groupon is pretty cool. recent coupons have been table 219, jet city improv, envy, SIFF, yoga and some other stuff. they have it for a bunch of cities around the u.s. (ny, la, sf, austin, chicago, etc etc...)

finally got around to putting up another nadir radio show. 4 hero, kevin saunderson, skream, benga, milanese, echospace... download mp3.

And if I stay there will be double.

on december sixteenth of this year mexican forces cornered beltran leyva, a drug lord, in a town south of mexico city. he didn't survive the confrontation, and nor did a young soldier, angulo cordova. cordova was hailed by the government as a hero who sacrificed himself for the good of his country. he went down in the line of duty. he died with honor. the navy secretary presented his mother with the mexican flag in person.

the next day--the very next day--gunmen broke into cordova's mother's house and gunned her down along with three other relatives. these four people were murdered in their home for the crime of being related to a national hero.

will someone explain to me how it is better that these kinds of things happen than the alternative, namely that we legalize drugs? someone explain to me how it is that allowing free citizens to legally obtain mind-altering substances is worse than a gang of thugs breaking into an old woman's house and gunning her down the day after she buries her son, who himself was killed trying to uphold these same drug laws.

in phoenix, there is roughly one kidnapping per day, the vast (practically exclusive) majority of which are directly related to drug running. home invasions, beatings, murder. the mexican army roams the streets of juarez, which saw eighteen hundred murders last year, in armored personnel carriers. and still it gets outgunned by drug cartels.

do you want to know why all of this happens? there is one very simple reason for all of this bloodshed, all of this murder, all of this pain and terror: drugs are illegal. that's it. that's the only reason.

can anyone seriously believe anymore that prohibition will ever work? could anyone possibly still be so blind as to think that if we just squeeze the bad guys a little harder, they'll suddenly decide, oh, you know what? the government's right after all. drugs are bad, and i should stop being a bad guy. all these millions of dollars are great and all, but i'd much rather get a job flipping burgers down at the mcdonald's.

ladies and gentlemen, consider the gauntlet thrown. this goes out to every politician, policy maker, advisor, and council member: if you support the war on drugs, the blood of the cordova family is on your hands. if you stand in the way of legislation legalizing drugs, every drug-related murder is on you. every kidnapping. every beating. you are perpetuating the violence, willfully, deliberately, and self-righteously. god have mercy on your soul.

so mega mix this year is allowing digital media aka tracktor and cds~ which sucks as i am going to do it fair and use all vinyl ~

- vinyl is harder to keep on bead
-tracktor has auto bpm match
- I dont care haha I am going to play as well as I can `

i've had several odd conversations recently where people had thought i'd been quietly judging them on something and i wasn't at all. i say odd because i feel like i'm quick to express when i'm annoyed at someone or thinking something negative about them. granted, i'm also quick to express when i'm stressed out / tired / having a bad day in general. but chances are high that if i'm not telling you an itemized list of what i think is wrong with you, it's because the list does not exist. if i'm not saying something negative about something you're saying / doing / wearing / believing, it's likely because i'm not thinking anything negative about it. it's affection and love that i often don't express very well verbally, not irritation or my opinions on other subjects ;)

all of the people in question i generally consider perceptive, so it's possible that they were picking up on me being moody about some other situation and assuming it was related to them. but it wasn't. if i'm scowling vaguely into the distance and not explaining why, it's usually because i think my problem isn't interesting or important enough to warrant starting a conversation about it... but not because i'll avoid telling you if you said/did something i didn't like.

making this a public post 'cause for all i know there's other people out there thinking that i have some dark secret thoughts about them. (i mean, i might, but more likely they involve you being naked.) i generally like people more than i tell them, not less =P

i went to vancouver last month and put n_o_m_i_c through my usual obsessive process of having the internet decide where the best places to stay, eat, etc. are.

it turned out to be very on point with a cheap-via-priceline stay at the marriott and delicious food at guu and finch's and cafe medina. i particularly loved guu.... mmm, japanese tapas & cocktails. if i lived in vancouver i'd be there nonstop.
navigation without my phone or a local and without the equivalent of a not-for-tourists book was a pain though. it seemed like there were so many less places with free wireless but it was probably just the neighborhood we stayed in.

i'm often more productive on trains than i am elsewhere. i'd probably get better grades and be a more productive employee if i was required to ride trains around and around. i got all nostalgic thinking about taking the train up to visit dw00 years ago and listening to mixtapes. then i felt old.

remembering the delicious food on that trip is making me hungry. i plan on cooking a lot over the next few days. i don't have any money for christmas presents, so i'll be baking lots of bread and cookies and cupcakes. i'm also going to do a trial run of cocktail party fingerfood snacks tomorrow. mmm

Well, just got back from seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D. I was dubious if it would live up to the hype but am happy to say that Cameron hit it out of the park, this movie is the ultimate fantasy.

And it truly is a cinematic game changer. It's very clear now that *ANYTHING* can be put on film in a believable way. Anything.

I wanted another festive-themed bento, but several timing- and cooking-related disasters later it's just a random veggie bento. Oh well, as long as it's pretty and tasty...!

Small box (background): couscous, carrot shaves and halloumi on lettuce, cherry tomatoes.
Big box(foreground): More halloumi, Ajvar, cherry tomatoes, fried zucchini chips, baked potato wedges, and a piece of Knäck.

This may or may not be the last post this year. We'll see how I feel tonight!

;)

My bentoblog: http://wererabbits.wordpress.com

I just made my first bento!

Swedish meatballs + sauce.
Baby carrots.
Egg.
Rice.
and
Fruit snacks!!! :3

( Photo )
It isn't anything special, but it is my first so I love it to death.

This may well be the last bento of the year (unless I decide to make some for myself during the christmas days where I'm working *sigh*) so.. a Christmas Tree was in order, I thought...

Funny enough this is probably the fastest bento I've ever made, I think it took 15 minutes max - but then again I already had the meat, leftover from dinner, and it's not exactly elaborate, so...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!

Bento # 679 Pork pot roast with mandarin wedges. Pasta with ketchup, covered with sugar snaps, corn, carrots, sweet red pepper and peas.

Now's the time to get your new year's eve tix, for the event at church of bass where ALL the seattle music crews are getting together to do a show:
http://apps.facebook.com/eventregister/register?eid=646065253

make sure you're logged into Facebook.

I'll be playing upstairs in the chill area probably before midnight. :)

AND IT'S DARREN'S BIRTHDAY SO YOU SHOULD COME!

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Please enjoy these new pictures as well:

Paperwhites for lunch?   Read more about the leftovers on hapa bento.

there's a headline on google news right now that says something along the lines of 'the stimulus was a waste of money'. it goes on to say, basically, that even after congress and obama spent 789 billion dollars (forgetting, of course, that all the money hasn't been spent yet), a bunch of jobs were still lost. the recession didn't end immediately and magically, and we didn't add millions of new jobs in 2009.

the implicit assumption in this asinine blog post seems to be that if congress had not passed the stimulus package, the economy would have rebounded much more quickly and we'd all be living high on the hog right now.

apparently this guy doesn't remember what people were talking about back in the beginning of 2009. things like 'global economic collapse', 'possibly on the brink of a major depression' (i'm paraphrasing). apparently this asshole thinks that the 'private economy', by whom presumably he means people like the major banks who were falling like flies in late 2008, would have magically been solvent and doing robust business in 2009, if the big bad federal government hadn't swooped in and stolen all their money.

jesus christ. what a fucking moron. and the worst part is, with a country that has roughly the attention span of a retarded fruit fly, millions of people are going to believe him.

sometimes i wish that i would stop reading the news.