As I wrote before, we generally don’t use flours in our home (Paleo-approved flours or not). Except for crackers that is, to keep happy my French, cheese-loving husband. The recipe below makes for some amazing gluten-free cheese crackers, and JBQ says that they’re the best cheese crackers he had in his life. And he has tried quite a few so far.

Ingredients (makes 45-50 pieces, 1 gr of net carbs each)
* 1 cup of blanched, fine almond flour
* 1 cup of coarse almond meal
* 1/4 cup of flax meal (or coarse almond meal)
* 1 egg (or 2 smaller eggs for less crumbliness)
* 2 TBspoons of finely minced, fresh herbs you have around: rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, marjoram, lavender, mint, basil etc.
* 2 TBspoons of fine Parmesan cheese (optional)
* 2 TBspoons of raw sesame seeds (and/or poppy seeds)
* 2 TBspoons of olive oil
* 1/4 tspoon sea salt
* Some freshly grounded black pepper to taste

Method
1. In a big bowl put all the ingredients together and start working the mixture with your hands. Soon it will become a well-rounded ball.
2. Cut out two pieces of parchment paper, as long as your cookie sheet is. Preheat the oven at 350 F (175 C).
3. Lay down your ball mixture in the middle of one parchment paper, and try to spread it a bit with your fingers (just enough so it’s not a ball anymore).
4. Place the other parchment paper on top, and using a rolling pin, spread the mixture across the parchment, as equally as possible. Aim for a thickness that you desire (I go for a pretty thin texture). If you spread it too much on some side, you can always remove that part, and re-spread it.
5. Remove the top parchment paper and throw it away. Using a pointy knife, cut out a grind in the spread, creating rectangles of about 2.5″ diagonally (be careful to not cut the parchment paper).
6. Place the parchment paper with the mixture on the cookie sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes. Then check it out to see if the edges are starting to brown. If that’s the case, remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and using oven gloves, cut out the rectangles that are already done and let them cool on a cooling rack (they will be soft at that point, but they will harden as they cool). Put the rest of the undone crackers back to the oven for another 2-4 minutes (monitor them).
7. When done, remove them from the cookie sheet and place them in the cooling rack too. Half an hour later, break-out the crackers in their predefined grind shape. They now are harden and ready to eat. Keep in an air-tighten bag for up to 1.5 weeks.

I always loved John Maus’ song “Quantum Leap”, but I suddenly got inspiration to do a video for it early in February. After two months of work, my first animation is ready. This is by far the longest video work I ever done, so I put my best self in it. It’s not perfect (there’s pixelation in some scenes), but I think the overall lo-fi result is good, considering that I didn’t use animation-specific apps that automate things. I sketched on a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, editing was done on Sony Vegas Pro 11, while the lasers in the final battle scene were made in After Effects CS5.

Update April 15th: A digital painting of John Maus I did tonight over a few hours (painted over a still frame, and then posterized). Not a great piece of art obviously, but hey.

Update April 20th: Top-5 tips to animate your comics.

I emailed John Maus for permission to post the video btw, but never got a reply back. After lots of thinking about it, I decided to publish it. Find below credit links for the Creative Commons “Attribution” & NASA background images used in the video, in order of appearance. I hope I didn’t forget anyone.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the last update for the animation project I’ve been working stead-fast lately, since 85% of it is done. The more the video is nearing completion, the more I’m slipping my sleep towards 3 AM, working on it day & night. Some of my favorite scenes so far:

About half of my animation project is done. I thought that it would take up to May to finish it, but I might be able to finish it at some point in April. I love working on it, so I put more hours in it as time goes by. You can see a picture of my Vegas editing app with the project loaded. I hope the artist will like the final result of the music video (he doesn’t know I’m working on it), although I’m not too optimistic.

Scene where the heroes are escaping to space. Everything is just better in space.

UPDATE: One more frame grab, from the time travel section of the story…

MDNA is Madonna’s first album on her new label, so she seems to be playing it safe. She serves us a canned formula that has worked for her in the past. Does it still work though?

Girl Gone Wild: 8/10
The best track on the album, it’s a good dance song. The editing of the official music video is even better though.

Gang Bang: 6/10
A nice semi-atmospheric dance track, but it doesn’t go far-enough. It needed to blossom, but it didn’t.

I’m Addicted: 2/10
Yuck. Boring, unimaginative, uncatchy, goes nowhere.

Turn Up the Radio: 2/10
Reminds me of her late ’80s period. Nothing new here. Playing it safe.

