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i woke up this morning (while still in bed) to watch ted kennedy on meet the press. i love the guy, he's the bastion of the liberal cause, which unfortunately also blinds him sometimes. he failed to answer a few questions thoroughly, going off on his own tangents about how bush is wrong and why we must elect kerry. he's like that grandfather you know and love but sometimes he gets kind of embarassing when he's ranting something he's really passionate about. for my money, give me an al franken or a michael moore, guys who are smart and know their stuff and can take off the abrasive edges of their solid arguments with humor as well as defend the cause.

i didn't want that gallon of whole milk in the fridge to go bad so i made flan today. i like cooking on a sunday morning, with the sunlight saturating the kitchen, it just feels right some how, a postcard captioned "domestic tranquility". i also made some scrambled eggs with bits of chive and a glass of homemade banana milk. i have to work on my morning foods. since i usually don't bother waking up early enough for breakfast anyway, my cooking language is missing that whole set of vocabulary. you might remember i used to at least make belgian waffles, but that's before i realized what a horrible mess it is to clean up the waffle iron. eggs seem to be the standard breakfast item, and i've dabbled in omelettes and scrambles, but i'm still not down with my techniques and occasionally mistakes still get made. i'd like to try cooking bacon, but i'm afraid it'll make a big greasy mess. what else do people have for breakfast?

snouty isn't going to make it. i noticed about a week ago, right after i replanted the elodeas floating in the tank, that snouty had this weird growth on the base of its dorsal fin. it looked fungal almost, i was hoping it'd just clear up. the growth never really disappeared, and some how it's eating away at its dorsal fin, and i'm afraid in a few more days that fin will just fall off and snouty won't be able to swim correctly anymore and will just die. snouty was the only one of those fish that i had any real attachment too, only because it was the only one i could pick out from the other fish (they all look the same, maybe some subtle variations in size). snouty was also my one and only favorite because it seemed to be an underdog, a sadly misshapen red cherry barb born with a congenital mouth defect that left it with a skewed fish face. i thought when i first got it it'd die quickly because of the handicap, but snouty has proved to be the little red cherry barb that could, competing equally with the normal (boring) fish. i will be sad when snouty dies. the tank is more like a hospice than an aquarium now. i hope whatever snouty has isn't contagious (so far i haven't seen signs in the other fish), but once snouty is gone, i really don't care very much about the other ones, and i will perhaps secretly wish for their quick demise so i can buy a goldfish, which was what i really wanted in the first place.

with the temperature in the mid 40's, i went out for a run. i took my time getting ready, preening in front of the mirror in my running outfit (not as if i've never worn that damn thing before, it's what i always wear), doing my stretches. here's my rule for stretching: you stretch until it doesn't hurt anymore, then you can stop. the pain means tight muscles, and the whole point of stretching is to loosen muscles. whether this is scientifically and medically true or not, who know, i'm no fitness expert. when will i realize that 45 degrees is still not warm enough to wear shorts? when i stop wanting to show off my sexy legs, that's when! yow! however, i did warm up eventually, rolling up my sleeves even, only to roll them back down when a strong gust of cold wind blew in. today's run, an equal mix of attractive men and women. a lot of tall folks on the path i noticed, oh how i envy their longer stride! to be a good distance runner, you need to be thin and tall. thin i've got covered (shut up!), but there's no way i can get taller, and i don't think running in platform shoes will make it any better. there was no nature to be spotted on today's run, although i did notice some tree buds. walking back, an attractive brunette carrying a silver boombox smiled at me. i wondered if she was smiling at my naked legs, freezing in the cold weather. i picked up a copy of the rosenoff report. if i thought last week's neighborhood offering was outrageous, this week was even more so: a recently renovated single family house located at the front of my street is selling for $2.2 million. granted, it's a historical house with 3 garaged parking and 6664 square feet of space, but that is expensive! it scares me to think that some of my neighbors might be millionaires if they can afford homes like that. here i am, struggling to survive, deciding whether to get generic orange juice or name brand orange juice at the supermarket, while my rich neighbors are taking baths in champagne and painting their walls with gold. to tell you the truth though, i don't think it's worth that amount, my guess is the price will definitely go down (then i'll sell my place and buy that one - yeah right!). i bumped into dennis on his way to a david attenborough talk down in harvard square. "are you overly optimistic?" he asked, referring to my lower body nakedness.

i got home and took a hot shower. sigh. relax. the two best things about running is finally coming to a stop and taking a hot shower afterwards. sigh. relax.

my parents came over around 6pm, family dinner at my house for a change, my sister absent on one of her faux nanny gigs. we got an order of fuxifeipian from zoe's, which was really off the mark tonight, wasn't spicy at all, the sauce too sweet, and the portions surprisingly small. the best time to frequent a restaurant is when they first open, because they want to impress the customers. after a while though, restaurants cut corners, less ingredients for more money, and eventually the food isn't very good anymore. i've seen it happen at a lot of places (suishiya, anyone?), and i'm not saying it's happening to zoe's, but the price of brisk business might be going to their heads.

both my parents believe that the recent assassination attempt in taiwan was a staged event orchestrated by the incumbent president to stay in power. i told them i believed it was a real attempt, and they both got very incensed. they also told me that i should think about taking some classes, to further my education, since i probably can't be coding in lingo forever (i must also consider my dream of having a dancing career). we watched CNN, which was doing a special biography report of ayman al-zawahri, the brains behind al qaeda, whom some might consider more dangerous than OBL. then we switched over to 60 minutes, where we watched the interview of ex-white house anti-terrorism advisor richard clarke, where he pretty much gave damning smoking gun testimony about how the current administration botched up the war on terror, and how danger signs were evident prior to 9/11 that the administration didn't bother to take seriously until it was too late. it's absolutely mind blowing. the kerry campaign should just run snippets of the interview for their ads, it shows that the bush administration to be so incompetent that it's almost criminal, and how their "war on terror" is actually making it worse and the world an even more dangerous place than before 9/11.

after my parents had some flan they left. i quickly turned to the sopranos. nobody died tonight, but 3 gardeners get beat up pretty badly, while uncle junior is starting to lose his marbles. and oh oh, next week, a possible turf war! yawn. i then switched to my tape of alias, which unfortunately my vcr decided not to recording the final 10 minutes of the show. SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED! did dixon get his daughter back? i need to get a new vcr, or trade up to a dvr.

on that note, i look forward to monday! brand new work week, get ready to ROCK!