There really isn’t such thing as a healthy food that is not worth consuming—trying new things generally makes for a good experience, even if the food is green and smooshy like a Kiwano. ;) With that said, I can’t honestly mark this as worth consuming. It’s just not my type of food.

Let me be honest: as someone who knows a little bit about tea, I was hesitant to mark Tazo’s Calm as ‘worth consuming’. This is because Tazo fills up the package with quite a bit of nothing, and markets it as a pure chamomile and rose petal tea.

I suppose you could call this tea my guilty pleasure—I know that that Calm really does not need spearmint, lemongrass, blackberry leaves, safflower, peppermint leaves, sarsaparilla root, lemon balm leaf and licorice root to round the brew off, but the finished product is really not so bad when compared to what is offered at my typical New Hampshire grocery store.

All in all, I like Calm.

I’ve dabbled in extreme feminism—reading some of the books, taking part in some of the discussions, and especially being outspoken about absolutely everything that I’ve learned and come to understand—but I’ve never read the Scum Manifesto in it’s entirety. What a shame!

I’m almost finished with it now. I must say, Solanas is absolutely brilliant, if completely mad (but really, what great revolutionary wasn’t blantantly insane, at least by society’s standards?). I’m taking a lot of ideas and truths out of it, and I can not wait to start a stir with what I’ve learned.

Does anyone have the text of the story involving an Indian god (or was it a goddess?) being healed through the power of boiling water? I read a short description of it in a magazine article on tea, and though I only remember it vaguely, I would like very much to read it in it’s entirety! The magazine, I believe, was called Yoga.

On a slightly unrelated note, this is my eleventh All Consuming item tagged ‘tea’. :)

This book about chronic worries and how to stop them may be written for the 6-12 years old range, but even us old ‘uns can relate to and benefit from the analogies provided.

Okay, so I’m only sixteen, hardly an old ‘un, but you get my point.

My mother happened to read about A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety in the local paper. She was absolutely enthralled with the author’s ideas, and politefully demanded that I read the book. A day or two later, I obediently read the guide. What harm could it cause?

None, apparently! As a matter of fact, this book drew absolutely amazing conclusions and analogies. It has helped me to overcome my anxiety in a huge way, and I haven’t even finished it yet! It just goes to show that good advice knows no boundaries.

I am happy to see that Huebner has been doing so well on the New Hampshire bestseller lists. Children’s books that truly know no age deserve a bit of attention!

This was the most recent book given away for free by Dr. Laura (whom I love to listen to on the radio—her advice always seems to relate to my life in some way). I wasn’t quick enough to nab it, so I ‘did the right thing’ (a bit of Dr. L humor for you there) and bought the book myself.

I’ll let you all know how I like it.

Okay, so there’s really no comparing Diet Coke to original Coke; it doesn’t get any better than delicious carbonated sugar water. There must be eight spoons of sugar in one can! For fiends, friends and fans of sweet foods, there is no better beverage than Coca-Cola.

But every now and then, a fiend, friend or fan of sweet food has to establish better eating habits—perhaps even ‘go on a diet’. And when that happens, what a glorious thing Diet Coke is! The burn of the intense carbonation in your mouth, the sickeningly sweet sensation (this time caused by aspartame), the jolt of caffiene—it is all there, without the calories! What a fabulous little beverage!

As long as one allows oneself to sneak in an original Coke every now and then, Diet Coke is a great way to fill in the gap of regular sugar water sips.

I never consumed dungeness crab during my San Fransisco vacation, nor did I eat the stuff during my many Myrtle Beach Calabash restuarant trips. Strangely enough, my first time eating dungess crab was yesterday, in the comfort of my New Hampshire home.

It made for a good meal (especially since it was a side dish of sorts to some nice steak), and now I can’t help but wonder how great it must be in those places at which I passed the crab up! I will have to investigate this summer… Calabash buffets, here I come!

The following entry contains spoilers. If you plan on watching The Hills have Eyes—an action which is highly discouraged by the author—do not read this review.

I was really looking forward to this movie. Aaron Stanford is in it, I like horror and gore, and it generally didn’t look so bad.

Within the first ten minutes of the movie, I had already made a conscious decision that I was really going to hate it. The characters were very poorly developed, the dialogue left much to be desired, and none of the foundations of a good horror film had been laid out. But hey, at least I was going to get a good scare, right? Almost all gory movies promise that.

But unfortunately, I was not scared. I was offended and disgusted (by those who has made the movie—not the movie itself), and I walked out halfway through and demanded my money back.

That movie was not going to redeem itself.

This is where the spoilers start.

In one scene alone, a man was burned at the stake while his wife and children watched, two sisters were gang-raped by horribly disfigured men (one of the sisters was a young teen, the other was a breast-feeding mother—the director drew an allegory that I’m sure that he thought was creative by having the rapist suck the same breast that the baby had earlier), a baby was stolen from its parents and two family members were murdered.

If you like your movies disgusting and violent without being scary, The Hills Have Eyes is the flick for you. If you’d rather not lose hope for humanity, I’d suggest staying as far away from it as you can.

Six ounces (almost more than I can eat of such a luxurious cut), with gourmet mashed potatos and lobster-stuffed haddock, all for $21.99?

Yes please!

One day I’ll be a vegan for more than a month. And when that day comes, it will be a sad, sad time for the beef industry.