Had a great cook-in yesterday. Every one made their own pizza and had a good time eating as a pack! I've always enjoyed eating with other people. It seems as in most animals we were meant to socialize and interact with other humans. Observe people as animals and you will see animals. But it's more than that. Much of human misery comes from the problem that we don't think of ourselves as animals, and as such tend to abuse ourselves and our bodies in ways that we would never think of treating animals. Specifically, not exercising our bodies, feeding ourselves junk food, putting people that hate each other in the same room, and not neutering most people.

The other side to this pack animal business is that people have a basic, human need to hang out. It's not all in the head or a symptom of low self-esteem -- if you don't spend time talking to other people, you will go psychotic. One of the worst punishments prisoners have is solitary confinement. Just being in a room with no-one to talk to is not a healthy way to live. This is why teleconferencing and working from home turn out to be such bad ideas -- people try it, find out how socially isolating it is, and get lonely. Community is incredibly important. People will gladly kill and die for community. Charles Manson sucked in young girls and turned them into killers by giving them a family.

Everything is an example of a community. Online communities are replacements for the communities which aren't possible outside -- cars,economy and fear have all made people into single-serving friends. This is why the Internet and telephones are so popular -- they fill the need for connection. (And sex, of course). Point is, we would never treat animals this way. And the lunacy of trying to live your life alone can be finally brought home if you buy a game called The Sims or play Farmville, which is a connection simulator in itself.    

So I've been keeping my eye on Pizzaoven.com's twitter lately, and I'm (not) surprised at the amount of tweets concerning pizza. People seem to have a love-hate relationship though, not everyone has luck cooking their pizzas to perfection - in fact, there's tons of tweets complaining about burnt pizzas!


How much do you love pizza?

There's people out there who have come up with gluten-free pizza dough recipes (which I really appreciate, as I have friends who can't consume gluten), people who have found interesting pizza activities for their kids, and even people who tattoo themselves with pizza-related tattoos! Or perhaps you're like me and the only pizza activity you truly enjoy is, well, eating it!

For every day pizza baking, make sure you don't open the oven door (no peeking!) until its done. If you really must, there's always the oven window and light. Opening the oven door allows the heat to escape and interrupts the evenly baking process. This actually applies to many different foods that need to be baked in an oven (such as cakes, which are my favorite foods to bake).

Check out our website if you haven't yet, we're working hard to semi-revamp it so its easier for our customers to use. If you have any suggestions or feedback, we'd love to hear it. :)

"Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail"  Wonder who came up with that thought?  Were they a genius or were they just lost.  There is a fine line between being lost and being found.  So the question is:  Are you on the path?  Are you making a trail?  It's ok really if you are following, because if we did not have any followers we would not have any leaders.  Think about it; Who would you lead if there was no one to follow you.  Would you be on a path or blazing a trail.  Don't spend too much time trying to figure it out you might miss the path or was it a trail. 

See you next week.

 

 

Cable TV is great! Although I do not watch much TV if the only choice that I had were network TV I probably would not have a TV (which may not be a bad idea ). I may be one of the few people in America who has never watched an episode of American Idol, any of the Survivor shows, and certainly not any of the so-called reality shows. However because of cable I do get to watch and love the many nature shows available. Last week with the lousy weather here in Central Kentucky I was able to travel all over the world in just 3 hours by watching Wild Russia, Yellowstone Bison, and the Secrets of Elephants. I have probably seen every episode of Big Cat Diary (my favorite) at least 10 times. Every time I watch a nature show I never fail to both learn something new and there is some aspect of a particular animal’s life that amazes me. Did you know that at one time there were 30 million bison in America and that number dwindled to just 25 (not 25,000,000 but 25) in the late 1890’s when they were protected by the US government and brought to Yellowstone Park? The Wild Russia series is relatively new and I have not seen all of the episodes but it has brought many new species into my life. (I do wish that they were more detailed with their information. For instance in last nights episode about the Caucuses they indicated that the numbers of one breed of animal were dwindling rapidly and they would probably disappear within 10 years, but they did not mention why they were disappearing.) Although there are similarities in breeds of animals in different parts of the world, there is always something unique about the breed in their own special part of the world. In the elephants show I was once again reminded of their deep family bonds as one member of the herd died and the whole herd gathered around to “mourn” their loss for hours. It is also good to know that the 10 most poisonous snakes all live in Australia! The next time that you are tempted to watch something mindless on network TV, instead turn to Animal Planet or NatGeo, you will be enlightened.

In researching pizza blogs, I have stumbled across a deluge of information. Some entertaining, some educational, some humorous, and the exceptional few that provide all of those qualities at once!

Below are a couple of our Pizza blogging friends whom I would like to introduce… For the pizza connoisseur, pizza lover, or simply the pizza eater taking a break to enjoy your favorite pie… you should make it a point to stop by the following pizza related, entertaining, educational & witty blogs.

Worstpizza.com is a fantastically entertaining blog that’s dedicated to “finding the best pizza places, by sorting through the worst.” They take recommendations of pizza places for review, try them out, then they post the reviews on their blog, accompanied by little pizza pie icons with the number of slices which indicate the rating of the pizza place being reviewed. 0-3 slices are places they wouldn’t recommend their readers to try, 4-5 slices are places they would like to try again since they were deemed ‘average’, 6-7 slices are places that are fantastic and you should check them out. Finally, 8 slices is a perfect rating and a place you should not avoid. The reviewers must have first proven themselves worthy of reviewing, and are self-described “skeptics” which makes reading their posts quite informative. Visiting recently, I saw that “Pizza TV” is coming soon…I’ll be sure to stay tuned to check that out!

Blog-Pizza is a blog all about Italian Pizza. Recognized by the Daily Reviewer as one of the top Pizza blogs, and also recommended by Pizza Magazine Quarterly PMQ Pizza Magazine as a site they like, the blog was created for the intentions of uniting the whole pizza world in one place. The folks here claim to be very serious about pizza. From their blog, you can find many more interesting pizza links & blogs. These are the same folks who run the Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog as well.  Just as the name implies, this is a blog about the best pizzas to be obtained in Philadelphia.

The above mentioned blogs are packed with plenty of information to keep your sponging brain occupied for hours, teaching you more than you ever wanted to know about Pizza.  As I am always on the lookout, stay posted for more blogging friends to come in the future…I’ll share them here as I find them.

 

To address Fash's question, in his blog, "Interesting Views," So who is the true genius, Hawking or Lennon? ...perhaps they are both cut of 'genius' cloth.  Perhaps, as Hawking states, the universe is indeed governed by the laws of science - governed by rules which do not change, governed by pure facts which are beyond our control. Regardless, here to populate this world is the ever-flawed, endlessly imperfect human. Aside from the natural universal laws which provide and enable us to sustain life, Man is not so much governed by facts or laws;  instead, we are governed by free will and individual thought. It is the flawed human collective which causes war and famine. The imperfect human granted free thought is the one who kills his brother in the name of what's ‘right’.  John asks us to imagine a highly enlightened man, a man with no greed. Imagine Mankind existing in harmony, with no separations of religion or politics, all equal, no hunger...a brotherhood. How lovely would it be if we were given the capacity to think beyond ourselves and for the true good of the universe?

Yes, the laws of science govern our universe as we live in it, and as Hawking suggests,  perhaps God does not interfere with those governing laws.  I believe what we have here is a 'genius' and a 'philosopher', or perhaps we have 2 individuals who already do(did) think for the greater good of humankind... If the universe were comprised of Stephen Hawking and John Lennon, I would bet that they would live in harmony, not in war.