ZOMG YAY 4 ELECTRONICS!

So I got a MacBook and I just went to amazon and bought a Nintendo DS Lite (bc I sure as hell wasnt going to get it at the stores - SOLD OUT ---- Oh, I got Silver Metallic). So the one thing about growing older is that if your parents dont buy it - you can just buy it for yourself. On credit.


Okay question. How do I access the camera on the MacBook? I need to start some webcam sexual websites just kidding.

Edward Lifesize Standup poster

Nothing says "fan" like a cardboard lifesize cut out.

what i have my eye on

Okay I recently got this hankering for a Nintendo DS Lite (and recently being after my friend let me play hers).

Here it is a WalMart for $150 for the DS Lite, 2 games (out of a preselected 17 - Id get the Uno and Sonic but thats just me), and a choice of 1 of 2 Accessory Starter kits (Mario Red or PRincess Peach, meh): http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10730454

And I also kind of want a Mac.

So I can be one of these people.

shopping reminder

I need to remind myself to buy this song later.

The Prayer by Lizzie West.

Guess? what I'm buying.

I'm going to buy a coat from Guess? ... it is on sale for $100 bucks from $185. I have to tell myself not to buy expensive things until I have a day to think it over. If I still want it, then I can go back and buy it. I can be SO COMPULSIVE at times.

I also need to buy some cute sunglasses. :D I want some over the top Dior ones, but I'll probably just buy some Coach. Save myself 200 bucks, y'know ....

Stuff I just bought.

This shoe calendar.
Wow, can you say jump the gun? Anyways, I TOTALLY had to buy this. They have a handbag desk calendar too! ZOMG. My last desk calendar I just threw away because it was all this self help bullcrap and black and white and .... snore.

The Sam Sparro album.
I just wanted that song "Black and Gold" bc I heard it on dancing with the stars, but I bought the whole album instead. I actually bought the song twice because I bought the song from another one of his albums off amazon and then I ended up clicking to this album and bought the whole damn thing and ... yeah, bought the song twice.

THEN, I clicked on "Customers who bought this also bought this" and I got this album. Hercules and Love Affair. Mainly because a song on there - Blind - sounds like it has the same guy who sings with Bjork on a song called "Dull Flame of Desire".

And I didnt buy this song, because I already own it. But Eden by Hooverphonic ... so good.

Stuff to buy

Okay Im going to get a COSTCO membership.
And then I think I saw a $170 CoolPix AShton Kutcher digital camera there.

Good plan.

Stuff to buy

So I bought Teen Witch this weekend. I only have 30 bucks left in my checking account but I think it was a well thought out purchase. How much longer could I have lived a happy, healthy life without buying this gem of an 80s chick flick? HOW LONG I ASK?

BUT, I still need to buy Apples 2 Apples. And the expansion pack. So thats going to be like 45 bucks.
But I MUST HAVE IT.

(Just like I bought that nice Scrabble swivel board thats still sitting in my trunk. Unopened.)

So, back to Teen Witch.
I watched it with SBZ and Im sure she just absolutely adored it.
Brad is pretty dreamy.
And I cant believe Louise Miller's teacher pulled out her birth control from her purse. He totally deserved that voodoo doll thing.
And during the Top That scene, the guy that Polly likes ... HAHA His shirt is so short you see his stomach while he's dancing! I cried. OMG It was that funny.
Break a leg, Kiki!

shopping during lunch

I love LOVE working near the mall and shopping centers.

So, today during lunch, we went to Old Navy. And one of my coworkers bought me like 30 bucks worth of clothes. And, in Old Navy money, thats like 3 shirts.

I bought myself earrings, another shirt, and a [hot pink] volleyball. Dont get it twisted about the pink volleyball. Its not Paris Hilton by any means. I think the pink is mixed with some grey tire tread looking graphic. Its kind of Bugle Boy jeans looking. With pink. I want to go in my backyard and practice setting the volleyball to myself. That way, I can keep shifting to stay under the volleyball and then eventually end up tripping over a branch or running into concrete steps.

This birthday has been incredibly fun. I guess a lot of people care about me this year :D (As opposed to my 20th birthday when I think crying and self hatred were involved).

The importance of buying local and buying fruits in season

I was linked to a BBC article entitled "[Gordon] Ramsay orders seasonal-only menu".

