Zee's Randomness

Am I the only person in the world who hates podcasts?

Everyone’s been going nutso for podcasts for a couple years now and I just don’t understand what the hubbub is all about.

I mean, sure: I can see their usefulness in places like the car - where you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) read, or for things like music performances or learning languages. But for everything else? No way. Give me the typewritten words on a screen. Or scrawlings on a piece of paper. Or etchings chiseled into stone. Anything but aural content.

Call me grumpy, call me backward, call me “stuck in the 20th century where the written word rules.” Whatever. If I wanted to hear someone talk, I would turn on the radio. Same with video: if I wanted to watch people monkey around and do stuff, I’d turn on the tv. (The notable exception is YouTube, which is GENIUS. The difference is, with YouTube I am choosing to go there rather than being forced to watch or listen to someone’s content because reading it is not an option.)

I go to the web to READ stuff. Much like websites where they blare music at you the moment you land on their site, content providers that only offer content via  podcasts or videos rapidly lose my interest. Why? Because they force me to alter my computing environment: I typically listen to music of some kind or watch tv while I’m surfing, and if I’m interested in a podcast that means I have to turn off my current chosen soundtrack so I can hear the podcast. I find it a bit presumptuous, I guess.

So what precipitated this rant? I was just on a website that was offering content I was truly interested in, but only via podcast. And I got annoyed, once again. Because I wanted to be able to scan the content to see if there was new information being offered or simply a rehashing of info I already had. You can’t do that with the podcasts!

So my point is this: if you must create a podcast, at least transcribe the dang thing for those of us who can read faster than you can talk. Please?

A Formula

If God = Love and Love = Kissing then Kissing = GOD.

Am I right?

Speaking of Radishes...

Photo of the radishes I harvested earlier today. Few others shots here.

An Early Morning...

Wow, so for a Sunday, the one and only day I get to sleep in, I really did get up early - roughly 7 a.m. The truth is, the only reason I got up that early was because Brian did - he was doing an 11-mile long run today in preparation for the Helvetia Half Marathon and had to get running before it gets too hot out.

I took the opportunity - since I was feeling surprisingly energetic, oddly - to get the laundry started, bake some gluten-free English muffins, and do a bit of gardening. I even sat down and played the piano a bit!

On the gardening front: my radishes were ready for harvesting and I decided to abandon the lettuce-growning venture altogether. It wasn’t growing terribly well, and what did sprout was attacked by insects of some kind before I even got any. So I was left with two 1-foot empty sections (I use the Square Foot Gardening method), in which I started some basil and some cilantro.

This is an experimental gardening year for me. I’ve already determined the place I have my raised bed doesn’t get enough sun (STOOPID TREES!! [Shakes Fist]) so I’ll be building a second - larger - bed next year in a slightly sunnier spot and moving things around a bit. Still, despite the less-than-ideal conditions, I am managing to grow stuff: it was really cool to pull up the radishes I grew myself! I don’t even like radishes, but I grew them! *I* grew them myself! Since I won’t be growing any more radishes, though, I took a few photos of them to document the accomplishment. If any are decent I’ll post a link to the flickr set.

Despite the energy so early this morning, plus the coffee, I have no doubt I’ll be taking a nap today as soon as the laundry is done and the muffins are cool enough to wrap and freeze. I’m already starting to yawn a bit… I know it’s going to be gorgeous out, but it’s the weekend and weekends are for sleeping!

GFDF New England Clam Chowder

I am, at this very minute, enjoying some Gluten Free, Dairy-Free Clam Chowder straight from my kitchen. The recipe is one I adapted from this recipe on Epicurious.com.

I have been sensitive to cow’s milk (and most derived products) since I was a baby, and recently discovered I also have sensitivities to eggs and wheat/gluten. So I’ve been tinkering with recipes lately so I can have yummy substitutes for the stuff I love to eat.

So, in case you’re curious, here are the substitutions I made; follow the directions as stated and use these items/quantities instead:

• 1/4 cup all-purpose GF flour mix (I used a mix of 2 parts brown rice flour, 1 part potato starch, 1 part tapioca starch)
• 3/4 cups rice milk

If you want you could also substitute olive oil or some kind of vegan spread for the butter, though it doesn’t seem to bother me (oddly) so I just use that.

(One other quick gf plug: the English Muffin recipe at Karina’s Kitchen is fantastic! Took me a couple tries to get it right but once I did…. YUM!)

Edit: upon eating a second bowl, I’m realizing that the all-purpose GF flour mix I used makes the soup a tad bit grainy; will try next time with a sorghum flour-based mix.)

Things that don't suck...

…corn sprouts popping out of the ground, calla lillies blooming, bacon defrosting for use in dinner later (mmmm… bacon), an extremely quiet day at work, the sun!, sleeping puppy on my lap while I work… Life is pretty good, folks. :)

Finding the "Sweet Spot" between Good and Great

Penelope Trunk’s blog post today got me thinking: is there anything in the world, now, that I’m willing to work tirelessly at, to be exceptionally “successful?”

Penelope posted some links to Susan Boyle’s audition videos from Britain’s Got Talent today, and for the first time since she got “big,” I went and listened to them. She was, in fact, remarkable. What struck me about Penelope’s discussion, though, was her point about doing big things, about weathering the difficulties and persevering through the hard stuff until you break through to the “successful place.”

I think frequently about being “exceptional” or “remarkably good” at something, and what that means in the context of a specific field of work. About what it takes to get to “great.” I always thought I was really good at music and then I learned what “really good” looked and sounded like, and I got discouraged. Comparatively speaking, I am pretty good at music. I am talented. But to be great, to be world-class, would have taken an enormous amount of effort I simply wasn’t willing to give. Perhaps this was because I’m inherently lazy, but more likely it was because I looked at the odds, the likelihood of my getting where I thought I wanted to go, and realized I didn’t stand a chance. Is that settling? Living with mediocrity? Or is it simply realism?

I’m in the midst, right now, of evaluating possible career directions. It’s something I’ve been doing since I returned to Portland from Boston in August 2005. I currently have a job I’m relatively good at in an industry I’ve worked in for 10+ years, but it’s not where my deepest passions lie. Thus, I’m researching at a number of career directions that might allow me to use my existing experience in new ways, perhaps on behalf of my current employer. (They’ve been good to me, after all, and a great company to work for, on the whole.)

It strikes me that, right now, being the best and “most successful” or making the most money is not my objective. I don’t know that I ever wanted those things.

What I think I want - and perhaps this is unrealistic - is to find a job, a career, a field of work, smack in the middle of the “sweet spot” between doing something I can be good at (and am driven to excel at), and something that lets me live my “personal life” to the fullest too. Because what I’m learning is that when I’m happy in my personal life, the demands of work look a lot better to me too.

And if that’s what mediocrity looks like, I’ll take it.