Almost my whole life I’ve collected postcards and weird fliers and posters. I also have a collection of yellowed comic books and antique art supplies. Lots of these things I’ve kept around with the intention of “doing something” with them someday. Nothing is ever actually done, but the long standing plans to decoupage a piece of furniture with Wonder Woman fragments remain.

However, now that the stuff is here, I have to stop making excuses and actually get motivated. So, instead of just letting this stuff sit in boxes, I am airing it out.

This “Portrait of a Pig” by Jamie Wyeth is probably the first postcard I ever acquired. It sat on my desk as a child. It came from the Brandywine Museum in Pennsylvania – probably not the most interesting place on earth for a small child, but that was how my family rolled. To be fair, I do have vague memories and positive feelings toward the place, or at least towards the little river that ran out back.

I found this next piece on the streets of Florence. Or somewhere in Italy. I know it dates from my time in Florence because of the note taped to the back written by my roommate Bridget. Clearly my inability to remember phone numbers is a lifelong problem, as Stark can confirm.

I don’t know why I find that picture so fascinating… Partially, I think it’s because it was old and weathered already when I found it, so its provenance is so mysterious. Why was it suddenly drifting around the street? Also, because of the subject matter. I have this urge to hang it on the wall, which I’m sure would have driven my grandmother batty. I love the detail of the shadow on the ground. It’s probably supposed to appear more ominous, but to me it just looks like a frog. Jews as secret amphibians. I could live with that. If only I could breathe underwater.

Finally, this pamphlet:

I have no memory of where this came from. I certainly have never been to The Olympic Tyre and Rubber Company’s Platypus Display in Healesville, Victoria. I have never even been to that continent. Still, I just love it. Who doesn’t love information concerning “an amphibious animal of the mole kinds.” Magical.

This is what it looked like when I sent it:

So it arrived at her local post office a few weeks later, but she could never pick it up, owing to the fact that the shithole post office in Brooklyn is only open weekdays from nine to five. Y’know, the same exact hours people are at work. So they informed her they sent it back. I had just about given up on seeing it again, being that it’s almost three MONTHS later, but today I got a package slip telling me to pick up my returned package at the post office. When I get there, they tell me I have to pay them another NINE DOLLARS to pick up the package I already paid them to fail to deliver.

They handed me a box that looked like it had been used for a game of soccer. Mind you, I had shipped this package in a Canada Post box that I bought for the purpose, so it wasn’t some crappy piece of weak cardboard. And I wrapped it and taped it and packaged it really well.

But this is what it looked like when it came back:

And this is what was left inside:

To say I’m upset is an understatement. It is hard work making those cats and it’s a labor of love. It takes me hours and hours and it’s not like I have a lot of free time. Y’know, I just wanted to do something nice for my friends and raise some money for charity and have some fun and this is just… so depressing and discouraging and miserable. And I had to pay $20 for the privilege.

I hate you, Canada Post.

For anyone interested in cooking, I highly recommend Lidia’s books and TV shows. Unlike many of those schmucks on Food Network, Lidia actually teaches you how to do things. She’s to Italian food what Julia Child was to French food. Her recipes aren’t intended to just show you how to make one very specific dish, but instead on how to combine a series of different skills and base ingredients to create an endless variation of dishes. Unlike that bobblehead, Giada, she looks like she actually eats the food she makes, and unlike that slob, Guy Fieri, she didn’t just steal all her recipes from her grandmother and never give her credit. In conclusion, you know Lidia is the best of all the Italian TV chefs because you can find her cookbooks in places of pride in the kitchens of real Italian mamas. So that is my opinion of Lidia Bastianich. I share it often and widely.

First up for Stark’s birthday dinner was sweet onion gratinate. You can actually get the recipe for this on Lidia’s website. I highly recommend you make this shit, like, NOW. It’s that good.

It does involve slicing up a lot of onions, though. Like, a lot of onions. Three and a half pounds of onions to be exact.

