Mishaps and other haps

For several months now I have owned a paper shredder. Since most of my mail eventually ends up in the paper shredder, I have noticed that an awful lot of paper comes my way via snail mail in a short period of time.

It’s not that I receive a LOT of junk mail and catalogs. I probably receive less than the average person, except for the general flyers and junk sent to “Resident.” I do receive a lot of credit card offers that are shredded, but most of my other mail includes bills, statements, random things related to my work benefits and UW alumni stuff.

Some days I have several pieces of mail that do not make it any farther than the trash can beside the mailboxes, but I feel compelled to shred certain pieces of junk mail that may have some personal information in them. So some junk mail is shredded and when I pay bills, the leftover contents of those envelopes are shredded, along with the envelopes themselves. There is so much junk included in bills– special offers, checks I never use that are included with my credit card statement.

Anyway, the shredder is full again with another batch of confetti that I don’t have a use for. I’ll take it out to the recycling bin with the next bag of plastic/paper containers from the kitchen.

I guess one day I will switch all of my bills over to automatic withdrawals and that will reduce some of the paper flow. At this point I don’t feel comfortable having so many hands dipping into my account. I keep hearing about instances where people have been double-billed for things.

I read something scary yesterday.

I wonder how many years cow parts had been part of cow diets before the ban on cow-derived feed was instigated in 1998. I wonder how many of these cows made it into U.S. markets and how many cases of CJD we might see in the U.S. in coming decades.

Beware the Tides of Starch!

For those of you not living in Wisconsin …

This morning it was significantly colder and a slight dusting of snow had been thrown over the grass and my car.

Right now the forecast predicts more snow on Wednesday night and Thursday, as well as falling temperatures.

Meanwhile, I have been getting excited about heirloom seeds. Maybe a little too soon since it’s going to be a while before we are prepared to garden. Like Summer 2007, probably?

I will try to write a real post later in the week. Been busy. PhysOrg’s (25th) birthday is coming up this weekend, so there will probably be some goings-on related to that.

Hmmm … maybe it’s the warmish weather lately:

–we had rain that did not freeze at the end of the week

–yesterday was unjacket weather

–last night we had one of our typical Wisconsin spring-storms-with-hail.

Anyway, I bought a bunch of fresh vegetables while I was out because it seems like it’s about time to start keeping more fresh vegetables in the fridge. Found a jalapeno ranch dressing/dip that is perfect with carrots, grape tomatoes, and broccoli.

Stitch brought peach salsa to our game yesterday, which made me think … yeah, when we have a house I am going to have to grow tomatoes and hot peppers in the garden for salsa (oh, and for other things). I’ve never canned things before, though. If the garden is successful enough, I might have to learn how to do that.

Malt-O-Meal! Exotic Midwestern wheat and barley cereal!

Is it grits? No!

Is it oatmeal? No!

It is Malt-O-Meal.

If you have a boyfriend, he might cook it for you!

***

I went out during lunch yesterday and picked up Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Mirrormask. We popped in the first two last night while Mlitiagrl and PhysOrg hit the WoW. It was a pizza/movies/WoW night (except that I did not play WoW, but maybe sometime today).

(Since LJ’s commenting features don’t seem to be working at the moment)

Perhaps soda companies have been expecting a decline in soda sales for a while, since they have also staked a claim in non-soda beverages. I was kind of amazed to recently find out that Odwalla, a natural foods company that a lot of people rave about (they make juices and yummy vegan snack bars), was purchased by Coca-Cola several years ago.

A little poking around reveals that:

Coca-Cola also owns Minute Maid. (Edit: Actually, Coca-Cola owns a LOT of fruit/water/sports drink brands. See here.)

Pepsico owns Tropicana, Gatoraid, and Aquafina.

The NY Times is reporting that soda sales have declined for the first time in 20 years. If you think about how rampant soda addiction is and how many sodas are purchased in a day, that’s pretty amazing.

I’m not entirely sure it’s all due to more healthful beverage choices, though. While some soda drinking is being replaced with water, alternatives such as energy drinks, sports drinks, and coffee drinks are not necessarily “healthier” choices (this heresy written by the woman who has a large coffee drink on her desk).

