If you’re looking for a more environmentally friendly or ideas to make the wrap job on your presents stand out from the rest under the tree, the Japanese government is bringing back “Furoshiki” which essentially is a present with a handle on it.
Furoshiki Instructional Diagram
Popularity: 5% [?]
This may be a form of procrastination from studying accounting, but I’ve been obsessed with making up recipes lately. I’ve been on a rabbit-food type diet in the past months to try to eat cleaner and healthier and stuff and have managed to lose 7 pounds. I no longer want to eat straight up brown rice or tomato juice or carrot sticks any longer so I’m trying to come up with ways to eat healthy and still like the taste of what I’m putting into my mouth.
I created this recipe because I been hankering paninis and quesadillas with lots of mushy veggies like zucchinis and eggplant in it. Eggplant can also be used to substitute for the zucchini’s in this recipe as well. How I wish I had some eggplant at the time when I made this!
Ingredients
2 small (or 1 large) zucchini
1 piece of salmon (I used sockeye) salmon
1/2 large pepper
1 clove of garlic
2 whole wheat tortillas
Handful of:
Dill weed
Basil
Oregano
Small amounts of:
salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, tomato juice.
Direcitons:
1. Rinse and dry off salmon with skin. Sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and olive oil and set aside.
2. Chop up zucchinis into 1 cm slices and thinly slice up pepper. Season with salt, pepper and set aside.
3. Chop up herbs (dill, basil, oregano) and pat some down on the flesh side of the salmon.
4. Turn toaster oven onto 425 F and place salmon, peppers, zucchinis and clove of garlic (with peel) on pan or piece of foil and stick into oven for 10 - 15 minutes or until veggies appear to be soft (I like my beggies to be almost mush with a bit of browning on it).
Be careful to not overcook salmon. If it appears that the salmon is cooked before the veggies, take the salmon off first and set aside until the rest of veggies are cooked.
Pesto:
5. Take half the cooked veggies off the pan and throw into a blender or food processor of some sort. Throw all of the remaining dill, basil and oregano in as well. with a little bit of salt. Sprinkle black and cayenne pepper into the mixture. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil and 3 tbsp or so of tomato juice.
Blend. The mixture should not be runny but more of a paste. It is safer to blend with less olive oil and tomato juice in the beginning and adding more as you go to get the right consistency.
Tortilla and filling:
6. Take 1/2 of everything that’s left on the pan and throw onto half of a single tortilla shell. Make sure to break the salmon up into smaller pieces so you can evenly spread it on the tortilla.
Take a heafty spoonful or two of the pesto and spread over the veggies and salmon on the tortilla. Fold over half of the tortilla shell to cover the filling.
7. Place on a hot skillet and heat each side on high for 1 - 2 minutes.
8. Let it sit for 5 minutes before cutting and devouring.
Popularity: 20% [?]
I’m excited for tonight’s talk about Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth tonight.
Last night was the first time all week I had time to watch Week One’s introduction talk to the book about eliminating labels and attachments and understanding how his book is not another religion or ideology to adopt, but rather supplementary to whatever it is you already believe or do not believe in.
I believe in what Eckhart is pushing to live our lives in the present and being able to seperate the “mental noise” in our minds which may include dysfunctional and unnecessary thinking from the way we live. It’s not about avoiding all the things that are “bad” or “evil” or “dysfunctional” about our thoughts and our surroundings, it’s about acknowledging that it all exists and with time, the increase acknowledgment and awareness of these dysfunctional and sometimes destructive thoughts will slowly die off.
Last week, Oprah and Eckhart spoke a lot about religion and how, as one lady put it, what he is showing us is hard to grasp for some because it almost contradicts the doctrines and everything they’ve been raised to believe.
Oprah addressed this with regards to her own belief system by describing herself as a “Free-thinking Christian” whereby she wants to seek out “God” or “Consciousness” (or whatever you choose) beyond doctrines which in essence have been interpreted by humans, sometimes misinterpreted. It’s about “multiple paths to the same place” as she describes it and no religion is better than any other to get to this “same place” which is essentially enlightment as described by many or an “awakening” described by Tolle. “Eckhart does not want to be your spiritual guru!” she adds.
I’m excited for tonight’s webcast as they are going to be talking about “The Ego” which is described as being the ultimate source of the world’s dysfunctions.
Reading up on all the Ego stuff from the book has helped me realize for myself that many of my problems in life are, in fact, rooted from my Ego. With patient practice, I’ve been able to be aware of my Ego on many occasions in the past week since reading this book, and let me tell you, it’s changing my way of thinking for the better! I’ll tell you more later on as the weeks progress.
