Colleen Anderson's Blog, page 29

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 61-66

Zombie food pyramid for a well-balanced diet. Creative Commons: www.geekstir.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 61 (Mar. 01):

I'm entering month three of the Apocalypse Diet. The fridge drawers are nearly empty, the freezer is mostly stocked; carbs, proteins and veggies are all running low. I think I've now entered the creative stage. Be prepared for bizarre pairings (mussels and beets, anyone?).

Breakfast was a brownie and lunch was my spicy vegetable peanut soup, one of my freezer stores.

I wasn't that hungry for dinner, weirdly, so it was a small handful of almost nonexistent crackers and a bowl of quinoa with the thawed berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries) that I found in the freezer, and a drop of almond extract. Oh and yes, the last brownie.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 62 (Mar. 02):

Well, I have found out I'm anemic, which has nothing to do with the diet. I've tended toward anemia all my life but it's actually been a few years since the last bout. I'm on supplements now to bring up my iron intake since drinking the blood of my victims is just too gross, and zombie blood is putrid. Some of the things that have iron are molasses, broccoli, sesame seeds, certain seeds…and I'm going to have to look it up but as we know, my cupboard is getting rather bare. I have lots of sesame seeds and molasses though.

Breakfast was the last of the almond butter, nearly the last rice cake, and a sprinkle of the last chocolate chips. Lunch was avgolemono soup. I had the last handful of fresh hazelnuts in the shell, plus a few crackers and calamata olives. A friend came over later with a pizza so that was the real dinner, along with the last of the lemonade and vodka added, though it was a rather meh drink.

Molasses Banana Bread, dark and tasty

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 63 (Mar. 03):

Lunch, the leftover pizza of course. And now for the great banana bread with molasses experiment. I didn't have any sugar except for cubes and while I could have tried maple syrup I have a lot of molasses sitting in my fridge, which has been there since dinosaurs roamed. I managed to use up one container but still have a second. I like my banana breads as bread, not cake, so I looked for the lowest sugar recipe (2/3 cups) and substituted the same amount in molasses. They say to add 1 cup of molasses for every 3/4 cups of sugar but I left it the same. Recipes also state not to substitute more than half of the sugar, but I did it all, under duress from the zombies banging against the walls. I thought this was due to how the bread would rise. I also like my banana bread nutty but the only nuts I have left are hazelnuts so I chopped up about 3/4 cup of those.

I added extra baking soda as required. I now have little shortening or flour left but there are all those wee jars with different types so the next baking experiment will involve them. I waited for the bread to bake and it rose perfectly, When I pulled it out of the oven I cut off the heel while warm and put margarine on. It was good! The substitute of half the sugar is about the taste but if you like molasses cookies you'll like this bread. It's strongly flavored but still light and very tasty. I actually had two pieces and I'm now full. Molasses is also high in iron so this will help with my anemia.

I found a packet of holy basil seasoning paste, and one of panang curry mix. The second calls for coconut milk so I put it back, but

Shirmp, carrots, onions, garlic and some dried basil on quinoa. Holy hot and tasty.

I mixed the seasoning with the last of the prawns, onion, carrot and garlic, chopped up the parsley, and ate it on quinoa. How's that for a mashup?

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 64 (Mar. 04):

Roasted garlic and potato soup, plus two slices of molasses banana bread. Supper was the leftover shrimp and basil seasoning dish with quinoa. And then popcorn with margarine and engevita yeast, popped in a pot on the stove.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 65 (Mar. 05):

Breakfast was a good sized slice of molasses banana bread with margarine. Lunch was chicken barley bean soup, and a slice of chocolate cake for someone's birthday. After working out I was really hungry so I had penne pasta with sundried tomatoes, garlic and a mix of mussels and clams. There were a few squid bits in ther but because they were frozen I didn't fry them properly and they were like an old boot. I chopped up the rest of the parsley and added that with some parmesan cheese, and ate the whole thing.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 66 (Mar. 06):

It seems that Noah could easily have kept enough food for 40 days and nights if I'm still going on Day 66. Breakfast was the banana bread again and almost clam chowder but after last night, I had to vary it. I had the spicy vegetable peanut soup. Tonight, well I think it's time to have the last of the Brussels sprouts, with garlic and oil and parmesan, and a side of rice.

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: Culture, entertainment, food Tagged: apocalypse diet, banana bread, cooking, diet, food, leftovers, molasses, recipes, soup, substituting ingredients, supplie lines, Thai food, zombies

Writing: Friends of Merril Contest Finalist

To write or not to write; there is no question. Creative Commons: http://freshink.blogspot.com/2010_11_...

I don't often enter contests. There are several reasons: most writing contests cost $20-$30 for an entry and you only have one to three chances of being chosen. The odds of submitting to a magazine are much better. However, I will once in a while enter a contest if the price is right and if it's for a good cause. I also understand that many magazines do a yearly contest, which fuels their production budget and that it's a necessity but I certainly couldn't afford to enter every contest to every magazine. I have in recent years entered and placed in the Rannu Fund poetry and short story competition. It's smaller and Canadian but takes submissions in English from anywhere in the world. And the price isn't high.

Likewise the Friends of Merril decided to hold an inaugural short story contest. The Merril is a branch of the Toronto public library and the foremost collection of speculative fiction and poetry in North America. There are over 72,000 works stored there and it continues to grow. Judith Merril, an American by birth, was one of the grand dames of science fiction. She was more background and while she wrote and published in the early years, she was also an editor.

