The Brainzester

Tuxtla Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 19:42:00 +0000

After our adventure in Palenque Nitivia and I caught a bus to Tuxtla (Tooxla) Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico to visit the zoo. We had heard about the zoo while staying in Antigua from a guy named Bill who ran a book store and we decided, hey we don't have anything else to do so lets go to Tuxtla and visit the zoo.

Tuxtla itself is the capital of Chiapas and isn't a tourist destination by any stretch of the imagination. We intended to splurge on a hotel with a pool so we could spend a day relaxing by the water only to find the owners of the Tuxtla Best Western (the highest rated hotel in Tuxtla) used every camera trick in the world to turn their wading pool into an olympic tree lined resort destination...

Misadventures with the hotel aside the zoo in Tuxtla is well worth a detour from whatever route you have planned for a visit. Composed of only indigenous Chiapas animals the zoo is EXTENSIVE. We actually got to the point where we didn't want to see any more animals, just leave. While wandering around the paths you actually felt like you were walking through the jungle and peeking into small clearings that just happened to have animals lounging around. Possibly the best part is you see some animals lounging in an enclosure then you start walking and see more of them running around on the path!

Anyway on with the pictures!

I have never had so much trouble trying to explain how to look through a hole and click a button to someone before...

White tail deer. I find it pretty amazing that the most common type of deer in north Idaho is also the most common type of deer in Chiapas, Mexico

Quetzal. The national bird of Guatemala. Supposedly if you put one in a cage it will die, which is why it is a symbol of freedom. Clearly this superstition isn't true but when has that stopped someone from believing in superstition?

More of the Quetzal. This is what Nitivia is going to get a tattoo of to represent her time in Guatemala.

Dragonfly!

I don't remember what this little bastard is called but he stank!

One thing I love about Mexico is that you need to have self control. I totally could have just stuck my hand in there if I wanted to.

There were at least a zillion turtles in this zoo.

This bird had no fear. I almost stepped on it like 5 times while walking around the aviary.

The most active animal I have ever observed in a zoo before (Vested Anteater).

Macaw's. They are loud and colorful. I don't know why anyone would want to keep a bird as a pet but these are almost extinct because people steal their eggs to sell as exotic pets.

GIFS!

The Vested Anteater was just running around eating stuff and being adorable.

We saw some people eating fresh coconut so we asked for one and we got one! It was delicious to suck fresh, luke warm, syrupy, white goo from something...

King Vulture! It was hard to get a good photo of this guy but he was huge! I wouldn't want to mess with one.

Palenque

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 16:46:00 +0000

One of the most influential Mayan ruins sites is in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. Apparently, it's very important as it was one of the centers of the Mayan culture and where they did all their astronomical calculations. Although most of the site isn't revealed yet it offers you a nice way to see a jungle then ruins.

If/when you go see Palenque there are some things to be aware of. One, it is a big tourist location so people will try and rip you off. We were lead astray by the woman at our hotel into buying a "package" to tour the ruins only to find it was basically just a chauffeur service. You can get a shuttle from Palenque City to the ruins for a couple of peso's then get a tour guide at the entrance (highly recommended, our tour guide was awesome and we learned a lot).

Anyway on with the photos!

Once we made it to Palenque we started off with about an hour long tour on the jungle region around the ruins.

The jungle is absolutely gorgeous. We didn't even run into any mosquitoes!

The ficus here actually starts in the canopy and drops down the tree to the ground completely encasing the tree as it goes.

Red means delicious not poisonous.

Nitivia giving us her best Jane of the Jungle impression.

These little bastards actually have little hairs that drive the thorns deeper into your skin and help the plant resist being removed.

After we got through the jungle we made it to the Mayan ruins.

The first glimpse of the ruins as we leave the jungle.

The hill in the background isn't actually a hill but a ruin that has yet to be excavated.

Someone couldn't wait to get back to the hotel to sleep.

From the top of one of the ruins.

Hold my purse, I have to drop a deuce.

All the hallways in the ruins have windows at each side and the hallway is coated in a white plaster that reflects light so you can have a well lit living area all day long without electricity.

The highest point!

After leaving the ruins you aren't done yet! There is still a really awesome museum that showcases the artifacts removed from the tombs and some of the stonework removed from the sides of the ruins.

The tomb of the really important Mayan guy.

It was massive!

On the way back down to the parking lot there are some really pretty waterfalls and wildlife.

Leafcutter ants being bitching awesome.

Look at us being all pretty together.

Lake Atitlan

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 16:13:00 +0000

Our room in the woods!

The view out our front window.

Nitivia and I got to stay at a sweet cabin in the woods at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala where we rested, relaxed, got drunk, and slept under a mosquito net!

The bed (above the previous image)

It was a nice experience overall staying out in the woods. Probably the best part was the bathroom overlooking the valley.

The Bathroom.


Everything the light touches, you can stare at while you poop.

Updates!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:31:00 +0000

Nitivia and I are alive! I am currently updating the old posts with pictures then I will be working on writing up the stuff we have been seeing since last time.

Antigua

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 20:14:00 +0000

N and I have been super busy but we finally got a chance to take a little breather and stop by the Internet cafe and check on the digital life. I am still working on posting photos. We managed to get a USB cable from a guy on the street (you can buy anything you want from a guy on the street here) but it turns out buying a cable from some guy on the street doesn't guarantee the cable will work.

Antigua sure is an interesting place. It would take too long to describe everything so here are some highlights:

While waiting in line to go to the bathroom (baño, it´s important to learn these words) I got to chatting with a Guatemalan man. After about 5 minutes of waiting he says "come with me" and we wander outside. Then he gestures me near him beside a car and says "in Guatemala you pee on cars" and we bonded while peeing all over some car on the side of the road.

We met up with one of N's friends here a 72 year old masseuse, grandma, activist, sweet lady who isn't afraid to drop an F-bomb or 20. We had a great chat over food and a couple of beers then she took me to a big fancy hotel where we walked through the lobby and she told me the history of Guatemala using the paintings on the walls as reference. Then we went and saw a really beautiful view of the city from the top of a hotel/resturant near her house.

Nitivia, Deet, and Scott (in order from left to right)

That's us at her house for a late night cup of tea. She is pretty great and very crazy but then you would have to be a little crazy to be friends with us!

This pool was hot as hell then you got in the cold as shit tub.

N and I decided to splurge a little bit and thanks to N's cousins contribution to the honeymoon we went to a Spa outside of lake Amatitlan. I hadn't ever gone to a spa before but this was a pretty cool experience. We did a circuit of lava spring hot pools where you jump into a 105 degree tub, then a 70 degree tub, 98, 95, then alternate between the 105 and 70 tub a few times (10 minutes each). After the tub circuits we took a steam bath, got a massage, and went swimming for an hour. I don't know if that what spas are supposed to be like but it's fun to go (although I wouldn't say it´s worth going more than once every few years).

Looking all relaxed after falling asleep during her massage.

I was clearly born for life of luxury but thanks to my parents I was forced to live without terrycloth robes and volcanically powered pools.

Harvest time!

