cake and icecream

When you bake something, you have to remember all of the ingredients. Leaving something out can be the critical error that turns whatever was being made into something inedible. Baking is a science, and compared to cooking, it is an exact artform. there are so many variables to choose from before the desired result can be made. Living in a higher altitude can make things tricky if certain steps are overlooked. Take a cake for example: baking may take less time, and may require more liquid to make it turn out like a cake by the time you take it out. Certain element are adjusted to create what was desired. By following a recipe anyone has a good shot of reproducing what was intended to be made. Most recipes are the product of trial and error. By the time all of the kinky are ironed out, there is a messy kitchen full of burnt, exploded, gooey, and melted cakes.

sometimes its more important to decide what the intended result will be rather than understand which steps are needed to get there.

I always forget to turn the oven off.

paid programming

Saturday morning cartoons are an important part to a child. Getting up early, at the crack of dawn to watch thirty minutes of pure cartoon action was a weekend ritual. Cartoons were hilarious, but it always seemed like the good shows were cancelled for no reason at all. Trying to find these shows was made easy with the arrival of DVD collections, but to me it just isn't the same anymore. Watching the He-man DVD made me realize that the show was crap, there was now plot, inconsistencies and the only reason I watched it was because I fit perfectly into the age demographic.

Saturday morning cartoons have two main goals: to advertise for toys, and to make you buy as much sugar coated cereal as possible. Kids don't even notice what is happening, but they want the toys and they eat the cereal. Back in the 80's it was all about kids playing with Cold War action figures in their backyards and blowing up twigs and the enemy's hidden fortress. That would be followed by a live action shot of a kid falling down or something and a big cartoon tiger or leprechaun giving them the cereal they needed for the strength to do what they couldn't when they fell down. All the advertisement jingles were memorized and are still recognizable years later. Maybe children are being taken advantage of by toy manufacturers. Not everyone can afford to buy everything they see on television. There is always some kid that has the toy you always wanted. Jerk. Eating cereal all day will make you sick. Somehow the thought of Saturday without animated uselessness or carcinogenic corn puffs doesn't sound like Saturday to me.

signs of life

Fish are like furniture. Fish just sit there in their tanks and swim around. Tanks can be big or small. If they had a castle or a plant or something they could go around or in between something like that. i don't know if fish really care for scenery, but they don't do much. When you have a fish for a pet it seems like they are always on the verge of dying. You can't feed them too much or they'll die. Don't move or shake the tank too much or it'll die. If the waiter's too hot or cold it'll die. Direct sunlight will kill it. Take it out of the water and the fish is dead meat. If you don't change the water it'll die. The fish you have right now is probably dying of fish SARS or something. There are so many ways to kill a fish which makes them easier to kill than a plant. Every time I look at the tank I expect my fish to be dead, but my fish has the tendency to float near the top of the water when it wants food. I have to shake the bowl to check for vital life signs. If I lived off of food flakes or pellets I would pretend to die everyday too.

Some fish never die. No matter how often you forget to feed them, they continue to live in their murky green sewage water. Looking at the tank becomes a chore, because it is a reminder of the inevitable fish homicide you are committing. How does that make you feel as a person? That dirty filth with the dying fish is a visible symbol of yourself. The outcome doesn't look too good.

I think I'll stick with a Tamagotchi.

connected

I had a professor that claimed he had access ARPANET back in the 60's. The concept of connecting computers to exchange information was in its infancy, and this old collection of computers would someday become a web of billions of people today. Many take credit for its invention, but I believe, like most good ideas, that it was adopted universally as a way to make sharing information easier. I took this communications class about five years ago, back when most people had just figured out how to email each other, and chat rooms were a way for teenage boys to initiate conversations about sex. Companies began to broadcast domain names on commercials and radio. Everything is a dot.com. universities had banned the use of Napster from network computers because of bandwidth constraints. It was all free music, free movies, and not enough memory to store it.

this is an endless mess of information. I can't stand the junkmail, the pop-ups and spyware that clog the internet today. Apparently my computer can't get enough of it, and I cringe as I slowly watch it melt down and die. I never open emails with attachments, for fear of nuclear holocaust on my hard drive. The problem with a good idea is that someone always has to take it and twist it apart into the unrecognizable shell of what it once was. This was once a medium to communicate, now it is used to take advantage of others.

I can't believe this is all over one's and zero's.

take the train

Public transportation has its advantages. For one, I'm not driving. With recent trends in gas prices sky rocketing, alternative modes of transportation is something that I've seriously been considering. There has got to be a way to get around paying tooth and nail for gasoline. Its hard on the starving student/slacker when everything seems to get more expensive at the same time. I think that we could all do ourselves a favor and give public transportation a chance, or at least figure out if something like that exists in the area. I'm not a major save the earth type person, I think I even litter a little bit, but riding the bus or train would cut down on the traffic and pollution that often destroys the air quality where I live. My area isn't a New York, I don't think that millions of people depend on getting on a subway everyday, but it allows for less traffic and congestion on the roadways. I think that is a good idea. I've lived in places were getting around was a hard thing to do, but people usually figure it out.

while in D.C. I took the subway around the capitol. I thought it was easy enough, though I'm told they can be quite dangerous at night. Watching all the buildings whiz by at blurring speeds was fun.

in the Dominican republic it is common to see Datsun two door taxis filled with people going from one place to another. For a few pesos you could get there and back. In Santo Domingo, I saw a family of four piled onto the back of a small 70cc Honda motocycle. Buses three times the length of a regular bus moved people around in the city. All the vehicles I rode in didn't have seat belts. Over there they have to be a little creative to get around.

hitching rides in the back of pickups and crammed in cars is the only way to travel. I always thought hitch hiking was a dangerous thing to do, but in the virgin islands, it is the only way to get around with out being totally ripped off by the taxi drivers there. You have to point your finger towards town, and after awhile someone will pick you up. I think sitting in the back of an old Honda with a sweaty old man and a German Shepard in my lap is one of the best rides I ever found.

the downside to public transportation is its often crowded, uncomfortable, smelly, and sometimes unpredictable. Getting around can be tricky if your destination is off the beaten path. I think most people are better off car pooling instead. Getting on the wrong bus or train can ruin anyone's day.
believe me, I know.