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season.

He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season.

Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.

He says it would cut carbon emissions as less food would be imported and also lead to improved standards of cooking.

'Out of control'

The TV chef said it was "fundamentally important" for chefs to provide locally-sourced food.

"Fruit and veg should be seasonal," he said. "Chefs should be fined if they haven't got ingredients in season on their menu.

"I don't want to see asparagus on in the middle of December. I don't want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown."

Ramsay, whose London restaurants include Petrus, The Savoy Grill and Maze, added that Britain had become a nation of lazy eaters, following trends and fads, rather than substance.

He also said chefs became "lazy" when excited by "frills", and making out-of-season produce illegal would raise "levels of inspiration".

"There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only," he said.

"If we don't restrict our movements within this industry of seasonal-produce only, then the whole thing will spiral out of control."


Canned insult

Meanwhile, Terry Jones from the National Farmers Union (NFU) said that, while he agrees with the chef's complaint, legislation would be going too far.

He said: "We've almost got too much legislation in food and farming as things stand.

"Really what we need to see is that passion and that commitment to seasonality being pushed into consumer education and into this commitment on menu transparency."

And the Soil Association's Food for Life Partnership director Emma Noble said the celebrity chef was right to suggest that "seasonal menus are a key step in cutting the environmental impact of our food".

Famous for his bad temper, Ramsay also spoke passionately about another environmental concern - plastic bags - saying they simply "did not make sense".

Speaking to the BBC before the start of the fourth series of his Channel 4 show The F Word, the father-of-four said he plans to get the nation back into the kitchen, cooking healthy, wholesome fare.

He says the obesity problem in the UK could soon rival that of the States, and he blames parents for giving into children and not having the discipline to say no.

He also vented his anger at fellow TV chef Delia Smith, whose latest book, How to Cheat at Cooking, encourages people to mix together ready-made food rather than cook from scratch if they are short of time or on a tight budget.

He said: "I would expect students struggling on £15 a week to survive eating from a can but the nation's favourite, all-time icon reducing us down to using frozen, canned food. It's an insult.

"And it makes our lives, from a chef's point of view, a lot harder. Here we are trying to establish a reputation across the world for this country's food and along comes Delia and tips it out of a can. That hurts."

BTW, I love Hell's Kitchen.

Anyways. So I am just going to blabber on and on about the evils of agrobusiness. Maybe "evil" implies intention ... I dont mean it too. Im sure when agrobusiness started it was like "HEY YAY foods for the masses!" But it has just turned into lobbyists and corporations. There is little to no benefit anymore for a true farmer through agrobusiness.

Here are my 3 posts I made in a fark.com forum. That no one read or listened too. They are more interested in, like, Gordon Ramsay cussing people out and stuff.

Post 1

Buying fruits in season and from local growers is an excellent idea. Creating a demand from local farmers (who are more likely to grow organic ... ie, NON GM foods) and taking it away from agrobusiness does wonders for our food safety and security.

Agrobusiness' plants are grown in fewer and fewer locations. Which means it has farther and farther to travel (for all you global warming people).

PLUS agrofarmers have little to no genetic diversity within their fields. Imagine a strain of plant disease or pest eats that one particular type of plant that the agrofarmers are growing ... what then? You are kinda screwed foodwise.

You think high cost gas is a problem? Wait until bad farming practices end up with food shortages.


Buy local. Buy fruits in season for your area.

(oh and by agrobusiness, I mainly mean Monsanto)

Agrobusiness and GM plants are BAD and NOT SMART for the longevity and safety of our food supply. And, for you global warming freaks, its horrible for the environment.

Buying local and eating fruits in season will help curb the power and monopoly agrobusiness has on our food supply.

Do you want ONE company to own all the world's seed supply?

Terminator seeds
You buy seeds from a store and try to harvest the seeds and re-plant them. More than likely YOU CANT. Because they have been genetically modified so the seeds are sterile. Imagine if every human in the world was sterile. How many people would be alive after 200 years? The answer is ONE. Jesus. [Okay that was funny. I dont know why I didnt get any props for that .... :( ]

But Niki, only a portion of the seeds being planted are terminator seeds though. What about cross pollination? It has happened before with genetically modified technology. . . . Only a matter of time and wind. . . .