Today we went on a tour of a coffee farm outside of town through a local NGO called "As Green As It Gets" which helps the local farmers combine their crops for easier exportation and sale in foreign countries. I had no idea it took so much work to grow coffee! It takes 3 years for a coffee bush to begin producing fruit and it won't hit it's prime until it's 10 years old! then the bush will begin to decrease production until it needs to be replace at between 15 and 25 years. Once a bush begins producing you have to harvest the berries by hand because the tree produces berries from the inside to the outside of the plant and the blossoms will fall off easily if disturbed so you can't use mechanical harvesting. Once the berries are harvested you have to strip off the fruit, ferment, wash, wash, de husk, dry, sort, and roast. It takes 10 lbs of berries to yield 1 lb of drinkable coffee. On the plus side at the end of the tour we got to roast, grind, and drink the coffee. You haven´t tasted good coffee until you have drank coffee that you roasted over a wood fire and ground (by hand on a giant stone called a Molina). After the tour we got to eat some really wonderful home made food (thank you Timeteo!) If you are ever in this area you HAVE to do this tour, it was beautiful, educational, interesting, delicious, fun, and a really wonderful way to hike around the jungles of Guatemala.

If you can't guess this is coffee you haven't been paying attention.

The last time I was doing this was when my Mom was forcing me to harvest huckleberries.

This machine lets you ride a bike to strip the outer berry from the bean. The berry goes into a heap to fertilize the coffee field while the bean progresses to the next stage.

The beans dump out into a sack all conveniently like it was intelligently designed.

Fermented, washed, and dried you can either ship these out or roast them.

Roasting the traditional Mayan way. Under that chunk of steel is a wood fire. That room was so hot and smokey but the result was sooo worth it.

Tossing the toasted beans to cool them.

This ancient form of torture is called a Molina and is used to remind you how lucky you are to have an electric grinder at home.

Enjoying the freshly roasted coffee. This was the best cup of coffee I may have ever had.

Timoteo! This guy was one of the highlights of the trip. I haven't had a better tour yet.

(Begin gross story about poop)
It´s inevitable while changing climates and foods to get a little ill and boy did I get a bit sick for a day. I woke up with a slight headache and a rumble in my belly. I thought, oh well just a little ill let´s go out and have some fun anyway! Well let me tell you a thing or two about having intense, black, stinky, bowl shattering diarrhea in a bathroom stall in the middle of a hostel where everyone can not only hear but smell you...

That thing is don't do it.

Seriously, you will get a really grossed out look from people.
(End gross story about poop)

Well there is a lot more and when I have time I will write more (and post photos, I swear!)

The end of Earth Lodge and the Beginning of Antigua

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 31 May 2013 01:23:00 +0000

N and I have officially finished our stay at Earth Lodge on the side of a mountain outside of Antiqua, Guatemala. That place is AWESOME! I will post some pictures later (I actually went to a market to buy a USB cable then left it in the room when I went to the Internet Cafe..)

The bathroom.

N and I stayed two nights in the Earth Lodge Treehouse room. This isn´t some room at the same level as the trees, it is actually a room built into an old oak tree. While laying in bed you reach off to the side and put your cell phone and keys on a table that was screwed into the side of the tree. Across from the bed is an entire wall that is a plate glass window looking out across a huge valley with the volcanoes in the distance. As someone who grew up in the mountains, the view was astounding.

Look at how manly I am!

While not rocking a treehouse (both figuratively and literally) Earth Lodge has a lot to offer. Smoothies made from fresh fruit, the most delicious grilled cheese sandwich I have ever eaten (pan fried in a pool of garlic butter), crazy and friendly hippies, dogs and cats to pet, and some really interesting people to talk too. In front of the main lodge area you can lay in a hammock and read a book on the edge of the mountain, hike through local corn fields to the top of the mountain, or just sit outside and play pictionary with random strangers.

My attempt at an artsy-fartsy photo.

Each night at 7pm is the family style dinner. Everyone files into the main lodge area and sits around the tables and an absolute ton of food is distributed. Most of it is local cuisine but they also bring out some recognizable dishes (garlic bread or rice) for the less adventurous of us. Both meals I ate there were delightful and I actually found that there is a type of squash I enjoy (at least while fried up with butter and onions) and when tomatoes are fresh and lightly grilled I will eat them all night long.

A bit of the inside of the cabin.

If you are considering a stay in Guatemala you will be doing yourself a favor if you stop by Earth Lodge and stay a few nights. Be warned though, this isn´t a 5 star hotel. You will be roughing it a bit, there are things like giant tarantulas wandering around, and you won´t find a bathroom attached to the room you are sleeping in. I made it without being molested by wildlife and I bet you can too.

The view from just about any point in Antigua

Now that we are done at Earth Lodge we got a ride down the mountain and are currently in the city of Antigua. Antigua is a pretty touristy place but pretty fun so far. All the roads are cobblestone and every building is painted a brilliant shade of color that has no bearing on it´s neighbours. There are people everywhere walking, talking, making out, and wearing some very beautiful and bright clothing.

If you look closely the water shoots out of the statues tits. ALL the fountains in Antigua shoot water from tits.


Its not sexy unless you do it in public.

We haven´t done too much since getting in besides chores and eating giant sandwiches (picking up a SIM chip, banking, etc.) but we did get to visit the local market. HOLY CRAP! The market is intense. You will be walking along a narrow hallway where every good, food, and thing you can imagine is being sold. Of course you can barter with the good natured mercantiles and they seem to enjoy the activity (although I am pretty sure I have over paid for everything I bough there). I picked up a switchblade for 10 bucks (you never know when you have to stab someone), and I managed to buy a belt since walking around a city with one hand holding up your pants makes you look like a pervert.

I have to say that so far I am loving Guatemala. The people are nice, everything is super cheap, the food is wonderful, and the scenery is beautiful. I hope people visit!


All I wanted to do was eat that sandwich and she made me take a picture...

Mmmm Sandwich

(Todays Rant Begins Here)

TRAVELLERS CHECKS SUCK! Do not ever buy, use, think about, talk about, wonder about, or consider using travellers checks. I spent a grand total of 2 hours of my day today sitting in banks while people attempted to turn my travellers checks into money while ATM´s that will accept my debit card flash wondrously behind me. One lady told me she could only accept 3 ($100 increments) had me sign them, then told me the line was busy and to come back 3 hours later. We did so only to have her tell me she still couldn´t call them (American Express) despite me, not 10 minutes earlier, turning in some travellers checks at a bank down the road. That bank, of course, only took 2 of my checks... So now I have 3 useless travellers checks (you can only cash them in if you sign them in front of the person you are giving them to) and no Quetezales (the local currency).

Seriously, what is the fucking point of these things? It costs 1% of your total to buy travellers checks and international banking fees on a debit card are 1%. There is literally no point to travellers checks. AND to top it all off N told me not to buy them so now I have to start my marriage off by admitting she is right! This can´t bode well...

I think tomorrow I am going to call American Express and told them they were all stolen so they will deposit the money back into my checking account so I can use my debit card. Just don´t tell N...

(Todays Rant Ends Here)

Traveling to Guatemala and getting to Earth Lodge

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:50:00 +0000

Nitivia (hereafter referred to as N) and I left Reno, NV at a wonderful 7am in order to get on our 9am flight to San Francisco, then Houston, then Guatemala.

