Cooking for engineers, a great website with a lot of recipes and has gained national recognition (e.g. in Time Magazine). Being an engineer myself I may be biased on the site but in all honestly, it is great! Michael Chu, owner/author of the website says the site name was started on a “whim” and that it is by no means a site “To cook for the purposes of providing engineers with food” or “To instruct engineers in the science and art of cooking”.
My wife cooked me a good dish today… Roasted Tomato and Chickpea curry. I am compelled to share this recipe to the world! … simple and delicious … It comes courtesy of Rachael Ray from her magazine “EveryDay with Rachael Ray” August/September 2006 Edition.
Roasted tomatoes
3 pounds ripe plum tomatoes (about 15 tomatoes)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme Continue Reading »
I have noticed that my newly installed Wordpress Blog has been very slow in publishing a post every single time. 90% of the time, I’ll get a SQL server timeout, SQL related “meta” error or I’ll get the generic Wordpress screen saying that it can’t connect to my SQL Database.
I have traced the problem back to Continue Reading »
Is there going to be more than one Spiderman 3? You can count on it. According to Mr Spiderman himself Tobey Maguire at Comic Con ‘06 last Saturday, it is NOT going to be just only a trilogy and you can be sure that the next spiderman is going to be “open-ended”. Whether or not he is going to be Spiderman past the 3rd installment, that remains to be seen. They are going to have a hard time trying to choose Spiderman’s arch enemies as they are many classic ones e.g. Mr. Sandman, Chameleon, The Lizard etc. Lets hope they (Hollywood) don’t squeeze everything out of the franchise and spoil it. Hollywood has a habit of making good franchises bad.
A mindless, humorous and fun romantic comedy. If you are looking for a light hearted movie, this ones for you. Special effects were a little cheesy but expected with such a movie. It is a Superman meets Fatal Attraction parody.
Uma Thurman plays Jenny Johnson, a lonely and needy superhero that goes crazy (psychotic!) after breaking up with Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson). Ann Faris (Scary Movie) also stars, but with a different role than she is normally used to, playing a more sophisticated sexy female.
This movie shows that even superheros have their “bad” sides and they have negative human feelings like vindictiveness and jealousy - and boy does she show it! Ever wonder how superhero’s have sex? well, you might just have the answer here ;-) . Nothing gross or perverted, just silly humor.
Acting wise, its not one to win the Oscars but hey its not expected to … Uma Thurman plays a good “sexy yet crazy psychotic” female (aka Kill Bill), Matt Wilson is good in his usual “dumb yet trying to play a sophisticated guy” role, Anna Faris is just hilarious looking at her facial expressions, Rainn Wilson plays a good buddy that gives good bad advice and Eddie Izzard is the least likable as I thought he could have played a more “mean” villian.
This could very well turn out to be the funniest movie of a lackluster movie summer.
What is with the influx of animated movies lately and coming up?? Cars, Over the Hedge, Hoodwinked etc. The trend is currently for actors to “lend” their voices to animals, cars etc. for probably millions of dollars. It is just “so Hollywood” to captilize on a trend and milk it for everything it has, make us sick of it and move on to something else. It was the same case with (almost) every movie doing “Matrix” style stunts because it took our breath away when it was done originally…. we got tired of it and they “finally” stopped doing it!
Yes, I am jealous that these actors are getting millions for “talking” and getting probably their easiest payday ever but honestly, it is getting a little too much with the animated movie this year without a “truly” excellent non-animated movie. This has been so far a year without a really good blockbuster movie that I can say stands out above the rest.
Blogcritic.org has said it has been “A good year for animated movies“. Can’t believe it but their article showed and shows that there is going to at least one animated movie (almost) every month in 2006. This CAN’T honestly last for long!
Shows you that when it comes to Cleveland, you just don’t mess with the city unless you know what you are talking about. In relation to an article in Cleveland’s Plain Dealer about the bottled water company FIJI making fun of Cleveland’s water, advertised in the Esquire magazine, it may very well serve them right.
Kind of hilarious that when the Cleveland Water Dept. tested the FIJI water, traces of 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter was found where the national limit is 10 micrograms. FIJI claims that their arsenic testing is less than 2 micrograms but refused to show official documentation. Pretty fishy if you ask me.
Cleveland tap water as well Aquafina, Dasani and Evian supposely have no measurable arsenic. Cleveland is already is touchy about having the bad end of the stick in probably almost everything accept maybe Lebron James and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, you just don’t want to push your luck! As for the president of FIJI, a native of Bay Village (near Cleveland), you might have done this ad in bad taste and may have unknowingly “exposed” your product negatively.
