Happy Feet

Yesterday I saw Happy Feet, which was certainly not a perfect movie, but surprisingly good. The animation was amazing, much of it truly photo-quality, particularly the Antarctic landscapes. Plus, there were actual themes that might not mean much to kids, like religion, environmentalism, aliens, and so on. It also was very much an animal rights movie, skewering fishing, zoos, and so on. This movie tries, as the main penguin says, "to appeal to [our] better natures." Of course, in the real world, where Canadians club baby seals and Japanese turn the ocean red slicing open live dolphins, perhaps our better natures are silent. (I won't even mention meat-eating, when conditions on modern facts are far more cruel than any of these.) Still, there's always hope... is there, kind-hearted blog-reader?

Didn't care for the pop-music songs, from Prince, Elvis, R. Kelly, and such. But the movie made me want to learn more about these Antarctic fellas. I'd never heard of elephant seals before. Or knew that Adelie penguins are pronounced "uh-DAY-lee". And what are those colorful things on the one Adelie penguin about?

I also had Italian at Gennaro's on the Upper West Side. I always find Italian boring, but this was really good. So, maybe I should try Italian more often.

There's also a new Korean restaurant on St. Marks called Gama, which not only looks really nice, it's vegetarian section fills a page of the menu -- very very rare for Korean food! I'll have to try it. If you go, note that they posted in St. Marks Market thta you get 10% off if you mention the Market. (In other St. Marks gossip, CBGB opened a retail outlet there, officially selling out. And apparently the Cuban Cafe Fuego is owned by a model dating Halle Berry.)

Finally, you should sign up at Ebates.com. When you shop online, instead of going to Amazon.com or Buy.com or Target or whatever, go there through Ebates.com and you get cash back -- essentially they're sharing with you the money they get for bringing you to their site. It's free, they have like every store online, there's no reason not to do it. You even get $5 for signing up (though you can't cash it in before buying stuff). And--this is the most important part--when you sign up, please say I referred you and I get $5.

Slow news day

I bought a Method soap dispenser, and put in on my sink. It's so beautiful! My bathroom doesn't deserve it.

I like Boathouse juices. They are yummy.

Here are some special effects for your amusement:
Black Dots
Rotate
Colors

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. 45 million individuals had their throat slit for this day. That's more than the entire population of Spain, or more than 5 times the population of NYC. How does a person deal with that horror? Try not to think of it... I spent my Thanksgiving with a room full of Chinese, chattering away in Chinese. Boring. Should have organized my own Thanksgiving.

I was looking up the most popular baby names of 2005, and while the boy's names are all standard stuff -- Ethan is the least ordinary at #5 -- girl's names are a different matter, with Madison at #3, and ugly Abigail, Olivia, and Isabella following. Ava is in there at #9. What an unfortunate generation that will be. I should be happy not to see Martha, Wilma, or Edith in there...

There's a rare hereditary condition called synaesthesia in which senses mix. For example, when they hear music, they also hear it as colors; or 5 plus 2 will look blue. A very rare form of this -- with only 10 known cases -- has people tasting words. There's no obvious connection between the word and the taste: for one person "Stephanie" tastes like sage stuffing, "London" like potato, "microscope" like carrots, and "confess" like coffee. One subject hates driving because road signs flood his mouth with the flavors of things like pistachio ice cream and earwax. (From the New York Times)

My posts have become very random.

Ali G

I thought watching Ali G totally embarrassing his interviewees Bekham and Posh was hilarious, so feel free to watch.

My global warming report (and more importantly, my name) is mentioned in another article printed in Health News Digest, the Southwest News-Herald, and PoliticalAffairs.net. Apparently, according to The Higher Pie, I was also in the August issue of VegNews; in June I was mentioned in the Good News Broadcast; the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter cites me; and I'm even cited in WikiHow. Not to mention a lot of blogs, like The Green Report. Used to be that Googling my name brought up diversity, from computer programs in Esperanto to guitar transcription of Yellow Submarine to work on fuel economy. But now, that one report seems to have crowded out the rest. Well, the message lives on.

