Zeno's Bar & Grill

A sick and twisted truth of life that I've recently discovered: if you buy something at one of those discount stores, like Ross or Tuesday Morning, the amount of man hours spent scraping off the uber-sticky price stickers will cancel out any savings you might have realized at the cash register.


Seriously, why do those places use such incredibly adhesive price stickers? It's downright sadistic. I just spent half an hour removing labels from some plates I bought over the weekend. Same thing happened a couple of weeks ago with something I picked up at Ross.


And as for the picture. Well, it doesn't really tie in. But it came up when I was googling "chewing gum" in a vain effort to find a picture of something sticky. How does she do that?

--Melanie

Excuse me while I turn on every light bulb in my house and make several needless trips to Costco. I'm entitled, according to an opinion piece in the NY Times today. Thanks to California's aggressive energy policies, the typical Californian uses a third less energy than the average American, less than 60 percent electricity and accounts for only 55 percent as much carbon dioxide.

They say baby steps in the right direction (even if all of America matched CA conservation efforts, emissions would still be at 1990 levels.) I say, a good excuse for a party, preferably in a stretch Hummer.




--Melanie

Labels: environment

We've heard about DNA and genes in forensics, biology, and--going way back when--in those specials we used to watch on Nova. Well, now the concept of a genome is being applied to something that's actually useful in everyday life.

It happens on my new favorite internet radio site: Pandora, which uses a computer algorithm to assign each artist or song to a "musical genome," (e.g. according to tonality, instrumentation, vocals etc.) This genome can then be used to match up with other music that you might enjoy. It's the ultimate in "if you like this, you'll like that" music. So far, my favorite radio station is "Rufus Wainwright Radio" and I've discovered one artist I love--Ben Folds, as well as many other great songs by other artists (but Ben, you're my favorite; every song a winner!)

It's a very efficient way to discover new music, even if the community aspect isn't quite as strong as, say, LastFM. It's way better than flipping through stacks of cassette tapes at Borders the way I used to do when I wasn't watching those Nova shows.



--Mel

...so pass the weeks of not having my kids in school on a normal schedule. I mean, I'm grateful that the four day President's Day weekend is over, but next week we start early dismissals for parent/teacher conferences. Before all that, we had some holiday--was it MLK day?--and then two weeks of early dismissals for Kindergarten only.

...and this one is easy. Just take off your wristwatch.

That's right. It's now a sign of being a fuddy duddy. According to a recent article, young people are far more likely to get the time from their iPods or cell phones. Marketing researchers found that they'd rather spend their money on shoes or bags instead of fancy timekeepers. Guess that means I'm hopelessly outdated, since I have to wear a watch at all times. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that wearing a Timex adds five years to your RealAge! Guess I'm going to have to work on weaning myself...




--Melanie

Labels: health

I was the only person who really enjoyed our latest selection, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It was a journey of a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world. The two tried to find the necessities in life, food and shelter from the persistent cold and ash, while trying to avoid those who had turned to cannibalism. It was a chilling book and it gave me nightmares, yet it was beautifully written and completely brought you into the story (which is probably why I had the nightmares).

I want to check out other books by Mr. McCarthy and it also made me want to re-read On the Beach by Nevil Shute - another post-apocalyptic story. No decision on what our next book is that we will read, but I'm sure it will be much lighter. As for me, I'm reading Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley and I recommend it for St. Patrick's Day - it will totally make you rethink the holiday much the same as reading A People's History of the United State by Howard Zinn makes you rethink Columbus Day.

--Kelly

Labels: books

I've got some great news! My entry for the six word memoir contest was selected to be in a book to be published by Harper Collins called NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING: And Other Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. I guess I fall into the obscure category, but still. Published! Yeay!

--Kelly

I've been MIA this past week because we've been to the land of a million dreams. Not Nordstrom. Disney! We spent 5 days at the Magic Kingdom which was about 2 days too long for me and 20 days too short for the kids.