Little did we know that clouds are a barrier to planes so we were unable to take off from the Reno airport until 1pm. Of course we missed our flight to Guatemala so we ended up staying in Houston! On the plus side we got to fly between San Francisco to Houston on a new 767-300 with our own TV's with touch screens that we got to pick our watching pleasure for free (I watched "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "Pineapple Express," both movies you should check out).

(Begin Rant)
United was kind enough to tell us where we can find a phone to book hotel reservations but despite our missing our Guatemala connection due to their incompetence as well as the weather. We would have been able to fly out on another flight if they had announced the one were were on was delayed (at 1pm when we boarded it was still listed on the board as EARLY), or had enough people working the counter (1 person for the 50 re-bookings they had to do) we could have re-booked on the direct flight to Houston and made our connection. So don't fly United they are not only incompetent but rude. When I mentioned the board still had the incorrect information and gate listed and maybe they could change it or announce flights were being delayed over the loudspeaker the United "Customer Service" Representative told me to "mind your own business." N and I actually had to help an old Guatemalan man find the right gate and get on the plane because they wouldn't...
(End Rant)

What can I say about Houston.

Yeah that about sums it up...

We managed to get a whopping 5 hours of sleep and began day 2 of the journey at a sweet-ass 5:45am (apparently when I asked the hotel booking lady on the phone to give me a hotel close to the airport that means 45 minutes away...) Security was nice, the gentleman groping me was courteous and had a nice firm grip.

Our plane managed to take off (flying through clouds today, I guess they fixed the planes can't go through clouds problem overnight). Surprisingly enough it actually only takes 3 hours to get to Guatemala which was pretty sweet.

Once we got to Guatemala we got a shuttle to Antigua and managed to convince the shuttle driver to drop us off at Earth Lodge even though that wasn't part of his job description (it's amazing what money can do for you).

Earth lodge is wonderful. We are staying in a literal tree house which is amazing. You know what the most amazing part is though? I met another IO psychologist here! I haven't run into another IO psychologist outside of a conference yet in my life but I go to a lodge with 30 people in the middle of nowhere Guatemala and HERE IS ONE. I told her to get me a job but I don't think she is going to do that...

This is our treehouse we stayed in. That first building was our bathroom and the building in the back is the actual place we slept!

We took some pictures of stuff but there isn't any way to upload photos here (I think the internet is carried down to town by a guy and a mule). Once we get done with out day of food, relaxation, and making the tree sway we will be heading down the mountain into Antigua where N assures me I can get the SIM card for my phone and an internet connection where we can upload a few photos for ya'll.

Update! Photos of EarthLodge:

The view of the back of the mountain.

This is the actual lodge portion of EarthLodge. In here we ate, drank, watched a movie, read books while it rained, and enjoyed the company of other travellers.

The view from our treehouse.

The view from the lodge. In the back are volcanoes. The one on the right is active and while sitting on the porch you could actually see it belching clouds of volcano spunk into the air.

Open Letter to People at the Grocery Store

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Dear people at the grocery store,

I am glad you have tasty snacks prepared for my enjoyment. If I was dying to try 1/4 of a frozen ravioli that had been microwaved in a small paper cup, I am sure I could manage that feat at home. I am after all in a grocery store, and not in the beer isle, so there is a high probability I can at least microwave things. The first time I walked by and said no thank you, I thought you would understand. The second time (I forgot butter) your insistence was annoying. The third time (what? I can cook not remember everything) I knew you recognized me from the knowing look in your eyes, but you asked me once again. I would like to let you in on a little secret. When I am shopping by myself, and I am wearing headphones (nice expensive noise canceling headphones), this is not an invitation to talk louder. Nor is it an invitation to wave your arms about like a loony (although I kind of liked that). Lastly, it is certainly not my way of saying "get in my way so I have to pay attention to you." Why, oh why, would you do that?

Since I am at it, people who shop with kids, I don't like them. In an effort to help you understand how annoying your kids are to other people I would like to have you perform a small experiment. Take your fire alarm, and tape or glue the test button in the "on" position. Now while that siren is going off just start punching yourself in the face. That is what your children are like to the rest of us. This doesn't even have to apply to the grocery store alone. Anywhere you are--with your kids--remember the face punching and keep them out of my way or I may be forced to microwave them and serve them to other customers in small paper cups.

Sincerely,
Scott

Why are there directions?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:18:00 +0000

If you are too stupid to use the paper ass gaskets without pictorial directions I propose you may be too stupid to avoid pooping yourself on a regular basis.

PUMPKIN DANCE

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:04:00 +0000

Amazon sad

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:58:00 +0000

This morning I went to Amazon.com to buy a book and was shocked to see it on my recommended list. Then I realized all my recommended readings are statistics texts and psychometrics texts...

I am deeply happy and shamed...

Porn Statistics!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:46:00 +0000

I love it when people combine my two favorite things; Statistics and Internet Videos...

Porn Statistics!

Posting from the bathroom AKA why internet on a phone rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:07:00 +0000

It has been nearly a month since I got the internet on my phone and let me say wow I am loving this. For example I am not only on the internet posting a blog but also in the bathroom. Yesterday I uploaded some torrents to my homebox while shopping...

Where does the craziness end? why d035 my ph0n3 h4v3 4n 4U70m47Ic 133r 5133k 8U770n?

With the power of my phone I plan on actually updating this blog....

Samurai Diner

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:56:00 +0000

I love Halloween, hangover eggs and Samurai...

Hiring women in 1943

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:24:00 +0000

1943 Transportation Magazine excerpt

I particularly liked the part about "husky" girls...

Battlestar Galactica (read you sci-fi haters!)

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:16:00 +0000

I just watched the end of Battlestar Galactica (BSG). For those of you that are unaware BSG is a sci-fi show on the sci-fi channel (or is that syfy now?) Anyway, the show breaks almost every pre-concieved notion of "sci-fi." There are no monsters. And there are no aliens. The show is simply about humanity and humanities hubris. The basic plot is that humans technological innovation leads to the creation of robots. The need for more and more complex tasks leads to more and more complex robots. Eventually, the robots rebel and call themselves Cylons. A thousand years after the initial rebellion and subsequent stalemate the Cylons come back and simply wipe out humanity. A few thousand survivors flee through space desperately attempting to stave off extinction.

One of the draws of BSG for me is simply that the show isn't about the robots, or the spaceships, those just happen to be around. The real show is about the people. Who are these people, why do they survive, where are they going? Most of the series revolves around the political intrigues of having a few thousand humans stuffed together in cramped quarters and running for their lives. Fear and doubt lead to riots, Coup d'état, McCartyistic finger pointing, cults, religious persecution, and near genocide on dozens of occasions. Through it all you follow these select few personalities. I have never loved any television or movie character as much as I have loved the BSG characters. They all profoundly change as the series progresses. They are all grey and dirty. They all make mistakes. And they are all distinctly human.

I guess my point here is to say, throw away those notions of Star trek and Star wars. Ignore the idea that sci-fi is goofy rubber suits and terrible lines. Forget that so much sci-fi is corny, hokey, and frankly bad. I love the genre of sci-fi and I feel that I can proudly state that I have watched a LOT of bad tv in my day. More proudly I can say that BSG is incredible. I can easily say that BSG is the best DRAMA to ever be broadcast to your television. By simply saying "it is sci-fi, no thanks" you are simply missing out on something wonderful. The way the series ended had me laughing, and crying. I know that I will miss seeing these characters once a week--and I will miss pretending, for just a hour, that I am one of them.

