More specifically, in Illinois. Because sometimes I just get a craving for oxtail or devon house chicken patty. I actually just found out that a new Jamaican restaurants opened in Chicago, called Jamaica, Jamaica. I'm not sure when I'll get to sample it, but hopefully I'll get this chance soon.

On a related note, I did try a place called "Calypso Cafe" in Hyde Park, Chicago. The name seemed like a warning sign, but I'll give them props for their Veggie Patty, it was pretty nice...the Jerk Chicken...well, I've had better, but perhaps I should have tried something that would have been easier for them, like their Jerk Wings or Rasta Pasta. Still, I'm willing to give them another try.

This may be more accurately phrased as how to survive using legally free software...

Browser: Mozilla Firefox

Newsgroup Reader: Mozilla Seamonkey

Vector Graphics: Inkscape

Image Converter: Squiggle, ImageMagick

LaTeX Editor: TeX Shop

Music: iTunes

DVD Ripper: HandBrake

Video Player: VLC

Generally Useful: Xcode, Image Capture (shift+command+4)

Again, this may be more useful to me than to others, but here is a quick and easy way to make circular level sets in matlab:

[x,y,z]=cylinder([1 0], 1000);
contour(x,y,z)
axis equal
axis image
axis off

Told you it was simple. The 1000 parameter is what makes the circles more circular and less octogonal. By default it's set to 20, which isn't so pretty.

I've been meaning to blog for a while. Been eating a lot of good food all over the country. But right now I'm mad. I'm mad that that blasted company Comcast took me off of my high after Obama's electrifying speech. I was in such a good mood. I was able to forget for a while how tight my bills are this month, that tropical storm Gustav is sweeping across my country Jamaica, that I had a headache and toothache. But now, now in the middle of writing my first conference paper, I am reduced to stealing internet despite paying over $4o US a month to those crooks. My internet just stops working, out of the blue, and after spending an hour with 4 different idiots who were spelling out "cmd" and "ipconfig" like i'm some idiot who can't tell when her internet is not working, after all of that, they're going to tell me, oh, what do you know, you're right, you're internet isn't working and we'll need to send someone there to fix it. Oh and guess what, we can't send anyone till next Saturday. Yes, next Saturday. Today is Thursday. I am supposed to wait for over one blasted week to get my internet service restored. No, we can't push it earlier. I'm sorry, we could fix your bill for this month. Like there was ever a question that you'd be fixing the bill for this month.

Words cannot express my anger. I hate you Comcast.

Edit: Comcast saw this blog, asked me for my number, and got back to me earlier. Of course, this leads me to wonder why I was told I had to wait 9 days when there were apparently several openings much earlier than that...but they did credit my account for 2 weeks, even though it was just down for 1 week. So, thank you for Comcast for redeeming yourself.

This experience makes me appreciate the power of being part of the blogosphere...

A quick note about a really cool tool that one of my labmates just told me about: Zotero.

It's a Firefox plug-in that allows you to save papers that you find on Google Scholar, Citeseer, etc., and attach notes to it, etc. Afterwards, you can go back to these saved papers and download the paper or the bibtex file. I can't believe I'd never heard of it before! Also available for download from the firefox plug-in site.

I've been absent for a while...I actually have a backlog of yummy food to blog about! But for now, I'm going to explore getting a cat!

I've always wanted a cat, but when I was younger I developed a cat allergy. Recently, however, I've noticed that when I'm around cats for long periods I don't seem to have a reaction. Yay! So now I'm considering adopting a cat from the Champaign County Humane Society. I figure I still need to be cautious about the type of cat I choose and being extra clean.

So far, browsing through the site, I've fallen in love with this cat, Sheba. She's a mixture of a tabby and a short-hair...which is good, because I'm looking for a cat with short hair and that's preferably a female. Apparently female cats emit less of the cat allergen, a protein called Fel d 1.

So now I'm looking at the cost.

