In other news, I really like this article
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/godfuse.html
(yoinked from
Tag Archives: observations
High Fructose Corn Syrup
There has been lots of talk of late among the Tuesday Night Ballers about high fructose corn syrup. As those of you who live in the United States know (or maybe do not know), high fructose corn syrup is really bad for you, and can cause all manner of heart and liver problems. This is why they don’t let them use it in many other countries. However, because it is so cheap to make, in the US one will be hard pressed to find a beverage that does not contain this sugar substitute.
But worry not! At the grocery store tonight, Scott and I decided to peruse the labels of a variety of drinks, so that we could compile for your convenience a list of non-high fructose corn syrup beverages! And so I give you our list:
Passover Coke
Red Bull
Northland 100% cran-raspberry juice.
…Enjoy!
Lent and such
This Lent I have a few smaller goals vs. one big one. No soft drinks, which isn’t so much a drastic change as a clamp down on an already dwindling habit. I really only ever have soft drinks on Tuesdays, and occasionally if I go out to eat for lunch or on the weekend. This is a closing of the gap, so to speak.
Also, I am reducing my WoW time to 7 hours a week to be condensed or spread out to my liking. I’ve been making a to-do list a mile long of tiny tasks and odd jobs to be done this Lent, and I can also devote the extra time to applying for scholarships. I’ve sent in applications for three so far, which I feel is a pretty good pace, but there are quite a few in March and April that I’ll have to be more diligent on. So it isn’t so much a “less WoW” as a “replace one unit of WoW with one of these other tasks to do.” The distinction is important, otherwise I’d just go back to napping all the time.
Other news:
– on Friday I’m getting my hair chopped off to donate to hopefully end up on some alopecia areata-stricken child’s head.
– Brendan took pictures of the puppy last night, and I’m saying this so he’ll post them on Flickr or some such so I can share them with the world
– My great-grandmother of 104 years old finally passed away this week. More on this later.
Cleaning
The problem with cleaning, or rather my problem with cleaning, is that I’ll be going along fine and then get caught up in some intense, delicate task…such as untangling and building a new climb structure for my 12 year old philodendron. As such, the cleaning never really gets done, because I spend the rest of the day on said delicate task.
I can seeeeee!
I got new glasses today!
I’d been long overdue for a prescription update, so I was looking forward to it. The world is like a crystal!
Getting new glasses is always a little weird for me at first. My perception of reality has been suddenly improved! It’s as if the world is less real.
Things are so startlingly clear that I feel like I am going to trip and fall into the world, as one fears they may trip and fall into the world on the TV screen, only in three dimensions so it’s trippier.
Does anyone know what I’m talking about?
New Shoes New Shoes
Wow! I was quite amazed by the response to my vacation post! I think that I’ve finally boiled down to how to decide, at least. Rolling the die of fate is out, as Allison pointed out that it, in accordance to tradition, would have to be a 5-sided die with one side being the she-bear, and I’m not willing to take that chance.
Building a cage, while entertaining for the masses, would take a lot of work. Plus, it would involve getting all the combatants in town at the same time. That would make for a great party, but I realize people have very busy schedules.
The essays are too good and persuasive for me to choose! I think I’m going to have to just sit down and decide with LOGIC.
In other news, I need new shoes. As far as shoes I wear on a daily basis to work and such, I own one pair that I’ve had since high school. I tend to have a pretty good run with shoes ever since those Doc Martens I bought in the 8th grade (which lasted me through college). Anyway, my current pair of shoes is starting to come apart at the seams, and I think that it’s time.
I hate shoe shopping, though, and I’m worried that in the current age of “let’s make all merchandise crappily with a 4-year life span so people will have to buy more stuff later,” I may not be able to find a pair of good shoes that will last me another decade. Does anyone have any suggestions of brands that are still reliable?
More important, perhaps, who will escort me on this shoe buying adventure? I’m not going to endure the drudgery of shoe shopping alone, I’ll tell you this.
EDIT: Okay, I totally remembered that Scott loves shoe shopping! We went out today and bought a new pair of Doc Martens in record time! Shoe problem solved.
GRE
So I took the GRE tonight!
First, some background: I haaate standardized tests and always have. It’s not that I find them difficult or stress out over them, but I do get very bored taking them. Very bored. Which leads to carelessness.