Graduate Life

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:28:00 +0000

I wish I could say it was far from the truth, or even just a little bit off...

calvin_hobbes_thesis.jpg (JPEG Image, 380x236 pixels)

Public Restrooms, A Discourse

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:48:00 +0000

The thoughts and feelings on public restrooms are varied and intense. Sometimes I love to use a public restroom, and sometimes I dread the thought of dropping a loaf in public. Having recently used the restroom at school for a good pooping--I was contemplating the finer points of public restrooms. On one hand, when I was working and being paid by the hour pooping at work was one of the finest imaginable pass-times. Just think for a second, it is the only time in your life you will be paid to poop. I technically get paid by the hour to work at the university but since my school work and work work are so tied together it doesn't ever seem like I am working. That and the obvious feature of not having a set schedule. So today was not a glorious pay-to-poop opportunity for me.

When I sat down today I was horrified by a warm toilet seat. At home, it is quite pleasant to find that my cat has been sleeping on the toilet, providing a warm place for my bottom. In a public setting however I was horrified at the thought of another man's ass-heat permeating my body. I could feel it crawling into me like an uninvited house guest telling you their plane was delayed for a day. After the ass-heat was swapped for my own--much more comfortable--bubble of ass-heat I unclenched a bit and started to wonder how other people feel about the bathroom. What did the last person think while they were here? Did they read something? What is the etiquette of using a public restroom? Are there unspoken rules about the time you can spend inside of a stall? Who is Sally, and why is she such a good time?

How is etiquette different for men and women? For men we enter a restroom and we have a very important choice before us. Should we use the urinal, or a stall. Obviously if the bathroom use is for number two the choice is elementary. If there is one urinal open with two people flanking, should you use this urinal or a stall? Which urinal do you use if you walk in and no-one is there? I personally find that whenever I am in a multiple urinal situation with no-one in the restroom with me I have a desire to run up and down the line and use all the urinals at the same time. I don't profess to be normal though, so I wouldn't recommend it (plus if you slip and fall while peeing you get all sorts of wet). Oh, and don't even get me started on those troughs. I mean how far apart do you stand from a man you don't know while peeing into a communal bucket??? Can you play swords or Ghostbusters with someone you don't know? How would you even bring that up? "Hey, want to play swords?" What if you are drunk and at the bar, it is okay to play swords then?

Outside of etiquette for selection of stall or urinal, what about those giant rolls of toilet paper. I swear those things have more fiber than a sheet of plywood. No joke, at my old workplace they got toilet paper so cheap it gave me a splinter once. I started to bring my own TP to work. It even got to the point that other people know about this hidden and soft TP; it became a myth and people started asking me to use "the soft stuff." It is strange to know the bathroom habits of all your co-workers. I wasn't as nerdy then as I am now, because today if that happened I would keep track of it in SPSS and make a regression and attempt to predict future bathroom behavior based on past bathroom behavior. You know maybe I will go do that right now, but first I need to go check and see if that seat is still warm.

General Tso's Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:44:00 +0000

After a failed attempt to eat Chinese food--or at least the closest approximation you can get around here--I decided to hit the kitchen and make my favorite fake Chinese dish, General Tso's Chicken.

First up we need to take the chicken and get it ready for the eating. To do this we are going to need a good breading. In the past I have always used flour and salt in a bag, but for this dish I wanted to step it up a notch.

We start out by taking two or three breasts of chicken and cutting it up into nice bite sized chunks of awesome.

Next we take eggs and cornstarch and mix them together. I used two eggs and about a 1/4 of a cup of cornstarch. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

Your mix should be something around the consistency of snot at this point. Then pour the gooie egg snot over the top of all your chicken and mix it up nice. Take this plate of food and set it aside for around 15-20 minutes or so until it gets thick and sticks to the chicken.

While you are waiting for the stuff to stick to the chicken get the rest of the dish prepared. Start out by chopping up some peppers. At the time of writing I only had green pepper types, but red peppers will make your dish look and taste a bit more like a restaurants.

In addition to the peppers you will need to make the sauce. I put in around 1/3 cup soy sauce, 6 cloves minced garlic, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons vinegar, 1/4 cup hoisin sauce, and 1 tablespoon wine. I used generic hoisin sauce that I bought at the grocery store.

Now that you have chicken, sauce, and peppers you are almost ready to add a whole lot of grease to the mix.

Take a plate and put a few cups of cornstarch on it. Then take your chicken, make sure it is covered in egg sauce, then roll it around in the cornstarch until it is covered.

Next, grab a nice deep pan, or wok and add oil. I used vegetable oil but peanut oil would be better. I just poured it in until it got about an inch deep, basically you want it to cover around half of a piece of chicken. Then put the chicken in the pan, one piece at a time, until the pan is full. You don't want the chicken to be touching or it will stick together.

When the chicken starts to brown on one side flip it over.

After it gets brown on both sides take the chicken out of the pan and let it drain on paper towels.

Your chicken should look (and taste) almost exactly like chicken nuggets.

Pour the grease out of the pan, but leave just a bit left on the bottom. Throw in all the sauce and chilies and stir it up nice.

Just keep stirring the sauce until it turns into a glaze-like consistency. Once the sauce is ready put the chicken into the pan and stir it until the sauce is evenly coated on the chicken.

Cutting up some green onions then putting them into the sauce just at the end here would be a nice touch, but I didn't have any...

Serve with some rice and broccoli for a fantastic meal!

Lasagna

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:46:00 +0000

One of my favorite meals of all time - Lasagna.

I believe it started with Garfield and my desire to be a fat orange cat when I got older. In my late teens when I realized I would never be a fat orange cat, my love for lasagna persisted. Having toured the worlds greatest lasagna places (the olive garden, that Italian place down the street, and my Mom's house) I can definitely say that my lasagna rocks. I learned how to make lasagna from my Mom at an early age (I learned most of what I know from her), and once I was on my own I modified the recipe to fit my tastes better.

To start with, this blog post is a little different than the normal. For the most part what I post is stuff I invented, then posted, from stuff I had at home. This time I went and bought the stuff, because I really wanted lasagna. I don't measure or have a recipe anywhere besides my head though, so in that sense it is always an experiment.

First off we need to reserve a hefty amount of counter space to hold all the ingredients.

Like normal, I would suggest having access to some sort of food processor, otherwise this will be a lot of stirring and chopping...

Now that we have deprived a small country of a weeks worth of food, lets begin the delicious cooking journey. I start out by throwing all the meat into a pan (ground beef (2 lbs), Italian sausage (1 lb), and spicy Italian sausage (1 lb)).

While that is beginning to brown whack up an entire large yellow onion, or food processor it. I like to use my food processor at a later stage so I chopped the onion by hand.

Next take a truly obscene amount of garlic, peel, and smash. I realized I have never given out one of my secrets before, so here it is. To peel garlic real easy just cut off the base, give it a light smash with the side of a knife, and squeeze the tip. The garlic will just shoot out. Alternatively, you could make roasted garlic cloves--I will have to put that up here some day--for now you can find out how through Google.

