Confucius once said: "Eating is the utmost important part of life."

I'm sorry Confucius

Sadly a celebration of food that probably doesn't resemble anything Confucius ever ate... That celebration did not take place. Next time Confucius, teriyaki sticks in your honor. The rice will be in memory of you.

Scott... Caps and I were both looking forward to those chicken fingers that you so vividly promoted! But we decided that just the two of us couldn't go to Kowloon by our selves :( . We are holding you to a visit there sometime in the future. (mmmmmmm Americanized Chinese food served by blue haired old ladies in a fifty year old relic in the midst of a waste land of sprawl, suburban nostalgia, and fast food..... mmmmmmmmmmm Kowloon). I haven't been there since I was a kid, so I really want to appreciate the full grandeur of a Chinese Restaurant so tacky and old that it's cool.

Anyway we did go to pizzeria Regina in the North End. Caps spoke of his exciting day seeing the final of the World cup there. We had gelatto at "Mike's Pastry" for desert and it was lovely. On the way back to Charlestown where I caught the train Mike and I caught part of a game of Bocce while leaving the North End. He explained the rules to me a bit, which I guess is something like curling without the ice and brooms. We also watched a bit of a local softball tournament under the lights.

The weather was great, so I decided instead of getting on at the Community College stop (the school made "sort of" famous by Good Will Hunting), I continued on to Sullivan Station. The Shuttle bus was just leaving as I arrived, so my timing couldn't have been more ideal.

Anyway... I'm writing this very late, or early depending upon your perspective. I fell asleep when getting back and woke up around 3:00. So now I must go back and finish the second half of my REM restfulness.

Happy Friday!

Where do I order my pupu platter?

ITS HUMP... HUMP DAY HOORAY HOORAY ITS HUMP DAY...

So tomorrow is Thursday, and the day after that is Friday, (just for those of you who aren't keeping track). Best of all you are probably reading this on Thursday, which means that for you... TOMORROW IS FRIDAY... which means

It's here

It's here... The weekend is here! Hooray HOORAY

Hooray for Friday....

Ummm so, enough with my dullard silliness...

Kate and I were going to go to the Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington tonight to test out another of Greater Boston's fine BBQ establishments. Unfortunately when I met Kate after work the sky said "IMPENDING DOOM". And if the sky had a voice it would have been like Phil Hartman speaking through a tube while stretching out his vowels. Dooooo-ooooom!!!!!

So due to our fear of wetness and/or electrocution we simply took the T to Davis square and went to the old standard "RedBones". I had a combo plate of pulled pork and pulled chicken. Kate had a pulled chicken sandwich. It was lovely. I had some "Sebago Lake IPA, Small Fry" which is new to me. It was decent, but nothing spectacular. It's been a while since I've tried a new beer that really wowed me.

Kate and I went on a nice walk after our meal. I drank a lot of tea and sweated it out. I saw this tall man later drinking water out of a milk jug and it emasculated me. The MBTA had fans which essentially did nothing more than circulate the 100 degree heat around.

A pregnant woman passed away in the bleachers at a Red Sox game on Saturday. This was surprising on multiple levels, one, it wasn't too bad on Saturday. The story is a sad one, I wish the father and newborn boy who survived well.

Lets wish Jason Varitek a speedy recovery from his injury incurred playing against Anaheim. Mirabelli is holding the fort, so lets give him our support as well.

Finally I thought I'd finish off with some pictures that Kate just developed from our recent Appalachian expedition in the White Mountains. The photo at the top of the page is me staring at Arethusa Falls, which I had previously described as a 200 ft version of one of those "Chinese Restaurant" waterfalls.

This Photo is of Bretton Woods the famous Mt. Washington Hotel resort. This historic hotel was actually open to the public, which was very cool. I always thought it was pretty neat as a kid but never had the luxury of seeing up close.

Below is Kate on top of Wildcat Mt., then Mt. Willard.

