Danny Woodhead Working Undercover-ish at Modell's

First of all I had no idea that there were Modell's Sporting Goods store in Massachusetts because:

1. I've never seen one in Mass ( I really thought they were only in NY and CT)
   
2. I'm surrounded by Sports Authority, Olympia, City Sports etc so there's no need to go to a Modell's

But anyways NE Patriots new up and coming running back Danny Woodhead went undercover in a local Modell's to try to entice people to buy his jersey - and of course it was caught on tape:

Okay, so I guess he wasn't really undercover because he wasn't in disguise, but he did deny being himself. I honestly don't think I would have recognize him if I was in that store - maybe next season, or now that I've seen this video. Woodhead definitely seems like a cool guy since he can poke fun at himself, and I think it was pretty impressive that he sold 14 of his jerseys/tees in an hour - so keep up the good work Danny in the store and on the field!

~emy

Eco-Friendly Bouquets

So I'm definitely into browsing Etsy.com when I get bored because I want to see what pretty or weird things all of those crafters out there are creating. Recently I found these awesome eco-friendly bouquets made out of origami flowers - done by Whether Paperworks. She actually uses antique books and magazines as one of her mediums. My personal favorite is this Tiffany's themed one:



It's really beautifully made, but being an arts-and-crafts kind if girl I had to figure out if I could potentially make one of these myself, or if it would be a hopeless endeavor (like me trying to knit). I pretty much had no idea where to start - but by browsing Etsy some more I discovered out the flowers are called kusudama and then found this tutorial from Folding Trees. And here's what I ended up with:




It's a little rough, but what do you expect with post-it notes and scotch tape? It was a lot easier than I thought it would be especially with the instructions - but I can still understand why people might charge do much for the final product because it can definitely take a lot of time cutting the paper and getting the folds crisp so it looks clean. But if you have the patience to do it yourself ( for a wedding to replace real flowers) you'll be saving the environment and money!

Also, on a side note, post-its are not perfectly square (what's with that?!?!) - that also made my kusudama messier.

~emy

Custom Bags at 1154 Lill Studio

I think Groupon must do wonders for smaller businesses because I definitely would have never gone to 1154 Lill Studio if I didn't have a Groupon for it. But I'm totally glad I went with my friend because we ended up with super cute wristlets that we picked out the fabric for. Check out my creation:


Here's a close up - It's the Maddie Jane design I used Indigo Basket Weave(which is also the back and strap), Rawhide, and Bountiful Blooms as the fabrics.

I'm really glad that there was actually a studio I could go to and select the fabrics ourselves because it's really hard to tell the different textures. For instance the indigo was like a tweed, the rawhide is suede and the blooms is canvas like. Also the colors look a lot different in front of you than online. This is what my bag looks like if you designed it online:

It definitely doesn't look as good online as it does when you go to the store - so it's definitely a gamble in my mind. Going to the store was helpful because you got to see the actual sizes of the bag. The Erinn was much bigger than I thought it would be - and I guess the stiffness of the bags weren't what I was expecting. However, if you don't live by one of the store fronts in Chicago or Boston Lill has representatives that will host a purse party for you or you can do it yourself. I actually think it's a really great idea for an activity at a bridal party. Overall I'm definitely loving my Lill

~emy

Yankee Version of Top Gear

So, while at the movies, there is a preview for the US version of the BBC's Top Gear that will be premiering on the History Channel this upcoming weekend. I think well I like the BBC version of Top Gear, maybe this one will be entertaining as well - and boy was I wrong.

It's probably mostly bias because I had been watching the BBC version first, but wow did the American version seem boring. There are definitely segments of the BBC version that I don't care for and might not watch, but I could barely get through any of the American version. I couldn't even watch enough to see their Stig drive!

I also didn't really like that Buzz Aldrin was the 1st star to do a lap on the course. It didn't seem like he was going that fast when driving and I feel bad that all the future celebs on the show will probably beat his time :(

Another thing I noticed was that during their Lamborghini race they had automatic cars. Well actually I could only stand that segment enough to watch one guy to his standing mile, but I thought it was weird that these car enthusiasts wouldn't have the automatic versions of the car.

They also raced a car against a helicopter - and all I could think was stupid Americans. Maybe I'll give the American version another chance when they do a show with a challenge, but otherwise I'm sticking with the BBC version. Sorry History Channel.

