fyi

for anyone who needs to know:
my dad will not be coming with me to wesleyan. instead my mom will. i will explain later, right now i have to pack! leaving at 5:30 am tomorrow...

off to the woods

in case anyone wonders, i'm backpacking from tomorrow til sunday. so if you cannot contact me, that's
why. although all of my readers are probably at the rnc or something anyway, not waiting for updates
from me...oh well. have fun kids!

i have a gmail invite too

do you want gmail? i have an invite. comment if you want the account.

goodbye, dc

a picture to memorialize my stay in the district:



aww, i will miss it here.

I SAW A GUY RIDING A SEGWAY TODAY

for real. riding down the sidewalk.

this would be a longer entry, and i even have an unrelated picture to post, but i need to go to sleep. maybe tomorrow, readers...

build a better bush!

build a better bush! build a better bush!

i don't think a lot of these are true, but anyway...

You Know You're From Oregon When...

Your children learned to walk in Birkenstocks. You throw an aluminum can in the trash and feel guilty. You complain about Californians as you sell your house to one for twice as much as you originally paid. You only honk your horn if collision is imminent and never for anything else. You consider something a "hill" (not a mountain) if it doesn't have snow on it or has not recently erupted, regardless of its altitude. You consider "etiquette" a foreign word. Most of your friends are from California. You find a wallet with $500 and give it back to the owner. You used to live somewhere else but won't admit it publicly. You've ever ordered a half caff/decaf, nonfat mocha grande with sugar-free cranberry whip (or you know what it is). You know a bride & groom that registered at REI. If someone ran your car off the highway, you might drown. You'd be miffed if the store was out of your favorite brand of water. Every day is casual Friday. Hear the word "ferry" and think of boats and long waits. Know at least eight people who work for Intel or Nike, or used to work for Tektronix. You think skiing always means being covered from head to toe, in snow or water. Know that Boring is a town and not just a state of mind. Have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat. You return from a California vacation depressed because “all the grass was dead.” Remember the date, severity, time of day, where you were, and how long you were out of power and phone service for every winter weather event in the last five years. Have ever called your insurance agent to ask if your homeowner’s policy covers falling trees, flooding, or mud slides You never go camping without waterproof matches, ponchos, and mattress pads that double as flotation devices. You believe swimming is not a sport but a survival skill to prevent boating deaths. You own more than 10 articles of clothing that have the names of microbreweries/brewpubs printed on them. You think downtown is "scary" because you were panhandled there, once. You replace your hiking boots with Birkenstock or Teva sandals when the weather gets above 60 degrees. You believe people who use umbrellas are wimps or Californians, or both. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Oregon.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here



More cool things for your blog at
Blogthings

today was so not the day to forget my umbrella

that big green patch over dc means...that i am really wet. i had planned to go visit something after work today, since rc is gone and i didn't want to be home alone, but i couldn't stand the thought of being outside. dc was so flooded as i was leaving the office. people were standing huddled in doorways, or running barefoot to avoid wrecking their shoes, or bracing their umbrellas against the rain pelting down from a 45 degree angle. so i came home, wrapped myself in a towel, closed all the windows, made dinner, contemplated the thought of going to the giant to get some more groceries, decided to post in my blog instead....

today i was in meetings all day at work (doesn't that make me seem important?) they're interviewing two candidates for a vacant position at my office, and so they had these final interviews with the entire staff. getting a job is scary. i got a copy of each of their resumes and i kept thinking that they were like the sample ones from the crc, and had to remind myself that these were real people. the applicants had to sit at one end of the conference room table and answer a question from everyone (well, except the interns.) they asked hard questions too. then after they left we had a little meeting about each one. from which i learned: if they ask you about where you heard of the job, don't say "Idealist." i'm scared of finding a job now! (i already said that...) to all my readers presently in a job finding situation... i wish you lots of luck!

ok...

this is pretty awesome

bored

yesterday i finished reading a really great book and i wish i hadn't, just so i could read it some more now.

went to the zoo today. the panda is not named zu-zu. there are two and their names are Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. you can actually watch them on pandacam. i watched them eat bamboo for a while.

people should join the facebook...yeah, i don't care what you think of it, i just want you to join so i have more friends!

remember when the phrase "orange alert" meant that someone was about to throw a fruit at you?

