Thanksgiving Special! (Squash Pie!)

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of making a pumpkin pie from scratch. I wanted to make a practice pie before Thanksgiving, so I filmed this little adventure for your enjoyment and personal development. Ironically, as I post this today, I've begun to make a second batch of pies -- these for the actual holliday.

DISCLAIMER: I no longer look like the guy in this film, for it took many weeks to edit. Here is an updated photo, which clearly shows the positive masculine benefits of baking a pie:

Enjoy!

Photo Post!

Jamie does the dishes whilst I ready to leave for work.

She listens to WXRT, an eclectic rock station, while she scrubs.

Photo Post!

I picked a really cold time to shave my beard off!

This is a cool sculpture in the park across the street from us. I walk by it almost every day on my to class.

The Grand History of Economics, Part 1

The Asian Financial Crisis, circa 1990s

The following is part one of my new ongoing series concerning economics history. It should be understood that "Grand" in this context should equate to the word "fake."

The Asian Financial Crisis officially began in the summer of 1997 when Thailand's currency suddenly collapsed. This single event began a chain of economic crises across the eastern Asian nations. Suddenly, countries from Japan to Indonesia underwent a severe economic downturn. Now, even a decade since the crisis began, many nations still feel the economic effects.

But what really began the crisis? Well, while some economists debate about the volatility of the Thai real estate market and the interconnected financial systems of the modern era, most economists agree the crisis began due to a sudden alteration in Godzilla attacks.

From the period of 1976 to 1989, only one known Godzilla attack occurred. The following chart ("Recorded Godzilla Attacks") helps to show this period, now referred to as "The Great Monster Moderation." During that time span, only one documentary concerning the monster -- The Return of Godzilla -- was made. The makers of the film conjectured that Godzillla's prolonged absence resulted from, in fact, the death of the "original Godzilla." This is typically called the "Three Godzilla Theory," and is widely accepted now.


Many economists and econocats believe that the period of absence also may in fact indicate Godzilla had clandestinely attacked other nations, most notably Thailand, in a sort of pre-crisis warm-up. Then, in 1989, Godzilla fought against the genetically mutated rose-monster, Biollante, (as documented in Godzilla vs. Biollante), destroying much of Tokyo in the process. The renewed string of attacks eventually culminated during 1995 in what economists and historians alike refer to as Godzilla vs. Destroyah.

Wikipedia contains the definitive account of this pivotal, final battle:

"Destoroyah then attempts to escape, but the military shoots and blows off his wings. Destroyah slams down to ground and the force of the impact causes him to be shattered apart. Robbed of his vengeance, Godzilla beckons into the air, a living mass of hatred and power. As Godzilla reaches meltdown, and begins to die, the military fire him with ice beams to stop him from the destroying the planet and are successful. Godzilla's final moments of life are long, and strenuous as he is overcome with immense pain, with his flesh and body slowly melting away. The King of the Monsters gives one last faint roar before he becomes nothing more than a pile of melted flesh and ashes.

"The victory is a costly one however, for the radiation has made Tokyo an uninhabitable city. Suddenly, radiation levels begin to drop, and from within the thinning smoke, is a revived and full grown Godzilla Junior, the new King of the Monsters."

For the next two years, Godzilla Junior (the third Godzilla of the Three Godzilla Theory) avoided the radiation-ravaged Tokyo. In his 1999 paper entitled, "The Toy Mouse that Got Away," Nobel laureate and world-famous econocat, Maru, suggested Godzilla Junior returned to the previous targets of the '70s and early '80s:

"We now know that he [Godzilla Junior] avoided Tokyo because of his aversion to tamagotchi toys. However, current research and my most recent dreams have indicated that this new Godzilla had enrolled briefly into the West Tokyo Community College (WTCC), studying economics part time. The only passing grades he received were in 'Introduction to Business Writing' -- an easy class in which anyone with radioactive breath or razor sharp teeth can pass -- and 'Starting Financial Crises in Eastern Asia: An Introduction to City Destroying.'


"WTCC currently denies ever admitting Godzilla [Junior] into the school, but I am a cat. I can see their thoughts. And I can eat their dreams. Additionally, I am sure I saw him in one of my 'Box Jumping' classes."