~emy

Party Penguin!

The cake I made for the boyfriend's birthday. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Granted the cake was a boxed cake, but the frosting and the fondant was made all by hand. Also the fondant probably isn't the kind you'd get from a professional bakery, as it was made of marshmallow fluff and powdered sugar, but I thought it tasted a lot better. Normally I don't eat fondant off of cakes because I don't like the flavor, but this kind was better.

Here are some of the steps - not all of them because my hand were sticky and covered in sugar a lot of the time, so I didn't want that in my camera

So enlarged the picture that I was trying to make the cake look like, cut it out and used that as a stencil to carve the cake. I then added a layer of butter cream frosting that I made, but that didn't make it into a photo.


First layer of fondant. Took awhile to get it to a big enough size because it kept getting stuck to the board I was rolling it out on and ripping. It's definitely better to constantly move the fondant around and sugar it (versus flouring it)


This one has the belly - I made the initial shape with my hands and then rolled it out to make it bigger


Here are the wings - I rolled out some blue and then cut out the wings from my cake carving stencil for a fondant stencil. I cut around with a butter knife to get the shape, and then smoothed out the edges the best I could. A sharper knife probably would have left nicer edges, but I didn't really have one.


And Tada! There's the rest of him! Rolled out green and orange for the hat and feet. Lied it on top of the blue and trimmed. Everything else was pretty much a geometrical shape that was easy to make. I didn't use any thing to stick fondant on top of each other - everything just stuck to itself.


One last time with the flash! It came out pastel because well everything you start with is white, which fades out the food dye color. I was also semi afraid of adding too much dye in because at the time of making the fondant it seemed to be staining the sides of the bowls I was using. And the more I added the worse it got. In the end it didn't stain the bowls, so if I ever do a fondant cake I'd add more dye in to get darker colors. Oh it's also a lot easier to dye the fluff before adding the sugar - otherwise you have to knead it into white fondant which could be real hard.


~emy

Oh Right, I have a blog

My poor blog, it must feel so neglected since I haven't written since July! What the heck happened!?! Well I guess I was super busy with stuff...here's a quick run down:

Beginning of August:

• Colorado for cousin's wedding --> duties as a bridesmaid and a lot of family fun time
• Rock climbing on real rocks in Gregory Canyon
• Boulder Beer Co. free tour = delicious
• Celestial Seasoning free tour --> wondering why all their pre-made teas for tasting were sweetened
• Invesco Stadium
• Coor Field - learned not to jump the fence, not that we did
• Lucille's --> creole = yum, time for a trip to New Orleans?
• Chipotle from its motherland

Middle of August:

• Catching up on school because I didn't do any in Colorado
  
• Take home test
• Take home final
• Birthday --woo I'm older

End of August:

• Lora's in town - hooray!
• Meet twin's new roommate...interesting
  
• S&S for brunch - also good bc it had parking and twin's parking pass was MIA
• Adventure to mall for shopping!
• Pizza with Nick
• Pool - the billiards kind for a contest to see who is the least bad
• Beach with Nick showing up hours later and Brian was there too

Beginning of Sept:

• Labor Day weekend
• Revolution game via groupon --> free shirt and they actually won!
  
• climbing outside

After that I pretty much got lazy.

Also What the heck - Kevin won Top Chef?! LAME. I thing Hung should have won again, considering he did most of the work for Angelo's meal!

~emy

Sweet Tart

Another creation from this weekend...I was super ambitious for some reason


I didn't fold the pie crust over the edge so it sank down and was a really shallow shell. It's also store bought so not as impressive as home made


It prob worked out for the best though, because it didn't seem like there was enough filling - even though I followed the recipe

TaDa!



I guess I didn't have my macro setting on when I took this one

~emy

Char Sui Bao-tastic

Had some char sui in the fridge, so it only made sense to make some bao.
Check it out


The char sui with the extra sauce added in - YUM


Uh so my "closed satchel" isn't really closed - but I just pinched it together and it worked out - I think I have the pleats down, not it's just getting it more shut


In the oven!


Had a lot of dough and not as much char sui as I thought - so I did curried peas and potatoes too. The filling came out pretty good considering I didn't measure any of the spices out, or tasted it before hand


I kinda gave up on the closed satchel at this point and just wrapped them up so they were flat and more lumpy looking


Done char sui bao!


