One of the many perks of dating an Israeli goddess is that she can make you delicious, nutritious, spicy shakshuka if you pester her enough!

Shlomit makes Shakshuka

Here’s another shakshuka related post. And here’s a photo of my one-hand egg breaking:

Last step: break the eggs into small holes digged in the thick sauce.

The 20th Anual Austin Hot Sauce Festival was held on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was so hot and the lines were so long that I only got to try a few sauces before looking for air-conditioned refuge. My favorite this year: Don’t Panic Hispanic. Unlike past years, it does not seem that the press was alerted of my presence. Good, because I hate paparazzi.

Hot Sauce connoisseurs

As part of my ongoing investigation into my Native American lineage, Shlomit and I attended the Longhorn American Indian Council Powwow in the University of Texas last Saturday. The event was not as large as I expected, and I did not find any hints of having any Native American ancestry whatsoever. But it was an interesting and educational time. Here’s a little video of an interesting Cherokee dance to a catchy tune that I recorded:

More info on LAIC.

I love Opera. I sing it every day while taking a shower. I make up the words and I do little dances. So when I heard that Verdi’s Aïda was coming to the Long Center, and that it was FREE, well, I couldn’t resist.

In my haste to get tickets I did not read the full description to realize that it was not a live opera, but a video recording. The performance was great, but the editing was cheesy and the special effects non-existent, except for the fade-to-red-curtain trick every 5 minutes. And of course, it’s not quite same as seeing it live. But it’s free, so I can’t complain (too much). More details here.

Austin skyline as seen from the Long Center

I'm not in this photo because I took it. So what.

From pink to brown: Marcos, everyone else.

The summer is hitting us hard with high temperatures, and there is no better way to beat those than a Saturday on a boat in Lake Travis. Given that Luis “Lucho/El Brody” Navarro was in town, we made him handle the organization (great success). We headed out on a lovelyAugust 21. Highly recommended.

More photos at The MKX® Photo Central.

I took Leny, Sonia, and Luis Kirsch, who were visiting last weekend, to see the overwhelming spectacle that Mother Nature puts on for us every summer night in downtown Austin, when the world’s largest urban bat colony emerges from their home under the bridge on Congress Avenue, all approx. 1.5 million of them.

I have an older video from 2006 but the this one is in full 720p cellphone quality thanks to the unstoppable progress of human technology. We’ve also posted about other local bat incidents in this website before, and then shortly after.

I am a big fan of Bodum’s French Press Coffee Mug, and so are cockroaches. It provides a fresh dose of morning caffeine with minimal effort, and I love minimal efforts, especially when it involves kitchen work or blog post writing.

The problem is that when you handle this thing the most, you do it before you have had your coffee. So today I put mine in a plastic supermarket bag, not noticing the lack of bottom in said bag. My mug slid accelerating at roughly 9.8 meters per second before coming to an abrupt stop when it hit the dreaded un-stainable carpet. A double-wall penetrating crack is not in the bottom corner. For now I can use my backup French Press Coffee Mug (yes, I have a backup) but I better get a new one. Bummer.

Are those Chewbacca, Luke, Obi Wan, and Han in the cockpit of my red Honda Civic?

No my friends, your eyes do not deceive you. It is my new Millennium Falcon Auto Sun Shade that deceives you.

Sort of a plug, but here it goes: Vonage, the VoIP phone company, released an interesting app for iPhone, iPod touch, and Android (iPad coming soon).

It works like this: you install the Vonage Mobile application on your phone and log in using your Facebook account. Once you do that, it will show all your friends that also happen to have this application installed. You can then call them and talk to them, over both 3G and WiFi. And it’s free – even if they are in a different country – because the call goes over the internet.

The app is far from perfect. For instance, it does not yet support multitasking on iOS 4. But it works, and it’s free, and it’s convenient. Hopefully they work the kinks out soon. Try it out, and if I am your Facebook friend, then I will automatically show up on your contacts list. However, be careful if you are using this on 3G and have a limited data plan.

On August 22nd the National GoTopless Protest will be held in Austin on the corner of Congres and 6th. It’s organized by GoTopless, an organization claiming that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men.

The MKX® is all for gender equality. Yes, we even believe that women should be allowed to drive.

But in all seriousness, this is an interesting topic and movement in which some of our society’s taboos are questioned. I might go and participate (I think I’d be required to wear a bikini top). The only think I don’t like about this whole thing is that it was founded by the Raelian movement, which is pretty out there when it comes to wackiness levels.