That's that.

Donald turned in our apartment keys today, so we are Officially Moved.

(Please note I said nothing about unpacked.)

White Noise 2

Do not see it. You'd think that a movie starring Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff would be a cool thing. It sure would be, if it were a movie that did not suck. There was a nice "Captain Tightpants" reference, but it was pretty much a crummy movie. The one thing that we enjoyed while watching was the 20 seconds in the making of when they talked about who would win in a fight between Starbuck and Cap'n Reynolds. I guess it was better than War (Jason Statham and Jet Li) because we didn't even get through the whole movie with that stinker.

Anybody else loving "watch instantly" on Netflix? It used to give you a few hours a month, but now it's unlimited. I watched 2 1/2 seasons of The Office (American version) on my computer before Donald decided to hook my laptop up to the TV. Then it was more awesome. I had to watch season 4 of The Office on Hulu which doesn't have the resolution that Netflix has. I'm also stuck watching BSG on Hulu, which is still a bit better quality than Scifi.com. Netflix downside: you have to use IE, and it sucks up your bandwidth big time. Netflix upside: no commercials, the "next" button when you're watching a TV show. Mike! You can catch up on Heroes on Netflix.

High Fructose Corn Syrup- All Natural!! (Scary)

the high fructose corn syrup publicity machine is beginning

Whoopsie, apparently all of our (and Michael Pollan's) hating on high-fructose corn syrup is starting to ruffle some feathers, specifically those of the people who make their money selling high-fructose corn syrup. They're fighting back with a major PR campaign that is trying to convince worried moms that corn syrup is as natural as honey. Really? I know, I didn't believe it either, but here's what they had to say in their press release:

HFCS, like table sugar and honey, is natural. It is made from corn, a natural grain product. HFCS contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives and meets FDA's requirements for the use of the term "natural."

Hmmm... to get honey, you fight your way through some bees and crack open a honey comb and blammo, you've got your honey right there. With maple syrup, you tap some trees and then condense it down through boiling and blammo, maple syrup. Pretty much the same process with sugar beets and sugar cane, although you have to mash those first and then throw them into a colander to strain them. In fact, if you had the raw ingredients, you could totally make beet sugar or maple syrup in your own kitchen. But corn syrup? Here's the recipe from Linda Joyce Forristal, in case you want to make it at home (except, well, you probably don't have an industrial factory for a kitchen).

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers. Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top. The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 50-52 percent glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity. There are two more steps involved. First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90 percent fructose. Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55 percent fructose--what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.

Sounds pretty straight forward, huh? All enyzme-y and natural? I think it would be easier to make your own Legos from scratch, honestly, but let's see how gullible the average consumer is, shall we?

http://elasticwaist.com/2008/06/dont-believe-everything-you-re.php

Shoulda gotten a fish

We moved more crap last night. What's that you say? How can there possibly be more crap? I don't know either. But there isn't much left in the apartment now, just a whole lot of dust. We dumped everything in the living room to be sorted out and took showers. Then we sat down in the living room where Donald was hooking my laptop up to the big TV so we could watch the Netflix streaming of the Office. A few minutes later I walked to the kitchen.

"Donald. The screen door is open." Oh shit! We couldn't find Anna. It was open just the right amount for her to mosey on out. Donald searched the house and I went outside with the flashlight. It was about 10:30 at that point, so, dark. I went back inside to look and Donald went out with the flashlight. We probably looked for about half an hour, finding nothing. Donald was very worried that she'd get hit by a car or get stuck under something. At that point I figured we should leave the door cracked open and she'd probably come back in when she was ready. The doorbell rang, it was my mom with a flashlight, come to help look. We talked for a few minutes, then looked down, and there was the cat. Walking through the living room. Wondering why we were all yelling at her. Relief!

It's possible that she was in the house the whole time. Even though we looked all over, it's possible that she'd burrowed under something. In fact, that's probably what happened. Argh!

Busy!

We've been busy doing the moving thing. Here are a few highlights of my goings on lately.

Saturday- I went to a ballet rehearsal in Gladstone. Got screwed (hard) by Google Maps, only found dance studio by luck in the end. I spent half an hour driving around in circles swearing at Google Maps in the unfamiliar land known as "North of the River."

Sunday- We moved many large things. Donald's dad came up with a truck and started the day by fixing Donald's car, which managed to break down Friday night. We moved almost all the furniture, including the bed, and slept here for the first time that night. We hadn't taken apart the bathroom at that point, so we took showers at the apartment. Kitty spent the day getting shut into various rooms at the apartment, then spent the night by herself.

Monday- Went shopping. We had a list, and I think we may have actually found half of what was on it. Donald needs a night stand, since he's been using a small bookshelf for 5 years. The problem is that in all our looking we haven't found anything close to the right size. There are loads of little end tables that would be too low, but that's about it. We bought a new litterbox which I set up first thing when we got home. Then I went to get Anna- who was sitting sadly in her kitty carrier- and had apparently spent her night alone knocking things off the mantel. Once in the new house, she did a round of careful sniffing, then a round of less careful sniffing, followed by several rounds of watching wildlife from the windows.

The rest of the week was spent trying to find places for all our stuff, moving more stuff, trying to sort through junk at the apartment, moving things around in the new house, and getting used to our new gas stove. I have used the oven twice. It smells different from an electric one but I was not alarmed. Mike has been giving me gas oven/stove tips. It's still weird to be using a stove where there are open flames though!

Yesterday we did more shopping. The big accomplishment is that we finally bought a mattress. We chose a full size Sealy Posturpedic cushion firm. The specific line name doesn't matter since every store has different names preventing you from comparison shopping. We have 30 days to return it if we don't like it. These next six days will be the most difficult to decide, since the damn thing doesn't get here until Friday.