Man Vs. Blog

          Recently, I watched a documentary called Fresh. It centered around the damages done by modern, mass agricultural practices. The film does a fair deal to educate a mostly unaware audience on what the issues are and whether things like raising livestock and growing crops can be done in ways that are far more humane, safe, and harmless, or even beneficial, with regard to the environment.       I think it did a fair deal to outrage and disturb the viewer with the ugly truths of what goes on behind the scenes; what our industrialized, hyper-detached approach of efficiency and innovation for the sake of the bottom-line is borne out into. It seems like treating organic systems as if they were factories is not only inhumane, but is dangerous to the environment, the food supply, and the continued existence of agricultural as it is currently organized.      I'm always interested when I see documentaries around iss...

    No, this is not my pie, I just like the braids.       Let's talk pie. I'm a guy who proudly makes and eats fruit pie, so let's talk about it. Its been more than a few months since I've made one but I can't think of anything else to blog about right now so here they are: the tips about making pies that nobody asked for. Tips from an amateur baker who's done a lot of browsing the internet. First, some background as to how I began to love pies.      Fruit pies are something I was never into as a kid, they were like a grown-up dessert. To me, eating pie for dessert was like eating Life cereal for breakfast. There's Lucky Charms, Capn Crunch, Fruity Pebbles- why would you ever eat Life? Then, during a cooking/baking phase, I decided to try making pie. The first pie I made wasn't a fruit pie, though. I was listening to the album Ram by Paul McCartney and. in one the songs, he mentions something about a "butter pie". One day, out of sheer ...

         I've just come back from the store with something familiar, yet very different. Among the many odd flavors I could have expected; pineapple, watermelon, bubble gum, strawberry- this one is definitely one I wouldn't normally expect.       I grab the pale green package between my fingers, it crackles and pops. On the cover, standing out against the pale green, are a bundle of bright green, jagged leaves, a tag informs me that it is made with whole leaf green tea. I pull the top of the packaging off at a seam then pull open the ziploc seal underneath, preparing my nose for the scent which already faintly permeates the bag.      A strong, frosty scent hits my nose, overwhelming any ability to sense green tea. I'm reminded of some of the colder winters I've experienced; the few, brief instances I've seen snow in my life. I pull one out of the package, the edges are jagged. Its pale white, shaped like a leaf. Its dec...

           Advertising today comes in all shapes and sizes: a billboard on your way to work, a promoted tweet on your timeline, social media accounts for companies, deals advertised outside the store as you enter, the product placement your hardly noticed in the latest movie, 30-45 second clips in between your shows on tv or just 5-10 before a Youtube video. All of it serves a brand and how that brand is being represented has usually been meticulously considered. Creators of advertisements consider how their ads can fit in with and strengthen the brand of the companies seeking their service.      They may ask themselves: who is the commodity for? Where is the audience? What is the purpose of the ad? How can an ad achieve that purpose for the intended audience? What is the most effective way to present the ad to achieve the intended result? If we examine advertisements carefully we can deconstruct some of these questions and pull out ele...

      I've always been fascinated by learning about new musical instruments. I want to know what they sound like, what they do best, how they're played, how they work, what techniques are employed in playing them, and what goes into caring for them. Usually, that leads me to scouring the internet for information about foreign instruments, instruments lost in time, and videos of them being played. One instrument that caught my eye awhile ago was the sheng, a Chinese wind instrument with roots in ancient periods of China's history.      The sheng is not an instrument that looks familiar to any other common wind instrument. Unlike a trumpet or trombone, it does not stick out forward. Unlike a flute, it does face horizontally, either. Even unlike an oboe, it doesn't face downward. Instead, it features a series of pipes which face straight up.      The appearance of the sheng seems to demand attention, it grows upward from the players han...