If you’re not doing anything this weekend, spend some time talking about the wonderful female Vagina - for charity! I will be at Friday’s show…

2008 will mark the 10th Anniversary of the V-Day College Campaign to end violence against women. The heart of the V-Day Campaign is benefit performances of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues”, which have raised millions of dollars for domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers and other charities.

In the five years Oakton Community College participated in V-Day, we raised more than $25,000 for local shelters. In honor of the 10th anniversary, we will once again participate by presenting two performances of “The Vagina Monologues” on February 1 & 2. (8 pm/tickets $12 each/Oakton Box office 847-635-1900)

Also, my wonderful, phenomenal friend Jen will be in it (who is such a good friend to me, even though I suck at being a friend), so that’s extra incentive to go!

There’s more info about the Vagina Monologues show and the movement to end violence against women at the Vday site:
http://www.vday.org/contents/vday

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Last weekend I tried making some Puerto Rican empanadas. I had tried making them before, but I had a hard time draining all the fat off the ground beef so they were pretty oily. This time around, I browned the beef separately and then ran it in a strainer under hot water to rinse off the fat. Also, I was constantly tasting the meat stuffing and decided to add a lot of extra sazón (magic seasoning!). I had a hell of a time trying to find some pre-made empanada dough, but found some at the local Caputo’s. I’m to lazy to make my own! As a side sauce, I decided to make some Argentinian chimichurri sauce, which was well blended this time around next to my favorite infomercial appliance, my Magic Bullet.

Just wanted to take some pictures of the whole process.

The Meaty Filling

Piling meat on the dough

Ready for the deep fry

I love to plate!

Zoomed to accentuate the fatty goodness

Who’d have known 5 years ago that I’d love to cook so much? Now if I could only learn how to make Filipino food!!!

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Tags: Whine and Cheese by Yano
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Omaha Nebraska? What an interesting location to do auditions!

Since I’m home, working, and online, I’ll do my AI play-by-play LIVE!

- The Seacrest wannabe - Why was he so happy at the end? I missed it - tossing Ben around was more entertaining than his singing!
- The boy from Stout - I’m wondering how fair it was that they let him stop and try so many times. Was it because he had potential? Because he was cute? Good thing they did, because he did pretty well in his audition.
- The female arm wrassler - she reminds me of the actress Monica Potter…she was ok…now awesome
- Goth gal - They have goths in Omaha? She is REALLLLLLY scary!
- The girl who calls her daddy - she seemed really sweet, and I really liked her voice. She’s the kind of gal the America could love

Alright, that’s all I had time to review!

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In preparation for this Thursday’s LOST season opener (btw I am as giddy as a little schoolgirl), I’m re-watching Lost Season 3 on DVD. I bought it at Costco right after Christmas since no one got it for me. Since it’s been a while since the last season - almost a year, so I need to brush up on what happened in the last 16 or so episodes. It’s fun to go through it again, and to hear the commentary on some of the episodes. The first several episodes, which I like to call “Yano in a Cage” because that’s how I feel when watching. I don’t enjoy them, but I’m stuck watching them because they’re setup for the rest of the episodes. But it was pretty boring to have Kate and Sawyer in a cage for 6 episodes, going nowhere, screaming and getting beat up all the time. Jack, in the meantime, languishes in an underwater holding tank, brooding, angry and showing off his muscles as he sweats.

I haven’t yet gotten to the good stuff of season 3, where all the “Oh Shit!” starts happening, like at the end of the episode where Kate goes to save Jack only to find him playing football with the evil “Mr. Friendly” or when Mikhail rises from the dead. I’ll probably get to that stuff by tomorrow. I’ve cheated a little and started going through the extras (the Todd McFarlane toy thing was pretty badass - I want one!) as well as the Easter eggs, but I want to make sure I finish this sucker up by Thursday. Thursday has never felt as exciting as it does today!

Now a little question I’m going to pose to those of you who know me: Have I lent out my Lost Season 2 or Firefly to any of you? I can’t seem to find them anywhere. I think I might have lent them out, but not sure to who….

