Things I Am Grooving On

[rax]

Here's some stuff I am enjoying right now.

• Salads. Man, until recently, I was not such a big fan of salad. And if I haven't had a large meal in a day yet, I will still sort of look at the salad and say "That's nice, where is my tofu or seitan." But getting fresh vegetables, finding accessories you actually like, picking a good dressing? These things make salad better. Also I think Krinn just has a magic touch or something, because it doesn't turn out that good when I make it. (Except that one I made in a wrap a couple of weeks ago. That was pretty astounding. I think I just got lucky, though.)
• Camper Van Beethoven's New Roman Times. This comes to me by way of circuit_four via Rik, I'm pretty sure, and while Pitchfork thought it was kind of heavy-handed I don't agree with them for the most part. (Ok maybe the Might Makes Right track is a bit too heavy-handed.) It's really musically interesting in places (I would like to find more of what they call "math rock") and there's more subtlety to it than is apparent at first listen, both lyrically and musically. The main beef I have with is is that it's really best appreciated having Rik or someone else who really knows the album in the car with you on like hour 20 of a road trip explaining all of the references and the coherent story behind everything, and you're listening to everything he says and really taking it in because what else are you going to do as you drive through a town named Yellow in freaking Texas? And by the end you are like "Oh man all of this is so clever" but if someone had just handed you the album you would be like "What in the hells are they talking about why is the Unabomber working for Texas what what what." So this is a cautious recommendation, unless you like concept albums or can make Rik explain it to you, in which case oh my god go check this out right now. (They're playing in Arizona on the 13th. I am somewhat tempted.)
• Jennifer Chung's debut novel Terroryaki!. Full disclosure: The author is a good friend of mine. This novel was the winner of last year's Three-Day Novel Contest, which by the way starts tomorrow if any of you have more free time than me. There are moments where you can tell that the first draft was written in three days, but despite this and even in part because of this it is a hilarious read, and an absolutely wonderful airplane antidote to spending hours and hours reading Marx and Marxists. It's fluffy, sure, but if it's a fluff sandwich, it's made with real bread, not the bleached-out stuff that rips all over when you try to sink your teeth in it. The main characters feel like real people, and make real decisions, and I found myself rooting for them and hoping for good things to happen to them, rather than for everyone's life to descend back into the misery that is the stuff of post/modern existence. And then, because it was fluff and not, like, Dubliners, everyone wasn't miserable at the end! And I smiled a lot and was energized to go read more Marxists! (Wendy Brown's States of Injury, while I don't agree with everything she says? Actually really good.) So if you're into that sort of thing, check it out. (Especially if you know Jen --- the characters very much aren't her but sometimes you can hear her voice coming through and it's awesome.)
• pkmncollectors . I know, I know, this is a terrible habit --- and it is. But not only is pkmncollectors a great place to get playable cards at lower than market price, but it's a really friendly community and I've enjoyed all of my interactions with folks there. I... may start collecting Shaymins, and not (just) the cards. They're so cute! And someone was selling a mini-collection I could start from at absolutely super cheap! And... oh dear. Yeah. The community's really great, though, and I enjoy helping people there with card pricing the same way I enjoy helping people make fair trades at league.
• Biking! Sure, it's 110F out or something, but you know what? I don't care. Tucson is an awesome town to bike in, and biking is awesome. I'm usually out three or four times a week --- as it cools down a little more and I get back in shape I will do some longer rides, too. Have I mentioned here yet that like half the roads in Tucson have bike lanes and don't have parking to the right of the bike lane? I am going to be so horribly spoiled when I move somewhere else. I mean sure I've seen a couple of nutty drivers but even biking on the roads people said were "super crowded and dangerous" feels lackadaisical compared to Boston or Bloomington. (Which everyone said was such a great bike town, and I guess it sort of was, but it wasn't really a bike commuting town so much as a bike racing town, which is less my thing. I don't want to go 100 miles or go ultra-stupid-fast around a track. I want to get to work without having to burn fossil fuels or sit on a bus full of strangers. Bonus points if I get exercise.)
• Seattle. It's kind of too cold there (I only say this because I am acclimating to a desert) but beyond that it has good transit, it's a vegan paradise, it has Rik, it has a number of other friends, many of whom I think would be closer friends if I lived there... It's a place I feel like I could live. And might, when I'm done with graduate school. I would complain about the hills all the time because some of them are unpleasant just to walk up and I can't imagine they would be comfortable on a bike, and things are kind of spread out and I would have to do a lot of bike-bus chaining rather than being a five mile ride from everything like in Boston or at least a ten mile mostly flat ride from everything like here... but man the stuff would be worth going to, and I would already have something like one and a half or two social groups to spend time with on day one, and at least there's not much snow. Although if I lived in Seattle, where would I fly to when I wanted to go have fun for a weekend?

Hopefully y'all also have good things going on! I'd love to hear about them!

