A Chocolate Diversion

I decided earlier today that I needed a hair cut. Several people told me that there was a place on Water street I could go to. I found two of them and neither was open. It was only 5pm and they were already closed (or in one case, remodeling). So I found a way to treat myself so the trip didn't feel like a total loss.



I ate the purply/red one (bottom right corner) first, because I had no idea what it is so I figured I would start with a clean pallet and maybe I could guess it. There was a very soft chocolate center that seemed to have a mixture of raspberry, cherries, and a hint of lemon.

Next is the coconut. This one was very good. The outside was a very dark chocolate (probably around 70% cacao (yes I did spell it right, slightly different meaning)) and the inside seemed like slightly moist compressed coconut. Coconut makes everything taste better. So does making something spicy or free. The best flavor in the world must be spicy coconut that you got from someone for free.

Now hop to the top left for the organic peanut butter chocolate. The peanut butter is what you taste first in this one, followed by the sharpness of the dark chocolate. The peanut butter is super light and creamy and goes very well with the chocolate.

Next up, the Italian liqueur. The chocolate on the outside was extremely thin and the chocolate on the inside had the consistency slightly thicker than that of pudding. I could taste the remnants of the alcohol (unlike popular opinion, the alcohol is almost never cooked off completely. If fact, most of the alcohol is usually left after cooking). From my limited experience with alcoholic beverages it reminded me most of wine.

The double chocolate with nibs was next. Wow, this one packs a punch. They weren't lying when they said "double chocolate." The nibs actually offer a toffee like texture with a pure chocolate taste.

I saved the wasabi chocolate for last because if it really was hot I didn't want it to effect the other chocolates. This one was not very enjoyable. I do enjoy wasabi, but apparently not in my chocolate. I will not be buying this chocolate again.

My top two were the Italian liqueur followed by the double chocolate with nibs. I don't feel that any of them were worth the $1.85 (each) price tag, but they were enjoyable. When I head to San Francisco I think I am going to try to get myself some excellent chocolate and I'll tell you how it is.

Coming soon, The New and Imporved Tim…

Once again I will mention that this blog will probably become obsolete shortly (except for the christmas list, that is going to stay up forever). You should start migrating to my new blog

I think I mentioned in the last post that I started to work out again. Well I actually remembered to take pictures this time before I started working out. I’m not going to post them until I have some “after” photos that look really good, but so far after only two weeks into it I’m looking rather impressive. So all my loyal readers (I’m pretty sure this only amounts to about two people) should be looking forward to some before and after photos and probably a video in the next few weeks. I’ll also share my workout on here. Some of my dress shirts already don’t fit as well as they used to. That’s ok, by the end of the next few weeks I’ll look better without a shirt than I would with one :) haha, I have to be able to joke at least a little don’t I?

Dorm tour, Life advice, and Diets

First off, I recommend you start to shift yourself to my other blog. Here is a link, and there is also another one off the the right.

Hey there. I’ve only written a few things in my blogs since coming to school and I haven’t uploaded any videos. Sorry about that. Here is a new video in which I give you a tour of my glamorous new dorm. It’s very exciting and comes highly recommended by someone, probably. I’ve been reading a lot of the blog posts by Tim Ferriss, the author of 4-Hour Work Week and and inspiration to many people. He gave me the idea for my new workout, which requires that I only actually work out twice a week for half an hour. That post was titled “From geek to freak: how I gained 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks.” That should give you an idea of how effective this workout can be. There are also some crazy before and after photos. I’m going to add his blog to my list of links on the side because you should really check it out, well worth the time. In my last post I talked about my “walkabout”, well that’s not happening anymore because I found something that will be much more exciting. I’m sure I’ll do it at some point, but maybe I’ll wait until the weather is a little nicer.