yesterday while going to get groceries, i passed a building all roped off because of a suspicious package. meanwhile, a stretch Hummer was parked across the street. now i know that they're checking all trucks and vans that drive by the IMF/WB/whatever other targets...but are they checking stretch Hummers? hello terrorists! what a perfect opportunity to drive in a shitload of explosives!

meanwhile, i have been *busy* at work for the first time in forever. it's kind of fun.

our new blog

do you ever read the paper, and wonder, "am i reading a real article...or an onion article?" if so, you should copy and paste the article on our new blog. leave a comment over there if you want posting privileges...the more, the merrier.

this is my cat

her name is miss moppet, taken from the name of a cat in a beatrix potter book. also known as "moppet," "moppy," or "small." she is in fact very small, furry, kind of stupid, and very easygoing. when i was younger we would dress her up in doll clothes and she would not care or complain. she came to our house from the humane society when i was in 3rd grade or so. she was the runt of the litter, and when we let her loose in our house for the first time, she immediately ran and hid under the stove. anyway, she has been mysteriously sick since this weekend, and was in the cat emergency room for a while, but came home and seemed to be recovering. but today she had a relapse, and the vet thinks she has a tumor, and we will probably have to put her to sleep. two more photos:

today has been (partially) scrawesome ranical

as my little sister would say. it means "awesome," but i'm not sure how the other syllables got on there...

did you know that Al Jazeera is showing more of the Democratic convention than ABC, CBS and NBC combined? hah. everyone at my work was talking about the convention today. the director of our organization was talking about hearing kucinich speak on the radio, and how it was so much better than on tv because you couldn't see how dorky he looked. it was noted that edwards used the word "rent" in his speech and someone else (obama?) used the word "homelessness." thus indicating the high priority the dems place on housing issues...
then people started making bets on what kerry would say in his speech, like that he would use the word "homeownership," or that he wouldn't use the word "section 8." and especially that he wouldn't use the phrase "the bill for a housing trust fund which i introduced into the senate..." apparantly housing is also no longer listed as a policy issue on his website (he used to have a little blurb on it, but the website got all changed around.)

i got off of work early.

i also got a FREE T-SHIRT! this is a shirt that simply says "NOVEMBER 2" on the front. nothing on the back. i don't really get it... but it's supposed to be about voting or something? i have an extra if anyone wants! maybe i will bring it up to NY tomorrow.

our power was supposed to be out between 2:30 pm and 6 am tomorrow, but it is not. which is great. i called pepco (utility company) and they said "yeah, by 2:30 pm we meant...2:30 am." which is such a better time to have a disruption. yay.

ok, the next post will be about the non-scrawesome ranical stuff :(

some things

in the rest of the world, after a rainstorm, the humidity is at least partly gone. in dc...yeah, not so much. why? the weather section in the Post provides the answer:
"The air has a lot of moisture in it," Silverman said. "It's tropical type
of air mass that can drop about two inches of rain in about an hour."

also, best q&a in a live online chat ever:

Re. Obama: Obama, Osama. We'll take care of them both before long. You don't
cross this President and keep your reputation intact.
Robert G. Kaiser: What a charming comment.

finally...


take the "what's your dark
secret?" quiz
| courtesy of mewing.net. where darkness
and secrecy abound.

Saddam gardens, eats muffins in solitary confinement
no, not an onion article, a real article!!

wesleyan: wtf?

why do our classes start on labor day?

exotification at the dinner table

this was so pretty that I had to post it.


North African Tofu with Chickpeas

The recipe begins, "Feeling a little exotic? Serve this delightful tomato, zucchini, and chickpea sauce with a basket of warm pita bread. Finger food at its best."

ingredients: (we made only 1/2 of this recipe)

16 oz firm tofu, cut into 1" strips
2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped (we didn't have. so we used a bunch of garlic, grated.)
2 cups canned diced tomatoes, with liquid (we used crushed tomatoes)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup vegetable stock (didn't have, used more wine instead...)
1/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
1 medium zucchini, diced (used summer squash instead)
2 cups chickpeas, cooked
1 T fresh mint leaves, minced (used basil instead)
Pita bread, cut in triangles (used whole-wheat tortillas instead)

preparation:
1. in a large saucepan, saute the tofu in oil until browned. remove from pan and set aside.
2. in the same saucepan, cook the onion until softened. add the tomatoes, wine, vegetable stock, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil.
3. add the zucchini and simmer, covered, for 20 min
4. stir in the chickpeas, tofu, and mint. simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.
5. serve warm in a large bowl with pita wedges for dipping.

