WoW (formerly Words of Wisdom)

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

And I'm spent.

This is what I've done last week:
Meschers -> Limoges by train (203 km)
Limoges -> Annecy by car (487 km)
Annecy -> Frejus by car (428 km)
Frejus -> Meschers by train (816 km).

And this what I'm doing this week (all by train): Meschers -> Tours (264 km)
Tours -> Paris (225 km)
Paris -> Limoges (379 km)
Limoges -> Paris (379 km)
Paris -> Meschers (488 km)

Can't wait to come home!

More Words of Wisdom

An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
-Jef Mallett

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
-Brendan Gill

Sneak Preview

I continue to gather priceless information on the French. Once I get over my speechlessness and gather my thoughts, I will write my greatest, most awesome entry ever.

Calories

Coke is bad for you; it makes you fat. So Diet Coke is bad for you and doesn't make you fat? The original diet products were much more a marketing scheme than an answer to a growing health concern. So what's the difference between Coke and Diet Coke? Well aside from the relatively unknown fact that they use entirely different formulas, the main difference is the substitution of high fructose corn syrup in Coke with other sweeteners, primarily aspartame, in Diet Coke. And why doesn't Diet Coke have any calories? Because high fructose corn syrup is the only ingredient in Coke that contains calories.

Does anybody else ever wonder how drinking one can of garbage could possibly be less fattening or "better for you" than drinking a can of a different garbage? Well, I'm curious. Aside from a few people who pick Diet Coke because they somehow like the taste better, the bulk of diet soda drinkers choose "diet" because they actually believe it's better for them. Seriously?! That's about as ignorant as choosing chewing tobacco over cigarettes for the same reason. But people do it anyway because it's "diet" and has no calories. Which makes me wonder, what the hell is a calorie anyway? (Don't worry, I looked it up.) A calorie in food is just a unit for measuring energy. Seems kind of ridiculous. We all know that eating a small McDonalds fries containing 220 calories is less healthy than eating a pear and a banana, which together, also contain 220 calories. But Diet Coke is obviously no better for you than regular Coke and they vary greatly in calories. So why is the same word still used to describe different kinds of energy?

Conclusion: The word calorie has somehow become a gross over-generalization of many different energy values contained in food. Most people appear to be oblivious to this and continue to be mislead by labels which, strangely enough, are required on almost all food products. Considering this is a rather serious health issue and affects anyone exposed to packaged foods, it seems like some effort should have been made to categorize or specify the different values of food energy which collectively remain described by this one deceptive word. Just sayin'.

Brilliant!

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
- Henry Adams

Really?!

A black lady on a train with her black baby on her lap. Black baby is nursing a baby bottle. Contents: chocolate milk.

Le Dauphin

I'm finally reconnected with the world. I spent the last two weeks with my cousins and one of their friends in a mobile home at a campground near Meschers. It was nothing more and nothing less than I expected: lots of drinking, lots of going out, lots of hitting on girls, lots of time at the beach, lots of sandwiches, lots of immature behavior, lots of bullshit, and lots of fun. I couldn't be happier that it's over. The cousins do the stupidest shit sometimes. Seriously, who takes videos of their friends vomiting? Who takes a picture of a dirty toilet in a bathroom stall at a bar? Who whips out their junk and repeatedly slaps it on the counter behind our female company while their backs are turned? Who...well, you get the idea. There wasn't one night in two weeks where at least two of them didn't say, "I'm gonna get shit-faced tonight." Luckily for me, since we went out so much, they often needed a designated driver. I was usually the first to volunteer. Anyway, looking back on the whole experience nothing exceptional really took place. Although, there are definitely some things that need to be included in the blog. I'm going to lest them so that I don't forget but I don't have time to expand on everything right now. Expect some follow up entries on these later: weekly bingo night at the campground, the red mini football, a French phenomenon known as "l'apéritif," the cousins, their friend Kevin, the many faces of the "miniwich," and "l'elite Francaise." If anyone has any particular interest in any of these, feel free to comment and I'll get to that first.

S.O.S.

I'm noticing patterns in my life. I need to help people.

Words of Wisdom

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.
-P.J. Plauger

Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight?
-Al Boliska

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
-Laurence J. Peter