Comments

[weirdquark]

Salads. Man, until recently, I was not such a big fan of salad. And if I haven't had a large meal in a day yet, I will still sort of look at the salad and say "That's nice, where is my tofu or seitan."

I've always been a big salad fan, but I need my protein. So here's the thing -- if you miss your tofu or seitan, put it in the salad! I mostly cook up meat, or toss in cottage cheese or Greek Yogurt as an extra creamy salad dressing*, but why not do whatever you do for the tofu or seitan, let it cool, and have it in the salad with whatever else you put in there. Nuts! Fruit! You can totally make a salad that is full of calories if you haven't eaten much that day and need it to be a more substantial meal. Avocados are full of yummy fat and are good in salads.

*And I mean like a cup of it, so what I have is a yogurt dish with lots of vegetables and spices and olive oil, and is is awesome. I don't know what vegan yogurt is like, but if it is something that you find delicious, I highly recommend trying this.

[rax]

Avocado helps! I will sometimes throw bits of tofu into salad, but usually I just do it on the side, partially because even when it's hot out I like warm food. But a side of tofu and onions or something works really well and we've done that a couple of times.

I will... hrm. The yogurt thing does not sound good to me, but maybe this would be a better use for non-sweet yogurt. I may convince someone else to try it so I can take a bite. Thanks!

[weirdquark]

Yeah, I use plain yogurt for this.

[cxcvi]

Chamomile tea for lightening hair. I'm not quite brave enough to dye my hair yet, but it's so far taken me from nondescript blonde to probably blonde. Hoping to be able to get to recognisably blonde soon! (And eventually to bright yellow, although that will probably need chemicals...)

Splattersponse

[krdbuni.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I have more time than you, but I'm registered for the 3DNC myself. I do not guarantee sanity or coherence, but I had an outline and I wasn't scheduled to do anything else for three days.

As for where to go to have fun for a weekend in Seattle, the answer to that is clearly "the Bay or Vancouver BC or maybe Portland if you'd rather take the train."

Re: Splattersponse

[rax.livejournal.com]

You probably don't have homework to do over the weekend. :) Good luck!

[mippa.livejournal.com]

I find that salads are always better when you're not making them. Same with sandwiches.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Actually... yes, that is totally true! Wow. Huh. I wonder why that is.

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is the prep work, and if you eat a lot of salad you can save time by chopping/etc a bunch of stuff in advance, or buying the "I suck" bag of premixed.

you'd think that making a salad at home would be like a salad bar with only things you like, but you'd be wrong, because everything's in the pantry and all.

Ultimately it's just habits, though. I mean, for breakfast every day in germany, we had a basket with like six kinds of bread and a plate with like six kinds of cheese and another plate with four kinds of meats and like six little jars of jellies and stuff. You can build the habit to have all of the stuff all in one place and easy to get to, and then it is just like having a salad bar, but you have to build the habit.

Oh, and the best salads have small amounts of things that have had Effort applied. Like candied pecans or roasted grapes (taste like raisins! but juicy like grapes! oh my god!) or citrus marinaded beets or whatever. It's not hard to do any of those things but it takes time and effort and having them, and then they don't last all that long, and so you're eating the same salad like six times and ugh beets again I'm going to pee purple for a week.

The best parts of that breakfast was the stuff that my host-mom got from the butcher and the baker at 5am that day....

[sovay]

Camper Van Beethoven's New Roman Times.

It's a great title-name combination.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like it a fair bit, actually.

[sovay]

I think you'd like it a fair bit, actually.

I'll look for the music. Thank you!

[missgreytea.livejournal.com]

I kind of feel the same about salad. I've had one or two good ones where the ingredients were thoughtfully put together and the dressing was great, but most taste like left overs drowning in a not so great sauce.

Shaymin is adorable! But I don't like the sky form. Or using her in battle. D:

Minus the cold, Seattle sounds like a wonderful place to live. I wish Texas were more vegan friendly.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I wish Texas were more vegan-friendly too! I have been there a couple of times recently (and hope to be again in October) and other than Austin I have not bothered trying to eat at restaurants.

I like the Sky Forme too but it's not as cute. :) I do like Shaymin in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon but never used it in party during any of the mainline games.

...I need Shaymin icons, hrm.

[missgreytea.livejournal.com]

pokemon_icons!

How active is DW now a days anyway?

[rax.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I of course found 20 icons I wanted and no Shaymin yet, but that's still fun. :) I find DW personal journals pretty active but communities largely very quiet? Enough of my friends dropped LJ that it's worth it to me to read there daily, but I don't check it as often as I do LJ still.

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

Does anyone ever play with the really old Pokemon cards? Like, from the first couple of sets? Because if so, I've got a bunch I'd be willing to give you for the price of shipping.

[rax.livejournal.com]

At a tournament level, no, but kids really like them, and if you're just gonna recycle them otherwise I'd be happy to pay to give them out. A couple of them might be worth money to collectors? I can point you at places to appraise if you're bored. I wouldn't bother if it were me, probably. (There are a few reprints I might steal if you have any, but those are secondary.)

