The Literary Guide to the World

Salon is running an interesting series of articles this summer called The Literary Guide to the World. The idea is to collect the best books about a particular region of the world and present it as a kind of travelogue about that region.

Some of the selections are obvious, James Joyce's Dubliners for Ireland or Thomas Mann's Death in Venice for, um.... I can't remember. However, while some locales have rich literary histories, others do not – such as sub-Saharan Africa or central Asia – and the recommendations here present an invaluable starting place for expanding beyond college lit and the NY Times bestsellers lists.

The articles themselves are buried behind an ad firewall, requiring non subscribers to watch a commercial or click through several pages to access the full text. The quality of Salon's articles has not improved much over the past few years, making daily visits unnecessary. However with the Literary Guide to the World, Salon has struck upon a simple idea and executed it to perfection.

MooTopia

I am fortunate enough to be one of those people who can consume dairy into their 30s. I love milk, and especially cheese and ice cream. I have noticed however, that the amount I can handle per day has diminished over time. Cheese doesn't seem to affect me much, but I can now overdo it with milk. A glass or two of milk per day is no big deal, but at three (say around 24 ounces) I know I've overdone it.

I decided to try MooTopia, HEB's lactose-free, low-carb milk. It's been on the market for several months, but it's only recently been reliably available at my neighborhood store. They start with regular milk and process it by adding lactose enzymes, somehow reducing the simple sugar content further, and increasing the amount of dairy proteins. It's vitamin-fortified like regular milk. It's marketed as being good for the lactose-intolerant, diabetic, or low-carb dieter. I don't fit into those categories, but if I can have the calcium, vitamins, and flavor of milk I'm happy.

My first taste of MooTopia was that it wasn't as sweet as normal milk. (I tried the 2% variety, though it is also available in whole and skim varieties.) Lactose is a very nice, sweet sugar, and it's distinctive flavor is part of what makes cow's milk and cream so delicious. MooTopia has a nice rich texture, and it's not at all watery. It's very filling. I've grown accustomed to it, the way that I once learned to prefer artificial sweetener in soda to the corn syrups in the regular flavors. Considering I've replaced at least one meal a day with a greens salad, I'm happy to have a protein-rich drink option.

What I don't like about it is that it's very expensive, 75–100% more expensive than HEB's regular milk brands by volume. I can drink one of the larger containers (64 oz., approx $2.60) in two or three days. However, I like how I never feel bloated any more, no matter if I go back for seconds, or thirds.

What spare time?

I've always meant to add some book, movie, and music recommendations to my blog, but for some reason I've never gotten around to it. I did add a review of the recent Peter Pan movie to my old blog, but I didn't like the idea of mixing real-life stuff with entertainments.

The new blog is called What Spare Time? There are only a couple of posts up over there right now, but I'm hoping to add more as time goes on. I certainly have a backlog of book reviews from when I was recouperating. My plan is to stay mainly positive, recommending things away from the bestsellers list, but I expect I'll put some popular things up here if I'm particularly excited about them.

The blog is currently set up as a team blog, so hopefully there will be a group of people adding recommendations and reviews. If you want to join in, send me an email and I'll be happy to add you to the team.

Where U at Rock?

It's been so long since I posted here last that you might have assumed the blog was dead. Close, but not quite.

Toward the end of 2005, I was going through a period of intense frustration, both in my personal life and with my research and school life. These feelings, plus lingering grief over the Katrina tragedy left me feeling bleak and cynical. Everything that seemed worth writing about was a complaint or a rant about some perceived injustice or slight, and the monotony of my expression led me to stop posting for what I thought was going to be a short while. My life became a race to get to the end of a semester that was full of disappointment. I had hope that once I got through my classes, I could get back to writing and advance my research project.

On the evening of December 7, the final day of class, that hope ended. That night, a sudden freeze set in, and in my folly, I went outside to fetch some personal items from my car. I fell down outside my apartment and fractured my fibula. The break was severe enough to require surgery. Entirely because of the help of friends and family, I survived the next few days, underwent the surgical knife for the first time in my life, took a make-up final exam, and somehow avoided going crazy.

