Saying What? to Real

To Whom It May Concern:

I was watching TV one day to see a good message about saying no to fake, over processed food and to say yes to eating something actually good for you. I was very shocked to see the product you were pushing. Mayonnaise! Seriously? I know your point is that with a balanced diet you can eat just about anything, but to try to sell your product by suggesting that mayonnaise is actually good for you is just a bit wrong. Tomato, lettuce, bread and turkey do make for a healthier lunch than a burger and fries. Omega-3s are good for you. However, a lot of hamburgers have mayonnaise on them too. Are these bad or good? Mayonnaise does not make something a better choice. All the experts I have heard say a big no to mayonnaise. The fact is a person that eats healthy and exercises can eat what they choose. This is because they are choosing healthy foods and a small amount of mayonnaise would not kill a healthy diet, but mayonnaise is not part of a healthy diet nor is it not good for you. There are two ingredients on your label that should make anyone question the 'real' of your product, natural flavors and Calcium Disodium EDTA. Real food doesn't have natural flavors added to them nor should they need them in my opinion. If you are supposed to eat it then nature would intend for it to taste good. The second screams of processing to me. Calcium Disodium EDTA as stated by your label is used to protect quality. Preservatives have been suggested in studies to be the real reason for hyperactivity in children, so another hit towards your commercial for suggesting it would be great for them. One table spoon of your Mayonnaise would be 15% of my daily intake of fat, and that dear sir or madam does not to me suggest it should be pushed as something healthy.

The ad.

The Blog Network

Today I started a Yahoo! group called The Blog Network. I started it for semi selfish reasons, I wanted to know that people are actually reading what I have to say and knowing that people might actually read this will keep me updating. I knew that if I felt like it was pointless to write not knowing if anyone was reading, than others most likely felt the same way. There are similar web rings out there, but I have hopes of bringing the rings together because the more overlap there is the more readers everyone gains.

I have decided to update my blog on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Three times a week seems more manageable for me at this time than everyday, and having scheduled days will do better than just saying "Oh, I will update it tomorrow" because we all know how that usually ends up...

To Snub or Not to Snub

A couple celebrities come to mind on this one in the past few weeks, one being the funeral of Estelle Getty. Most people would disagree with me it seems, but in some ways I can see why her co stars did not attend. Betty White said They were there when it mattered, and on some levels I agree with her about the funeral in a celebrities life being a media event rather than chance for people to mourn their lose. Personally I would have gone out of respect, but I am not a celebrity. I don’t know if I could handle watching my grief displayed over and over for the whole of the nation to judge if it was sincere or not. That is the point really, most of us aren’t celebrities. We aren’t judged by a twitch of an eye by journalist just out to get (or fabricate) a story to display to a mass of TV viewers. Personally, I can understand the reason of not going. A worse tragedy would have been poor Estelle held up in her room by her illness with no one to comfort her in the years of her being ill. Had they ignored her then would have been unforgivable, but that is not the story of the week is it? By the way, I still watch Golden Girls in rerun and was on vacation when I heard the sad news.
The next snub that really got my goat came from Mrs. Jennifer Lopez, or whatever she is calling herself these days. She went on a morning talk show to talk about her training for some triathlon or some silliness as if ANYONE cared. Who did she snub? Michael Phelps. “She was overheard saying after her Good Morning America segment that she “couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer,” according to a GMA source. “She couldn’t come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps’ name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ” (From a column by Courtney Hazlett, The Scoop MSNBC here.) SIX months, oh my, we should all just fall to her feet. Mrs. Lopez has always felt that way though, the mass of the nation should be kissing her feet while she scarfs her green M&Ms (A diva demand for her trailer, a large bowl of M&Ms and they all must be green). After September 11th when everyone decided to show appreciation for the military she was a “celebrity” that decided to “appreciate”. What happened? When a military member asked her for her autograph, she would deny it UNLESS there were media present. Who was she trying to get appreciation for really? Herself in my opinion. She grew up upper middle class, and tries to pass herself off as a home girl from the hood. I like some of her movies, a tiny bit of the music but the person I can do without thank you.

Congratulations Michael!

I watched every race. Okay, admittedly I turned the channel yesterday in time to watch the breakdown of the finish. I thought I had turned the TV from my husband’s video game in time to watch him lose. I was upset for a couple of minutes until I finally heard them say he had won. Perhaps Mr. Cavic should have held his tongue until after the race about who his win would have been good for, although he was quoted after a protest that ended in the same results as saying “I’m very, very happy," Cavic said. "I don't want to fight this. It is a gold medal at stake. It's a difficult thing to lose. But you have to understand I came to this competition with the goal to win a bronze medal. I went my best time, and I did better than bronze, I got silver. And I almost got gold." (From column by Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY here.) It was amazing to watch history being made, I still remember Carl Lewis in Atlanta. This will be very hard to beat I would think. I don’t know how many events one can even be in before you have to cross over to other sports. Male gymnasts have a chance at 8 but they have to win them all which include the team, the all around, and all individuals. There are probably some track and fields that people can try and get all of, but I can’t see a sprinter against some of those shot-putters. I guess we will just have to wait and see in the coming Olympics. Congrats to Mrs. Torres on her 3 silvers, Miss Coughlin’s six medals and to the whole US swimming team who also did an outstanding job.

The Joke's On You...

