Lee.org

From Irradiation: A Safe Measure for Safer Food from the FDA:

As part of its approval, FDA requires that irradiated foods include labeling with either the statement “treated with radiation” or “treated by irradiation” and the international symbol for irradiation, the radura. Irradiation labeling requirements apply only to foods sold in stores. For example, irradiated spices or fresh strawberries should be labeled. When used as ingredients in other foods, however, the label of the other food does not need to describe these ingredients as irradiated. Irradiation labeling also does not apply to restaurant foods.

Though I shouldn’t just point out the scary negative side… It’s a good, pretty balanced article, written in 1998. In the article, the author says that virtually nobody uses irradiation except for spices, where “Many spices sold in this country also are irradiated”. It’s supposed to be safe. I don’t know, it still gives me the willies.

That cute pink symbol to the right is the “radura”, the symbol for irradiated food. No, I’ve never seen it before either.

Everyone knows what that other symbol is…

You’ve seen those TV commercials for the past 20 years talking about “Catalog, Pueblo Colorado” but never bothered to write away to them. Well they are all online and they are all in HTML and/or PDF format at The Federal Citizen Information Center. And it’s all free! A lot of the guides are pretty much common sense and you’ll often find just more of the same crap you see everywhere else. Crap like how you should check your tire pressure, and antifreeze weekly (yeah, I check mine every Sunday afternoon like clockwork). But I’ve found a nugget or two of information there. Enjoy.
2-7-04

(transcribed (sometimes poorly) from musings while I was driving a few months ago)

Each city has its own characteristic type of driver. And these types of drivers are created out of the geography of the roads they drive on. For example, a New York City driver, due to the grid patterns and the very businesslike nature of the place, and the timing of the lights, a New York City driver is very aggressive, completely unforgiving, but will generally fight fairly. An alternate merge is an alternate merge. When the light turns red, you stop. People in NYC don’t bust through a light 10 seconds after it’s turned because they know that if they do, they’re dead. A Boston driver is insane because a Boston driver has to be insane. The rotary system and the one-way nature of the roads create that kind of driver. For example, when you drive into the rotaries in Fresh Pond, you pull up to the intersection and you just have to GO at some crazy random interval because there is no way that you’re ever going to get to go on your own unless you push the pedal and just hope you don’t hit something. That’s insane… but that’s what’s needed in Boston. There are some patterns to how the Boston roads work and similarly there are weird patterns to how Boston drivers work. For example, TJIC almost got in an accident the other day. He was driving along and came to a Stop sign. On the other side of the intersection, three cars came to the Stop sign. One car went and then TJIC started to go and he almost hit the second car in the lineup. The guy from the other car jumped out of his car completely irate. He shouted, “In Boston, when three cars come up to a stop sign.. when the first car starts to go, all three cars get to go through!” TJIC retorted, saying, “They might, but the second two are illegal.” And the Boston driver just didn’t understand this. He kept saying how three cars go through a Stop sign together.

You see, TJIC has remained in some parts a NJ driver. NJ drivers have big roads, they can’t parallel park (because they never have to in NJ), random grid structures, gotta follow the map. They’re kinda middle of the road drivers. They don’t know how to do city driving. That stresses them out to no end because, out here, you drive 10 miles and then come to a light. Another 10 miles and then another light. They aren’t really trained for the exciting world of big city driving.

Philadelphia drivers make me a little uncomfortable. For example, they drive backwards on major roadways! In two hours of driving in Phila, I saw four people inappropriately backing up in the middle of the road. But I kind of understand why they are doing that. Kind of like Boston, there are all these little subdivisions… villages that grew until they touched each other. So the roads are a bit topsy turvy. You’ll be driving along and you’ll come to a light, another light, another light, a Stop sign, and a light. Don’t you miss that Stop sign! And the roadways in Phila are all rough. So Phila drivers go a little slower and have to drive more carefully. They have to be very attentive or they’re gonna get themselves killed pretty quick. There is parallel parking everywhere. So you have to really strain your neck when pulling out one of those Stop sign intersections. Phila drivers are slow… I’m not going to say “careful” but they are all aware that their roads are slow… more like bumper cars than superhighways.

In order to get and propagate “the fastest spreading internet worm in history”, each and every victim has to actively click on a suspicious looking attachment. Sympathy level = low.

I still think it’s pretty funny (though wrong, of course) that SCO is getting hammered.

At this very moment I am:

• Pulling files off a client’s PC that I am about to wipe at about 2 megabytes/second
• Pushing a 6 gig backup file offsite (thanks TJIC!) at about 70 kilobytes/second
• Jamming to tunes streaming in to me on Rhapsody
• Sharing and downloading files on eMule at 30 kilobytes/sec upstream and 10 kilobytes/sec downstream
• Having all the traffic analyzed by my hardware and software firewalls
• Writing this Journal article
• Checking my email
• Tallying up a good day’s work as Computer Guy
• Smiling

Friday afternoon I was getting ready to go out to meet the Eleventh President when I got a message from my neighbor saying that the email mailing list I’ve been trying to get started for the last 11 months (yes, I said 11 months) was voted down by [insert vulgarities here]. Mulling this over the weekend I was considering how I could resign with the most effectiveness over this issue.
To clean this part of the weekend up quickly, I got a message from him Sunday afternoon saying that it wasn’t dead, the board was just too busy talking about more important matters at the meeting to deal with the mailing list. We’ll see.

11 months!

But I digress on describing YAGW.

