recently i bought the 2 dvd set of pride and prejudice (one of my favorite books of all time. yeah, i know i'm a wuss.) which i think is just great. i watched all 6 hours of it this weekend with andy and it's definitely one of those rare literary adaptations that succeeds in staying faithful to the book, and the added scenes actually succeed. jennifer ehle is quite good, and colin firth as mr. darcy has these soulful eyes that are irresistible. heh. the rest of the cast is likewise very good. while on my jane austen kick i picked up this book which had the lengthy title what jane austen ate and charles dickens knew: from fox hunting to whist - the facts of daily life in nineteenth-century england (by daniel pool). the book isn't bad, although i ended up skimming through a lot of the more boring sections (e.g. the government, the army), and the parts i was more interested in didn't delve quite as deep as i would have liked. i'll prob. pick up another book about the same period some time. topics in this book included pudding, dances, the difference between an earl and a marquis, and card games. (i found out that the exotic-sounding whist is actually the familiar game of spades. i have a sudden urge to play it now, heh.) some interesting tidbits: p. 53: "... when she came out in 1849 Lady Dorothy Neville attended '50 balls, 60 parties, 30 dinners and 25 breakfasts.'" p. 58: "In some families a string of underservants in succession in the same position all might be called by the same first name because the family did not want to be bothered learning a new one each time a replacement was hired." p. 81: "Quite apart from any damage to hearts or reputations, wax dripped from the overhead candelabra and chandeliers onto the dancers with some regularity." p. 205: "Unfortunately ... colored food additives were in their infancy: to get gold and silver colors, copper and zinc were added; for blues, iron; and lead was used for reds. Occasionally, arsenic seems to have been used to achieve greens with fatal results in at least one case." p. 253: "If you were a suicide, until 1823 you were required to be buried by law at a crossroads with a stake through your heart ... The stake was to prevent the ghost from walking, and the burial at a crossroads was believed to dilute the evil influence of the deceased by spreading it in four separate directions."

The BBC has a good timeline of Taiwan's history, some of which I never knew about -- like the Dutch and Spanish colonization of the island. Or that martial law didn't get lifted until 1987. Or that Taiwan didn't officially give up on reclaiming Mainland China until 1988. It's so fascinating.

peeking into my garden Matt's in town again this weekend and I put him to work -- we hung up a hammock and got some patio furniture. I fell once in the hammock and the support poles crashed down atop me. I think I'll have to set a post in concrete after all. It's kind of scary every time I climb into it. Transplanted the zucchini and tomatoes. The carrots finally popped up this morning, and the spaghetti squash is looking great. I think the sunflower will survive even though some enterprising wildlife ate the seed leaves. Planted potatoes, but I'm a little skeptical. I found a hoe and an edger next to the water heater, and the hoe is my new favorite gardening implement. Reclaimed another 12 feet of sidewalk -- because the backyard hasn't been touched in about 4 years, all the concrete has been completely covered over with weeds and such -- I had no idea there was any concrete at all until I walked around in it. I discovered mint in the backyard as I was hoeing away the sidewalk coverage -- the smell filled the backyard as I slashed through it. I think mint's pretty hardy and it'll come back, I'm not even sure where it's rooted, since it's a total wild mess. I have some crazy weeds! There are so many roots all over the place, and they can grow back if there's just 4 inches of root -- i keep pulling these little weeds out of my garden, only to discover that there's a huge root ball underneath. Oh I also bordered my garden with wheat and rye seeds, hopefully it'll grow up into a nice grassy edge. Oh Matt also planted some California-native wildflowers along the fence. I'm also going to plant all the vegetables that keep sprouting in our kitchen -- we have a massive onion plant, and just tossed a garlic plant that had started rotting. The fog rolled in this weekend, is this the beginning of summer?

