I think I'll have the ... water. Oh—and with a side of water, please.

From an article:

"Restaurant food is bad for us. You may assume that anything you order at a drive-thru is less than sterling in a nutritional sense, but, in fact, the majority of what we eat at restaurants — even ones with helpful waiters and real tablecloths — is worse for us than we might ever imagine.

A study from the University of Arkansas that found the average diner in this country underestimates his or her caloric intake by up to 93 percent when eating out. Translation: Every time you eat at a restaurant, you're probably eating twice as much as you think."

Yikes! Now, i'm always a little wary of stats that say "up to" x percent ... but still pretty interesting.

Too lazy to walk 20 feet to the door, really?

Would it be unreasonable to find out where my neighbor's ride to school lives, go to her house each morning 30 minutes before her alarm goes off, and honk my horn twice right outside her bedroom window?

Wednesday, April 9

Afflatus is from Latin afflatus, past participle of afflare, "to blow at or breathe on," from ad-, "at" + flare, "to puff, to blow." Other words with the same root include deflate (de-, "out of" + flare); inflate (in-, "into" + flare); soufflé, the "puffed up" dish (from French souffler, "to puff," from Latin sufflare, "to blow from below," hence "to blow up, to puff up," from sub-, "below" + flare); and flatulent.

Looking for organically grown rosemary in Kosciusko county?

A coworker showed me this Web site today, and it's kind of interesting: www.inmarketmaker.com It "connects farmers, distributors, food retailers, & consumers." The part I thought was most useful to general consumers is in the 'Begin your Search' section. Click that, then in the 'Find a Business' drop-down menu choose 'producers/farmers.' From there you can select the type of product you're interested in (meats, herbs, etc.), any product attributes you want (organic, hormone-free, etc.), and how locally you want to search (county, state, etc.), and it'll generate a list of sources for you. There's also a place to search for farmers markets (in the 'Find a Business' menu). Pretty great!

how much is a pair of pants worth?

I visited Kyle Nobbe this weekend. He's in downtown Cincinnati, in Over the Rhine, which is not the fanciest part of town. As I walked out to my car to leave yesterday, there were 3 men passing time sitting along the sidewalk and street area a few feet behind my car, and another one sleeping at the side of one of the buildings. They'd been there when i arrived a couple hours earlier, and they were there when i left. I said hi, but all i was thinking was that my scrubby clothes consisted of $30 Adidas swoosh pants. I was walking up to these guys wearing $30 name brand lounging pants.

My bad idea is better than your bad idea

I realize I tend to post things that bother me a bit more often than I post positive things. Which kind of amuses me, as there's so much I enjoy in life that I could write about. even when i do post on positive things, like being kinder than necessary, it's with an inherent suppostion that people are not doing enough of this already. oops. :) Perhaps I'll see what I can do about posting more positive things. But not now. Now I have some more complaining to do ...

Who thought that a show called 'My dad is better than your dad' was a good idea? I recognize that kids have influences other than tv, but do we really need a tv show inculcating young folks with the idea that one person is 'better' than another based on his ability to complete physical tasks or answer trivia questions? is that kind of familial patriotism (i straight up stole that phrase from c.s. lewis) healthy, when it's in the context of putting down another family? when it embarrasses the likely 'leader' of another family?

beyond that, it just grates on my need for harmony, i guess. the idea of these dads feeling like they've let their kids down as they get eliminated b/c they couldn't lift as much or didn't know as much on a certain topic ... it just makes me uncomfortable,and makes me feel awful for the ones who lose straight away. i know it's all a game and it's all for ratings, but even by titling the show they way they have, they're helping further the notion that achievement determines worth--even if only by giving that kind of notion a spot in a in kid's mind. even if the producers explain to kids that the show doesn't mean anything, they've still introduced yet again the notion kids pick up from so many other sources--that it's external manifestations that determine worth, not internal attributes. and by this re-introduction, they can inadvertently be lending it credence in the sponge that is a kid's brain.

humor my aside here ...
in psychology, there's a term for this inadvertent influence ... though i can't think of it now ... when mere re-introduction of a concept that already has a place in a person's schemas helps to bolster that idea--even when it's being presented in a negative light. like when a mom one day tells her young daughter how bad ice cream is for her, and even though it's being presented as something negative, the daughter then wants some ice cream. or, in another vein, take racism--some believe that if we just stopped talking about it so much, kids would not even realize that racism is an option to them; keep bringing it into their awareness, however, and you take the risk that they'll adopt it. (i'm personally not suggesting we shouldn't talk about it, btw.) so, in the tv show's case, let's say they actually do tell the kids that physical strength does NOT make one dad better than the other; even still, just the mention of that--just the mere title and game concept themselves--will re-introduce into the kids' consciousness the fact that there IS a concept out there by which strength makes one dad better than the other. and the producers run the risk of inadvertently reinforcing that idea in their contestants and viewers.

oh my, i didn't intend to write this much. i began when the show started, and it's over now. talk about inadvertent ... i watched the whole thing. i actually had a couple more topics to complain about in this post, but i think i've said quite enough. :)

Good things to remember

There are good things to remember, and I think this is one of them. It was at the bottom of a forward I got this morning.

'Be kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.'