A lot of people are saying that Jurgen Klinsmann is the man for the vacant U.S Soccer coaching job and it should be given to him. Without a doubt, yes but I believe it is more complicated than that. The problem is - Klinsmann himself. In his press conference when he was announcing he was stepping down, he said he was burnt out of coaching. Hasn’t he only been the German coach for less than 2 years? … a very short coaching time indeed to be talking about being burnt out, don’t you think?
Klinsmann is a smart guy (tactically and strategically) but what I question is his coaching longivity and tenacity. Also, he loves the USA mainly because it puts him out of and away from the spotlight. Making him the US soccer coach will probably put him back into the spotlight of the hungry american sports media especially at a time where US soccer is needing a big time media and popularity boost. I would love to see him coach the USA, his tactics and mindset is great and he’ll definitely built up the popularity once again but the big questions is, does he REALLY want it?
I think a better bet would be to hire him as a Technical Director or Advisor to the MLS to help improve the current state of the local league. I think Klinsmann would be great in that role as it is NOT a role where it puts him DIRECTLY into the spotlight.
I have to be honest, but MLS is of a very low quality, boring and I have trouble keeping myself awake when I (try) to watch 90 minutes of an MLS game - it needs major excitement - the US team is not going to be good because it has a good coach, it has to come from within, from young player development, its local leagues etc as the current crop of players are only going to grow older. No disrespect to the current players in the MLS league but if the standard is going to stay as it it, the only way the USA is going to be good in soccer as a nation is that ALL of the U.S national players play in Europe or overseas where the leagues are of higher standards. One example of contrasting skills is Landon Donovan, a flop in a higher skilled leagues in Europe but a so called star in MLS. He can’t adapt to the pace and style of international soccer when playing with other countries. Why? It is because he is a star in a mediocre soccer league.
MLS needs someone like Klinsmann to develop the likes of young players like Adu and co. The rate the MLS is going, Adu and other talented young players will never reach their potential because their skills will never be developed. Klinsmann is a savior but not at the national coaching level.
There is always a first for everything. This is the first time in 15+ years that my computer has failed me while still under warranty. Harddrive failures are a bad thing and it’ll take a week for me to get my notebook back. Nevertheless, it is kind of funny how much we take for granted with something like a computer and email. I feel “naked” and “exposed” without a computer of my own.
To top it all, my daily routine of checking emails in the morning is broken. Habits are hard to break and this one is making me feel extremely weird and as if something is missing from my life. It is likened to going out in public without a watch - not knowing what the time it is - if those of you (who wear watches) out there know what I mean. Thank goodness that my wife has a computer, having to “borrow” it from her to sooth and calm my “urges” and “addition” of wanting to check email and have a computer in front of me. Technology is great and bad…. no matter how much it annoys us at times, we just can’t live without it. This is the modern day technological version of an addiction like “alcoholism”. I call it “NeedtogetyouremaiLISM”.
I think it is only right that NTGEA (or “Need To Get” Email Syndrome Anonymous) should be formed as I believe many are in the same boat I am. I was seriously wanting to go rent a computer or buy a computer just to have it for 7 days and return it but the wife and guilty conscience stopped me.
The countdown has begun till I get my computer back …. ummm …. Day 1 gone … 5 more days to go! uuurgh! gotta be strong …. gotta be stong …. I can do it! I can just see myself on day 6 at the door waiting for the FEDEX man to bring my computer. I know all of you are probably saying and thinking what a sad and pathetic man I am … but I can’t help it … I have two diseases called “NeedtogetyouremaiLISM” and “CannotbewithoutacomputerLISM”. I bet most of you have it too!
Congratulations to Italy winning the world cup. Never thought they would win it with penalties with their dreadful history in missing penalties in shootouts. Pity Zidane had to end his international career with a red card. However saying that, I didn’t really want to see the world cup final team win on penalties. It was one too many nations winning on penalty shootouts in this world cup if you ask me. I don’t necessarily think that the team winning on penalties is the better team - when it comes to penalties, it is not about skill anymore, it is about luck and the team that loses is ths the team that is unlucky enough to miss - they might as well just flip a coin to see who wins. However, someone has to win, someone has to lose and the match has to end somewhere. I stand by my opinion - this was not a very exciting world cup! … it didn’t really live up to the world cup of yesteryears. I can’t wait till the next world cup as this one was dreadful in my mind.
