spring fall cleaning
Rob the RSS feed by mache on Flickr
For anyone still looking for Halloween costume ideas, this is a pretty epic one.
So I used to be all about Google Reader and used it to keep up with my friends, the news, potential story ideas, funny stuff, job listings and so on and so forth.
But after I got out of the daily news grind, I didn't have as much of a reason to keep up with my Google Reader inbox, which could jump from empty to 1000+ items in a matter of hours, if not minutes.
Over the past few months, I've pretty much been ignoring it altogether — only occasionally dipping into the "ZZ routine" folder to grab a daily Bible reading before bedtime.
So tonight I jettisoned 424 of the 425 RSS feeds I had subscribed to via Google Reader, and I'm rebuilding my reading list from scratch.
This means that if you've got a blog or something else you syndicate via RSS, you've gotta throw its URL in my general direction if you want me to keep up with you / your blog / your daily photo of your cats.
Also, I'm open to suggestions for other RSS feeds to add (or add back) to my reading list. So if you've recently discovered a feed that you think is the best thing since Romenesko, send the URL my way.
All such suggestions can be left in the comments section of this post or scattered around all my other abodes on the Web (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Brian’s Big Adventure:I went to the Pee-wee dinosaurs!
So Pee-wee Herman — aka @peeweeherman — made some sort of a comeback this week to promote his upcoming stage show.
Well, the day after Pee-wee's Big Announcement, I caught the second half of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" on WGN. Apparently, they're showing '80s movies on Wednesday afternoons now, and if you wanna catch a Pee-wee replay, the movie's on again right now.
Anyway, during my earlier Pee-wee watching, I got to see some of the movie's crazy iconic scenes that took me right back to my childhood. Yep, as a toddler growing up in Illinois, I watched as Pee-wee looked for his bike, asked where the basement of the Alamo was, danced to "Tequila" in a biker bar and — perhaps coolest of all — climbed up into a huge dinosaur to watch the sunrise with a roadside-diner waitress who had big dreams... and a big but.
Little did that little kid know that he'd one day live within a stone's throw of those very dinosaurs!
As I found out Wednesday, the dinosaurs in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" are none other than the Cabazon Dinosaurs, located 20 minutes from my apartment off of Interstate 10!
So today, I went on my own big adventure out to Cabazon to visit a landmark that defined my Midwestern childhood. I had already heard from Sam and Claudia and on teh Internets that the dinosaurs are now part of a creationism museum, so I knew to expect all that and rather quickly breezed past the "Why carbon dating doesn't work" display and checked out all the dinosaurs out there.
There are the two big ones from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and then some smaller concrete dinos and a few robotic ones. And there are also medieval (and modern) statues of men who are presumably fighting the dinosaurs back in the olden days. (One of the main thrusts of the displays is that humans and dinosaurs once co-existed. Apparently that's in the Bible somewhere.)
Big Adventure Part II: Powwow!
So after I got my fill of the dinosaurs and took a satisfactory new Facebook picture of myself up in the T-Rex's mouth, I decided to drive over to the Morongo Casino, which is just a little bit farther down the road, because a) it was lunch time and b) the only casino I had yet been to out here was Spa Resort Casino.
Well, as it turns out, they're hosting a big powwow. I squeezed my way into the tent where the powwow was going on, but soon I began to feel kinda hungry — and then that hunger turned into feeling really sick to my stomach.
I'm still not sure why I felt so ill, but I walked down to the casino, where I figured I'd find non-portable restrooms, air conditioning and perhaps a drinking fountain. Well, I didn't find the latter, but some combination of the other two made me feel better after a few minutes.
Then I headed back up to the powwow and got to see a few dances before it was time to come home and tell the tale of my day before lunchin' and workin'.
more pics
See more pictures from both parts of my big adventure here. I'll be updating the photo set throughout the afternoon as I sort through, crop and prettify the pics I took today.
TRADER JOE’S TEST DRIVEZooey, you can have some of my wontons.Just don’t call me past 11 p.m.
So my dinner tonight was recommended by Zooey Deschanel — well, kind of.
I mean, she and I are not exactly BFFs IRL (yet), but I am kind of in love with all the songs she sang as Allison, the lead singer of Munchausen By Proxy in "Yes Man."
In one of those songs, "Uh-Huh," while railing against a loser ex, she says:
It's so weird because when we used to go out, you never even liked the TJ wontons, and now I have to drive all the way to Mar Vista or some stupid place and eat some stupid butternut squash ravioli or something because you took the last bag like some immature little clown!
I'm guessing the aforementioned "TJ wontons" were some frozen wontons from Trader Joe's (especially since in one of the verses, Zooey sings, "I saw you shopping at the Trader Joe's...") so I bought some on my recent shopping trip there.