One of the most important differences I have noticed in myself since December is that I no longer feel guilty about stuff anymore. It’s not that I can do bad things and not feel bad about them. Not that at all. It is that I don’t do anything that requires guilt. I used to feel guilty about things I had to reason to feel guilty about, and that doesn’t happen anymore. I realized this when several people recently tried to guilt me into stuff and it didn’t work. I used to always be easily guilted into things, not anymore though. It’s awesome! Guilt free is the way to be. It’s kind of like one of the things I try to tell people. I feel the advice “live life without regrets” is some of the worst advice you can give someone, because human beings aren’t usually rational enough to make quick decisions on important things. Besides, it is not possible to live a life without regretting things. It is going to happen whether you like it or not. The phrase should be changed to “don’t regret the life you live.” Live life in such a way that in the future you can look back and say “yeah, I have some regrets, but I lived my life in such a way that I can be proud of it and if I did it again I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Diets: Why most people are complete idiots

The typical view of a diet is something that restricts your eating habits for a period of time usually with the goal of losing weight. Here is the problem, that is the worst way to look at it. Your diet is just your eating habits. You should always be on a diet, there is no way to not be on a diet. Take for instance when people talk about animals. They say, “its diet consists of…” and then go on to say whatever it is they eat. For my example we will use a snake. They don’t say “the snake’s diet consists of only mice this month because it wants to lose an extra pound.” That would be ridiculous. You diet is just what you eat and is not a temporary thing, you should always have a healthy diet that is not constrained to a period of time. The goal of your new diet (what you eat, not a weight loss program) should be health, not weight. You should be eating healthy to get all of the important vitamins and nutrients that your body needs. Losing weight will be a side effect of health eating habits, not the goal. The reason diets don’t work for most people is because they look at it as something temporary, when they should actually be changing their eating habits for the rest of their life. This is one of the hardest concepts to get people to understand.

A "Walk-About"

Ok, so I also have my blog on wordpress now. The address is www.quilnib.wordpress.com .I’ll be able to check stats and how many people have visited and fun things like that. Woot. However, there are still things on blogger that I like. So for some reason (I'm not sure why) I am going to use both.

I’m already planning my spring break. I’m going for a “walk-about.” Basically I’m going to go back packing and not really worry about how I get somewhere or if I am even following a trail. I’ve already got the pack and the sleeping bag. The important things I still need to get include a tent, compass, and a map. I figure I’ll just pick a point and head to it. If it looks like I wont make it back to school walking then I’ll head to the nearest city and hop a bus. I’m figuring there will be a lot of trespassing, because I’m not really going to care where I’m walking. It’s going to be an adventure and hopefully I’ll have lots of stories. Nine days on my own, walking through the occasional town and testing my skills with a compass and a map. What could be more fun? Lets just hope I don’t run out of food and that it isn’t ridiculously cold.

Valentine's Day Pillow Fight

I'm planning a huge Valentine's Day pillow fight on campus and I hope it will go well and that we get some great turnout. We'll see. I'm in the planning stage of it right now, but I'm already very excited because I think it is going to turn out well. I made a website for it (a blog actually, but who cares) and an event on facebook. I just need my brother to finish designing the poster so I can plaster it up around campus and get people excited about this. If it works It will be Awesome. Here is the website. I'll let you know how it goes. This was a great solution to the possibility of being alone again on valentines day, because there is really no way to top last years valentines day, but I can do something huge and different so it can be just as fun only in different ways. I have to thank my brother for the idea though.

Books I need to read/finish reading

I'm going to list the books in the order I will read them. Some have to be at the top of the list because I have to read them for classes. I wont list any books I don't yet own and I suspect I will be buying lots of books this semester mostly for myself and not classes. (this is going to be continuously updated and I'll probably add a list on the side of the blog) The ones in Orange are done.

