Text Books are a Rip Off!

An envelope that brought a low-cost college textbook through the mail.

Caroline’s Macroeconomics college textbook came in the mail today. Not from some overpriced publisher but as a used book another student no longer needed and was smart enough to part with. What a horrible disservice to our nation’s ability to rise up from ignorance, that the required materials for an advanced education are a huge profit center for corporations. Harry Potter will sell for as little as $17 while this Macroeconomics textbook lists at $121.95 (88 Euro, 59 Pounds, 14,790 Yen, or 4,900 Rupees that is 300 Rupees more than the average monthly income in India), oh but wait, the book has recently been discounted and is now only $85.36 at Amazon.com – I’ll take two.

Does It Fly?

A wing from a Cessna attached to an emo's rice burner

From those guys at Blendtec and their popular “Will it Blend?” series of viral videos comes a new as-of-yet unannounced program entitled “Will it Fly?”. Seems they have brought in the services of a professional Emo who is outfitting various cars with wings from a Cessna, an F-16, a barnstormer, a hang glider, a Fokker Red Baron Triplane, and the dare-devil-you-ain’t-seen-nothing-yet 197-foot wide wing from a new 787 Dreamliner attached to a CRX Turbo modded Honda “whip”. Sorry guys for the spoilers, but I hate these winged wonders, even if they do prove to fly.

What We Eat

A weeks worth of food Caroline and I will eat at home. The items are all vegetarian as Caroline is veg, although I am not, we only cook vegetarian at home

Inspired by the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel, I took today’s photo to show what Caroline and I will eat in a typical week, minus restaurant visits. Our food costs for grocery shopping are about $120 per week which does not include meat. With Caroline being a vegetarian I have found it easy and satisfying to only cook vegetarian meals at home. When my meat craving strikes I go out. What foods are pictured and what we will eat over the coming week are as follows:

Homemade pomegranate syrup (used for making Fesen Jan), cauliflower, Napa Valley Grapeseed Oil, Bates & Schmitt Apple Balsamic Vinegar, fresh mint, fresh thyme, sweet butter from Spain, goat and water buffalo yogurt, flaxseed oil, orange juice, collard greens, cashews, pine nuts, currants, celery, Roma tomatoes, limes, jalapenos, brown eggs, fresh corn, red bananas, Himalayan pink crystal salt, chipotle chilies, walnuts, organic pasta, Kala chana (black chickpeas), red onions, nectarines, green beans, margarine (used for making Ethiopian flavoring), Nanak paneer (Indian cheese), tofu, bell peppers, carrots, cilantro, potatoes, pattypan squash, soy kielbasa, Sprecher soft drinks, brown rice, fresh coconut, blueberries, green peas, gobi mix (Indian cauliflower dish), vegetable Tawa mix, vegetable biryani mix. Most of our fruits and veggies are organic. Missing from the photo are curry leaves, fresh dill, parsley, strawberries, Thai green chilies, yellow split peas, and homemade sauerkraut.

So, what does one make with the above? Here are some of the planned dishes:

Herbed rice with currants marinated in oil, thyme, and balsamic vinegar

Yellow split pea stew and gomen (Ethiopian-style stew and collard greens)

Fesen Jan with tofu and veggies (Iranian pomegranate and walnut dish)

Vegetable Tawa (a veg dish from India)

Vegetable Biryani (rice dish from India)

Sauerkraut and sausage

Kala Chana dal and gobi (dishes from India)

Smoothies or eggs with veggies for breakfast, dinner leftovers for Caroline’s lunch.

Buy Now, Or I’ll Punch You

An inflatable Mexican Professional Wrestler, wrestling in Mexico is known as Lucha Libre, is on display at a local car dealer in Phoenix, Arizona

A local Phoenix, Arizona car dealer has the bright idea that if he features this bigger-than-life Lucha Libre inflatable superhero that more people will stop and buy cars. Lucha Libre in Mexico is what is known on this side of the border as professional wrestling. So, just what is it that motivates someone driving by to register: Hey, there’s an inflatable Lucha libre man and at the same time they are selling cars, I think I have to stop and maybe buy one. Personally, I stopped because I thought this was from a new Japanese anime series and might be the hottest new thing in Mecha.

Bighorn

Big Horn Sheep on Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

While up on Mt Washburn early in our trip to Yellowstone, we passed a large herd of bighorn sheep near the summit. Still clad with partial winter coats, these sheep could not have been any more relaxed. My temptation to walk up and pet one was tempered by some semblance of understanding that these wild “strong” animals would probably simply knock me off the 10,000-foot mountain I was currently standing on had I gotten too close. Yeah, sure, I admit it, I had the same lame idea about the bear.