This tasted better than it looks, if you can believe it. I skinned some Roma Tomatoes, chopped up a red onion (about 1/4 of the onion), and slivered a few leaves of fresh basil. Doused everything with olive oil, salt and pepper. I bought a roasted garlic "artisian loaf" from Wild Oats which I sliced on the bias. It took a few runs through the toaster before it was good and crisp. I tried rubbing with a piece of raw garlic, but I don't think it really made a difference.

Man this was good. I swear, the best bruschetta I've ever had. So good it doesn't even need any mozzarella. I think I'll be making this a lot more while tomatoes are nice and tasty this summer.

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it would consider reinstating a death penalty law that requires juries to sentence a defendant to die -- rather than serve life in prison -- when the evidence for and against imposing death appears equal. Justices will hear arguments next fall in Kansas' appeal of a state Supreme Court ruling that found the law unconstitutional. The 1994 law says if the evidence for and against imposing a sentence of death is equal, Kansas juries must choose death instead of life in prison.

How do these people do it? Isn't Kansas a playground of the religious right -- the very same people who claim to espouse the "Culture of Life"? You can't claim to support "life" when you want to kill people! It just doesn't make any sense. The mental gymnastics these people must go through in order think like this must be astonishing. On second thought they probably just don't realize their own inconsistency.

This is the first photo from my (hopefully) year-long project to take more photos. You've actually seen this before, but I felt it was appropriate since Laura and I made bruschetta again last night. This is an absolutely awesome appetizer in the hot summer months when tomatoes are at their peak. This time I think I might post a more complete description of the recipe.

I tried to start a project earlier last New Year's: take a picture every day for 1 year. I failed miserabl. I think I ended up taking 1 picture. At the time I had a big deadline at work, and my life was reduced to my commute + my time at work. Both didn't really seem like subjects worthy enough for photograph.

I was wrong of course. There are plenty of things to photograph in your every day life. My commute alone was probably rife with opportunities. Now that Laura is getting more interested in photography, it might be difficult to take the camera with me every day. But I still might give it a try.

Matthew Haughey started a similar project, except he's a year and a half into a 10 year project. He's captured some really great pictures, such as the one above.

On a similar vein, an Argentine family has taken pictures of themselves on the same day every year for nearly 30 years, yielding a remarkable sequence of pictures, not to mention crazy hair styles throughout the ages!

So, we'll see how it goes. Perhaps I'll try to start tomorrow, and I'll just take pictures until I stop. They're probably going to be mind-bogglingly mundane. But hey, that's my life in a nutshell.

I made the best pancakes for dinner last night. They were based on Alton Brown's recipe from I'm Just Here for More Food, with a few minor changes. The recipe, from memory:

• 2 cups milk (I actually used about 1.5 cups milk, and 1/2 cup of soy milk, but i'm not sure this would actually make any difference).
• 4 T butter, melted
• 2 eggs

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 4 T sugar

Mix all the dry goods together, and seperately mix all the wet stuff together. The combine, but do not over mix. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while you heat up your griddle to 350 °. Lightly butter, and wipe all excess butter from griddle with a paper towel. Careful, that's 350 °! Wipe down the griddle after each batch with the paper towel.

These pancakes came out just perfect. They were wide, fluffy and perfectly golden brown. I couldn't really taste the soy milk, but I wonder what they would taste like if I upped the soy milk percentage. Soy milk has a certain nuttiness that I find very appealing.

I cashed in my Tournament Entry Chip on Ultimate Bet tonight. I won it playing a $13 tournament and it allowed me to enter a $100 tournament. 130 people showed up. The winner receives a trip to the World Series of Poker, valued at $11,000, and 4 other places pay out meager sums.

It was a lot to ask, being my first tournament. I was actually really nervous, but I played well. At one point I was 14th in chips, but I got a horrible run of cards and was slowly blinded to death. Don't get me wrong, I didn't fold every hand, I won a few and lost a few. On hand in particular crippled me, when I had a pocket pair of tens. I was all in on the flop, which seemed to miss both of us. My opponent had a Ace high flush draw, which he hit with my 3rd ten. The river was no help, and that left me in the short stack. I barely had enough to play around twice, and I didn't last much longer than that.

If there's one thing I can say I did wrong: I didn't get aggressive enough when the blinds really started to increase. Of course, I really had a horrible run of cards, rarely seeing as much as an Ace. I ended up in 32nd place; in the top 25%. One thing that I'm sure of: I'll be trying again soon. It was really fun!

Laura and I made Mexican Casserole again on Friday. This picture is just before we delivered it into the oven. This is one of the few recipes that I experiment with regularly, and can make without consulting any recipes. This time, I chopped up a medium onion, and a sweet red pepper, and sweated those for about 5 minutes until they were translucent. Then I made a roux with some flower and 2 cups of vegetable broth. I think it wasn't as thick as they normally are due to the lack of dairy, but it still came out reasonably thickened.

At this point, I realized that we didn't have any cheese in the house for the topping. What good is Mexican Casserole without cheese?! So, in my sickened state, Laura made me go to Wild Oats in order to buy a block of cheese. Leaving Laura in charge of the food was tough, but she did admirable job.

Given the smooth consistency of the meal, it was relatively nice on my horribly disfigured throat, and I swear it was one of the best casserole's I've made yet!

The current state of my throat:

The doctor says that its just a virus infection. It started with a sore throat, and moved through my intestines and stomach (if you know what I mean). All I'm left with now is the sore throat, which really isn't so much a sore throat as an INFECTED THROAT!

I'm going to take it easy this weekend and hope that it goes away. The question is, when do I make another trip to the doctors to get that scary mess surgically removed?