Here it is

This is what I've come up with after a few hours of working at it: http://progressivefriends.tumblr.com/

What do you guys think? It's softer on the eyes, a lot easier to use, better organized, and 50x more attractive.

I tried to leave a bunch of different kind of posts for you to see. There are video, music, photo, and quote posts up. I really wanted to make the video one an official post over here, but I didn't transfer it.

Avocado Egg Rolls

Avocado Egg Roll - Copycat Recipe
34 min | 30 min prep

SERVES 2 -4 , 3 eggrolls

dipping sauce

3-4 teaspoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon tamarind pulp
1/2 cup honey
1 pinch powdered saffron
1/2 cup chopped cashews
2/3 cup fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves
2 green onions
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup olive oil
egg rolls

1 large avocado, peeled, pitted, & diced
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, chopped
1 tablespoon minced red onion
1/2 teaspoon fresh cilantro, chopped
1 pinch salt
3 egg roll wraps
1 egg, beaten

Stir together vinegars, tamarind, honey, and saffron in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave for 1 minute.
Stir until tamarind is dissolved.
In a blender, Puree tamarind mixture, cashews, 2/3 cup cilantro, garlic, onions, sugar, pepper, and cumin.
Pour mixture into a bowl and stir in oil.
Refrigerate until ready to use.
Gently stir together avocado, tomatoes, onion, 1/2 teaspoon cilantro, and salt.
Distribute filling evenly onto center of each egg roll wrapper.
Position a wrapper so that a corner is pointing toward you; fold the bottom corner up, 1/4 of the way over the filling.
Brush remaining corners and edges of the wrapper with egg, roll up from side to side, fold top corner over all and press to seal.
Repeat with remaining wrappers.
Continue by deep-frying the egg rolls in 375 degree oil for 3-4 minutes, until golden brown.
Drain on brown paper bags.
Slice egg rolls diagonally across middle and serve with prepared dipping sauce!
ENJOY!

Nutritional Info Here

No Warp Speed For You!

“Last year, a group of physicists figured out that achieving warp speed had the potential--depending on how we did it, at least--to create a black hole that would suck up Earth and destroy us all.”

I just had to post this. If I was at home I would look up “warp speed” in the Popular Science archives (do it Joe!)

Odd Tax Deductions

It’s that time of the year again. Time to be mindful of the vast amounts of money we give our Federal Government. And it’s not enough for them by the looks of our deficit. I don’t blame people for trying to get back as much as possible. Here are some of the crazier stories I found….

This one was so outlandish that Dittrick actually faxed us the two-page itemized receipt to prove it: "We live in an Amish community here, and we had an Amish guy who tried to take a deduction for his buggy with velvet interior, the whole works. It was tricked out. He was legitimately Amish, but with all the accoutrements on this buggy, when they're supposed to live the simple life, it was absolutely hilarious," she says.
How pimped out was his ride? According to the receipt, this baby came equipped with dash lights, kick plates, tinted windshield, speedometer, hydraulic brakes and dimmer switches. The standard buggy costs $2,675; this pimped-out version ran $3,545.

Exotic dancer Chesty Love who successfully deducted her breast augmentation on her tax return. Ms. Love argued she augmented her breasts to size 56 FF in order to increase her earnings. The IRS challenged the deduction, labeling the procedure "cosmetic surgery." But a tax court judge sided with Ms. Love, likening her silicon breasts to a costume that was only useful in her business and allowed her to claim a depreciation deduction.”

Oscars

I have to get in the shower and stuff, but I was just curious if you guys watched the Oscars. I ended up watching it over the past two days. I really like Sandra Bullocks speech a lot.

Edit: I picked ellen's photo, cuz I like her - simple as that.

Midwestern Towns Sue Manufacturer of Weedkiller

Fifteen Midwest towns and cities have filed suit against the manufacturer of Atrazine a chemical that is used on cornfields. Despite being banned by the European Union years ago tens of millions of pounds are used in the US every year on corn and other crops.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa. The communities allege that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. reaped billions of dollars from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water."

The EPA won't restrict it's use.
"In America, though, farmers continue to spray the weed-killer heavily on corn, sugarcane and other crops throughout the country. As a result, some portion of the more than 60 million pounds of atrazine applied annually makes its way into streams, rivers, lakes and drinking water supplies. The problem is at its worst in the spring, when atrazine is applied most heavily, then washed by rain into waterways."

This is a classic example of the true cost not being reflected. Cheap corn is not cheap. If companies had to pay the cost of what they pump into the environment corn would need to be even more subsidized more than it already is.
We give the subsidies and pay to clean up their mess. What do you think the true cost of those one dollar McDonald’s hamburgers is?

From Lisa

Joe,

I'm reading the posts but am having problems logging in - SOS - alphanumeric characters - and that is WHAT I am using. I'm out here but I can't get in again.


Lisa


Child of the Universe
Disciple of Peace

Please let Kerry know too. Thanks.

Humming Bird vs. Praying Mantis

Air Quality Warning

This is the first time I've ever heard of this. What the fuck does it mean?

http://weather.weatherbug.com/IN/Valparaiso-weather/severe-weather-alerts.html?units=0&stat=CITES&zip=46385&AppName=MacOSX_MacLite_Intel&version=0.9.0.0&zcode=Z6199&uid=d9830866-1101-4718-b18c-ff8e69aeda77

GOP Hypocrites

Well, well, whaddya know. Kerry, this is a follow-up to a post of yours last week about the California lawmaker who was arrested for DUI after leaving a gay bar. He is the one who voted against gay rights issues.

http://www.queerty.com/ca-sen-roy-ashburn-im-gay-and-stand-by-my-anti-gay-votes-20100308/

Jello Shots

I passed out after I wrote about going to write about jello shots and never made that post. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think I live on that road as of late. So they were all really good. If you look here you can find the recipes. I made:

Chocolate Covered Cherry
Peach Schnapps with vodka in cherry jello
Amaretto in Cherry Jello

They all went over really well. The chocolate covered cherry one went over very very well though. I'm actually thinking about making them without alcohol to steal a quick sweet snack every now and then. It didn't taste like a drink even if you were trying to find it. It was just delicious. The chocolate crunch layer was awesome.