So I thought, why not, the contest is cheap ($5), it's the first time and supports a good cause, it's Canadian, and I write. All good reasons. I entered one story though I think you can enter up to three and then forgot about it. Yesterday I was informed that I'd made the shortlist. Of the 102 entries they received for the first year of the contest, nine finalists are chosen. I cannot say which title is mine but here is the list:

Climbing Boys

Muffy and the Belfry

My Profit On't Is

Rikidōzan and the San Diego Swerve Job

The Emmet

The Mobius Garden

The Ties That Bind

Weathermakers

Your First Real Rocket Ship

Even if I don't win, it's nice to know a story or poem are rising to the top. I'll find out in the next month. But as I've found with honorable mentions or even winning, there are no guarantee of getting the piece published so it can work in reverse as well. The Rannu Fund competition has just opened to entries from March 1 to May 31. I'll probably enter this again as I've been shortlisted, won second place and been judge. Now it's time to win first place, should the gods and the judges (who might be the same) so decide.

And I have finally worked out the kinks and finished the story "Nightingale." Now I need to shunt that into the feeding tubes of the submission engine and see what comes out.

Filed under: art, entertainment, fantasy, horror, news, poetry, science fiction, Writing Tagged: Friends of the Merril, Judith Merril, magazines, Merril contest, Rannu Fund, shortlist, speculative fiction, specultive fiction collection, winning, Writing, writing competition, writing competitions, writing contests

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 59-60

 

What zombies eat. See below for what I eat. Creative Commons: geekstir.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 59 (Feb. 28):

I think I figured out one way that I've not seen so far to deter zombies from chomping on a limb. This came while eating my veggie chili last night (with quinoa). Okay, so zombies are not gourmands. They're happy to nosh on any fleeting limb, any fresh brain. They don't care about herb or spices or rubs or seasonings. If it's fresh and raw, that's all that matters. Now citrus repulses mosquitoes and rue works for cats, so what if  I coated myself in hot sauce? Think of it. Zombie goes to bite me and recoils in eye melting horror, then claws its face apart to get rid of the bad taste.

The only problem, well I might still get bitten and if it's a gore spewing, super viral zombie such as in 28 Days Later, then I'm doomed to be a hot zombie. But maybe the smell would throw them off. And if that's the case, then the other way would be rub rotting meat all over yourself so that they think you're already dead. Again, that might be terribly gagarific but we do amazing things to stay alive.

While I was pondering ways to evade zombies last night I found frozen bananas in the freezer. Banana bread! Did I have flour? Yes. Did I have eggs? Yes. And sugar? Well, I have sugar cubes and I already know it takes pounding a lot of sugar cubes to get 2/3 of a cup. But what else? Maple syrup. Hmm, could work. No honey as I don't like it. Sorry, bees. So I grabbed my trusty rusty book called Substituting Ingredients and they mention molasses. You know those dead soldiers that hide in your cupboards and fridges for years? I have two half containers of molasses. I won't be making banana bread tonight but I foresee this happening in the next week.

The food for the day was pollo en mole with rice for lunch. I had a brownie snack. In the evening I went for dinner with a friend and had a massive jerk chicken roti, and ate the whole thing. It actually looked a bit like a week-old zombie leg.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 60 (Feb. 29):

What lies in the murky depths? Beans, barley, chicken, celery, carrot, onion for a tasty soup.

Yes, it's Day 60, AD! Leap day and two months of buying no food. For breakfast, a brownie. For lunch the yummy chicken barley bean soup. Tonight is wing's night with the boys so I'll be having wings and cider. No calories on leap day I hear.

On trying to outwit and outlive the zombies, if I was venturing outdoors do you think I'd wear a T-shirt that bared my neck and arms, the most favorite eating spots for zombies? No way. If I couldn't get a full-on hazmat suit and many big guns and machetes, I'd wrap myself in as many layers as possible, and tape things around my neck. Okay, they could maybe bite off my ears and nose, but I'd have less gnawable area visible. Seriously, a lot of these zombie movies have people as stupid as the brain-dead undead. Okay, the virus in 28 Days was a rage virus and was super contagious if you got any bodily fluids in your mouth or a cut, but still…

Short for the days this time. Celebrate the Apocalypse!

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: Culture, entertainment, food, horror Tagged: apocalypse diet, cooking, diets, eating well, end of the world, food, hazmat suit, homemade soup, killing zombies, rage virus, soup stock, supply lines, zombies

Another Stupid Way to Objectify Women

Women are still the butt of society's joke. Creative Commons: John Pozadzides flickr

The news recently reported that Vancouver would be subjected to a new sport. Well, not really a new sport but played a new way. Lingerie Football. I do not kid you. It seems that the only way for women to actually get to play the sport is take off their clothes. The organizer, a man, was most serious about how these women had sports skills (they could run, they could throw) but really, if you have half-disrobed them what exactly are you hoping people will watch?

Is this the only way that people will watch women's sports, if they're objectified and showing titillating bits of flesh? One friend said, "Well, they have a choice in joining, don't they?" He couldn't see anything wrong in this. Let's look at a few problems: if you happen to be the best runner or catcher ever but you're a stocky woman, or not particularly beautiful, or missing the right curves for wearing skimpy underwear on the field, do you think you'll be picked to play football? Is there even a woman's team anywhere where they get to wear the protective football uniform? What else is wrong? Oh yeah, let's go look at the sex kittens. Who cares if they can run or throw a ball; we're not going to take them seriously anyway.

Sure, a woman can choose to join or not but it's not putting this on par with men's football, nor will it be considered a serious game. To think this is the only way women can play football galls me. Sure, women will volunteer for this. Many of us will do a lot for money. Sure, they're not being forced, but a woman might wear a burka but not be forced to because it's been drummed into her head that she should cover up (or be uncovered) while men can do as they please. It doesn't make it right. I do not agree with any group that decides men and women should be allowed different rights. If this is the way football is going to be, then make the men run around in jock straps and runners only.