Popularity: 73% [?]
Mindfulness and living in the present have been concepts that I have been toying with for the past year or so. Nothing really materialized as of yet. No spiritual awakenings yet.
Then I found out about Oprah and her new Book Club push: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle, a Vancouver-based author born in Germany, and how she plans on joining forces with Eckhart to teach this book over a 10-week video webcast and felt a little intrigued.
I had hopped into Chapters right before catching The Other Boleyn Girl the other night just to pass some time. $16 later (You can get it for $8 on indigo.ca or Costco), I was prancing out of Chapters with my new book.
Currently, I’m up to Chapter 3: The Core Of The Ego and the gist of it so far is that the source of the world’s suffering is from the unnecessary attention we give to our “unconscious” Ego. I can grasp a lot of what Tolle (pronounced Holy) is saying, but some of the stuff is still pretty deep and beyond me. I’m pretty sure I’m still not clear as to what “The Ego” really is.
Although I haven’t reached any sort of awakening yet (either that or I’m still “unconscious” to the awakening?), this book does stimulate blood circulation to those parts of my head I didn’t know were capable of receiving blood flow. Anyhow, I’m surprised this book hasn’t sold more copies before Oprah got to it. According to Canada.com, there were only 161,000 copies in print for the past two years in publication, Pre-Oprah-times that is.
He’s also the author of The Power Of Now, which did a lot better.
Anyhow, I’m expecting big things from this 10-week class with Oprah! I’m gunning for you, Eckhart, a fellow Vancouverite!
Popularity: 87% [?]
Many procrastinators will agree that sometimes, we spend too much time planning and not enough time doing.
You know how it goes. You intend on getting started on that project you’ve been meaning to get started on now for 10 months now, and you’re really serious this time, so you’re going to run out to Starbucks because caffeine will help you be more productive and come up with an elaborate plan to make sure that it happens this time.
Two hours and ten pieces of doodled-on scrap paper later, you’re still planning, only now your focus has been directed towards this other more genius idea that you conveniently brainstormed up which will require further planning.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself with a Moleskin full of projects that haven’t materialized beyond the notebook.
I’ve come to realize the past few days that one of the easiest ways to overcome procrastination is to plan the execution.
Here’s how I’ve been tackling my procrastination problem and it hope it works for you too:
Honestly and realistically answer these three questions:
1. What Do You Want To Do and Why?
For example, through my website work, I want to save up $333,000 in the next five years for my retirement because I think it would be fun to let the power of compound interest take care of my retirement.
2. Break It Down Into Tiny Chunks.
Determine how much time in total you want to dedicate to the completion of this project.
Coming back to my retirement project example, I am willing to allocate five years to this project, but what this really means is that I need to work on generating $300 a day, 7 days a week, for the next 5 years.
3. Plan The Execution By Chunking In 3’s.
Here’s the kicker. Now that you have your project in tiny chunks, grab a piece of paper and write down the first three actions that need to be taken to get this project going. Now give yourself a time limit to complete these three items. Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of giving a lump-sum time frame to complete the three tasks, time each individual action!
For example, to get my website going, I need to:
(1) Research the domain name companies I want to buy my domain from [20 min],
(2) Buy the domain name [20 min], and
(3) Determine how much space I need for my website [30 min]
If you want to be adventurous, write down four and star the fourth one as a bonus action to be taken.
(4) Find a hosting company that meets my needs [30 min].
4. DO IT! NOW! GO! HURRY! AHH!
Roll up your sleeves, stay engaged and do the first three actions you wrote down…Now! The important thing here is to stay engaged on the task at hand at all costs.
What helps me is to stick in a set of earplugs, hide myself behind a room divider or go to the university study hall which is where I’ve historically had the most productive work done.
Also, to put on some pressure, which many of us procrastinators seem to operate optimally under, try using your cell phone’s timer function or an egg timer and keep it in a very visible location in front of you to time every task. This will help your mind stay engaged as you see the timer tick away from the corner of your eye.
5. Practice, Practice, Practice!
This might not work right away for various reasons, but keep at it. Train your mind to lengthen the amount of time it can focus on a task over time. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Praise yourself lots and have fun!!
Let me know how it goes. Feedback is always appreciated!
Popularity: 94% [?]
K-Ci. Jojo. Jodeci. I’ve always loved their music and absolutely adored their sound. Never did I think I would go out of my way though to go to one of their concerts, let alone see them come to, ohgadno, Vancouver.
Maybe Toronto, but never Vancouver. We’ve been pretty ignored in the West by most R&B hip hop acts until recent years.
