Well here's the big announcement:

www.MeltsInYourPocket.com

go there see what all the fuss is about.

andrew+seely project melts+in+your+pocket chocolate chocolate+bar review review+show

New Ghetto Blog

andrew+seely ghetto+blog blog humor

I felt creative and made a little video. Inspired by my friend Natasha.

Enjoy.



day29
brought to you by viddler.com


andrew+seely blog

If you know me at all you know I like to cook. Though I usually never share recipes, since I don't really believe in them and only use them for inspiration. And I never really measure either. But here you go.

This weekend I made (twice) a little chicken pot pie. I have bisquick lying around my house and figured I there's got to be a recipe online for a bisquick version of chicken pot pie.

Turns out there are a few. I used them as inspiration for my own version.

Most of them called for precooked or frozen veggies or even cream of _____ soup. All of which I thought didn't sound as tasty as fresh ingredients.

Here's my version of bisquick chicken pot pie.

1-2 Breasts of chicken
1 med/large potato
1/2 white onion
3 stalks celery
1-2 large carrots
3-4 cloves garlic
a few handfuls of frozen peas (just easier than trying to find fresh)
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
1/4-1/2 cup bisquick mix
1/2 cup milk


bisquick topping
1 1/2 cup bisquick
3 tbs butter
1/4-1/2 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 350-375

Cut chicken and veggies into small cubes about 1/4" pieces. Mince garlic and rosemary.

Put chicken into a large pot with olive oil to coat, start to cook over med/hi heat. Once chicken starts to turn white (some pink ok) add in veggies and garlic and rosemary. Cook another 3-5 min, until veggies start to soften a little. Add salt and pepper to taste.

After 3-5 min, sprinkle dry bisquick mix onto everything, stir to coat, should absorb some of the moisture. Add milk to your desired consistency, note that sauce will thicken in oven, so add until slightly soupier than you want in the final product.

Remove from heat.

Either while veggies are cooking or after they have been taken off the heat. Take the 1 1/2 cup of bisquick, cut butter up into small pieces. Add butter to mix, coat with mix. With fork start to mix butter and bisquick, slowly adding water until dough starts to combine, add water in small amounts and then stir to combine. Dough should be somewhat sticky. On a clean surface, turn out dough onto a dusting of bisquick, and lightly kneed, adding more bisquick as needed (a little at a time) until dough is slightly tacky to the touch but not sticky. Either flatten or roll out dough into a square about 8"x8".

Take filling from pot and fill a 9"x9" pan with filling. (Add more milk if mixture seems overly thick). Cover filling with dough, spreading to edges. Place 9"x9" on a baking sheet (might bubble over) and place in oven for 30-45 min or until top is brown. Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 min. Enjoy. Serves 4-6.

It's turned out quite tasty. Let me know what you think or what improvements you make to it.

andrew+seely blog

Looking back on the progress of this project, I guess I am impressed with myself somewhat. While not totally satisfied, as can be seen by the few gaps in the days that I've posted, I have noticed that I have largely stuck to my guns about writing. This in no way has been easy or natural. In fact the last month has screamed by and I feel that in lot of ways this has been a huge challenge for me. More often than not, when I didn't post, it was more than likely that I had gotten busy and was unable to carve time out when I wanted to, though there were a few days when I just didn't feel like it.

I think it will help me get back in a regular pattern of blogging and has helped me see blogging as more a discipline than anything else. It takes time and effort. The ideas do not come easily and it is something I have to really want to do.

There has been a lot of talk about how services such as Twitter, has been killing off the blog faster than the usual abandon rate of most blogs. Which I can attest to. Often times ideas come to my head, but then it's too easy to not write them because I cannot concisely sum it up in 140 characters or less.

I have debated back and forth with batch posting, where I sit down and write 2 or more posts at once and then schedule them to go live over a period of time, which frees me up to not to have to sit down and post everyday. Tonight is an example of that, I have 2 posts in my head that I want to get down and would allow me the freedom of two days of not having to worry about coming up with something to write or forgetting what I wanted to say by the time it comes to write them.

What do you all think? What have you liked best about this experiment? What would you change? What would you have done differently?

andrew+seely blog

(sorry this is late, I just got home, so I'm counting it as day25)

I had a nice chat today via skype with a great friend Sloane. You see Sloane is a Kiva Fellow with the organization Kiva (if you don't know Kiva you should!!) working in the Philippines for the next 3 months.

She just got there in the last 48 hrs and quickly we got to talking about the culture there and she mentioned that seemingly no one there get divorced. And this got me thinking about marriage in general, and more specifically about marriage here in the US. No, this isn't going to turn into a post about gay marriage, but I want to think critically about why in this 3rd world country that has a large population of Christians, divorce is so low.