Yummmmm


Round and golden goodness


All the char sui bao


with the curry ones (the bigger ones) TA DA!

~emy

Tour de France + Deep Fried Turkey

I kind of LOVE the Tour de France. I really don't know why, considering I don't ride bicycles anymore due to traumatic childhood experiences but yea there's a lot of neat stuff about it


1) Alberto Contador vs Andy Schleck - There was some recent controversy when Schleck (who was wearing the maillot jaune) had a mechanical problem with his bike and while he was fixing the chain that had fallen off Contador attacked and ended up taking away the yellow jersey. Apparently it's bad etiquette to not wait for your competitor if you're a major contender. Even Lance waited for Ullrich once and vice versa

I'm rooting for Andy because he hasn't won before and he can eat 21 energy gels w/o throwing up:

2) My favorite Tweeter Andy Kloedi! Mainly because Andreas Kloden takes a lot of pictures, seems to be obsessed with air conditioning, tweets in English (not German), and he's on team Radio Shack. It's actually pretty interesting to follow their twitter accounts to see how they feel about the race. Schleck and Contador both stated they put the a fore mentioned controversy behind them. I also found out through Andy Schleck's twitter that Jan Voigt is okay from his crash today, and that he's going to make a trade with Ben Stiller. Frank Schleck has been using his twitter to document his recovery from a crash in the TDF that lead to a broken collarbone


3) Head butting - HTC rider Mark Renshaw got DQ'd for the move he made in the following vid. I can see getting away with one hit, but 3? Yea, you can't make that look like a "mistake"

The tour is almost over and I can't wait for the time trials and to see who wins- only sad part is that there is no team time trial this year, which is my favorite part - at least it'll be back next year

~emy

This Blog Post is Now Diamonds!

Old Spice's campaign is kinda weird - although I think most people know about it and talk about the commercials so it must be working? But then again, I don't think I know what Old Spice smells like, so maybe it's not working?



Anyways if you like the soothing sound of the man your man could smell like voice then you're in luck because you voice mail can sound like him and not a lady with THIS enjoy!

~emy

It's a Me: Squid Ink Pasta!

First there was Mario's, and now there's Luigi's. There's actually a Yoshi's I've been to before too - and apparently there is a place called Bowser's out there, but I couldn't find a Princess Peach or Toadstool restaurant out there, which was kind of disappointing

But anyways, Luigi's has this:

BLACK PASTA!! aka pasta flavored with squid ink which makes it turn black.

It didn't really taste much different to me than regular pasta - just the color was different. Maybe if I had a side by side comparison of the black pasta and regular pasta I might have noticed a different taste. But in general it was really great - and the calamari was perfectly cooked too!

The food in general was really good at Luigi's....don't be fooled by this picture

This patron (who will remain unnamed, because I don't know how she feels about her food-capades being broadcasted to my uhh 5 readers) wasn't trying to mask the taste of her food with a mountain of cheese, she just really likes cheese

~emy

The LXD - are you one of them?!

Wow I'm am way behind on my blogging! I gotta get back on track

So here's a quick post about what you should check out - if you're into dancing. The LXD is a web series about a League of Extraordinary Dancers and is a creation of the same guy who brought you all those "Step Up" movies (which are okay, but more of to watch on dvd or tv not to see in the movies).

It's kind of weird because about 75%, maybe more, of the episodes is break dancing and all the tricks - and then there's some plot thrown in there too. In the 1st ep I couldn't really tell who was good or bad, but then in the second one you definitely know. It's pretty ambiguous, which actually does make me want to watch more.

I'm waiting for Harry Shum Jr (Mike Chang in Glee) to show up in it - apparently he dances in some eps and directed one of them - the 3rd one if I'm not mistaken. A lot of the dancers are getting their big break with these shows, and yea they are pretty great dancers. The LXD just launched this past Wednesday on Hulu and new episodes will be posted each Wednesday. Check it out!

~emy

Dear Steve Jobs: Leftys Also Use Technology

Leftys totally get the shaft - Lots of times I've given up and learned to do things with my right hand because I don't want to deal with trying to do it lefty. For instance, there are never left handed scissors, bowling balls or golf clubs when you need them. Granted I don't bowl with my left hand - I just end up being uncomfortable using a right handed ball (we're talking about 10 pin bowling of course, as there are no holes in candle pin ones).

