chocolate facts

some things i recently found out about chocolate. and we all know I love chocolate!!!

1. It is a known fact that chocolate has caffeine in it. But did you know that you would have to eat more then a dozen chocolate bars to get the same amount of caffeine from a cup of coffee? There are about 5 to 10 mg's of caffeine in one ounce of bitter chocolate, 5 mgs in milk chocolate, and 10mgs in a six-ounce cup of cocoa.

2. Chocolate is actually a valuable energy source. A single chocolate chip can provide enough energy for an adult human to walk 150 ft.

3. Chocolate has great health benefits. It helps with depression, high blood pressure, Tumors and Pre-menstrual syndromes.

4. Chocolate does not cause or aggravate acne, this is a myth.

5. One ounce of baking chocolate or cocoa contains 10% of the daily recommended intake of iron.

6. Chocolate can be deadly for dogs. Chocolate contains an ingredient called "Theobromine" which can be toxic to a dogs central nervous system and cardiac muscles.

7. People spend more than $7 billion dollars a year on chocolate.

8. The per capita consumption of chocolate indicates that each person consumes 12 pounds of chocolate each year.

9. Milk Chocolate is the most preferred type of chocolate, however dark chocolate is especially popular among men.

10. In Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Psycho" chocolate syrup was used to indicate blood in the famous shower scene.


source: http://www.infobarrel.com/10_Facts_about_Chocolate

9. Art, and, subsequently, my molskine project

little known fact about me: I paint. not only do I paint, I do all sorts of art, everything from pixels, vectors, water colors, charcoal, paper cutting, clay, acrylics, sewing, crocheting, and whatever else I can create with.

I am not vain enough to boast about my artwork, and most of it is a form of self-expression, but I have enough of an understanding about things like design and color theory to do pretty well for myself. Not to mention my love of studying art history and the different periods, styles, and masters. Ever since I could remember, I have had a brilliant eye for color. I still think I belong next to a printing press checking colors. I have a great appreciation for the subtleties of color and how pigments mix.

Lately, I have been playing with mixed media and paper cutting. I love to paint news print and create collages and paintings with it. I am forever obsessed with childish colors (not to mention painting childish subjects like my still-life of Mr. Potato Head for a painting class)

But I am just as inconsistent and lazy with my art as I am with writing (and if you read my blog, you understand exactly to what extent I am inconsistent with things that I enjoy doing...i.e. when is the last time I posted a blog?) so the problem exists that I can never make myself sit down and create something. therefore, art as neglect.

my new project is a moleskine notebook. on a whim, I bought a mini watercolor moleskine notebook, and I am trying to fill a page once a day. of course there have been gaps, but, having bought the book on 9/6/08, I have been pretty consistent, painting, sketching, or mod-podging a page almost every day so far. (we'll see how long that lasts). the best part about the book is that I can create small sketches before pulling out a canvas and spending all of my time on one big project. Big projects are daunting, so this allows me to get my ideas onto paper, and not have a mess and lost time.

not to mention, it is 100% portable. grab a brush or two, my watercolors, and the book, and im ready for a long weekend away from my desk.

So I love art, crafts, design, ect.


as a side note, perhaps i shall begin posting my moleskine pages as I finish them. hmmmm...

More lomography

The moment My very few readers have been waiting for: more pictures from my Lc-a. I now have 10 rolls of 35 mm and 3 rolls of 120 from my Holga, resulting in 200 photos uploaded to flickr (the link is somewhere to the right...) I maxed out my flickr account in one day, and now I need a pro account. But I'll wait until I need it. In the mean time, look here, or check out my flickr. If you stop by my Flickr, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.






this is Barnes and Noble at Power Plant in Baltimore.









I love this shot. one of my favorites. Dont they look peaceful?






just another one of those shots that I couldnt have done on purpose! I love those. this was taken during the month or so in which my film became jammed and I could not get it to advance. The majority of the exposures were washed out, but the ones that were not damaged were worth it!







My dad's birthday


















how sad is this?













Baltimore, new years eve 2008












My macaroni is on fire!










Nothing better than catching random, unsuspecting business men as they walk across the street!

Flacco happy!

