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Tinypliny's Journal

tinypliny
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05/30/2009 18:59 #48796

Australia
Category: the odes

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metalpeter - 05/31/09 16:08
Well in that case I would have a lot of words more then I all ready do. The real question is does word count in comments count toward total word count. I don't know if it should but at least it should be a stat to go along with comments given and recived.
paul - 05/31/09 13:49
That's interesting. I think on estrip a picture counts as four words based on the file path in the string. I should compensate for that in the new version.
tinypliny - 05/31/09 13:08
Hahaha - yeah, quite ironic huh? :)

Australia is like the entire terrain of US and some tropics concentrated and condensed to one island. I want to visit someday. I was just capturing some of the images that stuck in my mind from Baz Luhrmann's work. :)
jbeatty - 05/30/09 22:58
Btw, I thought a picture was worth a thousand words? This one only seems to be worth four.
jbeatty - 05/30/09 22:52
It looks a lot like the U.S.

05/29/2009 21:05 #48791

The Root of the Matter.
Category: grocery
Earlier this evening, I made a pit stop at PriceRite for Ginger - a tiny piece of it that weighed less than a third of a pound. I think the ominous sign was when the cashier checking out my groceries pointed at the twisted little piece of root and asked me what it was.

Personally, I think no one on this planet should go through their life without getting acquainted with ginger. I was debating the pros and cons of telling her what an awesome seasoning the tiny root makes but I stopped mid-thought when I saw my total bill. I was expecting a bill of less than $10 but I got billed twice the amount:

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I would have walked out without making a fuss about any of this but I felt really ridiculous paying $6.46 for a piece of ginger as big as my thumb! I asked her to re-check. She weighed it twice but the total didn't change. One of the managers ambled over and agreed that it was an unreasonable amount to pay for ginger. After what looked like some super-involved physics and computing research, they found that the scale added more than 2lb to everything.

At that point, I should have just left that ginger piece on the counter, asked them for a refund and walked out. Quite unfortunately, however, my frugal shopping senses kicked in. I noticed that I had paid $6.47 for 3 medium tomatoes. I asked them if they could reweigh the other produce on my list.

For some mysterious reason the manager told me: "I will do the tomatoes but I am definitely not doing the onions!" My mind started meandering toward possible reasons. Did he have a massive allergy to onions? Did the peeling and almost psoriatic red onion skins gross him out? Was he psychologically traumatized by the flavour of onions? Why single out onions? Was he French? I was almost ready to pay this extra $10 to know the answer to this conundrum.

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Moral of the story: Ginger helps you get some refunds but it can't help you solve elemental mysteries.
uncutsaniflush - 05/30/09 17:32
I'm glad to hear that you think they did the right thing and stopped using the scale.
tinypliny - 05/30/09 11:37
To be fair, I did see them shut that checkout aisle (No. 14 near the North St. entrance of the store) after my weighing fiasco.

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that this was a one time error thing or that they have fixed it by now.

Anyway, this is a good reminder to always check grocery receipts/other receipts before gaily sailing out of any store.
uncutsaniflush - 05/29/09 23:04
You should report them to the State of New York for having a bad scale and I would suspect Erie County as well.

They violated your rights as a consumer. Any scale out of calibration should be immediately removed from use until repaired and all items weighed on it should be reweighed on another scale. The assumption is that the other scale is properly calibrated.

I would also complain to Price Rite corporate. :::link::: I would bet that the manager you dealt with did not follow company policy.

Remember if they did it to you, how many other people got false weights from the same scale today. And how many will get false weights tomorrow?

05/24/2009 11:27 #48738

The Confessional Carrot and Apple Cake
Category: eating in
The big confession is that this is my first time baking or even cooking with eggs. The results are surprisingly rather pleasant.

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I really expected some kind of hard sedimentary rock - considering my former eggless ventures but this one sliced pretty easily and didn't stick to the glass.

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Though the recipe called for a truckload of butter ( ), quite possibly, this might be the one of the more healthful cakes I have ever eaten.

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I tossed in a granny smith, some almonds and peanuts in addition to the carrot so it is slightly on the more-moist side. Oh, and I freaked out last minute about using only oatmeal flour so I tossed in some toasted bulghur wheat - the fibre value might have gone up 50% because of that. Hehe

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According to the label on the package, the hens were apparently running around in a carefree manner eating vegetarian organic poultry feed when they produced the light brown eggs that I bought.

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The carrot-tag claimed that they were grown in an "certified" organic environment and the almond-pack says they are from a "green practices" farm. The butter is organic too. The Coop made a killing business out of me yesterday. Hahaha

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The oats were packaged and sold by a ubiquitous brand that has a cheruby and probably gouty old man as its mascot. The bulghur wheat is from Lebanon.

