I think I might have put the final nail in my meat eating coffin by watching the movie "Fast Food Nation" last night. It was totally unexpected. I had just heard good things about the movie, and then I saw the kill floor of a meat processing plant in it. I actually woke Mason up after watching it to make him watch it. The truth is, it wasn't the death of the animal for consumption that bothered me and pushed me over the edge. It's the waste. I understand we have to eat and that meat is an option, but I wonder how many of the animals die to feed us only to end up in the trash as a half eaten hamburger or a package of meat that wasn't sold soon enough. They were born to be food, they ate to grow fat to be food, they were killed to be food, and then they end up trash. So their whole existence was for not.
It was watching the death of the animals the second time through with this thought in the back of my head that did it. I had terrible dreams about it. There was a lot of blood, but worst of all, it just seemed wasteful. Before I get anyone riled up about animal rights and people having to eat...I'm not suggesting that anyone is wrong to eat meat. I just think it's time for me to reevaluate what is right for me. Even my husband has admitted that I will have to go this alone...he's not going to give it up.
I admit, this is going to be tricky, I love a good hot dog or chicken salad sandwich; however, I don't love it so much that I cannot live without it. I think the hardest thing for me is going to be getting enough protein since I loath beans. I'll have to discover ways to make dishes that I can tolerate that have beans in them, or maybe just eat them enough to where I finally am OK with the taste. I'm going to have to do this gradually too. I don't know enough vegetarian dishes to fill up my weekly menu. I think I'll have to eliminate one type of meat at a time to get used to not having meal options. It may not work entirely. If it becomes too much of a financial burden to cook different meals each night for myself and Mason, then it's not a good option. I guess I just need to try to figure out how to do it before thinking too far in the future about failure. Seafood seems a little less cruel for some reason...that might be a viable option, too. Also, Seafood is an option where I can support local fishermen, local seafood businesses who limit the amount of waste by limiting the oversupply so they don't have to buy a lot of food that they will lose money on, and a local industry. I don't have the particulars, but I do know that the winds of change are in the air. I'm sure there will be more than one blog about this as time goes on, maybe I'll even get Mason turned on to it!
Definition of strict lacto-ovo vegetarian:
For lacto-ovo vegetarians, this generally means food that excludes ingredients derived directly from the death of animals, such as meat (including fish), meat broth, cheeses that use animal rennet, gelatin (from animal skin, bones, and connective tissue), and for the strictest, even some sugars that are whitened with bone char (e.g. cane sugar, but not beet sugar) and alcohol clarified with gelatin or crushed shellfish and sturgeon.
My definition of lacto-ovo/sometimes seafood vegetarian:
excluding foods that are derived from the death of most (eventually all) animals, sticking with organic foods that usually do not contain these other meat type filler ingredients (thank goodness for Whole Foods), preparing meals that center around the vegetable rather than the meat, using eggs and milk and cheese for most of my protein, and sometimes eating fish/seafood.
The Moped of the MP3 world
Today I was told that my fantastic, wonderful, perfect iPod is considered the moped of the MP3 world. I gladly take up the gauntlet. I present the PC Magazine review of the product as the authority to refute this assessment. Of course, the main reason it's great? It comes in pink. That's right, I said it.
Apple didn't do much new when it introduced the fourth generation of the iPod, but it didn't need to. No one has beaten the company at the portable-audio-player game yet, but with 75 percent market share, the only way to go is down. The fourth-generation iPod performs pretty much the same as the third-generation player, with some detail improvements. But since we last looked at the player, we've tweaked our audio performance evaluation measures. As a result, we've identified some minor audio issues with the iPod's equalizer (EQ) presets. The iPod, however, is not alone in this, as we also noticed similar problems in other large hard drive players, such as the Archos Gmini XS200, Dell DJ 30, and Toshiba gigabeat MEG-F60.
Like the Archos Gmini XS200 and Samsung YH-925, the iPod distorts, sometimes heavily, when you use the EQ settings. Harmonic distortion is minimal with no EQ, but at higher volume levels most of the EQ settings showed audible distortion. When we couldn't hear it, we could see it plainly on our audio spectrum analyzer. Bass response is about 5 dB down at 40 Hz, the practical lower limit for most music The integrated click wheel and buttons that work so well on the iPod mini are now on the full-size iPods, too. It's an improvement over separate buttons, and it keeps the iPod at the forefront of user-friendliness. We also wonder why hardly anyone else can do a screen this readable. Only the Creative Zen Micro comes close among monochrome screens. The big iPods now recharge from USB, and battery life is up to around 12 hours.
Readers have asked whether there is less distortion when using the line-out jack on the dock. When we measured the amount of distortion on headphones at listening volumes, we found the same amount at both jacks. But feeding into a stereo system or external headphone amplifier requires much less output power and doesn't require EQ in the player, so the music will be clean. With Apple Lossless compression, the iPod is just as capable as your CD player is of driving a high-end audio system. If you select EQ presets in iTunes (which doesn't have the distortion problem), however, your iPod will switch to your chosen EQ on a per-song basis when you download to the player.
