Thought for the day #17

French, the language of love? Sounds more like coughing up hairballs, to me.

These are the parts we throw away

Is it just me, or is anyone else freaked out by the way products are advertised these days? I don't just mean the abominable spelling (which makes me want to take to all their shit with a big fat red pen). What I refer to is the way products are sold now on the basis of what they do *not* contain. Less fat, less sugar, less salt, gluten free, etc. What each of these means, respectively, is this:

Less fat = 80% sugar (which shall be conveniently converted to fat by your own body)

Less sugar = contains phenylalynine or however you spell it (which happens to be a carcinogen, and as a fringe benefit, is likely to give you the trots if you have too much of it)

Less salt = probably a bunch of msg (which can cause headaches, dizziness and various other unpleasant side effects)

Gluten free = contains mostly starch and very little actual food (gluten free items are often also egg free, milk free, yeast free, etc. as though being allergic to gluten makes you intollerant to any and all things humans are meant to consume)

Frankly, though it's nice to know something has no added sugar (like my fruit juice - it's horrible sweetened), I'm a bit more concerned with what *is* in the product. I've heard tell in recent times of a plan to put fluride in bottled water. For crap's sake, don't we drink bottled water to avoid consuming the poisonous additives they stick in our tap water? Next they'll bloody chlorinate it and you could happily (and hygenically) fill a swimming pool with your Picadilly. And to be sure, they'll have a dripper system to add the shit to your gutters and make unadulterated rain water unavailable too.

[end rant]

...So how was your day?

Viva la crappy economy

I'm going to take a moment here to be small minded and selfish. All this kerfuffle about the fall of the economy isn't exactly bringing me to tears. I don't feel we're going to fall too much further, and we've been far worse off before without the country falling down around our ears. What it means in the immediate, is that we'll be pretty much back to where we were when I was a penniless student (instead of a penniless employee). The AUD wasn't looking too good then, either. Then the economy became (*cough*) 'good', and the shitty bit of money I had increased noticably, though buying me about half of what the lesser amount had bought me before. I've spent many a year with a half-empty belly since Howard got (*cough*) 'elected'.

The drop in economy is bad for bigwigs. People are poor - horribly poor. Horribly poor people don't buy things. Businesses have to look at that and think 'wow, people don't want to buy our shit with the 492% mark-up on it... I wonder why'. Then they think 'oh yeah, a loaf of bread is $5 these days, and all our customers only have $1.50 in their pockets'. The follow up from that is 'fine, I guess we'll have to make do with a 278% mark-up until these f***ers start bringing more money with them'. Long story short, a shitty economy is better for poor people. Okay, unemployment goes up, but how many people are getting by on 12 hours a week, shared with whatever they can get from Centrelink? Where they're concerned, you're financially better off being completely unemployed. (In my case, I long since decided living on sod all hours a week, though nigh impossible, beats ten shades of shit out of reporting every work hour, job applied for and bowel movement to Centrelink.)

So far what we have seen is a drop in the cost of fuel and housing, two things which have been so far out of reach of people like me it isn't funny. My pathetic fuel budget hasn't been swallowed up half way through the week since our economy stopped being 'good'. People in the same shitty job as me are overjoyed that they have a prayer of buying houses. Screw big business. Viva la crappy economy!

Peace be with you, Maes

Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen too far into the series, this may not be the post for you to read.

As someone who absolutely loves Fullmetal Alchemist, I dragged my heels watching through the series just because I didn't want it to be over. Sure there were some crazy-arse plot twists, but the beauty of the series was the human element. They didn't run with the black and white view of good vs evil. Even most of the bad guys had motives that, once known, made you sympathise with the characters.

A lot of people died in the series, and though you start to get used to it after a while, there are just a couple that you can't let go of. For me, the main one is Maes Hughes. He was funny, kind, more than competent as an officer, and a genuinely loving family man (in the extreme). I enjoyed seeing a touch of softness stuffed into the misery of the military, and I stubbornly hold him as my favourite character even now. That said, I surprised myself by mourning Lust when she died, as well.

In any case, this is my tribute to Maes, a few cute pics I wandered off with from http://www.deviantart.com/: