The media only talks about Poop and Crap. You know that there is Cake and Ice Cream out there, but the media never talks about those, just the Poop and the Crap. Election day comes up. All four candidates are running, Poop, Crap, Cake, and Ice Cream. The media says that Poop is in the lead, with Crap in a close second! You really don’t like Crap, but you hate Poop even more. You would really like to vote for Cake, but everyone tells you the Cake is a lie. So you vote for Crap, because you really don’t want to see Poop win. Poop wins. All of your friends voted for Crap too, even though they really wanted Cake. The country goes down the toilet. The next election rolls around. Since Poop and Crap did so well in the election last time, that is all the media talks about, Poop and Crap. You know that there is Cake and Ice Cream out there, but the media never talks about them, because nobody voted for them last time…
Since it seems to be the thing to do, and since I haven’t posted in forever, I am going to talk about food, or, more specifically, tea.
Copyright Benalene
I love tea. You wouldn’t think that, seeing as how I normally drink more coffee than tea. But, I think that I actually prefer tea to coffee. There are so many different flavors and ways to prepare it. I will have to devote an entire post to tea in general, I think. But today, Genmaicha, or Popcorn Tea.
First, What is it? Genmaicha is the Japanese name for a low grade green tea combined with roasted brown rice. (link) It typically employs a lower grade of green tea and was originally drunk by poor Japanese, as the rice served as a filler and reduced the price of the tea. It is now widely enjoyed by all levels of society in Japan.
Now, I have had a can of Genmaicha tea sitting in my cupboard for over a year. I had opened it maybe six months ago, thinking that it was straight green tea. My mother had a friend who is Japanese, and on a trip back to Japan, got my mom two cans of Japanese loose leaf green tea. My mom took one can and gave me the other. Hers was plain green tea, which is why I was expecting mine to be the same. When I opened it, I was mystified as to what was in my tea. There were these little brown kernels and what looked liked popcorn along with the tea leave. Did somebody accidentally knock over a bag of popcorn into the tea as they were filling the containers. I took one sniff of it and immediately closed the can back up. It was too weird. That was six months ago.
Today. It is the end of October. It is almost freezing outside. I am craving something warm to drink. I don’t really want hot chocolate. Too rich. Tea is lighter. I am tired of Earl Grey and English Breakfast Tea. I want green tea. But the only green tea I have is in bags. I really hate bagged tea now that I have tried loose leaf. Then I remember the can of the strange green tea sitting in the back of my cupboard. I hesitantly pull it out. I gingerly open it up and take a whiff. It doesn’t smell as bad as I remember. I decide to brew some. As the water is heating, I google “green tea popcorn.” The first link is this. It doesn’t make me feel too confident. But it is too late. The water is almost boiling, and I have to pour it before it gets too hot (you are not supposed to boil water for green tea). I anxiously wait 4 minutes. I have a jar of honey, just in case. I pour the tea and smell. It smells like slightly burnt popcorn. I take a drink.
It is not that bad. It has a slight toasted flavor from the rice. The grassy flavor is not overpowering like some green teas. I try and add a little bit of honey, and it helps to mellow out the flavor a bit, but is not necessary. The tea is very mild anyway. It may be a little strange to some, but overall, I think that it is has a very pleasant taste. I have no idea where to get this tea in the United States. Maybe at some International grocery stores, or online. If you are adventurous and like tea, I would highly recommend trying this tea.
