mipmup.

i love la.

i love living in a city where this makes the front page. thank goodness for those border agents. just how many people would have suffered??

ma po tofu.

this recipe rocks.

ma po tofu
serves 8
prep time: 10 minutes
cooking time: 8-10 minutes

marinade:
1 tablespoon oyster-flavored sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 package (16 ounces) soft or regular tofu, drained

sauce:
1/3 cup vegetable broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons chile garlic sauce
1 teaspoon black bean garlic sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground toasted szechuan peppercorns
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 fresh red chile pepper, minced
chopped green onions, for garnish

1. combine marinade ingredients in a bowl. let stand for 10 minutes. cut tofu into 1/2-inch cubes. combine sauce ingredients in a bowl; set aside.

2. place wok over high heat until hot. add oil, swirling to coat sides. add garlic and red chile pepper and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 10 seconds. add meat mixture and stir-fry for 2 minutes.

3. add tofu and sauce. cook, stirring gently, until tofu is heated through and sauce boils and thickens.

4. place in serving bowls and garnish with green onions.

adapted from a recipe posted at healthwell.com.

michael.

taking the lead from martha, michael jackson has launched his own personal press room to tell his side of the story, including how this whole situation is a "big lie." as opposed to a small one i suppose, which would not need such a forum. imagine that face coming after you as a kid. fairly frightening.

paris.

[photo of paris removed. now go away.]

ok, so paris hilton, great-granddaughter of hotel magnate conrad hilton, made a sex tape. i get it. now with roughly $20m in law suits filed, i've got to wonder, "what's the big deal?"

i've heard her described as a coke whore, slut, skanky - all of which might be true and after seeing some of her, er, less-than-traditional photos, could very well be, but, i'm still surprised that people are so shocked, so quick to judge a woman who acts on her sexuality. the puritanical belief that somehow a woman should never ever under no circumstances showcase her sexuality so blatantly is so ingrained in american culture that it scares me.

i also find it interesting that no one is criticizing her former boyfriend rick solomon, with whom she made said video. i don't hear anyone screaming "victimization" or trying to protect his reputation. heck, even dominick dunne got into the fray proclaiming it's her parents' fault! he said, "i think the parents should be thrashed. i mean, these girls have had pr reps since they were 12. what kind of a way is that to raise your child?" well, shucks, dominick, maybe you should take the same stance about rick's parents: "how could you raise someone that would bore someone during sex so much that their partner is forced to answer her cell phone? his parents must have been frigid, which is of course, completely unacceptable."

anyway, rick's just pissed at the hilton folks and suing for slander. i guess he's not really concerned about his sexuality being exploited or anything. we still live in a society, unfortunately, that objectifies women as playthings and little princesses then gets pissed when they have a good time and make a tape. then it's not so sexy. it's not ok. it's whorish. but geez, the guy gets some glory (at least from the non-paris camps). he had sex with a then 19-year-old heiress! hooray!

sure, making a sex tape is tacky and it's probably not the smartest thing to do - especially if you're a pseudoceleb - but it is what it is. can we just get on with life now?

the dark side.

the saga continues with fighting the dark side.

i had a very odd – and quite specific – problem happen today within microsoft entourage v 10.1.1. i sent an email and the recipient told me that there was a string of other emails attached to it. (thankfully, the content of the mysteriously-attached emails was benign!) the strange thing is that the other emails were never opened and were in my deleted items folder. i don't understand how they could have been automatically attached to the original email.

so, i searched in entourage/help. nothing. figures. this is a pretty weird bug. then i went to entourage/help/send feedback and reported the problem. easy enough. now how do i fix this and more importantly, ensure it never happens again? the implications of this bug could be enormous. i hate a lot of my clients and frequently vent to my partner via email. i guess i can’t do that anymore. or what if i had sent something personal or confidential? i have to have an answer, right?

i visited microsoft.com’s support area/contact us. i wanted to request online help. signed in with my passport (they are so evil) and hit “ask a microsoft support professional for help.” entourage isn’t even in their product list. hmm.

so i go back and try again. maybe i’ll try “phone numbers, support options and pricing.” yeah – that sounds good. entourage is listed – great. since this is sort of a complicated problem, i select “advanced.” oh, super – my options are: “online support: $99 offer! receive an online response within 24 hours” or “phone support: speak with a support professional for $245.” yeah – that’s gonna happen. i then try the “free of charge” communities area. i click. nothing. click again. nothing. click-click-click-click-click-click-click. nothing. broken link. ugh!

back to the beginning. support/microsoft public newsgroups. ok – i want microsoft, mac products, entourage. oh yeah – i’m in safari so i can’t see anything. let me open explorer. cut and paste. nothing. i can’t even get free support??? so, i need to turn on my relic of a pc and post to the “free of charge” community board there.

all of this because their product has a bug that caused me to send an inaccurate email. is this what i get for using their products? does microsoft do this to its mac customer base on purpose? having already switched once, i think i might have to switch again – to mail.

i am a freak.

my other car is a firebolt.

so shattered was i when the fifth book, harry potter and the order of the phoenix, by jk rowling, ended that i had to reread the entire series. i will probably end up posting something here soon, having memorized the entire harry potter lexicon already. go ahead, quiz me.

whoa is me.

"i've had to make my peace with a place that is obsessed with all that which i find tedious . . . the narcissistic, egomaniacal, mean-spirited sense of show business. and the examination of actors and movies." - julia roberts in december's reader's digest.

it's really tiring to hear her complaining all the time - give it a rest already. i am now officially boycotting this poor soul's movies so that she can focus on all the non-tedious elements of life, like puppies and flowers and all things nice and modest.

put on your helper hat.

anyone that saw the video of the attorney getting shot should be wondering why it took so long for someone to tackle the gunman. it got me thinking - what kind of society are we living in that it takes minutes - and an off-duty sheriff's reserve officer - to stop this guy? if i were getting shot, i'd kinda want someone to intervene on my behalf. i mean, i know that most of the people standing around were just protecting themselves from harm, but what happened to courage? even common decency. even help.

not to toot my own horn, but last night, my better half and i (ok, it was just him) put on our helper hats and move some strangers' new-in-box tv into the third floor of their house. we are neighbors, so that's what people do - they help each other. it does seem pretty natural to me. but then we got to thinking, "if they get robbed tonight, they'll probably gonna think it was us." i realize we're cynical and it's an extreme thought, but unfortunately, i don't think it's that off-base.

in fact, we had sworn off wearing our helper hats recently. the other day, my better half assisted an elderly woman out of a thorny bush she had been trapped in by her wandering dog and its attached leash. he gingerly supported her 200-pound frame as she climbed down from the planter. and then he noticed a smell. evidently, the woman had clambered up to the planter to retriever her dog's - er - business - and it was smeared all over her and was now all over him. after throwing away his shirt, throwing away his freshly-brewed coffee and throwing a fit stomping home, we thought after this we had most certainly fulfilled our duty and sufficiently fueled our good karma points to the brink of whatever they're stored in.

in our city of angeles, horrible things happen so frequently that we are forced to don this guarded, defensive, sardonic posture just to get through what should be (helping someone move something) or shouldn't be (helping someone not get shot) an everyday thing. but why should it be so hard to put that little old helping hat on?

that said, you can't just stand there while an attorney gets shot (no jokes please) or walk away seeing your neighbor struggle with a tv or even run the other way when you see a crap-covered old lady. you just can't.

can you?