The Asian Financial Crisis officially ended when Godzilla used his nuclear pulse to destroy Orga in 1999, as recorded in the film Godzilla 2000. After his victory, Godzilla, overweight from eating poorly while in the real-estate business, rampaged through the city in an effort to trim down. He has been doing so ever since.

If you would like to learn more about Godzilla and the Asian Financial Crisis, browse over to Wikipedia where poor grammar and shady citations expertly catalog such information.

Simon's Cat, the Book!

One of the greatest things on the internet is, of course, cats. From icanhascheesburger.com to simply Google-imaging "cute kittens," few other other legitimate uses for the internet are yet known to exist. Perhaps one of the greatest treasures of this modern marvel is "Simon's Cat," a Youtube video series created by limey cartoonist and owner of three cats, Simon Tofield. "Simon's Cat" has always brought a masterfully quiet, yet clearly communicated, humor. So when I had the chance to get the new book, I pounced like a tabby at a string.

As I awaited the book's arrival, sitting on my window sill, using binoculars to watch my neighbor's pudgy, orange cat roll around insanely and lazily on the balcony across the street, I often contemplated the difficulty facing Simon Tofield in creating a book for "Simon's Cat." The video series relied on subtle, yet necessary, sound and illustrations involving more motion than a comic strip-style book could handle.

The book, I assumed, would destroy the unique elements of Simon's Cat. Tofield would break the story into comic strips and include dialogue or thought bubbles -- unlike any of the video series. And, because I'm still addicted to anything that reminds me of Garfield, I'd swallow this imitation of Jim Davis' work. I'd swallow it like Pepto, and I'd enjoy it for its not-good, not-bad taste.

Not so. In precisely zero words, Simon Tofield summed up all that is cat, focusing on two of the greatest aspects about cats: their vain pride and endless mischievosity©. I read this book entirely in a single sitting, laughing nearly non-stop and meowing in the spaces in between. Truly, Tofield is a profound artist, capable of conveying without words and sound, all the great situational and cat-loving/loathing humor that made his Youtube series a hit.

No, the book does not employ comic strips. No, the book does not use thought bubbles, or words at all!

Yes, the book is hilarious. Yes, the book is beautifully drawn. Afterwards, you will wake up from your cat-stupor to find yourself sitting with pen in hand, staring at a crisp, white sheet of paper. You will be wordlessly compelled to practice drawing with you gel pen, and you will love it.

If you get a chance, buy this book. Invent a holiday if you must. Buy it, and put it under your pillow, doodling the stories into your mind. That's what I did. And now I'm a millionaire.

Dreams with Cats with Jobs

Because of my busy schedule of job-hunting between graduate school classes, and my almost psychotic obsession with cats, I have recently received many new, strange dreams. I would like to outline one for you and offer its interpretation:

Econocat, the Dream:

In graduate studies, we are really thisclose to the business world. So I shouldn't have been surprised when, sitting in class one day, we were delighted to have a special, prominent guest join us. His name was Econocat, and he was one of the few mastermind cats who quietly operated the world's economies. Unfortunately, I had chosen to sit on the classroom's one futon and was falling asleep. So then -- just my luck! -- Econocat curled up on top of that very couch, right next to my dozing head¹! I kept trying desperately to stay awake, to make a good impression on Econocat, maybe get a job or something, but I couldn't fight it. I gave in and pulled my legs up onto the futon and laid my head on Econocat's soft and silky, purring, gray stomach.

Later I awoke to find Econocat, his eyes half-shut², still purring behind me. With the rest of the class leaving, the teacher walked up to me and said, "Good work. I don't know what you did, but Econocat liked you. You got the³ job."

End dream.

Econocat looked exactly like Banker Cat from icanhascheezburger.com, which leads me to believe he would play Econocat in the movie, assuming a movie rendition of my dream is in the works.

As far as interpretation goes, I think most of that dream is pretty self-explanatory: frustrations with work, fear of acceptance, duality of man, omniscience of cats -- pretty typical dream stuff. However, I do have a theory concerning the purring part: I believe I pushed my pillow into my bedside fan, making it -- as it were -- "purr" in such a intoxicating vibration so as to make me fall asleep in my dream. Just a thought. Needless to say, I have been trying to replicate the experience ever since.

