Look at what 5 months can do!
I’m going to walk myself outside and revel in spring.
Because I’m hiding in a dark and sad corner of the library on a beautiful, sunny Saturday…
…someone take me here, please.
Click for some reading music –>
You know when you learn new things, like in class or from podcasts or from MTV, and then soon after, you get this absolutely perfect opportunity to actually DROP that new knowledge on someone else and it feels So. Damn. Good? Like, when someone says, “OMG Did you hear we are bombing Labia?!?!” And you get to push your glasses up on your nose and go, “Well, actually, I used to think it was called Labia too, but I JUST watched a Jeopardy Daily Double on Middle Eastern geography, and it’s pronounced Lybia“. I do hope this mistake doesn’t actually happen to anyone, but… it already did…
So a similar thing happened to me yesterday, with a slight twist. I learned a few new things (obviously been an epic week..) and then blew my own mind when everything I had learned independently of each other collided.This is sounding more confusing than I’d hoped, but please, read on.
First, I had caught wind of a vocalist named Kat Edmonson, who is this super cute pixie-looking gal with one of those jazzy, breathless voices that just automatically makes you sit back and sigh and daydream about clouds and utopian societies. If you listened to my command at the top of the page, you are probably listening to her right now. I checked out her music but, you know, debated on whether I should pay the full price for her album on iTunes (ultimate test of true fandom) (also, I couldn’t find any free downloads online). Then, a few days later, I read that said singer, Kat Edmonson, had a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 in donated funds to back her second album, which she had started recording but couldn’t afford to finish. So Kat Edmonson automatically became a bajillion times cooler in my book – blame it on the social media guru boyfriend or my fascination with community-powered anything, but I thought it was an excellent way to market her second album. She created a stir, got in the news, and prepared giveaways to anybody who donated anything above a dollar.
Additionally, I was also just informed last week by Graph-gasm Dana that Radiohead’s In Rainbows album from 2007, which they released as a pay-what-you-wish digital download, actually made more profit than some of their previously released albums (which had been promoted by their record company and sold at the standard $12-ish bucks per CD) even though 1/3 of the downloaders paid NOTHING! So the remaining 2/3 paid enough to make up for the freeloaders, just by choice. So it actually isn’t too wild that Kat Edmonson would expect that her dedicated fans, who were dying for a second album, would band together and raise $50,000, and it’s also no surprise that with 3 days left in her campaign, she has already surpassed her original goal. Also, this is what inspired me to chalk up the $9.99 for her first album. Haters, say what you will.
So as I listened to Kat Edmonson and lazily clicked on Twitter links, I learned another new thing. I follow this blog called Tiny Urban Kitchen, mostly because there are awesome pictures of Asian food, and she also won Project Food Blog. The actual tweet read: “My 19-course molecular gastronomy birthday meal in Tokyo: http://goo.gl/fb/oG4IP“. It was pretty much game over from there. I spent the next 20 minutes of my life gazing at strange, beautiful food that could have been prepared by Richard Blaise and a giant tank of liquid nitrogen. Blaise, you freeze your food but you melt my heart.
So one of the final dishes Tiny Urban Kitchen got to sample included wedges of lemon, lime, and orange. They were first told to taste one of each citrus (sour, ouch), and THEN take this little red nut that was on the plate, bite into it, roll it around their tongue, and re-taste the fruit. And then all of the sour fruit tasted like sugar. Apparently this Miracle Berry alters the shape of the sweetness receptors on the tongue for about an hour (thanks Wiki) so that it responds to sour tastes. Um… what? How did I not know about this before? It would have made eating vegetables as a kid a much more pleasant experience for everyone involved. Needless to say, I was stunned, and kind of still am.
photo via Tiny Urban Kitchen
Ok, here’s where we come full circle. The third thing I learned this week was the show United States of Tara, when this article asked if United States of Tara was the new Dexter. Now, I LOVE Dexter. Love, as in I basically watched 2 seasons of it in maybe one week on Instant Netflix. Then, when I had to switch over to Sidereel.com to watch the remaining seasons, I reorganized my life around the 72 minute time limit in which I could watch Megavideo at a time. It’s the perfect combination of dark comedy, blood and guts, emotion, sex appeal, and it’s just so twisted to the point where sometimes I feel like I can relate. Ya know? So apparently United States of Tara, a show about a suburban mother who has outrageous caricatures of multiple personalities, could give me all the same things? I needed some dark delight in my life, so I decided to check it out.
