foods to try...?

The BBC asked people to vote for the top 50 things everyone should try a bite of in their lifetime.

I've put an asterisk after the ones I'VE tried:
01. Alligator
02. American diner breakfast*
03. Australian meat pie*
04. Barbecue*
05. Barramundi
06. Burgers*
07. Caviar*
08. Cheesecake*
09. Chinese food*
10. Chocolate*
11. Clam chowder*
12. Cornish Pasty
13. Crab*
14. Cream tea
15. Curry*
16. Durian fruit
17. Fresh fish*
18. Greek food*
19. Guinea pig
20. Haggis
21. Ice cream*
22. Jerk chicken/pork*
23. Kangaroo
24. Kebab*
25. Lamb*
26. Lobster*
27. Mango*
28. Mexican food*
29. Moreton Bay Bugs
30. Mussels*
31. Octopus (does calamari* count?)
32. Oysters*
33. Paella*
34. Pancakes*
35. Pasta*
36. Pizza*
37. Prawns*
38. Reindeer
39. Ribs*
40. Roast beef*
41. Salmon*
42. Sandwiches*
43. Scallops*
44. Shark
45. Squid
46. Steak*
47. Sushi*
48. Tapas*
49. Thai food*
50. Venison* (i think, when i was a kid)

now, of the ones remaining, i'm not sure i'm interested! i mean, are they kidding? guinea pig???

ugliness

i could get myself in big trouble here, but i have decided to rant about my brother-in-law. now this confirms i won't be telling any of my family about my (not-very-active-anyway) blog. first, i should clarify: i have 2 brothers-in-law (and 2 sisters), and one of them is lovely. he's kind, funny, friendly. the other, however, irritates me to the core.

some backstory: he (from now on "he" will refer to the disliked bro-in-law, and "she" to my sis, his wife) is a supposedly very smart (genius?) guy, who was in the computer industry in the bay area until the dotcom bust. at that point, he decided to go back to school and get his master's degree in programming, and at this stage met my sister. she was in pharmacy school, and was dating after suffering a painful divorce.

okay, here are a few of my beefs with him. excuse me if i sound bitchy!
1) he is clinically depressed- not that i don't sympathize (with the mentally ill), but from the beginning it was a red flag. i know, because i used to date a depressed guy i'll call RT. it was exhausting! it was a continual process of trying to get RT to get excited about something, or want to get out and do something, and RT's general mood was just always a little lowered. and that was when RT was medicated. frequently, however, RT would either try to quit his meds altogether, or switch to new ones, and so RT was all over the place. well, my sister has had a similar experience with her husband.
2) he has not worked full-time since before she met him. he went from wanting to get his master's to getting his phd, and he still has a few years to go. she is the primary bread-winner, working full-time as a pharmacist.
3) he has no social skills. like, literally. he has to go retreat to another room frequently when he's visiting our family, or if there are any children around.
4) he was an only child, so he has a sort of expectation that he will get his way in any disputes (and, unfortunately, my sister is a people-pleaser, and gives in)
5) he is arrogant and condescending. for instance: he will not let us offer help, like, in the best way to drive to our new house. and he wouldn't allow my sister to get directions from me either.
6) he seems to believe that because he is so smart, that is all he has to contribute to the relationship. nearly everything else, she handles. most chores. the cooking. if they have a child she would have to basically do it single-handedly. all on top of being the only one working!!!!!
7) he's so ignorant. he has said some of the most annoying things i've ever heard from an "intellectual."
for instance, he was in our living room talking with my dad, and i overheard him say "when gina and i have a child we won't have all these babyproofing things (a lock on the media cabinet and bumpers around the coffee table). i don't like the look of them."
oh. my. god. as if WE have them because we do!!!!!!
and i suppose he'd prefer the look of his child's head bashed in from a fall against the sharp corners of the coffee table!!!!!!
8) my sister is overweight, but still very cute. he is truly ugly. no joke. he has no chin, sallow skin with circles under his eyes, baaaddd facial hair and he has about 70 pounds he could lose. yet, because she has a weight problem, he makes like he's the cute one! he's even as much as said so to us! he does things that i think are passive-aggressive to make her feel unattractive, like sits in HER lap frequently.