Ok, this post is going to have two parts:
1. Why I am glad that gas prices are going up
2. What I am doing to still keep my gas costs down, despite the rising prices
Why I am glad that gas prices are going up
I believe that we are way too dependent on foreign oil. That is (I believe, and there is evidence to back this up) the main reason why we are in this war with Iraq, and about to be in a war with Iran. We need oil. With oil prices going up, Americans are going to have to change. Immediately, I think that we have to change how we drive, which I am going to talk about in the second part. Eventually, we are going to have to find other sources of energy. Now, I know people have been screaming for new sources of energy for years now. Up until now, the reason for this has been global warming. But global warming seems like such a far away concept. I personally don’t really believe the theories. There hasn’t been enough motivation for an overwhelming majority of people to really push for better energy sources because the majority of people have not been directly affected by this shortcoming. But now it is affecting the overwhelming majority, actually, the overwhelming majority’s wallet. If you think about it, there have been no major breakthroughs in automobile technology in DECADES. You would think that with all of the technology we have, that we should be getting at least 100mpg. But no. We are still manufacturing cars that only get 10mpg! All because we have had such low oil prices. Many countries in Europe have had $6 gas (or more) for years now. How is it that they can cope with this, but Americans, the richest people in the world, are crying their eyes out? Europeans have cars with better gas mileage, and their towns are usually built so that driving is not a constant necessity. In a majority of towns and cities in Europe, everything you need is only a couple minutes walk or bike ride away. In America, hour-long commutes to work are typical. The American way of life has evolved with the mindset that we would always have cheap gas. Now America is going to have to wake up, and I think that is a good thing. I think there will be more competition to make cars with better gas mileage, which I think they should have been doing years ago.
2. What I am doing to still keep my gas costs down, despite the rising prices
I am changing how I drive. I am trying to drive less. I am also increasing the MPG that my car gets. How am I doing this? It is called hypermiling. I have gone from 25mpg (which I thought was pretty good for a 17 year old car!), to over 30mpg (which is still only half of what the typical European car gets). Here is what I have been doing to achieve this:
- Accelerate more slowly from a stop*
- Go into neutral (I do this when I am coming to a stop light or getting off the interstate)
- Drive 65mph on the interstate*
- I don’t always drive below the speed limit. If the limit is 45, then I will go 50. I do this because my car (an automatic) doesn’t shift into the last gear until about 48mph, and since you get better gas mileage in the higher gears, I go 50 to kick it into that higher gear. This might be different in your car. They say that you get the best gas mileage between 55 and 60 mph (source)
- Place a lot of space between yourself and the car in front of you, so that you don’t have to slam your breaks when they hit theirs.
*Fair warning, if you do this, you are likely to tick some people off.
By slowing down more (for the most part), I find that I do not get as stressed when driving. Before, driving at least 75 down the interstate, I would get mad a people not even doing the speed limit. Now, I am the one not even going the speed limit. So not only am I saving money by increasing my gas mileage, but I am also healthier, because I do not get as stressed.
I have another art show coming up, and while I am showing a lot of the same stuff that I showed at my last exhibit, I am also showing some new stuff, which means buying more frames, mat board, and plexiglass. Again, I am doing all of this by hand to save money, but I just found a great way to save some time also. Cutting plexiglass according to most directions is HARD and TIME CONSUMING. You have to score it with a special cutting tool (read: dull butter knife) 7 to 231 times, place the plexi on a table with the score on the edge of the table, and pressing firmly, snap the plexi (not at the score line that you just spent 20 minutes making). It took me (actually Jake) forever to cut the plexiglass this way. Eventually, we took a bandsaw to it, which worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, with me out of school, I no longer have access to a band saw. Fortunately, Lowe’s cuts plexiglass. Free.
I said, “What is your name?”
He said, “Jerome.”
I said, “I will be praying for you, Jerome.”
He said, “Thank you very much.”
I said, “Where are you traveling to?”
He said, “Georgia.”
I said, “I hope you get to where you are going to.”
He said, “Thank you. What is your name?”
I said, “Sarah.”
He said, “Thank you, Sarah.”
So I am the queen of free time right now. What do I do with all of my free time, you may ask. Well, a whole lotta nothing. I should be doing a lot of stuff, like: photography, drawing, graphic design, making websites, searching for a place to put up my artwork, reading, learning a new language. But I just cannot seem to motivate myself. So the other day, I decided to go to one of the local animal shelters and volunteer. I asked to work with some of the dogs, but they do not allow volunteers to work with dogs until they take a dog walking class, which is being offered next weekend. But until then, I can pet and help socialize as many cats as I would like!