Next up dump all that garlic and onion in with the meat mix. I also threw in a pound or so of chopped mushrooms. I was lazy with this and got some pre-chopped mushrooms. Nothing fancy here, I can't afford better than generic portobello mushrooms. Along with the veggies I put in the oh so yummy spices. This consisted of two tablespoons of ground black pepper, oregano, basil, thyme, parsley, and rosemary. One tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes, half a tablespoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of fennel seeds.

While attempting to stir this all I realized that in typical Scott fashion I had failed to appropriately select the pan size... Using my world renowned dumping skills I managed to transfer roughly 90% of the mix into an appropriate pan. Then I let it get all nice and brown.

To finish the sauce off I dumped in a big ol can of crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. Followed by three dried bay leaves. Next we add the secret family ingredient, powdered milk. About half of one of those packages of powdered milk will do nicely. The powdered milk contains a decent amount of sweetness to really blend the flavors together, and has calcium to take the acidic edge off the tomatoes. Just add it to any red sauce you are making in the future and you will thank me when your friends beg to know how you make such a smooth sauce.

Now that we have the sauce done, it will need to simmer for at least an hour. My favorite thing to do is to simmer for an hour then put in the refrigerator overnight. Letting it sit overnight really gives the spices time to blend together.

While the sauce is simmering we move on to the cheese (there is no rest for the hungry in this dance). Like I stated before I use my food processor for this step, but if you do not own one a whisk, big bowl, and Arnold Schwarzenegger style forearms should do the trick. Combine 3/4 of a container of ricotta cheese and cottage cheese in a food processor. I really think ricotta cheese is too dry so I like to substitute half of the cheese mix with cottage to keep it moist and delicious. Then crack two eggs in there. Now put in around half a tablespoon of all the spices you used in the sauce (except for the bay leaves). next a tablespoon of garlic powder and two tablespoons of onion powder. Blend that stuff up for about ten seconds.

After that I like to add a few cups of spinach to the top. Spinach is great for you and when blended into the cheese sauce no-one will ever be able to tell, and its cheap.

Once you have all that blended together--I usually run it for 45-60 seconds--set it aside for later. I usually just pop the bowl off my food processor and stick the mix into the fridge.

Now we get to make the final cheese layer. This one is pretty easy to make so you can look forward to rubbing that Bengay on your arms if you did this without a food processor. Essentially, take a medium sized bowl and combine cheddar cheese, Colby-Jack cheese, Parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese. I typically do around a pound of each. For the mozzarella cheese I like to cut up string cheese so I have little marshmallow style chunks in my finished product, but this is entirely up to you.

Throw that bowl in the fridge as well and wait for the sauce to be done.

Oh goodness that looks good...

Remember to fish around inside your sauce at this point and retrieve the bay leaves, throw them away. If you forget to retrieve the leaves someone is going to get a very bitter surprise :)

I like to turn off the heat to my sauce at this point and let it settle while I make the noodles, that way it isn't too hot while you are combining everything, and it will minimize burns.

If you are like me you will instantly select the worst possible pan for the job of boiling water and cooking the noodles.

I like to cook my noodles in salt water with a splash of vinegar. Vinegar will prevent the starch from breaking down in your noodles and prevent them from sticking together. Olive oil will NOT do this, that is a myth. Look it up if you don't believe me. Once the noodles are done and strained start the stacking process.

I start with a sauce layer on the bottom, then noodles, sauce, cheese sauce, cheese mix, noodles, sauce, cheese sauce, cheese mix, etc. The top layer should be noodles, sauce, and the last of the cheese mix (no sauce).

You could very well have enough left over to make a second lasagna in a smaller pan. I usually do and I like to freeze the uncooked lasagna for cooking later (it will take a really long time to thaw and cook though). Cover the lasagna with tin foil and pop in a pre-heated 375 degree oven. After half an hour remove the foil and bake for an additional half an hour.

Pull it all out of the oven and let cool for 15 minutes before becoming the best cook your friends have ever seen. During this 15 minutes I would suggest getting some garlic bread in the oven and starting your guests on a salad.

Recipie
Prep time ~ 30 minutes
Cook time ~ 2 hours 30 minutes
Ready in ~ 3 hours

2 lbs Ground Beef
1 lb Italian Sausage
1 lb Spicy Italian Sausage
1 large yellow onion, chopped
8 cloves garlic, smashed
1 lb portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 1/2 tablespoons black pepper, ground
2 1/2 tablespoons oregano
2 1/2 tablespoons basil
2 1/2 tablespoons thyme
2 1/2 tablespoons parsley
2 1/2 tablespoons rosemary
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
3 dried bay leaves
1 big can crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 package powdered milk
8oz ricotta cheese (that's about how much I used)
8oz cottage cheese
3 eggs
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 - 3 cups spinach
1 lb cheddar cheese
1 lb Colby-Jack cheese
1 lb Parmesan cheese
1 lb mozzarella cheese
1 to 2 boxes of lasagna noodles

Bad Bad Boy

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 02:41:00 +0000

Whelp I have not just dropped this blog, I have just been swamped with school stuff! Now that the semester is over I can go back to a semblance of normal life--after my three days of nothing but sleep--and write up a few cookingventions. Without keeping you waiting with bated breath I will post THREE stunning new things that I made, while hungry, from stuff I had in my cupboards.

Part I - Chili

I really only have the vaguest sense of what Chili is; alas my upbringing had only chili served directly from a can. Anyone who has had chili from a can, will attest to it's startling similarity to a can of dog or cat food. I can take this one step further and say that there is in fact quite a taste difference between the two...
What!? I was hungry and it was right there, don't try and tell me you haven't ever wondered just what it was like...

ANYWAY, I decided that chili really can't be that hard to make. You have some meat substance, chili's, beans, onion, garlic, and well that's it right? Well let us go down this path.

Step 1 - Gather your ingredients

That would be a bit of ground beef, two halves of onion (one sweet, one Spanish), a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, a can of tomato sauce, a can of kidney beans, and a few cloves of garlic. I was feeling like I had neglected my food processor at this point, so I put the garlic and onion in there and let it work its magic for a few seconds.

Step 2 - Select a pan which is entirely too small.

One thing I repeatedly tell myself when I cook is "make sure this pan will be big enough for what you intend," I then repeatedly ignore this advice and select a pan that is just too small...

Step 3 - Oblivious to the fact that your pan is too small, begin to cook things!

I started out by throwing the onion and garlic in some nice hot oil. After the onion just started to turn translucent I threw in the ground beef.

I stirred it all up into a yummy meat-onion mess and then decided that I should probably put spices in this food at some point.

There is a nice dark photo of some spices on my counter. I figure if all my pictures are dark you will just have to take my word about what is happening. The spices here are ground black pepper, parsley, oregano, salt, ground cumin, red pepper flakes, chili powder, Cheyenne powder, and chipotle powder. I went and dumped varying amounts of these into the pan of meat-onion mess and stirred it up. (mostly around a tablespoon each, less for salt, more for chili powder and oregano).