Men's shoulder pads cover the chest. The women's get to exploit the cleavage as well. Creative Commons: Housey Lei, Design You Trust

Oh and let's talk about the ludicrous, sexist costumes. They're wearing uniform bikinis, I suppose, with runners, shoulder and knee padsand helmets. And then to make the utmost of stupidity and objectification there are adjustable garters (the straps for holding up stockings) and a garter around the leg. The men who organized this should be ashamed but they're too idiotic to understand that this continues to put women in a category where even the police have said, don't dress provocatively or you'll get raped. The last is based on a real example in Canada and was yet another example of how the blame is placed with the woman.

The organizers are businessmen of course, exploiters of people, and they see it as a great money-making venture, as pimps always do. Now do not get me wrong, women and men should be able to dress up or down or sexy as they please. But it shouldn't be a requirement for a place to work, as it often is. (Do the women at one of your restaurants/bars have to wear tight/short/skimpy/low-cut clothes as part of their "uniform?")  Are there any men working the same job? This is just yet another case of where society considers women nothing but sexual victims (whether for rape or exploitation or coveted possessions). It's not right and it certainly isn't harmless. Any other job and it would be grounds for sexual discrimination or harassment. Consider that.

This makes me very angry and I would hope people would boycott it but I've found the masses to be self-centered, unthinking and as stupid as the organizers. Next up, watch for burka baseball or some other version of women sexually exploited for your viewing pleasure.

Filed under: Culture, sex, sports Tagged: chauvinism, discrimination, lingerie football, Lingerie Football League, objectification, sex, sexism, sexual discrimination, sexual exploitation, women's sports

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 53-58

Here is the freezer in my fridge. Big bag in front is just ice.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 53 (Feb. 22):

While I'm pondering my emptying fridge (but not yet empty) and cupboard full of alcohol, I must also ponder the state of zombies. If you've watched Walking Dead these zombies aren't completely stupid, but more like animals. They don't seem to see well or distinguish flesh from rotting flesh but they seem to smell exceedingly well. They're hearing is pretty good too but they are rather listless when not voraciously feeding. So, I'm guessing the creators used pack animal mentality and a certain mindlessness to create their walking dead. The zombies' strength is in the pack. And these zombies aren't choosey; juicy guts, crunchy tendons or meaty brains are all equally yummy to them. Nom nom nom.

Lunch was again the chicken, turnip, beets and rice. I had a meeting in the evening and didn't get a chance to eat beforehand. My stomach was growling so loudly I thought everyone heard it. So , around 10:30 pm when everyone had left, I had some of my pre-frozen veggie chili, replete with nuts and seeds on rice.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 54 (Feb. 23):

Not a zombie brain: I save my veggie scraps and will make vegetable stock out of these frozen bits.

The last of the uber cookies met my gullet today. What a nice reprieve that was. Guess what lunch was? The chicken, with rice, beets and turnips. There is a bit of chicken left but I think it will be going into soup stock now, a weekend project. Went for a couple of drinks with the worker bees, ate a few edamame, then got home at 8. I took a flour pesto tortilla, with sundried tomatoes and sprinkles of parmesan (it's a container so it's been lasting) and had that for dinner. The oil really oozed out of that thing. Then I dropped by my neighbor's to get some DVDs and had two glasses of wine.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 55 (Feb. 24):

In honor of Mardi Gras, and because I found one last container in the freezer, I had homemade gumbo with rice. That stuff is soooo good! I could eat it all the time but I'd be 300 lbs. I made the roux, which takes a while. Other ingredients are tomatoes, shrimp, green beans, carrots, okra, turkey sausage and jalapeno peppers. Because of its high fat content it should keep me going until later in the evening.

As it turned out, I got pretty hungry by evening. The last flour tortilla was used. I fried up some of the chicken bits with sundried tomatoes, garlic and onion. I'm beginning to think garlic will be the last vegetable in my fridge.

The fridge. That jar on the far right, second shelf--it's sauerkraut and will probably be the last thing I eat before I call off the diet.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 56 (Feb. 25):

Saturday: I had one of the last rice cakes with almond butter and chocolate chips sprinkled on top for brunch. Late lunch was avgolemono soup. I was out early in the evening so we went for a late dinner (11 pm) and I had a mild, banal chicken curry on rice, with enough left over for leftovers.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 57 (Feb. 26):

Lunch today was the leftover curry. Then I ate some crackers. For some reason it was a big hunger day, and I wasn't doing much. I did watch 28 Weeks Later the second in the zombie movies after 28 Days Later where they're now repopulating Britain but…yes, things go awry. Interesting twist and this virus transmits instantaneously with nasty blood vomiting to complete to gore factor. It wasn't bad but the first one was better.

I had a snack in the afternoon (there is almost no chocolate left) that consisted of sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and banana chips which remind me of softened toenails. Zombie food? Dinner was pasta with sundried tomatoes, onions and garlic. Noticing a theme here? Yes, almost out of all veggies. However, I still have eggs and found a brownie mix in the cupboard. I chopped some hazelnuts and threw them in with a handful of cranberries. I really shouldn't have added the last. I don't like dessicated fruit corpses. I like them fresh, with their brainzzzz. But hey, it was chocolate. I can live through the moistened cranberries.

But I did make up chicken stock from last week's chicken, found barley and kidney beans, used the last of the limp and starting to rot celery, along with one carrot, four cloves of garlic, and two slices of onion. That went into the stock pot and the soup turn out hearty and pretty good. I'll be freezing up some of that.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 58 (Feb. 27):

Veggie drawer. Those browny green things are softening limes. Brussels sprouts, parsley and garlic, oh my.

One of my veggie drawers. I've been ignoring the apples and cabbage which will be juiced in the next while.

The zombies still haven't got me though a friend sent a cartoon of the four ways to become a zombie: radiation, virus, infection and college. I can attest to the last. I've seen the zombies on the SkyTrain and trudging along the streets. They're too mindless to even attack when they're in exam mode.

