My birthday celebration was one to remember. It started by watching TV all day. I don't usually do this: Judge Matthis, Judge Judy, Jerry Springer and Steve Wilko. The people on the show made me feel normal. Thats probably why everyone else watches them too.

For dinner we went to Mother's - the restaurant on Virginia Place. (e:matthew) planned the whole thing, it was really nice to have something organized. The Appetizer portion of the meal was amazing. We had seafood stuffed lobster and little neck clams in chorizo sauce. Then for dinner I had the scallops. They were pretty good as well. The rest of the meals were not so amazing. (e:terry) got some pasta that had nasty, cold , canned beats on it and (e:matthew) got what tasted like instant mashed potatoes. It was yuck.

When we got home, I didn't expect the guests, in fact I thought we had robbers in the house. The moment was also arranged by (e:matthew) and it was really sweet. I think it was one of the first genuinely surprised moments in my life.

They also got me a nice metal (no plastic) weight set, which goes with the chinup bar I bought the other day. Now I have a little mini gym at home. There is already a bench in the attic.

If only it stopped there. Then Joan Crawford came to visit.

I like Obama, although, the way he speaks annoys the crap out of me. The thing I don't get is how so many people are praising him as a miracle maker when he really hasn't done anything yet other than to be voted in. Isn't it jumping the gun a bit.

I am not saying he won't possibly be the most amazing president ever, I am just saying its a little early for so many people to be praising him like he is jesus or a unicorn riding on a rainbow.

I love winter. I know it seems insane because everyone hates it but one thing I really love about it, is the lack of allergies. Both here in the winter and in AZ in the hot summer I have no allergies. Other than that I am allergic all the time.

Today, I started to think about the reasons why in Buffalo you would be so allergic to all that is natural, flower, animals, tree, dirt, etc and it hit me. You know how they say that children raised in sterile environments get allergies because their immune systems don't get the chance to properly develop. Well, first of all my mom's house is super clean. However, I was also born during the blizzard of 77 in January. There was no exposure to outdoor stuff until way into may I think. P.S. my birthday is on thrusday and I will be 32.

In general all people in winter climates have no exposure to pollen etc for months on end followed by massive exposure all at once.

Summary: In general, winter provides months of sterile outside. I wonder if that in turn leads to more allergies.

I guess there are some relations between cold month babies and asthma

It looks like peanut butter clif bars are also on the recall list from the salmonella based, peanut butter disaster. I already ate one and some Wegman's brand peanut butter ice-cream - both of which have been recalled - great. If you don't die the first time, is it okay to keep eating it? Or do you think its on a clif bar by clif bar basis.

I thought they used organic peanut butter, in line with their food philosophy but I guess not.

You can check the date using the guide below

On January 19, 2009, we announced a voluntary recall of certain products including CLIF Bar, CLIF Builder's, CLIF MOJO, CLIF Kid Organic ZBaR and LUNA Bar, in the U.S. and Canada because the peanut butter in those products was sourced, for a limited period of time, from the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). PCA is a manufacturer and supplier of peanut butter for many food companies and manufacturers.

PCA is under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a recent Salmonella outbreak thought to be caused by tainted peanut butter. In light of this investigation, and with an abundance of caution, Clif Bar & Company has enacted a voluntary recall. We take the health and safety of our consumers very seriously.