Once it was all nice and mixed I let it finish cooking down a bit. If you don't use the cheapest ground beef money can buy (beaf-product) it probably won't be as soupy. I however think the top of the food pyramid is the most essential, so this is life giving grease.

Step 4 - Decide that my chili is boring and it needs other stuff.. So I dumped in some noodles (no I don't know why, I just did)

In retrospect, the noodles are a great way to spread out your chili meal and add something to absorb that life giving grease. I would add it much later than this step though to prevent the noodles from becoming little more than starch mush.

Step 5 - realize your pan is too small while holding the rest of the ingredients.
I switched over to a bigger dutch oven style pan at this point, with a simple dumping maneuver. This will get approximately 80% of the food into the new pan, the rest will go on the floor and stove.

Having solved two problems at once (too much food and too small of a pan) I figure its time to add the rest of the ingredients.

In went the tomato paste, sauce, and diced tomatoes. And hey, what is this, beer? Why shouldn't my chili have some beer too, since I am enjoying a cold one? So I cracked open another bottle and poured that in too. Oh and I don't normally drink beer of that quality, it was a gift from a friend.

Step 6 - Wonder how long this is supposed to cook.
I settled on half an hour (i.e. when I ran out of beer). It looked like this

Since it looks exactly the same in a bowl as it does in a pan I neglected to take pictures of the final product. The rest of the batch got frozen to provide me with a good week of eatings. The week taught me that many things can make chili better, like grated cheese, sour cream, take-out, and alcohol...

As I stated at the beginning I really know nothing about chili so you should check other places for recipes before starting. Whatever I made--chili or not--was fairly tasty, and certainly not the worst thing I have ever made (there have been some truly horrifying dishes).

Recipe

prep time ~ 5 minutes
cook time ~ 45 minutes

1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
1 can red kidney beans (drained)
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons parsley
2 Teaspoons oregano
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 Teaspoon ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon chipotle powder
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1/2 Spanish onion, chopped
a bunch of twisty egg noodles
1 to 1 1/2 pound(s) ground beef
1 six pack of beer (one bottle for the chili)

Cheezy Noodles and Chickn

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:36:00 +0000

Yes I know I spelled chicken wrong, that's the rebel in me getting sweet, sweet release.

So I am about to have some dinner, a salad with some dressing when I decide to make everything a bit more exciting and try and add something fried to the mix. A quick survey of the cupboards and fridge/freezer yielded this huge bag of frozen chicken parts.

I am pretty sure I can fry the crap out of this chicken turning it into something amazing but since it lacks any sort of marinade it might be kinda tasteless. Best thing to do now is take the chicken, smash flour, salt, and some seasoning into it and THEN fry it up.

The best way to make a simple breading for chicken is to put some flour in a big Ziplock baggie. I generally use around 3 tbsp of flour, a tablespoon or so of seasoning salt, and about 5-6 shakes of Italian Seasoning.

I generally blow up the bag like a balloon and shake it around for a few to mix everything together. Then dump the chicken in and shake it up a bit. If your chicken is fresh you are likely not a graduate student; and can stop right here. The rest of us that buy bulk frozen chicken will have to wait a few for the buggers to soften up enough to really get flour and stuff to stick to em.

Once your chicken has lots of stuff stuck to it you may proceed to the next step.

At this point I decided that salad is dumb and I wanted to have noodles. This was quite the change of pace so now I needed some way of combining the chicken with the noodles besides just putting them on a plate together...

Well we know water is needed so put a pan of water on to boil. Drop some salt and a little bit of olive oil in the pan. What this does is make your noodles more delicious. In other words the salt raises the boiling point of the water and the oil keeps your noodles from sticking together. The salt also gets into the noodles, and everyone knows sodium chloride is the best tasting thing ever.

After putting the water on to boil its time to invent some sort of saucy concoction. I really wanted something that would talk back to me but all I could find was the rest of the onion left over from the potato burrito experiment and some garlic. Since I was feeling particularly lazy this evening the food processor gets to come out and play. I threw the onion in the processor and the garlic (post-peeling), hit the pulse button a few times, and joy of joys I had some chopped onion and garlic.

I grabbed a frying pan, threw a bit of olive oil and a bit of vegetable oil in the pan. You could use just olive oil but because this is going to be an extended frying operation I would recommend raising the burn point of the oil by using mostly vegetable oil with a little olive oil for taste.

I threw the onion and garlic into the hot oil. While that was stewing I looked through the fridge one last time, saw some mushrooms, figured why the heck not... After everything was in the pan I pushed it around to make a hollow in the center of the pan.

This hollow is the new home for those pieces of chicken you so painstakingly shook around.

Just let everything fry for a good long time without stirring. Essentially you should be able to let it fry up on medium heat (maybe, I have a gas stove so the heat setting things are guesses). The chicken should be golden brown on a side when you flip it.

Then stir up the surrounding areas and let it continue cooking.

Once the chicken is done cooking you should have caramelized onions, garlic, and mushrooms floating around the edges of your pans. Pull out the chicken and place it to the side; I would suggest cutting them in half to make sure they got completely cooked.

In the pan throw some water in there and stir it up to get all the delicious bits off the bottom of your pan. At this point I killed the heat to let them sit for a second and share flavors for a bit.

While this last step is going on your water should have started to boil, so put some noodles in the pan. I used some thin twisty style egg noodles because the cook fast and its what was in my cupboard at the time.

Off on the side I knew that I would need a sauce base so I took a bit of flour and some milk and whipped them together. I would just use a fork but make sure its all combined adequately, clumps of flour taste gross.

Back in panland turn the heat back on. At this point I decided that cheese would be awesome so I dumped some grated Parmesan cheese in the pan and a layer of oh-so good Colby-Jack cheese.

As it heated back up I stirred constantly to make sure the cheese melted well and didn't burn.

Keep scraping the bottom of the pan as you do so to get the bits of awesome mixed with the cheese. When everything is all melty and thick pour in your milk and flour mix and stir it all together.

Back while your doing this at some point your noodles should have finished cooking. Ideally they would be al dente style, but cook them however you want. Strain them when done.

Now that you have all the components of food done grab a plate, put some noodles on it, arrange some chicken on the side, and put some cheese sauce over the top. Eat, and enjoy.

I thought this was a decent dish, not the best that I ever made. In the future I might add a little more garlic than I did originally to the sauce, but I could just eat garlic like an apple so this is something you will have to adjust for yourself.

Additions:
I would recommend adding some sort of veggie dish to this. I meant to make some french cut green beans for the side but I forgot until the food was all made and cold cheese sauce is gross so I just skipped the veggies tonight. Other styles of cheese will yield different tastes, you could easily make this an Alfredo style dish by using Parmesan cheese and some sort of heavy cream or condensed milk (no flour with the heavy milks though). Just use whatever cheese you enjoy, the rest of the flavors will blend with nearly anything.

Prep time: ~15 minutes
Cook time: ~30 minutes
Ease: 3 out of 5
Things in the recipe:
Flour - 4 tbsp
Lowery's Seasoning Salt - 2 tbsp
Salt - 4 tbsp
Pepper - 1 tbsp
Italian Seasoning (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and parsley) - 2 tbsp
Parmesan Cheese - 1/4 cup
Colby-Jack Cheese - 1/2 cup
Chicken - 3 pieces of frozen "tenders"
Noodles - 2-3 cups
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp
Vegetable Oil - 2 tbsp
Onion - 3/4 Spanish onion
Garlic - 2 cloves
Mushrooms - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1 cup

Internet Security, My Soapbox

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Here I am saying that most of my posts are going to be about food or the psychological sciences and my second post is about the internet.

