DAY ONE HUNDRED FORTY NINE POST TWO

Istanbul Daily Secret today recommended that after going to 45'lik that people head into the "soup bar", or as it's actually called, By Çorbaçı Soup Bar.  I will have to say this, my own personal restaurant review of By Corbaci Soup Bar:

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Go there.

Never again.

That place had some of the most disgusting food I've ever had in my life.  In addition to rotting vegetables in the salad bar, the soup was alternatively tasteless or extremely overly salty to the point of not being consumable.  I have tried 4 different soups there, and each was as gross and disgusting as the next.  Yes, it's only 10 lira or so for a mixed soup/salad bar/rice meal, but it is *beyond* nasty.  The soup had lumps where they shouldn't be, unidentified chunks of something, uncooked chickpeas in the nohutlu pilav, and undercooked grains in any soups where grains should be.  They seriously messed up tomato soup, which is kind of hard to mess up.  They totally screwed up the ezo gelin soup, which had rock-hard pieces of bulgar in it. The lentil soup was extremely salty and unpalatable, while the vegetable soup's vegetables were questionable at best.

I give this place a failing grade and rank it almost as gross as Fudu, which actually had really nice little taste packages but had quite bad vegetarian wraps.  I think that's unfortunate, but more fair than a soup/salad bar having absolute crap soup and rotting salad.

DO NOT GO TO BY CORBACI SOUP BAR AND SHAME ON YOU ISTANBUL DAILY SECRET FOR SUGGESTING ANY HUMAN BEING WITH TASTE BUDS EVEN THINK OF ATTEMPTING TO ENTER INTO THE DOORS OF THAT SUBPAR ESTABLISHMENT.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE

Lots of work, so my blogs are going to be quite short.

Can geoengineering save the environment?

The biological functions of art. 

This is a really sad article in the Atlanta Magazine about Bill and Doug getting married.

Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? About how diamonds were marketed as a required gem to symbolize love. Fairly horrifying how well this ad campaign worked, and how it's changed the minds of those in many countries. I wonder if these will be featured in Mad Men at any point?  Regardless, it affirms my desire to keep my (semi-cursed, but beloved) garnet claddagh as the only ring I ever wear. Then stupid gem searching led me to a uvarovite, which is a really pretty green garnet.  Tanzanite, my absolute personal favorite, has to be just around as horribly evil as diamonds. And now I want to go buy BLOOD GEMS but instead I'll just do some squats.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT

The booty popping project continues.  Apparently, no pain no gain is true, at least in regards to how to do it correctly, which is hopefully means I'm making lots of progress considering how incredibly painfully sore I am. There's a video officemate sent me to assist with the dance mission of 2012, but SonicWall has classified it as porn (booty poppin is not porn!). Or, the soreness may be from freeze-tag or dodgeball. Regardless, all are good practice for Bosphorus swim 2012! Along with choose your own adventure. And joining the gym. The latter two I have yet to do, but will soon.

This article is a fantastic look into the process of writing and directing Thelma and Louise.  I especially like the descriptions of a young Brad Pitt. It's also got a reference to the 1968 Miss America pageant and women's protest movements there, which I'd never heard of before. However, the now ubiquitous fist in a female symbol debuted shortly after those protests, which apparently also reignited women's lib movements...

And that's the entirety of the post for what should have been posted yesterday. In other news, I saw kids running around attempting to set off car alarms by kicking soccer balls into cars, I got some people to say "chips" rather than crisps, and I also got them to say "baaaaysil" as basil is properly said.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN POST TWO

I'm in love.

And eating veggie burger number 2 for the day. Second lunch win. And researching the very friendly country of Canada, which I like a little bit more than I did before because based on their popularity contest immigration point system, I'D TOTALLY BE IN!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN

Last night was a breakthrough on the booty popping initiative, and I'm proud to report that within a few months I too will be able to booty pop. And Brazilian butt lift.

I'm also proud to report that for the first time ever, I made a custard and home made mayonnaise! Also, did I mention I like to dance?

Of course, it's a post-Thursday day, so I'm completely exhausted.  Here's a video that has been getting me all pumped for the day:

And this:
 

I'm clearly in love with Florence + The Machine:



I was trying to figure out what was up with the recent spate of publicity on Maurice Sendak and was sad to learn he died on Tuesday.  A collection of some of the better pieces going around now is here, here, here and here.

And finally, the blog entry you've all been waiting for since you, like everyone, must know that I recently received a cat book.

