and who woulda thunk it, we found nuttin'.

"The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons."

You mean our president made us go to war under false pretexts? I can't believe it. But, at least, the country is rid of one very evil man [size=s](and thousands and thousands of innocents)[/size].

On another note, the United States Of Europe is making headway on its constitution. The EU Parliament has endorsed the document and now it will be sent to the 25 member-nations for ratification, several by referendums. Personally I can't decide if this whole EU is a good or bad thing. I am glad that it's giving the US another super-power to recon with (one with many positive differences to boot), but I hope that it doesn't end up homogenizing the diverseness that makes the individual countries so great, and hope that the real progressive social movements don't get hog-tied by the corporations that will also have freer reign within the Union.

Yes, a bit strange sounding. You'd be surprised at how yummy cinnamon is in seemingly unsuitable foods, spaghetti sauce for example (the recipe for which I borrowed from (e:Paul) 's nonna). This time it wasn't my intention however. I went to the coop to get some various flours in order to make a gluten-free pot pie. (e:Matthew) was just given a GF recipe book (The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods ) as a gift from one of his employers. It describes how you can combine all these other types of flours in different ways to achieve results similar to cooking with wheat products. Back at the coop, I was disappointed to find that they had not one flour on my list (which included tapioca, potato, and white rice flours). WTF? So the best I could come up with was this pre-mixed GF pancake and waffle mix, whose ingredients were very similar to the flour I was supposed to mix, albeit with a few extras, such as cinnamon and "natural flavors" (which I think are other spices in small doses).

So I got home and went to work. I had to finagle a bit, but then I never can seem to stick to recipes anyways, so I did what I normally do. I let my cook-intuition guide me. I stirred until the batter seemed about the right consistency, added the couple ingredients that were called for but lacking in the packaged mix, and voila! It came out pretty good if a little strange. Everything was about the right consistency (though the crust tasted and felt more like cornbread than pie crust) and the overall effect, once you became used to the salty/sweet synergy, was pretty neat.

Does anyone know where to get these weirdo GF flours? Maybe Wegmans? Or Feel-Rite?

we ((e:matthew) and (e:I)) went to see a movie. It was random. Pretty good. I have a picture as proof.




Now it's Saturday night, and I wonder what's on the menu. Just made some smash-ed potato-es. With garlic, parmesean, rosemary and dill, set to music of course. Tasty, as are many products which strive to utilize as many separate dairy products as possible. I've gotta change my userpic, it's starting to freak me out. So, anyone have any last minute suggestions for an awesome Buff-nite-out? Or in for that matter?

It's been awhile. Except for my erroneous post about the elephant, over two weeks in fact. I've been away from the computer a lot, and been engrossed with house guests and Dragonball Z (I found out I could download all the episodes auf Deutsch). I'm also lost in some new boring state of mind. The new place hasn't helped, in fact, I think the new ultra-comfort level may be making it worse. Why ever leave such a nice cozy space? I'm struggling with all the normal problems. What should I be doing with myself? Should I be doing something with myself at all? What is something? Should it mean something? Open-mindedness can lead you down a bewildering road. I've become so open-minded that I have trouble drawing any kind of conclusions. Especially when it comes to myself.

I always feel that something's got to change. I feel this way almost constantly, and have for years now. But looking back, things have changed. I've moved between places (cities, states, countries, continents), between friends, between different ways of looking at life. I've considered myself a student of math, music, politics, and science. I've tried-out a couple different relationships, and even altered the basic unit of a relationship. And after all that, I'm still looking for something.

The guy sitting behind the couch tells me now that the problem is that I'm trying to alter my environment when what I should be altering is myself. I agree to a certain extent. Maybe I'm set in this pattern of searching for a perfect world that I'm just not ready to find. Maybe I've been sitting in it for years and haven't been able to recognize it for what it is. Maybe. But maybe there really is some other type of experience that is out there waiting for me. I don't believe in destiny, but I do believe in infinity, which means there's always going to be many more experiences out there than I can possibly fit in one lifetime. And it comes back to the decision, which I'm so bad at, making a choice. So I slide along, waiting for things to bump me into new ruts, and never taking the wheel in my own hand.

when you have this:



In Aceh, India the elephants are helping with the relief effort. Wow.