Rice

This probably seems trivial, especially after the hard-hitting investigative reporting I poured my heart and soul into for my read-by-over-ten-people-(maybe) auto-flush toilets post.

However, this blog is supposed to be about things I love but also hate, and we're supposed to explore them together, that was the eternally-binding contract we all entered into.  And, like Rogers, I hold you to that contract, no matter how terrible I treat you, and how much sheer and utter crap I make you read.

Ooooh, did you think I meant Rogers, the cell phone/internet provider to which I am currently subscribed?  No, I was talking about these guys, all named Roger!

Anyway, today I'm thinking about my love/hate relationship with rice.  What is the deal with rice?!

Seriously.  what is the deal?!

I eat rice a lot, and like eggs, it is very versatile.  But, c'mon, aren't we over-hyping rice a bit??  According to this site half of the world's population is eating primarily rice.  Really?!  Rice??  Let's explore some of the awesome alternatives we have.  We could be eating meat sandwiched between meat!  And we're eating the seeds of the monocot plant, Oryza sativa (that's how the smart kids say rice.)  When you eat the double down, you've got your four of five pieces, you stick 'em together, you chew, you spend some time on the toilet.  With rice, you have thousands of morsels of cereal grain!  You eat one of them, you feel like you're really getting somewhere, and then you look down at the bowl and you've barely made a dent in it!  Remember Choose Your Own Adventure novels, when you'd go to page 54, fall down the well, get out, get back into the castle, then somehow end up on page 54 again, fall down the well, climb to safety, just to end up on page 54 again, falling down the well?  That is eating rice, to me.  Falling down a never-ending well on page 54.

Would you fall down a well in this Choose Your Own Adventure novel?  Or would you just continuously wave your hands in the air, all the while not caring?

I would also like to add another argument to why I think rice is over-hyped.  If we refer back to this site (note how the page is called "interesting facts about rice."  I'd suggest they refer to this before naming their web pages) you will see that "three of the world's four most populous nations are rice-based societies."  People's Republic of China, India and Indonesia.  But also, according to the site, "Every year, 50 million people are added to Asia's soaring population of 3.5 billion."  Ignoring the fact that the wording of that sentence makes Asia sound like a Sims game, does anyone else sense a rice conspiracy?  If I got three of the world's four most populous nations to eat the double down, then said double down would be the staple diet of half the world's population.

And my, what a world it would be!!

But really, I also love rice a lot.  I eat brown rice with chicken, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes and sweet potatoes, I make sushi a lot, and I've even been known to indulge in a rice pudding.  That's right, rice pudding!  It can be savoury or sweet!  I also found this recipe for sticky rice balls- a delicious food, but an unfortunate nickname.  Rice is also really good for you.  Eaten with almost every meal in Japan, according to Dr. Oz, short-grain rice helps you feel satisfied for longer, and fuller, faster.  And we all know that Dr. Oz should always be trusted.

Oh, wait, no.  Not this guy.  Although he's not exactly untrustworthy, per se.  Perhaps just not as gung-ho about rice...

Anyway.  Do what you want, really.  Rice is great, it's also frustrating.  If it's causing you to stay up late blogging about it, you might want to lay off for a while.  If, however, you've been looking for something extra to cover in batter, deep-fry and add to your double down, try some rice!

Rice, in it's most natural form.

Automatic Flush Toilets

The toilets at my work flush automatically.  I hate it. 

I've tried to figure out when auto-flush toilets first hit society, but after a ton of research, I couldn't find the date.  This is particularly interesting, because my main reason for wanting to have this information was to know at what point we, as a society, became so lazy that we couldn't even flush our own toilets.  Apparently it was at the same point that I couldn't research something as simple as a specific date because I was lazy and got distracted by... other things.

In addition to laziness, I suspect another reason for the popularity of auto-flush toilets is due to our fear of germs.  I also don't know exactly when this happened, all I know is one day people were washing their hands when leaving the washroom or before preparing food, like a completely normal, and well-functioning society and the next day, we're bathing in Lysol and hosing our kids down with windex.

"My child will never get sick!"

 

There's also the issue of the sheer amount of water the auto -flush toilet wastes (because you know it doesn't just flush once.  It flushes once when you walk into the stall, once when you sit down, once when you reach for the toilet paper, once when you stand up, and you get the point... It flushes more than once, basically, in case you didn't get the point.)

According to this site even a water-efficient toilet will use between four to six litres of water per flush.  And according to this site the average person living in sub-Saharan Africa uses 10 to 20 litres of water per day.  That means that, if our auto-flush toilet flushes even only twice instead of once just because we moved the wrong way, or sneezed, or reached for toilet paper, we've used more water than what someone in Africa would use for their entire day.  Why?  Because we don't want to touch anything in a public washroom.  Or because our arms are too sore from carrying around our American Apparel shopping bags to maneuver the flusher.  Or because some people think that, when you use a public washroom, rules of societal norms and common-sense no longer apply and flushing is optional.  (FYI- it's not.)

"I'm so tired from carrying this bag in one hand and posing by seductively glancing over my shoulder!  Thank goodness my toilet has an auto-flush because I need my other hand to hold my hair back!"

So we've already established that, for the amount of water that auto-flush toilets use, we may as well just go sit in front of a bunch of starving kids in Africa and eat buckets of KFC chicken. 

And what about that guy dousing his kid in Lysol we looked at earlier?  Should he really be so grateful for the auto-flush?

Well, according to this guy, the filthiest place in our office is our phone.  And in our house?  Our kitchen sponge.  This makes sense.  I can't really remember the last time I changed my kitchen sponge, and I don't think I've EVER wiped down my phone receiver.  However, almost every time I walk into the public washrooms at work, there is some hard working individual scrubbing the toilets and polishing the sinks.

There's also this to keep in mind.  Basically, by over-sanitizing and over-cleaning ourselves and children, we are actually WEAKENING our immune systems and creating more illnesses and allergies in future generations.  And honestly, they have enough to deal with.

So every time your toilet automatically flushes for you- and not necessarily when you're done your business, but maybe while doing it, or before doing it, or before and after and during it- please take a moment and ponder the following three points.

1.  We are lazy.
2. We have an unjustified sense of entitlement. 
3. We have an irrational fear of germs.

This is YOU, society!  I have just held up a mirror to you!  Look at how scared you are!  

Oh, I'm also supposed to put something in here about why I love the topic being discussed.

Y'know what though?

No.

Tim "the tool man" Taylor

Welcome to my blog.

As a wise man or woman in cyber-space once said- "never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few."

I'm going to write about things I love, but also hate, or things I hate but also kind of love. 

As a short intro post:

I have recently discovered that Home Improvement airs on CMT every night at 10pm and then, if you're still itching for some tool man lovin', again at 10 30pm. 

Remember when Jill went back to school and every episode centred around her psycho-analyzing the other character(s) in the scene?  Man, I hated that.  She just accused Tim of being "emotionally off-centre" on a television show.  So really, this episode is doubly annoying, because she's psycho-analyzing in the show AND psycho-analyzing in the show IN THE SHOW. 

But what do I love about this show, or this episode specifically?  Well, Mark's started in on his goth phase, which we all remember as a highlight of the show.  The in-between-scene animation is always stellar, and- although the episode is not yet over- I just know Wilson's going to give some great advice that Tim is going to repeat (poorly), butcher (amusingly), and ultimately, use to bring the family closer together (poignantly.)

Ah, I love it.  (but also kind of hate it.)