All I can say is that I’ve blown past Season 1 of the show and am already on Season 2 (all available on sidereel.com). But here’s where I started blowing my own mind. The rolling credits of one of the episodes was set to a familiar…jazzy…lovely…tune… OMG it’s Kat Edmonson. Then in the next episode, BOOM, they ate Miracle Berries and everything from tabasco sauce to pickles tasted like candy and beer tasted like a chocolate shake. It was like all of the memorable things I had learned about this week (apparently nothing school related) met and had fantastic little babies in the form of United States of Tara episodes.
You know, when you spend all day staring at statistical output and writing a thesis, it’s these little things that really make you smile.
This is a blog post I wrote for my internship at the Lower East Side Ecology Center during the (HOT) summer of 2010, about including more greenspace in the city to battle high energy consumption and the urban heat island effect of the summer months. It was originally meant to be targeted toward small business owners in the city.
New York City has been lovingly referred to as many things. The Big Apple? Delicious. The Empire City? Regal. Concrete Jungle? No thanks. Sadly though, the proof is in the pavement. An urban environment, such as NYC, battles heat island effect, meaning one thing: cities are hotter (1-12oC hotter, in fact) than surrounding rural areas. The dry and impermeable asphalt and urban building materials, which replace once moist and porous land, absorb light and convert that to heat energy, which is then emitted back out as warmth. The more densely concentrated the buildings, pavement, and people, the greater the heat island effect. And let me remind you- with a population of 1.7 million and 110,000 blocks (filled with soaring high buildings) in the 23 square miles of Manhattan- our living environment is dense in every sense of the word. The heat island effect exacerbates heat waves, such as the one recently experienced in early July 2010, so greatly that it can almost make a free outdoor movie in the park unbearable. Almost.
Besides the fact that excessive heat turns waiting for the subway into a near death experience, elevated temperatures also leads to greater demand for energy, since everyone is crankin’ the grid for more air conditioning at the same time. Not only is this terrible in terms of energy consumption, but it can also lead to electrical blackouts, which leads to a lot of hot and angry New Yorkers. How about those of you who like to breathe easy? Don’t look for relief during the hottest days of summer. The higher demand for energy means that fossil fuel power plants will be releasing an even greater amount of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants that cloud our airways, making it difficult to breathe and causing a score of public health problems. One harrowing statistic: NYC houses some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the United States (especially in Bronx County).
Fortunately, there are ways to mitigate this heating phenomenon. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), four steps communities can take to beat the heat are: green roofs, installing reflective roofs (or painting your roof white works too, think Greece!), using cool pavement, and increasing tree and vegetative cover.
Green roofs are also an amazing way to fight the urban heat island effect. By definition, they are an expansion of the existing roof that consists of water proofing, installing a drainage system, and then planting lightweight growing medium and plants (normally Sedum species, which are small flowering plants). Green roofs can range from “intensive” (requiring higher maintenance) to “extensive” (a self-sustaining, park-like space). These efforts reduce heating and cooling loads for buildings by 50-90%, according to the University of Toronto, as well as filter pollutants from air and rainwater. Chicago’s City Hall has set a great example for the Windy City by installing a 20,000 square foot green roof, which has saved the city about $25,000 in energy costs as of 2006. To encourage green roofs in our own city, New York State passed a green roof tax incentive in 2008, where building owner’s can receive one-year property tax credit of up to $100,000 if 50% of their roof is covered with at least two inches of plant growth.