Well, I must say that the chicken cilantro mini wontons certainly were mini... and kinda strange lookin'. Even cooked (in the microwave, of course) they looked like little Gremlin poops:
But they were certainly some tasty little Gremlin poops. So much so that I'm going to go make a second plate right now.
TRADER JOE’S TEST DRIVESnack time!
This afternoon, I tried a bunch of snacks from my experimental Trader Joe's run.
First, I tried the chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels talked up by Kate. They were nothing short of freakin' delicious. I was really surprised at the chocolate and peanut butter to pretzel ratio. The pretzels are swimmin' in the gooey stuff and yet somehow manage to still be crunchy.
In fact, these confections are kinda like Turtles, except with pretzels instead of nuts... and peanut butter instead of caramel. So OK, maybe they're not so much like Turtles. But they're still hella tasty.
Later on, I partook of the hummus recommended by Jodi, along with some sesame seed pita chips I picked up while shopping. Both were pretty delicious, but the pita chips didn't taste all that different from original Wheat Thins, and when I tried to substitute in the latter, my taste buds were just as pleased.
I feel like I’ve gotten myself into an LTR with DWTS…
So I've never really gotten into Dancing With the Stars in its first eight seasons, even though I generally support the concept of musical and variety-type programming on the TV and I wholeheartedly support the concept of shaking one's groove thing whether on television or elsewhere.
But seeing promos for this season and discovering that the one and only Macy Gray would be one of the dancing stars, I knew I had to watch. Plus, I also found that Melissa Joan Hart, Aaron Carter, Tom DeLay and a whole bunch of other "Where Are They Now?"-worthy celebz would be on the show this year.
Since my mom has watched DWTS for the past few seasons, I should have remembered from talking to her that every week there's a dancing show on one night of the week and then a ridiculous "results show" that they con you into watching the next night so you can find out who got the most phone/text/online/whatevs votes from viewers.
And this week, they've drawn out the show even more for its season premiere. Last night, I watched a two-hour show in which only the male stars danced with their partners. Tonight, it's ladies night... for two more hours. Then, there's still an hourlong results show to watch on Wednesday that thankfully ends before Glee starts over on Fox.
Yeah, that adds up to five hours of DWTS this week. Yeah, I realize that's pretty excessive. But I'm in it to win it when it comes to this show.
I mean, with tonight's episode being on for two hours, it'll run right up until my bedtime at 10 p.m. And you never know, Macy Gray might say, "Good niiiiiight!" Or, even better, maybe she'll slap a bitch on the dance floor.
TRADER JOE’S TEST DRIVEFour-cheese mac ‘n cheese
On my Facebook shopping list, Stacy suggested that I pick up Trader Joe's three-cheese macaroni. Well, I (unknowingly) did her one better and got some four-cheese microwaveable mac and cheese.
You know, when it comes to most of these things I bought at TJ's, I'm no epicure, but with mac and cheese, I consider myself quite the connoisseur. I did attend college in the era of Easy Mac, after all.
Anyway, as I prepared to microwave this particular specimen, the dish certainly looked promising. I could even see the shredded cheese on top:
That sure beats powdery "cheese sauce mix."
But the TJ's mac and cheese poses no threat to the quickness title held by Easy Mac. The box asked me to microwave it for five to six minutes, and after six there were still some stone-cold noodles not far under the surface. Another minute in my admittedly-weak-sauce microondas rendered all the noodles hot and squishy, but srsly — that was just seven minutes of prep time for microwaveable mac and cheese.
As for the taste, this definitely was some yummy macaroni and cheese. One of the benefits of having real shredded cheese involved instead of the powdery business was having no gritty spots in the dish.
Still, with the one-serving package of this stuff clocking in at $2.99, I'm gonna have to say this mac and cheese is just too pricey for me, tasty though it may be.
Since I'm pretty sure I can get a hell of a lot more Easy Mac for the price of one of these boxes (and perhaps eat it all in the seven minutes it takes to microwave the TJ's version) I think I'll be saving this TJ's entree for special occasions. Yes, I am classy enough that I have mac and cheese on special occasions. Don't judge.
TRADER JOE’S TEST DRIVEGinger snaps!
Those of you who've known me for a while know that I'm a big fan of cookies in bed as well as things involving the word ginger — Ginger Spice, Ginger Jeffries and drag queens (both faux and real) named Ginger Snap.
So when I saw some super fancy ginger snaps at Trader Joe's on my recent shopping expedition there, I decided to pick some up and try them out. (I suppose they fit into Tina's recommendation of "really yummy junk food," but I would've gotten them even without that recommendation.) And really, what better place to eat these cookies... than in bed?