1. Adoption fee: $75 Includes vaccines, collar and ID tag and a microchip.
2. Pet Carrier: ? I can get a cheap one from the pet shelter.
3. Allergen Spray: $7 - OdorLogic® AllergenSpray for Cats
4. HEPA Air Cleaner: $110 on Amazon - Honeywell 17000 HEPA QuietCare Air Cleaner
5. Cat Bathing Wipes: $5 - Simple Solution Cat Bathing Wipes
6. Cat Food: $6-$10 - from Drs Foster and Smith

Anything I left out for the intial start up cost? Right now it looks like about $220! So I'll have to think about this longer I guess...

My music taste is long...too long...so I'm shortening my facebook list of favourite music but moving it here for the memories...

A Sample:

Jazz, Theolonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Natalie Cole, Art Blakely & The Jazz Messengers, Nina Simone, Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Chick Corea;

African Jazz, Bembeya Jazz;

Jamaican Jazz, Monty Alexander, Jazz Jamaica;

Latin Jazz, Buena Vista Social Club, Afro Cuban All Stars, Ruben Blades, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz; Brazilian Jazz, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto

Latin, Juan Diego Florez, Santana, Juan Luis Guerra, Jarabe de Palo, Juanes, Mana, Ozomatli;

Spanish Guitar, Gipsy Kings, Rodrigo y Gabriela

some Alternative, KT Tunstall, Vanessa Carlton, Anna Nalick, Five For Fighting, Seal, Ben Harper, Gnarls Barkley, Maroon 5, Cat Power

Reggae, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Tessanne Chin, Peter Tosh, Steel Pulse, Rootz Underground, Third World;

some Dancehall, Tanya Stephens, Damian Marley, Tami Chynn, Shaggy, Buju Banton;

some Reggaeton, Daddy Yankee, Kumbia Kings

some Rock, The Beatles, Nickelback

Classical, Chopin, Julie Andrews, Debussy, Copland, Rachmaninoff, Erik Satie

some Rap, Nas, Fort Minor, Kanye West

R&B and Soul, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Nikka Costa, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Mary J Blige, Whitney Houston, John Legend, Stevie Wonder, India.Arie, Patti LaBelle

neo Soul, Corinne Bailey Rae

some Pop, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey

some Country, Dixie Chicks

African, Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Angelique Kidjo
some Celtic

Blues, John Lee Hooker, Koko Taylor, B.B. King

Folk, Tracy Chapman, Jewel

Mixed up stuff, Pink Martini, Sparlha Swa, Regina Spektor, Salsa Celtica

Edit: Updated the list a bit. Joined the R&B and Soul categories since I have several favourites who sing both.

A song I had reason to look for the other day...

When I was younger i had this t-shirt that I loved. It had a picture of this little girl that looked kind of like me, with some flowers, and then it had this poem (done in puff paint if I remember correctly).

"Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where my posie is"

I used to hum that poem to myself, i had a tune that i made up for it...

Then my sister had this dandelion book which sang the story (it came with a cassette tape!). So, recently, I've walked down the road from home and watched the dandelions suddenly appear, all yellow in their glory, seen the buds appear on the trees, almost unnoticeable until overnight the trees are all green, and the rains have come, making everything even greener. Then inevitably, the dandelions changed to their poofy state, and I'd hum the song from that dandelion book.

"Dandelion, don't blow away
Save your strength, enjoy the day"

Watching spring just made me wish I could put this all into a poem or dance or song...I feel this urge to express myself artistically. For now, I guess this post will have to do.

I've been quite absent from this for a while...end of semester madness. Still, I found time to go out for some tapas at Radio Maria. I'd been to Radio Maria before, when Microsoft Research treated the graduate women in computer science to a 4-course meal, but I hadn't been back since [In case you're wondering, my main course was a Steak, well done, which was quite tasty]. On this particular day, however, I had the Queso de Cabra Frito [Fried goat cheese with Jamaican Honey and toasted baguette] and Meatballs (it had a nice description that i can't remember). The Queso de Cabra Frito was a winner, the Meatballs, as you can see, were fine but not memorable. For wine, I had the Domaine de Salvard Cheverny Sauvignon Blanc, a very clean tasting white wine.

The highlight of the evening for me was the dessert. Valene brought us some Jamaican goodies from a West Indian bakery in New York - bun and cheese, bulla, rum cake, coconut cake, and coco bread!