$8.99.

the new look of tripleimpasse.blogspot.com

less pink. more gray. slightly different colors and no more shadows or graphics. let me know if you like it.

this is the perfect saturday morning to make pancakes, read the 9/11 commission report, and update my blog!

yeah, i have been getting complaints! sorry! anyway, in bullet form:

- i have learned that, unlike mitch hedburg's description of a banana, spinach IS like a traffic light. green is good. yellow is more like, slow down, don't eat that spinach.
- a guy came up to me while i was eating lunch in the park. he said i was very photogenic and he would like to take my picture if i came back on friday. he gave me his business card and i learned that his name was: Gaylord Tissueboo.
(best. name. ever.)
- what i am reading. (it's really scary, by the way. don't read too much in one sitting.)
- WHY WAS THIS left on our doorstep? WHY? WHY? the larouchies are out to get me, i think.
- yesterday i got off work early to go deliver a press release to the hill. i was going to leave my stuff at work, but my boss was like, oh...you don't need to come back. also, don't i sound cool calling it "the hill"? yeah, you know it.
- in every representative's office, all the interns were sitting around watching TV. in every single one. maybe it's because it was the last friday before the recess, but maybe being a congressional intern is a big joke. or both.
- i hope EVERYONE is going to new york next weekend for ben's birthday party. we are going to bring him a pretty sweet "birthday cake" too.
- i'm hungry. i'm going to follow up on the pancakes part of the title of this post.
but i updated!

i need to write a new post

BECAUSE BLOGGER ATE IT!!
i wrote a post under this title yesterday, but now it is gone.

oh. my. god.

I want spinach to make electricity!

posting one more picture

taken by becca

have you ever wondered where R.C. comes from?

the Corcoran Museum provides the answer!



View of Marshfield
oil on canvas
Martin Johnson Heade
(American, 1819-1904)

ok, R.C. claims it's a different Marshfield, but i think they all look the same anyway.

courtesy of toothpaste for dinner

off to our nation's birthplace for the weekend, i will leave my loyal readers with two links.

1. ben, do you secretly write this blog?
2. toothpaste for dinner? if it's tom's of maine peppermint baking soda toothpaste, i would say, yeah.

re: painted volkswagen buses

"It's not really a hippie bus, it's more of an afrocentric bus"
-r.c.



and it lives on our street!

"Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm" - John F. Kennedy

i think that having lived in DC for 1 month, i'm officially entitled to complain about it...first, the bus and subway prices went up today (jerks. $1.35!). second, i needed to get my bus pas for the week, so rc tried to get one for me while she was at the giant yesterday. but they had a sign up that said NO BUS PASSES. why? i go to metro center to get one at lunch today, wait in line for 10 minutes, and find myself halfway to the ticket window...

the scene after 10 minutes.
there are 2 windows, but the person at one keeps leaving for long periods, with no explanation. the guy at the window is yelling about waiting in line half an hour and his card still doesn't work, and you need to get your manager to come down here and give me a refund now, because i didn't wait all this time for this, and everyone in line is getting pissed off. oh well. i get to the front of the line 5 minutes later, buy my card, and try to run back to work, but am foiled by the third annoying thing about DC: people who haven't learned to use the escalator! like this couple in front of me who had to have their arms around each other and take up the whole width of the escalator...i have one thing to say to these people:
Stand Right, Walk Left.

this is a girl named navajah who comes to my work on fridays and likes to deliver office supplies and have her picture taken. i'm not sure whose daughter she is though!

by special request

someone who never leaves comments on this (HINT HINT) said i should post a picture of me again, so, i took one with my phone. sorry about the low quality! the light was bad!

