This is me, in so many words

I just discovered a fun online word collage program called Wordle, at this [link]
Basically, it takes a big chunk of text and converts it into a word collage, with words sized by the number of times they are used. You can go in and edit the layout, fonts and colors. It's pretty fun. I used the text from my "MeMe" that I posted this morning on my Facebook, and here are the results:



Fun stuff! Now go play...

Chocolate... It's not just for breakfast any more!

Say it ain't so!...

Well, the decline of civilization as we know it has taken a serious nosedive. I received a shock today that left me angry and disheartened. I knew it was bound to happen some day, but today I wasn't feeling so terrific so it really hit me unexpectedly hard. No, it has nothing to do with politics or religion. It involves one of my basic comforts of life suddenly turning... well... evil.

You see, my daughter is allergic to milk and peanuts, and for years one of our rare commercially made indulgences has been Pillsbury refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (the stuff that comes in a roll -- not the ones that come in ready-bake wads, which contain peanut flour). Anywho, my daughter had complained that we didn't have anything "dessertie" around the house, so I decided to grab some chocolate chip cookie dough while I was at the store today. I grabbed a roll of it, and noticed the label looked a bit different. That's when I saw it... a little red blurb that proudly proclaimed "Made with Real Cocoa!". What the?... I looked closer at the label, and saw that instead of containing "chocolate chips", the cookie dough now contains "chocolate-flavored" chips. I flipped the package over, and the ingredient statement confirmed it: Pillsbury isn't using REAL chocolate in their cookies any more. Instead of being made with cocoa butter, their chips use hydrogenated palm kernel oil. EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW!

Last year I heard grumblings that Hershey's was leading the charge to get the FDA to change the definition of chocolate so they could use cheaper ingredients like shortening instead of cocoa butter. I hope Mr. Hershey was buried on a rotisserie, because he must be spinning in his grave daily to over his company first shipping its production off to Mexico, and now besmirching the definition of chocolate by using cheap, disgusting, unhealthy substitutes. Thankfully, I think instead of changing the definition, the FDA opted to force them to use the words "chocolate-flavored" instead. Which is why my heart really sunk when I saw those words on the front of the Pillsbury cookie dough label.

I was willing to overlook the hydrogenated oils in the stuff, but I will not stoop to buying artificial chocolate. It just ain't right.

So hasta la vista, Pillsbury. You can take your "chocolate-flavored" chips and hydrogenated oils and shove them down some other ignorant, trans-fat-craving shoppers' throats.

*sigh* I guess I'll make my own cookie dough from now on.

Hoping your 2009 is full of love, hope, inspiration, blessings and fun!



I'd like to take credit for this cute little guy, but I was too lazy to work up any gnu art myself, and found him online. He was actually created by Nicholas Rougier for the GNU Project, and I'm using him with permission of the Gnu Public License, at this [link]

Thanks to for bringing this little guy to my attention.

And I'd also like to point out a few other gnotable gnus I found while searching for gnu inspiration on DA:

For unto us a child is born...

Growing up blessed with the name Joy, I always dreaded hearing the song "Joy to the World" at Christmas. I especially cringed a lot when the Three Dog Night song "Joy to the World" became a big hit back in the 70s (yes, I'm really that old...). It has taken me a long time to accept the word joy into my own vocabulary — I finally noticed that people only take note of my use of the word if I wince as I say it. I still get occasional grins from friends and family when the either song comes up at church or on the radio, but I've finally learned to accept, and even enjoy my name: Sometimes at church I'll give in to the humor and sing "Me to the World..."

But JOY is what this season is all about. In my morning devotions today, I reflected upon the ordeal Mary went through. I'm a mother, and even though it was 16 years ago I still vividly remember what it felt like to be nine months pregnant. Even in today's modern culture it's not something I would describe as comfortable. So I'm sure that Mary was feeling anything but blessed and joyful as she endured a long donkey ride to Bethlehem in her advanced pregnancy. I'm sure she didn't shout, "Oh, Joy!" as she went into labor while Joseph struck out at every inn, only to settle for a cold stable which I'm sure wreaked of animal offal. As she went through the wracking pains of advanced labor contractions, I'm sure she felt anything but joyful as she was forced to have only her husband to help her (in that culture and time, men were forbidden to be present during labor -- and probably happy about it), instead of a traditional midwife.

But there is a miracle that almost every mother experiences once the baby makes its entrance. It is beautifully phrased in a framed piece of calligraphy a friend gave to me when I had my daughter:

BOYCOTT PETLAND!

I belong to a meetup.com group for local dog lovers, and some of our members just spent part of their Thanksgiving holiday picketing a new Petland store in nearby Roseville, CA. Petland is notorious for selling dogs from puppy mills in their stores, and they are the target of an ongoing protest by the Humane Society of America. Their web site features an 8-minute video documenting Petland's continued patronage of horrendous puppy mills, as well as Petland owners lying about it (You can check it out for yourself at this [link] and there is another news report video at this [link] ).

Pet shelters all over the country are full of great dogs in need of homes. If you want to buy a dog, give a mutt a good home. If you insist on buying a particular breed, don't buy over-priced puppy mill products from stores like Petland: Only buy from breed-association-approved breeders and never buy a dog that you can't see in person for yourself, as well as the facility/home from which it came. My niece purchased a pocket Maltese from a breeder across country, and the poor thing that arrived via airline shipping was malnourished, emaciated, and stained yellow from long-term urine soaking (it wasn't just from being stuck in a shipping crate with one piece of newspaper -- the vet said it had to have been soaked in urine for a long time to be that stained) — it was basically one sick, neglected puppy.

Christmas is coming, and a lot of puppies are purchased for Christmas presents. Don't be rushed into an impulse purchase at a pet shop. Research the options in your area carefully, and make sure your dog/puppy came from a good home. More tips on buying a healthy dog are available at this [link]

"My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am." ~Author Unknown