michaelkim.ca - MK blog

With a soundtrack of all our favorite tunes, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, gives us insight into Lennon’s anti-war activism efforts and his fight against the Nixon administration. The film made me realize just how many parallels there are between the current war in Iraq and the Vietnam War. The difference is the people of this generation just don’t seem to care. Are we just indifferent? Where is our John Lennon when we need him?

Give Peace a Chance
War is Over (if you want it)

My buddy Tom, who directs news at OMNI TV and works occasionally at Sportsnet and RaptorsTV hooked us up big time. He was able to pull 100 level Raptors Tickets, located practically courtside. Toronto kicked Charlottes sorry ass 105-84. We even got free Pizza for scoring over 100! Pictures here.

Bloc Party is one of those bands that makes you just wanna get up and dance. Not only is lead vocalist Kele Okereke able connect with the crowd, but their performance just releases pure energy. The crowd just goes insane!

At last summer’s Toronto Olympic Island Concert (pictures here), they teased us by playing some of their new songs. And wow, did it ever blow me away! It made me wanting more, but the wait is almost over. Their new album titled, “A Weekend in the City” will be out on February 5th, 2007. For a quick fix of their new new single “The Prayer”, check out their myspace page. To catch a sample of their full album, it’s been available at a torrent site near you since January 12th.

The sheer genius of the Japanese have unleashed yet again their origami skills, but this time onto the simple T-shirt. This is a dream come true for the bachelor. No need for mom to do this for you anymore! Enjoy.

Here’s a first installment of many cooking posts to come. Karen’s office planned a potluck at work the next day. She decided to cook a popular Korean dish called Japchae. Karen is quite the chef and has a passion when it comes to food. She loves spending her free time buried in cook books and is glued to Food Network Television. Thats all good, cuz I love to eat! With her magic touch, she was able to whip up the Japchae in no time.

As per my previous post, my lovely Karen got me the Olympus E-500 for Christmas. I finally have some decent shots to showoff the food that she made here.

What is Japchae?

Japchae (also spelled jabchae or chapchae) is a Korean dish made from sweet potato flour cellophane noodles (called dang myeon), stir fried in sesame oil with sliced beef and various vegetables (typically thinly-sliced carrots, onion, spinach, and mushrooms), flavoured with soy sauce, and sweetened with sugar. It is usually served garnished with sesame seeds and slivers of chili.

More at Wikipedia

Recipe Ingredients (Yield: 4 Servings)

• 12 oz noodle (Dang Myun)

• 4 oz beef

• 5 shitake mushrooms or Chinese black mushrooms (substituted here with white mushrooms)

• 1 carrot

• 1 onion

• 1 egg (optional)

• 1/3 lbs spinach

• 5 tbs oil

• 1 tbs sesame seed oil

• 2 tbs soy sauce

• Salt & black pepper (pinch)

• Sesame seed (pinch)

• 1 tbs minced garlic

• 1 tbs chopped green onion

Cooking Directions

1. Soak mushrooms in water for 15 minutes. Cut off stems. Cut mushrooms into thin strips.

2. Cut beef into thin strips and marinate it with the mushrooms in a seasoning of: soy sauce, sugar, minced garlic, sesame seed oil, chopped green onions, and a pinch of ground pepper.

3. Cut carrots and onion into thin strips (julienne).

4. Cook spinach in boiling water for about two minutes. Cool spinach in running water. Squeeze the water out of the spinach. Season the spinach slightly with salt and sesame seed oil.

5. Batter and fry the egg in a pan with a pinch of salt. Once cooked and cooled, cut the egg into thin slices.

6. Cook the noodles in boiling water for about 2-4 minutes or until soft (You may want to cut the noodles in half before hand if they are too long). Rinse in cold water and drain.

7. Start cooking the beef and mushrooms with a bit of oil.

8. When beef is cooked add carrot, onion, spinach, and noodles and stir-fry.

9. When vegetables are cooked, add the sliced egg and use salt and soy sauce to season the dish to your taste.

10. Put it all in a dish and sprinkle some sesame seeds for the final touch.

11. Can be served hot or cold.

Recipe via trifood.com

For those who haven’t heard yet, the new Apple iPhone was announced at MacWorld today. Imagine jaws dropping, tongues hanging out, eyeballs poppin outta peoples heads! It was totally justified as this little device packs quite a punch. It features a 3.5 inch touchscreen with a virtual keyboard, a 2 megapixel camera, is WIFI enabled and runs OSX. Its offered in the 4 GB and 8 GB models and costs $499 and $599, respectively.

Now the question is, will it be a Blackberry Killer? How does the iPhone expect to compete against the Blackberry’s continuous email access for the hordes of business men leashed to the device already? For pure business use, BB is in a class of their own. Clearly the iPhone is aimed at a different audience… the masses. A few years back, we prayed that one day, all devices can be fused into one unit. We had to cope with the backbreaking task of lugging around our phone, iPod, camera and PDA separately. Devices quickly converged and they became Jack of all trades, masters of none. Apple has raised the bar again and pushed the boundaries. It’s answered our prayers and the day has come. Um sorry, the only thing is, we’ll have to wait until a day in June ‘07 to get one. I know I’ll be drooling… um… i mean dreaming until then.