Friday at 6 (actually 6:20 b/c I had to cool off after getting the above bad news) I met with the Eleventh President at Moghul in Morristown. The meal was exquisite. Not inexpensive but worth it, right down to the aromatic rice. We proceeded to a party in New Brunswick with friends of the Eleventh President. PPG was there too! Mutual friends! It was a very young crowd… 21-25 or so, a college pad. They had DanceDanceRevolution on Xbox downstairs. We tried it out and I really got into the groove with it. the Eleventh President and some others also played. We had a blast!

I went back with PPG at 4am. Late!

Saturday, we went in to NYC. PPG got a facial and her hair cut from 4-6. I bought the very last two cases of Marilyn Merlot 1996 and Marilyn Merlot 1997 from my wine supplier in the city. The owner told me that he had 2 cases of 1994 just last week and he sold them to a guy from Pennsylvania for $40/bottle or something. Those are $150 bottles! ARG! Well, I gave him my phone number in case he gets more… I also spent a while talking to the Eleventh President using my bluetooth headset. It was fun getting mistaken for a lunatic on the streets; I was standing outside, hands at my sides, wearing a hat that covers the earpiece and talking to NO ONE. A couple people gave me strange looks. I pointed to my ear and they feigned understanding. ;-)

I picked up PPG. We found each other by cell phone… I never actually found out where exactly her spa was. When I dropped her off, she didn’t know exactly how to get there so I had just dropped her off and she walked the last 1/4-2 blocks, feeling her way. Now when picking her up, I stopped at a corner near where I dropped her off. She was on foot; she told me the street corner she had just passed and the one she was approaching. I checked my map and figured out where she was. I guided her in by map. “Ok, at the next intersection, turn right and walk 1 block. [step, step, step, step…] Ok now look to your left and smile. Wave.”

We went off to Toys in Babeland for accoutrements. And then pizza. Thin, perfect New York Pizza. Ahhh. I took one bite and told PPG that I didn’t -need- any more. But of course I finished both slices!

Then it was off to a party at Gatsby’s in the Village. It was someone’s birthday. The someone seemed very nice. She just turned 22. Much of this crowd is starting to become familiar to me. That’s good.

11pm: off to Paddles. But I was so gosh darn tired that I couldn’t go in. PPG had a play date so I insisted that she go in while I stayed in the car basking in the quiet, playing with my cell phone and happily vegging out for a while. It was really quite nice actually. (it also didn’t hurt that her lack of a penis got her in for free while it costs $25 to get mine in.) Her date was a no-show so we ended up leaving just after midnight. Home. Sleep. Good.

Next morning: movies! PPG, River and myself made it to a 4:05 showing of Big Fish in Piscataway. We all got something out of it and liked it a lot. It’s an excellent story and very well done.

After the movie, the three of us went to Four Seasons Thai restaurant in Piscataway (1353 Stelton Road 732-819-8787). Low on atmosphere, excellent authentic food, low prices, highly recommended. From there, we all split up and went home. And they all lived happily ever after.

PPG was recently given a Litter Maid Mega self cleaning cat litter box. She set it up a week ago and I’ve got to say that it works very well. You can walk into the bathroom and your nose almost doesn’t know that there’s a litter box there. That certainly wasn’t the case before! The cat took right to it, opting to go to this new perpetually clean litter box even before the old not perfectly clean litter box was removed. PPG says that it’s easy and convenient to clean. In a week, she had to add clumping litter only once, and only refilling the box about 1/3. So the (more expensive per pound) litter probably isn’t any more expensive. One really nice thing is that the cat isn’t tracking the new Tidy Cat scoopable into the rest of the bathroom nearly as much as the old regular Tidy Cat litter.

This litter box costs about $150 and it’s worth it!

VITO Dialer is a good little $10 program integrates with my Pocket PC Contacts list. It sends dialing commands from my PocketPC to my cell phone via infrared (or bluetooth if my PocketPC had it). So now I don’t have to copy phone numbers from my PocketPC in my left hand to my phone in my right hand while driving with my knee. And that’s a good thing. Their site has a couple other good PocketPC –> cell phone products. I’m gonna check ’em out.

I was at a party a while ago. Things were getting a little racy and we were talking about the kinds of sex we were into. One guy got overly bold/eager/green and said,I’m open to pretty much anything.” Jumping right in, I asked him with deadpan inquisitiveness , “What about catheterization*?” It took a moment for the image to fully form in his mind of what I was suggesting. Then he laughed nervously and said, “Umm. Err. Well, maybe not ‘anything’.” The whole room laughed. It became a big/funny subject for the evening. “Hello, my name is Lee. And no, I’m not into catheterization.”

* The practice of putting a catheter up your urethra for pleasure. (Yea, it squicks me too.)

That vignette brings up today’s kink… Girls Stuck in the Mud. My sister told me about this web site and… ooo eee, it got me hot.. or maybe it wigged me out… or maybe it’s such a taboo subject that I don’t know WHAT to think. Or maybe it’s just so messed up that it short circuited my brain into thinking that it was a bucket of delectable flax seed.

Check it out: http://www.carstuckgirls.com

Click on each thumbnail:

I’ll go ahead and ask the obvious question: who buys such videos?

• Highway stalker wanna-be’s?
• Members of the towing industry?
• Rookie policemen?
• Tired do-gooders?

And why did I grab so many thumbnails? Maybe I like flax.

Molls sent this to me before xmas. I stole it from this site and pulled it local for posterity. Click on the picture to play this shocking Shockwave.