At the risk of sounding racist, I am going to make this post.
I do not understand Black Pride.
For that matter, I also don’t understand American Pride (at least not some of it). And here is why.
Did you choose to be black?
I can understand being proud of a math paper you wrote and got an award for. I can understand pride at getting a higher position in your job. Those are all things that people can work towards, and then feel some sense of accomplishment at what they have done. But you can not choose what color your skin is. Or where you are born. To say that you are proud to be black or proud to be born in America just doesn’t make any sense to me, because you had no choice in the matter. Along the same lines, I don’t understand racism, which is why I am not scared of putting this up. How can somebody hate someone else who has a different skin color or is born somewhere else, when they had absolutely no say in the matter? It is like saying you hate the grass because it is green. Like you or the grass can do anything about it.
Just my thoughts on the matter. I happen to be born a white female, so interpret this how you will. All of my friends who just happen to be born black know that I am not racist.
By the way, a white person cannot say that they are proud to be white for fear of being called a white supremest. Just something else to chew on. Oh, and don’t even think about being a guy and saying that either.
I live in an apartment. I am living on a part-time wage. And I have tons of free time right now. So I have started a garden. Well, sort of. I decided that I was tired of having to go to the grocery store every other day when I wanted to make a sandwich. For some reason, tomatos never last that long in my apartment. So I bought some seeds. And a pot. And some soil. Actually, I still haven’t bought the pot yet. I took part of an egg crate (only part, because we still had some eggs left), put some soil in it, and planted a few seeds. Along with tomato, I also got cilantro and basil. No fruit yet, I only started a couple weeks ago, but it is almost time for me to get a pot! They are actually growing! This is the first time that I have actually tried growing something! It is kind of cool.
The tomato came up first after a little more than a week (which I thought was too long, I was afraid that I had done something wrong!). But a couple a days later, the cilantro and basil had come up and were twice as high as the tomato. I haven’t figured out which is which. I forgot to label them when I planted them. The only way that I knew the tomato was I planted two of them, and they came up at the same time (and they look the same). So I hope to have some nice juicy tomatos sometime soon, along with some nice flavoring, all for only a few dollars.
Tomato seeds: Free from a local greenery (they were last years seeds that never sold)
Cilantro and basil seeds from walmart: both packs were less than a dollar
Soil: a small bag for starting seedlings $1
Pots: the small clay pots are less than a dollar
For the tomato, I will have to get a bigger pot, maybe a couple of dollars, and more soil, another couple of dollars. All in all, a very good investment, I think!
I just got off the phone with the Publisher and Editor of The Huntsville Times, Bob Ludwig. Why was I calling him, you ask? Well, on the front page of the Sunday Huntsville Times (Jan. 27, 2008), the main article is about Huntsville’s space program and what each of the candidates have to say about space research and exploration. It has a picture of all of the candidates in space suits in this order from left to right: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama (the Democrats), Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee (the Republicans). In case you haven’t noticed, they left out Ron Paul. I told the editor that my concern was that all of the main stream news media is basically ingnoring Ron Paul. Even though Ron Paul has beaten Giuliani in almost all, if not all of the primaries and caucuses, they put in Giuliani. Why? Because he is still polling higher than Ron Paul in the National Polls. That is the answer the Editor gave me. Because he was not polling high enough, and they didn’t have enough room to place a third party candidate. Wait. What?? Yes, he said that Ron Paul was a third party candidate. When I informed him that Ron Paul was not a third party candidate, that Ron Paul was running as a Republican, he said that he knows about Ron Paul, that he has written/was an editor for a libertarian newsletter. So he knows all about Ron Paul. He then thanked me for contacting him with my concerns, and that was the end of the conversation.
Don’t you think that since the caucuses and primaries are now running, and seeing as how it is these primaries and caucuses that determine who the nominations are going to be (not national polls), that the news media sources should be using the results from these primaries, not the national polls, to determine on who they report? Obviously the national polls have it wrong if Paul is beating Giuliani in the primaries but the polls say that Paul has less than 10% support.