Anyway, I took a practice GRE with no preparation whatsoever, just to figure out what my base is. I got a 560 in verbal and 410 in math. This did not surprise me, because I am terrible at the sort of math that is on the GRE. It’s all that practical, useful math that I just can’t wrap my brain around. I’ve never been good at it, as anyone who’s been out to dinner with me can tell as I frantically attempt to calculate 15% tip. I can consume a page of text in the blink of an eye, but ask me anything about probability? It just won’t happen.
After doing some practice sets over some time, I took another practice GRE and got a 660 in verbal and 610 in math. How delightfully even! I felt pretty well prepared for the real thing.
So, after tonight’s test, the results are in:
Verbal: 580
Math: 700?
…
What is that you saaaaaaay?
So yes, I can chalk up the verbal score to me getting hungry during that portion of the exam. But I have no explanations for the jump in math. Perhaps my math brain was just getting tired of me talkin smack about it.
Either way, that’s one step closer to grad school application, and hopefully I will never have to take a stupid standardized test again!
Political Art
Feanarth showed me this cover from the famouse german politics magazine, “Spiegel,” because it featured a cool looking dragon.
As a political message, I’m not sure this image is getting its point across. If anything, it looks like they are about to start cuddling, yeah?
Tump
Greetings internet! I am here today to discuss the regional use of the word “tump.”
It is one of those words that was just part of my normal vocabulary growing up, and I didn’t find out until I worked up North awhile that its use was apparently regional.
For those of you unfamiliar with the word, it is a verb which I believe is some combination of “tip” and “dump,” and is used in such phrases as “Quit jostling around or you’re going to tump over the canoe!” Or, in perhaps its most useful form, “Don’t swing too high or you will tump over the swingset.”
During a ballers night discussion, I brought up that I thought the term was probably Southern in origin. Brendan rather huffily disagreed, because he had never heard the word before (he is from Richmond, a smaller town in KY) and claimed that it was not a real word and it was just something us crazy Louisvillians used.
According to Merriam-Webster, which I consider a reputable dictionary, it is in fact a real word.
Main Entry: tump
Function: verb
Etymology: perhaps akin to British dialect tumpoke to fall head over heels
intransitive senses, chiefly Southern : to tip or turn over especially accidentally — usually used with over (sooner or later everybody tumps over. Nothing to worry about if you don’t get caught under the canoe — Don Kennard)
transitive senses, chiefly Southern : to cause to tip over : OVERTURN, UPSET — usually used with over
Anyway, I checked with Will (originally from even smaller Morgansfreakinmiddleofnowhere, KY), and he also said the word was not a frequent visitor of his vocabulary. So now I’m more curious as to where “tump” is actually used?
So, internet, tell me: Do you use this word? Have you ever heard of it before? Where are you geographically located? Linguistics folk, I expect replies.
Flowers and Bees
So I like flowers now, quite a bit. I’m not quite sure when this happened. I think the realization started when I got my mom a bouquet from the Farmer’s Market for Mother’s Day (she was lucky, I almost blew all my money on an ostrich egg). At the rehearsal dinner for the Clark wedding, I went a step further in swooning over the table bouquets and getting to take one home with me. This, combined with Maria’s reference to some scientific hoo-hah about flowers making people happy, has made me a little more noticing of the bright little bundles.
It is strange, because I used to think nothing of flowers, and even looked down on the idea of them as a gift. “What a waste of money!” I would think, “they will shrivel in a week, and you can’t even eat them.”
But here I am today, trotting home from the Farmer’s Market not with tasty cooking ingredients or even another bottle of local honey, but with a little bouquet of flowers, all for myself.
I’m not sure if this was a sudden change, or if it was like a change of palate, something that happened slowly over time and I just didn’t notice because I didn’t give it a try during the process. Maybe these flowers are just a nice change from funeral roses.
Anyway, when I approached my apartment complex on the walk home, a bee discovered my flowers. I sat down on the curb for a long while watching him buzz around and gather up pollen on his hind legs. It was very cool. I do not know what kind of bee it was, but it had white stripes and a green jacket.
Ever time I thought he’d flown off, I would get up and walk a few paces, and he returned. He did this several times. I am wondering if he thought it was a new patch of flowers every time?
Flowers and bees are cool