In the U.S, the following 14 products are included in the recall. Only bars with wrappers that have the following BEST BY or SELL BY codes1 on them, in all sizes and packages, are being recalled:

CLIF BAR Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch
BEST BY/SELL BY:
21JUN09 to 01OCT09 and
03NOV09 to 28NOV09
CLIF BAR Crunchy Peanut Butter
BEST BY/SELL BY:
21JUN09 to 01OCT09 and
03NOV09 to 28NOV09
CLIF BAR Peanut Toffee Buzz
BEST BY/SELL BY:
13SEP09
CLIF Builder's Peanut Butter
SELL BY:
19JUL09 to 30SEP09 and
05NOV09 to 18NOV09
CLIF Kid Organic ZBaR Peanut Butter
BEST BY:
07JUL09 to 05SEP09 and
12NOV09
LUNA Nutz Over Chocolate
BEST BY:
29JUL09 to 03OCT09 and
11NOV09 to 14NOV09
LUNA Peanut Butter Cookie
BEST BY:
02OCT09 to 03OCT09 and
11NOV09 to 14NOV09
MOJO Honey Roasted Peanut
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Mixed Nuts
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Mountain Mix
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Peanut Butter Pretzel
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Dipped Chocolate Peanut
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Dipped Peanut Butter and Jelly
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09
MOJO Dipped Fruit and Nut
BEST BY:
30APR09 to 21JUN09

Taken from:

Someone keeps accidentally messaging me by clicking on the contact us link at the top instead of messaging the user - they intend to message. I recognize this can be confusing and has been rectified in the new version estrip. However, I thought maybe someone else knows who these messages are for.

I thought the first one could have been about me - but I was not sure what precipitated it and just ignored it. Maybe they meant net culture and was angry about my review of some other site, etc.

01/08/09 21:56@99.50.25.16 Guest wrote:
Hey "idiot," Who died and left you the czar of culture?

Followed the nine days later by:

01/17/09 21:07@99.50.25.16 Guest wrote:
Since you are the Czar of Civilization, at what great university did you gain your credentials as a literary critic?

Since I absolutely hate reading I assume this message was not intended for me. I freely admit that I have not read any literature since I was forced to in primary school, and then some additional German literature in college.

Now that we have seen just how delicious food can be, let's show the flipside. Just how disgusting food can be. What the truck happened to this banana? How did the harvester not notice? How did the packer nip notice? How did the stock boy not notice? I mean did it happen after it got put on the shelf? If so where are the things that crawled out if it. Did anyone die getting it to market? Did anyone die from it, after it got to market?

I made pavlovas for dessert. I have a smeaking suspicion that each
one is over 600 calories of goodness. It's a giant meringue base
covered in whip cream and strawberries in syrup with grated dark
chocolate over the top.

I think I might have burnt out the beaters trying to whisk it into
stiff peaks. It's really time I get a stand mixer.

Megan made a beef roast for dinner this evening. It had coriander
seeds on the outside. Tgey make for such a good taste. It was so
delicious. I finally got to use my silver roast serving tray and my
new electric knife, which (e:mike) got me for Jesus' birthday. They
really do work like magic.

I think I wrote about this once before when they were on sale but
called Buddha's fingers. I don't understand where the fruit is. It
looks like 90% pure rind. Seriously, who pays $14.99 for this. I
think $4.99 sounds like too much -they do look cool though.

Today, youtube came out with a playstation 3 and wii interface that is really well suited for television. I think it is also well suited for the computer as it is really streaminlined and nice.



Sadly, they don't make it available for viewing it on the computer.

But you can make it work on your computer.

The way they check is by checking your playstation 3 user agent. Luckily, you can make your computer pretend to be a platstation.

The playstation user agent is:
Mozilla/5.0 (PLAYSTATION 3; 2.00)

There a lot of different ways to fake your user agent. I am going over how to do it with Safari on mac.

First you need to enable the "develop" menu in Safari. To do this open the terminal application in /Applications/utilties/terminal.app. Then type the following into:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Once you do that, restart Safari and you will see a new "Develop" menu between the "Bookmarks" and "Window" menu. I know its weird because the command says IncludeDebugMenu and then you get a Develop menu, but just trust me. Click on Develop and choose, User Agent-> other from the drop down.

In the box that pops up type the Playstation 3 user agent from above.

Then visit the new youtube TV interface:
http://youtube.com/tv

Remember to switch back to the default safari user agent when you are done using the same menu.