I really want to think hard about the fact that we might have something to learn from this country when it comes to marriages and divorce. With the US's divorce rate at more than 50% I think we have a lot to think about. I don't have any material about even the possible reasons behind why the rate is so low there. Sloane did mention that the fees to annul are really high, but she was completely surprised that the rates of divorce were pretty much non-existent.

I begin to wonder if being part of an impoverished country forces people to rely on one another more when it comes to family. Or is it because the wealth and freedom of the US gives us the mindset that if we don't like something we can always replace it? Or is it something deeper in the culture and minds of the people there versus the people here?

This is the sociological side of my brain working over time here. I tasked Sloane to dig a little deeper and I'm excited to hear more thoughts from her as her journey continues.

Sometimes it's easy to think that our little country doesn't have it all figured out compared to the rest of the world. It's too easy because we have plenty and we control so much that our thinking always falls towards thinking that our way is always the best way.

There are many times I deeply long for things to be simpler. Could it be that all our stuff, all our wealth, all our choices and all our powers have actually made things more complicated? Not just in terms of marriage but in life as well.

There's certainly a lot to think about here. And I definitely don't have all the answers. Though I am processing things, I am searching, I am digging deeper, because simply ignoring these issues won't move us any closer to understanding them.

I'm jealous of Sloane's trip and the work that she's going to be doing, helping people with micro-lending and hearing stories of people who are moving from poverty to self-sufficiency. It will be an amazing 3 months. I'm glad to know people like her who are willing to serve others for the good of mankind. If only more people were willing to sacrifice in order to do good, the world would be a much better place.

Blessings to you Sloane, like I said before, love others, serve them, listen and learn. The trip has just started, but your life will be changed forever.

andrew+seely blog

day24/vlog34
brought to you by viddler.com

note: I did shoot this on the correct day, but had uploading issues, hence the delay.

andrew+seely blog

I've been noticing a trend in movies lately and I think I've figured out the formula.

Since no one can come up with original ideas anymore, even good directors, I'll take a shot at trying to figure out movies that will probably be made in the next year or two.

We already know that Robocop and The Karate Kid are being re-made/re-imagined/re-booted so let's try and figure out good places for some people to start.

All you have to do is take a fairly successful movie or tv show from 25-30 years ago or a movie or tv show that people have just plain forgotten about and then somehow turn it into a movie.

My suggestions of things to come.

Dallas the movie.
Gremlins (re-boot)
MASH the new movie.
Family Ties the movie
The Lunch Club (sequel to the breakfast club)
Ferris Bueller goes to work
Goonies 2 (which has long been reported to be in the works)
CHiPs the movie
Somewhat less happy days (The Happy Days movie)
Harry and the Hendersons 2
Nan Nou Nan Nou (the Mork and Mindy movie)
A New Howard the Duck Movie
Time Bandits 2
Wall Street 2009

If any of you readers are producers or directors, please send royalty checks made out to Andrew Seely.

andrew+seely blog

Yesterday was a big day in Mac-land. The annual WWDC conference kicked off and Apple made a few announcements, none of huge surprise since the Apple Rumor Mill is always hard at work, and even Apple's tight lips can't usually keep what's about to come under wraps.

Technology moves at such a fast rate these days, that often is the case by the time you bring home something from the store and get it out of its package the product is out of date.

While Apple made some good announcements today, nothing to me felt earth shattering and made me truly desire to run out and go on an upgrade fest (not that I have the money to anyways).

Currently my Apple line up consists of:
A 2nd gen iPod Shuffle (1gig)
A iPhone 3G (previously had an original iPhone as well)
A MacBook Pro 15" 2.5GHz (early 2008)

At this point even with updates to all three of these products out there, I feel very satisfied with my lineup. I'll break down why for each one.

The iPod Shuffle, I use pretty much solely for the gym, and 1 gig is more than enough for me. I don't fee the need to own a 2 gig one, or to have the controls that are part of the new headset that comes with the 3rd gen iPod shuffle. I use shuffle and don't really rely on playlists for my workouts, which usually don't last more than 45min to an hour. The 1 gig gives me 13+ hours of music, so there is never really a need to worry about things getting stale.

As for an iPod on it's own, I find no need since my iPhone doubles as an iPod and I don't have 100's of gigs of music, so I never feel the need to carry 50+ gigs of music around with me, which I don't think I even have. I love the service Pandora, for streaming music on the iPhone and on the computer. And most days I have my macbookpro with me so I have access to the other maybe 20% of what I have loaded on my phone.