The latest lefty injustice is the new iPhone4 - apparently when held in the left hand it you lose the signal and calls drop. Check out this Engadget article to see what happens and why.

Actually this fault in the iPhone4 would probably suck for rightys who hold the phone in their left hand and navigate with their right one while using the internet. I guess you could just adjust - or get a case for the phone, which a lot of people do - but like my friend says it takes away from the aesthetics of the phone and makes it bulkier.

So I guess these are the "work arounds" for this problem:

1. Don't upgrade to the new iPhone
2. Get some kind of superfly case to make up for the fact that you have to put the iPhone in the case (and maybe reconsider getting the albino version if your case coves a lot of the phone)
3. Always hold you phone in the right hand - which means learning to navigate with the left hand or your right thumb (yay opposable thumbs!)
4. Hold your iPhone4 in your left hand, but in the same manner that you would hold a teacup so your palm won't touch the left corner - however you might be more likely to drop it if handling the phone this way, and apparently the gorilla glass doesn't work super well either...

Hooray Technology FAILS!

~emy

WIPEOUT

I don't know why but WIPEOUT is soooooo entertaining to watch. Granted it's not a show I need to keep up with every week, or will watch online if I missed it - but when it's the only thing on it's completely captivating. It's like watching a train wreck, but hilarious at the same time.

I would say I feel bad for the people on this show, but they sign up for it! They must have seen it before and realize that they are gonna be hurting REAL bad the next day. I never really get why the physically unfit even try to do this show because that's just torturing yourself as you're not even going to come close to winning the money at the end.

I wonder who comes up with these games? The Big Balls have gotten revamped in this year's show. They seem to be on hydrolic lifts and move up and down as well - basically I never think that anyone is going to make it past these. I know the original Big Ball a number of people have made it through the obstacle -personally I've only ever seen it happen once, so I don't think the Moving Big Balls will be conquered.

For your viewing pleasure, some wipeouts on the Big Balls - I think the worst one is when the contestant gets stuck under one of the balls...



~emy

About that new Katy Perry Song...

Fun Fact: Katy Perry has a cat named Kitty Purry, but that's besides the point.

Her latest song is pretty catchy to listen to on the radio, it's the kind of song that gets in your head and drives you crazy, and for some reason I have a lot to say about it.

First: Why are there so many songs about California?
Popular songs too - a few come to mind off the top of my head: California Girls, Californication, Dani California, California Dreamin', California (Phantom Plant song). I can't only think of one song that's kind of about Mass - Homecoming King by Guster, but then again there are a lot of songs about Boston. In terms of the state though, not so much

Second: Why is the video a "California" Candy land?
It doesn't really even go with the lyrics that much, and it's really weird. I thought this video was going to be Katy Perry doing a old school beach party movie kind of theme going on. However, seeing Snoop Dogg in a suit made out of a cupcake patterned fabric is kind of awesome

Third: Holy crap there are a lot of parodies of this song!
Two about Jersey Guidos and "gurls" from Florida, Oklahoma, Iowa, Philly, New York, Minnesota, Atlanta Boyz, California Dorks... and it goes on and on

This one is actually makes fun of California Gurls, which I kind of like - especially since the C's lost to LA last night...apparently these people make lots of vids too...



~emy

Reality TV Roundup

I guess Wednesday night is now the day I watch reality tv - all of the other shows have ended their seasons and now we're on to summer shows.

First there's So You Think You Can Dance. So first here is the good stuff

• AMAZING cast of dancers - well mainly the guys. It really seems like they've set it up for another male winner. The men just have more personality and were followed more during the audition process. I'm rooting for Alex Wong, who had the judges practically in tears last night after his dance
• Back during it's normal season. I LOVE LOVE LOVE dance, but I just couldn't get into it when it was in the fall. They drag the show out so much between the actual dances that it's hard to focus on it when there's other good network shows on in the fall, like The Office or 30 Rock. In the summer I have the time to focus on the show as there is a lot less on.
• No more shrill banshee yells as Mary Murphy is no longer a permanent judge. The hot tamale train was OK the 1st time - but not screams every time

Now the bad...

