Author: admin

This one ain't as bad as the previous one, but still icky.

Had lunch with hacker_girl today, as I hadn't seen her in a few weeks. We're sitting down at Reubens and we're catching up and being silly, our usual activities basically. I'm suddenly distracted by a cute little thing wearing a red plaid short schoolgirl skirt and midriff shirt (say that 3 times really fast!). I'm only seeing her from the back, but she has great legs, beautiful tush, nice tummy and I caught sight of some decent cleavage from the side. I didn't make anything of it, but maybe 5 minutes later, the girl walks past our table to go to the bathroom. I almost choked on my coke… the woman was at least 40, if not more. That's so wrong…

Media exposure forces government to respond to hair-into-soy sauce scandal

Shanghai. (Interfax-China) – The Chinese government has shown an unusually high level of concern as a result of a bold media exposure towards a scandal in which human hair was used to make soy sauce. The government has now ordered an immediate inspection of all domestic food seasoning plants before the end of January.

China Central Television (CCTV), the state television station, first raised public worries over the quality of domestic soy sauce by uncovering a substandard workshop in central China's Hubei Province, where piles of waste human hair were found. The hairs were treated in special containers to distill amino acid, the most common substance contained in soybean sauce.

Human hair is rich in protein content, just like soybean, wheat and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce.

The plant, describing itself as a bioengineering company, made around 100,000 tons of amino acid daily, in either syrup or powder form, making it easier for delivery, plant workers said. They were then distributed to diluting plants in or near the province, where it was diluted with approximately ten times water, was then made into ready-for-use soy sauce and was bottled or packaged.

In one such plant shown on the CCTV program, more chemical additives were poured into the amino acid syrup and heated and stirred continuously by a worker.

The additives include one whole bag of solid hydroxide to make the sauce taste better, and bottles of hydrochloric acid to balance the acid and alkali content in the mixture in order to make it safer for human consumption. Both additives were for industrial use only, according to their packaging.

By producing soy sauce from such raw materials, the producers were said able to cut costs by half. Workers employed at the plants, however, never bought soy sauce marked as “blended” on the packaging, because that usually meant that human hair was the basic material in the sauce.

Soy sauce made from human hair is not the first low-quality food product exposed by state television, which launched a program called “Weekly Quality Report” around half a year ago. The program, which conducts investigations into the low quality of some of China's most common food products, has frequently ruined the public appetite.

In related news the Beijing Star Daily reported the Beijing government has begun closer monitoring and supervision of 14 kinds of foods, including rice, meat, vegetables, bottled water, dairy products and cooking oil due to fears of large-scale food-poisoning cases.

original link: http://www.interfax.com/com?id=5680503&item=search

Is that a rodent in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

I just want to fall asleep on my desk. I'm braindead and completely useless to the world today. The fact that I just popped some antihistamines a while back to control my allergies really isn't helping my case right now.

I wanna go home! :(

So I had nightmares again last night. Woke up at 3:30 in a panicked daze – that's nice. Dreaming about work (no! no! the XSLT transform has to happen BEFORE the content is rendered!). Yes, I know I'm fucking weird…. Then I had another one about eniran, who was having a huuuuuuuuuuuge fight with closet-case and brown-girl, except everybody was jewish. What bothers me is that I'm having nightmares of my friends' friends, and I've never even met these people.

Fuuuck, I need a decent night's sleep. Anybody has suggestions, cause I'm out of ideas.

I just spent the evening watching the chief's debate on television with mekez. The scary thing is that it was really interesting. For the first time in my life, I'm really into politics. I see it as a sign I'm getting old and stogey that I can hold my own in a political debate.

Things are really going to be interesting in the upcoming elections. For the first time in years (well, in the last 2 federal elections), I feel that there's a real alternative, and you're not voting for which party you want in the official opposition if you're not inclined to vote liberal.

Now this might just be my drunken ramblings (as I have a bottle of riesling in me), but I personally don't have any confidence in the liberals, and I find the PC scary as hell (especially in abortion issues and military spending). The bloc is not an option (as I'm not a sovereignist, and I want a national party leading my country), so that basically leaves the NDP. This is not a problem, as I'm really interested in (and in favour of) a lot of what Layton is saying. His stance on gay rights, health care and social issues is on par with my views, so I have no moral objections to voting NDP.

A lot of people think that voting against the PC is more important, but I don't agree with that. I really like Layton's stance of voting *for* a party than *against* one. Anyway, it's a toss up at this point. A lot of people think that the liberals might get in because the PC is turning off voters with their stance (and an equal amount of people think that the liberals have no chance in hell because of lack of public confidence). Anyway, it's going to be an interesting night this coming monday.

Just remember, go vote :)

original link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40804-2004Jun14.html

Va. Tells Men: No Sex With Young Girls

The Associated Press
Monday, June 14, 2004; 1:57 PM

RICHMOND, Va. – The state is posting billboards with messages such as “Isn't she a little young?” as part of a campaign to dissuade men from having sex with underage girls. The campaign is aimed at reducing the number of young girls who have children with older men, the Virginia Department of Health said Monday.

In 1999 and 2000 in Virginia, men over 18 were responsible for 219 births involving girls who were 13 and 14, the department said.

Messages such as “Isn't she a little young?” and “Sex with a minor, don't go there” also appear on posters, coasters and napkins in bars, restaurants and stores in five cities.

“We encourage adult men to talk to their peers and discourage them from pursuing teenagers. What they are doing is unhealthy and against the law,” said Robert Franklin, a health department official.

This is just nuts.

Go to Ikea with eniran. We walk through the whole friggin' store twice, because stuff is not where it is supposed to be. The coffee table I wanted is, of course, out of stock. The kitchen island I wanted is still out of stock. The kitchen table i though I wanted, on closer inspection, is ugly (well, the table legs are). To top it all off, the replacement coffee table I settled on was – you guessed it – out of stock in the self-serve shelves.

I got some cool lamps for cheap to replace the ones that are leaving with the roommates, and I did find a cool way to arrange two smaller coffee tables for my living room, but still… I'm now convinced that I need to sacrifice swedish meatballs to the gods of Ikea.

As a side note, that girl is the only person I know who could find sex toys at Ikea. The kitchen section was bad enough, but the kiddies section… jeebus.

Rc says: I'm nothing if not optimistic
Tia says: yup. noticed that.
Rc says: well, I decided it was better to be optimistic than being depressed all the time
Rc says: it's not the easiest thing to maintain, but I do work at it
Tia says: man… sometimes you scare me. you've got NO idea how familiar that sounds.
Rc says: I keep telling you you're my long lost sister stolen by intercontinental gypsies.
Rc says: why do you think I like you so damn much?

…which started a long conversation about alien abductions and taking cows out for weekend joyrides. It's all good :)

Man, I feel like I've been running around all day.

I did the second coat of painT^† in my kitchen. I like painting, but ceilings suck the big ass. I still need to give another coat on the chair rail and the trim, and touch up a few spots, but I'm mostly done.

While that was drying, I made yet another batch of pasta sauce (which is happily simmering away as we speak), and did my dishes (well, most of 'em anyway) and a few loads of laundry.

Dayum, no wonder I'm tired today :)

I will now have a celebratory beer and become one with my couch.

† Edit: for those of you who want to know, a coat of pain is BDSM eveningwear. Snartasses, all of you.