All That and Several Bags of Chips

A friend and I tried to go to the zoo today, but because the weather's so nice, the zoo was insanely crowded. One circle around the parking lot and a glance at the huge lines at the gate (note: this was not right at opening time, either), and we left. We ended up having lunch in the Old Market and shopping a bit. Then we went to Wild Oats.

So there I was at a grocery store specializing in health foods, and what did I get?

• Two kinds of soda: green tea root beer and white tea pomegranate soda.
• Two candy bars: a gluten-free vegan chocolate crisp and organic peanut butter cups.
• Three bags of chips: malt vinegar & sea salt kettle cooked potato chips, yogurt & green onion kettle cooked potato chips, and Snapea Crisps.

Yes, I went to a health food store and bought a load of junk food. It is my nature.

Besides, it's exotic and bizarre junk food!

All right . . . the Snapea Crisps. These are little green snackies made from, yes, peas. Sounds disgusting, or at least disconcerting, but they are fantastically delicious. They are salty, savory, and lightly crunchy, with the texture of baked cheese puffs (but, of course, nothing cheesy about the flavor). They are also incredibly addictive. I ate the whole bag this afternoon. I want to get more, but it would probably be dangerous for me to keep these around the house.

The rest of the goodies I got, I will save for other days. I have already had way, way too many calories for today.

In other junk food news, this week I discovered Blair's Death Rain potato chips at UNO's student center. There are two "medium" rated flavors, and one "xtra, xtra hot" rated one. After trying both of the medium ones, both of which left me sweating, panting, and guzzling water, I think the hot one would be way too much for me to handle. However, the "medium" buffalo wing flavor is so good that I went back the next day for more. If you want something that blasts open your sinus passages while still actually tasting good, these are the chips for you.

And in the realm of junk food for the mind, check out http://icanhascheezburger.com/ for pages upon pages of silly pictures of cats (and sometimes dogs, hamsters, ferrets, or walruses) with goofy captions. Be warned: if u hatez bad grahmar and mispelings, u will b offendeded.

Dogs and Cats Living Together

Last night I hung out at my friend's house and played with her pets. I wanted to visit the good dog again before he got adopted, since she's got some promising leads on homes. So here's a picture of the sweetheart dog I blogged about before, Snickers (on the right), with his sister Taffy (left). Doesn't Snickers have the cutest smile?



Also, as I went around attempting to get pictures of every animal in the house, multiple cats told me in no uncertain terms that my camera's flash is way too bright . . .




I love the expressions on their faces!

I should write more, but I'm tired and groggy after apheresis at the Red Cross.

Charles Bridge Birthday

On this day exactly 650 years ago, the foundation stone for the Charles Bridge was laid by King Charles IV himself. The Charles Bridge, spanning the Vltava River in Prague, is one of my favorite sites in the Czech Republic. In honor of its birthday, here are a couple of my vacation photos from 2005.




Beautiful, isn't it?

07-07-07

Nothing to say but the fun and useless observation that it is 7:07 a.m. on 07-07-07.

Technovelgy

Happy Fourth of July! No fireworks from me, but in honor of the holiday, I offer something cool I stumbled across this morning.

Technovelgy.com

This site features an extensive collection of science fiction technologies, broken down by the time period in which the stories were written, and also a collection of recent news articles featuring new technological developments that seem like they were ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel.

For example, did you read about the new memory erasing drug in the news? (Scary stuff, in my opinion. I can see why PTSD patients might need something like that, but there is phenomenal potential for abuse, if it is possible to effectively delete any memory.) Technovelgy.com has not only an article on the drug, with tie-ins to the idea's sci-fi roots, but also a separate entry for the original instance, in Philip K. Dick's 1966 story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."

The only complaint I have about the site is the lack of a search box. Boo, hiss! Of course, it's easy to get around that with a Google search limited by site. Just include the following in your Google search box along with your other search terms:

site:http://www.technovelgy.com/

The site even includes some inventions that seem like sci-fi, but were actually real machines that have since passed out of use and been forgotten. Check out this message machine from the 1930s, like an early, mechanical version of Twitter.

It's a very neat archive of cool, creepy, and weird ideas. Seems like a fun place to poke around. Or if you have something that really interests you, you can find out which sci-fi stories you ought to be checking out at the library.

Have a happy and safe Fourth everyone!