As people that personally know me can attest I am a huge fan of the internet in all its incarnations. Sure some people use it to steal things, and others use it to find dirty pictures, but many of us just use the internet like we would use our car; to get around, and get things with less hassle.

Unfortunately, there are those in the world that think that any time we download something we are stealing valuable intellectual property and robbing other customers of precious bandwidth. As someone who pays an extra 10 bucks a month just to access 50% of the potential that my cable internet provides that is ridiculous. If I am not downloading 24/7 then I am just wasting my money. I wouldn't go to a theme park and refuse to go on any rides, I wouldn't buy a video game and play the first half, and I wouldn't buy a movie and only watch the opening credits. In this world we pay for so much but get so little in return. Corporations constantly out to get the most from us while giving the least in return. I won't turn this into a soapbox rant about the state of capitalism in the world, for I am not a political scientist, but I am tired of getting treated like a criminal because I want to use what I pay for. When I work on something like a manuscript and submit it for review I have to sell that piece of my hard work. I have to work hard, I have to put my time, effort, commitment, and education to the test and hope for the best. Meanwhile I am treated like a degenerate for expecting the same in return.

This little rant of mine does have a point so I will wrap it up by saying if you are not using your internet to its maximum potential for every second of the day then you are getting ripped off. Let the telecoms companies feel it where it hurts, use every bit of bandwidth they will give you, use it at the peak times, refuse to pay for their capped plans. Eventually they will learn the answer doesn't lie in punishing their customers but in making them happy. Expand your services and more customers will come, then expand some more. That is what I do when I work, and I grow as a person while doing what needs to be done. Maybe all these CEO's should listen to my Mom when she says "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar," which is technically true unless you use a nice balsamic vinaigrette, flies love that stuff.

"Well," you say to me "what about getting sued by the RIAA or MPAA?" Sure they sue thousands of people (something like 30,000 in total now) but with 2007 seeing 9.35 million simultaneous users of p2p networking 30,000 people is a drop in the bucket. You are more likely to die than get sued by the RIAA. Next look at the people that get sued, most of them are college freshmen, high-school students, grandparents, or children. The one thing they lack that we will have is an understanding of the dangers and difficulties of file sharing in today's world. After a lengthy introduction we get to the topic at hand, how to keep your ISP from taking your rights of privacy away from you.

I am going to assume for the sake of this article that you are a common file sharing person, like me, using programs like Limewire and BitTorrent to obtain creative commons works, open-source software, and the free exchange of ideas. So how do we keep the ISP and the RIAA away from us?

Step 1 - Don't use Limewire or any other unsecured p2p client if you can help it. I prefer to use torrents over all other options.

Step 2 - Use private torrent trackers. Places like Mininova, The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt, etc. are great places to go but there are dummy files that get uploaded and it is much easier for a company to find your IP by pretending to be another file sharing person on that network. Private trackers like Demonoid should always be your first stop.

Step 3 - use Peerguardian to help keep those pesky snooping IP addresses away.

Step 4 - Get a good firewall / antivirus program. I would recommend ZoneAlarm. This is actually just good advice all around.

Step 5 - Download the torrent file anonymously. I use the Tor network to retrieve my torrent files. This doesn't mean you use the anonomizer to download the entire file, just get the original .torrent file. This leaves no ip-logs on the tracker server.

Step 6 - Set your torrent client to use encryption. This will keep your ISP from analyzing your data stream to see what you are downloading. It's not perfect by any means but it won't slow down your torrents at all and its just one more hurdle people have to cross.

If you do all 6 of these steps you won't be completely safe, but the odds of you getting caught were already slim to begin with; and no-one is going to bother trying to hack through all those layers of BS to maybe, possibly, sue you.

------------------------------------------

A year or so ago I wrote up a tutorial for torrents, I figure I will just append it here to make this a more complete guide.

Torrents, Who Has ‘Em, Who Wants ‘Em: A guide

Introduction

I have been getting more than just one or two requests from friends, family, strangers on the street, and various other people of less repute to share my wisdom in the world of file sharing. First, I would like to say that file sharing and piracy are two separate issues. My diatribe on the file sharing vs. piracy debate can be heard at the bar whenever I have been drinking. Since this is a public post we will assume that you will be utilizing Torrents and other Peer to Peer (p2p) file sharing programs for downloading updates, Ubuntu releases, and sharing your vacation photos with friends and family.

The BitTorrent protocol was created by a genius by the name Bram Cohen back in 2001 to provide a speedy and bandwidth friendly way of sharing files. The actual method that BitTorrent uses to communicate these files isn’t really important but if you’re interested in a technical demonstration they have a well constructed tutorial over on Wikipedia. BitTorrent takes very small files with the extension .torrent from the internet and loads them into a client. That client then uses that small amount of information to connect you to people that actually have the full array of files you seek. Your computer will then talk to all those people that have the files, and people like yourselves that desire the files. You will get small chunks of information from them, and in return, you will give small chunks of information to others. Eventually, through time and persistence, your computer will gather all those tiny chunks of information and turn it into the wondrous group of files you requested.

Terminology

Peer – A fellow person downloading a torrent (or yourself).

Leecher – A person that downloads a file without uploading.

Seed – A person who has the torrent in its complete form.

Tracker – A website that keeps track of who has the files, and who wants the files, essentially you can think of a tracker as a roadmap which lets people know where they are and where they need to go. Trackers are usually where you get the initial .torrent file.

Swarm – all the peers and seeds taken as a whole.

Client – a program that interprets the .torrent information and communicates with peers and seeds to download the files and assemble them in the correct fashion.

Ratio – This refers to the amount of data you have downloaded in proportion to data uploaded.

Downloading

Now that we have covered the grunt work and you are sufficiently informed of the words I will be using let us get down to brass tax, put our nose to the grindstone, and hammer out the specifics. The first thing you will need is a client. Clients can range from tiny command line operators to gigantic resource hogs. What you use as a client is going to be entirely dictated by what you want. If all you want to do is download some torrents you can’t go wrong with uTorrent. I personally use uTorrent because its small, doesn’t hog resources, and lets you extensively customize your experience. I am going to show you how to download torrents using this program but the ideas and methods will be similar if not exactly the same across the clients. Other clients I have used are Azureus, BitComet, and BitTornado, They all have their strengths but I would stick with uTorrent or Azureus as they are the two most used clients right now.

Now that you have a client you need some trackers. Trackers can range from public free for all downloads to private trackers that require a login and for you to have a certain ratio to participate in downloads. I personally find private trackers to be better than public trackers. Private trackers usually have a sense of community, ratio restrictions require people to upload (which reduces leechers), and you don’t have as many duplicate files, spam files, and viruses. The downside to a private tracker is that you will need to be invited to join, or get lucky and score an account during signups (signups usually last about a week and only happen every 4-6 months). Private trackers can also have limitations in the variety of files available but in my experience only 1 in 20 downloads that I seek are not on a private tracker. The last type of site is a pay tracker. I have never used one of these sites but I have donated to trackers that I use extensively.