simcity 4

this is my favorite computer game ever. not that it has much competition, since it's the first computer game i've played since like...simcity 2000 or amazing animation or one of those other great ones we had on the old computer at home. yesterday i made two of my cities go from around 30,000 in population to around 70,000. now, i was really excited to have my cities finally be big, but then they started getting all these problems like real big cities! like crime, needing prisons, hospital workers going on strike, running deficits every year, running out of water, out of power, etc, etc. when they were at 30,000 they were so nice! always making money, never complaining about services, never catching on fire every five minutes... anyway, this is about the least interesting blog post of all time, but if anyone knows how to make your city make money instead of lose it, i would really appreciate the advice!

one thing i love about our house is that the bathroom has a skylight in it! in the morning, it's always lit up when the rest of the house is dark. and on weekends i end up taking showers at approximately the same time the sun is right overhead, and the light streams down into the shower, making it seem...tropical...or beachlike...or something. or like you're going to get burned.

yesterday i got a library card. they give you a normal library card, and a little one to go on your keychain, just like at a grocery store! this innovation amazed me, although since then people have told me it's not that new. the library near our house is probably smaller than the one at my middle school, and kind of depressing, but i can use the card at all the other libraries too.

on the way home from the library, there was a big traffic jam at around 4th St, with people honking and sirens going. i saw a man lying down on the ground, with a big crowd of people around him, and a cop car, fire truck, and three ambulances arriving as i walked by. i couldn't see what had happened to him, but this guy started talking to me about how people are getting shot every day in this city, just yesterday someone was shot at the anacostia station, etc etc. i asked him, did that guy get shot? and he said he didn't know, but they're shooting each other every day in this city, just yesterday, and now today, etc etc. i don't know what happened though, i searched for it in washingtonpost.com's crime report section, and found nothing. so it probably wasn't anything. just scary.

also yesterday jacques, sam, and peter came over and we played settlers. which is a great, great game. i almost won. by which i mean sam won when i had 9 points. RC watched and was (hopefully!!!) convinced of the game's greatness and wants to learn to play and we can play all the time at 19 fountain next year. ok, probably not. hey! if you read this blog and you like settlers and you want RC to learn to play, please start a lobbying campaign or something! send emails!

now i'm going to make an omelette. see you later, blogspot.

when college students make biscuits...

...and naturally don't have a rolling pin.




yes, that is a bottle of bawls.

the 80 bus

it never comes on time. or on any predictable schedule. in the morning there are 3 buses that come in a row, sometime between 8:20 and 8:30. i leave the house at the same time every day, at 8:25, and sometimes they come. sometimes they do not, or else they came early. then there are 2 buses that come in a row around 8:40. but sometimes more like 8:50. one time i got to the bus stop at 8:15, and there was no bus until 8:40. according to the schedule for this stop they should come at 8:17, 8:25, 8:34, 8:46...not 3 ALL AT ONCE and then 2 more much later! so tomorrow i'm going to try out the G8. the stops are farther away from home and work, but maybe it will come on time!

also, there's a very tasteful ad for life insurance on washingtonpost.com with a picture of a sad little girl saying, "My daddy told me that when I grow up, I can go to the best college around and someday have a beautiful wedding like a princess.
But...my daddy never told me that he was going to die."

things

1. i got a gmail account. that makes me cool. or something. if you want to write me at my cool exclusive (ok, maybe not cool/exclusive for much longer) email account, it's my first and last names, no hyphens or anything, @gmail.com. i bet i'll get some invites soon and then i can bestow them on people who ask...or do a gmail swap!

2. rowland is resigning. which is pretty awesome, and long overdue.

3. quotes from the weekend:
"so that's what they did before nalgenes!"
-ben, looking at a water vessel in the museum of african art
"maybe you ARE ns"
-ben or rc (i can't remember!), on my love for my computer vs. my wesmatch status

You are Bob Herbert! You're not the most sparkling
writer, but one of the most solid and selfless
on the Op-Ed staff. You focus on New York
politics, the poor, race issues, and civil
liberties. You like to quote others, and rarely
place yourself in your columns. You keep it
real. Seriously.


