The Miracle Fruit?

Apparently there's an interesting fruit that changes the way your taste buds perceive sour tastes into sweet. It would be interesting to try this some time. =) I should see if any of my friends want to do a tasting party with these.

My City!

Apparently there's this site where you can create your own little town that gains population when people go visit it. It's kind of cute. Pointless, though. I still couldn't help but make a little city of my own called "Greener Grass." No, that's not a drug reference. I'm sure you can figure out what it's a reference to. =)

Poor Thing

My roommate's kitty has this habit of waking me up in the mornings when she's out of town. It's annoying, but I can't really be too upset about it since she's probably just lonely. She cost me a few hours of sleeping in this morning, though. Then of course now she went off somewhere to take a cat nap herself! The nerve!

Wasting Energy (But Looking Pretty Awesome)

Apparently there's this hole in the ground in Uzbekistan that has been burning for over 35 years. some dudes were looking for natural gas and came upon a big cave of natural gas. For whatever reason, instead of doing something useful like collecting the gas and using it for fuel, these dudes thought it would be a better idea to burn off the gas.

I mean, I gotta say, it looks pretty amazing, but it's such a waste in light of how much natural gas that could have been used for fuel has been wasted. At the very least, someone should build a generator on top of the hole.

The First Zero Carbon Emission City?

Apparently the United Arab Emirates is planning on building Masdar City as a zero carbon emission city of 50,000 people. Cars won't be allowed in the city. Instead, they will have some underground public transportation that is solar powered. They plan on recycling / reusing water with very high efficiency (80%). All in all, this city sounds like an incredible experiment in making mankind's existence on earth more sustainable.

Being in southern California where we drain water from hundreds of miles away to sustain our needs, being able to have 80% efficient water reclamation would be an incredible breakthrough, not to mention all the other feats they are planning. The really astounding thing is they are planning on beginning construction as early as next year.

Super Mario Levels -> Music

Using Super Mario levels to play music was a new concept to me when I saw this clip. They not only make a Rube Goldberg style level that plays itself, but this one plays a medley of songs using the in game sound effects in conjunction with the audio track. I can't even being to guess how long it took to set this up.

Video games are truly a new medium for artistic expression. It's hard not to believe it when things like this are possible.

Leaf Cuisine

Lunch with my friends went about as smoothly as possible. We ate at Leaf Cuisine, a raw vegan foods place. The food there is very interesting, since they emulate normal foods using only raw vegan ingredients.

One friend didn't like it. He ordered a "pizza" which was nothing like a pizza. Instead of a baked, dough crust, it had a cracker-like crust made of some pressed grain. Instead of cooked tomato sauce, it had some sauce made with dried tomatoes. Instead of cheese, it had some fake cheese sauce with approximately the consistency of mustard. Unfortunately, he was expecting something far more pizza-like.

My other friend was okay with her dish. She's vegetarian, so her expectations were probably more realistic. She ordered nachos which were fairly close to nachos. They were again made with some sort of cracker-like chips made presumably of corn meal but with herbs. Then they had good, normal guacamole and pico de gallo on them. Instead of sour cream, they had some fairly runny creamy sauce. Instead of cheese, they had that fake cheese sauce again. Then they had some sort of bean sauce designed to emulate refried beans.

The dish I ordered was pretty good, actually. I (wisely) ordered a dish that usually is served with mostly raw ingredients: a mushroom sandwich. The only thing a little unusual was that instead of bread, it had "mango bread," which seems like it's something like dried slices of mango. The innards of the sandwich were quite decent, so I enjoyed it.

I would be willing to go to that restaurant again. I'm pretty sure my vegetarian friend would too. My other friend, I'm pretty sure would not.

In any case, the lunch was not particularly dramatic, so things turned out to be okay.