A Tuesday update

Things started off well this morning. Kashi cereals actually really do taste pretty good! I was fully expecting to enjoy eating the box more than the contents but was very pleasantly surprised with how my breakfast turned out. I even threw in a couple of strawberries and handful of blueberries. I felt positively cosmopolitan. Then later I had a healthy yoghurt. Man I was doing well. That was until the newly remodeled Applebee's sucked me in to it's meaty grasp.

I have a love/hate relationship with Applebee's. The food and menu always look so good but the food is always a let down. But I just keep letting my stomach over-rule my brain. Well, tonight the food actually wasn't half bad. I had the incredibly healthy swiss dip sliders mmm in extra lean au jus and split an appetizer. Yummo. I was good with desert though. I waited till I got home and helped myself to a sugar free werther's orignal. Thank goodness for candy from Grandma's.

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I listened to the Too Grumpy Critic's podcast over the weekend and now am fixated on turning off lightbulbs. All I can think about is: I'm cooking a chicken, I'm cooking a chicken. It's been difficult writing this by candle light but, by jove!, I think I've done it.

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Trying to figure out someone's disposition via email is such a tricky thing. I received a couple of work emails from a person I hadn't met. She has always been very curt and abrupt in her emails so it was confusing enough already. Then she replied to one of my requests with a double question mark at the end: "30 pages should be enough, right??"
I couldn't figure out if it was a genuine question, a statement that she would only be doing 30 pages or some seriously painful sarcasm. It didn't help when after I agreed to the amount of pages she said "I look forward to finishing it!!".

Someone really needs to invent a symbol for sarcasm. Can't we just steal the upside down exclamation point. Oh, wait is this the sarcasm symbol (!) Cause that would be bloody brilliant (!).

A lifestyle change

Change is always difficult. Especially for those of us that like to know with almost certainty what to expect which is why I like to drive the same routes, eat at the same places and sleep on the same side of the bed. But this week I'm attempting to make a change to my eating habits and it takes some getting used to. For one I'm personally waging a war against High Fructose Corn Syrup. It's been blamed for the obesity epidemic (well, that and Tudor's Biscuit World) and surprisingly to me it is found in practically everything. You could say I'm on the HFCSF diet but that would sound stupid.

So now I can no longer have regular Heinz Tomato Ketchup, no more Raisin Bran, no more Carrot and raisin salad at Chik-fil-a, no more regular cokes or pepsi's, no wheat bread at Subway (Wtf?), no Sara Lee Heart Healthy Whole Grain Bread, and no Pop-tarts...and the list goes on.

On top of all that I'm also trying to eat more fresh fruit particularly because I don't like vegetables on the whole. Especially those that are really good for you. Catch me on a good day and I'll eat spinach and a bit of red pepper. Catch me on a bad day and I'll eat 4 different types of potato with some chives.

It's going to be tough because I've always just eaten what I wanted to really. Which turns out isn't all that bad but it's not all that good either. Thankfully I am addicted to certain healthy things like these raw Spanish peanuts I'm snacking on. On the other hand, those milk duds over there sure look tempting...

$2.99 at Kroger FTW

Thanks Paul

I see your "Kahncat" and raise you this:

Perspective is all relative

Einstein made famous the notion of time being relative. The example I think he used goes something like: 5 minutes can seem to pass quickly when you are in the arms of your lover but would seem like a lifetime when you are sitting on a hot stove. It make a lot of sense to me and makes me think about how my perspective on other things in life can change in an instant. For example, before we adopted the kittens I would browse the list on pet finder just looking for interests sake rather than looking for a pet. At that point in time it would feel like none of the pets would ever find a home. I felt sad looking at the long list of great pets that have to live in the cramped and crappy conditions of the shelter.

The perspective can quickly change when you suddenly are looking to adopt. Then your thinking changes to "I better get down to the shelter before someone else gets there and adopts the cat I want!" as if people are streaming down to the shelter adopting left, right and center. Isn't that strange?

I think it's part of the reason Ebay has been so successful too, especially for folks like me. When it's something I don't want to buy I scoff at other user's wondering what they were thinking trying to sell THAT. When it's an item I really want I'm desperate to procure it, imagining that in a warehouse somewhere in the hills there are 10,000 computers and 10,000 operators all logging into Ebay to purposefully outbid me on a PC-CDROM version of Blade Runner from 1997 and so I must log on 10 billion times a day in order to outbid the unseen masses.

What's worst is that advertisers and retailers know this. They are master manipulators of our strings causing us to spend thousands on stuff we didn't really want but thought we had to get before they all sold out. Look for this especially at Christmas time when mysterious articles appear in the press announcing the "must-have" toy for Christmas long before it is actually "must-have".

I'm back...with cats

As you may have noticed I've been gone, as some might say.

I'm back, at least for today, just to say "hey" and "how are ya?". I think the main reason I've been absent has been a lack of enthusiasm for getting on my computer plus an increased work load. It's the busy season for me right now. Also, I have two amazing little kittens to take care of right now and anyone who has kittens in their house knows just how much attention these little guys need. Just in case you were wondering, here's a piccie:


That's Sydney with the markings and Oliver hiding in the back and they are not as innocent as they look. And just so my other cat doesn't feel neglected here he is, yawning:

Or yelling a war-cry. I forget which one now.