inanimate.ca

6/29/2004 11:12:10 PM //

How odd that while on one of my normal summer night bike rides into new west, I'd find myself asking the question "why does that shrub smell like cum?"

I found myself preferring not to think about it.

6/29/2004 08:27:43 PM //

Taz and I picked up the keys to our new yaletown apartment today.

And so begins a new era.

6/28/2004 09:27:14 PM //

more inanimate food : dijon seafood pasta
finely dice some onion, mince a clove of garlic, and clean and seperate a handful of enoki mushrooms. Start sweating the onions in a pan with a good pour of good olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper along with the garlic.

After the onions are softened, add the enokis for about two minutes before adding a swirl of light cream (I use half and half) and a spoon of good dijon mustard. Let these combine and adjust the mustard to taste. The mustard should add some bite, but the sauce shouldn't taste like a hot dog.

Add your freshly drained pasta (I used spaghettini for it's more delicate texture) and toss it in the pan (heat off or right down to the bottom). Squeeze lemon juice over the top to taste, add a big handful of crab meat (freshly cooked or pre-shelled at the store or you can use shrimp, scallops, or any other seafood) and your choice of finely chopped herbs (tarragon or parsley will do well) or none if you don't feel like it. The heat of the pasta will heat the crab and herbs without cooking them. Plate it and shred a good amount of parmigiano-reggiano (good parmesan cheese) on top and a few more grinds of pepper (if you like pepper).

As you may notice, I don't measure when I cook so everything is done seat of the pants. But the sauce should just coat the pasta and there should be none pooling at the bottom of the plate or pan. Cream to olive oil ratio should be close and the sauce should have equally balanced (and moderately light) flavors of mustard, lemon, pepper, and the salty parmesan. The enoki mushroom adds an incredible slightly snappy/chewy texture to the softer pasta while blending into the noodlish shape. If you find your pasta is too dry, reserve a bit of the pasta water before you drain it and add a splash back to the pasta to rehydrate once the pasta has been drained off.

6/28/2004 09:06:24 PM //

Would anybody really care if I legally changed my name to Wang Chung?

6/27/2004 06:38:22 PM //

I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 today and rather enjoyed it as it wasn't the somewhat overly incredible take that Bowling for Columbine was and in turn was a more believable product.

The film is well made and should be an interesting watch regardless of which side of the fence you sit on. The number of facts presented are less in number than the opinions, but that doesn't take away from the message he's trying to spread. Most interesting in the film was the focus on who really benefits from this war (though this shouldn't be much of a surprise). I don't even think Moore claims that this is a documentary as much as it is commentary, but that won't stop some from reciting from this script as fact.

Though he does show some of the horrors of war that people are not seeing on CNN, I thought he could have gone further. Not that I think it should have become a verhoeven film rich in the blood of satire, but I still think the general public hasn't witnessed the horrors of war nearly enough.

I've gone on the record several times here opposing the war but I'm not a pacifist. I believe that the desire for war is ingrained in the human soul as a method to sate man's greed, anger and pride. I just hope that men and women dying (troops and civilians alike) could die knowing there was something other than profit to be gained from it.

ps. this is inanimate.ca post #1000. thanks for stopping by.

6/23/2004 10:17:05 PM //

My life in cinemascope
I gazed into the sugared lenses of her sweet brown eyes and whispered the words like a secret eons old "Indy... I love you. You my best friend". With sad surprise she turned her eyes away and her soft lips mouthed the words she could not voice "Hey Dr. Jones, no time for love".

credits
directed by me
lines stolen from "Temple of Doom"

6/22/2004 12:28:33 AM //

Since I'm such an incredible food geek (and I mean in the nerdiest way), I've gotten into several debates about the best gelato in the city.

I'm a mondo fan. Not only are their portions ridiculously large (one scoop actually means two and you can have different flavors), but they capture the essence of the flavor better than anyone. Their fruit flavors are light and fresh, their nut flavors are creamy and extraordinarily nutty, and their decadent lineup is rich and glorious.

Best Gelato Evar!!!

6/21/2004 12:34:33 AM //

I'm all for gender equality, but there's one place women still do not belong.

What kind of man lets his wife or girlfriend mow the lawn? That's just wrong. She can garden all she wants, she can even bring home the bacon while I change diapers, but no woman of mine is ever mowing the goddamn lawn.