Chicago City Hall
While installing new roofs or altering your surrounding pavement may not be realistic for a storefront business owner, there is a lot that can be done in terms of improving greenspace. With MillionTreesNYC, one of the PlaNYC initiatives, you can request (for free) a street tree planting permit or a city street tree for the front of your business. Or, if there is an empty tree pit on your block, you can notify MillionTreesNYC and they will fill it as soon as possible. Street trees provide numerous benefits, such as cooling the streets and sidewalks and cleaning the air by reducing pollutants, not to mention beautifying the front of your business. In addition, according to MillionTreesNYC, trees improve property value and encourage neighborhood renewal.
If these options are still out of your reach, installing a simple bike rack for your customers encourages alternative transportation to your business and is an easy way to reduce traffic in your neighborhood. There is a range of options out there, and with the financial incentives as well as aesthetic benefits of improving the greenspace outside of your door, we can hopefully put more emphasis on the ‘jungle’ rather than the ‘concrete’ in New York City.
Okay, anybody reading this is probably absolutely fed up with the third post about flossing/teeth on this blog which only boasts about 15 posts so far, and most likely thinks I’ve gone off the deep end. But I’m one of those people (apparently I’m not alone) who has recurring dreams about losing my teeth – it all starts with one loose tooth and the next thing I know, I wake up actually thinking I’m as gummy as Popeye. So bear with me, people!!! I come with good news, pertinent to only me. Are you still reading?
So, a few months ago I challenged myself to floss everyday. Because if I didn’t, I feared I would die a slow, painful, lonesome, toothless, premature death, and as I took my last breath, all the teeth I *could* have kept if I had flossed daily would appear as an apparition and taunt me, like “First, you ate Ben & Jerry’s Red Velvet ice cream. Then you drank sugary lemonade and on weekends, poured Firefly into it. THEN you tossed your floss aside like it was the guy who texted too much/texted too little. So for that, RIP Eling, and the life you could have had.” By the way, no exaggeration takes place on this blog, ever.
So for those of you who waited with bated breath for the results of my flossing challenge (All of you don’t have to admit it, but I know who you are… Mom.) I have NEWS!!! In a little over 2 months, I dominated 55 yards of Oral-B Satin floss with a nearly daily flossing regimen.
And because I have a calculator and am putting off doing anything more productive with my night, that’s roughly 185 feet of floss gone in 70 days, which means I use about 2 1/3 feet every time I get around to flossing. Ok, that’s a LOT. But I do not like to reuse any part of my sacred life-saving rope, so each row of teeth gets over 1 foot of working space. It totally makes sense to me…
Thanks for tuning in. I promise to update this blog more regularly with more intriguing topics. And by the way, this whole blogging about flossing thing started because I debated with someone about whether you could have a “blog within a blog”, so you can blame that person for all of this dribble about my incisors. Cheers!
I can’t say I know New York City all that well, but after living in Brooklyn for 3 months during the hot, sticky, glorious summer and also splitting my time there due to the good ol’ trusty LDR, lately I’ve felt like I have a pretty firm grasp on what’s up in NYC. My weekend trips have brought me to dark seedy bars in the Lower East Side, hot chocolate at Chelsea Market, drinks in the Financial District, good eats in Chinatown, bike rides in Central Park, and live music in Williamsburg – with TONS in between. But you know how people say we only use 10% of our brain? What if I’ve only been using 10% of New York City, while the rest wastes away due to my oversight?
Brian in Summer-y Central Park
Over the summer, Dan and I started an NYC bucket list so that when it came to be 8pm on a Friday night we didn’t just find ourselves falling into a routine of doing things we could be doing anywhere. A few on the list include trying out the city’s 5 most amazing margaritas, “go f***ing kayaking”, visiting the Seinfeld diner, and completing a 1000 piece puzzle. Ambition, people. The latest addition in February was going out for a night in Coney Island, which sparked an even bigger idea. 
