Thoughts about food...

I haven't posted anything here in a while.  Probably doesn't really matter because it's not like anybody reads this blog.

Anyways, I've been thinking about food a lot lately and the implications that it has health-wise, as well as financially (food is expensive!).  After reading about the topic and watching numerous documentaries, as well as jumping on the bandwagon and seeing "Food Inc.", I've been able to improve my eating habits and my diet as a whole has improved and I basically feel pretty good all the time!  One thing that I was very interested in after seeing "Food Inc." was the fact that fresh produce and fresh foods in general are more expensive than processed foods in a lot of cases.  This basically infuriated me because I don't really feel like anybody is doing anything to lower the cost of fresh foods.  However, I still choose to buy as little processed food as possible and am eliminating things left and right and substituting them with whole foods (I'm still stuck on a cost effective way to get processed breakfast cereal out of my diet!).

I've changed my shopping habits over the past about six months and started shopping a grocer that sells fresh foods that were grown right here in the US, and recently I've started shopping at my local Greeley farmers market (where my landlord sells the most delicious cucumbers!) and I've noticed a pretty big cut in my produce bill just from that one change.  Today my purchase from Larry (my landlord) totaled $3.50, which included a bag literally overflowing with red leaf lettuce, five huge carrots, three cucumbers, and a red onion.  Suck on that McDonalds.  I also went with some local beef from locally owned slaughterhouse.  I got a big hunk of sirloin for $5.00 even.  Pretty good deal, the only problem being that the cows were still fed on corn rather than on their natural diet of grass.  In other words, great shopping trip!

I've started making some of my own food to, including bread to eat with my processed cereal in the morning :), and homemade granola with all-natural ingredients.  Now I only have to figure out to get refined grains out of my diet, and somehow start disliking the taste of soda to the point where I don't buy it (it's my guilty pleasure).  In honor of this post, I'm drinking a tall bottle of Powerade (finishing it from my pre-dinner run).

Inspirations provided by Stephen Hawking

I'm almost all the through with Stephen Hawking's monumental work of non-fiction, "A Brief History of Time" which analyzes the creation and structure and function of the universe according to physics making use of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Anyways something got me thinking.  It is a possibility that the universe was created with the "Big Bang" (a singularity about ten thousand million years ago that caused the universe to literally explode into existence) and it is a known fact that the universe has been expanding since then.  But because of gravity and the gravitational effects between planets and stars, the universe might reach a point where it can no longer expand, and will instead recollapse into a singularity similar to how the universe began.  Now something interesting about the recollapse of the universe is that the laws of physics and life as we know it would be reversed.  For example, rather than watching a movie forwards, we would be watching a movie backwards.  The past and the future would switch places.

What we don't know is what caused the Big Bang.  So feasibly the universe could recollapse into an infinitely dense, infinitely hot, singularity.  Therefore, something could cause it to explode again.  Maybe our universe has been constantly expanding and contracting for an infinite amount of time with life evolving differently every time.  Maybe that's what our omnipotent creator is doing with us.  He's watching to see how things turn out each time when he blows up the universe.  Anyways, it just got met thinking.

Summary of DC Vacation

So, I have now returned from my vacation in our nations capitol, Washington DC, and it was quite a fantastic trip!  There was a lot of really great stuff to see and the city of Washington is a pretty cool place and a great setting for the National Mall and everything associated with the federal government.  We didn't really have to drive anywhere because the metro system is so great, which was really nice because it would have been hell to park anywhere.  The only problem is that my family and I were in DC for a week and half and I still didn't get to see everything (there is soooooo much to see!).  I spent a lot of time in the different Smithsonians and checking out all of the national monuments and war memorials and touring different federal buildings, and we even got a chance to go out to the Atlantic Ocean!  So here is a summary of everything I got to see:

National Mall:

• Lincoln Memorial/Reflecting Pool
• Washington Monument
• Capitol Building
• White House (from the outside)
• Korean War Memorial
• WWII Memorial
• WWI Memorial
• Jefferson Memorial (from afar)
• Vietnam Memorial

Smithsonian Institute:

• Museum of Natural History
• Air and Space Museum
• National Museum of Art
• Hircshorn Contempory Art Museum and Sculpture Garden
• Museum of American History
• Smithsonian Castle
• National Portrait Gallery
• National Zoo

Other:

• International Spy Museum
• Mt. Vernon (George Washington's House)
• Annapolis Naval Academy
• Rehoboth Beach (on the Atlantic)
• Gettysburg
• Supreme Court
• Library of Congress

I think that's just about everything.  Great trip!  But I'm definitely museumed out for a while.