Then, like in so many of Lidia’s recipes, you cover them in cheese and butter and olive oil and more cheese. Lidia’s recipes are not exactly ummm… low calorie, let’s say. Her favorite ingredients are grana padano cheese, butter, olive oil, more cheese, breadcrumbs, hot pepper flakes, and more cheese.

But oh, it is all so worth it.

Then I set about to make pasticiatta, an apparently thoroughly unpopular dish, because I cannot find one solitary photo of it on the internet. I only mention this because there is a printing error in the book. It says “Turn to page 216 for a photo of pasticiatta,” but the photo is nowhere to be found. So I have no idea what Lidia (or anyone else, for that matter) thinks pasticiatta should look like. Now that I have tagged my photo on Flickr, I think I have officially set the internet standard for what pasticiatta looks like. Pasticiatta, for those of you who are wondering, is like lasagna, but instead of pasta there are layers of polenta.

This recipe was very involved. First I had to make marinara sauce. Then besciamella sauce. I was not a huge fan of Lidia’s fresh marinara sauce. I think I like my sauces thicker, richer and more blended. But then, I also didn’t want to be cooking sauce for ten hours like my grandmother used to do, so I guess that’s what I get for picking the twenty minute recipe. Next time I will try the longer cooking sauce from the book. The besciamella sauce was another bit of confusion, as I have never made a roux and had no idea what one should look like. I spent twenty minutes whisking flour and butter and mumbling to myself, in the manner of the little bird in that Are You My Mother? book, “Is this a roux? Is this a roux now?” When you find yourself pondering the question “What is a roux?” in the kitchen as if it’s a major philosophical quandary, you know you’ve been cooking for too long and the heat from the stove has melted your brain.

Then I turned to polenta. We have a very weak electric stove, as compared to Lidia’s gas burners, which probably have the power to melt rock into lava. It took forever to bring this stuff to a boil (Lida said ten minutes – HAH!) and then forever to thicken. It sure was delicious though. Not that I was licking the cooking spoon every five seconds… I swear!

Once the polenta was done, I spooned some besciamella sauce into a butter casserole dish, then a layer of polenta, then a layer of ricotta, then some grated parmigiana, then a layer of sauce, then more polenta, more besiciamella, more cheese, etc., until I reached the top of the dish. It was in the oven for a bit more than an hour until it got nice and crusty.

I served it up with some broccoli rabe cooked in garlic and olive oil, et voila. Dinner is served.

I have to say, usually I fret over whether or not my cooking has come out well and whether or not it tastes good or whether or not everyone is lying to me about the quality of my cooking, but this meal left no question in my mind. It was TASTY. Mmmmmm. And, since Lidia’s recipes are aimed at feeding a small militia or a incredibly reproductive Catholic family, we have many, many, many yummy leftovers.

For dessert I made struffoli. Struffoli are a Neopolitan dessert. They are fried balls of dough covered in honey. You can find a variation of this dessert from pretty much every culture on the planet. Fried dough and honey just go so well. Anyway, struffoli is the Southern Italian variety and my mother makes them every Christmas. I wasn’t back in New York for the holidays this year and missed out, so I decided to try my hand at making them. They didn’t come out as perfectly as my mom’s, but they were pretty damn good (and are almost gone already).

For any interested parties, this is the family recipe, which my mother ferreted out of an Italian mama in Bay Ridge many, many decades ago.

Anna Conticello’s Struffoli

3 tbs. butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups Bisquick
Vegetable oil for frying
Honey
Confetti

1. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, the flour and the Bisquick. Knead dough with hands on a floured board.
2. Divide dough into pieces. Roll into long ropes about 1/2 half inch in diameter. Cut into little pieces, about 1/2 inch squares on a lightly floured surface.
3. Heat 3 quart sauce pan of oil (about half full). Put eight to ten pieces of dough in a frying basket and submerge in hot oil. Dough will form balls which will rise to the surface. Keep stirring them around until they are golden.
4. Drain the balls on paper towels. Repeat until all dough is used up.
5. Slightly mound the balls on two aluminum foil pie plates. Drizzle honey (slightly warmed) over balls. Sprinkle with confetti.