Yes, my dear readers, I am a RAVENS FAN. And not the fair weather type, either. I am proud to say that I watched every single game last season, in spite of the horrors that befell the team.

but there is a light on the horizon this season, and he is the rookie from Delaware, Joe Flacco.

Now, im not one for stats, which is good, because, as so many sports casters have noted, he isnt flying above every other QB who played today, but he is doing well, he is improving every game, and he shows immense promise.

the best thing is that, compared to Kyle Boller, he is brilliant.

At first, i was worried about flacco having to play so much this early in his career, but after watching him play, i realize that he is not another boller. kyle bombed as far as the ravens are concerned, and everyone, myself included, said it was because he was put in too early and ruined before he had a chance to develop, but now i realize that he just wasnt what we wanted him to be.

flacco is laid back and unshakable, so far. he is calm and collected, and i noted at one point in the day that he looks almost like eli manning from afar, the way he approaches problems, and solves them without panicking or causing any sort of major problem.

Chris McAllister called him a turtle, said he just plods along. and it seems true. he doesnt get worked up to the point of freezing with the ball in his hands until someone sacks him (i called boller "sticky fingers") and he doesnt freak out until he throws away a ball that could have made it to the endzone. (another boller problem)

after having such a hard time with QBs, i am finally confident.

not to mention the way he was protected during the game today. the offensive line was put together, not a scattered bunch of bulls like the one last year. of course it helps that there are fewer injured players this season, but overall, they are working together and doing what they are supposed to do: protect the QB. nothing was worse than watching boller actually try to play well and be knocked into because of a collapsed pocket. the team seems to like flacco, and therefore they trust him and protect him. a qb cant throw a ball if he has the other team jumping all over him.


now, if we can just get heap up to par. watching him fumble and then not complete a pretty easy pass, and then lay on the field in pain today made me sad.

i dont know what to think about him. like troy said, (my troy, not troy smith) he is still really young, and shouldnt be worried about anything, but the truth is he was out most of last season with injuries, and didnt play in training camp or pre season, and now he does poorly (by his standards) on his first game back. what does this mean? poor conditioning and training due to injuries, let him get back into the game and he will be fine? or is it a bad sign?

taking the worst case scenario in mind, if todd is going to be injured and unable to perform, i would rather he retire early. i dont want to see him go out amidst humiliation. he should be allowed to retire the way that brett favre should have retired.

and dont even get me started on him. i have lost all interest and respect for him and his current media circus.


long story short: i have hope for this season, and dont want to hear any complaints from the other fans if flacco doenst perform perfectly. i hope for the best, and really, im just glad to have football season back!!!

Pasta, of all things

I have been developing a deep disgust for my fellow humans. Perhaps "countrymen" would fit better than "humans" as I am sure that the people for whom I feel the most disdain are primarily Americans.

Americans love to eat. But we dont just eat the way other people from other countries do: we eat in excess! we cant just order one meal and be happy, we have to get as much as we possibly can for our dollar. How dare we stereotype other nationalities and call them cheap or swindlers when we try to cram as much in our wallets and mouths as we possibly can.

a direct representation of this is the "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" at the Olive Garden. disgusting. for $8.95, a single person can get endless pasta, bread, and choice of endless soup or salad. thats fine, especially since the price is so low, but it just is not enough for the Americans.

Endless pasta: people literally sit and eat bowl after bowl after bowl of pasta. I am surprised that people dont regularly die of carb-shock! and as if bowl after bowl of penne, or linguine, or angelhair is not enough, add the sauce: alfredo, meat sauce, five cheese marinara! did you know that eating one portion of Olive Garden alfredo sauce is like drinking a pint of heavy cream? its true. but dont tell the corporate office I told you.

so we have the endless pasta. that should be plenty to fill up any person. It is endless.

but, that obviously isnt enough, so first they have to cram themselves with endless soup or salad. So many people ask me: "the never ending pasta comes with endless salad, right?" as if, if the salad was not included, they would not order the pasta. is it that important to have endless salad with endless pasta? and god forbid the garlic bread does not come out constantly.

how do these people eat so much?

and then complain about McDonalds having such calorie loaded food!!!

You can probably eat five Big Macs for the caloric intake of the five cheese ziti at Olive Garden. I'm serious.

so my new complex is this: I cannot watch people eat without feeling queasy. It is fine if i am sitting down in the resturant and eating and am able to ignore the people around me, but as a server, watching the guests mindlessly stuff themeselves into a food-induced coma disgusts me.