Give Me All Your Luvin’: 3/10
Oh, shut up. This is fucking annoying. What is she? 13 years old?

Some Girls: 6/10
Not a bad song, it’s got a nice melody and atmosphere (atmosphere is the No1 thing I always try to find on music btw). But it’s not really exceptional either. It’s just ok.

Superstar: 1/10
Someone pass Acid Pro. I could write such a song too in a single afternoon.

I Don’t Give A: 2/10
We heard this song a million times before in the last 15 years. The only good part in it is its last minute, where it becomes operatic and grand. It’s one of the best moments in the whole album. Too bad it’s attached to the rest of this song.

I’m a Sinner: 2/10
This track is a mess. It tries to channel her 1998 period, but it ends up being a hot mess. It could have worked back then, but it’s 2012 now.

Love Spent: 2/10
This feels like a song that is sang by Cartman trying to become a pop star (the way South Park would have done it).

Masterpiece: 8/10
A nice ballad, written by different song-writers than in the rest of the album, people who actually know how to write music, it seems.

Falling Free: 4/10
Good ideas (channeling Irish/Celtic music) but it ultimately goes nowhere. This song asks for a buildup that never arrives.

Beautiful Killer: 6/10
A good dance track, mostly salvaged by its strong refrain. It could be realized even better though.

I Fucked Up: 1/10
She seriously fucked it up on this track. Useless bullshit.

B-Day Song: 2/10
Not album quality. It feels like a B-side.

Best Friend: 3/10
Wow, it’s R&B from 1996 all over again. Harmless.

Overall rating: 4.2/10

Madonna needs to push herself to innovate. Religion and sex themes can only get her so far in today’s day and age.

I will be 39 years old in a few months, and this got me thinking about anti-aging strategies. Some people tell me that I look younger than my age, but I think it’s time to start thinking about the inevitable. At first, I was naive enough to go search about “what the best face cream” would be. Soon I realized that these creams don’t really work, and they would be wasted money. A cheap, natural hydrating cream for face & eyes would be enough. To really make a difference though, the change must come from inside.

Dr Jack Kruse, the most crazy Paleo doctor out there (also the most interesting), has many blog posts on anti-aging, that go well beyond nutrition and supplements. He goes into reprogramming the human body with cold thermogenesis, even “lite” hibernation and fasting. But these are too extreme regimens, I just want something to ease up my wrinkles, not to outlive Galapagos tortoises.

So I went again to my new best friend, the US government’s PubMed, and started reading. Most of the chemistry described goes over my head, but I can still put 2+2 together and draw conclusions. So after two weeks of research, this is what I came to understand it could give me back 5 years in terms of of looks/energy, and extend that look for a longer period. Please note that this regimen is for skin and hair only, there is additional supplementation for mental & joint health, but Paleo itself is good-enough to provide the necessary nutrients for these two anyway. Also note that this is what I’m doing for myself, it’s not a medical suggestion to you.

STEP 1: Follow Paleo/Primal for life
No way around it. Even if you never put in your mouth a single pill of the ones suggested below, this diet is a must for longevity and overall health. Here is a description of the diet, the top-10 superfoods (definitely make your own goat kefir, for example), and here’s why dairy can be included in the diet, as long as it’s from buffalo, camels, goats or sheep (but not US cows — only butter & cream from them).

STEP 2: Lifestyle changes
Doesn’t have to be strenuous exercise. 45 minutes, 3-4 times a week. 30 minutes of slow and fast running (alternate, 2 miles overall), and 15 minutes of weights. That’s it. You need no trainer or to pay a gym for it. Or you can alternate that with some yoga too. Consider some meditation too, which can put your cortisol & stress under control. And of course, SLEEP. At least 8 hours day. Make time for it!

STEP 3: Basic supplementation
No matter what diet you follow, there are some nutrients that the modern Western humans are deficient on. These are:
- D3 at 3000-5000 IU, daily, in the mornings. Get tested every 6 months for toxicity levels though.
- Magnesium Malate, every 2-3 days, 2 hours before bedtime. Malate is the most absorbable form.
- K2 Mk4, every 2-3 days.
- Fish or krill or fermented cod liver oil, almost daily. I personally prefer krill oil.
Then, the following are as important, if the diet is not balanced:
- Calcium, only if you’re not doing dairy, every 2-3 days.
- C + Bioflavonoids, only if you are not eating fruits for some reason (you should), or if you’re feeling a virus coming your way.
Supplement for other vitamins too accordingly after you track your food intake on a site like Cron-o-meter btw. E.g. you might find you’re low on iron, or manganese, or folate. Especially if you’re trying to get pregnant, you might need to lightly supplement with it for months before conceiving (just make sure it’s not folic acid, folate is a different form).

