More and more I'm noticing health-conscious people say "I don't eat soy" with the same self-righteousness with which vegans inform their more barbaric friends that they don't eat meat, saying that something in soy mimics estrogen and can have noticeable effects on the development of children, especially males. Being as distrustful as I am of the American food system, I bookmarked this snippet for further research.

A quick search informed me that the concern is caused by phytoestrogens, which are plant compounds that are molecularly similar to and therefore can have similar effects as estrogen. Flax seed and other oilseeds contain the highest total phytoestrogen content, followed by soy bean and tofu. The benefits of these foods have been touted in the health food circuit for years, and soybeans have been a major staple of the Chinese diet for oh, five thousand years. And they seem to be doing just fine.

Yes, "science works, bitches," but the history of nutrition science has proven time and time again that it cannot match the knowledge and efficiency of thousands of years of eating. Any Michael Pollan reader can tell you that the problem with nutrition science lies within the name of the practice itself — based on the way scientists need to remove or control every variable besides the one they are testing, they are forced to take nutrients out of the context of food and food out of the context of culture, removing systems that have evolved with us ever since humans started eating. Why should I suddenly (and by suddenly, I mean within the last 100 years) need a scientist to tell me what to eat?

Now here's where I confess that this post started as a simple tumblelog link to the wikipedia page on phytoestrogens that grew into a rant too long for Tumblr's description field. I don't have the answer that could explain why our recent scientific development has never slowed the Chinese down, but I think the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't care.

Or maybe I'm just trying to validate why I shouldn't feel guilty about my brand new soymilk maker.

This is the joy of Creative Commons for me...artists helping artists who only want to make people happy. Remix and enjoy!

Individually wrapped awesome on a stick, originally uploaded by Lisa Brewster.

So ever since Dr. Horrible's SingAlong Blog came out, Dave's been flouncing around like a hero singing "A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do." So much that I decided it was going to be his birthday theme. At first my plan was to order a Dr. Horrible themed cake, but that proved rather problematic to arrange from San Diego. Fortunately, I found an awesome website called Veronica's Treats that will print whatever you want on cakes, brownies, and cookies and ship anywhere in the US. The only shippable cakes were rather small, and I wanted something he could share, so the sugar cookies on a stick were perfect.

Ordering was really easy. Select the item you want, customize a few color choices for icing, ribbons, and sprinkles, then checkout. Reply to the order confirmation email with your image attached. I finalized my design in photoshop first, but you can also send in a photo that they can spruce up and add text to. A live preview would have been nice, but I have no complains with my results trusting a human to tweak for best cookie-printing results.

Shipping was true to schedule (I picked standard UPS ground), but best to submit an order a couple of weeks before you need them if you're trying to have them in time for an important event.

And the cookies tasted awesome, so as long as you can bear watching someone eat your precious design, you can be comfortable actually serving these to guests who still value taste over novelty.

Since I'm still in withdrawal from having to send back my N95 that got me addicted to Qik, I've been squirming like crazy ever since new mobile vlogging service 12seconds.tv went into public alpha yesterday morning. I got my invite today, and immediately fell in love. While Qik is great for interacting with viewers while streaming live events, 12seconds really is an easy, mobile twitter for video. As someone who has interesting content to create but no time to muck around with video editing, 12seconds takes the pressure off even more by only allowing "12 seconds" of content. The brief time limit also has the benefit of removing inhibitions to vlogging, since posters don't feel intimidated by the need to engage someone's attention for minutes at a time.

Oh, and you don't have to have any kind of special software to record video. If you're using the website, a standard flash application will allow you to record from your webcam. But what's cool is that when you're out and about, any Internet enabled cell phone that records video can send your update to a special email address. Everyone can use this.

So even though you only have to be interesting in 12 second bursts now, you still want people to watch these vidlets. You can follow friends within the system and automatically update twitter when you've posted a new video, plus there's pages for all recent and popular videos. Users can leave comments, but there's no way to reply with your own video (yet, I assume). But 12seconds already understands that the more people use these posts off their site, the happier their users will be and the faster their site will grow. They've developed two sizes of blog widgets that you can use now, and one would assume FriendFeed integration is coming soon. I'm trying to pull my 12seconds RSS feed into my recently resumed tumblelog, but not having luck yet...I'm sure I can hack something up. =]

Verdict: There's definitely room for both Qik and 12seconds, at least in my mobile toolkit.

