So I was wondering today why everything we talk about such as passions, feelings, emotions are all linked to the heart. I mean after all, isn't our brain the thing that controls us, allows us to think and such?
But then it occurred to me. Our entire life depends on the heart. Even if we were brain-dead, we would still be alive, but if we had no heart we would be dead. These passions and feelings that we have in a romantic relationship are placed in the heart, because that's where those feelings are most valuable. We don't put feelings in our ear, we don't put feelings in our brain - we put them in our heart. And i guess the reason for putting feelings and having someone "in your heart" is because if those feelings weren't there, you would be "dead" so-to-speak. Maybe that's why the terms "heartbreak" or "a broken heart" is used- because we feel like we're dead.
yum yum! I've been searching for a recipe of this soup for at least 5+ years now. I spent a summer in Mont Tremblant in Quebec and went to a French restaurant and had an amazing watercress soup. Watercress isn't very common, and most likely cannot be found in any supermarket- I got mine from an asian supermarket.
Watercress is extremely healthy for you and is loaded with Iron and Vitamin C. I followed this recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Cooking book and I modified it a bit and absolutely loved it. Check out the recipe here. I used a sweet onion and used 1.5 white potatoes instead. Mince/Dice and fry it up!
Prepare for lots of chopping. Sacrificed blood sweat and tears just chopping the onion.
I'm normally not one to measure things out so I just use my best guess. Heat it up over the stove and then puree it in a blender. Check out my results below!
Boiling the ingredients in chicken stock on the stove top
Voila! Spinach and Watercress soup
I'm extremely happy with the results! I've tried to recreate the same soup I had in Month Tremblant at least ten times- I've tried adding a bit of cream to get a creamy texture, I've tried absolutely everything and this is the best that I have ever done. Highly recommend it! it's nutritious and delicious (hehe, no pun intended).
For those who know me, I'm a huge workout/gym-addict. I love nothing more than pumping irons, hot sweaty yoga classes, interval training cardio sessions and pushing myself. I find that it's the only time that I can focus on myself, and the sweat and rush of endorphins are exhilarating post-workout. For those busy people like me, you are most likely looking to get in a workout in the least amount of time as possible. Something that I have found that has worked extremely well for me is Circuit Training Strength Sessions and Interval Training Cardio sessions.
For strength training, I follow a circuit training method- so instead of doing one set of squats and resting 30seconds, I move onto the next exercise which focuses on a different muscle group. Repeating this sort of method can definitely save a good amount of time and keeps your heart rate up. An important thing to keep in mind is the your pace ! I have seen so many muscular men grunting and using momentum to lift the heavy weights -> wrong. I loveee KOKO Fit Club (for those who have it in the states, and are fortunate to be close enough to the locations in Canada. How it works is that a strength training workout sessions are stored onto a USB stick which you plug into the machine each time (The nerdy side of me loves this :D ). Each workout is done to perfectly match your body, such as your height or the length of your limbs. This is perfect for those who have a weird body like me! My 5'1-ness, long arms, yet short legs can still accommodate to these workouts so I'm sure practically everyone can as well. I also love the fact that the USB stick remembers which weights I used for which exercises and tells me which pace I should go at.
For Cardio exercises, I normally go on the treadmill, or run outside, or go on the elliptical. Coming from a girl who used to run on the treadmill for an hour or so on a daily basis, I thought coming into Koko fit club I could tackle anything and no cardio session could beat me. I was wrong. The high intensity elliptical workouts leave me panting like a dog every time but has done wonders on my body! 15 minutes of high-intensity interval = 30 minutes of steady state interval. I was in shock when I found out about this because I realized I had wasted so much time on the treadmill (Boo).
Next time you're on working out and really want to get that extra push, I recommend you try out some interval training. Below is a sample workout... try it out. it works I swear. If this is not enough for you, please tell me your secrets!
Elliptical Interval Training (15 minutes)
1 minute - 5 incline/5 resistance/120 strides per minute
1 minute -5 incline/5 resistance/125 strides per minute
2 minute -10 incline/10 resistance/130 strides per minute
1 minute -11 incline/12 resistance/130+ strides per minute, or all out
1 minute -same as above but strides per minute below 100
1 minute -12 incline/15 resistance/130+ strides per minute, or all out
1 minute -same as above but strides per minute below 100
1 minute -13 incline/17 resistance/130+ strides per minute, or all out
1 minute -same as above but strides per minute below 100
1 minute -10 incline/10 resistance/125 strides per minute
2 minute -13 incline/15 resistance/130 strides per minute
1 minutes -0 incline/0 resistance/strides per minute below 100
I really enjoy trying new restaurants and different cafes, and a personal favorite of mine is Stoney's Bread Company located in Oakville, Ontario (map). It's a warm, buzzing environment and their Sunday brunches (along with sandwiches) are to die for. I consider it a "hidden gem" as most people don't know about it except the locals. Check out my Pacific Coast Fritata below!