Guaranteed yummy! This recipe makes a lot of balls, so plan to give at least one of those trays away, unless you want to go into a sugar coma.

Some notes from this humble chef:

I don’t know what planet these people live on, but there is no way this recipe makes 24 small pancakes, unless the pancakes we are talking about are about the size of a Hershey kiss. I made the latkes to the size I have always enjoyed them in Jewish homes and restaurants across North America, which is to say bigger than a silver dollar pancake and smaller than a burger patty, and it made around 12 or 14 latkes. Also, it was way more watery than indicated, so I had to use a lot more than a couple of tablespoons of matzo meal. However, they were REALLY YUMMY and I would say the best latkes I’ve ever had, so this recipe was generally a SUCCESS. And quite easy, too!

2 large eggs
3 cups grated drained all-purpose potatoes
¼ cup grated onion
1 teaspoon salt, more to taste
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 to 4 tablespoons matzo meal, or as needed
Canola oil, for frying
Applesauce and sour cream for serving (optional).

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs lightly. Add potatoes, onion, salt and pepper, and mix well. Stir in 2 tablespoons matzo meal, and let it sit about 30 seconds to absorb moisture in batter. If necessary add more to make a thick, wet batter that is neither watery nor dry.

2. Place a large skillet over medium heat, and add 2 tablespoons oil. When oil is hot drop in heaping 1/8 cups (about 2 tablespoons) of batter, flattening them gently to make thick pancakes. When bottoms have browned, after 2 to 3 minutes, flip and brown on other side. Add oil as needed. Drain on paper towels, and sprinkle with additional salt to taste. If necessary, work in batches, keeping cooked pancakes warm. Serve hot with applesauce and sour cream, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings (about 24 14 small normal pancakes).

MILEAGE TOTALS:
477.45 miles (up from 283 miles in 2008)

Best month: September (81.47 miles)
Worst month: December (5.03 miles, not counting warm up runs on the gym treadmill)
Average miles/month: 39.8

GOALS FOR 2010
Run a half-marathon in under 2 hours.
Break 500 miles per year.
Keep average pace under 10 minutes per mile.
Explore new parks and trails.

2008 Running Map

It has been my great goal to make ribollita for about… well, three years. I kept saying I was going to do it and then never put in the effort, despite looking up recipes numerous times. Well, I finally gave in and got ‘er done. I used a modified version of Lidia Bastianich’s recipe, from her book Lidia’s Italian American Kitchen. I’m sure if you’ve known me for more than five minutes, you’ll know how much I fangirl Lidia, so I thought it best to go with her version of the Tuscan stew. Also, the woman isn’t totally irrational and toned down a lot of the “And then, since you are an Italian housewife who lives in the kitchen, make sure and stand over the stove and stir the pot for twelve hours and then don’t eat it for three days” aspects of this dish. When I spend a few hours cooking, I better get to eat the end product immediately!

Have a lot of veggies and cans of beans to get rid of? Ribollita will take care of it. It uses a lot of leafy greens, as well as potato and onion and such. A lot:

Cutting the veggies up into smaller strips probably takes the most effort, the rest is just stirring and waiting.

After adding that mountain of veggies to the pot, we quickly realized that we were running out of space. There wasn’t even enough space to shove in the stale bread!!

We had to split the stew into two pots! Note to self: Buy bigger pot.

This stew ended up being really yummy. You were, in fact, able to eat it right out of the pot (we kinda skipped out on that twice boiled thing):

But the leftovers were even better! Instead of yet another microwaved dinner, we put the stew into French onion crocks, added some chopped onion and cheese on top, and shoved it into the oven. This was fantastic!