• They're still using the giant stage. I miss the old one - you could feel the emotion of the dancers better as there was less space to fill, and I think that the camera men were better at moving around it. Last night the opening sequence was horrible! They were either zoomed too far out or too far in, or not on the dancer at all. BLECK
• Mia Michaels is a judge now - she's a awesome choreographer, but I feel like she plays favorites a lot.
• The most annoying host in reality tv is still around and still pronouncing judges like jidges - double BLECK!

On to the next show!! Top Chef DC! Now this might be super un-PC but there seems to be a lot more African-American chefs on this season than any other. There's four and a half on this season out of 17 contestants. The half is because one guy is half. I wonder if they did it because it's taking place in DC and we have a half African president. Maybe I just noticed it too because the people who were in the top last night were African and it just stood out more...that's all I got about this show so far except for there's an Italian (?) guy who owns an Asian restaurant...weird

~emy

Why I hate weekend napping

This week has been pretty terrible for me, and all because of weekend napping. If I fall asleep during the day, I end up staying up later at night and this throws off my sleep pattern for the rest of the week. It's so hard to resist falling asleep - especially because the weekend is about relaxing and you pretty much lounge around. Then I end up being awake during the wee hours of the night.

The during week I've been falling asleep during Jeopardy to the soothing voice of host Alex Trebek. At least I've been waking up in time to watch the Celtics games - even if they did get crushed tonight.

It actually hasn't been too bad staying awake at work once I get past the first hour, but it really just drags on and on and on. Surprisingly I haven't needed to drink any coffee either to stay awake - although part of that is because the coffee at work is pretty nasty so I try not to drink it at all costs. I wish we had a K-cup machine at work, that would be sweet in a bitter caffeinated way of course.

Napping was so much easier back in college when I didn't have to be up at 6:30am in the morning - I need a schedule like that again without the whole going to classes and taking test thing. I don't think there are jobs like that unless you are a professor - and then where would you nap? In your office? Seems kind of weird to me.

Hopefully more interesting content later on in the week

~emy

Goodbye My (German?!?) Cellphone

So last week I'm getting my phone out of my pocket and yea I definitely dropped it. Now I've dropped this phone before and usually it's no big deal - but this time it hit the corner of the spiral staircase at my work at just the right angle and, well, see for yourself:

It actually still worked - just the front screen is broken. In fact the front screen didn't work anyways because the flip feature of the phone has been broken for a while. this means I couldn't:

• Answer the phone by flipping open
• End a call by flipping shut
• See the time on the front screen
• Easily change the volume of my ring tone
• Also - very unrelated - the T9 texting feature didn't really work, it seemed to want to make words in what I assume was German due to all the umlauts, and not English (despite the language being in English),which was kind of annoying
  

But I can't be expected to carry around sharp plastic around. Thank goodness I still have my old cellphone (so old it doesn't have a camera in it) and I can just move the SIM card. This way I can think about what phone I want to get. You're probably thinking "do you have AT&T? get the iPhone", but I really don't want a smart phone. WHAT?!? NO SMART PHONE? Sounds kinda crazy but here's why:

1. I won't be able to fit it in my back pocket
2. I'd have to get some kind of protective case for it - and my charm couldn't go on it
3. I would probably get addicted to Twitter and be like "Watching Joey eat a sandwich" , "Squirrel across the street climbing a tree" and how annoying would that be?
4. I don't really want to pay more for the data plan - I just need to make calls and sometimes texts
   
5. I'm by a computer most of the day during work - I don't need one on me at all times

But yea - any suggestions on phones that AT&T sells? I've liked flip phones in the past. Any opinions on sliders?

~emy

Ugly Ugly Penguin

These are kind of old - but for some reason I just recently downloaded them off my camera. I bought this penguin cupcake mold for the boyfriend, because he really likes penguins, and this is our feeble attempt and making it:

So it definitely said fill each cup three quarters of the way full - and when we did it ended up baking over looking like a Ghostbuster's Character

Got the back trimmed up and there it is before frosting - not too shabby huh?

So now we're supposed to make little dots of frosting all over, kinda like this owl, but I didn't have tips or an icing bag - so I just used a ziplock bag and cut a hole in the corner, the orange was in a tube so it came out slightly better

I started out with dots but gave up and just piped frosting however I could - the bottom 2 body pieces actually had dots that I covered with stripes after.

He might have been one ugly penguin - but he did taste good!

~emy

Dumpling Dairy - Attempt #1

Yay Google! Blogger is fixed! Now I can blog!!

