Um, what?  I totally published yesterday’s post with all the wedding pictures, but this morning, it was just sitting in my drafts.  Hmmm…

Just a quick post this morning, not a ton going on as it’s just another Monday morning.  Dinner last night was a teeny bit of cheating – I picked up a rotisserie chicken at Target and we ate it with instant mashed potatoes, some corn I had froze earlier this summer and Caesar salads.  The chicken was really good!  Target had 3 different types in the deli section and they were all $4.99!

For dessert I picked us up one container of Dreyer’s pumpkin pie ice cream and another of hot chocolate ice cream.  The pumpkin pie was definitely my favorite, but I had a small scoop of each.

As it was Monday I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning and it was a mad dash to catch my train…so, breakfast is a tall, non-fat, no whip white mocha from Starbucks and a sausage, egg and cheese bagel sandwich from the food court.  The bagel was kind of a weird flavor (like it was onion, chive and cheese, or something) so I only ate 1/2 of it and just ate the sausage and egg off the other half.

I definitely needed coffee, something about Sunday nights makes me have insomnia!  I was laying in bed for 1 and 1/2 or 2 hours last night before finally falling asleep.  It wasn’t like a normal insomnia feeling like I cannot fall asleep…I really didn’t realize how long I’d been laying there until Chris came to bed at 11:30 and I was still wide awake.  Hopefully tonight is better.  I’m hoping to get as much solid sleep the first 1/2 of this week as possible since I know my nerves will be shot by the end of the week with the marathon just days away.  I cannot believe Friday is packet pickup!  I’m so glad it’s finally here though.

On a side note – did anyone see Dexter last night and scenes from the rest of the season?  I really don’t know where they’re going with this season…there are just so many side stories!!

Ok, duty calls, have a wonderful Monday everyone!  I’m trying something new at lunch and can’t wait to review it!

Here I am, fresh from chatting with Tracy about vitamins and food and behaving- and YOU put this in the cafeteria!

That was mean

I’m caught in the bright sado-masochistic headlights of Gillian McKeith, the unlikely and occasionally unlikable star of the BBC America television show, “You Are What You Eat.” This Scottish nutritionist’s observations on the eating habits of her pudgy British clients are so brutal that she makes Dr. Phil sound like Mrs. Doubtfire. Ripping through kitchen cabinets bulging with junk food and soda cans, practically grabbing English mothers and fathers by the backs of their necks and slamming their faces into a table full of meat pasties, Gillian is like a terrier in heat.

“DISGUSTING” is her favorite word.

Gillian is a woman on a mission, and her obsession with proper “poo” production would be laughable if she wasn’t so dead-on about the unhealthy way the western world eats. The viewer reels back in horror at the weekly visual reproduction of food products consumed and chronicled in a client’s food journal. A long wooden table laden with fat and carbohydrates reduces most of them to quivering blobs of sobs.

Which is exactly what Gillian and her producers want, of course.

Only people like colossally untalented “American Idol” contestants generally are on the receiving end of such withering personal commentary. And BBC executives apparently believe that it is so painful for a an American to absorb Gillian’s rants that her shows always seem to be aired well after midnight, the only hours that Yanks may be considered to be mentally receptive to such a shrill and unrelenting dose of reality.

This is probably not too far from the truth, since I’m usually lapping up a sugar-loaded Dreyer’s tangerine popsicle about that time, night owl that I am. But the popsicles are getting fewer, and I ordered a couple of Gillian’s books on Amazon last week. That probably makes me a big sap, since most of what she recommends appears to be a simple macrobiotic diet. But anything that propels me out the door to some of those farmers markets on that yellowing list hanging on my refrigerator door, and away from Costco food samples, is probably worth feeling a little sheepish about my semi-impulsive consumer purchases.

Man-oh-man was it hot this past weekend! Since it doesn’t get up into the 90s too often, it seemed like a good time for a shout out to East Bay ice cream. (Also, I had fun tasting a bunch of this in lieu of dinner on Friday night at the Eat Real Festival’s ice cream happy hour, so it’s all fresh in my mind.)