So I call the child support bureau and state I didn't receive the child support I was suppose to this week. Then they tell that joke that you know they all must keep tally of somewhere of how many times they have said it to share with their friends. "You need to contact the father..." Oh ho ho... funny... If I could contact him why would I be contacting you? If I could speak to him without wanting to strangle him, scratch out his eyes or rip out his heart I don't think this child support thing would be an issue.

There has to be a better way for these people to do this. If you could trust the man to pay it in the first place this agency wouldn't really be all that needed. I know now a days it must be hard for some women to keep up with what baby daddy paid what, or saying they aren't getting when they are, but I know personally and most people I know would just be happy to get what they are awarded without having to drag it out with threats. I actually had to threaten mine with jail time to get him to start paying and now he isn't again. I waited over 2 years before I told him I was over being nice, and he could sit in jail for all I cared. (And f he thinks he has under the jail time amount he is very sadly mistaken. $40 dollars a month over 4 or 5 months does not pay off a near $7,000 debt.)

So there must be a better way to do this. I don't think it should be a state thing, it should be a federal thing. I know the IRS does get involved at some point, but at what point I have no idea. I know that they can keep better tabs on my ex in Alabama than Indiana can. Indiana does try as much as they can I guess (not much) but with all the men not paying it must be hard to keep tabs on any one case. Their information comes from the federal government or from the tip line of people turning in the fathers and occasional mother. I think the states should still determine the amounts awarded, but the tracking and enforcing should be federal. Mine gets tips so that he doesn't have to report them or "give them to me" as he would say. That's why he's a deadbeat pizza boy. I laugh now because most tips are left on the debit cards I would think. My husband and I don't even carry cash any more, neither do most people we know.

In my opinion if they weren't trying to not pay the support there would be nothing to hold them back from having a relationships with their child, and that is the most important part of all this. It isn't the money, it's the kids. So if there were a better way for the government to get the money for the kids, there wouldn't be a reason for the fathers to be trying to hide from the mothers who have the kids. Everyone wins in the long run if there were a better system.

Sexual Side Effects May Include…

By now most of us have heard about have heard about the Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, the 41 year old who qualified for her 5^th Olympics and broke her own record. Now instead of celebrating her victory people want to say there is no physical way a woman her age can do that so she just HAS TO BE using drugs (You know because we are all suppose to have spread out by then and be steadily approaching Grandma Moses speed). It made me think, if this was a man would this even be an issue? I know there has to be one out there somewhere that has qualified many times although none are coming to mind. The women of sports are still breaking new ground every year, and in many ways are still looked down upon by their male counterparts. I think the worst male opinions of female athletes come from the ones that couldn't run a mile if there were a keg of beer and a ribeye steak waiting at the end for them.

I think just because she did very well some people are jealous. Well I can't do that so there is no way anyone else could. If that is the case all of them should be tested (which aren't they anyway?) I know I couldn't do anything any of them do. Should I belittle their accomplishments for that reason? No. I write better than a lot of people. A lot of writers write better than me. I can swim, but mostly just enough to save my life. I once served a volleyball game within one point of victory against members of the school volleyball team of which I was not a member. (I didn't try for it, that ball is painful on my stick arms.) I was a member of the color guard my senior year, but I would say a good 75% of the time I dropped my rifle during competitions. I was a rifle expert in the Marine Corps. My husband and I are tied at the Bass Pro Shop target arcade in shooting matches. (He won't go back; I think he thinks I am going to win again. I asked him once if it was better just to stay tied and he said yes.)

No matter what it is, there is always going to be someone better, and we should congratulate them for it. It is how it is, and we should just accept that fact.

You’re Insufficient

Going through an old topic list for my blog and I found one about insufficient funds fees that was connected to an earlier blog about check being cashed a month and an half after I had written it. It had wrecked my finances only a week or two before Christmas. My friend just had the same issue because of a miscalculation, but it did remind me to write this post. Shortly after the checked cashed and the Burger King bounced, (here's that post) I realized what all had went wrong. The credit to my account that was suppose to be in there didn't post for at least a week after I had returned an item even though of course they took the money out of my account the very instant I purchased it. Well I had also needed gas that night when I had returned that item, but I should have had money in the account because there was not suppose to be check. So I got charged $25 for -$0.63. Then I also got charged for gas another $35 fee plus the $20 or so for the actual gas. I want to know what gives people and banks the right to charge such outrageous fees on people that obviously didn't have the money in the first place for them to charge extra to. With all the technology and tracking of information we have now, they can know who the serial offenders are and who just made an honest mistake and who just got hosed for someone else being wrong.

This brings me to the next point. Your bank charging you a fee when you cash a check from someone else and it bounces. What the hell kind of bull shit is that? I have know people whose pay checks have bounced and they have already paid their bills with it before it had came back is bounced. I am sure you can guess what, but I will say it anyway. They get charged a fee for the bounced pay check, all the money from the check is taken away, the checks for the other bills bounce, and they get charged a fee for each of the bounced bills, and not only does that happen once, but it keeps happening because the people they owe their bills too keeps trying to cash the check and each time they get an additional fee. It doesn't matter either, everyone says oh just call, you bill people understand. That is a load of crap and most of them are just out to make money so why should they help you. Even if you do call, oh they didn't get the word in time or some other form of hogwash but they don't stop trying to cash it. You can tell them to toss the check you will send another, guess what. They don't, they cash them both. They think just because they post a little warning that they should be allowed, but I think it is wrong. Why should a person be charged by the bank and the retailer for an honest mistake? $0.63 in the red cost me well over $60.00, and if you don't call a 2 ½ month old check an honest mistake I don't know what is.