I gave drinking an honest effort and I just don't like the feeling, I tend to get upset easily, and I get less social. Sometimes I get really quiet with weed, but I'm generally more fun and social with other people and I enjoy everything so much more. I must have caught myself judging other people and rolling my eyes like 5 times last night - I don't want to be that person. I really liked the first jello shot. If you ever have a party or need to take something to a party, these are a crowd pleaser.

Lake Michigan

That picture is giant and really neat (for me at least). It makes the lake look small, but I never knew how many islands were up north. I'm going to ignore all the wikipedia type stuff and talk about some of the more interesting stuff. My favorite being the Chicago Tidal Wave of 1954. It's so strange that some of this monumental local history is so hard to find on the internet, but it is.

Al that I can find now is something that says a rogue wave 3-10 feet high hit the coast (not very freakish event really) and the worst hit was Montrose Harbor. There was a ton of damage, a few people killed, and lot of people were washed into the lake. The way it is described makes it sound like a tsunami. ""IT DIDN'T come in like a wall," Keating said."The water just started to rise and kept going until it was maybe 6 feet higher than usual."It stayed up there for a couple of minutes and then receded."
Click here to read more about it with original photos and stuff. I had definitely seen a documentary on this but I have no luck in finding the video on the internet, but from both that and stuff I've heard just from living here, it was epic. I'm sure you have your own local legends that are so inflated you'd think the world was about to end at the time. That's what this was.

"But does La Niña explain another odd incident that came about at 3:52 p.m. Sunday? At that moment, the National Weather Service issued a seiche warning for Lake Michigan, near Chicago: "Public reports of a drop in Lake Michigan water level at Chicago by 2 feet in the last hour indicates that a seiche is affecting the water levels of Lake Michigan." Time Magazine 2008

There was a warning in 2008 for Chicago-proper again because the lake dropped 2 feet in a matter of hours. They compare it to a bath tub, in that the lake is completely enclosed and pressure pushes the water away from the shore during an epic storm and then it rushes back and slams the coast. Here's what Time Magazine said about it 2 years ago.

Is this super boring to you? It's strange when you have a relationship with the lake and you hear these stories about how violent she is, but you've never seen it. I mean I've seen 6-10 foot waves crashing into seawalls and stuff here, but some really freaky shit happens that most people think it's harmless because it isn't an ocean.

I'm going to break the rest of this up into segments. I think I'm going to approach the weather and the reputation the lake has next. For example where I live is an official meteological anomaly, well about 10 miles east of here and then some of the shipwrecks.

Whoa...

Acrobatic thieves hit N.J. Best Buy avoiding cameras, motion sensors, alarms in daring heist. Their feet never touched the floor.

I have a sneaking suspicion that they will not be caught, but even if they were, let them go. They fucking earned that merch.

No Reason

The Coolest Guy In The World

I just wanted to post this real quick incase you guys haven't seen it....

Sunday Open Thread

There are a few things I have bookmarked in a sort or queue for posts I wanted to tease a commercial. There are some strange things in science as well as unexplained anomalies that interest me like the Baghdad Battery pictured above that I want to look into. Some of them I know about a little already and while looking those up, I've come across some I don't know anything about. As part of my effort to distance myself from more in depth political news, I'm going to look into science news. I know that is something you guys are interested in too so it will hopefully give some cool things to put on the blog. Now that Popular Science directory is up so I can likely find more information than just a web search too.

I'm leaving for a party in 2 hours so that is why I'm not posting that stuff now. I want to be around when you guys comment so we can have a discussion - that is my favorite part of our blog. That post Kerry made about where I live kind of opened my mind to local history and reminded me of a few strange things about Lake Michigan that is known but hasn't been explained or studied and that will probably be my first post.

So what has been going on with you guys? Lisa what have you been up to? You've been kind of quiet lately. How far apart do you guys live? I don't know whether it is the weather (with the exception of today) or maybe the fact that I haven't been following politics, but I sincerely feel a lot less down lately. I'm actually kind of doing stuff. I think you guys should take some time to celebrate where you live a little bit that you don't miss the sun for a solid 3 or 4 months. This is just my speculation but I think not seeing the blue in the sky and the green on the trees really has an affect on people, mental health wise, too. There are scientific studies that have looked at how colors do stuff to our psyche, which is why I always paint my most used rooms a pewter blue.

I'm just wasting time here and rambling as if we were having a conversation, which is kind of crazy because your not here. One more thing, I'm going to write about those jello shots after I submit this and put it in the draft folder on Blogger so I can pull it up tomorrow and just write what people thought of the taste. I still haven't even tasted them. I only had one from a batch that I fucked up last night. It was still good.

Edit: I want to put some feelers out there about the blog too. I think Indigo is gone for good (leave a comment if your not) and so if it is just us, I wanted to ask if we could move the blog to a different addy that is a lot more attractive and a whole hell of a lot easier to use. Look at this and this (password is "ourmovie"), then tell me what you think. I'm actually going to beg: Please can we move it.

Great Monologue

The new SNL is mostly bad, with some very good stuff sprinkled in every once and a while. Zack Galifinacous - probably spelled wrong - was on last night and the monologue was hilarious. He has stoner/outcast/intelligent kind of humor and he likes to play with words and meanings in case you aren't familiar with him. Check out his monologue.