Monday, July 16, 2007

it's smoothie time!

this evening i decided to create a delicious smoothie. here's what i did:
  • 7 big strawberries
  • 1/2 cup of blueberries
  • 1/2 of a banana (i ate the other half)
  • some plain yogurt
  • a little cranberry-apple cocktail
  • a little green tea
  • 2 scoops of vanilla protein powder
  • 1 heaping spoonfull of fibersure
  • 4 capsules of flaxseed oil
  • some ice
  • a solid squeeze of honey


looks delicious, huh? well a couple of seconds blending and ta-da!

ideally i would garnish with some fresh mint, but i did not have any and the mint that was previously growing in the backyard has been covered by our concrete patio. anyways, i added a fresh strawberry on the rim to make it look a little more festive. i am pretty sure this is the healthiest thing i have ever eaten/drank. it's high in protein, fiber, vitamins and antioxidants, calcium and omega-3 fatty acids and it is quite delicious.

louise will not have anything to do with my smoothies because berries have seeds in them and that is apparently an issue. chakima and chris had some. chris is now claiming that he is experiencing chest pains and (seriosuly and unfairly) blames my smoothie. there is a little left in the fridge for dave after he finishes his "authentic chinese food" from the exotic panda express. as long as chris does not suffer a heart attack, i would consider this a successful venture into the world of smoothies.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

a crazy good time



last night louise, louis, chakima, chris and i went to the pub for some karaoke. we met up with renee and sonny who was djing the karaoke. the interesting characters were definitely out and about that night. headlined by the duo of crazy john and his sidekick billy, who after storming up to the front of the room to sing a song with some intense body language, sonny observed "here comes billy and he's about to fight someone!" which had me cracking up. chris and chakima were brave enough to sing a few songs with reasonable success, especially considering the level of sining talent at the pub that night. there was one guy who kept opening his songs talking about how his ex-wife left him. it was pretty sad, but he was actually a good singer, so i guess that evened things up in my mind. renee was almost ridiculously good, singing midnight train to georgia. i made a few attempts to convince louise to back her up as one of her pips, to no avail.

let's see....there was the teenage girl who had the confident walk and body language. i was excited to hear her belt out some beyonce, only to be severely disappointed once she opened her mouth. there was the girl who sang "i love rock and roll" and who was probably deaf. i wasn't sure how to react to it, so i just booed loudly. we also experienced a wild ride on the moellercoaster as he serenaded us with his surprisingly classy rendition of salty chocolate balls. there were the obligatory 2 kinda skanky girls who were creepily singing songs and pretending to seduce each other. chris later explained to me how those girls are "snotches". oh and there was the drunk redneck guy who sang some country song and during a particularly long break with no singing decided to grab a surprised sonny and pull him to the front and proceed to make him perform some sort of drunken square dance. renee was laughing hilariously, but i could see the horror in sonny's eyes as he tried to go along and smiled politely.

again, with all of these characters trying to one up each other in crazy, it was crazy john and billy (probable cousin of our high school classmate joel) who stole the show. they sang 3 songs and really attacked each song for a dynamically crazy performance each time. crazy john started things off with some song that i think was by tool. his pitch changing at seemingly random times. combine this with his abandoning a normal singing volume about half way through the song, with his vocals becoming twice as loud and extra muddled with him cradling his mic head with his hand as to not let any of the magic escape from going from his mouth to the microphone. billy then surprised the crowd with a very subtle and engaging version of "in the summertime" which had me both perplexed and entertained. they also managed to team up for a song at some point in the night. i don't remember the song, but i remember feeling awesome when i was experiencing their performance.

overall, it was a fun night. i got to spend time with my girl and some good friends. got to see the funny and charming couple of sonny and renee. while the singing talent was not great, everyone who was brave enough to perform did so with confidence. they all seemed to have a lot of fun and as a result, i in turn had fun too. it was one part friends, one part look at all of these crazy people, and one part these crazy people are having fun and it's kinda contagious. maybe one day i will join them.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

don't you ever...do this

my young brain

i have a nintendo ds and one of my favorite games is brain age, which is weird because i never liked doing work in school, and yet when you present it to me in videogame form 5 years removed from real school, i can't get enough. for those of you that don't know, brain age is a game comprised of a bunch of different mental exercises and activities that were designed to help improve or maintain your mental capacity. it was developed based on the research of dr. ryuta kawashima.

these exercises consist of math questions, reading colors aloud (ex. the word "red" appears, but the font color is blue), keeping track of people entering and leaving a house and a bunch of other fun little mini games that are aimed at activating your prefrontal cortex. the game tracks your progress with the floating head of dr. kawashima offering you praise and/or suggesstions. once a day you can take a series of random tests to determine your "brain age", with the idea that the lower your brain age the better shape your brain is in. the ideal brain age is 20...and you can probably guess what my brain age is. the problem is you aren't forced to take the brain age tests, so when the perfect storm occured and i got my score down to 20, that was it, i was done testing. my brain age is 20 and has been since the last time i took the test like a month ago. if i take the test again, i know things can only get worse. it's nice for showing off to other people:

me: so dave, how do you like that brain age game?
dave: it's pretty fun and addictive. i really like that dr. k guy.
me: yeah, yeah, enough dilly-dallying, let's cut to the chase...what's your brain age?
dave: well i just took the test last ni-
me: my brain age is 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
dave: well i only just started the-
me: 20? did someone say 20? that's funny...cause that's my brain age...
dave: well i have to sit down and kind of figure it out f-
me: well maybe if your brain was of a similar age to mine, then you could easily figure it all out.
dave: shut up, you're annoying.
me: i'm sorry dave...
dave: yeah, well sometimes you can be kinda insens-
me: ...sorry that you brain is real old...old like oldy olsen!!!
dave: why don't you retake the brain age test then?
me: i mean, i was just messing with you...my bad

so now i have a copy of the sequel, brain age 2. they changed the games on me and i am having difficulty. now they throw out either a rock, paper or scissors symbol with a statement of either "beat it" or "lose to it". you have to say out loud, the symbol that either beats it or loses it. it sounds simple, but it's deceptively tough and is making my brain show its age, which is currently at 32. i will figure it out and get it down to 20 and then have another quick discussion with dave.

let's take a nap under my blanket statement

hey kevin. this is my blog about stuff that may or may not include food, my friends that i secretly hate, fantasy sports and real sports, music, tv, movies, videogames, things that i do, acting cool (while actually being absurdly cool, but toning it way down as to not intimidate people), mma, random discoveries, and i dunno...other stuff that i will figure out later. i will finally be able to focus my energy on a new internet-related project that people will not be amused by and i can blog to my blog's content. love, kevin