“Bringing together the nation’s leading research institutions, THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION is a presentation of HBO and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.
The centerpiece of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION campaign is the four-part documentary series, each featuring case studies, interviews with our nation’s leading experts, and individuals and their families struggling with obesity. The first film, CONSEQUENCES, examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese. The second, CHOICES, offers viewers the skinny on fat, revealing what science has shown about how to lose weight, maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain. The third, CHILDREN IN CRISIS, documents the damage obesity is doing to our nation’s children. Through individual stories, this film describes how the strong forces at work in our society are causing children to consume too many calories and expend too little energy; tackling subjects from school lunches to the decline of physical education, the demise of school recess and the marketing of unhealthy food to children. The fourth film, CHALLENGES, examines the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the strong influence of the food and beverage industry.”

Here’s the trailer below:

Though I’ve watched only about half of the first film, it feels necessary to share this with everyone I know. Hopefully we won’t look back in 100 years calling the early 2000s the healthiest time in the century – we need to improve drastically from here.

A special thanks goes out to all you moms I know, and especially to my own. Life would really not be the same without you. Or, I guess it’d be non-existent. So really, I owe everything in my life to mom, and that does not go unnoticed.

Here are two sort of relevant songs having to do with mothers, though I’m pretty sure Paul’s song is about cooking some chicken and eggs…

And speaking of moms, here’s one I met on a walk this morning:

What? Didn’t see the mom? Here she is (with her eleven children):

She leads her kids between two ponds every day, and needs to cross a rather busy road to make it. Luckily she usually leads them in the early morning so there’s not too much traffic, but she still watches Oly like a hawk when we get close. Good job duck mom!

As you can see, this desk has many nooks and crannies, but took up a bit too much space for what we wanted in our guest bedroom/office. So we decided to go on a journey to find a simple, light desk. But instead of finding one piece, we scrapped together various parts and made one ourselves. I present to you Door Desk:

The desk consists of three simple components: a door we picked up at the most excellent store in the world, ReStore (at a cool $20),

some table leg mounting plates (about 3 bucks each) that were screwed on the bottom of the door,

and some table legs we also picked up at ReStore at the later date (2 bucks each) along with some hanger screws ($2.99).

We then spray-painted the legs

and then attached to the door to said legs. Bam! Table!
So for $40ish we made ourselves a table out of some salvaged materials. And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to sell the old desk for that price on craigslist. Sweet beans!

In music, Adam Yauch, better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys trio, passed away last week from a long battle with cancer. The Beastie Boys’ album Hello Nasty was one of the first records I purchased as a kid, and their influence on me (in both humor and music) and pop culture as a whole does not go unnoticed. Condolences go out to the Yauch family and Adam’s partners in crime, Michael Diamond (Mike D), Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) and Michael Schwartz (Mix Master Mike).

Here are three of my faves from the Hello Nasty album:

Honoring tradition, we dyed some hard boiled eggs red for the egg-bashing competition.

We made some Saganaki, which is always a crowd pleaser.

Our buds Kristin and Casey brought over some spiffy lamb meatballs and Greek latkes!

The egg-bashing commenced, and guess who won.

This guy!

I was fairly certain I was not going to win since Sarah had such an epic record in the W column, but luckily, the egg Gods were on my side. I am currently planning strategies for next year’s increasingly competitive tourney.

Here’s to YiaYia and tradition! Opa!

In music, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the group CocoRosie. Their latest 2010 KEXP performance is something if not a surreal journey into the mind of an artist. Bianca (one half of the sister duo) has the most distinguished voice of any artist I’ve ever heard, and is somewhat difficult to adapt to. In any case, sometimes the most difficult things you sit through are the most rewarding, and I confess in placing CocoRosie in this corner. Their music is difficult, but amazing. They mix fantasy with beat-boxing with jazz with opera. I can’t explain it, and am drawn to it. Regardless of how weird I sound, I suggest you check out the KEXP performance of CocoRosie, or the other numerous awesome artists KEXP has had hosted over the years (suggestions: this and this and this). Enjoy!

And SNL did an homage to the music video, of which I found awesome.

Clarence is still crazy.

That is all for now.

Needless to say, it was entertaining.
More pictures to come from the happy couple, I’m sure.

In music, Andrew Bird’s a whistling wonder, and I don’t have a reason why I hadn’t listened to him til now (he was also the whistle behind Walter’s performance in the Muppet Movie). Regardless, here he is with “A Nervous Tic” from 2005:

And here’s another choice song just for the fun of it from his newest album Break It Yourself:

And one more for good measure – a cover of “Oh Sister” by Bob Dylan – fantastic.

Mozzarella is pretty easy to make, but we were a bit wary of it to begin with, what with all the wizard potions and alchemy tools one must accrue. However, in about an hour’s time, we turned a gallon of non-homogenized milk into some stretchy cheesy goodness.

The cheese had just five basic ingredients (milk, salt, citric acid, lipase powder, rennet). We used a recipe from the interwebs, but I wouldn’t recommend it as she didn’t seem to know what she was doing. We were able to extract cheese out of the directions though regardless. Anywho, the basic steps were:

Just heat up some milk, add the other ingredients, let it sit,

cut it (that was the coolest part), heat it up again,

separate the whey from the curds with some cheesecloth, heat up the whey a bit more,

then stretch the hell out the curds until they’re a glossy sheen. You’ve basically got cheese at that point. Roll ‘em into a presentable form and then eat.

BAM. Mozzarella.

Why hello there! You have food for me, yes?

This is something I truly appreciate about our neighborhood in Greenwood – there’s a large population of die-hard urban farmers. Whatever plot of land they own, they turn nearly every square inch of the yard into usefull land, including but not limited to: housing for geese, chickens, goats, ducks, and the obligatory growth of greens and foliage. One neighbor in particular owns geese and two goats (about which Oly is very concerned whenever we walk by.)

Just recently, the two grown-up goats had two kids of their own. The kids are about 2 months old now, and growing like weeds. They weigh about 30 pounds now I’d wager, and very friendly and curious with humans. When we went to visit them in their pen, all four of them walked right up to us and gave some friendly bleats.

Kid #2

The Whole Fam-damily

They’re all very curious about what Betsy’s doing.

I like our neighborhood.

In musicland, here’s a bit of hip-hop Bets and I heard on KEXP a few days back. Lushlife is the artist, and I believe I was drawn to the song because it mixes video game noises into the track (+1 nerd point). Turns out Lushlife does this quite often in his music, of which I much approve. Enjoy: