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An oldie but I do have to admit it is one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken. I love the colors as the sun sets behind the clouds. I took this on my trip to Cuba in 2005.

You know Amazon has it all when they start selling caskets online, and they are relatively cheap I assume. You can also get 50% of casket furniture with coupon code CASKET69. I’ll take mine with a sofa, a reading lamp, and oh how about an alarm clock radio I case I ever need to get up. Now, I understand the need to expand business offerings, but caskets from Amazon…that’s just too creepy.

It’s funny how customers also bought a shovel to go along with their caskets. I guess in this tough economy you have to do it yourself and bury the deceased in your backyard to save on cemetery costs. I for one would rather be mummified.

casket, amazon, product, funny

What’s with all of the vampires? Recently they seem to have made it back into mainstream culture. Its seems that a society which once shunned science fiction movies and television shows is craving them more and more every day. Vampires however seem to have made the biggest hit. There’s the twilight book series and movies, which altogether seems to ignore most of the vampire tenants introduced by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. There is True Blood, which sucks away all of the finesse and class which has become the widely accepted vampire way while substituting it with something reeking of the CMT channel, lastly there’s Moon Light on Sci-Fi. Lets not even talk about Moon Light. As one would expect from sci-fi programming, the acting and plot are atrocious. I almost forgot about the Underworld trilogy and the less famous Blood and Chocolate. I have to admit, I am a fan of Underworld.
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Yesterday was Mifflin day (the day the Mifflin Block Party) is held. I woke up around 9:45-ish to go to the farmer’s market down in capitol square, with Mike, Mady, and Erica. I was expecting to buy some fresh fruit to eat, but that didn’t happen. Apparently its Spring, and well fruit just aren’t ready in the actual spring. That is to say, that in Florida we are accustomed to having freshly grown fruit year round because of the warm temperatures, hence not experiencing 4 seasons, or spring for that matter. Anyways, there was a lot of honey, jams, and freshly baked goods. I couldn’t contain my craving and had to get a humongous cinnamon roll. The farmer’s market is a big deal around here, there are young and old alike, set to the floral spring background that accentuates the capitol building. After the farmer’s market we stopped by Jamba Juice. This was my first time getting anything there since I usually opt for the unhealthy frapuchinos at the conveniently close Starbucks that seem to be established near jamba juices back home. I opted for an original sized Strawberry Whirl with a Calcium power boost. We all joked around a bit how they should offer a $20 Tamiflu power boost to combat against Swine Flu, since Erica’s brother had been tested positive for it and her entire family was under voluntary quarantine and taking Tamiflu. On our way back we saw Ryan biking to Mifflin.

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About a month ago or so my neighbor and I signed up for the Wisconsin Entrepreneur 100 hour challenge, in which we were given $15 worth of our choice of UW-SWAP items to create something: creative, innovative, or artsy. We started off with this vacuum chamber, an old analog balance, and several pieces of chemistry glassware. We had decided on making a Rube Goldberg machine in which a diet coke and mentos reaction inside the vacuum chamber would release the gas and cause a ping-pong ball to shoot up a thick buret like cylindrical tube and start a series of other actions which would in the end cause a light to turn on. Needless to say that there were several unfortunate accidents in which the large buret like cylinder shattered. We gave up and kept the pieces. I stayed with the vacuum chamber, a 240V electric motor, and a distillation flask which I now use to water my plants…yes people look at me weird when I go fill it up in the bathroom.
The vacuum chamber sat in the way for some time, until after reading the lifehacker RSS feed the other day I got the idea to make it into a terrarium. So today after work I went into the woods with several bags looking for moss, rocks, bark, and some dirt. After several strange looks from people as I dug and bagged my materials I finally had everything I needed. I headed back to the dorm and built my terrarium. Below is a gallery of the finished project.

This commercial comes on several times on NBC during Heroes every Monday. I just can’t help but laugh when Abraham Lincoln rips of his shirt and you see his eagle tattoo. Even funnier is the part they freeze the video on as the letters appear on screen, where Abe is holding two sticks while showing his scrawny musculature.

