The Whine thread.

[Alelou]

I'd trade you, Asso. We get rain forecasts, we get thunder clouds overhead, we get rumbles of thunder, and then we get 1/100th of an inch. And I have raised beds and thirsty crops. I'm beginning to rethink the whole raised-bed thing, except that since I would otherwise be trying to garden in bedrock I don't have much choice.

I'm with you on aspartame, Hopeful Romantic. It makes my kid miserably sick when he doesn't realize that some candy has it in it.

I didn't know hydrolized soy protein was MSG. Man, that's really misleading. Is it just partly MSG? I mean, isn't part of it soy?

Yes, end-of-stress is definitely it. Just when I was hoping to run a few errands and then enjoy a relaxing day in the garden without having to wrap my head or my copy around any universal life or variable annuity benefit riders...

[JadziaKathryn]

I'm with you on aspartame, Hopeful Romantic. It makes my kid miserably sick when he doesn't realize that some candy has it in it.

Ugh, that's bad stuff. Gives me headaches at least, makes me feel sick at worst. A bit ago I got a forward on health concerns with that. I don't get people who say, "Look, my soda has 0 calories!" I'm always thinking, "But it's 12 ounces of chemicals, which simply can't be good for you."

[HopefulRomantic]

I'm with you on aspartame, Hopeful Romantic. It makes my kid miserably sick when he doesn't realize that some candy has it in it.

I started investigating aspartame when I noticed it gave me headaches. I found out it's 10% methanol...which breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body... No more NutraSweet anything for me! I happily eat real sugar, in moderation.

I didn't know hydrolized soy protein was MSG. Man, that's really misleading. Is it just partly MSG? I mean, isn't part of it soy?

It's not the soy that's the problem, it's the processing. Glutamic acid is an amino acid, a building block of protein. It's found naturally in many plants and animals. When it is broken down by our normal digestive process, it's harmless. MSG is glutamic acid that has been broken down (made "free") by various manufacturing/chemical processes--hydrolyzed, autolyzed, modified or fermented using acids, alkalies, enzymes, bacteria, or heat. It's referred to as "processed free glutamic acid." It's been chemically altered, and that's why MSG-sensitive people have a toxic reaction to it.

The reason MSG can be labeled as other things is because free glutamic acid can be a component of other food additives such as "autolyzed yeast" or "calcium caseinate," etc. It may not be 98% free glutamic acid (food-grade MSG), but the product still contains MSG in varying amounts. And if there are half a dozen hidden MSG ingredients in one product, the percentage goes up.

Here's a good list of the hidden names for MSG: http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html Also good just to avoid processed food when you can.

[blacknblue]

Shop at farmer's markets whenever possible, and buy a freezer so you can purchase your own meat direct from the people who grow and kill it. That's the best way to avoid most additives.

(Unless you are a purist who fears pesticides on their veggies and antibiotics in their meat. In which case, good luck to you. Worms, larvae and parasites are not my personal cup of coffee, but to each their own.)

[Alelou]

I need to buy a freezer, the better to store what I grow on my own. Last year I don't think I bought any fresh veggies after July. I love the Farmer's Market but I always buy too much, which just means wasted money and wasted veggies. Not to mention I can never resist the chocolate croissants...

Have you had good luck buying local meat? I've heard horror tales of expensive sides of local organic grass-fed beef that ended up being tough as nails. There's a bison farm near here but that meat is fairly notorious for being tough too. Apparently I really like all those hormones and mysterious enzymes and stuff.

I'd like to raise chickens but we'd have to get permission from the neighbors and I know my son would freak if we ever actually ATE one, unless I somehow managed to kill it and shape it into chicken nuggets before he noticed.

[blacknblue]

I need to buy a freezer, the better to store what I grow on my own. Last year I don't think I bought any fresh veggies after July. I love the Farmer's Market but I always buy too much, which just means wasted money and wasted veggies. Not to mention I can never resist the chocolate croissants...

Have you had good luck buying local meat? I've heard horror tales of expensive sides of local organic grass-fed beef that ended up being tough as nails. There's a bison farm near here but that meat is fairly notorious for being tough too. Apparently I really like all those hormones and mysterious enzymes and stuff.

