robitussin dark mugan

sunnyslopetopia

2008-01-07T21:24:36Z

i found a couple youtube clips about sunnyslope. one is a video made of the businesses, houses and apartments that the maker seems to think are trashy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOHQnaThiNg
the other is a video by desert living magazine and it's a modern architecture home made of rusty metal called Blank Studio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNCsNcW6ac&feature=related

they both emphasize the extremes of sunnyslope. i've been mostly jokingly saying that sunnyslope could easily become another art scene gentrified area like downtown phoenix. this loft style rusty art home shows it is an actual possibility.

there was also a cover article last august in the new times called Sunnyslopetopia. http://phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-07-26/news/sunnyslopetopia/ all about how great the area is and how anywhere else it would be the beverly hills of the city. i love the article.

sunnyslope has long been the butt of peoples jokes. the truth is i love it there. i can walk 5 minutes to hike the mountain preserve behind my house, there's cool mom and pop shops, i have a good auto mechanic a block from my house and the area isn't on a grid system. there's real diversity there and it's still has a working class feel to it. it's 10 miles from downtown, a few miles from north phoenix where i grew up and has great bike routes and amazing cooky bars. as much as i don't want the slope to become another gentrified downtown i get annoyed when people talk shit about it and call it white trash or a ghetto. yeah there's bikers, tweekers, junkies, bums, nazis and gangs all mixed in with some gated communities. but that's been the case everywhere i grew up in north phoenix and i actually feel more comfortable and at home. bikers, tweekers, junkies, bums, nazis, day laborers on the corners and gangs but they are also working class and poor people which are the people i grew up with. i like that the area has gotten nicer because of community efforts. i just don't want it to become the "beverly hills" of phoenix.

lost

2006-11-10T00:40:38Z

i've been watching Lost the tv show. desert island shows and movies always make me think about skills i should learn just in case. i've learned some stuff like the very basics of making a hand drill fire. but if i get stuck on an island i'd have to figure out what wood i could use. anyway watching lost has made me realise a realy good skill to know is the death touch or something like it. then you could just kill people with one hit. that would be really handy if i was a character on lost.

the weatrher

2006-07-26T23:24:37Z

i got soaked biking to heavy metal night at the bowling alley last night. before the crazy rain was the most amazing phoenix lightning storm i've seen in years! it was beautiful. it went on for hours. for all you kids who don't live in phoenix or have left recently you've missed some of the hottest most humid days we've ever had here. we keep beating records for daytime and night time heat. some nights the temperature never gets below 95 f! but you also missed some amazing weather stuff too. i don't care what anyone says i love the weather here.

mybike_yourface @ 2006-06-18T20:30:00

2006-06-19T03:30:58Z

i recently helped a friend in tempe un-dig his beautiful garden. it was doing so well too. he just had a kid and had to move into an appartment. it's a shitty feeling destorying an amazing garden. his sunflowers were over 10 ft tall. i had to chop them down with an axe!

i'm finishing digging a new garden for myself. it will be nice to have more space to plant stuff. i had to bust out the hose today. it's hot out and i have less gray water than the garden needs. all my hopi yellow lima beans died since it got hot out so early this year. wish i would have had a big garden last year.

mybike_yourface @ 2006-06-18T11:59:00

2006-06-18T19:02:22Z

well my mom's health has gone to shit. she can't walk hardly and she's in constant pain. she can barely get to the bathroom and back to her bed and she screams and yells because she's in constant pain. it's a mess. i'm basically taking care of her now. fucking doctors are so useless.

risk online

2006-05-21T06:29:03Z

so a friend has displayed interest in playing risk. here's an online website.
www.conquerclub.com
play the world maps and that's basically risk. it will teach you the game. there are some rad rule variations though.
the rad thing about this web site is all the new maps like ancient greece, brittany, and the far east.

