« What's with the world today... | Main | In limbo no more... »
May 13, 2006
Another great afternoon on free internet
I'm not entirely sure what I'm writing about today. I had thought about discussing how people walk and why at drastically different speeds, but it seemed strangely familiar. So I looked it up and realized I'd already blogged about it a long time ago, complaining about slow walkers.
And yet, here I am still trying to work out another topic. This is what free internet access does to me. I'm so used to paying absurd amounts ($4-5/h) that when I get this unbounded access I ramble on with very little to say. And why? Cause I can. It's almost a North American consumerist view in literary metaphor (please step in and tell me if I've totally blown something there...it's been a while since I've had to/attempted to use a literary device). I do it cause I can. I use 32L of fuel to drive my kids to a soccer game in my Ford Explorer/H2/tank/whatever. Brings back Dennis Leary-esque 'Asshole' connotations... sucking back quarter pounder cheeseburgers in the non-biodegradable styrofoam packaging. Great song.
McDonald's sure has come a long way. I remember those styrofoam containers. Now everything is wrapped in semi-waxed paper. And they even have started putting the nutritional information on the packaging. That was an unpleasant surprise. Fun facts I've learned? A regular cheeseburger contains 12g of fat. That's for all you Bomber staff out there who used to go for the cheap cheeseburgers after a Wednesday night of work. Nothing like consuming 24-72g of fat before bed. They also contain 5g of sugar. That cannot be good. Half as much as your typical coffee...where you are physically putting the sugar into the drink! Those were just the stats for the burger. Put it into a combo and you might as well buy your own defibrillator. That said, I just had the cheeseburger combo for lunch today. What can I say, I'm human, I have weaknesses...I was hungover and needed the grease.
Back to the fuel thing. It's quite funny that so many people are complaining about fuel prices. How could you not see this coming? How can you actually complain when you are using a non-renewable, limited resource. Of course the price is gonna go up! I'm pretty sure I didn't need my economics degree to figure that one out. Besides, it could be worse. Try buying petrol in Europe and then you can complain about the prices. It is a little different there as the distances aren't quite the same.. I believe it's said best in a line from Eurotrip, "Paris, Paris is like a suburb of Berlin. That's why the Germans and French have always been such close allies..". Great movie.
Read a book while I was in New Zealand. Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Big book, shouldn't have bought cause now I have to cart it around (yes, I realize I could just leave it or sell it, but it's one of those books I really want to hang on to) in my pack. The book discusses several ancient societies from Easter Island to the Aztecs, and how the choices they made (mostly with respect to their environmental impact) affected their survival or demise. He then draws parallels to several modern situations such as Haiti and Australia. It may not be for everyone but it's the type of book that everyone should glance at, at least to understand what type of stress we (as in our species we, the really really royal we) put on the planet's resources. One fact that I recall is that if China's population were to consume resources at the rate of North America's population (on a per person basis) then the world would double it's resource consumption!
Great book. Great afternoon. Great blog with no apparent initial topic.
Posted by Dr.Unk at May 13, 2006 1:36 AM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)