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The peanuts and apple, unfortunately, didn't have any special qualities listed. I am assuming the spices are pretty generic as well.

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As usual, I had no sugar at hand so I used only honey. As a result the cake is very mildly sweet. One slice contains less than 1/2 a teaspoon of honey. If you are looking for a sugar-overload, this is not it.

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I think I might be bringing it to the BBQ tonight (is it still on?)



Notes:
(e:Terry): Less eggs
(e:leetee): More flour.
(e:Paul): Ripe bananas
(e:libertad): More honey
James (I think or was that Robert?): Dates as a binding agent

I love you all. :)
heidi - 05/29/09 22:34
[green with envy]
tinypliny - 05/25/09 12:00
Thanks (e:metalpeter)! That humongous camera was like a gym weight. No wonder (e:southernyankee) has such a well-defined and toned upper arm. ;) (e:southernyankee) is so indescribably cool - its hard to put into words how much I loved meeting you Shanille(?)!

I had an enormous amount of fun as well. Thank you so much (e:paul), (e:terry) and (e:matthew) for hosting the BBQ.

One other (e:peep) went from being virtual to real: (e:uncutsaniflesh). (e:leetee), you are such a BIG hoot. I think I might have choked from all the jokes at one point. :)

AND OMG (e:brit) is like a superstar juggler!

I got a lot of good tips from everyone for future baking. I am going to add them to the post. Overall it was a very productive evening. I had so many personal and nice conversations. (e:Matthew), you are officially appointed my culture-politics icon.
metalpeter - 05/25/09 11:33
It was a really Nice time (e:Jenks), (e:tinypliny) was awesome and a lot of fun as usual, she wasn't the only one. She or is that you looked so Natural with that Huge camera. My camera feels so small and week, HA. Seriously though we have different kinds of cameras (me and (e:southernyanke) [maybe I spelled it right]) so comparing them isn't even fair. If I ever take classes for photogrophy that is the kind of camera you want. (e:tinypliny) if that is what you brought I can say it was pretty good.
jenks - 05/25/09 08:26
crap! I thought it was today (monday). Shoot. Sorry I missed it. :( Hope you had fun though!
paul - 05/24/09 12:39
Its today and its still on at 1:00pm.

05/23/2009 00:15 #48726

The BBQs of this planet can take a hike.
Category: eating in
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My Lemon and Coconut flavoured Green Lentil Power Dinner.
metalpeter - 05/23/09 09:48
I have heard of BBQ Vegie Burgers and other thing not sure how that works though
jason - 05/23/09 09:15
Looks, um, healthy. Heh heh.
joshua - 05/23/09 01:25
Wow - very green! I'm sure it was delicious - whatever you bring to a party is always great. If I were making that, I'd have to char the peppers or risk BBQ withdrawal.

05/19/2009 20:46 #48700

What am I eating?
Category: eating in
I have been keeping watch over what I eat for the past two days using the CRON-o-meter. It's an experiment to see if I am eating a balanced diet and where my macro and micro nutrients are coming from. The whole exercise is pretty involved. It's like maintaining a food diary but you get immediate nutrient data read-outs.

[box]On May 18 I had
1. Milk, nonfat, fluid, with added vitamin A (fat free or skim) 3 cups
2. Chickpeas (garbanzo beans, bengal gram), mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt 80g
3. Nuts, almonds 15
4. Apples, raw, with skin 1 large (3-1/4" dia)
5. Chewing gum, sugarless 1 piece 5.4
6. Water, tap, municipal 1.8 liter
7. Bananas, raw 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8"long)
8. Tea, brewed, prepared with tap water 3 cup (8 fl oz)
9. Oranges, raw, all commercial varieties 1 large (3-1/16" dia)
10. Bread, pita, whole-wheat 28.5 g
11. Peppers, sweet, green, raw 40 g
12. Onions, raw 30 g
13. Hummus,c ommercial 2 tbsp
14. Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS 5 g

A total of 963 calories, with 45g proteins, 172g carbohydrates and 16g lipids with around 90% vitamins and minerals.[/box]


[box]On May 19 I had
1. Nuts, almonds 18
2. Apples, raw, with skin 2 large (3-1/4" dia)
3. Apricots, dried, sulfured, uncooked 1 half
4. Dates, deglet noor 3 date, pitted
5. Cookies, oatmeal, prepared from recipe, with raisins 3 cookie (2-5/8" dia)
6. Cream, fluid, half and half 1 container, individual (.5 fl oz)
7. Coffee, brewed from grounds, prepared with tap water 1 cup (8 fl oz)
8. Milk, nonfat, fluid, with added vitamin A (fat free or skim) 2 cup
9. Peanuts, all types, raw 5 g
10. Milk, dry, nonfat, instant, with added vitamin A 4 tsp
11. Chewing gum, sugarless 1 piece
12. Bread, pita, whole-wheat 28.5 g
13. Macaroni, dry, enriched 16 g
14. Mustard Greens and Vegetable Saute 0.75 of full recipe
15. Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS 5 g
16. Water, tap, municipal 1.8 liter