For the macbookpro, at this point the only real need to upgrade would be for a better battery life, hard drive space, and for ram. All which don't necessitate the need for a new computer. The price of this macbookpro was enough of an investment as it was, and I obviously don't have the disposable income to rush out and drop another $2500 on a new machine every year. While since having this machine for almost a year to the date (June 21st is the anniversary) two new 15" models have come out, there are not enough significant reasons to be envious of what is currently available. Or things that I mentioned are easily remedied for a low cost. As for the Ram, I am pretty sure I can go from my 2gig of Ram up to 4gig for less than $100, while the newest machine can support up to 8gig, I really don't see the necessity to have that much at this point, while I'm sure it would make things nicer, 4gig (if/when I upgrade will do fine, even for the light video editing I will be doing). As for the battery life, that's not too much of an issue. I did make the decision when buying my macbookpro to get an extra battery as I knew there would be a number of situations where I would be traveling and might need an extra battery when not in reach of an outlet. At this point the extra battery serves as a security blanket, and I have only had to rely on it a handful of times. This hard drive clocks in at 250 gigs, which was a serious upgrade from my 40 gigs of the last laptop I had, currently I'm using up around 185 gigs, with a portion of about 15 gigs set aside for dual boot to Windows XP. That leaves me around 50 gigs of unused space on the mac partition, which seems to be enough. And with external drive prices the way they are I can easily get around 1TB of space for around $100 which is extremely cheap. As for my OS, I love Leopard and can't wait for Snow Leopard this fall, and for an upgrade fee of $29, that can't be beat (and I get 6 gigs of space back when I upgrade). Basically for around $200 I can upgrade my macbookpro to levels that suit my needs.

Now on to the New iPhone 3G-S. I can say I'm not going to rush out for this phone. Does that mean I'm not going to get it at all? Well, yes and no. Finances first and foremost direct that decision. Even at the $199 price point for the 16 gig, it's still a bit of money. The main feature that draws me to this phone is the video/camera capabilities of this phone. I have long waited for video capabilities. More specifically I'm guessing that finally I'll be able to use the video service Qik. Nothing formal has been announced but, there has been long questions about why a version of the service, which is available for jail-broken iPhones and other mobile devices has not shown up in the app store. There is also large questions about whether or not existing iPhone customers will be able to upgrade their iPhones to 3G-S without incurring large fees from ATT. Rumors suggest that current 3G customers may need to wait 18months after the purchase date of their 3G phone to upgrade to the new 3G-S phone. Which would be a shame if ATT was that dumb. But after hearing that key features would not be supported upon launch of the phone, it is no surprise that ATT has dropped the ball on this as well. I'm sure more information will become available in the coming weeks. Though it is hard to offer any slack to ATT since they have long known about the plans of Apple and have done little to be ready for the launch of a new phone and new functionality. We'll see what happens to ATT's network in a mere week and a half when the new phones go live.

What I am most excited for are the iPhone 3.0 software update that comes in a week as well as Snow Leopard in the fall. These two upgrades to software seem to be well thought out additions to two existing platforms.

That's my mac wrap up and time will tell what else Apple has shoved up their sleeves and how it will impact the world on a technological and cool level.

andrew+seely blog

Well E3 kicked my butt more than I thought it would. It wiped all but basic function out of me. Hence the no blogging.

Though this weekend has/will be fun as we celebrate Paul Ellis and his bachelor weekend. I've known Paul for many years and he was and continues to be a great friend to me. I'm happy for him as his wedding day approaches and glad to know that he's found an amazing woman to share his life with.

So here's to Paul and to Traci as well. May their life together be one that is filled with support, love and each other.

andrew+seely blog

day16/vlog33
brought to you by viddler.com

andrew+seely blog

At an amazing restaurant in little tokyo called daikokuya. Amazing noodle/ramen house. You should make a point to get down here.

andrew+seely blog

You may have noticed that days 12&13 are missing. I'll retroactively post them when I get some time.

Today marks the start to E3 the yearly video game convention if you are unaware. I'll be headed down to the LA convention center to see what all the video game companies have to show off. This is one of the biggest conventions in the industry all year and is one of the most anticipated weeks as studios and companies usually use it to show off their big guns and make lots of surprise announcements concerning games and systems.

This year we will probably not see any breakthrough announcements when it comes to game systems (with the exception of the revamped PSP), though many are speculating that some of the big companies will be dropping some news about big franchises this week.

It's always kinda fun to think of myself as media and get exclusive access to these companies ahead of the what the general public knows. The ability to get hands on time with games that won't be released for months or even a year is something special that sometimes I forget is an honor and not necessarily a right.

Last's years highlight for me was being able get my hands on the WiiMotionPlus add on to the WiiMote controller for the Wii. Which basically translates 1:1 movement of the controller. It will be interesting to see what developers have had time to come up with utilizing that technology.

I don't know that I'll post much here about what goes on, unless something really sticks out to me. But I just wanted to share a little of what I get access to through my work in case anyone was curious as to the life of someone in the videogame journalism biz.

andrew+seely blog