Friends!

TJ made me some iced peach juice. Actually, I think's more of a... hm... It's basically ice and peaches stuck in the blender. I really liked it, since it was icy cold (frozen peaches, I found out, don't taste as juicy or sweet as fresh peaches), but there was still a pleasant peach taste. TJ didn't enjoy it though, and proceeded to throw away a plate of cut up peaches, which kind of irked me.

 In other news, SR gave me a peanut butter cookie that his mum made for him. It's funny, because my mum came to Penn to give me my glasses (whoo!!! I can see far away now!) and brought along a bag of broccoli, cauliflower, mangoes, peaches, and basil from the garden. She also brought me a slice of pizza, which is pretty silly considering I have at least 9 slices of pizza in my fridge right now.

Juhhhst Peachy!

The Clark Park Farmer's Market has been selling peaches for $1.75/lb. I bought some peaches, including yellow peaches, a white nectarine, and a yellow nectarine. According to Wikipedia, nectarines are the same species as peaches... it's just that they have a recessive allele for a gene that gives peaches fuzz. I love both peaches and nectarines equally, because peaches remind me of China, and nectarines remind me of Australia (we used to have a nectarine tree).

Look at that beautiful skin! I love peach skin...I love peaches.

However, like the guy who was selling me the nectarines, I prefer white nectarines over yellow ones. The white ones are sweeter. The yellow ones are more sour and tangy. I also prefer nectarines slightly unripe (crunchier rather than soggy). The guy (sorry I can't be more descriptive... I wish I knew who I was buying these from; after all, that's the point of the Farmer's Market) actually let me try a piece of white nectarine because I couldn't decide which to get. I ended up getting one of each. He told me to come back next week and tell him which one I preferred. I don't know whether I'd go this weekend, since I want to try get on the 11:30 bus rather than the 12:30 bus.

The left nectarine is the yellow; the right is the white.

White nectarine. Delicious! Fresh!

Yellow nectarine! Delicious! Definitely more sour.

On a side note, I wrote a Python script that will convert my images from the Blogger size of 400px x 300px to my preferred size of 700px x 525px. It's weird; despite taking CIS110, it never occurred to me that I shouldn't have to do it manually every time I want to poof up pictures. So, for the past 8 months, I've been manually backspacing the "4" and adding a "7" and backspacing the "300" and adding a "525".

The good thing about my script is that it also accounts for when Blogger makes images 399px x 302px due to rounding errors.

I also realised that there are definitely programs out there that do conversions (e.g. Microsoft Word's Find and Replace), but it feels pretty good being able to write my own program.

Storming of the Bastille Etc.

Today was rather food-filled!

1. I had some spaghetti, TVP, and onions at breakfast-time. No, not conventional breakfast fare, but still food!

2. Took a trip to Clark Park to get some lemon balm for mother, but it turns out that lemon balm will no longer be sold (for a while) due to irrigation issues on the farm! Oh well. I did get three delicious local peaches, with really thick and lovely-textured skins, and extra-fuzz! $1.75/lb.

3. My lips are sunburned. I can feel it.

4. At noon, I went to Commons intending to go the "Snack Time: Making Healthy Snacks With Local Ingredients" event. It was apparently free and I was hoping that I could get a sample of fruit leather or something. When I walked towards the entrance, I saw a sign saying "Snack Time", and a tail of a line. "Oh No! What if there's a space limit for how many people go to this event!?" I joined the line, and found myself being chauffeured up the stairs, with a guy apologising to me for some reason (for holding up the line or something? He told me I could go ahead...). I looked around. No one looked ready to make kale chips.

When there were about 8 steps between me and the salad bar, I realised something.

I looked down from the stairs. No, more down, into the basement. I saw laminated paper with arrows, pointing down. Then it hit me: the Snack Time event was in the basement! My quandary now was this: Should I observe people cook for an hour, and perhaps get a chunk of fruit leather, or should I follow the crowd and obtain a whole meal?!

So, Commons food over the summer is pretty good (so much fruit!!), especially when they're cooking for really hungry football-camp guys from various high schools, and their parents. The male:female ratio was maybe 95:1. There are also very few empty tables. I haven't had sweet potato fries in ages...they were delicious, but potato fries are definitely better. I also ate eggs. I haven't eaten eggs since the end of May.