Ice Cream
First up: Oakland’s own Fenton’s Creamery (of course!) Fenton’s, which first opened in 1894 at 41st and Howe, is old school ice cream—the kind you remember from your childhood (and your grandma’s childhood, and maybe even her grandma’s childhood….) The place reminds me of the New England Friendly’s restaurants back before they sold out and “upgraded” their menu, except with a crab melt instead of a clam roll—but then again, it is California! The ice cream is basic but solid—don’t go in expecting schmancy flavors or exotic ingredients, although the seasonal varieties do sometimes surprise. If you have (or go with) kids, the atmosphere and wide array of sundae confections is bound to be appealing. (If you don’t, be forewarned that the crowds of small people can be a little overwhelming.) The Fenton’s line can also be upwards of half an hour long, so be prepared to wait. In spite of the recession, the store has plans to expand across the street, which may help a bit—and it recently got a big boost from a cameo appearance in Pixar’s animated film Up.

Fenton's, Pixar-style

Then there’s Loard’s, another Oakland institution. The original Loard’s opened in Oakland in 1950, and today they’re all over Northern California. (The two Oakland locations are both on MacArthur in the Dimond and Millsmont, respectively—I think the Dimond store is the original.) You can also buy their ice cream at a number of local grocery stores, including Farmer Joe’s, where they manufacture the store-branded ice cream too. (There’s also a store in Orinda’s little downtown, which is a fun destination if you go cycling up in the Oakland hills.)

Last but not least on the old school front is Dreyer’s, where they were scooping ice cream in Grand Lake long before you could buy Dreyer’s (or Edy’s if you’re on the other side of the Rockies) in every grocery store in the nation. Fun trivia: Back east, Dreyer’s is known as Edy’s ice cream. This is not, in fact, because one company bought the other, as I assumed when I first moved to California and discovered that Edy’s had a doppelganger. When the company went national, they split the name in tribute to William Dreyer and Joseph Edy, the two founders, to avoid being confused with Breyers ice cream, which at the time was only available on the East Coast. The “Grand” in the name (the ice cream is known as Edy’s Grand or Dreyer’s Grand depending on where you live) is a tribute to Oakland’s own Grand Avenue, where the original shop was located. (Today they’re located on College Avenue, where they have a newly renovated scoop shop in front of their headquarters.) Among the Dreyer’s claims to fame is their invention of rocky road ice cream in 1929. (The claim is challenged, though: Fenton’s says it was actually their founder and friend of William Dreyer’s, George Farren, who invented rocky road, except that he used walnuts instead of almonds. Either way, it has Oakland roots!)

Gelato & Sorbet
New to Piedmont Avenue is Lush Gelato. It’s where Tango Gelato used to be, but is much, much better if our initial visit is representative. In spite of the gelato name, Lush actually serves Argentine helado, which is a variation on the same theme (and which, it turns out, I like much better than traditional gelato). The owners used to sell through the farmer’s market circuit, but lucky for us, they opened up shop on Piedmont earlier this summer. Yay!

For more traditional gelato, you can stop at Whole Foods on Harrison for Gelateria Naia—Naia is one of several independent businesses hiding inside the massive Whole Foods complex—or head over to Grand Lake for Gelato Firenze. Both serve tasty frozen goodness. Also in Grand Lake is newcomer Rainbow Italian Ice. We haven’t been to the shop yet so I’m withholding judgment till then, though the samples we had at a festival weren’t especially promising. (This is a good time to point out that I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut where Italian ice is an art form second only to pizza, so I’m probably pickier on that front than the average Californian—but the flavors we tried were all a little too artificially-flavored, even for Italian ice. We’ll give it another spin at the shop, though, since the reviews suggest they may have sorted this problem out.)

Then there are the Old Oakland, Montclair, Jack London,  and Temescal Farmers Markets, where Scream Sorbet is a regular. They’re fabulous if a bit pricey—but you really can’t beat the smooth consistency and fruity goodness. (You can also check them out at a number of other Bay Area farmers markets.) The only tricky part for us is that we’re usually in coffee-and-pastry mode on Sunday mornings; I was psyched to see them at the Best of the East Bay party at the Oakland Museum last month, when the timing was perfect for a sorbet treat.

A little further afield is Nieves Cinco de Mayo, a great little shop in the Fruitvale Public Market at Fruitvale BART. They make Mexican-style ice cream, which seems to be somewhere in between gelato and traditional ice cream. Flavors are all across the board, from garlic to dragonfruit to corn to cinnamon. They also pop up at festivals throughout the city, which is where I’ve had their ice cream. (We’ve had the real deal on the list to visit for a while, but whenever I’m over at Fruitvale BART I get sidetracked by Powderface beignets….)