A total of 1476 calories, with 65g proteins, 254g carbohydrates and 31g lipids with around 100% vitamins and minerals.[/box]

Strangely, I have begun to feel guilty every time I eat a random almond or down a cookie just because I am recording them all in the software. It will be really interesting to see whether my diet actually changes because I am watching it.

In other news, I am volunteering for a cancer prevention campaign called "Spit for the Cure" on June 13.

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My department at Roswell is collaborating with Susan G. Komen's race for the cure on June 13, 2009 at Delaware Park Rose Gardens. We are hoping to recruit as many people from the community as possible to donate their spit (saliva) for cancer prevention research at this race.

If anyone is interested in participating and giving 15 minutes of your time and spit for a noble cause, this is a perfect opportunity! :) Swing by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute's Spit for the Cure tent on June 13 from 7:30 AM to 1:00PM.
pmrk - 06/10/09 17:06
I'll be participating in the event and will try to stop by the tent to give some spit.
libertad - 05/23/09 10:02
I'll see if I can come and spit for you on the 13th. Your dinner looks good but certainly can't replace the BBQ in my opinion. I like to BBQ veggies too especially mushrooms.
tinypliny - 05/21/09 02:12
@(e:libertad): It would be wonderful if you could come around to our collection tent on June 13th!! If not, I can ask my advisor if I can come around to collect your spit. :)

I know. My eating habits border on the "crszy".

@(e:metalpeter): Good point. I wouldn't know how much an ice cream is and it does take a lot of fun out of it. However, the point of the exercise is developing a fair idea about how much nutrient value you get from everything you eat. I do think that keeping a record will alter my eating habits. I am hoping that they change for the better.

If you think about it, this sort of record-keeping does not mesh well with eating with wild abandon. Maybe, in this day and age of an obesity and poor health epidemic, what we all need is a cognizance of what we are actually eating.
metalpeter - 05/20/09 18:11
The thing about doing this is that, I don't think there is any way that it is really correct. The reason I say that, it the recording of what you eat does effect what you eat. Say for example a go grab a big bowl of ice cream, how on earth am i going to know how much ice cream that is. Ice Cream is something you eat for pleasure so measuring it takes a lot of the fun out of it. I know it isn't going to be exact but that fact that you are keeping track of what you eat will effect what you eat, hopefully not to much though.
libertad - 05/20/09 18:06
If you want to come and get some spit from me an analyze it just shoot me an email.

I would die of starvation nearly if I ate what you ate in a day.
tinypliny - 05/20/09 09:43
The 2000-2500 kcal "standard" diet intake is standardized for a ~70kg 25 year old male. Everyone's calorie needs differs by their sex, age and current BMI. You can calculate your energy needs here: :::link:::

My calorie needs fall at around 1700 calories. Even by that standard, 963 is somewhat low. That is exactly why I am keeping this diary. I need to correct my random eating habits. This past Sunday, I think my whole diet consisted of raw vegetables and fruits with no balancing staple carbohydrate sources. :/
zobar - 05/20/09 09:01
I thought the standard recommended intake was ~2000-2500kcal? 963 seems frighteningly low.

- Z
tinypliny - 05/20/09 08:06
I am so glad you asked that question. We will be using the spit to extract your DNA and sequence it. Then we will compare your sequence to the sequences of people who have cancer and see if there are any significant differences in the sequences in addition to the normal variation.
This will tell us if there are any specific gene variants that may be contributing to the cancer state.

If we know the gene variants, we can often deduce the function of these variant genes, the proteins they translate to, the effects they have on other genes and on your metabolism. We can identify pathways and targets that can be modified to nullify or accentuate the effect of the gene. These modifications can be either lifestyle changes or therapeutically targeted changes (eg. targeted drugs).

In short, from the results of our research(if our research is successful), if you have the gene variant that makes you susceptible to get cancer later in your life, we can recommend modifications that bring down your risk of developing cancer or bring down your risk to a less aggressive "treatable" cancer.

@(e:James): I know! Self control is the TOUGHEST part!
heidi - 05/19/09 23:45
How does spitting help cancer prevention research?
james - 05/19/09 22:45
I found that site very useful when I was trying to keep my macronutrients at a specific ratio. But, not matter how much I wanted to succeed it is impossible to resist eating a whole avocado.