Breakfast was a bowl of my chicken barley bean soup. It turned out pretty good. Lunch was Filipino birthday noodles at work. They make long noodles for a long life. Supper, some of the leftover veggie chili.

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: Culture, entertainment, food, movies Tagged: apocalypse diet, birthday noodles, cooking, dieting, diets, eating, end of the world, food supplies, freezer food, gumbo, homemade food, leftovers, soup, soup stock, Zombie Age, zombies

Traveling in Europe: Antwerp Part II

Europe 2011: Antwerp click to enter album

Most of these memories are from my second day but in some cases it's a mix of the two days in Antwerp. I was actually kind of glad that I decided not to go to Brussels. I was still feeling somewhat sick and my feet were starting to hurt from all the walking. I went to St. Paul's Church and possibly St. James' Church. In fact, I'm not sure anymore if I did go to the second one, and it's possible one of these churches didn't allow pictures inside. St. Paul's church had the statues of calvary outside, with rough hewn stones forming a grotto. I couldn't tell if it was of recent or older centuries but while St. Paul's was of an earlier era, the calvary statues were added in the early 1800s I believe. It was in one of these many cathedrals, where I listened to piped in organ music, looking at the patterns of light through stained glass, staring at carved wooden and stone statues and admiring triptychs by the masters that I thought, even if a person wasn't religious they would be hard-pressed to not feel moved by all the fantastic accomplishments and beauty of humanity.

Shops opened late on Monday because, as one person told me, people might be hung over still. I wandered around the old area and noticed there were enough chocolate, frites and waffle shops. The Belgians love their chocolate like the Dutch love their meat.

While I still had to work at dodging bicyclists and nearly got run over twice; it's not really clear who has the right of way so I always tried to look in all directions. I think the order is first trams, then cars, then bikes then pedestrians, almost reversed from Canada. Most of the street corners have fewer lights and cars and trams drive down the same narrow streets. At one point the tram was stuck because someone had parked too close to the track. The tram drivers kept ringing the bell for about ten minutes till the guy ran back and moved his car.

This was a great lunch with three large pieces of halibut. About 17 euros including wine.

More people smoke than I'm used to but it didn't seem as prevalent as Holland, however no matter where I went I seemed to smell cigarettes and people can sit on restaurant patios and smoke. I had a smoked halibut salad for lunch, which was quite large, making up for the 15 euros I paid. The portions are more than I'm used to. Unless ordering a bottle of wine, it was only one type of house wine so there was no point in asking for a type. At 3.5 euros a glass it was more reasonable than the water. Chocolate isn't that cheap but the frites are, which come with an array of flavored mayo sauces. Being Canadian I'm used to dunking my fries in flavored mayo so it wasn't that odd.  I wandered into a few stores and found shoes really expensive as well, which curtailed me buying any.

St. Paul's interior. This life size statue of Mary (holding a plate with eyes) has had the stain rubbed off of her hand from centuries of worshippers.

I actually wandered along the Scheldt River the day before, which is one of the biggest shipping ports in Europe. There is a plague commemorating Canadian troops liberating the city in WWII, and a couple of statues. Walking farther along is Het  Steen, which means the rock. It's the oldest fortification in Antwerp and is rather small when you think of it as a castle. There wasn't a lot to see as it was locked up (probably considered a museum) but it has a good imposing look to it.

I ran into an Egyptian-Belgian and he insisted in taking me to the best waffle shop where I had a waffle with chocolate sauce. I'm actually more used to waffles being like quilted pancakes but this was so airy that it was easy to eat and tasty. Down near my bed and breakfast was an area of the city that housed Art Nouveau buildings. While this man would have loved to show me around for several hours, the light was going to be gone soon and I love Art Nouveau. I made my way to the area and took some pictures of the truly amazing architecture from about 1910-1920.

That evening I at near the B&B in a square which had several restaurants. I had mussels and when the came in the giant pot with several slices of bread I was stunned. I ate nothing else and couldn't even finish the mussels. Here in Vancouver, that meal would have fed three, but then the price was about the cost of three portions. I certainly didn't go hungry.  After I walked down to this cafe and sat outside writing in my journal and having a couple of glasses of wine. These two women bought me a drink and we talked. One was on her way to Seattle for her sister's wedding and was considering moving there, much to her friend's surprise. Then three men arrived, with one being of the flaming variety of gay. He was very friendly and began chatting with me, telling me to join their table. Partway through the evening he said he loved me, but oh, not that way. I smiled

One sample of a fantastic Art Nouveau balcony and architecture.

and said that was fine, I knew that.  (In fact, I saw a fair larger gay population in Antwerp than I did in Amsterdam.) His friends were getting mad at him for not talking with them and then at one point, the one guy (two were from Hungary) whose English wasn't that good started yelling at me and blaming me for all the "horrible" things Canada was doing to the Indians.

I said it wasn't that simple or black and white and that yes there were good and bad things done. He kept at me and I asked, "If your brother killed someone, would you be guilty?" That didn't deter him so finally I lost it and retorted, "Fine let's look at what the Hungarian Magyars did to the Gypsies." He got more worked up yelling and walking around that the two women were telling him to shut up in Belgian. The bartender came out and said he was going to call the police. I was bewildered. Here were some of the friendliest people I'd met in my travels and some of the nastiest all at once. I couldn't take the ranting so I thanked those who had been nice and went back to my lodgings. That one incident was bizarre but I'd go back to Antwerp again because I certainly didn't see it all.

Filed under: art, Culture, food, religion, travel Tagged: antagonism, Antwerp, Art Nouveau, Belgian waffles, Belgium, cathedrals, Culture, Het Steen, history, Scheldt, St. Paul's cathedral, travel

Diary of a Taxation Dieter

Without much ado, I present to you the kernel from whence came the Apocalypse Diet. From 2002.