a while ago i made a copy of the index to the rough guide to classical music, which is a bit too heavy on modern british composers but is otherwise a great survey of the classical music literature. i've put up the text here. how many of these pieces do you know? also a while back i read a book called american folk tales and songs collected by a guy named richard chase. the stories were rather quaint, but generally entertaining, esp. the dialect. the highlight, though, were these texts from graves from around the turn of the century. succinct yet oh so eloquent. Franky Davis his wife age 87 dide Sep 10 1842 she had nirve fite wolves all nite at shogar camp to save her caff throde fier chonks the camp wars half mile from home noe she must have nirv to fite wolf all nite Joseph Carpenter ag 18 did aug 18 1862 he fot for his contery los his lif. Kim Kone ag 73 dide oc 15 1888 wars black smith he had 6 girles that cod work in shop tha[y] wars 6 feet hy David Frank age 72 dide Dec 22 1891 wars fine man mad[e] some brandy wars good Samel Hoskin ag 70 dide may 5 1896 wars farmer and grate lier

oh shit. The president and VP of Taiwan were shot today, luckily not fatally. One of the best parts of SF is the availability of foreign language channels. I've been watching the news on KTSF to try to pick up cantonese by listening and guessing what they're saying. They've had a lot of coverage of the upcoming elections, which I didn't even know was happening. I'll have to tune in tonight to the Mandarin version so I can understand what the real story is. They had these interesting poll results (of which I could mostly but not completely discern the meaning), which (I think) contrasted the opinions of the entire population versus the native Taiwanese. As I'd expect, the native Taiwanese were much more for an independent Taiwan, and didn't consider themselves part of China, whereas the general population was overwhelmingly for the opposite. At least I think that's what they said. Don't quote me on it. Whoa. Right after I posted this, I read on the BBC that the polls have opened. I hope cool heads will prevail.

been obsessively playing this game called pocket fighter lately. it features characters from the popular street fighter franchise and a few other fighting game characters, all as kids ... sooo cute and so addictive.

on patriotism Arianna is still my hero. I especially am glad to see the way she addresses the language war, about needing to reclaim the host of words that the right has run off with. I don't consider "liberal" to be a dirty word, or increasing taxes to be a mortal sin, or morality from being the exclusive domain of the religious right. The most patriotic moment of my life was when I marched in the DC parade for diplomacy over bombing Iraq. The second most patriotic moment (or some sort of municipal version of it) was when Gavin Newsom declared that San Francisco would no longer support the discrimination of gays. Those have been the moments that have characterized America for me, and made me proud to live here. Take that away, and I might as well go to Canada, where they speak a language that is much closer to mine.

it's only the ides of march and i'm sweating. who would've ever thought that I would consider 75 to be WAY TOO HOT? later this week it is going to 'cool down' to the 60s. i think i'm living in paradise. sprouting report: the radishes are doing great, one set looks like it got munched on, and one spot didn't grow, but the rest look really happy. the garlic is almost completely sprouted. marigolds popped up this weekend, as did the zucchini (which is huge seedling! and is wearing a seed hat) and the tomatoes. they were growing before my eyes. the salad bowl lettuce just started showing its leaves late yesterday. in general the seeds are doing much better indoors than out. the ones inside weren't even planted until midweek and they just shot out of their pots. this week i'm cooking out of Cooking for Mr. Latte again. Bowties with lemon, herbs, and ricotta salata. Succotash with goat cheese. Cobb salad. The nice lady behind the cheese counter directed me to the Ricotta Salata, which is definitely not ricotta cheese in a margarine tub. I also paid a visit to the SF Tool Lending Center this weekend. It's soooooooooooooo cool. Now I can use all the right tools to dig up my backyard. I'm thinking about making patio furniture, I think that might be fun.

the radishes are sprouting! but the compost is still cold.