General comments – the soup is really hearty. Even the French onion crocks servings were too large for me! I loved the bread, but I think next time I will want to add more beans. It’s also rich, yet bland in the way of much Tuscan food (hello, unsalted bread, what the hell is up with that?), I wish there was a way of adding to the flavor, but I’m not sure how I could do that without adding some sort of meat (sausage?), and obviously that isn’t going to happen in the Stark/Manta household. Perhaps some rosemary or sage or something? I think that might be committing some sort of Italian blasphemy… but as my ancestors were all from the dirty South, I don’t have to fear any ghostly revenge.

In other cooking adventures, there was also my first (non store bought mix) baking adventure. It involved a lot of crying over the phone to Stark at work. But, banana bread! It was yummy!

I also found a package of vegetarian ground chicken at the grocery store months ago, had an idea for a dish, then shoved the chicken right into the freezer and forgot about it. The idea was to recreate a Chinese dish that I hadn’t had in years. It was ground meat of some sort, flavored with peanuts, wrapped in lettuce leaves, with hoisin sauce for dipping. I, of course, couldn’t remember what it was called, so I ended up Googling “Chinese lettuce wrap.” At which point I discovered that this dish was very popular with P.F. Chang’s and other horrible American chains. I almost lost hope, but then went with the recipe I found on About.com that didn’t mention P.F. Chang’s. Stark messed around with the sauce to make it vegetarian and we used a few different veggies and way more ginger. It came out really well and it looked pretty, too!

I told my mother about the dish and she remembered that it was called Yuk Sung (spelling?). This brought up more recipes on Googling, and none of them mentioned P.F. Chang’s, thank goodness. I guess calling a Chinese dish “lettuce wraps” brings you down to their level. Next time I will definitely remember to buy iceberg lettuce. It works better for wrapping than romaine.

Finally, I made stuffed artichokes and rice balls for Thanksgiving. There are no photos of the rice balls because the were so good that we ate them all before I remembered to get out the camera. No joke. These were amazing. The only photo I have is the lunch I made from a zucchini, the leftover filling and cheese from the rice balls and the leftover breadcrumbs from the stuffed artichoke. Yum!

I got this recipe from my friend D. and I don’t know where she got it from. I got rid of the mushrooms and the meat. I could have added peas, but I HATE peas, so I didn’t. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe. I thought maybe the filling was a bit of a waste of energy, since it ended up only being onion, garlic, and tomato, but Stark really liked it, so I guess I will keep making it that way. A lot of work, but soooooo worth it. I only wish there were more.

3/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups beef stock
1 (16-ounce) can peeled San Marzano tomatoes and their juices, crushed by hand
3 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon butter
1 2/3 cups Vialone, Avorio or Arborio rice
2 eggs
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 onion, chopped
2 ounces prosciutto, finely chopped
7 ounces ground beef
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
5 ounces mozzarella, cut into 1/4-inch dice
3/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs
1 liter extra virgin olive oil

Soak the mushrooms in 1/2 cup water for 2 hours. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the mushroom water, and chop finely. Dissolve the tomato paste in the mushroom water and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the beef stock, crushed tomatoes and 3 tablespoons butter, mix well and bring to a boil. Add the rice, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the rice is done, stirring occasionally. Turn the rice mixture out into a serving bowl and gradually stir in the eggs and Parmigiano. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a 12 to 14-inch saute pan, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter over low heat. Add the onion and prosciutto and cook over high heat 3 minutes. Add the ground beef and cook until well browned. Add the mushrooms, mushroom water-tomato paste mixture, and salt and pepper to taste, and keep at a simmer. With a spoon, make egg-shaped portions of the rice, and make an indentation in the center of each one. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center of each ball of rice, along with a few cubes of the cheese. Roll each ball in the bread crumbs so that it is completely coated, and set aside.

In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over high heat until it is almost smoking in batches, fry the balls in the hot oil until they are golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow to drain on paper towels while seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve with tomato sauce, if desired.