Poverty means crimping corners on food. Creative Commons: psd Flickr

Forced into circumstances beyond her control, mild-mannered copy editor, Colleen Anderson seeks a new way to survive and pay the dreaded ubiquitous tax man. Yep, that's me, though not so mild-mannered. The working poor, freelancer who's just gone through the depression diet, good for a few pounds. But now, having lost money for the first time in my freelance business of copy editing, having paid tax on the proportion where I worked proofing exciting car ads, having earned $10,000 less than the year before, statistically putting me in the range of poverty level income, I find that I owe $1000 in taxes.

I'd borrow from my brother but I just did that to buy a car as mine was failing badly. I'd get a loan but I don't make enough per month to pay on the loan. I'd cut back on all those frivolities but I already have. All I can do is cut back on the necessities. I still have to pay rent, hydro, phone, car insurance, RRSP loan, creditline payment and gas. I still have to buy toilet paper and feed the cat. My brother's going to have to wait for repayment. It looks like I will cut back on food.

After all, I wanted to lose thirty pounds anyway and my place is stocked with the usual. I should be able to get by for three months without buying food and stash $20/week  (more than I was spending on food anyway) to give to the tax demons. That leaves me $30/week for incidentals and hopefully I'll make enough to cover the bills.

DAY 1

Brought one of my frozen soups to work with two frozen buns. Didn't eat it for lunch since I work twelve hours. I'll save it for later when everyone's ordering the weekly sushi at work. No more weekly wonton soup for me. Okay I've succumbed to buying a chocolate bar. Damn sweet tooth, it may break me yet. It's nearly as bad as being a cigarette smoker, especially when you crave the good stuff. And I shouldn't be eating cheap chocolate bars anyway. Too much dairy and I'm allergic to it.

Eat my thin veggie soup with the two buns for dinner, steal some sunflower seeds from the guys at work. When I get home, I go into the ohmigawd I'm limited on food thing and eat the last of my home-baked chocolate chip cookies as I fret over my taxes. That's 6 small ones and a handful of slightly stale taco chips with the last of the chili pepper dip from my party a couple of weeks ago. I boil up some Asian style noodles for tomorrow and hit the sack.

As I lay there in bed I realize I better plan what I eat together, otherwise it's going to get really weird when I'm eating sardines and jam. So, remember, use the crackers with the things you don't like to eat by themselves. The frozen soups will last and be okay without any carbos. Maybe I'll do protein one day, carbos another days, sweet jams another. I'm sure my doctor would kill me if she found out but I have to pay the damn taxes.

DAY 2

Chocolate: still my bane after all these years. Creative Commons: Wikipedia

Mixed the noodles with the last of the yogurt dill dip from my party, some sundried tomatoes steeped in oil, and pine nuts. That's almost gourmet but how long will it last? It actually tastes good too. I can't walk down to the store for a bag of corn chips anymore when I forget my lunch.

On the way home I succumb again to the evil sweet tooth. Maybe the tax man should team up with chocolate. They'd be unconquerable, taxing teeth, thighs and bank accounts equally. I stop at a chocolate factory and buy a bag of seconds using the debit card. When I get home, I eat half that bag and take a nap, only to wake to a horrible stomach ache. Too much dairy and I'm suffering for my sins. Well, that should get better as there's nothing dairy left in the house. It's going to get interesting though, when I'm down to nothing but a cupboard full of booze and a bunch of jam.

I set aside $20 for taxes and used the other $30 in one swell foop. That's $25 for cat food since he was down to crumbs and $5 for toilet paper. I now have $2 and change in my purse till next week. And what money's in the bank has to pay the bills and I probably will be short on rent.

I wonder if it's like this in countries under siege. First everyone eats the delectables, afraid they'll spoil or someone else will get them, eating too much like two buns with soup instead of a quarter of a bun with a quarter cup of soup. Wished I had more flour stored up. Low on all the carbos like rice and pasta. Ate the last of the potatoes earlier this week. Thank god I don't have to worry about a coffee habit on top of the damn chocolate. Withdrawal will start soon.

DAY 3

Four crackers before I left for work at noon. No visions of sugar plums yet and frankly, what is a sugar plum? Probably some sugary prune before chocolate was cheap. Nowadays it would be visions of candy, chocolate, chips and pop dancing across the rotting teeth of kids. I think I probably have a couple of really old prunes somewhere and I'm sure I'll get to them at some point.

I was offered an apple chip (coated in caramel sugar) at work and I wanted to grab the whole bag. But do you think it might set up a bad working environment to tell your co-worker you thought he was giving you the rest of the bag? Probably. Good thing I haven't been eating much for a while so the mild growling barely fazed me.

After all that talk/thought about sardines and jam I thought I better eat some while I still have the cracker. Sardines in mustard, sort of a pasty hardly mustard, goo. Slapped them on some crackers, barely noticed the little spines that I usually must remove, and chowed down. Usually sardines are okay for twice a year and I really don't know why I keep buying them because they're kind of sinister for fish.  I mean, what other fish would lay itself down in a can with others of its ilk, side by side? At least salmon and tuna have the decency to be from one whole fish. I'm going to have to space out eating the other two cans. Bleah. And now a handful of getting-ever-stale taco chips, no dip, no guac. That's my dinner.

Stopped by Dan & Nessa's where they had leftover taco fixins'. I ate one and feel quite full now. Food saviors, gotta love 'em.

DAY 4

Reprieve. Going to the US for the weekend. Since I have some US money set aside I'll be able to buy some food. I don't eat until we get over the border and into Bellingham at 2. I buy six dolmades (grape leaves stuffed with rice), and a bag of jalapeno potato chips, which I eat on the way. For later I buy a bottle of wine, cider, one lime, a bag of mixed nuts and four muffins to share, which are really cupcakes in drag, weighing a pound each. That comes to $30 US or $45 CDN. US food prices are very expensive.