Sure, it could be a bit better … if you go for the skim, non-flavored latte or choose a diet drink in place of a sugary one. But are people really doing this, or are they substituting a high-sugar, super-caffeinated, 32 oz. energy drink for that 12 oz. soda? Or maybe a large caramel mocha? A one-liter sports drink, also full of sugar?

I drink less soda than most people I know, but that doesn’t mean that every choice I make is a healthier one.

It is a beautiful, sunny, cold morning here in Madison, but what can you expect for the 7th of March? It is still very solidly winter here. A few more inches of snow fell on Sunday and enough of it is still on the ground that I regretted wearing “work shoes” this morning. Yesterday I wore an older pair of shoes to work because I knew the ground would still be icky, but I wasn’t really sure about today. The black Danskos are very comfortable and well-made, but they aren’t the best shoes for stomping around in semi-rigid snow and I’m not that keen on getting them wet and mucky. But it all worked out.

In keeping with my current environmental reading theme, I am working on The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction.

My favorite non-fiction subjects are history and science (of course, there are subgenres of each of these that I prefer more than others). I have been reading more science than history lately, maybe to balance all of that time in grad school I spent reading history. My relationship with fiction has become kind of funny, though—it takes a really well-written novel to hold my attention to the end. I guess I find real things and people more interesting than things that are not real. History and science have always seemed “useful” to me and I am very utilitarian in some ways, so maybe that is the appeal.

Just got back upstairs from watching the opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, a world event in WoW that we have been anticipating … oh, for a few months now.

I woke up kind of late and was booted from the server when I started flying out to Tanaris, so I decided to stay off for a while and view the opening from PhysOrg’s laptop. Watched a little of the kicking of giant Anubis butts and decided … hey, I should come back upstairs and harvest more Blindweed, but before I do that, I should post about the last few days.

::rewind::

Thursday night I went to dinner with Phys, Inle, and Mlitiagrl at Cheeseburger in Paradise. I like this place a lot because they will substitute a veggie burger patty for beef on any of their cheeseburgers. They also have sweet potato chips, chocolate nachos, and perhaps the best pina coladas in town.

We dropped by the bookstore for an hour and two and then headed over to see the 9:50 showing of Howl’s Moving Castle. I saw this movie when it came out back in June, and so did Mlitiagrl and Inle, but PhysOrg had not seen it yet. I noticed that it was still playing at Market Square (budget theater), maybe because of the Oscars being this week and such. So we saw it again. I think we’re going to own at least two copies of this movie when it comes out on DVD. I am working on my Miyazaki collection and Mlitiagrl loves the movie a lot, too, so we both want copies.

Friday night, I played a lot of WoW. I worked on Blasted Lands quests a lot (nice consumable item rewards), harvested herbs, and made lots of potions. PhysOrg was napping quite a bit of the evening. Some of the guilds on our server were working on one of the final events leading up to the opening of Ahn’Qiraj, so Bovia, Thunderhuff, and Montanni went to Moonglade for a while. Montanni was happy because he got to smack shades and an elite dragon boss with Lord Alexander’s Battleaxe, which a guild member sent to him this past week.

Around 2:30-3 AM, we completed the Moonglade event and eventually I slept some.

I did not wake up as early as I intended on Saturday morning, so I scaled down the list of things I intended to accomplish before gaming. I managed to mail a package I had been meaning to send to jupitersnest for a couple of weeks and made a couple of additional stops. Luckily, I was just about done with my scaled-down chore list by the time Mlitiagrl called to say we were going to try to start gaming early.

We gamed most of the afternoon, then went to dinner and Duck Soup Cinema at the Overture Center. I went to Duck Soup Cinema for the first time with PhysOrg last Fall and it is a very entertaining way to spend an evening. A variety of live performances (vaudeville style) is followed by a silent movie accompanied by live organ music. Last night’s movie was Safety Last starring Harold Lloyd.

We decided to continue gaming after the movie, so it was another late night and I was inclined to stay in bed until almost 10, the time the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj were scheduled to open this morning.

Plans for this afternoon include:
1) WoW for a while. I need to do some more harvesting, at least.
2) My roommate intends to have a movie party sometime today. We will probably do this downstairs since the television and DVD player are set up there at the moment.