toddlers and horror films

2006-05-17T04:10:28Z

i should know better when i go to a dollar theater movie in north phoenix on a monday. me and manija went to see The Hills Have Eyes. if your not familiar it's a wes craven horror movie about a bunch of cannibalistic mutant miner descendants left in the nuclear test zone of new mexico. naturally someone decide to bring their 4 year old child to a horror movie. this seems to happen whenever i go there. the last time was at texas chain saw massacre a year or 2 ago there. the movie was a gore fest that had a shotgun suicide then had deformed mutants who proceeded to rape one character(the teen age daughter), sexually assaulted another then shoot her in the head, shoot the mother, burn the father alive, and held a gun to an infants head and then kidnapped him all in the first heavy gore scene. the mutants proceed to do things like steel the bodies and eat them, hack of fingers with an axe etc. i was definitly wondering why i was there but i really was pissed at the fact that those parents brought their toddler to this fucking film! what the hell are people thinking? i hoped they would at least leave when they figured out what the film was about. i really thought about saying something but i only heard them speaking in spanish and my spanish is bad anyway and worse when i'm angry. and what do you say anyway? if someone is a big enough asshole to do this what can you possible say to them? naturally it was me and manija's first movie together.

mybike_yourface @ 2006-05-13T14:37:00

2006-05-13T21:38:20Z

i guess i havent posted in a while before now. lots of people have taken my off their freind list.

risk and what else

2006-05-12T19:11:11Z

so i've been playing the game risk a lot. classic risk, the newer risk 2210 which is risk set in the future and some online risk at coquerclub.com. it's a lot of fun
i'm interviewed in this documentary that my friend shot about risk as well.
www.fallofautumn.com/microcosm/ofdiceandmen-rough.mov

i've also been studying mandarin chinese and chinese characters. i'm planning on taking a class this fall to learn more mandarin. i've also been studying chinese cuisine as usually. i'm also trying to learn afgan pharsi(dari).

and i've been brewing hard cider, pickling(fermenting) vegetables, shopping at asian markets, gardening, reading dark elf novels, doing kung fu and drinking.

when someone casually asks me what i've been up to i kind of get a mental smirk thinking of how goofy this all must sound as an answer.

kung fu demo

2006-02-03T04:22:26Z

i did a kung fu demo with my teacher and my class for chinese new year this past weekend. hopefully i'll have photos soon.

mybike_yourface @ 2005-10-06T09:40:00

2005-10-06T16:44:11Z

bridget won't eat all these noodles so mark dugan has to, to save the earth!

brown sauce

2005-09-20T22:22:48Z

10 cups stock
1/2 cup soy sauce
10 tbs cornstarch
20 green onions, horse eared
sesame oil
white pepper

nightshades

2005-08-30T18:35:38Z

i got one of my first co-op goofball experiences. what started of as a compliment about the soy free vegan parmesan i had made turned into a odd request. one of the co-op regulars came and asked me to make a marinara sauce using no tomatoes or other nightshades. he had a reason (sort of) for why he gave up tomatoes but when i asked him why he gave up all nightshades when it was only tomatoes his doctor recommended he give up he had no real answer. he said "well they call them deadly night shades for a reason"! i said "no actually they call them nightshades, they call the plant Belladonna deadly nightshade because it's a poisonous plant in the nightshade family. nightshades cultivated for food eaten properly aren't poisonous." then he babbled something about blood type diets and told him nicely that i've never any good evidence of the blood type diet thing. arghh. what is this the middle ages? can wes till not get over the foolish stigma that tomatoes are poisonous? why do people do such stupid dietary things because of rumors and crap without any logical base to these ideas? why would you want to give up some many good vegetables or starve yourself for no reason?

of course gabby knew better than to do anything but stand there and not say anything the whole time i talked to this goofball.

i really love my job so far

2005-08-23T00:12:20Z

cooking at the co-op is really enjoyable. i thought my enthusiasm would start to die by now but i absolutely love my job. gabby's an amazing cook with a broader skill-set than me. he seems to think i have some off the wall recipe ideas. i've been talking about making southern peanut soup and chocolate stew(a simplified mexican-american version of mole)since i make a lot of soups so far. we collaborate on ideas for interesting cheese cake ideas and other stuff sometimes. he made an amazing vegan habanero-chocolate cheesecake one day. he's like the method man to my ol' dirty bastard. if you get a chance come in and try our cooking. it rocks.