Book roundup:
1. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: B-
2. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson: B+
3. Spook Country by William Gibson: B
4. Empathy by Sarah Schulman: B+
5. Jokes and the Unconscious by Daphne Gottlieb and Diane DiMassa: A
6. Gommorah by Robert Saviano: C

Stuff I’ve acquire recently that I hope turns out to be better reading material than this last crop:
1. Kingdom Come
2. Gravity’s Rainbow
3. The Hikiteia
4. Blood Meridian
5. The Mere Future
6. The Library at Night

Spoilers in the reviews ahead.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

This book was… disappointing. When I was in New York last year, everyone was reading this book on the train, and I mean everyone. I figured, hey, ten million New Yorkers can’t be wrong, right? So I dutifully picked up a copy at the Strand. I was very much looking forward to it. A blurb telling the tale of a nerdy, outcast boy growing up in Jersey, the Dominican Tolkien? Check. Pulitzer Prize? Check. Interesting writing style? Check. What could go wrong?

The positives first. I liked the integration of Dominican slang and nerd language with the English prose. It had a conversational feel. I liked the inclusion of the footnotes spotlighting oft-ignored Dominican history, and the setting of the story in the period of Trujillo’s dictatorship, which North American tend to forget entirely in favor of Castro. I liked the idea of setting the plot in motion with the fuku, a terrifying and endless Caribbean curse. And finally, I liked that the story didn’t solely focus on Oscar, but explored the lives of his sister and his mother.

And now, the negative. WHY MUST EVERY FUCKING STORY BE ABOUT A BOY WHO CAN’T GET LAID? I was hoping Oscar would be more like Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, but no. There wasn’t anything particularly compelling or personable about Oscar and there wasn’t anything particularly wondrous about his brief life. Oscar spends most of the book sexually harassing or stalking women, a tendency that Mr. Díaz describes as “love.” The whole story hinges on Oscar’s pathetic virginity and how very tragic it is that no woman will take pity on him and fuck his sorry ass. BOO HOO. I am so sick of these story lines. There are many things in the world more tragic than a man who can’t get his dick sucked. Especially a totally delusional pervert like Oscar, who seems to think that women exist to suck his cock. Well, Oscar, maybe that’s your problem!

In conclusion, I thought the book was pretentious and aspired to way more than it actually achieved. It was full of half-fleshed out ideas and cliched, half-realized magical realism that, to me, was a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I would be very open to an awesome book about the Dominican diaspora, and I guess this did fill some sort of literary hole so maybe that’s why everyone was all over it, but to me, it was just yet another story about some loser guy obsessed with love stalking women he can sexually harass until they have pity sex with him.

Written on the Body

So I took this book with me on our romantic getaway to Ottawa under the misapprehension that it was Stark’s favorite and it was tres romantic. Well, I quickly learned that Stark actually wasn’t the biggest fan and also that it is not at all romantic. Why does everyone think this book is so great? I feel like every lesbian in the world loves it and gets tattoos of passages on their ribs and quotes it all the time… Am I wrong? It’s not that the book is bad, it’s just about a shitty philanderer who screws up her life and the life of everyone around her. It actually captures that quite well, so go Jeanette. I also enjoyed her trademark funny bits inserted amongst all the drama. There were some quirky little stories about exes, none of which I can remember now, but they made me laugh. Generally though, it’s a book about a very unlikeable character, and as such, it wasn’t something I can say I enjoyed a great deal. Well written though, and it only took, like, two days to get through it, so I can’t complain.

Spook Country

I was really looking forward to this book, as Pattern Recognition was probably my favorite Gibson book and also one of my favorite novels ever. I found the character of Case Pollard so thoroughly cool and thought Gibson really managed to escape the future for the present in quite an interesting way, where everything still seemed sort of cyberpunk while still being grounded in our own world. Spook Country was just a sad echo of everything that made Pattern Recognition awesome.