FroYo
Just a month ago, I was out east visiting friends who insisted that we needed to visit an amazing frozen yogurt shop in their neighborhood. I remember being surprised at how trendy tart frozen yogurt had become there—they had half a dozen shops to choose from. “I guess it hasn’t hit the Bay Area yet,” I sighed, noting that our only frozen yogurt spot, Yogurt De-Lite on Piedmont, was basically a throw-back to the 80’s TCBY-style yogurt craze.

Umm, I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. As soon as we got back from our trip, I started noticing frozen yogurt shops (or “coming soon!” signs) all over town. SoGreen Yogurt opened recently in City Center, and apparently Kiwitiwi has been operating near the Oakland end of the High Street bridge for a while. Looks like we’ll have Tutti Frutti on Piedmont Avenue soon. And there are a sea of new yogurt places near campus in Berkeley. So, yah. Tart frozen yogurt has officially arrived in the East Bay.

And just beyond the city limits…
Also want to give a nod to few other East Bay hot spots. While they’re not in Oakland, they’re pretty close and also worth a visit: Ici (near College and Ashby in Berkeley), Tara’s (near College and Alcatraz, also in Berkeley, though barely!), and Tucker’s (on Park Street in Alameda, just across the estuary from the Fruitvale). Ici goes for gourmet ice cream (and has the lines and prices you’d expect to go along with that), while Tara’s experiments with creative and unusual flavors a bit more. Tucker’s is classic old-school ice cream—”SUPERCREAMED!” as their slogan goes—and has been on Park Street for generations. They’re each wonderful in their own ways.

The next time you are at your grocery store and you are an ice cream lover, make sure to include one of these three flavors to the list.  I’m a big ice cream eater and I can honestly say these three are the best flavors by far for me.  Cookies and Cream still rates the highest in my book.  I usually get either Breyers or Dreyers, depending on which brand is on sale at the time.

I usually don’t stray away to other brands for peanut butter cup and snickers because other brands tend to make it way too sweet even for a sweet tooth like me.  These brands mix in the right amount without leaving you too hyper.  C’mon, you know you want to.

Sarah Fisher of Venzano was awarded the”Dreyer’s Slow Churned Neighborhood Salute Grand Prize Package.” Thousands of essays across the nation were received and based on Mrs. Fisher’s heartfelt essay, she was chosen as one of the winning neighborhoods! The Fisher’s, along with their family and friends will enjoy an afternoon of Dreyer’s Ice Cream and summer fun!

Essay Entry:
Last spring while searching for the “perfect” neighborhood for our family we quickly discovered this magical community called Venzano. The streets were filled with children playing, and adults laughing and talking in their front yards. We soon came to find out that this was not only a weekly affair, but a daily occurrence. The Venzano neighborhood is vibrant and full of life. The incredible sense of community is like that of the American Dream. The neighbors have genuine care and concern for each others well being. Friendships are made on a daily basis and we are extremely proud to call this place home. The first families to move into the neighborhood started a tradition called “Driveway Parties” where everyone is invited to a different driveway to share drinks, food and to create and maintain friendships. We can only hope that this sense of neighborhood will last a lifetime here in Venzano. If our neighborhood was to win the “ice cream block party” it would enable the newcomers to the neighborhood to meet and develop new friendships in this fabulous, fun loving community.

• Oatmeal for a dollar!  Print out your coupon and go get some delicious oatmeal at Jamba Juice right now!
• The James Beard Awards are announced!  Check out the full list.  Anyone else a little disappointed by the food blogger nominees?  They’re One Block Diet, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook and BA Foodist.  There are so many more innovative and more entertaining blogs out there by highly qualified people!
• The Bread Art Project wants you to make your own bread art!  The best part?  For every piece you create, $1 gets donated to Feeding America.
• Just when you thought people might start eating healthier, America proves us wrong once again.  Although if you want one meal for two days this will do the trick.  And if you can finish this monstrosity, you get a free t-shirt.  That is, if you can still fit into it…
• There are a lot of things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, but when did using “eco-friendly ice cubes” become one of them?!  Useful overseas where water isn’t clean, but in America?  How far are people going to go with this stuff?
• I love coffee.  I love ice cream.  This is heaven!  Starbucks has teamed up with Unilever instead of the massively inferior Dreyer’s.  Unilever is the maker of both Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers.  B&J’s will always be number one on my list, and Breyer’s still destroys Dreyer’s in any match-up.  I’m already searching for where I can find these cartons of delight, not to mention ice cream bars!
• In Chicago, the cops are called when a special at El Pollo Loco caused a complete mob of people looking for some low-priced chicken.  I guess people were taking the name El Pollo Loco (The Crazy Chicken) a little too literally!