Government and Agrobusiness

Dont think agrobusiness doesnt have lobbyists all up in everyone in Congress's business.

The government subsidizes CROPS and not the FARMERS (which is beneficial to agrobusiness not the poor poor farmer).

So say you are a farmer.
You buy seed from a company.
Spray it with the Ready Round Up (pesticide) the same company sells.
The plant doesnt die because its been genetically modified to not die with the poison on it.
The meat you eat eats it. You eat it. We all eat it.

You farmed it but the government subsidizes the crop and not you ... so the big company (that you bought the seed AND the pesticide from) gets a cut of that subsidy too ... leaving you, the farmer, to pick up a part time job to feed your family.

Patented technology and agrobusiness

I would say that agrobusiness is predatory. On a scale of "evilness" I would say they are worse than the oil companies.

If you, the farmer, dont go through agrobusiness to farm food, and you grow corn and your field happens to become cross pollinated with the big company's patented plant (bc a bird crapped in your field), then you get sued by said big company for patent infringment.

This is after you've been sent letters and letters by big company asking to hand over a sample of your crop so they can test it to see if your crop has been cross pollinated by their patented technology ... i mean, seeds.

You might win in court, but you'll be bankrupt before you find out.



Like the "horrible horrible" gas companies, agrobusiness is doing the same thing. Monsanto is laughing all the way to the bank.

Farkers never stfu about how bad the oil companies are. I thought the last sentence would kind of start connecting ... but alas, it did not.

Someone made a comment: If all restaurants used only locally grown in season fruits and vegetables, they'd have very little variety. Every restaurant would have very similar menus. It would be....well, boring...the essence of British cooking.

Which brought me to my 3rd post.

Maybe in your little one person world.
But agrobusiness actually DISCOURAGES genetic diversity.

Buying local and fruits in season encourages different genetic strains of potatoes, tomatoes, whatnot.


From Community Alliance with Family Farmers
http://www.caff.org/programs/buylocal.shtml

In the modern industrial agriculture system, produce varieties are chosen for their ability to ripen simultaneously and withstand harvesting equipment. Shippers demand produce with a tough skin that can survive packing, transport, and a long shelf life in the store. Only a handful of hybrid varieties of each fruit and vegetable meet those rigorous demands, so there is little genetic diversity in the plants grown. In contrast, local farmers that sell direct to you or direct to your local restaurants and grocery stores grow a huge number of varieties selected because they have the best flavors, provide a long harvest season, and come in an array of eyecatching colors. Many varieties are heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation because they taste good. These old varieties contain genetic material from hundreds or even thousands of years of human selection. They may someday provide the genes needed to adapt to a changing climate.

I could go on and on about sustainable agriculture.

I read Harvest for Hope by Jane Goodall and am an extensive googler.

I mean, Im not trying to change the world or anything. I just find its really annoying that people just bitch bitch bitch about gas prices and then still buy SUVs. bitch about their weight .... and still eat trans fats and processed foods and eat unhealthily (like Im doing RIGHTTHISMINUTE!).
But its the human/hypocrite way. We do it in church. We do it at work. We do it with our friends. We do it with family. We do it with politics. We expect others to live up to standards that we arent prepared ourselves to live up to.

Oh. And in the Word of Wisdom, it clearly states to eat fruits in the season, thereof. Yet another reason why I believe the Book of Mormon/Doctrine and Covenants is an inspired document!!

D&C 89:10-11
10 And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—
11 Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.

Ixnay on the Novara Fusion

So I went to REI and I totally am not going to buy the Novara Fusion. It WAS awesome with all the accessories it came with. But it is just too mechanical for me. Say I got a flat tire ... I'd have to unscrew a lot of things and know what to not touch and try to replace the tube inside the tire without breaking cables and with the tire not detaching from the bike. It seems like a total hassle. The REI person was like ... these are actually one of the bikes we dont want to put together because they are such a pain.

The Corsa sits better AND you dont even need any tools to take off the back wheel.

One thing I DONT like about Novara as a whole ... the frames are made in China. They are American designed though. The REI person said that only 5 bicycle brands were actually made in the USA. Cannondale (REI carries this brand) was one of them. I didnt ask for the other 4. I'll furiously google these other four companies tomorrow.
HOLD YOUR BREATH!