i feel very evil ranting about him, but i just hope to get the venom out of my system. you may wonder why she is even with him, as do we all, and i'd say obviously she thinks she can do no better. but she is so wrong!

google "failure"

(i love this!)
do what the title says.
notice the first entry of your results!

then go to the link below.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html

politics inaction

i don't know how many people are familiar with or exposed to robbie conal's art, but here in l.a. it's hard to escape seeing his work. if you don't already know, he is a political artist, with an extreme distaste for the corruption of politicians. he mostly uses his platform to find fault with republicans (which i don't blame him for!), but democrats are fair game, too. his usual medium is the poster, and his usual gallery is the city. he calls it guerilla posting, and like-minded folk volunteer as his army to paste the posters throughout the town. his posters usually have a likeness of the targeted politician, but illustrated in such a way that the pol's face looks diseased and aged, with wrinkles and liver spots magnified. their visage is itself corrupt.

it's always been exciting for me to notice whenever a new poster was up, to see what issue he was going to criticize and how. they always appear magically, overnight, and are everywhere, but they never last for long. diligently, certain people aim to remove them, almost as fast as they got up. but i've been a fan, of the activism, the messages and the style and satire. he's taken on everyone from clarence thomas to, of course, george w. i became more involved when i was at a charity auction of posters, and i placed the winning bid on one of robbie's pieces, which the printing rep said would then be signed to me personally. ever since then i have been included on his super-secret email notice of when his next guerrilla posting would occur.

one time, my husband and i decided to go along and participate. the group meets at a local deli, late at night, and discusses the poster, and the illegality and possible repercussions to those caught in the act. it was all very exciting, and illicit, and we were personally rooted for, because we live in a neighborhood that has particularly vigilant police, and consequently much less representation usually (unlike, for instance, hollywood). so if we got anything up it was to be congratulated. we were issued about 30 posters, a tub of glue, and a huge wallpapering brush, and we were off. by this time it is after midnight, and we are heading homeward to scope out where we can plaster these things. it was easiest when we could drive right up, jump out, slap on the glue and poster, and peel out. but it's usually not that easy, because a lot of really good, really visible locations are hard to drive right up to. they're on a freeway, or an intersection or whatever, and that means you have to park a bit of a distance away, and try to walk to the site with all your supplies and NOT look suspicious in the middle of the night! eventually, however, we managed to get a dozen or so up, and some we were particularly proud of, and all in all it was very exhilirating!

the next few days it was thrilling to see the work we had all done- the city was plastered with posters! and then, just as quickly as they went up, they started to disappear. robbie conal picks his fights well, which i believe keeps him from being overexposed, so it isn't all that frequently that he creates new posters, and when he does it definitely gets people's attention. dh and i always agreed we'd have to do one of those again. which brings me to last week: we were notified there was a new work, and guerrilla posting, planned. and we discussed joining in, but now that we have a baby it is definitely harder. do we get a babysitter for it?

well, we ended up not going, but the poster is spectacular. it is an illustration of gw bush, floating, with his head barely above water, with skulls and bones littering the water around him, and in the distance a landscape vaguely representing new orleans. his facial expression is a little panicked, a little confused, and a little constipated. and the message says "politics inaction."

fall casino party

i should explain what i do.

i am a senior art director (read: graphic designer) at a broadcast network. i get to do lots of pretty fun work, but the nature of the business is such that people take what we do way too seriously and get way too stressed. i like to keep perspective, though. it's not as though we're doing brain surgery. but people put in way too many hours, and get way too power-hungry, so hearing that you did a good job is very refreshing.