The next three weeks were a haze of pain and pain-killers. I was on crutches for the better part of two months, and wore a walking cast until late-February. I was in a brace until late March, and I was in physical therapy until just recently.

I meant to blog about the recovery process, but as many of you know, conversation with me almost exclusively revolved around my various physical ailments, pains, and medications. Basically, I had become a geezer. Really, who wants to read about plantar flexion and muscular atrophy?

Combined with my setback, a more serious medical situation that struck my supervisor over the holidays, and class responsibilities that spiraled wildly out of control through the spring semester, I'm pretty much back where I was mid-September of last year. Sure I could have been posting about all of this, but it was so painful for me to live through once, I hated to think about rehashing it all for you, dear reader.

I don't know if it was the fall and my feelings of helplessness (or the 35 pounds I've gained during my recuperation) but I've been feeling more contemplative and patient lately. Anyway, I'll try to resume this log, bringing with it more hope and optimism than I was capable of last time. And with that hope, I'll live a life that brings me the kinds of joyous experiences that are worth sharing with you.

Shine on.

We need your time, and your effort... and your money

I made the mistake of signing a petition for an environmental organization a few months ago. They were petitioning a specific issue before the municipal government at the time, and I basically supported it, and so signing didn't seem like an issue. After hearing the whole spiel about their organization, they asked for my email address, and so I gave them one that I use only for spam-risky signups.

As I was still writing down my contact information, they told me how happy I was that I had joined their organization, and asked if I would be giving them a check for the membership fee (not previously discussed) or credit. I told them that I was not in a position to donate financially to their organization. They insisted that as little as $50 would help to ensure the quality of the environment for generations to come.

I told them that they were lucky to have my signature on their petition, and that if they didn't want it, I would be happy to remove it. They then insisted that $20 was the minimum contribution, and that they would be perfectly happy to send me a bill so I could pay it at my discretion.

I hadn't heard from them again until tonight when a woman from the organization called me on my way home to discuss a bill before the state legislature that they opposed. I told her that I was not well educated on the bill, but she promised to mail me a form letter I could sign and forward to my representative expressing my concern about the bill. I told her I would review the letter and the bill and consider sending it on.

At that point, she informed me that my membership in the organization was expiring and that I could pay the quarterly fee of $90 by credit card over the phone right away. I told her that I was not interested in contributing financially to the organization, nor was I in any position to do so. She asked if I didn't care about the quality of the environment, and I told her that I was an student with no income to donate. She then offered to let me pay $10 per month until I got back on my feet. I told her that if I had $10 a month, I'd buy health insurance, and maybe some new socks.

She made another plea to save the earth for my children, and accused me of only paying the environment lip service, which might be true, but it was rude to mention it. I hung up, convinced that this is why so many people hate environmentalists.

Only In Texas...

From the National Weather Service:

SEVERE WEATHER ALERT
615 AM CDT MON OCT 24 2005

...AUTUMN LIKE CONDITIONS THROUGH TUESDAY...

Moving On

Chris Mortensen of ESPN is reporting today that the Saints have played their last game in New Orleans. According to league sources, the Saints will return to San Antonio for the 2006 season, with a preferred permanent relocation to Los Angeles after that. New Orleans is unlikely to get a guaranteed expansion team, such as the promise made to Cleveland when the Browns became the Baltimore Ravens in 1996. A sports consultant claims that New Orleans is unlikely to ever be awarded an expansion team, and anyway Mortensen's report says that the league wouldn't consider expansion for another 10 to 15 years.

Clearly, Tom Benson, the owner, wants to move the team, and has tried to in the past. The league has now had ample time to extend the city of New Orleans a vote of confidence, and has failed to do so. I am officially done with them. Unless and until the Saints return to New Orleans as the home team, I won't be following them.

On the one hand, the whole thing just makes me sad, but on the other, I'm happy to have my Sunday afternoons back.