Epilogue

Days after initially writing this entry, I presented my Econocat theory to my macroeconomics class, offering several illustrations to help convey Econocat's relevance to our class. Unfortunately, the class and my professor proved... "unreceptive." I, however, am leaving it up for you to decide -- damn scholarly convention! Below I have posted my own sketches as presented to the class. Now you decide:

"Econocat Plots."

"Econocat extends a paw of blessing."

"Econocat waits patiently to speak before the UN." / "Econocat appears over USSR, Fortells doom."

¹At this point, I am falling asleep in my own dream.
²No doubt trying to solve some foreign financial crisis, appearing in the sky above Tokyo as a symbolic gesture of goodwill.
³I'm still not sure what job we were talking about, but I think it paid well.

Thoughts Concerning FREEBIES

Recently I decided I would see if I could operate my computer without the aid of the expensive programs necessary to operate my standard of living. Mostly, I'm talking about the Microsoft Office Suite (for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint), Photoshop, and InDesign (which I use occasionally when composing .pdf documents for presentations or working on a book).

Outside of video games, these taxing programs are just about the only installed programs on my computer. They are big programs, and -- more importantly -- they are incredibly expensive. Even with student rates and discounts, I'd have to drop -- easily -- triple digits ($100-300) for each of these programs!

But this is the open-source age! We shouldn't pay for products anymore! The following programs have suitably replaced anything for which I would have previously paid -- and they each take up less space than their counterpart. I advise you investigate them!

Open Office
This is a free, all-in-one replacement for the Microsoft Office Suite. And, by all-in-one, I mean that Open Office is literally a singular program -- no need to hunt for the correct shortcut for Excel or Word (which is important when suddenly all your shortcuts are blue -- does anybody else have this problem? When did everyone make their logos blue?).

What's coolest about Open Office, in my opinion, and what I use it most for is its highly comparable Excel equivalent and its ability to insert math equations seamlessly into written documents -- a must for nerdy econ grad students!

Google Docs
I'm actually writing this blog post using Google Docs -- right now! Google Docs is double cool because it actually does not require a download; it's operated completely online. This means most people can satisfy their composition needs without adding something to the hard drive. What I love most about it is that:

1) I can access my documents anywhere with internet, which is everywhere, and share them with any other gmail user, which is every one.

2) I can export in multiple file formats, including .doc and .pdf.

Granted, Google Docs is still a young program and has some formatting issues -- mostly when trying to upload a highly formatted .doc -- and lacks a grammar check, but for simple purposes, it more than accomplishes its objective.

GIMP
As an avid blogger, photo-tweaker, and narcissist, a good image-editing software is a must. Without Photoshop, I can't effectively paste my face on Bruce Campbell's body to put on Jamie's desktop, and I can't design a creative photo book for my parents commemorating their involvement with me, etc. GIMP, in this way, has saved my way of life. I first met this program, rightly so, when interning in the nonprofit world. They didn't get get profit; I didn't get paid, and neither did GIMP. We were all buddies in that regard, I guess.

GIMP, by no means, is a full replacement for the ever-growing, ever-powerful Photoshop. But, since I am not a graphic designer and don't even use Photoshop to its ultimate ability, I find GIMP's sophistication right on target. It operates layers; it has all the blending options; it has layer masking; and so on. Though it's certainly not a bare-bones progam; it definitely lacks in the flair side of things -- notably its lackluster filters. However, everything on this blog has been made using GIMP, so drink it in and decide for yourself.

Scribus
This is a decent replacement for InDesign or Quark (or, God-forbid-you're-stuck-with Microsoft Publisher). Most people don't use/want/need InDesign, so I'm just going to mention Scribus: Scribus.

GoodSearch
This Yahoo-powered search engine is too cool to not mention. It has really little to do with this post, but I need to mention it anyway.

GoodSearch gives a portion of its search result income to a charity of your choice. What?! Yeah, you read it right. Please don't question me again.

What's extra cool is that my absolute favorite organization -- Gospel for Asia -- is on there too! You can add a GoodSearch option to the search box in the top right of either Firefox or Internet Explorer. It doesn't have a map search option, so I just flip it back to Google for Google Maps (which, by the way, is the absolute best map program out there). Also, from the GoodSearch front page, you can find out the exact amount of money GoodSearch has raised for any particular organization (for GFA: $1,274.01)! I highly recommend using GoodSearch!