Well, the ginger snaps proved to be quite acceptable cookies-in-bed material, and I really liked how I could taste the ginger in the snaps. Maybe I've just never noticed the taste of ginger when having non-TJ ginger snaps before since my love of sushi and corresponding contact with real ginger. But I feel like the taste may be specific to the Trader Joe's variety.
I also liked the different textures in each cookie, which I'm guessing is a product of them being "triple ginger snaps, made with fresh, crystallized and ground ginger."
In any case, epic win.
TRADER JOE’S TEST DRIVECalifornia rolls with brown rice
So the first Trader Joe's item I tried was actually something I picked up on my own — sushi!
I was toying with the idea of going out for sushi tonight, and I had this feeling that some grocery store somewhere carried frozen sushi. My searches of various valley grocery stores' freezer aisles had always came up fruitless — er, raw-fish-less. But tonight I discovered a whole bunch of sushi in the refrigerated (not frozen) aisle at Trader Joe's and decided to try out the California rolls made with brown rice.
Even though I made sure to have a bottle of soy sauce at the ready in my kitchen, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sushi package included little packets of soy sauce, wasabi and ginger. All I was missing was the chopsticks, so I just ate the sushi as finger food.
As for the taste, the store sushi wasn't bad, but — perhaps not surprisingly — it wasn't quite as tasty as any of the California rolls I've had from restaurants. Put another way, I'll definitely be picking up more sushi from Trader Joe's (and/or from other supermarkets if I find that it's been hiding in their refrigerated aisle instead of the freezer section) but those purchases won't keep me from going out for sushi.
I’m taking your word for it on Trader Joe’s
Earlier today, during a zombie-like shopping excursion where I did much more aimless wandering of aisles than actual purchasing of items, I stopped by the Trader Joe's in Cathedral City since it's right across the parking lot from Target.
I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and, in my sleepy state, I didn't quite get it. So I didn't buy anything there this afternoon.
But before I even drove on to my next shopping destination, I was getting Twitter direct messages and @replies and Facebook comments extolling all the good things one can pick up at Trader Joe's.
Now, I like to think of my Facebook friends, Twitter followers and Brian.Indrelunas.com readers as a fairly cohesive group, kinda like the Colbert Nation or Regina George's Army of Skanks. And with so many of you telling me how much you like Trader Joe's and specific TJ items, I decided I needed to give the store another chance.
But not only did I go and look for the items I already had on my shopping list; I also made a point of picking up every item that y'all mentioned in the praises you sang regarding Trader Joe's this afternoon — with the exception of the Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing that Sara talked up. (I'm taking a raincheck on that one.)
In fact, since most of the comments were posted on Facebook, I just printed out the list of comments for that particular status update and used it as my shopping list, seen at left.
And now that I have all of these things that y'all like, I'll be posting a little somethin' somethin' about each of the following items as I partake of them for the first time:
• Watermelon pieces, based on Tessa's recommendation of their fresh fruit
• Some mint-chip ice cream, which I'm not quite sure is of the all-natural variety that Tess recommended
• Spinach mushroom and Mexicaine quiches, recommended by Stacy
• Macaroni and cheese, recommended by Stacy
• Chocolate lava cake, recommended by Stacy
• Sublime ice cream cookies, recommended by Stacy
• Yogurt of many different varieties but unfortunately not the custard-style one recommended by Tina (which I couldn't find in the yogurt section)
• Trader Joe's sliced cheese, based on Tina's recommendation of their cheeses in general
• Frozen naan, recommended by Judith
• Chocolate-covered peanut butter pretzels, recommended by Kate
• Salsa verde, recommended by Becca
• Peanut butter, recommended by Jodi
• Hummus, recommended by Jodi
Yeah, I can already tell that "Trader Joe's Test Drive" is going to be the yummiest Brian.Indrelunas.com series I've ever undertaken!
Oh, and in a little teaser for the rest of the series, I should point out that I did try one of the samples (as Tessa recommended) and enjoyed the little pizza slice they put out for my enjoyment.
<!– @iMissTempe No. 33: Clothing-optional postgaming –>
@iMissTempe No. 33: Clothing-optional postgaming
Sweet dreams are not made of this.
Sometime this morning, I was having a rather pleasant dream that I was hanging out at an unidentifiably nondescript beach somewhere in Southern California. Sure, it was a cloudy day, but hey, I was at the beach, so it was all good.
Well, at one point, as I decide to float along the shore on my back, I feel this odd feeling, which I at first assume is a rare sunbeam breaking through the clouds. Nope. It's the sucker on the tentacle of a freakin' octopus.
OK, time out. For those of you who don't know, my all-time No. 1 irrational fear is that of octopi. They just freak me out. I don't like seeing real ones — not in the ocean, not in an aquarium, not on the Discovery Channel, not even dead on a plate. I don't even like seeing cartoon depictions of them. Whether the offending octopus is the mascot for a New Mexico car wash or the subject of a random piece of street art in Tempe, it just kinda makes me shudder. Their tentacles, the way they move, the inky business... all of it freaks me out.