The bag of chips is so big there's no way I can eat them all but they and the dolmades do the trick. We drive and drive and drive, through traffic torture and heat and finally get in around 8:30. We set up the tent and I eat a banana and drink one cider. By the time we're all done setting up it's time for bed.

DAY 5

Mary brings me a bun with turkey in it sometime in the afternoon. Just turkey and dijonaise, no veggies. I ate a part of Pasha's magic bar, chocolate and coconut and something else. Later on we have supper, honey garlic chicken and brown rice, with caesar salad. I know I nibbled on a few more of the chips throughout the day so I don't feel hungry at all.

Evening is drink time, cider and wine and partying.

DAY 6

I wake up hungry but we have to attend meetings and then break down the tent. I eat a couple of chocolate chip cookies and half of the one-pound "muffin." Back in camp we start breaking down the tent and nibbling grapes. I eat a few more of the ubiquitous jalapeno chips and drink a glass of wine from what wasn't finished the night before. I pack the mixed nuts that I completely forgot about.

On the way home we stop at David & Jeff's and they order Chinese food.  Lots of food, I pig out and then feel uncomfortable. We drive on and around 11 we stop for some gas and I'm looking for pomegranate juice because I've discovered it goes very well with vanilla vodka. They don't have any but I find margarine with almost no whey in it. Being allergic to dairy can even eliminate most margarines and I've been looking for months for the brand I had bought. I don't use butter or margarine much at all but it's good to have some on hand. And I buy a few chocolates for the road because I'm falling asleep. Not the best and there's dairy in them but there are exceptions, even for bad chocolate.

Soup is a good way to fill up when poor. Creative Commons: foodgeeks.com

DAY 7

Monday, day off for Victoria day and it's cold and blah and rainy. I wake up quite late and eat the rest of the chips and the chocolates throughout the day. That's my meal until late at night when I finally do the finalized version of my taxes. Then I have a bowl of comfort soup, Lipton's chicken noodle, the low salt one, which doesn't have MSG like almost any other packaged soup, canned or dry. Why, I have no idea, but MSG gives me rashes on my face and I already overdid it with the chips.

I used the slow cooker today and made soup from a frozen chicken carcass, denuded of most meat until all that's there would maybe make a sparrow. I put that in the pot with the last of the veggies in my place. That's some slightly yellowing broccoli, about a half bunch of celery, some garlic, half a lemon and spices. Spices I have lots of. It cooks all night.

DAY 8

This morning I boiled up some alphabet noodles I forgot I had and added them to the soup. I took a big container and two buns with some margarine on them, to work. However, I didn't eat them during the day because I knew I had a long night. I succumbed to a chocolate bar and took another to work tonight. That's $1 I've spent on food.

When I did get around to eating my soup it was quite tasty. I put enough pepper and Ethiopian pepper in to make it spicy. Stole some sunflower seeds again from the guys and eventually ate the chocolate, Caramilk, which wasn't very good.  Bleah.

Got home thinking to have more soup but then thought to have another bun. They're starting to get that freezer burn taste. However, I settled for eating too many of the mixed nuts. Now I feel a bit bloated and it's off to bed.

DAY 9

I had a handful of nuts today at work. I knew a friend was coming over to cook dinner so I skipped taking some more of the soup. When I got home I was really hungry though so I ate a handful of crackers and then got a stomach ache.

Once my friend D comes over we make stir fry with basmati rice, turkey, carrots, peas, peppers & lots of wine. I eat well and D bought all the food or we would have had very slim pickins.

DAY 10

Thurs. leftover stir fry, two ciders at penis poetry (I might have been doing a reading of my "penis suite" poems about the penis or I might have been at some other show…I don't remember).

Dieting can make you crave food even more. Creative Commons: Sashamd Flickr

 

DAY 11

Friday, writers meeting, last of leftover stir fry, then over to Mikey's for Vlad's thang, some wine, Korean pancakes, peanuts, a couple of chips.

DAY 12

Kathy in town, meet her for rally, get a teacher's free bag lunch, eat half the sandwich with no cheese, veggies with peppers & mayo, bottle of orange juice, cookie. Pub for two drinks then to K's hotel. We hang out with pita, olives, artichoke hearts, red pepper spread, crackers, grapes, wine, then to lounge for more wine and cider, caeser, dancing all paid on her budget.

DAY 13 Over to Gibson's with Kathy and to Robert's and Wilson's Creeks to see friends. Just a couple of cookies at Ross & Nancy's, holding babies, a glass of blackberry wine. Two pieces of pizza with cheese pulled off (mostly), back on ferry, stop to buy can o mushrooms and some M&Ms because I found a spare $5 in my jacket pocket.

DAY 14 Tuna & frozen pasta sauce with wheel pasta. Banana chips.

Friday DAY 15 (You can see I started to lose enthusiasm for writing about this diet.)

chili

Saturday DAY 16

Ate some banana chips then went to help John move, or more unpack. His mom was there unpacking and hard at it. Helped in the kitchen and the bathroom, then we all went for dinner. Said I wasn't going to go cuz I was broke but John said he'd buy. We had Mongolian grill food and it was tasty. All you can eat. I wanted to have more than one bowl but I was just too full.

Sunday DAY 17

Slept far too late even for a slackass day. Ate some banana chips and then Dan ICQed me to come over for BBQ. Met with Sam for coffee. Bought a grapefruit juice which has used some hard-earned coin.

Went to the BBQ and brought my contribution which was absinthe (left by friends after a party). I'm getting used to the taste. Ate chips, salad and a hamburger, which my stomach rebelled against later. But then it might have been the four bucks I spent, two on a bag of chocolate chips that I can eat through the week and two on chocolate covered peanuts that I chowed down too fast and I think they contributed to the stomach ache though I gotta say beef and me don't see hoof to eye. I also felt waaay too full after eating the nuts. Not a good thing before going to bed.

