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Phool Gobi ki Bhaji = Cauliflower with Tomato and Onion

Cut up cauliflower flowerets into bite size pieces and soak in water for half an hour.

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I was walking up 14th Street from Valencia to Guerrero today, when I noticed a crowd of people, then police cars, then a person in a weird white suit... and finally, the reason for all the commotion - THOUSANDS OF HONEY BEES!

Apparently the fellow shown here in the blue shirt, came out to his car and there was a massive cloud of bees swarming around it. The police were called, then a bee keeper. The keeper brought a queen and a box and began to corral the bees which she planned to take back to her honey-making hive.

She explained to the growing crowd that the bees had probably broken away from an overcrowded hive, were looking for a new home, and decided this guy's car looked good.

I finally had a pluot (3/4 plum + 1/4 apricot). It was distinctly plum-like, pretty tasty.

For some reason, you can buy every Nine Inch Nails album EVER on iTunes, except Pretty Hate Machine. I hate you! (I think it has something to do with it being an import.) Now I have to buy chunks of plastic to get "Head Like A Hole", wah; I bought it used off Amazon. ★★

Did it ever occur to you that the baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind is an actual person? Me either. He's 17 now and his name is Spencer Eldon. He was interviewed last week on NPR's All Things Considered. He thinks Rock Band on Xbox sucks because it keeps his friends from going out and forming real bands (which is debatable since my friend Brian got started on drums that way.) Geffen sent him a platinum album and a teddy bear for his first birthday (though his family only received a $200 flat for his appearance on the album cover.) And, he's trying to graduate high school early because he's "so over" it. "Same people, same teachers ... going to your locker, worrying about stupid girls ... I wanna get something going, I wanna travel," he says. ★★

Either is used with a negative verb; Neither is used with an affirmative verb. "I haven't been to France. I haven't either / Neither have I." ("I have been to France. I have too / So have I.") "I can't see the screen. I can't either / Neither can I." ★★

There are four main types of brackets:

- round brackets or parentheses: ( )
- square brackets or box brackets: [ ]
- curly brackets or braces: { }
- angle brackets or chevrons: < >

The angle bracket was the earliest type to appear in English. Desiderius Erasmus coined the term lunula to refer to the rounded parentheses (), recalling the round shape of the moon. ★★

The interrobang (‽) "American Martin K. Speckter invented the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if copywriters conveyed surprised rhetorical questions using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine TYPEtalks. Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included rhet, exclarotive, and exclamaquest, but he settled on interrobang."

The paragraph sign's (¶) proper name is pilcrow, but can also be called an alinea (Latin: a linea, "off the line"). ★★

YouTube has a video interview with Charles Eames (thanks Drawn!) In this video, he discusses his design principles, and then they debut the Eames Lounge Chair! Goose bumps! His wife Ray comes out near the end of the interview. As the TV interviewer is talking to the camera and signing off, Charles and Ray just look at each other, beaming, nothing else exists to them. It's pretty sweet. ★★

There aren't very many hybrid fruits. You'd think there'd be a truckload, what with people's determination to monkey with nature. I learned of the pluot (of which there are some 13+ varieties). It's a plum and apricot hybrid, 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot (thanks KellySuzanne!) A pluot is a tradename for a fruit developed in the late 20th century by Floyd Zaiger. Conversely, the aprium is an apricot and plum hybrid, but 3/4 apricot and 1/4 plum. A nectacotum (also known as a nectacotum pluot) is a hybrid fruit, combining an apricot, plum, and nectarine. It was developed by the Ito Packing Company in California. ★★

Since 1992, badminton is an Olympic sport with five events: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles, in which each pair is a man and a woman. ★★

