Ideal Bite

Single and looking for a hot girl's lawn to mow? Look no further than Jen. Not only is she looking for someone to mow her lawn, she's also looking for a significant other. The best part is, per today's tip, you won't even have to bag the clippings. Post a comment to apply!

-Toshio...off to write a personals ad for myself...

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Beer is my favorite drink, hands down, and it was one of the reasons why parting Portland, OR, last August was such sweet sorrow. The town has more microbreweries than anywhere else in the country -Bridgeport, McMenamin's, Full Sail, Hair of the Dog, Widmer, you name it - living in Portland you really have no need to consume beer produced outside of a 25-mile radius of Mt. Tabor.

The place is also home to the only movie theaters I know of, outside of Asheville, NC, where you can order a pitcher of microbrew before you take in a second-run movie. I miss you, PDX, and promise to return soon!

-Toshio...off to drink some of my new local microbrew, SF's Anchor Steam...

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... you'd be surprised at the number of women for whom THAT is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous aging;

Or take arms against a sea of wrinkles,

and by opposing, end them...

OK, OK, I'll stop (but in truth, I really wanted to do the whole bloody speech).  So, that pesky botox question... once the domain of freaks and actresses, it's become an amazingly normal and commonplace procedure these days.  I know many, many women, normal, everyday women - not rich, not actresses, not even particularly into fashion and beauty - who have gone under the needle (and not to get a tat).

And the thing is - while I'm terribly opposed to the whole thing (and COMPLETELY disturbed by the

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Last year, I remodeled the bathroom. For the first time in years, fixtures matched. The tile grout wasn't stained gray from mold (despite endless scrubbing). I stopped knocking my shoulder against the unwieldy cabinet someone thought to install on the back of the door. Even the accidental drill-through to the neighbor's apartment turned out: at last, I can borrow that sugar I've been needing.

The bathroom has taken shape as my own little spa, my own little sanctuary. A few candles, a few rubber duckies (when better company can't be found), and some bath salts set me right every time. My faves: Lush Ne Worry Pas bath bomb (leaves skin supersoft), Aveda Soothing Aqua Therapy (seriously relaxes muscles), and Baththerapy Natural Mineral Bath (which you can sometimes find in bulk at Whole Foods). If you can't make it to an eco-spa-create one of your own!

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None of us here at The Bite has ever done a true house swap (mainly because until recently, we didn't have houses where the landlord wouldn't go off his rocker over strangers in the place).  Having rented other houses while traveling, however, I can attest to the fact that a vacation - particularly an international one - is just so much better in a home.

My personal favorite?  Villa Marisa on the Amalfi Coast. It was on the western side of the Sorrento peninsula, with views of the Bay of Naples, Ischia, Capri and Vesuvius.  We watched the sunset nightly on the rooftop, sipping wines from Campania.  Sure, Pompeii was rockin'.  Sure, Positano was filled with people too beautiful to describe.  Sure, driving in Naples was like playing a video game, dodging dodgy pedestrians and

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Jen's probably the biggest eco-geek among us. She became a vegetarian at age 11 (one year before I did), lives on what amounts to a farm sanctuary complete with a green barn, and has a green MBA. It surprised none of us to discover this online album from her time consulting for a Costa Rican eco-lodge.

Check it out, and if you have any eco-lodge recommendations, sound off in the comments.

- Toshio...off to plan my next vacation...

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I'm the type of person who always has to check luggage, even if I'll only be gone for the weekend and it's summer (meaning no heavy, ungainly coats to stuff into my bags).

Have any of you seen the Martha Stewart episode where Martha packs her suitcase? The woman's got talent. Somehow, she's able to fit about a month's worth of clothes and toiletries into a regular-sized piece of luggage. Amazing.

I'm headed back to Orange County for a long weekend for my sister's graduation in a couple weeks, and I'd love to be able to carry on. To all the master luggage-packers out there: got any tips for me?

-Toshio...off to see how much stuff I can fit in my backpack...

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A few years back, there was a commercial (I think it's for auto insurance or something) where George Hamilton-ish guy talked about how he was a celebrity and everyone treated him
specially because of it.

The point of the commercial was that EVERYONE gets treated the same way - celebrity or not - by that company. (Sad for the company that I can't remember what it was - not the best branding...)

Well, that guy is me when I stay at hotels.

I LOVE hotels. Even when traveling on business, I still get to my room and look through all the bath products, check out the minibar, explore the in-demand movie options... Once you've done a ton of business traveling, you realize it's the same - night in, night out. But I always show up, put on the big fluffy robe and traipse around as though I own the place (or at least my little box within the place). I eat my

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I was on the swim team in high school. It was the first - and only - time I ever shaved my legs (which I did to shave precious milliseconds off my 100-meter backstroke - not as a fashion statement) and the last time I ever wore a Speedo. It recently occurred to me that back in the day, I spent more time in a Speedo than any other article of clothing except, maybe, my favorite black Converse high-tops.

Unfortunately (some might say fortunately), we haven’t come across any eco-Speedos. There’s a huge untapped market of environment-conscious Speedo-wearers out there, people, so get to it!

-Toshio...off to drop some kids off at the pool...

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In the strange litany of the many ways in which I contradict myself constantly, today's tip takes the cake.  Inexplicably, I have an almost-miserly feeling about printers and printing.  When Jen and I were raising money for Ideal Bite, and we had to print out fancy copies of charts and biz plans to give to people in powerful positions, I would have printed each copy in gray draft mode, if I'd been allowed to.  I stealthily set friends' and family members' printers to default draft mode whenever I borrow their machines, and often wonder how long it takes for them to realize it.  We all have our "things, and, well, print-efficiency is one of mine.

It's odd to me that the whole printing thing can affect me like a knife in the ribs, while I can sit through an occasional steak dinner without thinking too much about the ramifications of eating grain-fed red meat.  I just moved into a

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