Monday DAY 18

Slept in this morning and had to rush. I left when I should have been at work but made it in 20 minutes. So I gathered my last pennies and bought a bag of corn chips and some chocolate buds. That was lunch, balanced and healthy.

Had to work on some stuff tonight with a friend so I didn't eat till 11pm and then I had the ubiquitous soup I made two weeks ago. It doesn't seem to have turned yet though my stomach ached a bit after two bowls full. I had a handful of pine nuts too.

Tuesday DAY 19

Today as always I splurge and buy a bag of chips and a chocolate bar that I really shouldn't be eating. That's a buck from the $49 I have this week, $20 which will be set aside for taxes. I forgot to bring lunch with me and ten hours to get through. Guess I'll be stealing sunflower seeds again tonight.

Around this time I must have got more work and went off the taxation diet.

Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, life, memories Tagged: apocalypse diet, cooking, dieting, eating well, food, junk food, poverty, soup, taxation diet

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 47-52

Zombies might like them but I'll stick to the meat of the matter. Creative Commons: Wellcome Images

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 47 (Feb. 16):

Today's lunch was quinoa and pollo en mole (from the freezer). Dinner was… to tell the truth I forgot to write it down. Oh right, it was…Brussels sprouts, with carrots, margarine, garlic, herbs and spices.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 48 (Feb. 17):

Lunch was a simple affair of hazelnuts and dried cranberries. I knew friends were coming from out of town, and I wasn't very hungry. I met with a couple of other friends first and we shared nachos, then dinner later was my usual sesame ahi tuna at Biercraft and a couple-three of ciders.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 49 (Feb. 18):

The friends who came up from Seattle gave me some monster cookies last night. I froze most but I ate a whole one for breakfast. My heart was racing afterwards, since it equaled about three good sized cookies. That was a bit too much sugar all at once but it sure was tasty. Dinner consisted of some pre-frozen shepherd's pie.

I went dancing tonight and afterwards I was so hungry that I took a flour tortilla, warmed it up with some sundried tomatoes in oil, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 50 (Feb. 19):

I woke up hungry so I fried up some onion and garlic and six veggie gyozas. I also realized that if I don't cook that whole chicken soon I'll be having it without any vegetables. So it's thawing for tomorrow night's dinner.

Tonight was another flour tortilla (the bag has a hole and they're drying out) with a repeat of sundried tomatoes and parmesan. We drank most of the pomegranate juice last night with vanilla vodka. I had the rest tonight and now it's gone.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 51 (Feb. 20):

Avgolemono soup, and chocolate chip cookie were my lunch and snack. I went to work out and then had to go for a CT scan and didn't have time to eat so I was starving when I returned home to eat at 9:30 pm. I ate some crackers while waiting for everything to cook.

Tonight was the chicken, the whole delectable chicken. I hate skin and fat so I skinned my chicken first. I found some very old frozen crusts

I'll eat the beets and leave the brains to the zombies. Creative Commons: http://inmolaraan.blogspot.com/

in the freezer so I broke them up, mixed them with salt, pepper, rosemary, onion, two eggs, cajun spice and what I thought was sage. It turns out I mixed up my containers and put basil in . I also threw in some turmeric for fun, and zedary. Yeah, I don't know what that is either.

I stuffed the chicken, then seared it in sauteed onions, garlic, part of a shriveled jalapeno, salt, pepper, a cajun spice rub and olive oil. I stuck the whole thing in a dutch oven with one chopped, slightly shriveled turnip (I lied when I said a week or two ago that I had carrots and turnip– I ended up not eating that night) and two beets. I also cooked up some brown rice.

So there I was with a nice slice or two of chicken breast, stuffing, rice, turnips and beets, and even gravy though it looked like congealed blood from the beet coloring. The stuffing okay with the basil. Not bad for Day 51. I ate too much too because I was so hungry so now I'm rather full and have enough for several days at least.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 52 (Feb. 21):

Lunch was leftovers; chicken, turnip, beets, stuffing. My through the day snack was the mondo truffle cookie that I couldn't eat all at once because I felt all sugar funny. Supper was, yes, the same as lunch. I'm very sensitive to the change in flavor of meat after it's cooked. I need to eat the chicken in the fridge within three days. Anything left over after that will either be frozen or turned into soup stock.

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, entertainment, food Tagged: apocalypse diet, beets, brains, dieting, diets, eating, food, food supplies, hunger, leftovers, living on leftovers, Maya calendar, roast chicken, Zombie Age, zombies

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 41-46

 

How well will we eat at the end of the world? Creative Commons: Kyrenius http://www.flickr.com/photos/jango-jo...

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 41 (Feb. 10):

This is the beginning of the bubble weekend, where the Apocalypse Diet went on hold. I had a friend visting and she wanted to go out to eat so we had some calamari and ahi tuna at Biercraft for lunch. For dinner we went to Les Faux Bourgeois, where we shared the goat cheese, walnut and beet salad, and had two tarts, which were squares of puff pastry, one with caramelized onions and creme fraiche, the other with spinach and goat cheese. Those three dishes were enough to fill us up.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 42 (Feb. 11):

Really, I should start the renumbering after this weekend due to the food bubble but that would get too complicated. So, I did buy food for the party, some salamis, cheese, crackers, veggies and dips. The crackers are separate and will keep. The mayo is labelled so I can't use it for anything else until after the party. I brought the candies to work for others to consume. The cheese will keep but what can I do with the veggies? The only way I can see around this is to take some of the stock I still have, make soup, freeze it and then use it after the Apocalypse ends.The salami went, as well as all the other goodies people brought. It's going to be very very difficult to resist the delectable cheeses (three types!) sitting there and taunting me. I will tuck them away in a dark dark drawer.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 43 (Feb. 12):

Sunday, a day that could be re-labelled Hangover day. While I didn't have one, by the time I put the food away last night and got to bed it was 4:30 am so I was rather tired and slept in. I felt a bit like a zombie but luckily I took off my makeup before I went to bed or I would have looked like one. My friend and I went for brunch where I had a veggie eggs benedict, then I drove her to the airport. Tomorrow, it's back to the diet.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 44 (Feb. 13):

I know this blog will not be the most exciting. No rampant gnawing on my cranium, no dire wrestling matches with decomposing, animated humans, no creative concoctions in my kitchen. But in about a week the true challenge will ensue. My freezer is still saving me.