Yesterday was free art friday at the Union, so a group of us decided to go and paint some flower pots, which we would get flower bulbs for. Last time I had gone, which was for stained glass night I really had no desire to go, but I was guilted into it. I got there expecting some cool watercolor tye thing or acrylic painting on actual glass. No such luck! We were given a piece of translucent fiberglass (a small piece btw) which we were told to draw on with colored pencils. After which it was put in an oven and heated. When the fiberglass rectangle was heated it shrunk, solidified, and gained some depth.

Due to my lack of desire to be there and lack of creativity, I decided to draw an exploding bear. My drawing continued to become less socially acceptable when I proceeded to write the words “Sometimes Bears Explode & God Cries BLOOD.” This of course was inspired by the popular poster of Domo Kun chasing after a kitten with the words “Every time you masturbate… God kills a kitten.”

This week I decided to continue the trend of social innaceptability, and pain my pot in societ colors. The bottom was red, the trim yellow, and it sported the communist soviet insignia of the sickle and hammer. I also decided to draw a missile, and write “Вырасти за коммунизм” or “Grow for communism.” My parents would certainly not approve of this, having been able to escape communism to give me a better life. Heck, I hate communism much more than any normal person would, having spent 7 years of my youth in Cuba. I know what communism is. I know that communism sucks!

After I was done painting the pot, I proceeded to plant the flower bulbs in it. There were daisies and tulips. I planted 2 tulips and a daisy. Hopefully the daisy turns outto be yellow, and the tulips red, so that they could match the communist motif of the pot.

Today I needed to buy a book (Blues People by Amiri Baraka) I have to read for my ethnic studies comparative literature class. I had waited so long to get the book, considering I need to have it read by Tuesday, that the only place I would be able to get it on time was Rainbow Bookstore. This was the bookstore the professor has ordered the book at. I took the 80 bus down to the Humanities building, then walked down State Street headed towards the capitol. Rainbow Books was near State and Gilman, which is about halfway between campus and the capital. Before I left I made a note to try to find Dobra Tea, a tea house in downtown Madison that sells matcha. Last semester I wanted to try out matcha and upon doing a search I found that Dobra was the closest place that sold it. I had walked down State many times trying to find it as I passed and funny enough it had been right under my nose. Anyways, after buying the book I decided to stop by to try matcha.

I went in and was given a small menu book which had a brief history of the tea house, with the preceding pages having the teas they offer separated by country of origin. With the book came a bell, which I was instructed to ring if I had any questions or when I was ready to order. I thumbed through the pages, already knowing what I wanted but deciding to make sure it was on the menu. I rang the bell, and ordered the Matcha Kyoto. I started reading the book as my order was prepared. I was expecting to just get the tea made like one usually gets at regular places. However, to my surprise Dobra takes their business seriously. The weighter (for lack of a better word) attending me sets up a stool opposite me and brings out a tray with a tea kettle, chasen, chawan, chakin, chaire, chashaku and three small leaf shaped cookies. He asked me if I had had matcha before, I replied that I hadn’t and he began to explain the tea ceremony procedure which traditionally goes with matcha in Japan. He explain that matcha is usually served at a Japanese tea ceremony which is usually an all day affair, but that at Dobra they had adapted it to give their customers the experience.

He began by cleaning the bow as it is traditionally done; by taking some of the hot watter from the kettle and slushing it around the chawan with the chasen. He then emptied it into a pot, and began cleaning the chawan with the chakin, after which he scooped up 2 scoop fulls of matcha with the chashaku and placed them in the chawan. He then took 2 ladle fulls of water from the kettle and dripped into the chawan. He then took the chasen and began whisking the matcha until it was frothy and green. Upon finishing he grasped the chawan gave it a turn, and handed it to me. I took a sip, and it was great. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, and attention Dobra gives their teas.