- Chinese New Year 2010 in Chinatown
The mission: to have an adventure in every one of NYC’s five boroughs. Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and in order to officially cross Brooklyn off the list we had to hang with the freaks in Coney Island, and for Manhattan, we must venture to Harlem.
The first time I’d been to Harlem, I went with Dan to the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem in August, but made the decision to go about 2 hours too late. By the time we finally made it there from Brooklyn, the only music left came from some residual drum circles entertaining the concert-goers exiting the park after the show. We still got to visit The Apollo Theater and walked a few blocks down Malcom X Blvd, but the trip was short. We were in and out in 3 hours without even a taste of the infamous Amy Ruth’s, but something about walking the wide sidewalks definitely made me want to return. While strolling along the streets at dusk, we passed litters of elderly guys and gals gabbing away in lawn chairs in front of their stoops – swapping stories, people watching, and feasting on all of the Sunday afternoon staples. One lady yelled out, “Good afternoon!” to us, followed by a load guffaw upon realization that it was well into the evening. It felt like a testament to how slow and gracious time can be when you’re simply enjoying the company of friends, and still one of the memories I am most fond of from that afternoon.
Harlem, Take 1
So, a couple of weekends ago, the “no-plan Friday night” was looming over our heads. Over a buy-one –get-one-free Chipotle dinner, D.Rob and I debated over the night’s plans. Bar hopping in Union Square? Re-visit LES? Why was this sounding so…. familiar? I chalk it up to my man for bringing up our 5-bourough-bucket-list, and in an impulse decision, we ditched our regular lower Manhattan Friday nights for Harlem.
BOGO Chipotle
One ride on the express A train later, Dora the Explorer and Diego had traveled from the Financial District to 116th street. A quick Yelp search pulled up Bier International as a hot spot for Friday nights, serving up liters of German beer, pretzels, and sausages in a neighborhood known for it’s chicken and waffles.
Bier International
The names of the beers we ordered escapes me now, but worthy of note was the family-style seating that prompted conversation with the design student from Rhode Island seated next to us (he and I both lamented over the poorly painted accent wall in which the word “beer” was written in every language), the young hip couples hiding in corners (not us), and the extreme techno-y house music (confusingly fitting). All in all, an excellent first stop, and then it was on to the next.
Terrible, right?
On our way to a wine bar that we had been recommended, we were caught by the glow of blue fluorescent lights beaming from the floor-to-ceiling windows of Chocolat. You try resisting that on a blistery windy night, ok? Chocolat took us worlds away from Bier International. The glass bar was backed with mirrors, the shiny interior bounced the blue fluorescent lighting across the room, the crowd was older, a little swankier. While the first bar seemed frequented by Harlemites-for-the-night, like us, the folks at Chocolat looked like true Harlem residents, and we couldn’t help but feel like we had stepped into a regular haunt for those in this ‘hood. The cocktail list was long – I ordered a Tokyo Ice Tea (Asian jokes ensue … even the bartender gave a smirk), and Dan decided on a Manhattan (so fitting for the night we check Manhattan off our to-do list… he wins). The looming subway ride home and the price tag on the drinks only kept us there for one each, but I can’t lie, I felt kind of cool for those 40 minutes.
Chocolat
The fact that no express train ran late-night meant that we predictably fell asleep on the ride home and missed our “pit stop” bar back in the Financial District – a ploy we had designed to keep us awake all the way back home to Brooklyn. Fail. On our walk home from the subway back in the Better Borough (loose term), we stopped into the ever-smoky Black Sheep Pub in Park Slope, only to realize we had crashed an after-hours-employee-only party. Needless to say, we stayed… probably too long. But after all is said and done, how can a night exploring the Harlem night-life not end in a dark bar with a 5 am closing time in Brooklyn? Amen.
5 comments
February 21, 2011
graph-gasms with dana: how a shower un-enthusiast justifies her lifestyle
Hey pretty people, D.Barnes is back with another installment of Graph-gasms with Dana! Here in graduate school we live a life that totters on a fine line between being a professional colleague and morphing into a gray sweatsuit – depending on if it’s the day you have to make a presentation or the days leading up to it. Here, Dana shows how you can be both without ever having to shower. That’s right. You can have it ALL. And you definitely want to scroll all the way through if you want to check out the celeb cameo. Enjoy!