I'd like to raise chickens but we'd have to get permission from the neighbors and I know my son would freak if we ever actually ATE one, unless I somehow managed to kill it and shape it into chicken nuggets before he noticed.

When I bother to buy meat I usually either buy from a farmer I know personally, or I buy from a reputable butcher shop in bulk. I have tried raising chickens, it wasn't worth the pain IMO. But some people enjoy it. I have no idea why.

[Pitseleh]

Ok, I just received one of the worse services ever. We stopped to have lunch at a Bennigan's before coming to the airport. They took an hour and a half to serve the food, and then they brought us the wrong plates twice. Mine was missing the sauce and the salad, and when I asked for the coleslaw that was missing, the waitress told me, ''Why do you want that? It tastes like garbage!'' Even if it does, that's my decision to make, not hers. We were all rather angry...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Is there any wonder why a lot of people download shows or wait for the DVD releases nowadays, with networks screwing up schedules as they do?

I don't know about the States but here in Sweden they (and I mean practically every channel) always have erratic scheduling. You can never tell when they're going to show a certain episode because they switch days or suddenly decide to stop airing a show, often right in the middle of a season or just after a couple of episodes, with no news about when they'll resume. Or they skip some episodes (they just have with Jericho). Or they suddenly decide to air two episodes in a row (they did last week with The Sarah Connor Chronilces). Thus making it impossible to track them if you want to record them. It isn't helped that they almost never tell you which episode in what season they're airing, unless you actively dig deep into their websites, and there they don't always bother with that info either.

So why bother with broadcast TV? Download it and/or buy the DVDs. Then you don't have to suffer the commercials too.

I hate broadcast TV. Don't they realize that they're digging their own graves? In fact, I cannot wait for traditional TV to die. Why not let everyone, around the globe, have acress through the Net to TV programs and shows? I'd be more than willing to pay a fee for that instead of the TV license and the cost of cable TV. You could get programs as they air and not have to wait until some channel that you happen to have in their wisdom decides to buy the broadcast rights, six months later or even years afterwards.

Had I just stuck with TV here, I would never have seen ENT season 3-4 since they pulled the plug on that after season two. Well, I could've waited for the DVDs but how fun would that have been?

Die, network TV! Die!

[TPoptarts]

^ I know what you mean KTR same thing happened here with the ENT schedule on frelling UPN which probably had a lot to do with its cancellation, duh preempted for stupid ass baseball games etc, not only ENT though same with the Stargates and the Outer Limits and Farscape and I'm sure many other stuff I didn't watch, like you could never tell if they were gonna air Farscape on Sunday or Saturday and when or if they were gonna have yet another boring baseball game, or a really bad 80's sci-fi/fantasy film and same with channel 9 (the local LA channel thing) they had like Stargate and X-Files and Twilight Zone etc... it's just that you could never know WHEN. What the frell.

[JadziaKathryn]

Mine was missing the sauce and the salad, and when I asked for the coleslaw that was missing, the waitress told me, ''Why do you want that? It tastes like garbage!''

That's a new one. Yikes.

Alelou, I liked your line about shaping the chicken into nuggets. That'd be tricky, though. "Hey Mom, where's the other chicken?" "Oh, I'm not sure. Don't eat too big a snack, dinner is in two hours. We're having chicken nuggets."

[Alelou]

Well, around here I could always say a red-tailed hawk or a fox got it. As long as he was off at school or something... Course I really would need a hen house because of these critters, so that would get a little suspect.

Honestly, I don't so much want to eat the chickens myself, as get their eggs and use their manure. But it would be nice to know that if the economy ground to a halt there'd be some protein in the yard.

[JadziaKathryn]

If the economy ground to a halt it'd take a while to get it going again. That would be an awful lot of chickens.

[Asso]

The rains are going on awfully, here.
Piedmont asked for (and achieved) the "Emergency state"!

[Alelou]

Well, the nice thing about chickens is that they can have baby chickens.

Though I wasn't thinking of keeping a rooster unless the economy really did grind to a halt. One of those WOULD make the neighbors nuts, although it would make my husband feel right at home and frankly I don't think it could be any worse than the school bus terminal with the blaring horns and the backing-up signals.

I'm sorry about your flooding, Asso!

[Asso]

Thanks!