The Invisible Man
Adams Fall
We Are Our Mother's Daughters
Closer (the screenplay)
The Kite Runner
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Alchemist
Invisible Monsters
High Fidelity

Sometimes my Creativity Impresses even Me

Sometime between February and March of last year I got this crazy idea to make a miniature hammock. It was originally intended to be given to someone as a very late birthday present (it was late because I hadn't met them until after their birthday, but it turns out that I was at their birthday party) after I finished it. I chickened out though and just left it in my room for a while. I did finally end up giving it to them as a graduation present and they loved it. Anyway, the thing took forever to make. The string I was using was ridiculously tiny, the knots were hard to make, and parts of it kept falling apart. Lets not mention the fact that the only materials I had to make this were the ones lying around my dorm at the time. The string I was using was actually thread from a giant spool that is usually used to sew mattresses. I used Q-tips with the cotton pulled off for the spacers at either end and some dice with holes drilled through them to have something to bring the strings together at either end. There was also some symbolism with the dice, but I guess that isn't really important unless you were the one who got it and if you are that person then you already understand :) . After putting something together so that it would hold the string while I was working, it took roughly 6 hours to make. I know, that sounds like it took way too long, but those strings are so tiny and painful to work with for long periods of time. That wasn't even all the work though. I had to convince a friend that they wanted to drive to the home depot, because I realized I would need something to hold this hammock to display it. So I bought a fence post that measured roughly 4"x4" and a hand saw so I could cut it. I had a great idea for a stand that was one piece of wood and would look really neat, but I quickly realized that I am not that good with a saw. I cut a regular flat piece, drilled a couple of angled holes (with my dremel, the best tool ever) and cut a couple small pieces of wood off of the post to use as the supports for the hammock (I also used my dremel to cut these pieces, which really annoyed my roommate because of the dust and the noise. Oops). Like I said I chickened out giving it to her (yes it was a her) for a while and finally gave it to her a the end of the year for a graduation present. She loved it and displayed it in her room all summer and for a while (until probably about October) during the semester (yeah, she graduated and was now living at home, but I used the semester as a measurement of time anyway). Now it is being "displayed" in a closet. Oh well, enjoy the couple of picture I've put up before I continue my story.

I was feeling creative again and thought "hey, since the last hammock might as well not exist anymore I could make another one, and because I am home for Christmas break I'll have more materials and tools to work with.
Now Usually I don't really make the same thing twice, it just doesn't feel very creative anymore. Well, I did make another EXTREMELY creative thing (I've never heard of someone else doing it although I'm sure someone else has) that I was really happy with, but I am not talking about that for two reasons. The first is that it was/is a present ( the "was/is" depends on whether or not the person waited to open it and is still waiting like they should because it isn't their birthday yet, or if they just opened it early) so I can't really talk about it yet because there is always the small chance that they might read this and then ruin the surprise. The second is that I never even thought to take any pictures of it until after I mailed it. I'm really kicking myself for that one. If you just believe me that it is really cool then we will be set.
Having already made a miniature hammock before I had a few ideas on how to make it a bit nicer this time. The first was to change the spacers at the ends so the strings could no longer fall off. From there I thought of things like stronger strings and a nicer looking base. To accomplish the spacers I was going to cut small pieces of wood (with my dremel, man I love that tool) from the same fence post as before and then I realized that I had some extra chop sticks left over from my trip to Japan that I wouldn't mind parting with. I cut the chop sticks so that you aren't really able to notice how they taper that much and I was actually able to use the extra from them as the supports that come off of the base. That saved me a lot of work cutting and made the hammock look 100 times nicer. It looks like it has rose wood or something. I was always afraid that the strings on the first hammock weren't very strong and that it would be too easy to accidentally break one of them. I make them stronger I braided each one of them. That means that I did still use the same tiny strings as before but I braided them to make them a lot stronger. One of these braided strings takes over 45 minutes to make, not multiply that by eight to figure out the least amount of time I could have spent just braiding for this project. I couldn't make more than two strings a day because I was still using that tiny string and it was so painful on my hands that even two a day was pushing it. Then I went about threading the strings through some tiny holes I drilled in the chop sticks and tying together the actual knots of the hammock. This took a while, but I knew what I was doing this time and the strings were three times thicker than last time so the process went a little bit smoother. Ok, so the strings are taken care of, the spacers are done, and I even know how I'm going to support the hammock on the stand; now I have to make the stand. I found the fence post that I am so fond of making projects out of (I honestly don't really have that much to choose from in the way of materials and being a college student I am very poor) and cut a small flat piece off of it to make the base. Since I actually had sandpaper at my disposal this time I used it to round off the edges and give the stand a nice smooth look. Almost done. I drilled holes at either end of the stand at angles that seemed appropriate, inserted the chop stick ends and adjusted a little bit. Using a little epoxy I glued the chop sticks in and cut off the tips that were poking out of the bottom of the stand. Once more I used my dremel and cut notches in the supports sticking out of the stand so I could put the strings somewhere and I was done. I put a little glue on the knots on either end to make sure they didn't come apart, but that was negligible. If the first hammock took over six hours to make just for the actual hammock and not including the stand (I honestly don't know how long the stand took, but it was a couple of hours because of the change in ideas and some fixing I had to do) then you can imagine that this next one took a bit more time. The second one took over twelve hours of actual work, meaning I took out time from distractions and starting and stopping and spent twelve hours (more actually) of pure work making this. You might ask, whether it was worth all the work. If you knew me you would know that I would say "yes" every single time with any project I make, because the work is actually fun and stimulating for my brain, plus people usually like the things I make. I love finding new people that inspire me to make new things. They don't come along often, but when they do it is amazing what I come up with. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