So the boyfriend was nice enough to order this cook book with his other stuff so I wouldn't have to pay for shipping and I finally made my first attempt at making dumplings from scratch. Now don't get me wrong, I've made dumplings before - just always bought the wrappers from stores, never made them myself.

I started with the first recipe in the book, because it seemed simple enough...three hours later I had dumplings. The wrappers were a lot trickier than I thought they would be - they stuck to everything and I had to keep using more flour - I don't think the humid weather was helping either.

Check out the photos I took along the way of my pork and nappa cabbage water dumplings!

The filling: mainly pork, nappa cabbage & scallion


The dough, tortilla press and the start of the wrappers!

Rolled out with my dowel rolling pin - the middle (aka the belly) is thicker for better wrapper to filling ratio, mine aren't that circular - guess i need more practice

Cooking them up!

Finished pea pod and pleated crescent shapes

That one is a flower bud shape - kinda...

The in the middle is a poor attempt at closed satchel - guess I need a lot more practice before trying to make soup dumplings

~emy

Funkified Glee

I wouldn't call myself a Gleek (Glee Geek) but I definitely enjoy watching this show. I definitely think this weeks show was better than last weeks.

I think there was too much hype about it being Lady Gaga music on Glee last week and they really only did two songs. Granted their version of Bad Romance was pretty good but the Poker Face was kinda weird. Sounded great during parts of it - but just way too put beat and cheery sounding for me.

This week was better as it was about "funk" - yet creepier with Will hitting on Sue, and pregnant girls dancing around, but how can you dislike an episode featuring the musical stylings of Mark Wahlberg? Also I wonder if those were real eggs they chucked at Rachel? It must really suck reading your script and then seeing (gets pelted by eggs) as part of the action. YUCK! Hopefully they get it on the first take - altho I can see one of the people throwing the eggs "messing up" so they have to do the scene again, because how often do you get to hurl an egg at someone?

~emy

Rack 'em Up: Bikes that is

So our first state has plans drawn up to build a bike parking facility instead of having your regular municipal lot for cars. It's cool because:

• Less space will be used compared to the parking lot
• It encourages people to get active and cycle to work as they'll have a place to park their bikes
• It will create an urban green space aka a park in the city

One think I found odd though was that the parking lot was only one level. I feel like in cities there are multilevel parking garages to get the most out of the base space they have. Also, how use full will this be during the brutal northeast winter? I mean Delaware can get snow right? And lots of rain too right? It's not Arizona where it's sunny and dry out 99% of the time. I wouldn't want to bike to work in the rain or snow - I'd want to drive! Actually, I'd never want to ride a bike...flipping over the handle bars of my bike as a kid has traumatized me for life. I'd rather walk than ride a bike!

One last thought - will bike theft go up if they build it? On ABC's What Would You Do? they had different people cutting the chain off the bike. Of course the white guy got away with it, people called the cops on the black guy in the same scenario, and people helped the pretty blond girl steal the bike! Maybe I should try "stealing" a bike and see what happens...

~emy

Not Your Average Sectional

Think about sectional sofas. What do you see? I'm guessing you're seeing those standard L shaped couches that sometimes recline or have secret coolers in the arms. Now feast your eyes on the Oi Sofa by these designers from the Great White North:

Pretty interesting huh? Lots more sections to move around and a lot more configuration to make. It'll even look good if you use one section as a chair - sometimes I find normal sectional couches look weird when they are not together. Granted this one doesn't recline, and I don't see a secret cooler for my fizzy beverage of choice, but look at this feature...

It fits into a box! How great is that? I've known plenty of people (well just one, and you know who you are) who has mis-measured their houses and buy a sofa that can't fit through the door or up the stairs. So they have to saw the legs off, or give it away. I really think it's a frequent occurrence - I mean if Ross from Friends can't get his couch up the stairs, it must happen to a lot of people right? It look like you'd be more likely to fit it in your car - so you won't need pay that huge delivery fee or rent a uhaul or something of the sorts.

The only think I'm questioning - is how comfy is it? It's boxy looking so I can't really tell. Has anyone had the please of seeing/sitting on one of the Oi Sofas? Also thanks to the Dieline this find!