Anyhow, it was a wonderful show!
These guys named Dna6 opened and they fucking rock. Especially Alex the singer / beatbox / instrumentally inclined guy of the group. He kinda reminds me of a less rough version of Chester from Linkin Park. I was an instant fan.
Then some other acts showed up and they were alright.
Then K-Ci and Jojo performed Life, It’s Real, Love U 4 Life, Come and Talk To Me, Get On Up, Freakin’ You, and All My Life. I think I might be losing my voice from singing so loudly. One of the best thing about the show was the the crowd was like 24 - 30 something crowd. No annoying fakeid’ers. Everyone was just there to sing along and have a good time.
When I first saw pictures of this at www.sandrarose.com, I thought K-Ci was on drugs or something when he decided to ride his bodyguard’s shoulders, but it’s actually part of the act!! The was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a long time. K-Ci is just as weird in concert 3 feet away from you as he seems in music videos. Definitely a showman.
The Denny’s breakfast meal and booze from the concert is making holy matrimony in my stomach right now and totally mellowing me out.
Popularity: 100% [?]
Apple has made a few updates to their iPod Touch and iPhones today.
The iPhone has been upped to 16GB ($499) and the 4GB iPhone appears to be discontinued.
The iPod Touch has also been upped to 32GB ($499).
For me, this means I’m selling my 8GB iPhone and will have to venture out and try to jailbreak this new 16GB iPhone to get it to work on the damn Canadian networks.
Popularity: 83% [?]
I received a wired mighty mouse with my Intel iMac two years ago and the scroll ball stopped working shortly after. Scrolling left, right and up was working fine, but scrolling down just wouldn’t work.
Then I bought the bluetooth wireless one later on and had the same problem as well.
Tragically, I was forced to abandon the scroll ball / nipple function on the mouse and manually click the scroll bars on the side of all my windows to scroll down.
After some deliberate and careful research (googled “how to fix mighty mouse scroll ball”), I was able to piece together various “how-to guides” and come up with a fix that worked without disassembling the precious mighty mouse!
Probable cause of this problem: Dirt Buildup!
So here goes:
1. Using a disconnected and de-batteried mighty mouse, wet your fingertips with water (saliva is my water of choice), and run it over the ball up and down, left to right.
2. Take the mouse, turn it upside down, hold the white clicking parts down and run the ball up and down, side to side against a clean piece of white paper. You should be able to see the tracks and streaks of dirt and gunk that your scroll ball will spit out onto your piece of paper.
3. Repeat until the scroll function works.
So that’s all it is. A little bit of saliva, a white piece of paper and a keen determination to fix this darn scroll ball / nipple thing.
Good luck and let me know if it worked for you.
Popularity: 75% [?]
Friend: [Pointing to Dirty Vegas poster on wall] So um like what’s Dirty Vegas?
Bouncer: Well he’s this really big DJ.
I actually didn’t know who Dirty Vegas was either until tonight. That’s horrible, I know, but a girlfriend and I stumbled into Caprice tonight and Dirty Vegas was spinning. Fucking awesome.
I’m normally into Hip Hop - R&B - Top 40 type music and my friend’s into Rock and Alternative for the most part. The bass was unbelievable. The music makes me feel like I’m on drugs or something and absolutely had to flail my arms uncontrollably or risk dying.
Love it!
Popularity: 57% [?]
There’s something about staying up waaay beyond my bedtime surfing the ‘net that makes me feel fucking cool.
Here are some of my random findings to share:
Bum-Ass Hip Hop Looney Toons Sweater goes for $48 dollars. (Image Jacked From PCP)
I can’t believe this. I think my Mom bought me that sweater from Fields (is that still open on the corner of Kingsways and Knight?) in the pre-Walmart days for $4.99 when I was in Kindergarten. Can’t deny, it was a pretty dope sweater until it started working as a floor rag for our kitchen until it probably broke off into 3 different pieces before we chucked it out.
Music: DJ B.Cause - Night Of The Remix Round 2
Actually, I found this one in my car. After ripping it into iTunes and having to manually key in all the names of all 34 tracks, I needed to Google (too lazy to scan) the matching album cover to make my iTunes library complete.
This disc is the shit. Google “DJ B.Cause” and buy his stuff. Fucking awesome.
I came across this site when I was looking for the album cover, but this site makes me want to go to SF, wear sneakers, listen to cool music and be happenin’.
Wrap Presents and Save the World - Furoshiki
Save a tree and use cloth to wrap your presents this year and use these cool designs supplied by the Japanese government to make your wrapped presents stand out from the rest under the tree!
Popularity: 65% [?]