fashion fads

2005-08-23T00:05:02Z

arghh fads. bandanas hanging out of your back pocket are the chain wallet of the 2000's. please stop doing it. this isn't a personal attack. i just think it's silly. of course i have been rocking a butt flap and sometimes front flap lately so maybe i shouldn't talk.

too busy

2005-08-21T02:04:27Z

i've been too busy to sit still. i haven't got 8 hours of sleep in like 2 weeks and that's not likely to change for a couple of days. between road trips, the new job and working over 8 hour days, hanging out with manija and brandie, my day job, and general hanging out there's no time in the day. i was supposed to go with ben and nick and them to what's probably the last contravene show and to six flags but they're leaving in an hour and i'm just too tired for a road trip to CA. plus it would be nice to do food not bombs tomorrow and to crash with manija tonight. plus she's making a big persian dinner. but fuck, part of me says to go to the show/solidarity fest.

sweet and sour c0-0p work place

2005-08-12T03:23:15Z

i just totally entered the new times contest to win a trip to the mtv music awards in miami!

i made a big old batch of sweet and sour seitan today. my recipe development projects that i constantly work on have gotten bigger now i'm working in the co-op deli. check out this recipe for sweet and sour sauce:
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 cups catsup
2 1/2 cups rice vinegar
1 cup soy sauce
8 cups pineapple juice
5 tablespoons garlic powder
1 cup cornstarch
2 cups water or stock
4 tablespoons white pepper
1/2 cup rice wine(sake)

mix it up and cook it up till it's thick!

going big is fun. stir frying on a big gas range is amazing. i would love to be a stirfry cook. it's an artform you know. in china people study for years just to master stirfrying.

i name dropped melanie for a possible job in the deli. we don't know if we need anyone yet though. she might be the perfect cook if we did though. so far things are leaning towards a collective not a top down management situation in the cafe. none of us want that. our manager quite but gabby has reluctantly took the reins. i'm ready to do whatever it takes to keep things cool in the deli. i worked a nine an a half hour day today. it ruled too! now i go bowling!

good times

2005-08-11T04:55:23Z

wow, it's turning out to be one of those awesome summers. suddenly shit's been super crazy and fast paced. people lying about me, people freaking out high, no sleep, dancing, parties, me having to get out of a car with a crazy driver who wouldn't stop, how did shit get so fun? i'm surprised at how clam and centered i feel in the middle of it. things are getting back what i always refer to as "i should have lost a limb or got arrested" times.

if i can just get around to getting that bike fixed before bowling tomorrow.

the easiest way to make hard cider in a week.

2005-08-09T22:21:49Z

this is meant just as an intro to fermenting juices into alcohol. this an easy, very basic method with a minimal amount of equipment involved.

first buy a gallon bottle of organic unfiltered apple juice or any natural apple juice and a can of frozen apple juice concentrate(any flavor). also buy a pack of dried ale yeast and a rubber stopper(number 8 works for the apple bottles i use) and a bubbler/airlock from a homebrew shop (alternately you could use a balloon on the top of the bottle but let the air out of it if it looks like it will pop). then pour out about 2 cups of juice, and add the thawed concentrate to the bottle. you need to leave some air space at the top of the bottle or the cider will ferment out of the bubbler. shake the bottle up good then add the dried yeast. place the bubbler and stopper on the top and set it in a room cooler than 80 degrees and cover it with a dark t-shirt or towel and let it ferment for 5 -8 days. it will be a little rough around the edges but it's still good. i like to add a little unfermented juice when i drink it to sweeten it a bit. just poor into a glass or into another bottle and drink it.

the stronger you make the cider(buy adding more sugar or sugar sources) the longer it takes to ferment. you can do this with citrus juice too. this recipe is ultra simple. ideally you should sanitize everything with iodine solution but this will still work if you don't. to make a nicer cider you could rack(siphon with a hose and racking cane) the cider to a second bottle to mellow for a week or two. then you could bottle it with a small amount of sugar to carbonate it in the bottles. that takes a week or 2. that all takes more effort and equipment.

