Manny Recommends Vol. 1

Life made easy with some simple, weekly, suggestions.

by Manny Perez

    Gleaning over history, there are several decisions men and women much more powerful and influential than me have made that strike me as BAD. Buying real estate in the then booming Pompeii area. Trusting Severus Snape. Having a bite of the apple that nice, but kinda creepy, old lady offered. ALL choices, that if the person presented with them would have just turned in the opposite direction, the consequences would have been much easier (and shorter) to write down. In light of these tragic turns for the worst, I have decided to take the world by the hand and guide the people of this planet on the way toward GOOD decisions. Below are a few minimal-effort suggestions to get you started on your way to greatness, like solving a murder case, or creating international peace, or something. I don’t know.

Recycling Bins
Hey look! Free purple trash containers! Hooray!

    After watching the environmental phenomenon An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore, 2006), I’m truly surprised that I don’t see these things littering the streets all over the city. Even coupled with the current mentality that the sky is falling, and with the world’s polar bear cub population in steep decline due to the global-pollution-deforestation apocalypse, I still find myself craning my neck around street corners searching for the familiar purple container.
     Recycling, besides the huge bonus in karma, can be truly effective in shrinking down our landfills (an estimated 75% of everyday trash can be recycled), reduces overall energy usage, and cracks down on greenhouse emissions, basically creating new materials while reducing the use of old ones, and reaping all the benefits that go along with that.

Click here to sign-up for a free recycling bin for the household. Also, if you didn’t know, TJ has started its own recycling program here at school, so now you can’t ethically throw anything away, EVER.

 

 

 

 

Falafels
An ethnic food, but the really REALLY good kind.

    The one problem with falafels is, barring how freakishly hard they are to find, their description doesn’t reach the tasty standard its flavor has propped up for it. These things are delicious to the point that you’d never guess they are made of ground-up chickpeas, or that they are 100% vegetarian, or anything foreign like that; but they are, and the little balls are made better for it.
     Anyway, the version I’m particularly attached to comes in small rolled balls, about two inches in diameter. Lightly crunchy on the outside, due to the frying, and delicately soft on the inside, similar to a freshly baked croissant, the texture combines together to become very bready. Served and topped with the delectable and hard-to-pronounce-correctly sauce known as humus, the little brown globes ascend to the ranks of your very first Krispy Kream doughnut or a head of lettuce on a bad day. They are THAT good.
     Considering that these would probably sustain me almost completely if I were ever to cast a sympathetic glance at barnyard animals and go vegetarian, I’m surprised they haven’t yet caught the attention of the American mainstream. Then again, it is an ethnic food and the instant enemy of the picky US tongue, but this hasn’t stopped such worldly flavors as ramen and curry from gaining notoriety. I fully expect them to rise in popularity as awareness slowly increases; you can’t keep a good thing under wraps for long.

They are available at the sadly under-rated Falafel King at 825 Colorado Blvd. The friendly staff offers various choices on how their falafels can be served: from a simple side order of six balls with humus for $2.25, (or free if you click here), or a Super Falafel Pita with either a side of six more falafels or some French-fries. No matter your order though, falafels prove that there is no less than one thing in the Middle East we can all agree on.

 

 

 

 

Pilot G2 Gel Pen
The pen is mightier than the sword, but not really, just metaphorically.

    I’ve always liked gel pens. They’re very smooth and easy to handle and come with that very satisfying feeling of use akin to a thick Sharpie on construction paper. Yet then there’s the problem that over 80% of them come in really flamboyant colors, which is fine and everything if you’re the person to use those, but then there’s the problem of trying to turn in an essay on the topic of The Great Depression in purple gel ink. This is where the Pilot G2 steps in with its neutral and not-at-all exciting black pigment, gushy grip thing, and various talents.
    The Pilot G2’s strength lies in its utilization when writing. Barely having to touch the page, the pen seeps a thin and shimmering ink that may take a second to dry, but looks very pleasing; similar to an old-fashioned quill or fountain pen. Unfortunately, this may leave smudges to cramped and hurried writers (although the packaging calls it “smear-proof”).
     The pen’s second point of strength may very well also be its point of weakness: it is fun to use (as realistically fun as a pen can be). With its slippery-like handling and capability of thick lines, the G2 is now the ideal doodling tool, which can distract from more important tasks such as scribbling history notes, or turning in articles on-time. It would not be surprising if the acquirement of this pen could later be traced back as the point of a student’s academic downfall. It also has that addictive retractable clicker on one end.
    The doodling aspect is of course the third strength; as distracting as it may be. The pen is perfect for drawing miniscule diagrams of teachers shaking their fists on the margins of unimportant assignments or simple, meaningless, squiggles in arbitrary places, all while looking clean and solid like a marker.
    Looking back at an old 90’s kid show I used to watch, Blue’s Clues, about a pastel colored dog and her frequent attempts to communicate with her keeper by laying down paw prints all over his furniture, I remember the keeper (named Steve) used to draw all her clues in a notebook in very simple and quick brushes with his crayon. The drawings of all the objects were always clear and nonchalant, but that was the genius of them. While many artists of the time were hailed for their ingenuity, or their talent at realism, or for some haughty thing like that, Steve was always obvious and understandable with his art. It took him five strokes to draw a table, and for that I’ve always admired, and ultimately attempted to emulate, his style.
    Now, while it may be seemingly pointless to give an in-depth look into a kid’s TV program where a blue dog is named Blue, the fact that this entire psycho rambling has even happened can be attributed to when I first attained this pen.
    I would also not be surprised if Conan the Barbarian has used this pen to kill many demons.

Looking into actually purchasing more of these pens (I have a crate) I stumbled across to the Pilot pen website that advertises single pens for $1.95 or the G2 PRO (a really nice one) for $4.95. Apparently they actually do come in color varieties, ranging from pink to green, but thankfully the manufactures had the insight to keep the beloved black on the forefront. Myself, I’d rather buy them physically, and going down to my nearest Super Target, I found a rather manly set of five for a little over $6.

 

 

 

 

     Never underestimate the power of slight persuasion. Recycling will inevitably overthrow any other means of garbage handling, and with any luck, President Paul (crosses fingers) will speed up the process by having read this article, possibly signing the law changing that with a G2 – while eating a pyramid of falafels. How fitting if not incredible likely.