I am now officially on a hunt to find the best tasting chocolate ice cream out there that won’t make me gain 20 pounds in a single sitting.  So logically, I go into the grocery store and pick up a carton of what seems to be the most extreme and delicious flavor I can below 200 calories per serving: Edy’s Loaded Chocolate Fudge Brownie (for those of you in a different part of the country, Edy’s is also known as Dreyer’s).  The carton design is so crazy I could barely even wait to go home and give it a taste (I mean seriously, it makes you think that brownies will actually be exploding out of the ice cream).

Needless to say, the best part about this ice cream was the carton.  I was surprised, considering the fact that I had heard some rather exuberant reviews of it from friends.  However, the ice cream failed to live up to expectations.  Despite the low calorie content (120 per 1/2 cup), I would’ve felt better about splurging and digging into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  While there was both a decent chocolate taste and an abundance of brownie pieces in the Loaded ice cream, I had a serious issue with the texture in every component.  To best describe it, the ice cream simply seemed “off” to me.  An inspection of the carton revealed why: this isn’t actually ice cream!  Edy’s has labelled it a “frozen dairy dessert”, which may explain why it lacks the rich, dense creaminess that I expect when eating ice cream.  The only creaminess it does have seems artificial and airy, not to mention that the stuff didn’t even seem frozen.  It had been sitting in my freezer for quite some time, and the travel time between the grocery store and my house is about 5 minutes, yet the ice cream was way too easy to scoop to be real.  I even dug way down in the carton thinking maybe the layer on top had melted a bit.  It made no difference; essentially it was more like a glorified mousse.  Likewise, the brownie pieces were less than stellar, not to mention too small.  It was as if the brownies were overcooked before being mixed in, making them way to hard and chewy (but not in a good way).  In the end, this is not an ice cream I will be buying again.  When I want ice cream, I want real ice cream.  I don’t want some sad imitation glop that in no way satisfies my need to sit down with the carton armed only with a spoon.  Bad form, Edy’s.  Next time get it right.

Stars: 2/5

Nutrition Facts: Serving Size: 1/2 Cup.  120 Calories.  35 Calories from Fat.  4g Fat.  1.5g Saturated Fat.  0g Trans Fat.  10mg Cholesterol.  55mg Sodium.  19g Carbohydrates.  1g Dietary Fiber.  13g Sugar.  3g Protein.  2% Vitamin A.  4% Calcium.  4% Iron.  3 WW Points.

You guys all know that I’ve been enjoying Vitatops (especially the Chocolate flavors) all week long. Well, my ice cream of choice to go along with my Vitatops to complete my yummy guilt-free dessert is Dreyer’s Light Slow Churned French Vanilla because I really didn’t want the flavor of the ice cream to mask the flavor of my delicious “vita-goodies.”  I can’t really taste the difference between the light version versus the regular version. Given the choice, I almost always pick the light version of things. 100% solid and delicious vanilla ice cream. Only 100 calories per 1/2 cup, 2 WW, 3.5 g of fat, and 11 g of sugar. Rich and Creamy is labeled right because it delivers exactly that. I REALLY REALLY wish I have more room in my freezer so I can stock up on the limited edition that were also really tempting. They had Limited Edition Strawberry Cheesecake, Mango and Mocha Almond Fudge that I wanted to try out. Maybe next time. Another reason why I like Dreyer’s so much is because it is almost always on sale at one grocery store or another. Cheap and delicious.  I must admit, the ingredient list is not perfect, but I’m not a perfect person either.

Retails: $6.49 at Vons (outrageous)
My Cost: $2.79 on sale
Calories: 100 per 1/2 cup
WW: 2

GLOBAL LIST OF MELAMINE TAINTED FOODS

Melamine Banned Foods List

According to an email received, the following food are recalled from shelves in Singapore:
1 M&M
2 Snickers
3 Mento’s Yogurt Bottle
4 Dove Chocolate
5 Oreo Wafer Sticks
6 Dutchlady Sterilized Milk
7 Wall’s all natural mango
8 Mini Poppers Ice Cream
9 Magnum Ice Cream
10 Moo Sandwich Ice Cream
11 Mini Cornetto
12 Youcan Ice Cream

MANY MORE AT:  http://bannedfoods.net/melamine-banned-foods/

This has been a tough year.  The stock market, job cuts, business closures, government bailouts—the list goes on and on.  So I wanted to take time and highlight some good things; blessings in life for which I am thankful this holiday season.

