.::SmartyPants::.

New York is the New California

Don't get me wrong: I'm never more proud of my native state than when people start calling it socialist. Yes, the taxes are high - but have you seen those state parks they keep out in Cali? Well worth the dollar (I say, from 1500 miles away in my income tax-free state).

However, this article caused me pause. I mean, I do sometimes wonder what I'm really doing to myself when I eat a donut, and I do sometimes pretend that I'm being "good" when I get a muffin instead, but it's not like when I buy that muffin in the donut shop I actually think they're made of different substance. I know that's really a cupcake, not a muffin!

And now the state of New York is going to ruin my little fantasy life by telling me how many calories are in every little thing I eat there. Like New York is the state with the obesity problems. Hi, try going to Houston now and then, or Louisiana (yes, I know one is a city and the other is a state; try to stay with me). THEN you'll see obesity.

And so, my friends, New York is now the new California, where what's good for you will be shoved in  your face almost as fast as that cupcake muffin.

Summer of My Discontinuance

I'm trying not to take it personally that my favorite products keep getting discontinued. I mean, a woman accepts that when her favorite bra goes out, she wont' be able to find a new one anywhere near like it. Then swears that next time, she'll buy six.

Well, first it was my health insurance. Being told the United Choice 250 was being discontinued, I figured I'd go with the $100 deductable, and see every doctor under the sun this year to make the increased cost worth it. It's July. I've been for my annual, and that's it.

Then, I needed new bras, and I found a favorite. The Maidenform Smooth Bra. So a month after original purchase, realizing I really liked it, I went back to buy more. None in my size (like I needed one more thing to make me pissed off about the weight I've gained). The outlet yielded one, in white, and then two more, in beige, but none in black (which I really need) and nothing to help the sinking feeling that next time I needed a bra, the search was on all over again.

Next it was Bottlecaps - you know, blessed candy of your youth. Sweet little discs of tangy flavor - not as tangy as Sweet Tarts - no sweating face here, or puckering lips - but just enough to cut the fil blown sugar impact. Plus, with Cola and Root Beer flavors, what could be better?

Well, I don't know, but my glove  compartment has been bare of my favorite traffic jam treat for months now, and my local target shelves empty of the blissful purple box. So a substitute candy is in order.

Then I got sunburn, and the Nivea pot of Q10 with seaweed was no place to be found. There is a Nivia lotion with Q10, but not in a pot, and at the same time, my daily Suave Firming Skin Therapy and my Dove anti-cellulite cream, both gone. Dove apparently thinks they've found the pill for cellulite, but heck if I'm going to swallow in pill form material I used to rub on my leg - it's not vitamin E, for Christ's sake. And all their lotions are now tinted or glittering - Dove, fly away, I'm done with you.

So, reader, this is it. The summer of my Discontinuance - and time of my discontent with manufacturers who won't just leave good enough alone!

My Left Foot

...is fine, but apparently it's time to begin worrying about how long that will stay true. This week, for the fifth time in the past 11 months, a foot washed up on the shores of the Western Canadian coast, this time on a small island. I tell you, as I write this from a small island not far from the Canadian coast, a foot is most definitely not what I excpect to see when I walk down to the beach in the morning.  While the previous four feet were rights, this week's discovery was a left foot, still in shoe. Police are investigating, of course. Read all about it for yourself here; of course, pictures were spared.

Best Time Waster EVER

http://www.sp-studio.de/

Vegetarians Run Amok

Or just trying to travel without eating meat...and with a wry sense of humor, and apparently a marriage proposal. Check it out:

http://soyvegetariana.wordpress.com/

Farting for a Good Cause

I'm more or less stunned speechless by this one...

Apparently kangaroos have more going for them than those cute little pouches and the ability to jump a cattle fence in a single bound: they can fart without huring the environment. You read it right: they can fart without emitting greenhouse gases. Kangaroos have methane-free farts, unlike their cattle neighbors.

In New Zealand, where 50% of all emissions to the atmosphere is apparently cattle and sheep farts, and in order to reduce this offense, Australia (whose fart emissions account for 15% of the national total) are looking for ways to isolate and reproduce the bacteria in Kangaroos that prevent the inclusion of methane in their..uh, emissions.

Yes, I just did an entry on Kangaroo farts, and yes, if you click on the link above, you too can read an article titled, "Eco-friendly Kangaroo Farts Could Help Global Warming."

Crazy Canoeist

I can't get enough of this news story. So a guy goes out for a canoe trip, and comes back 5 years later, after his boat has washed ashore, his wife has had him legally declared dead, and, ahem, his insurance money has been paid out. Apparently he has "amnesia"? Oh, wait, he doesn't, and lookie here, there's a picture of him and his wife in Panama last year. WTF?

What I'm really curious about now is how he pulled it off, and why he ever came back. That, and how horribly confused his poor kids must be right now...

Why You Should Stop Eating Your Hair

Oh yes, my friends - and any total strangers who happen to be stopping by - that is a 10 pound hairball recently removed from the stomach of an 18 year old complaining of weight loss, pain, and swelling in her abdomen. Gives a whole new meaning to the word "stuffing" this holiday season, now, doesn't it?

Click here if you didn't get enough and want the recipe for yourself. Please note that CNN.com is referring to this as "the hairball case"

Kitty Cop

I mean, I couldn't make this shizzit up if I tried. Hello Kitty is now so pervasive and so pervasively girly, she's become an icon of chick -ness- and not in the great, empowered "chic"ness of it - that she is now used for the punishing emasculation of cops.

And we all know how damning public humiliation can be - when you never leave the police station...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/06/thai.hello.kitty.ap/index.html

I had no idea crack was this powerful...

Seriously, what is going on today? I'm just trying to relax after  a little yoga and a little Wimbledon, just trying to keep myself sane with all this damn water falling from the sky, so figured I clue into the world and read the news, but first the drowning in manure and next the lake disappearing? Is it because it's a slow news day? Because it's a holiday? I don't understand.