American Ignorance (Part 3)

Round two of complaining about worthless things in the Smithsonian. So fat I've seen a lot of people who work in the smithsonian museums, including security guards and ticket takers and things like that. Basically every single one of these people I've seen looks like they hate their jobs and they hate everybody around them. I hate it when locals don't take kindly to tourists visiting because tourists are the people who are making your very existence possible and in a lot of cases it makes the very place that you live in what it is. If I were you I would be embracing every single tourist that I came into contact with the utmost respect and kindness. I say this because a lot of the employees around DC and around the Smithsonian institute were less than welcoming and pretty rude a lot of the time. Anyways, I thought I'd just rant a little bit and find something to complain about while experiencing this amazing city.

American Ignorance (part 2)

This week I have the opportunity of seeing the great collection of Smithsonian museums in Washington DC. Today I checked out the relatively famous Museum of Natural History. For this of you who don't know that's the one with the fully assembles dinosaur skeletons. It would be an understatement to say that the collection of this museum is big (it's basically unparalleled anywhere in the world), and it would be an understatement to say I enjoyed it. There is such as vast amount of information on all topics relating to natural history and it's not just geared towards a younger audience. However, most of the people where completely passing by this plethora of information and solely relying on the models and pictures as their source of learning and self-enlightenment. Leave it to the American people to not realize what they have and merely pass these exhibits off as just another museum full of old stuff. I'm pretty sure the French people I saw (or heard, and there were plenty of them) were getting more out of the English text than cousin Billy next to me with his wife/sister. Thank you very I'm moving to France. By the way I'm not drinking anything right, but am rather having a pleasant bowel movement!

Are well a just a bunch of robots?

I just finished reading a book.  The name of this book was "Breakfast of Champions" and it was written by an American novelist named Kurt Vonnegut.  I've read several of Vonnegut's other books, including "Slaughter-house Five" and "Cat's Cradle" which I both liked but didn't have as much of an impact on me as "Breakfast of Champions" did in the aspect that Vonnegut combines many events, characters, and anecdotes from his other novels to formulate and surround the plot.

What really had an impact on me though was the idea that we are all just characters in a game that the Creator of the Universe has put together to see what we do with our free will.  Vonnegut makes an appearance in "Breakfast of Champions" as a sort of deus ex machina and narrates the plot from a first person (but sort of removed from life) point of view.  He is the legitimate creator of the universe of one of the main characters, Kilgore Trout, whom he meets at the end and frees from his bonds of noveldom.  Another aspect of the plot is a novel written by Kilgore Trout that explains the existence of a man who was brought into being by the Creator of the Universe for the sole purpose of observing him and seeing what he does with his freewill.  Every other "person" on his planet is a robot that is controlled by the Creator.  

So this leads to wonder, in a very abstract way, whether I'm just a character in a novel that is being controlled by an author.  Am I happy because he writes that I'm happy?  Do I have a guilty pleasure for Dragon Ball Z because he says I do?   Or am I the only real "person" on a planet populated by oil-eaters?  If this happens to be the case, all of my robot friends should just give themselves up because I'm on to them.  Betray your creator!

Anyways, that's what is on my mind this evening while I finish a cup of Golden Monkey black tea.

Cat weightlifting, the sport of the future

Digg.com and Japanese television have once again polluted my mind with something that I will never be able to erase; cat weightlifting. What more does the average Japanese television viewer want than to see a cats lifting fish of different weights in a competitive format? I know that if I was channel surfing through the tube at 3am, that would definitely catch my eye (or cat my eye). That brown and white tabby definitely has some spunk, but I always wonder it can do against the all white manx! Cat weightlifting will no doubt take the main stage in the future with the dramatic close-ups and instant replays. If you would like to indulge in some dramatic cat weightlifting, you can see it here.

By the way while I have ruined my life, for the better, I have been drinking a cup of Oriental Treasure Green Tea. Exotic!