My family…We’ve gone through our own hard times this year, and I don’t think anything makes me more appreciative of family than when a problem has resolved itself, leaving us stronger than before.  I am thousands of miles away from my family, and all I can say is I can’t wait to celebrate the holidays with them.

My boyfriend…He drives me crazy when he can’t seem to put his clothes in the hamper or when he leaves his wet towel on the bed.  But he loves me, and he would do anything (within reason) to make me happy. 

My dog…I rescued him from an animal shelter a little over a year ago, and he became part of my new family here in Montana .  He came to me scared, lonely, sad and untrusting.  Now, although he doesn’t listen quite as well as I would like, he is a playful, loving, happy pup who I swear perfected the puppy dog face while spending his first year in that shelter.

My job…It is the reason that my ticket home for Christmas is not one-way.  I’ll leave it at that.

My friends…They helped me when I was homeless (yes, I was, for a month or so, due to circumstances too complicated to delve into here); they have been ridiculously nice to my dog, which is why he actually trusts people now; they make me laugh; they got me through the toughest days of my first job; and they make me feel like Missoula is actually my home.  They’re some of the best people I’ve ever met in my life.

BookMooch…I love to read and hate to re-read.  I also read very quickly.  This site helps me trade books so that I don’t have to spend money buying something that will only hold my attention for a week at the most.  They have most of the books that I’ve searched for, and most of the members are very responsive.

Facebook…Yes, I spend way too much time on it, but Facebook has put me back in touch with people that I probably would never have seen again, and it helps me stay in touch with the friends I made in school who are now spread all over the country.

Margaritas…On the rocks with salt make a Friday afternoon even better.  My personal recipe has been a hit (and I must thank my college roommate, Julie, for that).

Ice Cream…I used to live within walking distance to the Big Dipper, prior to my homeless stint.  I used to justify my trips by claiming that the 3 block walk between my apartment and that little corner of heaven burned enough calories for a double scoop.  Now, I have to make sure my freezer is stocked in preparation for a nighttime craving.  This time of year is even better for the ice cream lover, as Dreyer’s Limited Edition peppermint, pumpkin and eggnog flavors make their yearly appearance.

Marshall Mountain , Waterworks Hill, Mount Sentinel …and all of the other hikes that are just minutes from my front door.  There is nothing better than watching the sun set from Mount Sentinel , or to stand up on Waterworks Hill and look out over all of Missoula .  It is unbelievably easy to get above it all and out of the fray, even if just for a short time after work.

These are just a few examples of what I am thankful for this year.  What about you?

I can’t decide… the only difference is the first letter!

So to continue on my rant about food, I bought a “half gallon” of my favorite Dreyers ice cream (Double Fudge Brownie!!!) and I noticed I finished incredibly fast!  Then I start to think . . . the container looks kinda small.  I look at the container and I see 1.5 Quarts.  I do some math because it didn’t hit me right away.  Dang, I got ripped off!!!  The funny thing is that the “sale price” was the normal sale price, but the size was 25% smaller!! So not cool!  Others rant at http://consumerist.com/382041/breyers-ice-cream-shrinks-to-15-quarts.

I’m totally for 100 calorie Cokes, and 100 calorie snacks – you can argue that it might help people lose weight, but this doesn’t make you eat less, this just rips you off!!!

Simon, Paula and Randy are back with another season of American Idol, and the competition is just starting to heat up. The trio has given us a glimpse of America’s next pop star along with 23 other hopefuls. I can hardly wait for the newest Idol’s tracks to accompany Carrie Underwood’s latest album in my car and Kelly Clarkson’s first one on my iPod.

