Exploding ants

According to a comment on a recent Lifehacker post on getting rid of ants, if you feed ants Cream of Wheat, it will expand once they eat it and their stomachs will explode.

Anyway, this post reminded me of one particularly hot summer in Chicago. My roommate and I were living in an un-airconditioned apartment, so on top of walking around in our underwear most of the time, we also had the windows open all the way. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary in order to stay in solid form.

An unfortunate by-product of keeping the windows open all the time was a fly and mosquito problem. Lucky for us, we had a few spiders in the corners! Since we were only subletting the place for the summer, we didn't much care about having a few spiders around. Plus, it was an eco-friendly way to take care of the mosquitoes.

This plan backfired. Big time. Near the end of the summer, we took a peek behind the couch where the one or two little spiders were. Instead, we found dozens of HUGE spiders! More than that, there were an equal number of egg sacs!! As we contemplated how to get rid of the spiders, several of the egg sacs burst, sending hundreds of tiny specks in every direction. I think the only thing more disgusting than one spider is a hundred tiny baby spiders swarming at you.

After our screaming subsided, we collected ourselves and hatched a plan. (no pun intended) We decided to use a two-pronged approach: spray with Raid and then immediately vacuum up the corpses and any survivors.

Ultimately, it ended with total victory. Mostly because we stayed the course.

The best chocolate chip cookies

... are always the ones that you make yourself. They are also the most fattening, because they tend to go down by the dozen.

Forever Foreign

Here's another Chinese accused of being a spy for the Chinese government.

This kind of thing really annoys me. Whether he is guilty or not, it will bring up the same issues as the Wen Ho Lee case did. Ultimately, Wen Ho Lee was more or less exonerated, however, it did not stem any suspicion placed upon the general Asian public.

It's the one thing that makes Asians and Middle Easterners different as minorities than blacks and Hispanics. Even as Hispanics maintain their culture and flaunt it proudly, doing so as Asians only heightens the sense that Asians are foreign. Hispanics can be different, but those living in the U.S. never have their loyalties questioned.

I doubt I will see Asians accepted as Americans without question in my lifetime.

Yummy

Some people say you either love or hate mayonnaise. Like anchovies. Well, I for one loooove mayonnaise. I often find myself torn when making a sandwich. Do I use mayo, or do I use mustard? I like to choose one because both becomes overwhelming. About 2/3 of the time, I will choose mayo, even though mustard is much healthier. There's nothing better than creamy, smooth, tasty mayo on nice seeded rye bread.

The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness

I know I should be thankful for everything that I have, for the life I have lived, for the life I have the opportunity to live. Especially since I've seen firsthand the lives of people that don't have even a tiny bit of the advantage I have or the opportunities I've had as a result.

Instead, I find myself complaining when I play a set of tennis poorly rather than remember how lucky I am to have been able to learn to play.

I turned down $20/hr English tutoring in China because I deemed it not worth my time, even though plenty of Chinese don't even make $20 a day.

At first I felt bad about attending my alma mater because it was only a top 10 school instead of top 5, though plenty of people in the world don't even get a high school education.

I should be thankful, but I feel differently. I've thought maybe it's because I've been fortunate that I feel guilty for not doing better, or that I feel like I should be able to reach an even higher level. Or maybe it's much simpler-- maybe I simply need to feel superior to other people, or at the very least, not inferior. An inferiority complex, perhaps. And then I think how ridiculous it is for me to feel this way when a migrant child in China is wondering whether they will be able to finish school or a black child in the inner city is wondering if he will live to see his 21st birthday.

All Call

This is a formal request for testimonials on Friendster and Facebook. Do they even have testimonials on Facebook? I don't know. I don't really use them that much. But I'm feeling left out of the testimonial loop. I think I have one. Maybe two.

I'd like to ask you all to write one for me. It shouldn't be too hard to describe all the awesome things about me, there are probably tons of examples from your personal experience!

Whew.

After spending the last two weeks going through and organizing three years of photos and emails, I am finally done. I had meant to do this a long time ago, but somehow, it just kept getting pushed back. So I ended up with 15,000 pictures that needed to be organized and trimmed while removing all duplicates and getting it all into iPhoto (I still want to delete unnecessary pictures, rate the good ones and add keywords). I also had 2000 emails that needed to be gone through. I discovered that I had a handful of emails that I hadn't replied to yet, dating back to 2005.

It's all good to go, with a system for moving forward. I'm adopting the save and search method for emails, plus tags, using some cool software for my Mac. This should make it less of a pain to act on emails, keep track of what needs to be acted on, and filing away old stuff but still being able to find it. Thank Steve Jobs for Spotlight.

It's all very cathartic, really. I feel like a great weight has been lifted. This has been nagging me for years, and it's finally done. Yay!

My Dog is Vegetarian

Don't get me wrong, my dog loves to eat meat. But we rarely feed him meat. In lieu of meat, he gets plenty of vegetables. When preparing vegetables, he gets all the extra bits. He particularly likes to eat celery and apple cores. I think the only thing he doesn't like is citrus, but I'm always giving him new things to try to see his reaction. While my previous dog hated hot sauce, this one laps it up. He also likes popcorn, especially butter flavored.

Bad Teachers

Recently, Philadelphia news stations have been running stories on how bad Philadelphia city schools are. Teachers are complaining about how they are afraid of their students and how they don't feel safe at work. Some teachers have even been beat up by their students.

The general reaction is something between sympathy and outrage. How terrible! Poor teachers! Hoodlum kids!

My response? Those teachers are bad teachers. I've worked in some of the worst Philadelphia schools. It's no cakewalk-- but if you genuinely care about the students and know how to teach, you will have no problem.

I suspect these frightened teachers are not teaching in these schools by choice and are falling prey to their own preconceived notions of inner city schools. In my experience, I've found that students will rise to your expectations of them-- no matter what they may be.