Have you ever seen Casper, the one with Christina Ricci? the scene where the three ghosts are eating breakfast and all of the food is just falling on the floor...thats what i imagine when i am at work and serve people their food. it literally makes me sick.

and the bicker over the smallest price change. the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, like i said, costs 8.95. that is almost $1 more than a lunch portion of pasta. yet people complain that it is expensive! how, i ask you, is endless amounts of pasta, 75 bowls of pasta, if you wish, expensive at $9? how can people take themselves that seriously?

and then there is the lack of manners. We consider ourselves advanced, ahead of other countries, yet we have no table manners. NONE. we shout at the table, answer cell phones in the middle of dinner, allow our children to literally throw food in resturants, much less run around the resturant and then get upset when the server trips on the little brat and spills hot food on them.

and we chew with our mouth open, stuff our mouths till food is over flowing down our chin. then we speak to the server (who we treat like a dog and snap our fingers at) with full mouths. heres a news flash, america: most servers are college students, or college graduates trying to get a new job. I.E. they probably have a higher degree than you do and are usually smarter than you. dont treat them like infants.

i need to get out of the resturant industry. hopefully I'll get a call back from one of my applications soon. the food service industry depresses me.

summer is over

well, summer is over, and while i dont have to go back to school because of that beautiful milestone we call "graduation" I still have a feeling of lost time. I think i wasted my summer. I am not sure yet what happens after summer when there is no school. It is uncharted territory. I have never had school-less post-summer activities.

maybe i should just start doing things that i put off doing all summer. perhaps, if i continue to allow my time to waste away, the rest of my life will turn into a wasted summer.

i have a new appreciation for the usefulness of school.

even if the work is boring or useless in itself, it is still soemthing that is to be done, and the assignments and subsequent deadlines are helpful.

so, since i didnt do half of what i wanted to do this summer, here are the ten things i wanted to do, and will try to do, even though it is no longer summer:

actually...lets be more optimistic. i'll start with things that i feel that i have accomplished, and then move on to what i want to do:

accomplished this summer:
1. decided to get married. picked the venue, colors, flowers, theme, ect.
2. re-upholstered a chair, my first experiment in re-upholstering. success.
3. wrote a single poem.
4. blogged. not alot, but enough to constitute having blogged.
5. went on many job interviews.
6. applied for countless jobs.
7. read a few books.
8. made a purse...that i am going to send to Heather because she likes it.
9. did some fun kitchen-type experiments.
10. played tennis and exercised. lost some weight

now, that isnt very reassuring, but here are the things i should have done, and will try to do:
1. get a job. successfully. and therefore make money.
2. paint some stuff. like canvases. why have i not painted this summer?
3. write something else. anything. story, poem, something.
4. read more.
5. keep a doodle blog. i am starting it today.
6. try linolium printing.
7. be more active, i.e. be more consistent with tennis and walks. even jog? maybe?
8. go to a concert soon. the lack of music is disheartening.
9. actually get married, move into new place, and start that whole aspect of life.
10. cook more.

there. now there are lists, that means everything will be easier, right? self-help books always say "start with a list" but i disagree. lists are a waste of time. you spend so much time making the list that you never check things off.

but they make me feel better. if nothing else, i have accomplished the list part of the activity.

I have begun to have a written pen-pal. a friend of mine moved to Chicago last week, and we have decided to actually try to keep in touch with that archaic method: snail mail. what a brilliant idea for a back formation. we never needed "snail mail" until "email" was invented. remember when "email" had a hyphen? been a while, hasnt it? remember when the "i" in apple products stood for "internet"? who would have thought that the internet would literally take over the world?

anyway, so I wrote my first letter to Heather (chicago chick) today. and i was suprised at how strange it felt to not have things like "delete/backspace" and a spell checker. I am a big advocate for writing things out before typing. even my papers in school were all written by hand before i typed them. i believe that the thought process is different, and that by combining writing with typing, you get the benefit of both processes. but mos of those written papers were just drafts, so i never had to worry about anyone else reading them. i always fell back on spell check and the ability to easily delete. i need to write more by hand. such an odious task...since when has writing become a chore to me?