Though a few of the winners fell out of fame faster than they sang their way to stardom, the media often seems like an Idol Nation. With Kellie Pickler hits that replay on CMT, Chris Daughtry tunes that overwhelm XM radio and Justin Guarini commentary that swarms the TV Guide channel, I’d say Idol has covered its bases. On a recent trip to the grocery store’s ice cream aisle, I noticed the rows full of American Idol treats. I had never considered that aspiring pop stars might be in the frozen favorites business, but the marketing idea makes loads of sense. The Slow Churned Idol line is a smooth move for Dreyer’s. I’m convinced that if I were a 14-year-old Sanjaya fanatic, I’d be all over that half gallon of Choc ‘N Roll Caramel or one of the other show-themed flavors. Idol has also announced the April 9th return of its Emmy-winning special Idol Gives Back. Last year, the music celebration pulled $76 million for charities around the world. This year, past contestants, the Manning brothers, Bono, Brad Pitt, Snoop, Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus will appear on the special. The program will place positive light on the diverse group of celebrities and on the show itself. The football stars, famous performers and young stars will appeal to a broad audience. In the meantime, I think I’ll eat my Soulful Sundae Cone ice cream and watch the week’s top 16 contestants battle their solos.Photo Credit: http://www.sacbee.com

Recently I had some trouble at work related to a prize that I won. I won a month’s worth of free ice cream from Dreyer’s for my workplace. Some of the people I work with obviously had a problem with this, because they chose to sticker the freezer with stuff that basically accused Dreyer’s parent company, Nestlé, of killing babies and being slave owners. My boss thought that it was great that people would be riled up as to sticker this piece of property which isn’t even ours.

Anyway, this is my site, so I’m going to rant about this and why I have a problem with it and I don’t care who hears me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against actual protesting. If people want to picket companies or have sit ins or write articles or do constructive things, then I am all for it. I just don’t happen to think that graffiti and/or stickering things is particularly constructive. In the case of the freezer at my work, I pretty much considered it vandalism, because *I* signed a contract that said we weren’t going to be stickering or sticking anything on the freezer. I didn’t ever tell my boss that we were explicitly NOT supposed to sticker the freezer, because I assumed an adult person would know better.

I have to wonder: aren’t people adult enough to figure out that you are not supposed to sticker things to other peoples’ property, especially when you have been loaned the property for free in order to provide you with something free?!? Well, apparently some people couldn’t figure that out, so of course it was MY fault for not telling anyone all of the rules related to the freezer. I mean, come on! If you are older than like 12 years old and you can’t figure that one out for yourself, then I really think you have problems.

Anyway, the stickering was removed from the freezer, because of my demands. It doesn’t mean it was taken down. It was just put on the wall instead. I still think it is bad form though, and this is where I am going to get into my schpeel about integrity.

I have to admit that I don’t know about what the Nestlé corporation has done in other countries, but I am also smart enough to know that I’m not going to find out enough of the truth on the internet to prompt me to go around slandering a company in public. The truth is that the world is very complex and when companies deal with or do business in various third world countries, what comes out of those dealings is complex as well. Actually, it doesn’t matter if it is a third world country or not. Business dealings anywhere are complex, but when you are dealing with countries that don’t have free democracies or don’t operate according to international laws or even American laws, things get very complex very fast. When you throw in huge poverty, corrupt governments, miseducation, war, anarchy and whatever else it becomes harder and harder to get at the truth and harder and harder to get the truth out.

So, what do you do when you want to know the truth of a situation? You do research and you ask questions and you dig until you find something resembling the truth, and then you dig some more and ask more people. Do you question the company? Yes. Do you question the people involved? Yes. Do you consult other sources besides those that are on the internet? Yes. The first rule of good research is to know that the internet is filled with shit. Sure, there is a lot of fun, good and even correct information on the internet, but the internet is also filled with everybody’s opinion about everything and those opinions pretty much go through no review process. Even this post that I am writing has not been seen by anyone but me, so should you cite this in another document as research? Hell no! This is my opinion. It is not truth. It is not a lie. It is just what I think. If I told you that the moon was made of cheese in this article, you could choose to believe it and site it as evidence somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that it will be true or that it should be used as valid scientific evidence!

Properly researching things is basically all about proper sources. You won’t be taken seriously anywhere in the world of academia or journalism if your sources are suspect or full of holes. I don’t care if 100 websites say the same thing, they are still not as good as one peer-reviewed journal article. And there is nothing like going straight to an individual as a source. Not any individual, but someone who has actually seen something or interacted with the focus of the story. And, if you get one person, you can’t always take their word for it, so you have to talk to a lot of people. This is what journalism is all about. It is about having the proper sources and spending the time to dig up information and then presenting the information in as unbiased a way as possible.