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

Welp, better than them sitting in my parents' basement and eventually being tossed in the trash :). Let me know your address and I'll see what I can send over the next time I'm there to collect them. (In case you don't have it, I'm tiamat2pi AT gmail DOT com)

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

For anyone reading this, I am available, post-Sept 5 2011, to provide tour guide services through the tangled jungle of references that is New Roman Times. Reasonable rates; we accept Paypal or quality MP3s of certain genres. Or you can just visit http://300songs.com/tag/new-roman-times/ :)

[rax.livejournal.com]

Hah. :) That helps, but it doesn't have that gloriously Rik take on things. <3

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Isn't it amazing how an awesome lyricist can be a really bad writer? :) Also, awwh, and I love you. <3

[rivenwanderer.livejournal.com]

I really miss the salad bar next door to my old job. I haven't found a suitable replacement in Central Square--Harvest just doesn't have enough interesting-to-me toppings.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I can't really think of anything unfortunately. If you're on a bike maybe you could do the Whole Foods on Prospect, except for the whole Whole Foods being evil thing? Or if there are toppings you want, you could just buy them, get a Harvest salad, and then put them on. But you have probably already thought of both of these things and I am nerd-helping poorly. ;)

[rivenwanderer.livejournal.com]

Hmm, getting my own toppings is actually a useful suggestion (I understand the second-guessing-whether-I'm-being-an-engineer-too-much impulse, though!). Thinking about it, I'd say at least half of the ingredients that make salads awesome instead of bleh are nonperishables like craisins and nuts, so it's worth at least shopping around at Harvest :)

Whole Foods is a weird distance from my office (which is currently on the same block in Central as 1369)--it's short enough that going to the bother of unlocking my bike and making left turns against traffic feels gratuitous, but it's far enough that if I go there by foot, my coworkers are all done eating lunch (and wanting me to join them playing RFTG :p) by the time I get back. It's too bad, because WF has tasty things (even if their CEO is an evil jerk).

[calledtovienna.livejournal.com]

Salads! That's like my favorite food ever, and I am not even vegetarian. I think the key is to have enough different-colored things in there, and also something spicy, something flavorful and/or something fruity which is then dependent on how you pick the dressing (I am lazy, so it is vinegar+olive oil for me). I also like cheese, although it may be possible to avoid that by adding some other source of fat in. Fake cheese worked for me also, but I don't know if it has gluten or something.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Most fake cheese does not (and gluten is something that I am pretty sure I can still eat, unlike basically everything else). :) But I usually go with avocado for that, and will especially do so once the avocado tree is producing lots of fruit!

[kelkyag]

Every so often I run across a salad that's really lovely and I enjoy a lot. The rest of the time, they're a fairly boring exercise in eating my vegetables. I have not yet gotten any sort of grip on the aesthetic that makes some salads work for me and most not, but I'm pretty sure there *is* an aesthetic -- matching flavors and colors and textures. And dressings, which I hated as a small child but am slowly admitting can make food tastier.

What accessories do you want for salads? Is that about bowls and serving utensils, or croutons and toasted pine nuts?

The shaymin is awful cute. It's not really your usual genre of critter, though, is it?

I'm glad you're enjoying Tucson!

[rax.livejournal.com]

It's more about what's in it than presentation for me I think; although maybe it's about the person serving it to me rather than either? I don't know.

Shaymin's not my usual genre, but it's super adorable, particularly in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and there's a lot of cheap stuff with it so that I don't have to be like some people saying "oh god I want more than four items of the pokemon I collect I guess I need to spend $120 on some plush from 2003 from Japan." Because oh god.

And Vulpix would have been too obvious. ;)

[kelkyag]

Oh, I expressed that poorly. I didn't mean it was lovely in appearance; I meant on tasting, it was tasty and well-balanced and clearly some art / sense of salad aesthetics went into the making. I imagine presentation wouldn't hurt -- perhaps I should pay more attention to that? -- but it's not enough all by itself.

Obsessive collecting gets rather scary, doesn't it?

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Jen got a novel published! Coolness. I'll have to look it up.

[jadia.livejournal.com]

We may get her to come to Boston to do a reading/signing. :-)

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

Dude! That would be excellent!

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

I love salad. Seriously. I love to eat them and alsolove making them; sometimes I am able to make the perfect fucking salad and I am so happy.

I make lots of greens-based salads, but I want to speak up for the often-overlooked grain and bean salads. You can either throw a handful of pearled barley/wheatberries/green lentils/etc. on a "normal" green salad, or base one off of the grain or bean from the ground up.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Huh. Interesting. That doesn't parse as salad to me, but I should try it. Thanks!

[oath-n-oblivion.livejournal.com]

Hey, quickly went through that pokemon site you listed - do you have a community on LJ that you use for just trading cards?

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit jealous about the biking... I bike to and from work (at the university), but everywhere else it's more practical to take a car. And, as you can imagine, every other city in Texas is even worse for bikes. :(