STEP 4: Skin-specific supplementation
These are the supplements that visibly change the skin and energy levels. On old people these supplements would help too, but not as visibly as in younger people. I include links to the supplements I usually buy myself, these are NOT paid/advertizing links in any way.
- CoQ10-Ubiquinol. Every 2 days or so. In addition to taking the pill, you can also apply its liquid to tooth gums and at a lower dosage, to wrinkles directly.
- PQQ (PyrroloQuinoline Quinone). Every 2 days or so.
- BioSNP’s anti-oxidant & anti-inflammatory formula. A lot of different powerful anti-oxidants in one pill. Take 1-2 pills every day (not the suggested 3, it’s strong).
- Acetyl L-carnitine. Ever 3-4 days or so.

STEP 5: Supplementation after a certain age
Don’t take these before the age of 30 or 35. You can increase the days you take these as you age. Take it easy in the first few years.
- R-Lipoic Acid. It must be the R- form. Every 2-3 days or so, in the mornings.
- Collagen Type I and III. Every 2-3 days, not at the same day as the other collagen below, or when you’re cooking with bone marrow broth.
- Collagen Type II. Every 2-3 days, not at the same day as the other types.

Other anti-oxidants you can add to the mix are cranberry extract and Astaxanthin/Lycopene, but the suggested BioSNP formula is already pretty good. For hair, consider taking some Biotin every 3-4 days or so (supplements usually contain way too much in them), and E-tocotrienols (no tocophenols in it). This vitamin E 125 mg version is pretty strong, so take it occasionally and only if you’re somewhat deficient on vitamin E, or use the lower 50 mg version.

“John Carter”, the recent fantasy/sci-fi action movie, is the biggest box office bomb in film history, with a total net loss of $166,566,620. The movie did “just ok” with critics, but most viewers who saw the movie, liked it (70% rating on IMDb & Rotten Tomatoes). So apparently, from entertainment’s point of view, the movie was not a disaster. It entertained better than expected. Marketing was adequate too. So why didn’t more people go to see it? I have a suspicion that I would like to share.

I believe that the reason it didn’t attract larger crowds was because of the theme itself. This is a very old fashioned story, more leaning towards kits fantasy rather than radical, modern sci-fi. When I first saw the trailer for “John Carter” a few months ago, I was left bewildered that Hollywood would finance such a movie. It had a feel of the 1930′s Flash Gordon in it, but with better effects. And that was its flaw: old fashioned, pure cheesiness.

In today’s day and age, most people I know are hungry for smart movies that mess up with their mind a little. That make them think. That have something interesting and new to say, or at least visually show something refreshing. A movie becomes a classic when it speaks about our situation today, or tomorrow. This movie has nothing like that in it. It’s a very sterile & dry interpretation of old epic fantasy films: some guy, fighting bad guys and monsters, amongst laughable technology.

Give me a break. While this might fly with a few young kids and very old people who don’t know better, it won’t fly with most of the rest of us, the main body of customers, who still have a brain and would like to use it occasionally.

“John Carter” deserved the money loss, but I fear that Hollywood will never learn anyway. They pour unnecessarily huge amounts of money on stupid movies such as this. And this, among other things, will be their undoing.

This starts to piss me off more and more as time goes by: Paleo dieters baking stuff using heaps of almond flour. You go to a Paleo recipe site and what you see half the time is variations of cookies and breads. As for those who make an almond-based pizza? Two cups of almond flour are required for the base alone! And don’t let me start about nut butters.

The point of the matter is, nuts should only be consumed in moderation. They’re very high in O-6, and they have lots of phytates and anti-nutrients. On top of all that, almonds used to be poisonous in the Paleolithic times, the kinds of almonds we have today are highly selected. When we are eating such high quantities of nuts, we endanger our health, and we generate a new wheat-like threat. The older varieties of wheat, when were eaten in moderation they weren’t such a big problem, but today, we have in our hands a selected super-gluten which can be found in almost every food.

Ask yourself this question: Would you eat two full cups of almonds for dinner? Most of the time, the answer is “no”. So why the heck would you eat a 12″ pizza made of just that? The almond to almond flour ratio is 1:1, you see. These “allowed” flours (almond, coconut, flax, and tapioca), must be consumed in small quantities, and rarely. Birthdays, holidays, PMS… And try to mix these flours when the recipe allows it, so you at least spread the amount of the various anti-nutrients into smaller quantities.

