how now brownpau
(Signs and Sunset at Seaside Heights uploaded by brownpau.)
After a hard-but-fun 105°F day of choppy upwind kayaking on the lovely brown waters of Barnegat Bay, I snapped this photo of a sunset shining through the clear, unblemished skies of New Jersey. More photos from this weekend here. And by the way, the broiled and fried seafood platters at Berkeley Fish Market are seriously succulent. Mmmm.
I’m off to NJ to visit Amy for the weekend. Back Monday. Here’s a photo of Pandora reclining on her favorite pillow:
(Pandora on her Pillow uploaded by brownpau.)
The Time Quartet, by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s supposed to be kid’s literature, but I was fascinated enough by the last time I read Wrinkle several years ago, that I decided to see what the rest of the series was like.
So, all in all, the series is about half-good (one could say it isn’t half-bad, perhaps), but I humbly opine that Wrinkle was still the best of the four, and stands quite well alone without its sequels, carrying the clearest and deepest lessons on hope, faith, love, courage, and adventure.
(Pandora’s Fan uploaded by brownpau.)
Chin on book, face to ventilation. It’s the dog days of summer. Only without the dog. See here for another angle, and the title of the book she’s using as her pillow.
(IMG_3388.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
Pickles was last seen here, and I’m birdsitting him again while his owner is away. Shortly after I took this photo, Pickles pooped on the back of my shirt. I don’t know how pirates deal with this.
Here’s my chicken adobo + ginger recipe, as requested by a few of you out there. It’s based on how my mom makes adobo, with lots and lots of soupy sauce so that the dish is more of a stew than a flaky meat dish. I got the idea of adding potatoes from Myra’s Chicken Adobo on Pinoycook.net, and I added ginger completely out of whimsy. Quantities are purely discretionary.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed/chopped
1 onion, chopped (optional)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup vinegar
3 potatoes, sliced (or 1 can)
1 tbsp sliced ginger (optional)
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
6-8 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
Directions:
(I toyed with titling this “Brownpadobo” or “Adobordoveza” or something cute like that, but none of those names worked too well.)
The story is that someone posted a question to Ask Metafilter about avoiding alcohol in vanilla extracts for religious reasons (Islam, I think). A few people answered with the standard “Oh you poor stupid religious person,” as is to be expected from Metafilter; which precipitated this etiquette debate in which some actually defend their right to mock tangentially religious queries, some chide them for their childish intolerance, and it’s generally a standard poo fling, not much worth reading, but I did want to anchor to a couple of gems:
That’s it, really. No need to read the whole thread; it’s not worth it, but those two caught my eye. And after a certain point, I think Mayor Curley’s just being facetious, and I find it just as funny.
Raul Roco passes away, due to cardiac arrest as a complication of cancer. He was 63.
Remember the Philippine presidential elections of 1998? Roco was a shining beacon of hope back then, the progressive candidate of choice for women and youth, an eloquent speaker and accomplished lawyer, with impeccable taste in wildly colored Hawaiian print shirts. He came to Ateneo for a panel debate before the elections, across from Jose de Venecia. I was photography and graphic design editor for The GUIDON at the time, and was able to shake his hand after the debates. Unfortunately I didn’t keep the prints of my photos, and I have no idea where they are now.
Roco lost the 1998 elections, but performed pretty well, coming in third after Erap and De Venecia. He ran again in 2004, but lost to Gloria and ranked far lower, his popularity from 1998 mostly eclipsed, and his health fading due to his battle with cancer. I’ve long thought that if Gloria and FPJ had not run, the election would have been down to him and Lacson, which would have been a much more decent set of choices for the Filipino public than the decision between Gloria and FPJ.
Well, Raul Roco did what he could for a country mostly too starstruck to appreciate what he had to offer. Here’s hoping Aksyon Demokratiko lives on in his spirit.
More: Roco’s official website, Wikipedia entry, Malacañang’s official word, Cathcath, PCIJ, Paolo Manalo, Edwin Lacierda, Conrado de Quiros.
The discovery of 2003 UB313, an object larger than Pluto orbiting at a far greater distance, has called back into question the debate as to what a “planet” is. The media is already dubbing it the tenth planet; but given this, 2003 EL61, Quaoar, and Sedna, my loyalties in the “Planet/Kuiper Belt Object” debate are starting to fall to the KBO side. This is surely not the last significant Pluto-like body we’ll find out there, and there’s a good chance Pluto is simply just another one of these objects, icy spheres with highly eccentric orbits a great distance from the sun. If that’s so, it can’t rightly be termed a planet, unless we’re willing to start calling every large KBO a planet as well. We’ll have dozens of “planets” before we’re done cataloguing all these objects. Yet I can’t bear to relegate Pluto, with all its historical significance, to a nomenclatural dung heap.
Currently, “plutino” is used to refer to Pluto-like bodies in the outer solar system with a 3:2 mean motion resonance to Neptune’s orbit. If we want to properly distinguish planets from large, rocky, icy orbital bodies, while also maintaining Pluto’s stature as the first of these bodies to have been found by modern astronomy, I suggest we expand the term “plutino” to cover KBO’s and trans-Neptunian objects and such. It’s a nice, compact word, and it somewhat simplifies our understanding of the outer solar system. I’m not sure our current astronomical taxonomy for the local neighborhood needs further complication in the way it classifies and labels various objects anyway.
Cassini has found evidence of possible ice volcanism on Enceladus, based on a warm spots in the “tiger stripes” (those blue surface features) around the moon’s south pole, and a tenuous atmosphere containing water vapor — especially concentrated at the south pole. All the signs point to a geologically active moon, kneaded and heated by Saturn’s gravitational influence, and constantly leaking heat and water to replenish its thin atmosphere and coat the surface with ice.
I remember that the spacecraft in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2061: Odyssey Three were driven by water-powered muon drives. If that science fiction technology ever becomes reality, worlds like Enceladus will be a dream come true. (Especially since Europa might be off-limits if the Monoliths have their way. ;-)
More Enceladus flyby photos from Cassini. Also check out The Planetary Society’s article on the flyby.