Today's feast was minimal after the weekend chowdown. I took some hazelnuts from the freezer, and some dried cranberries. I am so not a person who likes dessicated fruit corpses. However, I was going over to my friend's tonight where she cooked chicken, rice, chard and broccoli, which was yummy and filling.

 

These were at my party but I took them to work to get rid of them. No brains though. Brach's candy hearts from marriage.families.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 45 (Feb. 14):

Heart day but I'm still not eating them or brains. More nuts and berries for lunch. Dinner consisted of some pasta, with slices of carrots (left over from the party but existing beforehand), some oil, garlic and a bit of Parmesan, which still exists.

That soup stock that I thought I could use for the leftover party veggies…turns out to be shepherd's pie. I do have a bag of veggie ends in the freezer to make veggie soup stock. Will probably do that this weekend.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 46 (Feb. 15):

Today's lunch was quinoa and pollo en mole (from the freezer) and dinner was the same as last night's pasta.

As I was looking for a lost file on the computer I found "Diary of a Taxation Dieter" from 2002. I'll be posting it here because it was the first time I tried the Apocalypse Diet, but for a different reason. It's interesting to note that I was a chocoholic then, but my lunches consisted of chocolate bars and corn chips. Not healthy. I now eat much healthier and make up soups or salads to take for lunch. I don't eat chocolate bars for lunch anymore (not much). I'll post that in a few days.

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, life Tagged: apocalypse diet, dieting, eating, end of the world, food experiments, freezer foods, Maya calendar, soups, Zombie Age, zombie foods

Interesting Blog Demographics

Creative Commons: Kristina B flickr

You know all those fun stats that WordPress gives you if you write a blog; number of clicks per day, week, month and year, search items, posts clicked on, etc.?  Well, it's really interesting to see trends or what people are interested in, though repeating it doesn't always work. My first year or two I tried to write 5 days a week. Then I knocked it down to about 3 days a week. Sometimes what I write about may be topical, or just something I've been thinking about, but it's not what others are reading about. Then suddenly, weeks or months later, the post takes off and gets a lot of views. I doubt I could predict what would have been the more popular posts.

If I had to guess I would have said sex, or what my government is doing to me and you. But like the Facebook cartoon that went around (it shows a person posting on serious things, government, political stuff and the post gets three "likes", then they post on something inane, such as "I like frothy pink milkshakes" and they get 1,000 "likes") it's never what you think will be the hit.

My all-time top post is Rape: It's Just a Social Media Trend, which just beats out the up-till-recent top post: Traveling in India: Betel Nut Adventures. When I look at the search criteria, people have been searching for "rape" and "betel nut." I'm always a bit disturbed that so many people are searching out rape, and I wonder why. Is it to be informed, or worse, for some form of warped titillation? In a way I could possibly understand why betel nut might be my top post. After all, the population of India equals 17% of the world's population.

Weekly totals tend to range but usually these two posts come out on top. This last week it switched to my recent The Skinny on Models, with anorexia being the search term. I'd like to think that this is because people are concerned about an eating disorder that's being found in younger and younger children and is spreading too far in a society obsessed by looks.

Creative Commons: thisfragiletent.wordpress.com

I'm no big 15,000 hits a day blogger (yet) but it's fascinating to see what hits the reader is attracted to immediately and what seems to gain interest over time, such as Starbucks and the Censored Mermaid and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Superhero Fashion. When The Only Good Thing About Snow was freshly pressed, it gained the most views in a single day to this date, but that tapered down.  I do find whenever I write about transit or the fact that people in greater Vancouver pay 33% taxes every time they park, whether in a parkade or on the street, or about Big Brother watching us, that no one seems to care. Alas. That also disturbs me because it indicates that we live in an age of complicity as well as hyper sexualization. While I'm not a prude, I'm still bothered by these connotations, at least as shown by internet searches.

My other top posts follow. You will see that many of them have to do with sex or sexualization in some way. But not all. I'm happy that people liked The Stones of Ireland: I as well. Oh, and I expect this post to not be popular because it's dealing with statistics, not breasts or betel nut.

TOP 13 POSTS

Rape: It's Just a Social Media Trend

Traveling in India: Betel Nut Adventures

Home page (It's hard to tell which posts these would be as it's a daily change, every time I post.)

Starbucks and the Censored Mermaid (How did the Starbucks logo evolve and devolve?)

Incest, Betrayal and Genetic Sexual Attraction

The Only Good Thing About Snow (This one was freshly pressed.)

My Religion's Better Than Yours

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Superhero Fashion

About Colleen (Yes, the about me page, which probably needs updating)

The Disturbing Trend of Sexifying Children (The creepy world of child beauty pageants.)

Tonsil Tales (My adventures on getting rid of my tonisls.)

The Stones of Ireland: I

Sexy Cartoons: the Cutesifying of Society

Filed under: Culture, internet, sex, Writing Tagged: betel nut, blogging, clicks per post, hits per day, internet post, internet search, internet traffic, rape, sex, sexualization, statistics, stats