I’m a philosophical naturalist, but if I wasn’t, I’d definitely be a Tarvuist:

http://tarvu.com/

Say Hebbo! from Torvakian on Vimeo.

Tea sandwiches, in all their pretentious glory:

(click to enlarge)

Pink and green tea sandwiches: egg with capers and smoked pimentón, turkey with a cranberry-pecan-orange zest cream cheese, smoked salmon with cucumber and an herb-infused cream cheese.

Via flickr user Chotda.

Pretty ill color combos available:

I’m not so fond of this economic depression, but I’m loving the strides that people are making to make cultural reference to it.

For instance, one of my favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Edison, is toasting the financial meltdown with a melt-down of their own:

Soup Kitchen Fridays, with complimentary grilled-cheese sandwiches and tomato soup from 5-7PM

And on Thursdays, Depression-era cocktails are given Depression-era prices: 35¢!

Also, Friday December 5th, they’re going to be celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of the Prohibition!

I wish I could teleport myself there every week.

108 W. 2nd St. #101
Los Angeles, CA 90012

The Bororo Indians, a primitive tribe who live along the Vermelho River in the Amazon jungles of Brazil, believe that there is no such thing as a private self. The Bororos regard the mind as an open cavity, like a cave or a tunnel or an arcade, if you will, in which the entire village dwells and the jungle grows. In 1969 José M. R. Delgado, the eminent Spanish brain physiologist, pronounced the Bororos correct. for nearly three millenia, Western philosophers had viewed the self as something unique, something encased inside each person’s skull, so to speak. This inner self had to deal with and learn from the outside world, of course, and it might prove incompetent in doing so. Nevertheless, at the core of one’s self there was presumed to be something irreducible and inviolate. Not so, said Delgado. “Each person is a transitory composite of materials borrowed from the environment.” The important word was transitory, and he was talking not about years but about hours. He cited experiments in which healthy college students lying on beds in well-lit but soundproof chambers, wearing gloves to reduce the sense of touch and translucent goggles to block out specific sights, began to hallucinate within hours. Without the entire village, the whole jungle, occupying the cavity, they had no minds left.

Excerpted from Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.

(click to enlarge)

Now you know:

Turkey meat and drowsiness

One widely-held belief is that heavy consumption of turkey meat (as for example in a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast) results in drowsiness, which has been attributed to high levels of tryptophan contained in turkey. While turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats. Furthermore, postprandial Thanksgiving sedation may have more to do with what is consumed along with the turkey, in particular carbohydrates and alcohol, rather than the turkey itself. This is demonstrated in a popular episode of the sitcom “Seinfeld” when characters of the show drug a woman using turkey and alcohol in order to play with her toy collection.

It has been demonstrated in both animal models and in humans] that ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin in turn stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (LNAA) but not tryptophan (trp) into muscle, increasing the ratio of trp to LNAA in the blood stream. The resulting increased ratio of tryptophan to large neutral amino acids in the blood reduces competition at the large neutral amino acid transporter resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system (CNS). Once inside the CNS, tryptophan is converted into serotonin in the raphe nuclei by the normal enzymatic pathway. The resultant serotonin is further metabolised into melatonin by the pineal gland. Hence, these data suggest that “feast-induced drowsiness,” and in particular, the common post-Christmas and American post-Thanksgiving dinner drowsiness, may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.

Typtophan – Wikipedia

petit pas from mapo_mapos on Vimeo.

Light-Paint Piano Player from Ryan Cashman on Vimeo.

(preface: though Emily is from Spanaway, WA, I’d always thought she was from Oregon like the rest of her close family)

Me (6:01PM): Going out tonight, Em?
Emily (7:18PM): I went down to my parents’ place after work. I wish I could!
Me (7:45PM): OMG ur in Oregon!? Well then ‘G’Day, Mate!‘ Is that what you say down-under, below Washington?
Emily (7:50PM): Indeed! My, this Vegemite is yummy!
Me (7:51PM): OMG on toast?! I love Vegemite. Are there kangaroos jumping around in ur living rm? Be careful of Koala bears, they look cute but they’re secretly plotting to kill humans.
Emily (7:57PM): Actually I am cuddling up to one right now. Wait they r dangerous?!
Me (7:57PM): NOOOOO!!1! EMILY!!
Emily (8:00PM): It is too late for me, save yourself
Me (8:26): DAMN YOU!!! DAMN YOU AUSTRALIA!!!

No comment.

Action starts after 00:50.

Starbucks just made a really stupid PR move.  They’ve decided to sponsor Product (RED), which in turn donates to The Global Fund to fight HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.

Sounds great, right?

Except that Starbucks will only give 5¢ for every beverage you buy, and only at participating US and Canada locations, AND this excludes ready-to-drink beverages and Ethos® Water.

Real generous, Starbucks.

They even paid Facebook to give them preferential visibility on the right sidebar:

Facebook users, predictably, provided some great responses. Here are some of the more than 32,000 so far:

Lee Longfellow (PNCA):
YOU PAY STARBUCKS 3 DOLLARS
STARBUCKS PAYS THIRD WORLD FARMERS TWO CENTS
STARBUCKS DONATES 5 CENTS TO CORPORATE CHARITY…
CONGRATULATIONS,
YOU’RE STILL A TOOL.

Quinn Erickson (Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN):
oh yes, make her feel good about buying a six dollar fucking beverage.
people, you cal live without six dollar beverages. how about instead of buying rip off shit you make a 30¢ cup of jo at home and donate the remaining $5.70? that will make a much bigger difference. nice try star**cks.

John Wilde (Atlanta, GA):
NAZI CORP. 5 cents of a 5 dollar coffee.. nice donation.

Sarabeth Benjamin Neumann (Fossil Ridge High School):
Personally, I am not interested in attending World AIDS Day. I do not want aids in my coffee.

Christopher Morgan (Bridgeport / Stamford, CT):
AIDS is engineered as a ’soft kill’ bio weapon that targets ‘black’ people. If you want to help save lives in Africa, take a stand against the global elite that have engineered this.

Lillian Martin (Myrtle Beach, SC):
what 5 cents????? f*** starbucks!!!

Cameron Newland (Seattle):
WOW! FIVE WHOLE F***ING CENTS! THANK YOU STARBUCKS YOU HAVE SINGLEHANDEDLY CURED AIDS WITH YOUR MAMMOTH GENEROSITY! HOLY FU** BATMAN!!

Sara Phillips (Rutgers):
They charge $5-7 per drink… you think they could spare more than a nickel.

Jonathan Yen (Michigan State University):
5 cents outta $3 dollar profit, that’s awesome.

Robert Hancock (MidAmerica Nazarene):
Starbucks is fail

Judd Furlong (Des Moines, IA):
Starbucks does blow balls.

Ryan Reed (Seattle, WA):
You guys gave out free drinks for voting… aids < voting?

Rick Marr:
your mom has aids.