For the first time, I really felt like Gibson was out of touch with future tech. I mean, virtual reality googles and holograms, William? Really? That’s soooo 1985. The book was sort of like a sequel to Pattern Recognition in one of those vaguely connected ways that Gibson favors, taking place in a different corner of the same universe with a few overlapping characters and themes, which I think made it seem all the worse by comparison. I’m not sure why Gibson didn’t just reprise the character of Case Pollard, definitely one of his stronger creations. Instead, he created a “new” character that was basically Case Pollard, but with a different back story. Unfortunately, there were too many subplots going on to really get a chance to know this new character and I found her story shortchanged.

I also expected more of the spook country angle. Intriguing spy story, this is not. The central mystery had such a lame conclusion, I couldn’t believe it was the best that Gibson could come up with, which is basically how I felt about all the plot lines of the book. A lot of buildup and then no satisfaction. Too many storylines that ended up going nowhere. And a sense that Gibson has finally fallen out of touch with the zeitgeist.

Empathy

This book was okay. I think I did myself a disservice by reading Schulman’s best novel, Rat Bohemia first. Everything else seems to pale by comparison. But generally, this was a good story. I am a sucker for her portrait of the decay of New York in the Eighties, which is always why I end up unable to say no to one of her novels. The central plot twist was basically an intellectual feminist version of Fight Club. I would rag on Chuck for ripping her off, but really, this major reveal was so underdeveloped that I don’t mind it getting a more strongly realized reprise in Fight Club. A really interesting concept, though.

Jokes and the Unconscious

This book was good, but really, really depressing. It’s really the only reading material that I’ve felt worth my time in awhile though. I’ve been having bad luck with books. But this novel was good, and the scratch, violent, hallucinatory illustrations by Diane DiMassa were perfectly suited to the material. Out of the above list, this was the best. Plus, lesbians.

Gommorah

I’m only halfway through this book right now and I think I’m going to give up on it. I never though I’d say this, but I wish it was written by David Simon. I picked it up because the back promised an insider look at the Camorra crime organization, a work of journalism so revealing that the author had to be placed under police protection. So, y’know, I was expecting Donnie Brasco or The Corner. I was expecting the guy to go undercover, befriend the criminals, really get an in depth picture of their lives. But no. Robert Saviano’s “insider” view of the community seems to consist mostly of him riding around Campania on his Vespa, checking out crime scenes and overhearing conversations at coffee shops. Big fucking deal. The rest of the story consists or recounting trial transcripts and news reports. It’s basically just a timeline that could have been recreated by anyone willing to listen to the police band on the radio and read the newspapers a lot. I expected him to, y’know, talk to someone or do a more in depth portrait of one particular corner of the community. Like how David Simon captured the crack epidemic in inner city America by writing an portrait of one family, really talking to them, following them around, following their lives for a year. NOT RIDING AROUND ON A FUCKING VESPA TO SEE DEAD BODIES AFTER THE FACT. Now, I understand that getting people to talk in a community infested with a secretive criminal organization isn’t exactly easy, but really, you couldn’t find one person to talk to about their experiences? Or maybe focused on one family or the effects of one crime, instead of giving such a broad overview of events that nothing is actually understood?

Also, I don’t know what is going on with books coming out of Italy, but I always find their translations seemed rushed and poorly done. Maybe this Saviano guy is a really great writer, but you wouldn’t know it from this translation. I also thought the North American edition could have used some front matter, introducing topics that may not be familiar to readers whose knowledge of Italian organized crime is limited to The Sopranos. I read half the book before I came to one solitary translator’s note, explaining an acronym. So yeah, boring and confusing. And, well, there’s just something about Saviano that rubs me the wrong way. Like he’s just a teensy bit racist and sexist and is probably one of those uber macho assholes who catcalls women on the street.