My new favorite drink is a Gin Fizz. A Gin Fizz contains gin, lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water, served in a highball glass with two ice cubes. The drink is similar to a Tom Collins, the difference being that a Tom Collins historically used "Old Tom Gin" (a sweetened version of, and precursor to, London Dry Gin). A Sloe Gin Fizz contains sloe gin (a blackthorn plum flavored spirit), lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water. It is commonly mistaken that this drink is spelled "Slow" Gin Fizz. A Gin Fizz is the best known cocktail in the Fizz family, but there exist other (some might opine revolting) varieties:

- Silver Fizz—addition of egg white
- Golden Fizz—addition of egg yolk
- Royal Fizz—addition of whole egg
- Diamond Fizz—sparkling wine instead of carbonated water
- Green Fizz—addition of a dash of green crème de menthe ★★

Goose Step: Der Stechschritt (literally: piercing step), commonly known in English speaking countries as "the Goose-Step", is a special form of military step, which is usually demonstrated in solemn military parades and passes in review of closed units. The marching troops swing their legs from a vertical leg to a nearly horizontally-extending one, bringing it down with a loud simultaneous stepping noise and continuing the cycle in unison. It emerged from Prussian drilling regulation during the early 19th Century. Goose-stepping is commonly associated today with the German armed forces of the Reichswehr and of the Wehrmacht. After the end of the Second World War a reduced form of the goose-step (boot point in knee height) was still used by the East German National People's Army under the name drilling step to avoid references to old Prussian or Wehrmacht military tradition. ★★

DVDs I watched this past week: National Treasure: Book of Secrets: cheesy but good, and I am deeply in love with Riley; Definitely, Maybe: pretty sweet if a little corny and predictable. Ryan Reynolds does a nice job traversing the highs and lows of modern love; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Sorry, but it bored me to the point of cleaning my kitchen, though from what I saw, Casey Affleck was great; Evan Almighty: Even though Lauren Graham seems to always just play herself in everything I've ever seen her in, I don't care because she is so funny and cute and I dunno, she's awesome. I loave her. LOAVE. Kinda formulaic and predictable, but I love me some Steve Carell too, so it was worth the hour and a half.

I'm thinking about SF supervisor Chris Daly's proposal to curtail automobile traffic on Market Street east of Van Ness/Hwy 101. At first, I envisioned a long, tree-lined avenue of only bicycles and pedestrians, frolicking gaily in the sun... Back in reality, I think they could leave almost all the streets that cross Market open to crossing, just cut off turning onto Market itself.

Driving up or down Market Street, currently, is frustrating, slow, and often ridiculously circuitous. I ride my bike up and down Market every day, to and from work, and I pass cars just *coasting* on my bike. It fills me with glee. The cars will race ahead to the next light, then sit there and wait as I pass them again. It's a little game I play in my head that goes something like, "Let's see if I can beat these poor saps who are farting out carbon monoxide in addition to pouring a good chunk of their income into fuel, insurance, car payments, repairs, and parking tickets." Also in my head, I hear that "dun-da-dun-da-dunna" music that plays when the Wicked Witch rides off with Toto. It's fun to be me sometimes.

Back to my Big Idea: people were complaining in the comments on the above referenced article that cutting off automobile traffic from using this street as a through-way would be bad for the businesses on Market Street. But! There is nowhere to park on Market, you already have to go to a side street or a garage. Nobody drives to a business on Market. If cars are not allowed to clog Market, public transit would run smoother, and it would be more welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists. And all of these people? They are on foot. They are physically on the street. Without a giant machine to navigate and stow somewhere, they are much more likely to visit businesses on the street since they can just walk in. People in cars? They have to go park and then walk there anyway!

The tough thing is, Chris Daly rankles people. I think his heart is usually in the right place, but his approach is often so inappropriately simplistic and his stance so stubborn, that it makes it impossible to get behind him. He's like a teenager who thinks he knows everything but can't see the unyielding complications, imbalances, and unfairness in life. I think he looks at a problem and thinks of how things should be, then runs with the first short route from problem to no problem that he thinks of, nevermind the problems his solution might cause. It's not helpful.