i am currently designing all the materials for a big party we are throwing for the casts of all our shows- which for me means the party invitation, parking pass, signage, bar menus, t-shirts for the staff, credentials for the staff, gift tickets, gift bags, table tents, fake money (it's a casino party), tote board (it's for charity) and so on...

it's a sponsored party, so i had to work in the sponsor's big ugly logo, and i feel like i managed to do it while still making the whole thing look hip and festive. their corporate color is this bright shade of orange that is almost coral-colored, but when i combined with a nice chocolate brown and an ivory it became kind of retro-chic. so i was kind of pleased with how it came out. and now that the invites are out i've been hearing positive feedback from throughout the company. it's really nice to feel appreciated occasionally.

then, to add to my good mood, we also got granted some stock shares today. and my son got a call from his talent agent for an audition. all in all, a good day!

sweet tooth

one of the hardest things about being a parent is doing something which the child perceives as a punishment, but which is really just good for them.

first, some backstory. our son is a toddler (1-1/2 years old). he is gorgeous and brilliant and well-behaved, if i do say so myself. so it is really hard to deny him anything, and i must confess to a few egregious errors on our part. we give him sweets. we let him drink diet soda, and we let him drink coffee. shocking, i know. i am genuinely embarrassed by this state of events, but let me explain.

he is underweight (7th percentile for his age). so basically the pediatrician gave us a free pass to feed him whatever he would eat so he would gain weight. well, unfortunately, he liked candy, ice cream, cookies and especially, cake. he still is underweight, but i worry about the repercussions of his having such a sweet tooth. he begs us for candy from the candy dish every time we go by it. he eats a whole, adult-sized slice of birthday cake at parties, of which there are many.

as for the diet soda: he would always beg for some of my drink (diet coke), without ever having tasted it, and he would get very verklempt over not getting any. one day it occurred to me that most people don't like the taste of diet drinks, and that it is an acquired taste, so i thought if i gave him a sip he would not care for it and wouldn't continue to ask for it. well, long story short: i was wrong. he thinks it's delicious. he wants some every time i have one. you'd think we'd have learned from that, but the same scenario happened with coffee, or more accurately, frappuccinos. i like to make myself feel better by imagining that there isn't a lot of actual coffee in them, but that's probably just fooling myself.

so, in an effort to right our wrongs we are attempting to limit his consumption of such unhealthy foods, but as i mentioned- not a big eater. and now, a little boy with a big sweet tooth, who sees any attempts to restrict access as punishment.

wish i could be a housewife...

another weekend has sped by.

it's funny, being a parent. you hear how it is hard. you hear how there isn't enough time in the day to do everything you need to do. and when you're a young adult you may feel like you know what it's like to be busy, and not have enough time for all the things you'd like to or should be doing. and as a young married person things may get just a little more crazed, but until you have a kid you don't really get it.

i used to be able to take care of myself, my home, my car fairly well. i'd be able to get a regular pedicure so i wouldn't be seen with my nail polish chipped. i'd carefully do my hair and makeup, and have wrinkle-free clothing on at work. my car would look presentable, especially from the outside. these were sort of core personal care duties, and i would have a tougher time fitting in the hobbies i loved to do, or the long-term projects i wished i could get to. but now it seems as though i can't catch up even on the core duties. i regularly go to work with no makeup on (and i attempt to apply it at work), my toenails look so bad i am wearing close-toed shoes, even throughout summer, because i don't dare to bare. i was comfortable with washing my hair every OTHER day, now i'm finding myself considering going for three-day hair, and putting it in a ponytail. i wear only about half of my clothes because they are the the knits- the ones that don't require ironing.

i haven't even begun to address household chores, paying bills and other home maintenance! it really is incredible how families can do this with both parents working. you really DO need a full-time homemaker to make it function. and i am sometimes bummed that i am the major breadwinner of the family, so staying at home is not an option.

as a feminist i never thought i'd feel this way. i really rejected the traditional housewife role, but sometimes i really wish i could be one.