If a man loses a toe to the mower, that's fine and even manly to a certain extent. But if some poor woman has to wear closed toe footwear because she lost a few digits to a lawn mower blade, her man deserves no respect.

6/20/2004 04:28:05 PM //

Sang and I thought it'd be funny to go to uncle willy's buffet for lunch and it turned out as depressing as I could have imagined.

We doubted that our fellow diners found eating there nearly as humorous as we did, spending their hard earned $12 to choose from a poor selection of sub par food. The bland, texture deficient lasanga, chicken, and roast beef were worse than most cafeteria meals I've ever eaten in my time.

That this was father's day was even more depressing, that for these people this terrible meal was some sort of celebration. It's not a matter of being too poor to eat well, as I've got a sizable list of places to eat great food for under $12. To see the obese diners engorged on terribly prepared food didn't help the scene either.

Sang and I agreed that a 30 day stint doing "Uncle Willy's Me" would probably result in our deaths

update: in summary
[23:30] spark: i bet there was fecal matter in the food.
[23:31] evil jesus: it probably would have had more flavor if it did

6/20/2004 11:51:45 AM //

6/19/2004 11:55:41 PM //

Though I'm sure it can be scientifically explained easily, having the temperature drop several degrees while riding past a cemetary late at night can be a chilling experience.

6/17/2004 11:14:36 PM //

On the office intranet, this dude posts "ponderables" where you're asked solvable questions you'd never really need the answer to and people waste otherwise productive hours trying to solve it.

Why is it that all I care to ponder are things like what humans taste like, whether or not she can touch her elbows behind her back, whether chuck norris would stand a chance against bruce lee, and why I'm such a glutton for punishment?

Oh, also about how they get the caramel inside the caramilk bar. But I'm still pretty satisified with the "magic" answer I got last time.

6/17/2004 12:59:54 AM //

Does seeing ads for Super Size Me make anyone else want a big mac?

I haven't had one in maybe two years and this gluttonous science experiment of a man has succeeding in making me crave what he's attacking. Maybe I'm just weird that way (or many ways).

6/16/2004 08:17:10 PM //

I've got three invites available for gmail. send me a note if you want an account.

update: all gone

update: I've got 5 more

6/15/2004 02:03:56 PM //

Normally I'll skip voting in elections if the polls look good beforehand or if I haven't paid enough attention to the party lines to vote with whole hearted feeling.

But with the conservatives moving way too close to comfort this, I've actually got to drag my ass to the polls and try to ensure we don't have a government that would commit troops to an illegal invasion of a sovereign country.

While the Liberals haven't really earned themselves a majority government, I can't imagine what this country is going to gain from a conservative government.

6/15/2004 08:43:08 AM //

Seems byron wasn't kidding when he said that drinking colt 45 will break your ass the next morning.

6/14/2004 11:58:00 PM //

After a night of celebrating sang's 30th, I chose to take the victoria bus home through the downtown east side rather than enjoy the quiet comfort of the skytrain.

Once in a while I need to remind myself of man's vice and weakness; Of how low we can all fall under the right circumstances and without the right support. I flinchingly watch videos of executions and beheadings to remind me of the brutality that resides within men. Within men's hearts lies great inhumanity and the ability to inflict unfailing pain upon each other and I force myself to bear witness because I think it makes me a better person.

How much harder is it to take for granted all the things you possess when you force yourself to stare into such hate and its consequences? How much stronger are you when you can see where weakness will lead you?

6/13/2004 11:57:05 AM //

So the olsen twins finally turn 18, but who the fuck really cares?

Why does anybody give a shit when hollywood starlets turn legal? It's not like you're actually in the lineup to start fucking them.

I would think that if it's just a part of your jerk off fantasy, that them turning legal just ruins the fun anyhow.

6/11/2004 03:50:52 PM //

Is there skeet shooting at the special olympics?

6/11/2004 12:00:10 AM //

I wrote this to a girl once about how she made me feel. Maybe it's why girls don't like me.

In the moments inbetween single heartbeats, years seem to slip by. Before you know it, you find yourself at age twenty-five and still searching for something that will complete you.

I came to believe after many years that much of my destiny was in the hands of fate. Fate delivers key events, meetings, or choices at points in your life and you're left to your own devices to understand what each was meant for.

I can only attribute my chance meeting tonight with the loveliest slice of chocolate cake I've ever known to this theory of mine. I had no expectations when the meal started that I would even have dessert. I hadn't thought of anything but a few drinks and an unbelievable amount of free food courtesy of my employer.