We stayed on property and took Disney Express to and from the airport so those 220 hours were completely spent on Disney property. The worst part of that was Mickey food for EVERY MEAL. And for this self-admitted food and coffee snob that was kind of tough. I thought that we would be able to enjoy one decent meal at the California Grill that had been recommended as an adult restaurant. So we put the kids in the Neverland Kids Camp, the $11/hour (per kid!) babysitting service, but when we showed up at the check in desk for our 7pm reservation they gave us one of those giant pagers like you get a Cheesecake Factory and told us it would be a 20-30 minute wait and we could wait in the lounge. I thought it was kind of weird that a. our table wasn't ready and b. someone couldn't just come get us by name when our table was ready. Walking in to the restaurant I understood why. It was packed with people including tons of kids and was louder than going down the big hill on Space Mountain. Ack!!! We decided to cut our losses and grab the kids and enjoy room service with them in our room.

It was a good decision. We stayed at the Contemporary and the view was awesome, overlooking Cinderella's castle and giving us a perfect vantage point to watch the nightly fireworks.

Even though Disney wasn't my choice for a vacation, it was worth it to see the look of pure bliss on the kids faces. They really had a great time. Next year though, I'm pulling to go back to Palm Springs.

--Kelly

Labels: Vacation

The heavens parted and a chorus of angels filled the air. At least that what it felt like today when I was sorting socks and had the sudden realization.

Labels: housework, kids

Bratz? Fuggedabout it.

I got these vintage valentines for my kids and they are having so much fun with them! Each one is totally unique, in retro vintage designs with charmingly dated messages, from "Dog-gone it! I wanna be your valentine" to "You are a deer" (illustrated of course with a dog and deer.

Some are enhanced with small moving parts (think fold-down petals on a he-loves-me daisy) or pop ups. Others are...get this!...flocked in red velvet!!!! Oops, I think I need the exclamation point expunger I read about on Digg a few weeks ago.

Anyway, these valentines...in a word: cool. In two words: very cool. In three words: Available at Amazon. And at Borders...

--Melanie

Forget the breast vs. bottle debate and cry-it-out vs. attachment parenting.

Why isn't every parenting blog on the planet following this story? Last week the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Global Warming released its report and it's grim.

If things continue this way, there's not going to be much left of this planet for our kids and their kids to inherit. I can't think of a group that ought to care more passionately about this than parents of young children today. They say you haven't achieved evolutionary success until your offspring have succesful offspring. Well, our grandkids are gonna be warm and thirsty unless something changes.

Some eye-opening facts from the report:

1. It's 90% certain that global warming is being caused by human activity. I read rumors that some thought the certainty level should be set at 99%. So, yeah, those SUV's, minivans and big station wagons we all drive really are contributing to the problem.

2. Even if greenhouse emissions were frozen at current levels, global warming and sea level rises would continue for centuries.

3. Using the best estimate for actual emissions, by 2100, temperatures are estimated to rise by as much as 8 degrees, and sea level by from half a foot to two feet. That's enough to put low-lying coastal regions or island nations, like the Maldives, at least partially underwater.

So where to start? Hand over the fluorescent light bulbs and buy me a Prius!

Well, not so fast. Another article in today's L.A. Times points out that even if every car on the American roads switched to a Prius, it would only save 3% of the needed cut in carbon emissions. And as for fluorescent light bulbs--if every household in America switched every bulb it would also only save a fraction of what's needed.

It seems like what's needed is massive policy change, some of which is happening already in California, with its global warming bill, passed last August. But more states need to follow and Americans are also going to have to take a long and hard look at things that they're buying from places like India and China (which increased its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% between 1993 and 2004.) And that doesn't just mean flat panel TVs.

It seems like once you become a parent there's an endless stream of stuff to buy. I don't know where all those strollers and diaper bags and the other "parenting" goods are being made--or whether they are from factories that contribute to the problem--but we'd better at least start thinking about those questions.

--Melanie

Right now, I am loving this one quote from Michael Chabon that I recently ran across. I haven't been able to get it out of my mind, probably because he's got such a great turn of phrase. He wrote it in reference to short stories (as part of an introduction to a collection he edited a couple of years ago.)

Basically, he was decrying the modern short story, which he described as the "contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story...sparkling with epiphanic dew."

His comments sparked lots of debate at the time, with some writers defending their right to sparkly epiphanies to the death, but it seems to me to be right on target, and applicable to novels as well.

It's true, isn't it: the epiphany is often the easy way out. Not that epiphanies aren't good, but they ought to be part of some greater scheme of things.

--Mel