this is kind of an old review that i forgot to post: andy and i went to casa romero last week. it was one of those "let's check it out even though last time we went it was really mediocre" kind of occasions. it was better this time, although i'd forgotten how overpriced it is. we started w/ the guacamole which was quite bland. then we had three appetizers: a cactus/mexican mushroom (i forget the name) dish in a tortilla; a poblano quesadilla which had a nice zing to it; and the chile relleno. all three were fine although none of them were amazing. the service was definitely subpar, but that might just be the "latin way". casa mexico in h sq may have a slightly less interesting menu, but the service is good there and the prices are much more reasonable. plus they have two hot waiters there, hahaha.

the party's over but only for now -- and it lasted a lot longer than anyone expected. scoreboard gavin newsom: 3800 bad guys: 1

new plantings Today I planted: 8 carrots (Nutri-Red, which I read on the packet says are carrots for cooking. what the hell is that? i want to eat my fresh carrots raw.) 9 leaf radishes a scattering of alyssum around this cute stone frog we found in the weeds And inside I started jalapenos, marigolds, and spearmint. So far there's not much action. The garlic is sprouting (but I started it from already-sprouty cloves). I'm worried about my seeds already! Shouldn't the radishes be super quick to sprout? I don't have enough patience for this. I threw some more stuff atop the compost and hosed it down. Hopefully I'll feel some heat tomorrow. Last night I made a red snapper dish, using a recipe for stuffed flounder rolls in Sundays at Moosewood. It turned out quite delicious and surprisingly filling (a good thing as the fish cost me $14!), and I toasted the rest of the whole wheat tortillas I had on hand to crunch along. My biggest regular expenses seem to be cereal and milk. This feels wrong.

compost I turned the compost pile yesterday and it wasn't hot. I read that it's supposed to get hot the next day, and it was sort of dry in the middle, so I guess I didn't put enough water in. I'm also concerned that my compost pile is pretty much full of this really invasive weed. I borrowed another slew of gardening books from the library, including one about decorating your garden. I'm really excited to slowly build up the garden to be a fun place to hang out.

garden update If I could find my flash card reader, I could take pictures and show you my garden progress. This weekend Matt came to visit and we started our thorough overhaul of the garden. He trimmed down three large trees that were super bushy and turned them back into trees, leaving a huge pile of brush in the yard. I set up my vegetable garden with an edge and a frame for growing tomatoes and squash. We also reclaimed some of the concrete that had been hidden underneath the overzealous clover. So far I've planted (on my little 16 sq foot plot): 2 Strawberry plants 1 Spaghetti Squash 1 sunflower 16 radishes 8 cloves of garlic 8 red onions 8 green onions (today) 8 sweet yellow onions (today) 4 nasturtiums 4 bibb lettuce 4 salad bowl lettuce I've started a couple tomato plants and some zucchini (which will go in the plot off to the side). Up soon: Marigolds, carrots, leaf radish, jalapenos. I've also started a small compost bin that is already full. So far I think the garden has set me back a couple hundred dollars, for seeds and plants and tools and compost and miscellaneous materials. Also one of the greatest parts of living here is that calla lillies basically grow wild. We have several plants in the backyard that continue to bloom gorgeously even though no one has been taking care of them -- the guy next door informed me that the garden has pretty much remained untouched for the past 4 years. I brought in another flower today -- they sit in a vase by the fireplace and are so elegant.

just finished reading the wind in the willows for the first time. it's a wonderfully gentle, idyllic, very british book, and had some surprisingly emotionally sophisticated moments. the british really have a knack for really charming stories. at times the book is a little heavy on description, but grahame's characterization is great. i like ratty the best, but badger and mole are close seconds. toad is kind of an ass, but his reformation at the end was almost believable. the edition i read had fantastically lovable illustrations by a fellow named dick currari and i've included a few below.