IN THE COMPANY OF CATS: A tale indicating to me that my friend's mom thinks that I will die alone and ultimately get eaten by my hoard of cats, with an additional subtitle Well it's not too bad that Shortbus ran away, really, because one cat less is one cat better, kind of like the opposite of animal farm: Four bad, two good. One even better (I'm thinking of you, Tigs - doesn't freedom sound nice? No? Ah well). I know, what crazy titles!

Well, that's about as far as the review's going today since I have a ton of work and . Tigger did take the chance during lunch to rush out of the apartment, so I hope she found her way back in - IT WAS JUST A BOOK SOMEONE GAVE ME, IT DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING I SWEAR!!!!!!!

In other random news: have you ever been approached by a relatively attractive American stranger on the street who you spoke to for about 20 minutes before the pieces fell into place and you realized that he was almost a parody, a person that some of your friends referred to as "Poop Eye" due to an unfortunate first week and a misunderstanding of how to flush a toilet or what a bidet was, resulting in a day or two of stink eye?  TThe worst part was that once I realized he was poop eye, I couldn't just go around shouting it, instead having to wait excruciating minutes until he wasn't nearby. He's also the subject of an ongoing bet that I have with officemate, the stakes of which have yet to be determined.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN

Have you seen the booty poppinist video around? Have you ever considered going to Walmart to pick up chicks? If you haven't, think again - because these kinds of ladies apparently hang out there all day long:

As an aside, I'm now sore from a truly valiant attempt to do that last night.

And, if you're in the mood for some daggering on top of that, this song again, which goes with the above one like milk and coffee.

A history of the second wave of house music in Chicago, along with interviews and clips and at the bottom, a mix from Derrick Carter and DJ Sneak, who I've been lucky enough to see a couple of times. Although in regards to the article, I will say that I think Chicago doesn't win the most segregated city in America award, as mentioned: that title goes to Detroit (including Livonia)! 

Here's a sad tale of some LA Armenians. It's really interesting - particularly the descriptions of food that's widely available in Turkey (çiğ köfte, or, as the article and possibly Armenians call it, raw meat and bulgar che kufta).  I'm also not so sure that attempted cheating on an entrance exam in 1997 alone would be enough to prevent the kid in the article from entering law school, considering that convicted killers gain entry to law school... 

My font changed after the cut and paste, but I like this font better. Thoughts?

This article makes me want to go to expensive extremely popular restaurants and bribe my way in.  This article makes me want to be able to bribe my way to good service. Honestly, it'll probably be the only and best way to assure good service in this country. Three years from now, I'll have the kind of cash to do so(!), although from my memories in NY some of the hippest restaurants were also filled with foods I thought to be gross -- but it was during the foam craze of the mid aughts. This place, though, sounds cool. An excerpt from the article:

I was clearly in another league of exclusivity. Lay eaters wouldn’t dream of trying to enter a restaurant where if you order verbena tea they bring the plant to your table and a white-gloved waiter snips the leaves with silver shears.

This article is pretty interesting about the relationship between rap/hip-hop and the LA riots, although I think overall it's rather poorly written and the connection between the two is laid out too sparsely and unmethodically to mean anything. Still, a pretty short read.

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX

You win some, you lose some. Shortbus has returned!! Again!! For the fourth time! This means if you know anyone who wants a slightly dim-witted cat who is absolutely adorable, please send them my way. Please?

My blog's not going to be so good today because I want to help throw a nice dress up cocktail party this weekend as a precursor to a friend's birthday party. So far, the things I have decided to make are:

Gazpacho

Hummus

Goat cheese stuffed dates

Bruschetta

Yogurt dip

Veggies

And for drinks:

Homemade ginger ale

A ginger-lemon-mint-soda concoction over ice

A milk, coffee and coconut cream blended ice drink 

It's all terribly exciting, and means I get to cook up a storm.  I'll also be able to do it this weekend - again, terribly excited.  Summer has returned, and am I ever glad for it!

I've received a song for my blog.  Fuck your blog. My favorite line? EVERYTHING. Another song by them that's fantastic? Let me smang it. And their documentary. NO EMBEDDED VIDEOS FOR YOU! And I also like Key and Peele, mentioned in their Fuck Your Blog song. And it's true, and he did school them. 

(And as an added note: I think I'm now completely smitten with Donald Glover.)

***Update. It appears Shortbus has, yet again, run away. Apologies for the excitement - she does appear to be as mentally challenged as originally believed.

Also, I didn't know that the DIA was the second largest city-owned museum in the US with one of the largest art collections in the US!  I just remember I love the place, especially the Rivera fresco. This article is making me want to revisit two things when I visit Michigan: the DIA and the Frederick Meijer Gardens. Exciting times!