So, you say why won’t he stop talking and give me a list of awesome sites. Well I want you to understand why some of these sites are better than others. If you are a close friend of mine you can ask for an invite to the private trackers but it will give me a bad reputation if one of my invitees is terrible at file sharing, so I might not give it to you (and some of them require me to share my precious ratio with you). The last difference between a public and a private tracker is that you are less likely to be bothered by the RIAA or MPAA when using a private tracker.

AnimeSuki – Public tracker for unlicensed fanlations of Anime. This site is great because it has a ton of shows and is usually the first stop for any release group, so you get stuff fast.

BoxTorrents – Private tracker for unlicensed fanlations of Anime and related content. Basically this is like AnimeSuki except you can usually get the Anime in one torrent rather than by episode and it has things like fan art, sounds, etc.
Btjunkie – Public tracker. This site indexes dozens of other trackers. In reality searching here is like searching 20-30 other sites and is usually my first stop if I can’t find it on a private tracker.
Demonoid – Private tracker. This is my first stop for torrents, and usually my last stop.
isoHunt – Decent public tracker, pretty general stuff.
Mininova - Decent public tracker, pretty general stuff.
The Pirate Bay - Decent public tracker, pretty general stuff. This site is great mainly because they openly piss off the RIAA whenever possible then gleefully do a “not touching you, can’t get mad” hand waving in front of the RIAA.
TvTorrents – Private tracker. This place is really hard to get into but it is worth it. I usually can get a TV show from here minutes after it airs, in great quality, with no fuss.

Now you have a client and a list of places to visit to get that initial torrent file. What do we do now? Well you can utilize the search feature of the site or just browse around until you find something interesting and click the ol download button. Windows will ask you “what to do with this file” and you click open. The file will download in seconds and if this is the first time you have downloaded a torrent ask you what program to use to open the file. You should tell your computer that .torrent files will always be utilized by uTorrent. Once you have opened the torrent uTorrent will ask you where to download the file at. Just pick a location that makes sense to you, I personally use a folder called “Downloads.”

The torrent will pop into the window and you will be able to see how much is done, how fast it’s going, how long it will take, the ratio on that file, etc. Browse around the client and see where things are, what you can customize, and what you don’t know about. Default settings are probably your best bet and an explanation of what the settings do can be found on your client’s webpage.

Once you download the file you can enjoy as you see fit. Be sure to share that file to at least a ratio of 1:1 and give back what you took. I personally share my downloads until I have a ratio of 2.2:1.

The First Blog Post

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:55:00 +0000

So I am considering starting a blog.

I know that almost all my friends have told me that they love the weird things that I cook up for them. Most of the time they are based on some sort of recipe that I modified to suit my particular tastes but when I am home alone or with people that I live with the gloves come off and the true innovation begins. I am not going to lie, sometimes the food tastes terrible but a lot of the time the foodventions come out edible at the least, sometimes delicious.

This leads me to the blog point. I have a camera, I have new things that most people have not tried, I have the makings of a blog that two or three of my friends may want to read!

The blog would be called Adventures with Foodventions and would be a photodocumentary and guide to making things that I find to be delicious.

As a little taste (ahha a pun! This gets better by the moment) I present to you:

Mexican Potato Burrito Doohicky

It all started late one evening just after baking up a couple of small potatoes for a rather bland meal. They sat on a plate like little brown pieces of mockery and I imagined faces on them and helpless screams as my fork made quick work of smashing them into a starchy mess. The white and brown paste and finally silenced screams didn't really drive me to hunger.

I cracked open the fridge and said, what can I put on this mess to make it not taste like potatoes. Sour cream, nah, had that last night. Cheese, yeah, but more is needed. Green Olives, only on Mexican potatoes, heh, that would taste terrible. Or would it? I have Mexican seasonings in my cupboard, I have green olives, I have potatoes, I have some burrito shells, I think it's time to make some Mexican Potato Burrito's. I mixed a bunch of spices into the potatoes but it still looked like crap.

What is missing, what is missing?... I know frying, everything is better with frying. As I dump some olive oil into a pan

I realize that if I am going to be frying something I should at least be frying up a bit of a Spanish onion.

I turn off the burner and wack up a bit of Spanish onion.

As I put the onion back in the fridge I notice the mushrooms. Yeah, why not. They all go into the pan, flames lick the bottom of the pan and the onion mushroom mess begins to sizzle.

A perfect opportunity to screw with the settings on my camera present themselves and I get quickly absorbed in that task for a while. I pull myself back into the task at hand in time to stir the nearly done onion mushroom mess around. Perfect! Just this side of burned.

There is some onion and mushroom brown gooie goodness on the bottom of the pan which means liquid is needed (this my friends is why you should never, ever, ever, use a non-stick pan). I pour in about half a cup of water, get all the goo off the bottom of the pan. Then I dump the potatoes on top and stir.

Presto, a mix of stuff that looks exactly the same now as it will when I pass it from my system.

Screwing my eyes closed, I take a tentative bite of the gloop before me. Wow, it actually tastes pretty good. I dump the mess onto a warm tortilla shell, add some of that sour cream I was talking about earlier and some shredded cheddar and colby-jack cheese.

I finalize the burrito by wraping it up tight and taking a big delicious bite.

I managed to forget the impetus for the entire project, green olives, but all in all Mexican Potato Burrito turns out to be a success. Since it was insanely cheap to construct I have plans for future burritos.

A word of warning! As you can see by the mess made on my stove this is going to need a bigger frying pan that I used! Second, sorry about the darkness of the pictures; my kitchen is quite poorly lit and the flash on my camera blows. I will have to get some more lighting for my kitchen if I actually keep this up.

Possible additions:
Salsa - added just before the potatoes to give it a chance to warm up.
Green Olives - crush some up and sprinkle them on top of the burrito before you wrap it up.
Lettuce - give a little health to the carb bomb you are about to consume.
Peppers - everything is better with peppers, my preference would be for some green and orange peppers sauteed with the onions.
Garlic (?) - not really sure how this would go, my gut says good thing, but I have been wrong about adding garlic to things before (garlic jam, not so good with peanut butter).
Veggies - some assorted veggies would make great filler, corn always goes well with Mexican food, spinach for a filler you can't taste, the possibilities are endless.

Recipe:
Serving Size - 2 people? I managed to eat two burritos and get crazy full with about half the mush left.
Prep Time - 15min
Cooking Time - 1hr 15min (1hr for the potatoes)
1/4 Spanish Onion, large diced
1 Flour tortilla shell, came in a package
1/4 cup Sharp Cheddar, shredded
1/4 cup Colby-Jack, shredded
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup Mushrooms, sliced
2 small potatoes, baked one hour 350 degrees, then smashed with a fork while imagining them as small potato people
2 tbsp Sour cream
2 tbsp Mexican seasoning (cumin, paprika, chili powder, oregano, dash of cayenne pepper, dash of crushed red pepper, dash of ground cilantro) I usually just kind of throw it all together in a spice jar and shake it up and use it until it runs out. I haven't done that yet since I moved, so this is a generic packet of Taco Seasoning.