Going for a night swim, the pool had been up in the low 90's, so the water was warm.

this week i'm going to have time to cook, i swear.

French Fries Non-Stop! (Cyan's Birthday) at Frjtz
The Mission, San Francisco, California, USA

One of my favorites. I had the AF point shifted to the 1/4 point on the right. Happy accidents!

2008-0065 139, originally uploaded by tychay.

Adelle (she's another Zivity model) and me at Cyan's "French Fries Non-Stop" birthday party at Frjtz in San Francisco last weekend.

French Fries Non-Stop! (Cyan's Birthday) at Frjtz
The Mission, San Francisco, California, USA

To spare you the drama of wondering what happens in the video above...I didn't make it to the next round.  But that's ok!  As I've said before, in the past few weeks I've learned so much about myself, my abilities, and where I thought my limits were that I wouldn't trade that knowledge for all the followers on twitter.

This experience has changed how I approach my life, and for that reason alone this contest is a personal success for me.

And support!  God, I would have turned around and went home before even making it to the Mahalo offices on the first day if it wasn't for my dear friends who really and truly make me feel like I'm selling myself short for not following my dreams (yes, that's quite cheesy...deal with it).  Specifically, I couldn't have done anything without my partner in crime and vegan ice cream hunter David Horn (actually, he's the sole reason why I've eaten anything since April), Brynn Evans for being one of my favorite people on the planet, Alex Kawas because months ago he planted the first seed of thought that I should shoot for an opportunity like this if it ever came up, my amazing role model and mentor Cyan Banister, Patrick Crowley for keeping me sane, Declan Fleming for being the absolute best at finding something nice to say about me, Larry aka ConnectedGeek for stepping in as my Chief Strategy Officer, and my mother for keeping me more informed on how the contest is progressing than even the Mahalo production staff.  You all mean the world to me.

You know you can count on your friends, but what I never counted on was the support from hundreds of people who were activated to form the Lisa Nation.  My twitter follower count has gone up by something like 200 people, there are 57 people in the fan club ConnectedGeek started, at some point my website went up from PR4 to PR5, and my original contestant photo got almost 70 responses all in my favor.  This is many orders of magnitude more attention than any other contestant has generated so far, which has left me both shocked and flattered.  I mean, really...wow.  Thank you.

So now we're all left with a bit of a problem.  A lot of people were rooting for me in this contest, but I don't want anyone to feel let down or lose interest just because I'm out of the running.  Someone else still has to win, and from what I know public opinion will matter for the final round in some capacity.  So who should we vote for instead?

If you spend any length of time around me at all, you'll quickly learn that I care a lot about this little concept called community, especially in San Diego.  Community means nothing if you're not supporting and promoting those in your network, so my choice for the next host is an easy decision to make.  Kristina Allison also comes to Mahalo with no podcasting experience, but she's a rockstar so that's ok.  Referred to as the "dark horse" in previous rounds, the judges saw a fight in her that was worth investing in to see what she could do in the next round.  And as you can see in the video above, Kristina has pulled to the lead and definitely started to kick some ass.  San Diegans and netizens alike, I encourage you to join me in supporting Kristina as she produces her own Mahalo Daily episode this week.  Stay tuned for updates on where the voting will take place!

As for my own plans, seeing that people are inspired by the ideas I want to evangelize has in turn inspired me to seek out other opportunities to connect on this level even more.  The whole reason I joined this contest was to take my career in a drastically new direction, and because of you guys I can see that future starting to take shape.  I may not be materializing at Mahalo, but this girl still has a few good cards tucked in her stocking.

My interview for round two was published last night! I'm the third contestant...just look for the girl with the Microformats logo. This is the first time I've even watched my segment, and it's unbelievably exhilarating to see myself fitting into this kind of role. It's felt like ages since I last filmed up at the Mahalo offices for this, and now I'm so excited again that I can't wait to go back!

What do you think? Let me and Mahalo know in the YouTube comments.

IMG_6310, originally uploaded by banro21.

Screw the learning and the sharing and the open and all that new age Internet crap. This is what barcamp is really all about.

if only every human canvas had a theatre degree

Sent from a typo-prone iPhone.

Joyent scaled with rails in 2006, originally uploaded by Lisa Brewster.

One of the shirts Patrick is donating to the Schwag Swap at BCSD tomorrow.