So, back to the dream, when I realized that one of those inky mofos had just latched onto me, I was freaking the hell out way before it started to drag me down to some secret underwater Twitter server farm.
I'm not making this up. I really did dream that the octopus, which btw had way more than eight tentacles and used them all to keep me captive, was some sort of agent (or rogue agent) of Twitter, kind of like a demonic cousin of the Fail Whale.
Anyway, I got a good deep breath right before my captor pulled me underwater, and when I realized where we were going, I shimmied and shook myself free. Then I quickly swam to safety underneath a pier that for some reason the octopus couldn't get under. There, some sort of lifeguard or police officer told me that I was barred from going back in the water, which was fine by me since the Octopus of Doom was lying in wait. So I got out of the water and then... I woke up.
Play Mix it again, Sam
A couple weeks ago, I covered the back-to-school luncheon at the La Quinta Senior Center. As the seniors waited for the children they were honoring to arrive, a man sat at the piano and played some (I presume) familiar tunes.
This pre-luncheon entertainment got me thinking about what senior centers will be like when people my age are in our 60s, 70s and beyond.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I feel like in 50 years, you won't see too many of us future old folks entertaining each other by playing the songs of yesteryear on a piano but rather by spinning them on an old turntable or perhaps an antique laptop.
In fact, while covering the luncheon, I got this mental image of a 70-year-old Sam Gavin mixin' it up for a bunch of other elderly folks. That's not to say that Sam can't play the piano, but srsly — which of these situations looks more rl?
Well, actually, now that I've given Sam gray hair in both of those pictures, the one of the left doesn't look that improbable either.
I, like many others, think of Sept. 11, 2001, as a day when something — if not everything — changed. For me, Before Sept. 11 and After Sept. 11 are two distinct eras. But today, I met some young folks who really only remember — or have only lived during — the latter era.
This morning, I went to cover a Sept. 11 prayer service held at a local Catholic school and parish. Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet spoke at that service, and in a press release that his office put out yesterday, he noted that most of the children at the K-8 school would be too young to remember much about what happened eight years ago today.
Indeed, I got to talk with a few of the school's eighth graders today about what they remember from a Tuesday in September that was back when they were in kindergarten. You can hear what one of those girls had to say in tomorrow's Desert Sun.
But tonight, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how there are now people too young to remember where they were at 5:45 a.m. Pacific time on Sept. 11, 2001 — just like I'm too young to remember what I was doing at 11:39 a.m. Eastern time on Jan. 28, 1986. There are even schoolkids now who hadn't been born by Sept. 11, 2001, just like I wasn't even alive on Nov. 22, 1963.
Every year around this time, they'll hear us talk about where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. But they won't be able to fully understand what it's like to hear or see or read something that they'll never forget — just like I wasn't able to until the age of 15.
Part of me hopes that they'll never understand that feeling.
so much pomp and circumstance
You know, I've been to three big graduations in the past nine months.
The first was my graduation from ASU in December. Then, in May, I scored alumni tickets to Obamarama, where I heard echoes of my own commencement while listening to the president's address to spring-semester graduates from the alumni section of Sun Devil Stadium.
And today, I graduated again — this time from Gannett's Talent Development Program. This morning, I sat with a handful of editors in our conference room as we all watched the half-hour graduation ceremony Webcast from Gannett HQ in McLean, Va.
It was really cool to be congratulated not just from afar by the corporate brass but also locally by our publisher, executive editor and senior editor for news, as well as most of the digital team (including Matt, who's been my mentor throughout the 10-week program) and the editor who I now report to as the AM breaking reporter.
And I was also really touched by the fact that The Desert Sun went all out and even got a cake to celebrate my graduation:
Also, a morning full of graduation-themed banter led me to pick up my maroon graduation cap when I was home for lunch. When I returned, the sight of my cap got "Pomp and Circumstance" stuck in an editor's head. He started humming the graduation march, and soon pretty much the entire editor's pod had picked up the tune. It was slightly strange, kinda touching and really funny all at the same time.
Oh, the Ace.
This sign out front shows the Ace is wit' it like Disney.
I just found a very succinct description of the Ace Hotel and Swim Club in Palm Springs and its appeal.
In the course of explaining to a Facebook friend why she was at the "new hipster resort in town ... filled with West Hollywood tweekers" for bingo last night (which I didn't make it to because I was still napping when it started), one of my friends wrote: "In a town filled with retirees, it's our only chance to see people under age 30, therefore, we go there like four times per week."
Amen, sister. (And yeah, I'll definitely wake up for "sissy bingo" next week.)