Stoney's Bread Company Pacific Coast Fritata
One thing I absolutely love about this place is the environment. You can go on a Sunday morning and the place would already be packed, mostly filled with families, or friends - always a warm atmosphere to come into on a Sunday morning. However, the place is kind of small and has a Williams-cafe type of feel where you need a number, grab a table, and the orders will come to you, so often times you will need to be waiting for a table. Personally, I have never waited more than 15 minutes for a table so it's definitely worth the wait.
I also find their menu reasonably priced, typically around $9-20, around the same for other breakfast cafes. I personally love the fact that all their selections and garnishments for their breakfast items are combinations I would never have thought of. You won't find your typical "2 eggs scrambled, bacon and sausage, with fries" here.
A definite must-try for everyone ! In the meantime you can drool over their menus.
Ideas nowadays never seem to be original, and nothing ever really comes from true inspiration. Innovation (in my personal opinion) is bringing something completely new onto the market, something that no one has seen, something people will say "wow!" to. As my professor once said, the most interesting thing, and possibly the most challenging thing with innovation is that humans typically tend towards the things we are most familiar with.
Take the segway for example. The design is brilliant- who wouldn't want to "just stand" and go places? The segway is possibly the greatest personal electrical transport system available. You would really think that the segway would be taking over the streets by now. However, there is nothing familiar to us about the segway - which is the reason why people never really got into the fad. The segway is definitely innovative, don't get me wrong, but to have a product that is both successful AND innovative is the ultimate challenge.
With the upcoming release of the RIM's Playbook, I feel like this topic is most appropriate for discussion today. RIM is receiving criticism for their lack of innovation, due to competition in the industry (i.e. Apple, Google Android) and I personally feel that although the Playbook is not up to par with the tablet industry, I wouldn't so easily dismiss the things that RIM has done quite well. If you don't know much about the upcoming Playbook, you can find the specs here.
Innovative:
The innovative things I personally found working as an intern at a blackberry developer partner is that the playbook's 7-inch form is definitely the way to go. I love the idea of being able to put a tablet in my pocket (or purse, because I am a woman). The fact that it will be able to run androids apps is also huge. I imagine that another company, say Apple for example, has never even thought about running android apps on their devices.
Although the playbook does not necessarily appeal to the everyday consumer, I imagine for large corporations this type of tablet is exactly what is needed. For example, imagine if all corporations who currently have SAP ERP systems, invested in playbooks and was able to manage their SAP services, whether it is banking, supply chain and etc. on-the-go on these portable devices. The Playbook has definitely won the corporate world in that aspect.
Success:
Who knows if the Playbook will be successfull, but by the looks of it, the Playbook will not do as well as RIM has hoped. The fact that the Playbook is currently missing key features such as mobile connectivity, email client, bbm, all which were natually expected to be there upon release date is a big mistake. As of now, there are still five days before the big release so let's all hope RIM will be able to step up it's game but by the looks of it, Bloomberg seems to be dissapointed by RIM's playbook.
Ideas:
I think in order for RIM's Playbook to be successful, RIM would definitely need to fill in on those missing feature pronto. The fact that the second version of iPad has already been released, RIM's Playbook should be bringing something even newer to the market. I think something like Facetime over BBM, or support for Video Conferencing from device for LiveMeeting could definitely help. Some sort of sync between BlackBerry and Playbook which allows the BlackBerry keyboard to sync with the screen on Playbook to allow for quicker typing, or even attaching it to a collapsable external keyboard to become a netbook (similar to the EEE Pad Transformer) would definitely help it's dominance in the corporate world. Laptops tend to be too big nowadays, and most corporate users are looking for something more portable. I, for one, hate carrying my laptop everyday to work.
Let me know what you think, or if you have any ideas that you think would help as well!
I would love to hear what other ideas people have to say, so feel free to drop a comment.
Welcome to my page! I created allthingsBonline to share my ideas, and thoughts on current technology, design, music, photography, trends, and anything else your heart desires. In no way am I affilliated with any businesses or companies- but instead, this is a personal scrapbook to share the things I enjoy, and hopefully you all enjoy as well.
Feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what you think!