That's all I have for you today, but for the sudden onrush of Thanksgiving, it's pumpkin smells and orange-brown hue, and trying not the think of the screams.

In a random experiment in writing without typing any actual letters, this post was brought to you by:
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Angels & Demons

The New York Times has an article about how, in France, the marriage rate is 45% lower than here, and the rate of out-of-wedlock children has shot up -- but these aren't single mothers. Couples are building families simply without bothering to get married. It is seen increasingly as an unnecessary formality. These include members of Parliament. This is so different from how I think. To me, committing to someone and becoming family seems extremely meaningful to me, and defining of my life. What do you think: is marriage just an expendible relic of tradition?

I saw Stranger Than Fiction. It was ok, I was entertained, but it was nothing amazing, easily skipable. There were a couple jokes, but they were rare and it really isn't a comedy at all.

I also stayed up all last night -- until 8am -- reading Angels and Demons by the writer of The DaVinci Code. It is incredibly similar to the Code in a hundred ways, that it's almost the same plot. However, the Code is much better. This book has a lot of dumb conversations clearly meant to explain stuff to the reader, and predictable stupid Hollywood-ish things in it, the worst of which is when the evil killer says something like, "I'm going to kill you now. But first, let me explain to you the secret plan." Tsk, tsk.

Meg

I'm quoted in an article. I didn't expect it, someone just asked me if it's possible that lobsters could get nourishment from the biowheel in the filtration system, and I said that it's nonsense. And voilà, my name in print.

And, oh my gosh, I just saw that the person who does the voice of Meg on Family Guy is the rich girl from That 70's Show.

To top off this meaningless post, some nostalgia from the arcade days...

Farewell, Bangalore

I remember the durian (榴槤), that spiky fruit with the mushy brain-like innards that smell so very badly and, though called the king of fruit, must be an acquired taste... apparently they are not well-liked by the Singapore MRT (subway). Dangerous, those things.

A VRG poll found that 2.3% of Americans are vegetarian, including 1.4% who are vegan. Margin of error on poll is ±3%. My, I thought it was higher. Kind of depressing, really.

Did you know the average American adult male is 190 lbs and female is 164 lbs? Seems more than I'd expect...

For some time now, the Indian cities of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras have been Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. Now, farewell to Bangalore as well, and a hello to Bengaluru.

Actually, that's fun to say: "Helloo, Bengaluru!"

Just discovered Google docs. Now you can write and save your documents on the web, and have them available from any computer. Yay.

Seitan bliss

Bringing Scrubs week to a close, here is a short joke. But the one I wanted to share is here, but they didn't edit out the junk before and after. So skip ahead and start at 1:57, and watch until 3:00. Just one minute total. Once you get to the title screen, you can stop, it's not funny after that.

Today I went for the first time to Franchia, the Korean teahouse. It was good! And serene. I don't know why the name of the place is Italian. Then walked up Fifth Avenue to the Apple store, where I finally rode the elevator! Somehow that seems cool to me, because it is round like a cylinder, and all glass, including the door. Then I went to Candle 79, a beautiful (if expensive) restaurant, where the food was amazing, oh my so good. If you're a vegetarian, you have to eat here and you must order something seitan. The weather was also incredible, and the city never fails to impress. It was a sweet day.

Pigs and Doves and Forest Whitaker

Did you know this about Forest Whitaker? So cute! I kind of like the name "True".

Speaking of animals, while the Democratic takeover of Congress has brought hope that America may return to the fold or civilized nations, there's also good election news on state ballots. Arizonans overwhelmingly voted to ban crates for pigs and for veal calves -- these animals spend virtually their entire lives in crates too small to turn around or even lie down comfortably. (Of course, the state has just one industrial hog farm, and no veal farms, but still that one farm has tens of thousands of pigs, and it's a start.) Also, Michigan voted against dove hunting -- essentially target practice on live animals that kills millions of birds, in large measure shooting them down to die slowly of their injuries somewhere. Yay!

