Life is Back to Normal and Fuck Road Blockages

I'm all for the city improving our roads, but not when it's right in front of the entrance to my fucking street. Well for around almost the past two years there has been work on the pipes under the road right at the entrance of my street. Today when I drove home all the construction and cones and shit was gone! No more two lane road and no more making U-turns to go into my neighborhood. This has been pissing me off so much since it's been going on, but now it's all over so cheers to quality of life.

Dinner with Friends

I’ve been lazy to write stuff on here because it was Spring Break but now that’s over and I’m back.

So near the end of break I decided I wanted to have a dinner party at my girlfriend’s house because we haven’t had one of those in a while. We had a lot in summer because of the nice weather but fall and winter don’t inspire much. Now it’s spring and time to bust out the grill. We planned the meal around lamb because we’ve never done lamb before and of course we chose rack of lamb. The best meals are simple so we seasoned the lamb with salt, pepper, garlic(the Trinity of spices I put on all my meats), rosemary and olive oil and had sides of wild rice pilaf, grilled asparagus, and roasted potatoes. The colors when these are on a plate really appeal to me for some reason. The green, brown, dark red, and white; so simple but so appetizing. I wish I had a picture so you could see what I mean but we were too hungry to take pictures of everything except the lamb.

After many dinner parties we’ve had where everyone brings something to the table I’ve realized that it’s just too hectic that way. There is someone always lagging and everyone is just worried about their own dish. I think the best way to have a dinner is for the host to do it all and do it right and everyone else can just come and enjoy. My girlfriend did all the prep ahead of time (thanks) while I was at work and I did the grilling of the meat when I arrived. I’ve only cooked lamb once before but I usually get my meat right so I have earned the official title of Grill Master among my friends. Using a top notch grill with a ceramic grilling surface helps too. When everyone arrived everything was ready and dinner was served. We had a bottle of Mystery Wine to go along with our meal and I have to say it’s the first time I can honestly say I enjoyed drinking wine. I’m much more of a beer guy but this wine tasted good in my opinion, which might be sad because the bottle literally had a question mark symbol on it as its label and was probably inexpensive.

Having dinner together with friends is such an everyday thing that we overlook how much a simple meal can bring us together. Sitting around at a dinner table creates an environment where we can share the good times, share laughter, and of course share the food. What I’ve found is that with our group of friends dinner parties always bring us closer and that’s my favorite part, having good times with your friends. Cheers to that!

American Dominance for How Long?

Here is an article from a UCI sociology professor, Chuck O'Connel, on predictions he has made about the Iraq war that have come true and on new predictions for the future.
http://www.counterpunch.org/oconnell03202003.html

This is what people need to start thinking about. Is it just good strategy or wrong? (read article) The fact is we need oil. But with China soon becoming (or already is) a super power and like us they also need oil and much more than we need. U.S. pop: over 300 million. China pop: over 1 billion. Thats more than three times bigger than us. Russia has also found oil in Siberia and has gotten rich on it over the past few years and wants to become the super power like they were before.

From the article:
8. The U.S. war against Iraq will further the efforts of the EU, Russia, and China to develop their political and military strength to check the U.S. Their main fear is...that the U.S. will have effective military control over the bulk of their oil supplies from Saudi Arabia though Iraq to the new fields of the Caspian. Such control will give the U.S. unprecedented leverage over these nations because the U.S. will dominate a region containing 70% of the world's energy reserves.

While we are spending time and money on war, other countries have been developing their economies and also their millitary power. What we need to think about is what happens when they all realize that they don't like the fact that we are taking all of our planet's energy for ourselves? What happens when they realize they can beat us if they ally with one another? They don't want to end up like all the other countries the U.S. has gotten involved with. We can take over countires like Iraq and Afghanistan but we sure as hell can't take on China and Russia together, who have well developed millitaries. Europe, while a long ally, isn't really happy with us either. All we got is fucking Canada and maybe Mexico.
Think about it.

Also our economy is suffering while other countrie's economies have surpassed us. American companies are outsourcing, taking money out of America and pumping it into foregin competitive nations. No one buys American products because we don't even want them. (ie Japanese and European cars over American) We need to start keeping money in America and stop giving it away to workers in China and India.

Now as an American I don't really know where to stand. Shit I like my lifestyle here is So Cal. While I don't drive a gay hummer and wear diamonds and namebrand everything, I still consume probably more than I should. Not to mention I love cars and , well, the cars I like don't get over 30mpg. So I guess what we need to ask ourselves is should we be worried or are we ready to change? The 20th century belonged to America, but the 21st century is up for grabs.