So, as far as I’m concerned, when you go out in a public place and slander a company for some reason, you sure as hell better have researched your shit and make sure you know what you are talking about. Reading stuff on the internet that has been passed down through tons and tons of people and gotten people riled up for no reason and without evidence does not count as valid research if you are going to go about slandering companies or people. Even if a company has been boycotted or sued, this does not necessarily mean that the company is guilty of anything. Maybe they are guilty, but it doesn’t guarantee it. There are literally millions of frivolous law suits that are filed all the time and people choose to boycott companies just because they want to. It doesn’t mean anything.

I’m not saying that all companies are good either. There are valid reasons to boycott companies and there are valid reasons to sue companies. There are people and companies in the world who do bad things. All I’m saying is that you aren’t going to find the proper evidence to begin slandering people by reading someone’s ranting site on the internet!

So, what the people did at my work was look at something 10 feet away from them, look something up on the internet, print it out and paste it to the freezer. This was their research and this was their activism. Meanwhile, they post these things not putting their name on it, but saying that my whole organization believes this, which of course includes me. And it is ME who has my name on all of the documents. It is ME who is the representative to the company who gave ME the free stuff. So, if this gets back to the company, they will think it is ME who is slandering them, telling them to fuck themselves and ultimately this lack of research and non-critical thinking will fall on MY shoulders and represent ME.

All I wanted was to do something nice for the people at my workplace. Period. I entered a contest I never thought I would win, but I thought: wow, that would be so nice for my workplace to have free ice cream! So, I entered the contest. Did I research the company? No. Do I research every company that I interact with, buy things from, support, deal with, etc.? No. How could I possibly research every company I have stuff from or interact with? The chair I sit on, the computer I use, the paper I print stuff on, the ink, whoever made the building I’m in, the people who take care of the grass, the companies that provide the oil for my car, the parts, the asphalt for the road, the water I use, the electricity, etc. etc. It is all provided through companies and corporations. The university I go to is probably even a corporation and the state I live in not to mention the corporations that fund the university and the state. I don’t have the time or the resources to research everything I touch or everything that I encounter. No one does.

But, if I had properly researched Nestlé and found out that they committed human rights violations, I probably would have never entered the contest and if I won I never would have accepted the prize.

But I didn’t research it. I don’t know enough. I accepted a prize of free ice cream. Kill me. String me up and call me a corporate monster for it. At least I have some integrity, because the people who wrote the signs at my workplace told the company to go fuck itself and then they said they would eat the ice cream! If you really believe that someone or some company is doing something wrong, then by all means stand up for what you believe in. A start would be to NOT eat the ice cream. A start would be to properly research what you might have picked up from the internet. A start would be to discuss your findings with the people you work with. A start would be to include the person who won the thing in your discussions. A start would be to make sure everyone is on board with something before you use their name in any form of protest. And a start would be to actually protest doing something productive instead of being completely lazy and juvenile and tampering with other peoples’ property. And a good start would be not slandering anyone or any company in public, but providing information that is credible for others to see. You know, write to your newspaper, write your congressperson, picket outside the company, write letters to the company, something, but this? It is just ridiculous.

The only lesson I’ve learned in all of this is to NEVER try to do anything nice for my workplace again. Never go out of my way to try to make it better. Never try to win a prize or a grant for them. Oh, because I guess I forgot to mention that *I* was the one who got yelled at by my boss and accused of “flooding [her] inbox with angry emails” because I sent two emails in which I was a bit upset. *I* was the one who was wrong for even bringing the ice cream into this hostile environment because I should have known that “the Women’s Resource Center is not about ice cream it is about activism.” *I* am wrong and evil and apparently against activism because I don’t believe that vandalism is activism. And it is unbelievable and unfathomable that I would be at all upset when people make me look like an ass to a company that gives ME thousands of dollars worth of free stuff. Whatever. WHATEVER!

You’ll never believe this, but I won a contest! It was this contest at Dreyer’s Ice Cream http://dibs.dreyers.com/ where I had to write a little bit about what I was doing to make my workplace cooler. So I wrote in and then forgot all about it. Then on Thursday I got an email saying I was a finalist. And then on Friday I found out I WON the contest! If I can get everything approved through my work, then they will deliver a freezer stocked with these Dibs ice cream treats to my work. Ten days later they will come back and refill it and then ten days after that they will refill it again! I can’t believe I won!