I just thought I should come back and update this--Joanna wrote and said that she had gone to the Coke site, and Diet Coke with Lemon was all over the place, so it didn't seem likely it had been discontinued, and then I realized that the last time I bought it, about a week ago, it came in those weird new long boxes--"fridge" boxes or something--so it also didn't seem likely that they would be bothering to repackage it if it was discontinued, so it seems that the rumor was false.

It may be a regional thing.

Diet Coke with Lemon is no longer being produced by Coca-cola - and yet it appears that there are small stores of it still on market shelves.

Is this true??

If so, I'm sad. I love Diet Coke with Lemon. :(

...me & mine...

x e n e y d o t c o m:

When I told Jeremy about the tracks last night, he made me stop because the story was too creepy. It is a creepy story, but not really because of the blood. The blood left marks, but every night it's creepy, all these people, all these stories, and you never know. You never know what happens every night, or every day, behind closed doors or in alleys or in parks or out on the sidewalk. You have your own story to worry about, so you don't think about all the others, but those other stories are always there. This one just left tracks.

I loved that paragraph. It's one of the things that I think about a lot, that I try not to forget: everyone has their own story. When it doesn't seem like they're interested in your story, in your well-being, it may (and probably does) mean that they're too wrapped in their own story, their own problems. We can't get too wrapped in everyone else's story, because it would be too overwhelming. But once in awhile you get a glimpse into someone else's.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2003 this morning and sent them a contribution, so I'm committed. Or maybe I should be committed . . .

I'm really enjoying Bethany's ramblings, even if entries like this make me feel worried for her:

Even more creepy was were I spent the night. Straight out of a horror movie, except I am still alive. It was a campground called Sleeping Buffalo, and it was definitely the best deal I've had yet. Five bucks for a spot to park my truck, and unlimited access to the hot tub and pool. The office was closing right as I came in, but the owner informed me that I could still get into the tubs all night by going through the entry in the empty motel that was being renovated.

She's sure having an adventure. I almost envy her. Well, you know, until I think about actually sleeping in the truck in a WalMart parking lot. But the idea of it is very cool.

I've been on Atkins since the Fourth of July, and I've lost about twenty pounds and I really haven't craved anything, but this picture really makes me want a cupcake!!

It was a difficult birth for Eve in February, when she laid her eggs. She had to be anaesthetised, put on a drip and lubricated with saline.

"She really was at death's door and we drip-fed her a solution and she came back to life," said the zoo's invertebrates specialist, Patrick Honan.

Invertebrates specialist. They're talking about an insect. With an IV. Cool, huh? :)

River of life flows on with Yarra's sticky birth - Science - www.theage.com.au

Link from Loobylu

I get blindsided by a line. I expected some today; this was the first one. The last line in the next-to-last paragraph sent me out on the deck to cry. I would have rather that Eugene wasn't coming back from lunch at right that moment--I freaked him out and had to reassure him later that I was fine--but oh well.

Read this: LILEKS (James) The Bleat

Here's a very interesting article from Scientific American about dietary guidelines and how they've changed over the years. Also, finally, an explanation I can understand about why people on Atkins' and similar diets lose weight, yet don't increase their cholesterol across the board.

By the early 1990s controlled feeding studies had shown that when a person replaces calories from saturated fat with an equal amount of calories from carbohydrates the levels of LDL and total cholesterol fall, but the level of HDL also falls. Because the ratio of LDL to HDL does not change, there is only a small reduction in the person's risk of heart disease. Moreover, the switch to carbohydrates boosts the blood levels of triglycerides, the component molecules of fat, probably because of effects on the body's endocrine system. High triglyceride levels are also associated with a high risk of heart disease.

I haven't read the whole article yet, but it makes sense. I'm on a high protein, low carbohydrate diet right now because everyone that I've talked to recently who has lost a large amount of weight has done it that way. But it never seemed healthy to me, and it didn't make sense that they weren't all dropping of heart attacks. But no one ever really explained it to me before.

Link from Byte Size Morsels

I once spent a year in Chicago, and the weather there is like a continuing public entertainment event. None of this "partly cloudy in the morning, clearing later, highs in the 60s near the ocean and 80s inland" stuff. It was more like "lakeside snow in the morning, drought conditions out by O'Hare, locusts descending south of the Loop by nightfall, and Satan's minions riding their fiery steeds just after sunset from Evanston north."

Jon Carroll

September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Yarr.

I want a world where those who choose Western ideas can flourish and thrive. And by “Western” I mean that raped girls aren’t stoned. Gays aren’t crushed by rocks. Public cleavage doesn’t get you whipped. Jews and Lutherans and Sufis can sit on a bus together and it’s no big deal. Where citizens decide that if they don’t like their government, they try it again - and the recall pits an Austrian immigrant against a native-born man of Hispanic origin.

Me, too.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

This is fun: STAMP-IT-OUT

Someone wrote and told me that they'd seen the image I use in this design on a book cover: The Well-Read Witch: Essential Books for Your Magickal Library. Strange, huh? The image isn't my own, I bought it from a stock photo place, but it somehow seems a strange choice for a "magickal" book. And I notice they turned the moon around. I wonder if that means something?