So above you can see me re-enacting "The Sound of Music" on the top of Mt. Willard. I'm Julie Andrews! I'm Julie Andrews... Look at Me! This is a picture from the top of Wildcat Mt. We cheated and took a Gondola ride. To the left, is Mt. Washington, however it was covered in clouds the whole time we were up. We could still make out some snow on the mountain side, just below the clouds (mid June), with a coin operated binocular set at the summit. Here I am looking stunning, hair greased in a fine sheen of bug spray and sweat, if there was better resolution you'd see my beautiful 3:00 pm shadow, and just for extra beauty I thought I'd close the eyes and show off those long luxurious lashes. Ooohh la la! You Are 80% Weird

You're more than quirky, you're downright strange. But you're also strangely compelling, like a cult leader.

How Weird Are You?

Hot fun in the Summer Time....

I read this great article off of CNN the other day about the Kyoto treaty.

My stance on this treaty remains that it was a biased agreement meant to be more as a thinly guised tariff on the American Economy than a fair across the board cut in the growth of emissions. More than this, as it turns out most (if not almost all) of the Nations involved haven't lived up to the treaty. One in particular, who's government is still openly (and may I add hypocritically) critical of the United State's failure to adopt it, is none other than our northern neighbors Canada. Canada has led the pack since 1990, increasing emissions by 25.8 % instead of the 6% they were supposed to cut. The EU has perhaps faired the best, reducing emissions by 1%. However the article makes the point that this is likely due to the exodus of industry and the closure of many major pollution causing plants, rather than the concerted efforts to get green.

The dirty secret behind Kyoto

A couple of additional points.... Clinton, shelved Kyoto and avoided it like the plague. (It was a politicians nightmare, damned if you do, damned if you don't). Instead Clinton came off as pro environment while actually doing the opposite behind closed doors. Clinton generally made it easier for industry to operate. Clinton made a clever political ploy to sign off on multiple new emissions, BLM forestry laws, and water polluting restrictions. He did this days before leaving office, knowing that Bush would have to overturn them, or face the destruction of existing industry across the country.

From: Environmentalists Run Hot and Cold on Clinton Environmental Record
Investigative journalist David Helvarg, author of "Blue Frontier, Saving America's Living Seas," applauds Clinton for his recent green deeds. But Helvarg views Clinton's environmental record as "pretty poor until the last six months."
Hamilton credits green activism for bringing Clinton back into the fold in recent months. Helvarg has a more cynical view, seeing Clinton's about-face on the environment as post-impeachment damage control for the history books.
"I think in the long run, the American environment owes a lot to Monica Lewinsky," he says.

Bush is completely awful on the environment, and save W suddenly taking an interest in his "legacy" I don't see much change in the near future.

My criticism of Bush on Kyoto is as follows. Bush buried Kyoto for good and said he would not enter the treaty. The administration, in a fine example of its arrogance, did nothing in the way of offering an alternative or a compromise. Instead Bush left it up to industry to cut back on their emissions based on pre-existing legislation and their own free will.

Bush, I'm fairly sure, thinks the Earth is merely a big toy provided to us by God, to use as we wish. Or at least that is how he tends to act. He denies global warming exists and then hires scientists formerly employed by oil interests to back up this ideology.

His "banner fuel conservation plan" early on was nothing more than another gift to the oil industry. Bush cut much of the federal funding that Clinton had directed towards developing hybrid technology, and instead re-directed it towards hydrogen fuel cells. What little people know, is that to make the "hydrogen", oil would be used, a comparable amount. Not only is it more dangerous and difficult to use, it would further cement the hold that fossil fuels has over our country.

Not till the price of oil per barrel surpassed $70, and gas was more than $3/gallon on a regular basis, has Bush wavered on his "burn baby burn" philosophy of resource consumption. It took the destruction of the world trade center, two category 4 hurricanes, and turmoil...(not un-tethered to Bush foreign policy) in the mideast. And now suddenly Bush in the State of the Union starts preaching about alternative fuel and doing photo ops at hybrid plants. My favorite moment was when Bush claimed that he would try to make all gas in the U.S. contain a percentage of ethanol... and then his press secretary said "Oh he didn't actually mean that" later the next day.

SO the Terminator and Blair, circumvent Bushie in this latest ploy, and hey... perhaps this is the tactic that needs to be employed. Let the states willing to do what is right start striking up deals with the European nations as though they were sovereign states. Didn't Bush say he was a "Uniter" when he campaigned back in 2000? What happened?

Blair, Arnie 'global warming pact'