Personally, I make almond flour-based cheese crackers twice a month. We eat 1-3 crackers a day, which is equivalent to 3-5 almonds. A healthy amount of nuts per day, that is. The last time I baked something for indulging reasons was for a coconut birthday cake in January, six almond cookies in November (half a recipe), and coconut donuts in September (threw away half of them, baked too many). As for bread and pizza (any kind), I haven’t had these at all since I started Paleo.

In other news, I started a Pinterest group, with categorized Paleo/Primal recipes. So far the dessert category has more pins than the other boards, just because the sites I visited mostly indulged on such comfort food. But I will be correcting this soon, as I add more pins.

It has been a constant complaint in the last few years, especially by genre fans: the countless Hollywood remakes or re-imaginings of older movies and TV shows. I personally prefer original works (even if everything is a remix of previous artistic knowledge in reality), and I don’t discount all direct remakes as useless. But in the last few years there’s definitely an identified problem in the sheer concentration of remakes or blatant copies of older ideas. It feels like there’s nothing really fresh coming out from the world anymore. I believe that it’s a three-tier issue:

1. Hollywood doesn’t take risks anymore
Why would Coca-Cola change its recipe? They normally wouldn’t. Similarly, in these difficult financial times we live in, Hollywood prefers to serve us tried & tested recipes. Can you blame them? Actually, you can. Hollywood is an immense artistic influence and force, we like it or not. While the various execs are in it just for the money, this doesn’t discount the fact that as industry leaders they also have an ethical obligation to be artistically progressive. And this can only happen when some risk is taken. With the explosion of various art mediums in the ’90s, Hollywood has entered a second phase of maturation, which unfortunately made it more bureaucratic, and more concentrated. There are of course a lot of politics behind the scenes, but the gist of it all is that these companies are now running like old oil factories: one step in front, two steps back.

2. Lack of imagination
Has capitalism sank its fangs into us to the point that we’re culturally bankrupt already? I don’t think so, because whereas in the past only a few people would become artists, today almost everyone is one. Human beings are resilient artistically to be able to go around such obstacles, such as a rotten political and economical system. Or could it be that every cool story is already being written and there’s nothing new to provide to the world? Sure, our world is cataclysmically bombarded with various works every day, but not everything is shown on screen, and not absolutely everything has been thought-up yet. And yet, not many radical works are getting released recently. I find the lack of imagination (or at least the exec disapproval of imaginative works) very disturbing. Science Fiction is supposed to be about what it could become, while at the same time is being current to today’s problems. What is our existence without a window to a possible future or solution? What is art if it doesn’t strive to imagine some sort of utopia?

3. Plot timing
As I wrote above, science fiction describes both a possible future but also our present. When remaking an old sci-fi movie, you’re running into the danger of re-discussing a then-current issue that is no more. Often this is “fixed” by re-writing specific plot points, enough to piss off the old fans and sabotage the new movie any way the can. And failing at the box office, it gets the business back to point No 1 above. Rinse, repeat.

The solution? By definition, the new wave will come from indie filmmakers (especially as tools become even more inexpensive), or from an anti-Hollywood conglomerate of international media companies. Hollywood won’t survive this new reality, the same way the big-4 music labels haven’t survived the indie music onslaught in the last few years.

A few weeks ago I saw at some blog a kelp noodles recipe that looked like real rice noodles, so I went ahead to Whole Foods and bought this brand. It costs about $4, and it’s good for 3-4 servings. They have only 5-6 calories per serving, and only 1 carb too. Kelp has a lot of iodine and many other minerals and enzymes, so it’s one of these Paleo super-foods that you shouldn’t miss. It’s too bad that these things are very difficult to find in other countries though, or in rural America even.

Tonight I stir-fried them with peppers, onion, and a range of shellfish, and they came out amazing! They really taste like real noodles! Here’s the recipe I modified to do my own stir-fry. Two things you need to remember though:
1. Without the suggested bone marrow broth the stir fry will taste like nothing. I added a cup of bone marrow broth to give the noodles the taste they deserve, and to also get that dark yellow color.
2. Do not add much soy sauce (maybe 2 TBspoons — and make sure that’s wheat-free tamari soy sauce). You see, soy is an antagonist to iodine, so you don’t want to be eating kelp in order to get iodine, and on the other hand having soy eradicating it. Broccoli is also an antagonist to iodine btw, but not as much as soy.

Update: I liked it so much that I made some today too, this time with chicken breast, zucchini, pepper, onion and a bit of broccoli.