate college students and they must go through an intense audition process before being selected to participate in the group. According to the website, they go to "Tammie Camp" in the month of July where they learn and choreograph all their routines for the season's tour. This season's tour ran from August 13 2006 up to May 29 2007, an amazing 70 performances in all.






In addition to the more serious traditional Eastern European music and dances, the troupe also performs humorous acts such as the Siberian Wrestlers.

These guys were really short and wrestled all over the stage. It was hilarious. Of course it ended up being just one guy who had "wrestled" himself by crawling around on all fours. When he stood up and revealed himself the audience went wild.






The last dance was my favorite. It was a Romale gypsy song and dance and reminded me of some kind of gitanos meets West Side Story:

All in all it was an amazing evening of watching some unique and athletic performances. The only tiny negative was the asshole sitting next to me. He was very rude and kept leaning into me, but I heard him tell his wife he had a sore elbow so I "accidentally" bonked it and that stopped his invasion of my space. He also had gastric problems and belched throughout the performance, yuck. Luckily the music was mostly loud so I only heard his volcanic rumblings during the quiet songs. But other than that it was a perfectly marvelous evening.

See you next year Tamburitzans!!

"Truffle" oil, cuisine's nasty little secret

Oh dear, I just read in the paper that "Truffle" oil doesn't contain truffles at all, but rather a chemical compound called 2,4-dithiapentane. The story came out of the NY Times and can be read here.

This story does not surprise me, and for some time I have suspected this might be the case. A few years ago I began ordering truffles from Oregon. I began making my own truffle oil with the truffles I didn't immediately eat. I noticed that 1) I could never get that intense truffle aroma found in purchased oils and 2) the truffle aroma dissipated fairly quickly from my homemade oil as opposed to purchased truffle oils.

I never researched my suspicions. Maybe I didn't want to know the truth, maybe I just didn't have time. I stopped purchasing truffle oil and became a little more careful about making my own.

Here is my recipe:
1) Put 6 -8 small, ripe truffles in a quart of excellent EVOO.
2) Place in a cool, dark place for three weeks, shaking occasionally.
3) Keep this bottle of truffled olive oil in the refrigerator and decant small portions to be kept at room temperature and used as needed. This bottle lasts about a year until the next crop of truffles can be ordered.


(Here is my previous post on truffled eggs.)

It's tough to be a woman

Oh the horrors of waxing. Yesterday I decided it was time to do an upper lip wax. Luckily I'm not dark-haired so I don't have to go through this torture too frequently, and I only do the bikini wax prior to a long dive vacation, so basically every other year or so.

The first problem with yesterday's waxing was that I was out of wax. No big deal, I bopped over to the drugstore to pick up a pot of parrafin. They didn't have the stuff I usually get, which is basically just hardened cosmetic beeswax, melt it, smear it on, rip it off. No, they didn't have the easy stuff, they only had the fancy (bad sign #1), more complicated (bad sign #2), more expensive kind (bad sign #3). The dreadful goo that I bought turned out to be bright purple (bad sign #4), probably because of its fake lavender scent (bad sign #5).

The directions were titled Easy Directions (bad sign #6). So the deal with this wax is you have to warm it, apply a thin layer, put a piece of special paper on top (special anything, bad sign #7), then when you rip the paper off...voilà, all the pesky hair goes with it. So I followed the instructions exactly, when I ripped the paper off...voilà, the purple goo remained in place except for some which spread all over my lips and nose.

OK, I thought, I'll try the paper again...voilà, nothing happened, goo still on face. Now I was getting worried, how in the hell was I going to get the goo off? I tried to remove the goo with hand lotion, nada. I tried alcohol, nada. I tried witch hazel, purple goo still on face. I tried nailpolish remover, if anything the goo was getting harder and more solidified. I began to feel desperate, would I have to resort to acetone? Gawd I hoped not.

Tom was somewhere around the house and no way was I going to let him see me with the big smear of purple goo on my face. I would never live it down. I opened the bathroom door for a peek, I couldn't hear him so I thought maybe he stepped out. I crept to the garage where I hoped to find the acetone or paint thinner, both of which I dreaded putting on my face but it was better than the purple paste. As I got to the garage I could hear him talking to a neighbor! They were both in the garage. Drat!

I ran back to the bathroom, locked the door, and rummaged through the medicine cabinet where I found a bottle of Vitamin E oil. I dabbed a little bit on and the toxic waste started coming off. It took a while, but eventually between the smearing and the dabbing I was able to get it all off.

My upper lip was finally goo-free but also quite red and tortured-looking from all the rubbing. Worst of all, the odious "wax" never did get the hair off my lip. I suppose I should try it again but I'm still traumatized by yesterday's ordeal. The thought of doing that to my bikini area makes chills run down my back. I think I'd better go find the old-fashioned, non-fancy wax before I try it again.

Today when I got to work the office manager looked at me and asked, "Did you get a sunburn yesterday? Your face looks kind of red."

Stay away from this crap!!!

Snickering at Icky Snickers Salad

I was talking to a friend of mine from the upper midwest who went home to visit her mom last weekend. We got on the topic of bizarre foods that have somehow turned into family traditions. I mentioned the Pink Strawberry Jello Angel Food monstrosity that my cousins make every Easter.

Apparently in her family they serve Snickers Salad every Mother's Day. I consider myself to be fairly well versed on the subject of regrettable food, especially from the midwest where I have deep roots, but I had never heard of Snickers Salad.

She says there is hot regional debate on the best recipes, all of which include the basics of Snickers bars, Granny Smith apples, and Cool Whip. The non-purists, those who wish to gild the lily so to speak, will add such ingredients as nuts, cream cheese, sour cream, marshmallows, and vanilla pudding to name a few.

Her family are purists and here is their recipe:

SNICKERS SALAD
5-6 apples, cored and cubed

1 lg. container Cool Whip

3-4 SNICKERS® candy bars, cut into small pieces
Mix all of the above ingredients and refrigerate.

Is it a salad? It looks kind of like potato salad.

I can only imagine what my California friends would say if I brought this so-called "salad" to a pot-luck.