Commuting to work via bike might be harder than I originally thought

Okay apparently you arent supposed to commute on major highway thoroughfares. So I'm guessing Cobb Parkway is out of the question. But the route they suggest me taking is crossing huge intersections and taking a lot of turns. Do they know how easily I get lost??! I have to take 25 turns and the way I was planning on going only had me turning like 5 times! Thats a kabillion more turns! 5 times more!! 500 % more turns!

The following website was extremely helpful though.
http://commutebybike.com/

This was the site I went to to plan my trip.
http://www.atltransit.com/

ANd Im totally not giving up on commuting to work! I am planning on spending that rebate check on a 600 dollar bike. I think Im going to get the Fusion Novara REI brand.
http://www.rei.com/product/744803

Sweet? Sweet.
It has fenders and headlights and taillights. I think it has a nexus hub. And I have no clue what that means.

Oh, then I'll need a helmet, patch kits, tire levers?, tubes, wrench?, multitool? I mean, I wouldnt even know what to do with all that stuff?
How about just one tool?
A CELLPHONE.

I bought the Once soundtrack

Okay so this weekend, Im going to Savannah. I wasnt going to go but now I am because I always said I wanted to travel more and what better way to start off than to go to Georgia from Georgia? It kinda sucks because I REALLY wanted to go to The High. But Josh can take me later or I can go with Sarah Beth. I am not particularly fond of Georgia O'Keefe and that would be the exhibit I'd miss. Also there was that GA Force game but I still dont know too many cats at Church and I didnt want to be the person someone had to sit next to.
Well anyways, in Savannah we are going stay at the Hilton. Should be fun?! I am obsessed with trees (not really obsessed, I just think they look pretty) so I should definitely see some new crazy trees in Savannah. My mom, bless her heart, has asked me to go camping with her. Then I told her I couldnt because I was going to Savannah. She responds by encouraging me to go to the strip club to see that transsexual who was in The Midnight of Garden and Evil. My stepdad seconded that motion. I dont care what my aunt says, my mom is awesome.

Last week, Ashley and I ate at Mellow Mushroom and watched Once. Okay can I just say Mellow Mushroom was FABULOUSSS. Even the leftovers were lower case fabulous. Then we watched Once and I just really really liked that movie for some reason. It is most definitely a Just Have Sex Already movie. Definitely. I think I already mentioned that in a previous blog so I'll just stfu now. O wait, I just got an email from Ashley saying "just do it already? pshht more like just kiss already."

Last night Leo came over before Tim got home. Im the worst host ever. I let him in and then sat down and continued watching Alias. I did eventually talk to him though. And he said something about Jennifer Garner being hot.
Real deep conversationalists.

Speaking of real deep conversationalists, I was reading A Short History of Nearly Everything and Im in the dinosaur part (more like the part where they excavated the dinosaurs). So not only did I learn that Isaac Newton was weird but that surveyors and geologists were seriously cutthroat.

Dear grammar nazis, my verb tenses dont match. I know this. And I didnt capitalize Grammar Nazi. Now what?

Cute Bathing suits from Urban Outfittersssszzz

Link to swimsuit

This is cute and a one piece. Looks like it might actually hide a big breakfast!
$98 ... not bad not bad.


Link to swimsuit

This one might make your butt poke out a little bit under the leg opening which is just NOT cute. But I like the top and the open back.
$88.


Link to swimsuit

OMG Im so plain and boring! I love this one too! Its just so ... square.
$88


Link to swimsuit

$88.
Its a panda! The front has stripes on it.


Link to swimsuit.

UH OH! This one is $79.99! That 1 penny deal under $80 must mean its on sale.
I like this one because it shows the parts less likely to be involved in a "muffin top" or "stomach roll". Plus, you could probably wear this to a geometry class lololono.


Link to swimsuit

Yet another $79.99 bathingsuit. The ruching on this suit will probably be very forgiving on a woman's body that had a too great winter time concerning food.

Wow, I sure am talking about ruching and full piece bathing suits today. Must be because of all the Burger King I ate in the off season.

shopping.

i like this bag.
but i like the other one, too.
Hmmm.
that girl just picked up
the one i liked first.
now, i think i like
that one more.
i'll just wait...just wait...
until she puts it down.
then...