I really need some singing lessons or something!

A caring sort of anger

I realized something very strange the other day. I can only become angry with people I care about. Yelling, arguing, and just being an ass are really things I can only do if I care. If I don't care about you I figure "it isn't worth it", but if I do care I will argue until I am blue in the face. So if I've ever gotten really angry with you, there is a decent chance that you're someone I care about.

Why Re-live What You Want to Forget?

I set aside a small note book to write in. I knew exactly what I was going to write in it too. I also knew that there was no way in hell this thing was going to be big enough for me to tell the whole story and that I would eventually have to continue on to another note book for me to even have a chance of finishing it. I got all psyched up to do it, I even started a little. I wrote the intro to the story. It was even going to be in an interesting style. It was going to be written to myself, almost as if I was having conversations in the book to me. Yet, it was meant to be read by someone... someday. I was so sure I wanted to write it, but I didn't. I was going to write about everything that has happened to me since either the beginning of last summer or the end of it. I was leaning more towards the end of it, that's when it all started. That was when the best things became the worst things, the mediocre things became the invisible things, and the worst things became the familiar things. I didn't have much to fall back on then, family, loyal friends that I somehow made in the short time I had after leaving the grasp of my warden of seven months. You would think the family would be a big help, but sometimes they just made it worse. I was going to tell that story in the little note book I had set aside. I don't want to anymore. Why re-live something you would rather forget? Why remember something you would rather forgive? It's one of the saddest stories I know. Probably, mostly because it was mine. It is always easy to believe you have it worse off than anyone else. Now I would rather take that space and write down a happy story. I thought of it this summer when the peak of my happiness first started. I've told it to a few people and they've all said it was an incredible story. It's one of the happiest stories I know, and yet the main character still dies. He spends a good deal of his life slowly suffering for his gift only to receive even greater suffering. I'd rather tell a happy story than a sad one, but I'm not much of a writer so I don't know where to start. I've written down some of the important events and I think I know how I want it to be told. I'm a little surprised at how much of the story reflects my life. I'm even more surprised that when I came up with the story I not only used parts of my past, but somehow, in a way I closely predicted my future. The same future I'm living right now. During one of the happiest parts of my life, I was able to predict one of the worst, and yet I never saw it coming. It boggles the mind.

Here is part of the introduction that I started to write when I was going to write about what has happened to me:

I can remember the last day I was happy. I mean really happy, when there was no need to pretend. It was a September the 18th, 2007. It was a tuesday. That was four months, two weeks, and four days ago (I updated that number for this blog because it is still true).
(then I go on to tell the story)
It's not happy, not anymore, not yet. (that's where I stopped, I didn't get far and I'm glad of that. I think I'll keep that line though, It will fit well with my happy story, I know just where to put it.