Have You Seen Us?
…

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Yesterday I was in Milwaukee at a client site. We had our whole team there and some executives, which meant that we were going to have a nice dinner, rather than a dinner at the hotel diner. I was thinking we’d be going to our regular steakhouse (Mo’s Steakhouse, which is YUMMY!) but our client suggested a new place. So I was given the job of looking the place up and making reservations (only female on team = secretary…j/k. not!). So I was told to look for a restaurant called Carnivorous. The women I was working with were like, “Carnivorous? I’ve never heard of it! Is that seriously the name of the place?” I made some jokes that it was a dinosaur-themed restaurant with velociraptors serving your food. So I searched on the internet for it, and the only think I could find for “carnivorous milwaukee” were links to the local zoo. With three people searching (and whispering under our breath, “I don’t think this place exists!”) we finally found the restaurant - “Carnevor”, which is a pretty new restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. I went to their website and lo and behold - their logo is a velociraptor claw! No joke! I must have ESPN or sumtin’.

Anyway, the restaurant is one of your typical trendy restaurants with the super friendly and almost dramatic waiters - nice and dark so you don’t really have to see who you’re talking to. The food I would give four stars out of five. Very good, though I think the appetizers could have had more flavor to them. I’m a fan of escargot, and their escargot appetizer, while good, didn’t have enough flavor for me. My steak was awesome - I got it medium rare with herbed butter on top. By the time I got it, I was full of bread (the butter they server with it is yummy, though a little salty if you put on too much) and appetizers. But the 5 bites I had from my steak were delicious - the garlic butter added the right amount of flavor to it. I wasn’t a fan of the brussel sprout side we got, but I did like the exotic mushroom and mashed potato sides.

All in all, I would recommend the place - if you can pay the $30 - $160 price for a steak (which doesn’t count any of the other stuff). “$160?” you say? Why yes - they’ve got Kobe beef that is actually from Kobe, Japan, the best 1% of steaks, so rich and tender you could cut it with a butter knife. Or at least that’s what our waiter said!

Crab cake, escargot and rock shrimp

Mmmmm….steak!

Tags: Photography, Travel, Reviews by Yano
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Hmm…Muffins!, originally uploaded by Yano.

It’s been a challenge lately to get Ben to eat. He had croup a couple weeks ago, and he’s still got a pretty bad cough. Even before he was sick, he was a very picky eater. One day he’d like chicken nuggets, the next day he hated them. One day he loves apples, the next they’re being thrown across the room. I’ve finally opened my Deceptively Delicious that I got for Christmas and this weekend will try some recipes. If you haven’t heard of the book yet, it basically shows you how to hide vegetables in “regular”, tasty food. I’ll let you know how the recipes go, but the dishes seem pretty tasty. Friday I’ll try out the spinach/carrot brownies!

I’m paranoid that even though he’s been having his daily gummy vitamin, he isn’t getting enough nourishment. Sometimes I feel like a baby skeleton is walking around my house. Fine, not that bad, but he’s almost 2 years old and he still needs to hit the 24lb mark. The doctor has said it’s nothing to be alarmed about, that even though he’s in the 15% percentile it’s still in the OK range. But as a mom, I can’t help but worry. I’ve broke a little and bought some cookies and ice cream, just to get some food in him (and I admit, I like it too!) but hopefully he gets some of what little appetite he had back.

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Didn’t have the computer for the first 15 minutes of the show, but the first 3 people were pretty good. Not awesome, but good.

7:14 - The Mariah Carey wannabe - I could tell that she was going to be awful. I think if she just sang with her normal voice, she would have been good. Other than that, it was pretty laughable. Aha! Randy agrees with me.

7:28 - The Girl Obsessed with Simon - I was thinking that she was going to be obnoxious and sucky, but she was pretty awesome.

7:37 - The eleventh chance guy - I think he did ok…worse people have made it through…

7:39 - The guy with cymbals on his belt - entertaining. Definitely very entertaining. And he hasn’t even started singing yet! I think Reynaldo’s “I am Your Brother” song was 10x better

7:50 - The guy who had a swollen lymphnode - sounds like a sweet guy, but no wow factor, though people will love him

7:56 - The Irishwoman - Wow! Get me a bowl of lucky charms. She sounded great. A little rough at a point, but still really good.

Oh wow…didn’t realize that this is just an hour of Idol…I was expecting it to last longer! All in all, a lackluster night. No one really blew me away. Tsk tsk.

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This commercial has been around for a while, but I just saw it the other day and it still makes me laugh!

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