Another reason to own an iPod is the tremendous number of aftermarket products and accessories. There's certainly much more available than with any other large hard drive player out there. You can extend its capabilities with hardware and software to perform PDA functions, gaming, recording, wireless transmission, and more. It's a platform, it's a social phenomenon, and it's a robust device with millions of satisfied users, despite our carping about distortion. The human factors are still the best, and there's some excellent usability engineering in this fourth-generation player
Readers have asked whether there is less distortion when using the line-out jack on the dock. When we measured the amount of distortion on headphones at listening volumes, we found the same amount at both jacks. But feeding into a stereo system or external headphone amplifier requires much less output power and doesn't require EQ in the player, so the music will be clean. With Apple Lossless compression, the iPod is just as capable as your CD player is of driving a high-end audio system. If you select EQ presets in iTunes (which doesn't have the distortion problem), however, your iPod will switch to your chosen EQ on a per-song basis when you download to the player.
Another reason to own an iPod is the tremendous number of aftermarket products and accessories. There's certainly much more available than with any other large hard drive player out there. You can extend its capabilities with hardware and software to perform PDA functions, gaming, recording, wireless transmission, and more. It's a platform, it's a social phenomenon, and it's a robust device with millions of satisfied users, despite our carping about distortion. The human factors are still the best, and there's some excellent usability engineering in this fourth-generation player
PostSecret
We had the best afternoon yesterday at the bookstore. I would highly recommend you take the time to go periodically.
I would also recommend you take a peek at this book. We bought it and love it. What a great idea. The whole concept is fantastic and inspiring. Some of the secrets would make us laugh really hard, some would stir up old conversations, some were just shocking, but they were all fantastic.
Enjoy!
Everything...
I had every intention of writing about something else today; something much funnier. I got about halfway through the post and could not quit thinking about what the people in many areas of the midwest are going through today. I saw the pictures of one particular town in Kansas that was hit by tornadoes Friday night and it is gone. The whole thing is gone with only a battered silo still standing. I mean gone...trees uprooted; houses look like piles of splinters; cars are unrecognizable. I doubt this is the only town to suffer this kind of loss. It just made a good news picture. People have died. My heart becomes heavy when I think about the fear everyone must have experienced while they were going through this.
I went to the weather.com to see if there would be any relief for this area of the country and it looks like the storms continue to rage on. I am numb and feel useless.
We send our money to relief programs and aid organizations, but this doesn't bring me any satisfaction any more. Sometimes I just want to get in my car and take what I can and just go and cry with the people who have lost everything. I get sad if something I've had for a short time is ruined or breaks - just one thing! They have lost everything. They have lost their Great Aunt Mary's quilt that she made 100 years ago, their wedding albums, favorite t-shirt, pictures from the day baby was born and her first birthday, family heirlooms that were sources of comfort and joy. The worst part is that it doesn't end with things...some have actually died and their families are suffering an additional loss that will only serve to compound their grief beyond anything I can understand.
They have lost everything and it brings me to my knees that these are the things my money cannot and will never be able to replace. These are the people who will spend the rest of their lives trying to calm their children when a siren goes off because they know what can happen. I want to believe that for the most part "it's just things", but it's not. I guess the strength and character that we often associate with people in this area of the country has been earned at a price. It seems they have to prove to the world over and over of what they are made.
I will post later with more options for helping. I'm going to talk to some people at church today and maybe we can get a few churches in Birmingham to organize behind helping a community rebuild. It's small, but it's a start and governmental help is slow...
I went to the weather.com to see if there would be any relief for this area of the country and it looks like the storms continue to rage on. I am numb and feel useless.
We send our money to relief programs and aid organizations, but this doesn't bring me any satisfaction any more. Sometimes I just want to get in my car and take what I can and just go and cry with the people who have lost everything. I get sad if something I've had for a short time is ruined or breaks - just one thing! They have lost everything. They have lost their Great Aunt Mary's quilt that she made 100 years ago, their wedding albums, favorite t-shirt, pictures from the day baby was born and her first birthday, family heirlooms that were sources of comfort and joy. The worst part is that it doesn't end with things...some have actually died and their families are suffering an additional loss that will only serve to compound their grief beyond anything I can understand.
They have lost everything and it brings me to my knees that these are the things my money cannot and will never be able to replace. These are the people who will spend the rest of their lives trying to calm their children when a siren goes off because they know what can happen. I want to believe that for the most part "it's just things", but it's not. I guess the strength and character that we often associate with people in this area of the country has been earned at a price. It seems they have to prove to the world over and over of what they are made.
I will post later with more options for helping. I'm going to talk to some people at church today and maybe we can get a few churches in Birmingham to organize behind helping a community rebuild. It's small, but it's a start and governmental help is slow...
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