Which New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

if your name is ben somberg and you are reading this, I have a present for you. you have to come visit to get it. and remind me when you visit about the present so i don't forget to give it to you.

oh, i'm going to post some recipes i make so i will remember what was good!

on monday night we had pasta with garlic and zucchini. you make it like this:

1. cook some penne pasta (1/3 lb?)
2. cut a zucchini into julienne strips and fry it in olive oil and garlic and crumbled tofu (1/4 of a block). make sure the olive oil is plentiful so that it will coat the pasta later. use a low heat so the garlic mellows out.
3. toss the pasta with the zucchini mixture and grate parmesan cheese over it.

the end! i'm not even sure if this qualifies as a recipe, but we *did* get it out of a cookbook...

finally!!! here is a picture of my beautiful house.

don't you you lived in this house too?

furnished

i now have a bed. or really, a mattress, and it's kind of sitting on the floor in the living room with one corner bent up and leaning on the couch because it wouldn't fit flat on the floor without some effort. we got plastic drawers too, and real drawers, so now our house is completely furnished! and if we need more furniture we can just check on craigslist's free section more often! yay for craigslist. also, we have wireless internet here now. this is the most high-tech house i have ever lived in. when i think of last summer, living in the housing project with 9 housemates, checking my email at the yale library...this place just seems so big and amazing! i want to post a picture of my house but i need to figure out how...hold on a minute, eager readers.

DC (not the brian brotman article though!)

well, i've found a free alternative to the starbucks internet (yay!) and will use this opportunity to write in my blogspot!! i have just finished my first day of work at the national low income housing coalition. it was lots of fun, kind of, but i was so tired the whole day i almost fell asleep SO many times! i have my own computer, email address (bethc (at) nlihc.org, if any of my lovely readers want to contaminate my work email!) and extension. that's pretty cool. i'm going to be doing a big project on waiting lists for section 8 vouchers. there are thousands of people trying to get housing vouchers (for reduced rent) but they have to wait for years because there aren't nearly enough vouchers to go around. my project (i think) is to try to figure out how many people are on the waiting lists and how long they have to wait and probably other things about them. today i read a book called "advocate's guide." and i met people in the office. and my supervisor took me and the real research analyst to lunch. and i looked for a report called "waiting in vain," and i found it and read it on lexis-nexis, and i did other stuff until it was time to go. i work in one room with mark treskon, the real research analyst, and danilo, the research boss, works in another room. we have a corner office but it just looks out onto other office buildings...like the alley or something. there are 3 other interns but i'm not sure if i will really do much with them, it seems that our functions are pretty separate. i'm nervous for 2 things: 1. staff meeting on thursday. 2. writing my bio for the memo to members.

tomorrow i move into the real apartment! that's another thing i'm nervous about, i guess. at least it won't smell like wet socks, like the hostel does. i'm staying in a youth hostel which is pretty nice, but there seems to be a leak in the roof which got the carpet wet which made the room smell like wet carpet which smells like wet socks. we had the windows open in the hostel to air it out, and i guess mosquitos got in, and one of them must have bit me on the eyelid while i was asleep. when i woke up my right eye was so swollen! i almost couldn't see out of it. the swelling went down a little before work so i didn't look like a complete freak. it's almost gone now.

the girl behind me in this cafe has the same computer as me.

i can't wait until RC comes here, it is lonely only having 1 person (a German hostelroommate) to talk to, and i want to live in my REAL apartment and hopefully get a REAL BED too. the hostel only has foam mattresses. i hope for better.

in case i forget...

i have work tomorrow from 8 am to 12:15 pm and 9 pm to 12:15 am.

i have work on saturday from 12 pm to 4:15 pm and 9 pm to 12:15 am.

i hope my cell phone ships soon! aah! i hope one other thing comes soon but i'm not writing it here. ask me if you need to know.

I hate FLEET BANK

so i have a jar of change that i want to turn into real money. but i think, before i go to the bank, i should call to see if they have a machine to count it or if i have to roll it up. so i look in the phone book. oddly enough, their branches don't seem to have phone numbers. just an 800 number that's the same for every branch. ok, i call the number. (1-800-841-4000, if you want to play along at home) it's a bunch of "press one for this, press 2 for this. so i press different options, hoping to get to the "stay on the line to talk to a representative" option...and after trying every option, i find it never comes. so i look around online for another number. this is their customer service page. i call the "set up a new account" number, hoping that to set up an account you have to talk to an actual person. as it turns out, if you keep pressing buttons for "i have another question," for about 5 minutes, you get to talk to someone. the change has to be rolled. thanks guys! i miss u-lane-o.

test post

welcome