But when the entrees had been cleared and the desserts were paraded in front of me, I chose the chocolate cake. I'm not sure why really. Instinct I believe.

I was rewarded with dark chocolate cake as rich in color as centuries old volcanic earth. The texture was as moist and fluffy as I could have dreamed or imagined of in a cake. Not the overly moist kind that clings to the rooftop of your mouth and begs for a torrent of milk to break loose, and not the dry fluff of cafeteria cakes either.

Perfect, moist, fluffy, rich chocolate cake.

A wonderfully thin layer of smooth dark chocolate icing laced the top, topped with pecans; toasted perfectly with no burnt flavor at all, light and perfectly crunchy. Pecans like crunchy candy bits but without the tendency to pack into the ridges of your molars.

Whipped cream adorned the plate, and atop of one of the five dollops stood a single mint leaf. A fresh natural green flag waiting to be deposed, and only with great will power was I able to. I was full to the point of physical pain, but to leave cake this good was to dishonor it.

Underneath that was a thin gorgeous layer of chocolate sauce to drag white swirls of whipped cream through like the tails of white clouds on the borders of a menacing sky.

With this cake, one more piece of me that was missing fell into place and life goes on. Just a little richer than before.

Long story short, try the chocolate cake at the macaroni grill on davie. The rest of dinner wasn't anything to write about, but the cake... oh the cake.

6/10/2004 12:06:25 AM //

Since I have more food concepts than I have time or materials to perfect recipes right now, I'll throw a few ideas out there for others to work on and report on results.

Beef satays (soak that skewer!) seasoned in cumin, fennel seeds, (salt/pepper) grilled on the bbq and served with a lime juice, ginger, thai chilli and honey dipping sauce.

Duck breast, skin side seasoned in cinnamon, clove, sugar, black pepper, salt, pan seared and finished in the oven, drizzled with a fresh raspberry sauce (easy on the sugar), garnished with mint.

Known to be awesome are pork potstickers finished in chicken broth (brown the potsticker bottoms in a deep heavy pan, add chicken broth and cover til cooked) served with a spicy peanut sauce (natural peanut butter, soy sauce, chilli oil, sesame oil) and garnished with chopped scallions.

6/09/2004 11:44:30 PM //

Best most terrible thing ever heard on Last Comic Standing tonight:
"I like my women like I like my whiskey.

12 years old and mixed up with coke"

6/09/2004 08:41:20 AM //

While riding yesterday, I was compelled to come up with new terms to describe poo since chris described my current lineup of dookie words as that of a five year old's.

The best I came up with was asshaggis.

6/07/2004 07:16:22 PM //

While testing out eric's new weber charcoal grill with six different meat varieties, a mosquito landed on my plate and became instantly trapped in the pooling animal fat that was collecting there.

Within seconds its head had become emtombed in the sticky grease and it soon succumbed to the its bbq platter doom.

Only karma can write such fitting metaphors for our lives.

6/04/2004 10:56:06 PM //

On my best mate ted's fridge lives a picture showing the beautiful pond where some of my other mates (jim and dan included) sourced their drinking and cooking water one night while on a backpacking trek.

It wasn't until the next morning when daylight returned that they realized there was a rather dead goat partially submerged in said pond.

Nature rules.

6/04/2004 09:40:20 AM //

I'm having trouble deciding whether Mr. Big's 'To be with you' moves me more than Extreme's 'More than words'.

6/03/2004 12:42:08 AM //

I realize at times that I am thoroughly jaded on the image of canadian born chinese.

We're wearing kappa trackpants and wifebeaters and styling our bleached tuft fronted crew cuts. We're doing kung fu while leaping out of horribly painted and riced out hondas. We're wearing lululemon (or alternately TNA) with our hair up in a ponytail while wearing jLo sunglasses. We're the fucking acne suffering nerd with the badminton racket, late to his piano lessons.

Has growing up as a minority race herded everyone into cliques and stereotypes so that they would belong?

I find myself often pleasantly surprised to meet unique and interesting cbcs. How much more interesting are people whose friends don't all look, dress, and talk the same as they do? How hard is it to escape the security of just fitting in? Does the cookie cutter cbc myth really exist or am I just paranoid and racist?

6/02/2004 09:53:46 PM //

Best father EVAR!!!

6/02/2004 12:21:16 AM //

I thought it was time inanimate moved to its spring/summer colors.