25 of 30 - Zero Calories!

   Zero calories! Zero carbs! Sugar free!! What IS in this stuff*? I am highly distrustful of anything that is zero calories or sugar free (that should normally have sugar in it). Personally, I take "zero calories" or "sugar free!" as an automatic veto on buying a product. But then again, I'm someone who once saw a headline about how chili cheese fries are one of the worst things you can eat and felt inspired by it to buy them for lunch that day.

   I feel like health food junkies are moving in two completely opposite directions. Organic and [everything]-free. ____-free food is patently "non-organic" -- naturally occurring sugars or calories have been replaced by complicated synthetic formulations engineered to mimic the original. Yet the same people who are religious about getting their organic food will happily put their sugar/calorie/carb-free food-like synthetic in the same re-usable hemp grocery bag with their organic multi-grain bread**.

   And the calories thing. Sure you probably shouldn't be eating 3000 calorie chili cheese fries, being as you're only supposed to eat 2000 calories a day. But you ARE supposed to eat 2000 calories a day so are you really injesting so much material that you have to eat zero calorie foods so it doesn't edge you over that limit? Food is supposed to have calories! If it doesn't.. it's not food!

*(phenylalamine apparently)
** by the way do you know how many cute little furry animals were killed by the grain harvester? a lot. But thank god no one sprayed (organic) pyrethrum on those plants first.


Unrelated Picture of the Day

Here is a boat. That is upside down. And raining.
(Dali Museum)

25 of 30 - Media Spotlight

June 16th, 2009 - Republican Senator John Ensign admits he had an affair with a staffer.


June 24th, 2009 - Republican Senator John Ensign thanks his lucky stars as Republican Governor Mark Sanford steals the spotlight by having a much more interesting affair. Turns out he wasn't hiking alone on an Appalachian trail at all but getting frisky in Buenos Aires with an Argentinian!
   I don't know about you but news coverage of this story has left me with some unanswered questions -- I want to hear more about this Appalachian trial he was allegedly hiking on! (oh and is the Argentinian at least hot?)

Also, a deep thought from my favourite place, Textsfromlastnight.com:

   (303): Marriage: a sacred union between one man and one woman, and another woman in Argentina.


June 25th, 2009 - Republican Governor Mark Sanford thanks his lucky stars Michael Jackson steals the spotlight by conveniently expiring. All media forms go ape-shit.
   Just glancing down my facebook newsfeed there is a nauseating amount of "RIP Michael Jackson" "Michael Jackson is dead???" "bye bye Michael" status messages. I changed my status message to "Kris Fricke is not amused that the death of some fairly strange and creepy guy has completely taken over all forms of media." and immediately got a disapproving comment (unless she was saying she would like to dislike the MJ statuses, but I suspect it's me she wants to dislike).
   I just don't get why he's deserving of being mourned like the messiah though. Sure he made a lot of songs a lot of people really like -- he was also supremely creepy. People who are NOT creepy die every day. For example a young girl named Neda was shot by government paramilitaries during protests in Iran just the other day, and I didn't see you all mourning HER in your status messages. Or, for that matter, I believe Michael Jackson keeling over has probably garnered more twiffling and FB status-ing than the entire Iranian election fiasco. I think that is sad.

   But then again, we live in a world where professional purveyor of insipid gossip "Perez Hilton" has the 143rd most visited website in America. But at least someone punched him in the face.