walk out

2005-08-08T15:30:47Z

what an amazing whirlwind of a week this was! we had a employee walk out at the co-op because of managment being fucked up and firing a coworker for nothing. the next day the managers who pulled the shit tried to say we were all fired and would have to individually reaply for our jobs. we totally stuck together and after some negotiations and being influence by 3 members of the board of directors they had to coem to reason meet our demands! it was the most amazing feeling of solidarity! this is the best job i've had. we got everything we wanted as a group and we got everything that our coworker who was fired wanted except for a week of earned time off.

we had a birthdy party that rocked. the theme was western shirts and squirt guns. and my pal rebeca was in town from portland to enjoy the festivities and the party was for her and some other folks. some really cool people showed up and i made some new pals. we danced like crazy! i met an amazing girl who speaks 3 languages, is cute as pie and who was one the best kickball pitchers i've seen pitch. kick ball was awesome.

i got the day of but went into work without realizing it. so i got to hang out with rebbeca and go to udupi's buffet before i drove her to the airport.

the show tonight should be rad. i honestly can not beleive how rad my life has become!

mixed vegetable fermented pickles

2005-08-04T07:00:53Z

this is a great recipe for slightly aging vegetables and stuff you have a lot of that won't keep for long. this is how dill pickles and sauerkraut is traditionally made. this is a live-culture food and has beneficial bacteria which are what create the vinegar like environment that pickles the vegetables. i always have a jar full of brine around to throw extra stuff i get from Food Not Bombs or the garden into for later. if you want a smaller amount just half or quarter the recipe.

you need a :
1 gallon jar with a lid
something like a plate or cup that fits just inside the neck of the jar to keep the vegetables submerged in the salt brine

3- 4 pounds sliced firm vegetables(cucumbers, bok choy, other cabbages, green beans, carrots, chiles, green tomatoes, daikon etc.)
6 tablespoons sea salt

optional seasonings:
sugar,
garlic cloves whole or crushed,
ginger,
green onion,
black pepper corns,
dried chili flakes or powder,
coriander seed,
herbs fresh or dried such as dill
rice wine or liquor(vodka is good)

make sure the gallon jar is clean.

dissolve sea salt in a half a gallon of purified water. stir until thoroughly dissolved.

place the seasonings then the vegetables in the jar and pour the brine(salted water) over them. put the object( i use a little bowl) on top of the vegetables making sure it submerges the vegetables in the brine. this stops mold from forming. put the lid on loosely and then put the jar in a cool, dark place with a plate under it to catch any overflowing brine. the vegetables should be pickled in a few days. try them and see.

you can keep adding stuff to the brine as you go. just add salt as well. the more populated with bacteria that the brine becomes the faster it will ferment the vegetables. put the brine in the fridge in between uses.

grandma died last night

2005-08-03T00:18:34Z

i just found out my grandma died last night in her sleep. it's not a huge deal. we knew it was coming. weird though.

Lammas

2005-08-02T22:10:43Z

the sunset yesterday marked the beginning of the pagan day of Lammas also called lughnasa(Loo-nay-sa). Lammas honors the passing of the light and the reaping of the grain, it's a harvest holiday. traditionally you might bake bread today to celebrate. maybe latter i'll make some muffins or cobbler later and dedicate it to He Who Walks Behind The Rows. actually i think i'm going to go make a corn doll from some of my sorghum plant leaves. this holiday feels a bit out of place in the middle of the sonoran desert's monsoon season heat but what the hell. what i should really be doing is fixing my bike though. i'm having anxiety over the thought of getting it done though.

jarrod and me have decided to brew some ale today. that's gotta be the ideal lammas activity.

cider

2005-08-02T02:06:54Z

I just gave little B a crash course in making hard cider in a week. we started a batch together and batch of citrus juice and sugar. i got the juice from work for free so score!

here's the website for the homebrew shop in tempe.

http://www.brewersconnection.com/

library hanger-outer

2005-08-01T05:54:51Z

i'm pretty into the library. i renew my books almost daily and constantly recomend books for them to purchase. i like to kick it there too. bridget says i'm a nerd for reading D&D magazines there and stuff. but then again she WORKS there.