While everyone is still on a lover’s high from Valentine’s day, I have to squeeze in a quick word about one of my favorite food couples as of late – beans and basil. I usually like my beans refried and smothered in sour cream and cheese, so it’s nice to see that I can also enjoy them in a lighter capacity!
I made a tuna salad with red onion, fresh basil, cannellini beans, tomatoes, and balsamic dressing, and salt and pepper…
I scooped it all on toasted bread and melted mozzarella cheese over it…
…and lunched on this hardcore!
I’m always looking for a way to eat tuna without mayo (not hatin’ though) and the balsamic is definitely a keeper.
The next night I peeked into my new Moosewood cookbook, gifted to me by a dear friend, for some dinner inspiration! I couldn’t resist the sound of Spaghetti with Zucchini and Lemon. Then, I read “fresh basil” in the ingredients list, and was hooked.
I sauteed together garlic, zucchini, and some cannellini beans (which the recipe did not call for… but I was still on my beans&basil kick). After a sprinkle of salt and pepper, I added a few tablespoons of lemon juice and the fresh basil, and tossed it together with some cooked spaghetti and cheese.
Hello lovers!
Any other recipes showcasing the red hot chemistry between white beans and basil?
Where were you on November 4, 2008? Tuesday…. I probably ate cereal and went to class. Made it to the gym if I was lucky. I bet I bummed around with my roommates for awhile. OH YEA. I voted for Barack Obama and he WON.
Is it all coming back? Remember that renewed sense of citizenship and national pride and how you wanted to scream, “I MATTER!” and how P.Diddy told you that if you didn’t vote you would die? And how you assured your politically un-like-minded pals that your friendships stood on bipartisan ground and the losing party would not whine, and the winning party would not gloat, and “may the best man win”? Well, the best man doesn’t just win alone. Winners needs voters who care, who hope to see long-term benefits from their choice, who get charged up about relevant issues, who like to tout around “I voted” stickers all day. Voters are pretty awesome, right?
Well, if you’re a die-hard voter and are starting to feel that itch since it’s mid-February and there’s no election in sight, I have something for you. The City of New York (that little place) is currently hosting the NYC Big Apps 2.0 competition. In a nutshell, NYC realized they were hoarding all sorts of interesting data about, well, everything. And if Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC has taught me something, it’s that you gotta get rid of your junk. Other people want it. It’s probably even worth some dollars. So the city graciously offered up data to the creative minds of NYC, and asked them to develop useful applications to help citizens experience Big Apple livin’ with more ease, convenience, and fun.
Enter: Roadify. Everyone knows commuting in NYC is a drag – you’re either going to work, tired, or coming home from work, tired. You’re running late for a party and then so is the train. When it’s raining or snowing or even better, hailing, and you’re outside at the bus stop you find yourself screaming, “WHERE IS THE BUS?!” (often laced with profanity), as if a loud speaker in the sky will let you know it’s 5 minutes away. It seems like everyone has given up on the commute, until now.
Roadify is a platform where commuters can share “traveler intelligence”. Users can find transit schedules provided by the MTA but even better, users can also find real-time updates about the status of the godforsaken bus or train. The system depends on “Gives” from the Roadify community (read: you) to keep an updated database of where the bus was last spotted or if trains are experiencing delays. Users notify Roadify via their free iPhone app or SMS text message (so easy my cave-mom can do it) if they see a bus at a certain stop. Then, Roadify can inform people further up the line that the bus was just spotted 2 stops away, and that their anguish will be relieved in about 15 minutes. In addition, Roadify has accumulated so much data in the year they’ve been operating that they can now even tell you how late (or early!) your bus often runs on any given day. It works the same way with subways – if users experience delays on a train, once they’re back to the warm loving land of cell phone service, they let Roadify know. In turn, Roadify does an impressively good job (especially during snowpocalypses) through Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone app updates to keep everyone else in the loop. Isn’t this all stuff you would LOVE to know but up until now, had no idea you could?
