I’m thinking of assembling a picnic basket for Saturday. This is a tentative list of things:

In the cooler:
Egg Salad
Chicken Salad
Tuna Salad
Potato Salad
Sliced Tomatoes
Sliced Cucumber
Shredded Lettuce
Mayo
Hummus
Cheese Singles

Out of the cooler:
Crisped Bacon
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Brownies
Pita Bread
White Bread

I figure drinks and such, we can buy. Sound good?

First off, the most important thing. For those of you who have not yet heard, Louise Wong’s father passed away four days ago on July 1st. It was an unexpected blow for the family, and it really sucks. My sympathies go out to Louise, and I wish I had better things to say than just “I’m so sorry.”

The rest of this post is trivial and inconsequential in comparison, which unfortunately means that it will probably generate more comment than the first paragraph.

I’ve begun to feel that it’s pointless to discuss certain issues with my friends in New York. Aside from the fact that we’ve discussed many topics to death on numerous occassions, everyone I know here seems convinced that their opinion is the only truth that could possibly exist, and there is often no room for flexibility. Logic is often ignored, or manipulated incorrectly, to “prove” a point. Arguments often degenerate into childish declarations of “so there”, “fine, then” and “I don’t care”, and “you’re obviously wrong”.

Arguments with my Singaporean friends often result in an impasse of sorts, where both (or all) parties end up agreeing to disagree. We come to the conclusion that each of us have different opinions, and nothing we can say will change those opinions, but we happily wrangle for a few hours anyway.

Arguments with friends from New York end up mostly the same way, with one major difference. We come to the conclusion that each of us have different opinions, and nothing we can say will change those opinions. But every single person comes out convinced that everyone else is wrong, insane and stupid.

I personally think that everyone is entitled to their opinions. We are all allowed to have different opinions, and we don’t have to agree. But just dismissing someone else’s opinions out of hand as wrong, insane and/or stupid simply because they disagree with you seems… rather selfish.

In other news, Maggie has decided to implement a no-feminism, no-abortion, no-politics rule on the comments posted to her blog. She will delete comments that violate this rule. Coming from a country that has blatant and often undeserved censorship, I find that this move on her part makes me very uncomfortable.

i will be cooking lasagna tonight, courtesy of ET’s funding (she’s paying for your food, people. don’t forget to thank her.) this is for all you folk coming over tonight for cyberpunk.

in case you’re interested, this will be the recipe i’m using, with the following modifications:

- i’m using store-bought pasta instead of making my own (i’m not that crazy…yet)
- there will be no minced ham, or chicken liver (eww, much?)
- there will be mozarella cheese, in addition to parmesan.

any suggestions, or strenuous objections to lasagna, let me know.

ps. no mushrooms, sorry. too many people hate them.