Outsourcing Drug Trials Companies Facing Ethical Issue as Drugs Are Tested Overseas I found this really disturbing. I was even more disturbed that the article didn't reflect my biggest concern -- that the lack of regulation in other countries that makes recruiting and testing drugs may lead to something really bad happening in the future of American medicine. The reporter tries to assuage me: "The standards of medicine are high" in those countries, said Dr. Alan Wood, Covance's general manager for global clinical development services, and it is easy to recruit patients. But I am not so easily convinced. After all, a big reason why we'd rather go overseas for human guinea pigs is because the paperwork is too expensive. And American doctors are paid too well. (Hmph well maybe we should send these studies to Cuban doctors.) But what happens when the paper trail isn't as good? What happens when really bad shit happens? Do you really want to test drugs in a situation where you get so many subjects, but only because they can't afford to see a doctor? Is there an incentive to pretend you have this or that condition so that you can receive the basic checkup that is associated with many medical studies? Will this skew the testing results? The FDA must have this all taken care of right? So that when you come before them you have to prove that even though you did your study in some other country because it's cheaper, the test was still good, right? Somehow I feel like I'm reiterating Dan's post about the dangers of inviting another Therac-25.

went to great bay (from the same people who brought you radius and via matta) last night for andy's birthday. (happy birthday, andy!) the place looks better than i thought it would from the horrible outside. (it's part of the hideous BU hotel in kenmore square. fortunately the city of boston has made them redo their facade. it's currently underway.) the decor was good: good lighting, not too bright, not too dark; nice bar setup; some sort of random orange, salmon, and gray chiffon-y things on the wall; a projected image that was supposed to be fish scales but looked more like a chain link fence; and couches. also had an additional dining room which i didn't check out but which looked a little more formal. patty had the shrimp tacos. she's quite the expert on the place. she eats out pretty much every night of the week, and she said lately she's been going there about 12 times a month. (crazy, i know.) andy got the oysters, the beet salad w/ goat cheese (very attractively presented. in the center were alternating cross sections of red and gold beets with goat cheese spread in between. there were small wedges on the sides along w/ some type of red sauce.), and the scallop ravioli (which turned out to be ravioli w/ scallops as opposed to the ravioli having scallops in them). i had the seaweed salad (with tofu and either dried or cooked bits of portabella mushroom which were, as the teen girl squad would say, so good!) and the pureed potatoes (which was ridiculously huge). everything was uniformly quite good. for dessert we had the warm cookies with milk and the butterscotch pudding. the pudding was the only real disappointment. it was nice and creamy, but otherwise didn't have much personality. definitely one of the best places i've eaten at in boston in a while. (still haven't had dinner at radius ... one of these days when i'm not so poor.)

garlic Oh and I almost forgot to post about dinner! I went to the Stinking Rose last night, which is a garlic restaurant. Oh my god. I am still sweating garlic. We started off my scarfing down rolls topped with copious amount of roasted garlic, garlic-infused olive oil, and this sort of heavily-garlicked pesto. At this point, I was already sweating garlic and crying garlic. Then I had pasta with mussels and prawns in a garlic sauce, and at this point, I could no longer taste the garlic. This morning, I can still taste garlic in my mouth. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Super Tuesday Still slating. So far, looks more or less like this: Dean (yeah yeah i know) Khanna for congress (over incumbent Lantos) No on state Props 56, 57, 58 (the terminator bond et al.) Yes on state Prop 55 (education bond) Yes on regional Prop 2 (bridge tolls and money for transit) Yes on A, B, D. not sure yet on C, and haven't read E through J, and haven't looked at the "Democratic County Committee" at all -- i don't really even know what it is! Damn, voting in this state is fucking hard. Gardening I started in the garden today. Right now it's a completely overgrown patch of clover, wild grasses, trees, shrubs, and two cala lillies. "Patch" is an understatement. This morning I started clearing off a section of clover for my new veggie garden, while I'm planning out following guidelines in Square Foot Gardening. I'm hoping to grow: radishes carrots onions garlic lettuce marigolds nasturiums butternut squash tomatoes strawberries chinese chives I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited. Suggestions for things to grow, or books to read?