In an attempt to prevent myself from boring my friends to tears with constant prattling about my exciting new phone, I have decided to write a review here. I usually find myself frustrated with tech reviews – they’re either too technical or not technical enough and they never give me the information that I really want about how I’m going to use the product. So here is the review that I would have loved to read before purchasing this phone:

So, the phone is the HTC Dream Smartphone, which quite possibly is known by other names outside of Canada, but I’m not sure exactly what. It runs on the Google Android platform and it has been added to my Rogers plan. Now, a word about Rogers. I know it’s the evil empire, I do. However, if the evil empire is going to provide such good service, well, I am all for it! When we had Bell, we were constantly losing either the TV or the Internet and got nothing but nastiness from the customer “service” staff. With Rogers there have been no problems. They pick up their phone, they send out technicians, they are friendly and nice and efficient. At the odd time that they make an error, it is corrected quickly and apologized for with free channels. They keep adding new services, like this new and wonderful ability of the TV to show caller display. You can use the remote to send the call directly to voice mail! I love it. They now own my cable, internet, land line and cell phone life. All Hail Rogers.

So anyway, back to the phone. The main reason I wanted this phone was basically because I wanted an iPhone, but with a full QWERTY keyboard. I have made attempts at texting on the iPhone touchscreen and they haven’t ended well, but the HTC Dream, although it is a bit bigger and clunkier than the iPhone, has a full keyboard, allowing me to type with ease AND without losing a chunk of the screen to a digital keyboard. Also, iPhones and Blackberries are EXPENSIVE and the HTC Dream was on special with Rogers (ALL HAIL) for thirty bucks.

I also wanted the phone because it runs on the Google Android platform, and I am Google’s bitch. I already have a love affair with Google Search, Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Reader, and the email, calendar and contacts built into Gmail. The Android platform taps into all of these web based services, automatically syncing my email, my contacts and my calendar with the phone. No annoying entering of contact info or fretting over incompatible programs! And, if the phone dies, my info won’t be lost! Many of the applications available on the Android Market also take advantage of the connection with Google. More on that later.

I don’t have any photos of hardware, those are all much better represented by the HTC website, but here’s my personal home screen after a few weeks of messing around with the customization:

The phone is really easy to use and allows the user to navigate with the touch screen, the trackball, or the keyboard. Handy! This is the main screen that you see when you turn on the phone. The menu bar displays notifications, whether text messages, emails, or announcements from programs that are running. It also shows signal strength, GPS signals, and the wi-fi connection. Just below that, the phone has a built in Google search window! You don’t even have to bother opening the browser, it’s just right there, waiting to settle bets in bars!

The main screen actually consists of three pages, this middle one, and an additional one to the right and left. You can add bookmarks and shortcuts to your favorite applications, contacts, and web pages and organize them by task. For instance, on my main home screen I have my icons for Gmail, contacts, browser, calendar, and a shortcut to call/text/email Stark.

To the right I have shortcuts to my Rogers account, my two favorite websites and NewsRob, a program that lets me access my Google Reader blog feed through my phone. To the left I have the stuff I use when I’m going out, Google Maps, the TTC map, the forecast, an application that tracks my running and an application that can find wi-fi networks.

It’s really easy to scroll between the three pages with a simple flick of the finger on the touch screen. Simple and convenient!

When you receive a notification, you just pull the notification screen down from the tool bar. For instance, here I’ve received an email from Facebook:

Clicking on it takes me right to my gmail:

The rest of the functions can be accessed through the settings or the menu. It’s really simple to turn the GPS or wi-fi on and off or download applications on the Android market. The comfy keyboard makes sending texts and emails a breeze. The phone also comes with a camera and a camcorder function. I haven’t tried the camcorder yet, but the phone takes decent photos.

You wouldn’t want to use it in the dark, but the quality is decent enough. Best of all, it’s easy to just email them right from the camera application. An accompanying USB cable also makes it easy to transfer the photos right to your computer.