~emy

8 Year Old Little Girl Climber

The little Asian girl climber in this video is insane! You kind of need to go past the teenage girl talking - but actually all of the athletes in this video are pretty great. The two guys who do moves that put them upside down - WOW!

This was filmed at Central Rock Gym by BigUp Productions. I kind of wonder how they got all of the shots...maybe they used the scissors lift they have at the gym. Or one of those fancy cameras on a big arm like you see on movie sets at such.

I wish I was half as good as Ashima. Then again she's got a lot less weight to haul up the side of the wall/rocks, little kids tend to be more fearless, and I personally don't have that much upper body strength (it's all in the legs from 16+ years of dance). My favorite part is at the end when she owns the campus board and the guy there has a WTF expression on his face

~emy

Worms + Allergies = Cured?

So I think I have some of the worst spring allergies of all time. Sometimes I sneeze just looking outside and seeing all the pollen swirling around. Going to San Diego last week was heaven because I didn't have allergies there! I'm guessing it's because it's warm there all year long so the trees don't pollinate all at once. Also they don't really have the same kind of trees there like the do on the east coast.

Anyways I'm walking along with some friends sneezing my brains out and we get on the topic of hook worms. Apparently some guy went out, and put hook worms on his arm and it got rid of his allergies. Kind of freaky right?

I think I'd just suffer through my allergies than get hookworms for the following reasons:

1. Hookworms are scary looking
   
2. You get them by letting the suckers crawl through your skin
3. Hookworms have been known to kill people
4. They stay in your system until you take the worm treatment pill and poop them out
   
5. If worms aren't okay for my dog, why are they okay for me?
6. It just sounds really yucky

So I'll pass on the hookworms and have allergies for 3 months.

~emy

Tech Time: Smoosh-able Batteries

So site that I've added to my Google Reader is Treehugger - and you might have gotten from the name but it's about being green, ecofriendly and so on. This is an older design they got from another site and posted recently and I thought it looked pretty cool. It's basically a battery that you can resize to fit any device that needs an AAA-D. The idea is that you don't need to keep all different kinds of batteries around, it's more all purpose and you won't be screwed when it's midnight your taxes are due the next day, you calculator is dead and you only have D batteries.

Thinking about it more it's not a super great:

1. You'd probably need to shove that thing into the battery spot before it expanded back, because memory foam doesn't keep its shape that long
2. It might pop out once you get it in
3. If it's a device where you "drop" the battery in, like a digital camera, you might never get that sucker out if it expands
4. Heat + Plastic Foam --> not so good things
5. It only has the power of an AA, so it probably wouldn't last long in a device needing D's
6. You would probably need a lot of them if you wanted to replace ALL the batteries in your house with them

It's definitely an interesting idea but not super realistic. Treehugger talks about a removeable foam sleeve- but that doesn't really solve the problem related to the heat the battery would endure. Maybe they just need to develop some kind of heat resistant eco-polymer to make a wrap out of? Or maybe we can just standardize battery size more...yea like that'll happen any time soon. Wishful thinking on my part

~emy

Reflection of Roy's in San Diego

So we had a big family dinner at Roy's in San Diego, which is one of the many Roy's Hawaiian Fusion restuarants owned by of course Roy Yamaguchi - who was on the first season of Top Chef Masters. Upon getting there we actually had to sit at 2 different tables, because apparently they could not seat more than 10 people at a table due to the fire code. So of course I end up at the "kids" table with my cousins. I used "kids" because the age range for the 7 of us goes from 6 to 30. Maybe we should have called it the grand kids table, because most of us are technically adults.

So because there were so many of us, and it was a special event, we got a special menu:



I didn't get pictures of all the food, but the dim sum appetizers came in a long canoe shaped dishes and my 2 little cousins (6&9 yrs old) pretty much devoured the platter on their side, and then ate the stuff left over from ours. I really don't know where it all goes, they must have hollow legs. Here's the food I did snap pictures of, although they are a little blurry because the flash actually made them come out worse:


Boiled Edamame with some kind of spicy salt


Butterfish - literally melted in your mouth like butter


Dessert: Chocolate ganache and toasted macadamia covered chocolate cake and truffle, coconut biscuit type thing and nut/fruit pie a la mode

It was a really great meal, I would recommend going to a Roy's if you're out west, where most of his restaurants are. I thought there was one in NYC, but I didn't see it listed on the website. Any recommendation, on where to try next?

~emy