Oh, so none of this applies to you because you drive in the city? You fancy, huh? Well, luckily, helping ease driving pains is how Roadify got started. It’s simple too –if you’re leaving a parking spot, let Roadify know a few minutes before, and users looking for a parking spot can get a real-time list of what’s available around them. Looking for gas prices or traffic updates? They’ve got it. Looking for parking garage/lot information? They’ve got that too. Looking for a mascot? Check it off the list!
Their website does a much better job letting you know what’s up, so check it out here. I’ve gotten to know this company well since I was first introduced in January of 2009, and I’ve followed their progress closely. I know the team works tirelessly to end commuting woes for their peers, and despite participating heavily in New York’s bustling tech scene through meet-ups and events and being listed as one of the five most promising start-ups in NYC by CNNMoney.com, they can still be found walking the streets, getting to know users and spreading the good word of Roadify the old-fashioned way. It’s a company built on character, hard work, a sense of humor, creativity (check out their videos), and most importantantly – a great idea.
Currently, Roadify is based in Park Slope, Brooklyn – but they are hoping to continually improve their service and expand to other areas of New York, and eventually, other areas of the country. So even if you don’t live in New York, voting for Roadify in the NYC Big Apps 2.0 contest may help them get the recognition and funding they need to come to a city near you. Have I said enough? Please, march your bleeding heart over here and VOTE for Roadify before March 9th! Next time you are waiting for the $%&@ bus, you’ll thank yourself. But for now, I thank you!
The other day I picked up a tube of Colgate’s Pro Clinical toothpaste from the store. I had run out of my Aquafresh and had been doing so well on my flossing regimen that I decided I would reward myself with something that boasted it was “professionally inspired with clinically proven technology”, because I’m kind to myself in that way. Surely, my freshly flossed teeth are worthy of TECHNOLOGY!
So, I went to brush my teeth – eager to squeeze a fresh tube of toothpaste that would leave my gums rejuvenated and my enamel fortified. I ripped open the box like a child on Christmas day. I twisted off the cap and found this staring me in the face:
Yes, the tip of the toothpaste tube seems to be guarded by some special lock-key contraption. Thinking it was like those bottles of lemon juice (that come shaped as lemons, how cute), i tried to jab a knife into the top to create a pinhole for my treasured fluoride toothpaste to escape from. I then took the knife and tried sawing off the tip to no avail. What is this?! I just had tuna and have a meeting to go to and for the sake of everyone involved, I NEED TO BRUSH MY TEETH.
Seven minutes into exasperation, I checked the back of the tube. Of course, for some god forsaken reason, this tube of toothpaste has a specially designed seal. I have to use these grooves that are on the top of the cap to twist open the tip. This shouldn’t be hard. There are illustrated step-by-step instructions and I made it to International Science Fair. Easy. NOT.
The grooves on the tip aren’t strong enough to serve any function. When I twist, nothing happens, except that I time-warp back to caveman days when they hit rocks together for fun. The more I look at the grooves-of-death, the more they look like the jaws of a deep sea creature coming to swallow me alive.
What is the purpose of this seal?!? Is it so “clinical” that they’re afraid I’ll overdose? Are there drugs in there? Is Colgate afraid I’m going to pull a Liz Lemon and eat this toothpaste in my sleep?? I feel like I’m in the Da Vinci Code. Help.
Colgate Pro Clinical, why can’t we be friends?
everything eling
the blog of a general enthusiast
Twitter: lady_lingling- Staying in on a Friday night means... VH1 Top 100 Songs of the 90s ROCKING MY WORLD
- wish i were there! RT @UNHNY What a beautiful day to be out supporting the #Mets with the Citi Field Kids! Hope everyone can step outside.
- breakfast berries http://t.co/Gm6voczN
; )
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