The Big Casino Way to Cook Vegetables

A couple years ago I decided to try to eat better by eating more fruits and vegetables and discovered the best way to cook vegetables.  I use a deep non-stick frying pan with a lid, but I believe others would work as long as you had a lid.  Put just a dab of olive oil in the pan and heat it up.  Throw in fresh vegetables that you cut up fairly small, like green beans to 1/2 inch, sliced carrots, corn cut off the cob, chopped broccoli or cauliflower.  Put on the lid and turn it down to two/thirds.  Another great thing is to count to 100 or so and throw in a couple tomatoes all chopped up.  Soon, like five minutes or so the vegetables are al dente and very tasty.  And here comes the real deal...push the mixture to the top of the pan, crank up the heat and center the heat on the now cleared bottom part and add a little oil.  Saute some onions and tore up tortillas until done.  Mix the whole thing together with a beat up egg until the egg is cooked.  Turn off the heat, put on some shredded cheese.  Eat it with your favorite salsa.  Delicious.  I cook something like this a couple days a week.  20 minutes start to finish and you're sitting there eating your dinner and watching Jeopardy at 7:00!  It helps that my stove is a little off balance so the olive oil for the onions and tortillas pools at the bottom of the pan - so you might want to adjust your stove so you can cook in this same method.

Five Couch House

There are a lot of measurements that one can use in rating a living situation.  When I was younger, one of the things I always strived for was to live in a house with the maximum number of couches.  And partially achieved this when I lived on Del Playa in Isla Vista as a student and we scrounged together three couches for the living room - heaven.  Last Thursday I helped Jessica move into an old victorian down the street from me and low and behold it was a five couch house!  JR is living the dream (how true it is that our youngsters achieve the goals we were unable to reach).  Three couches in the front room, one in the living room and one on the porch.  Way to go JR!

Public Education

Two recent events have reminded me of how valuable and important public education is to our society.  The first was attending the graduation of my son Nate at California State University at San Jose State.  It was extremely moving to see how proud and excited all the parents were sitting in the stands at Spartan Stadium as the 5,000 capped and gowned graduates sat on the football field below.  The tremendous diversity of the graduates was inspiring and a reaffirmation of every families' hopes for tomorrow.  At one point the speaker asked that all students who were the first graduates in their families to raise their hands and it seemed like 50% did.  We have to recognize how vital an opportunity this is and keep higher education affordable!

The other event was the recent retirement of Dan Cavanaugh a gifted and dedicated elementary school principal who led Bay View school for 20 years, ending in a couple days.  Remarkably, he led the staff through an educational process and strategy that side stepped the no child left behind test driven curriculum and resulted in Bay View School earning a huge State School rating of 7 or 8, one of the five best in the County.  In this day of school voucher discussions, inane testing and other threats to our public schools, hats off to the dedicated teachers and principals whose first priority is the education of all children!

Big Casino's Favorite Ten Beatle Songs

Every Thursday there's a Beatles show on KZSC that I listen to on my way to work and boom, I'm already there.  Last New Year's Eve it was like a religious experience as MABS and I spent the evening listening to (and singing along with) the Sun Kings play every Beatle song we could think of at Don Quixotes in Felton.  Since the songs are so short we heard a bunch of them.  And of course they saved one of the best for the encore...She loves you, yeh, yeh, yeh.  I was disappointed that they played my least favorite song at midnight - Hey Jude.

1. In My Life

2. Got to Get You Into My Life

3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

4. Fixing a Hole

5. Drive My Car

6. I Am the Walrus

7. Back in the USSR

8. Day Tripper

9. Hard Days Night

10. Tax Man

11. Paper Back Writer

12. I'm Only Sleeping

Republican Legacy

One has to ponder the huge legacy that the Republicans will have if they continue stonewalling new taxes in California and allow all the State Parks to close, end numerous vital services like in-home support service, dental care for SSI reciepients, ending CalWORKs, etc. and leaving our local cities and counties with untenable budget deficits by taking money from the local jurisdictions. Its hard to imagine anyone taking pride in such a misguided principled action.  We'll see.

Best Six Scenes from Fellowship of the Ring Trilogy

I was laying in bed this morning listing my favorite scenes from the trilogy and here they are.  

1.) Aragorn's "Crispen Day" speech at the gates of Mordor

2.) Arwin's escape with Frodo and drowning the Ringwraiths in the river adjacent to Rivendale.

3.) Gandalf's little speech to Shadowfax when he heads off to get the Rohan reinforcements

4.) Gandalf and the extra Rohanians rescuing Helm's Deep by showing up a dawn

5.) Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, racing across the plains on foot to rescue the hobbits

6.) The Ents destroying Sauron's tower by breaking the dam.

7.) Gandalf's battle with that monster thing while escaping from the old Dwarf Cavern

Best 10 Movies Ever

I often talk about my favorite ten movies and for the sake of your enlightenment I have listed them below in order.  Of course, the list is subject to re-evaluation when I think of a movie I saw a long time ago and any instant candidates (certainly not Bloom Brothers that I saw last night!).    Also, I don't limit myself to just ten best movies in the top ten.

1.) Original Star Wars

2.) Hoosiers (you can argue what is the best movie ever, but you can't argue which is the best sports movie ever - Hoosiers)

3.) Das Boot

4.) The Fellowship of the Ring series

5.) Stalker (incredible Russian Movie by Tarkovsy)

6.)   Platoon

7.) Pulp Fiction

8.) Dr. Zhivago

9.) Momento

10.) Nine Queens

11.) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

12.) Raiders of the Lost Arc

13.) Bridge Over the River Kwai

14.) Kontrol

15.) Ground Hog Day