Amazing to me, though, is Florida, which voted to require a 60% vote to pass a ballot measure, a practically impossible threshold. Why would voters vote to take awaytheir own right to vote? Ballot measures are quintessential democracy at work. Every state should allow them. (Ironically, this measure passed with less than 60%.)

No one seems to like (or at least, comment on) the Scrubs jokes, but it's Scrubsweek in Blogsville people, so suck it up.

Yay!

Yay! Yay! Yay!

And to celebrate, another Scrubs joke:

Hamas women

Today's Scrubs joke of the day awaits you:

Election day, and I predict that Democrats will not take the Senate -- they won't even reach 50 Senators -- and they may take the House but by a small margin. Why? Because Democrats always do worse than they think they will. But in my book, even taking the House by one vote is a great victory which will make me cheer. Please vote!

The other day, the Israeli army had Hamas gunmen surrounded and holed up in a mosque, but when they tried to move in, the gunmen would shoot at them, resulting in a firefight and a stand-off. A groups of women, dressed in abayas, started approaching the mosque into the line of fire to act as human shields, and to bring them abayas so they could escape disguised as women. Some of the women got shot but the rest kept going. This poses a moral quandry for Israeli soldiers. Should the women be considered civillians because they're unarmed, or should they be shot at because they're trying to help the gunmen? What do you think?

Soda

Back in NYC, eating at the restaurants that have become comfort food for me. Ahhh...

Today's joke from Scrubs, perhaps the funniest show ever (video to the right).

Wish you had your own domain name, like noam.org or i-love-salmonella.com, but didn't want to spend the money for the domain, and more money for web hosting? Now you can get any domain for FREE, including 5 email addresses @noam.org (or whatever), website visitor stats, and everything. More amazing still, it's not from Google, but from Microsoft. Hurry and claim your favorite domain before it's taken.

In a related note, don't update to Internet Explorer 7. I did, and it just crashes on startup, and I can't go back to 6, so now it's useless. Really, everyone should just use Firefox.

Looking for vegan turkey for Thanksgiving? (You know you are!) There's something new on the block. And if you are wondering whether to get a turkey, see PETA's recent undercover investigation of Butterball.

And make sure you vote tomorrow! It's a super-close election, and you must vote.

Going postal

I had asked people if they'd sent me a package, because the post office said it was returned to sender. Once again, they lie. I went down there, and there the package was. I went down there after waiting all day for another package to be delivered, which they said it would be. Another lie! The local station hadn't been told anything. This is not my first debacle: never believe anything they say at 1-800-ASK-USPS, always call up the local post office branch, which is hard because often the numbers aren't listed.

Resveratrol

I voted today, absentee. Election in just a few days, one that could change the future course of the country and the world. Please vote! Check out www.humanevoting.com for candidates endorsed for their animal-friendly positions. In Maryland, vote Cardin for Senator and O'Malley for Governor, these are close elections! (Unlike New York.)

Also, after another article about the reduced calorie diet -- remember this, that eating 30% less calories than normal but still getting all the nutrients can make you live 40% longer, including aging slower, no wrinkles and diseases and stuff? Anyway, after an article about how that works for monkeys, there's a new publication on resveratrol, a chemical in grape peel that allows mice to eat junk food diets and get fat without any of the health problems -- they live as long and as healthy as the mice on a good diet, and way better than those eating junk food without this substance. Although this is a crime against the mice forced to grow obese and then cut up, just imagine if it works on humans the same way! I'm wondering if I should start taking supplements. Although it's in grape peels, and red wine, you'd have to drink like 100 bottles to get a significant amount.

Lost was good this week. Finally. Still think they're trying to stretch things out to milk this money-maker for longer than the story justifies.