5. Global Fusion Festival... because I was full from eating at Commons, I didn't buy any food here, although there were sundry choices...

...and even two vegetarian food stands! Surprising!

There was also a game by a company that I will not name because it didn't let me play its game. All you had to do was roll a 7 or 11 on two dice, and you could get a shirt or an umbrella! Its game was apparently only for people over 21, and when it was my turn, the lady asked to see my ID. I was like... wow. This sucks. Dude, a 2 year-old can roll a dice! Why stick the restriction to 21?! So, apparently I don't look like I'm 21. Which is fine because I have no intention of going to bars and clubs, but to merely roll dice?!

6. Storming of the Bastille! In honour of celebrating Bastille day, le 14 juillet, Eastern State Penitentiary has been doing this re-enactment of the Revolution in 1789. It was obviously tinted with American culture; there were litres of beer, hundreds of plastic cups and glass beer bottles, face painting and kiddie stuff, pizza, and other foods. During the re-enactment, I happened to be standing next to people who were smoking cigarettes and cigars. How putrid.

The re-enactment itself was quite interesting, although I don't understand why everyone (else) sang "God Bless America" before the re-enactment. Dude. This is supposed to be French.

The organisers also sang the French national anthem, but no one in the crowd was paying attention during this part. Philly also got mentioned a few times during the re-enactment, as did other American icons including Lady Gaga (Marie Antoinette "was the original Lady Gaga") and Star Wars.

Then one of the organisers recited the sacred sentence: "They have no bread!" and Marie Antoinette yelled out, "LET THEM EAT TASTYKAKE!"...

...And aristocrats/Marie/Darth Vader/Stormtroopers shovelled out Tastykakes to the crowd, which promptly started either smooshing them, or throwing them back.

My first Butterscotch Krimpet, thrown from the "Bastille" a.k.a. Eastern State Penitentiary! It landed right in front of me. For some reason, it tastes a bit like banana bread. Having not grown up consuming these PHO-filled "foods", I don't have any emotional associations with Tastykake, so I feel very indifferent towards its products. I later picked up a few more from either the ground or the stage. I felt really bad because I watched some workers throw away at least 15 wrapped Tastykakes that people decided to leave behind... it's such a waste of food. I should've just picked them all up and kept them, but I didn't, mainly because "other people probably think I'm crazy". A.k.a. "public image". I guess it's okay for little kids to search the concrete for Tastykakes, but it's not socially acceptable for a not-21-year-old to do it.

I doubt I'd ever buy any Tastykake products. There is no reason to, when I can bake cake that tastes better, and make icing out of 3 or 4 ingredients instead of 23.

SUGARRRR

...and now I have a bloated stomach and feel terribly drowsy/headachy after eating around 1000 Calories (~250 g) of sucrose in the form of peach gummies.

Actually, after my swim today, I decided to read outside in the shade. It was pretty breezy, and there was a concert going on on Walnut Field. They were giving out free water ice, so I got a pina colada water ice, which melted really fast. It tasted like artificial coconut, and didn't have much hint of pineapple, although there were small specks of yellow (presumably pineapple pieces).

While watching Stargate SG-1, I ate the ~1000 Calories worth of peach gummies. Today, I walked towards Market St. intent on going to a yard sale, but the yard sale didn't exist at the address listed on the flyer... so I figured, Eh, I might as well go to the Rite-Aid on Market, and buy some Circus Peanuts because I've never had them before.

However, the Circus Peanuts had HFCS, so I decided to buy peach gummies instead. I don't know why I didn't buy the sour gummy worms... because I like sour gummies the most...

However, now I'm fully satisfied with my gummy craving, and I will not buy anymore gummies in the next month or so. Yes, this includes not buying any Peach Sour Patch Kids candy from Sweet As Fudge Candy Shoppe.

In eating my gummies, I stumbled across a bunch of mutant ones! I love the sight of mutant candy! I wonder if any companies will send me free/reduced price mutant candy...

:) Okay, I'll eat healthy tomorrow. Kale!!