Finally, there are the endless applications (perhaps not quite as endless as those available on the iPhone store, but good enough for my needs), from Google Sky Maps to translation programs. They are easily installed and uninstalled using the Android Market and most of them are free. Some applications I’ve been enjoying include the previously mentioned Wi-Finder:

And NewsRob, which syncs with my Google Reader, allowing me to access all my favorite blogs right from my phone. You can read by topic:

Or scroll through the posts of your favorite blog:

Finally, there is Cardio Trainer, which I just installed yesterday. I had been planning on begging, borrowing or stealing a GPS training watch, the sort of thing that retails from Garmin for $400 or more. But now that I have my new phone, there’s no need! This little application tracks my run via GPS (it supposedly will also work as a pedometer on treadmills, but I have no idea how that works – motion sensor?), plots it on a map that updates as I move, and gives me the time, speed, and distance I’ve traveled. I wish I had this sooner! It would have saved me so much tedious plotting of routes! Here’s the main page:

I haven’t yet tried “Race Against Yourself” and I have no desire to ever try the weight loss section. Eww, with the fat android becoming skinny. I do not need my new phone to encourage my barely contained eating disorder, thank you very much.

Anyway, you can set the application for running, biking, skiing, etc. and somehow it figures everything out. I tested it alongside my watch, and it worked out almost exactly. Here is the screen you see right before you begin a workout:

You can also set the application to talk you through your runs (if I wanted to be nagged, I’d call my mom, so this feature has been turned off) or disable the map to save batteries. After you work out, you can access your run and all past runs through your History page:

Click on your run and you’ll see this page:

From here you can either zoom in on the map or select “statistics,” which will bring you to a page listing all that data that runners crave, like Total Climb and Average Speed and all that. But that’s not all! You’re also given a code to track your progress on their website. Here’s the page for the same run as shown above:

For no apparent reason, I accidentally cut off the elevation and statistics listed below the map, but they are there. I’m sure there are running programs that display more than this, but for my purposes, it’s not really necessary.

In conclusion, I love my new phone. The one problem I would take the most issue with is the battery life – it’s bad. I haven’t really had the opportunity to take the phone out for extended periods of time, but even so I can see that I will want to disable the wi-fi and the GPS and cut down on my application usage for times when I am not near the charger. I wouldn’t want to count on this battery in an emergency situation on a long drive, that’s for sure. Smaller issues – I’m not thrilled with the phone’s Gmail interface and it’s annoying that it doesn’t have a standard headphone jack, but other than that, there’s no glaring problem I can think to list right now. I’m sure I’ll come up with some valid complaints in the next three years before my Rogers (ALL HAIL) contract expires.

As for the Worm Bum, the costume has been fully assembled and now only needs several dozen layers of paint. I just realized that with my poor understanding of color theory, I neglected to buy yellow, but I’m going to see if I can make do without it.

After finishing the bottom armature, we started on the top piece. This came together quickly and efficiently, if I do say so myself:

Then there was the rather lengthy process of covering the entire thing, featuring many emergency trips to Fabric Land for more creepy synthetic batting. I have a poor understanding of math as well as a poor understanding of color theory:

At one point, Punky hopped right in. I think she thinks my Halloween costume is her new cat bed. Wrong you are, Punky! Although… maybe you can have it after Halloween. After all, what am I going to do with a massive worm bum.

We finished covering it with batting and Stark held it all together to test how it would look. Rather wormy, if I do say so myself.

Thus began the upholstery process. Side note: I have no idea how to spell “upholstery,” and every time I try, I spell it so badly that no spellchecker can even theorize as to what I meant. I end up having to Google my random spellings and hope that someone on the Internet will have also spelled it that badly and that someone else on the same page will have spelled it correctly. Considering the state of spelling on the Internet these days, this usually works. I find this whole process depressing, as I pride myself on my good spelling and decent grammar, but right now I can still see the search bar in the corner of Firefox and it is assaulting my eyes with my attempt to Google “apulster.” Gah. But I digress. Anyway, here is Stark being properly scared of my wormy bum.

And here I am taking the costume for a test drive. Still to be completed: Graboid arms. But, I think I am getting the scary face down, no?