Nutella with a "hint of cocoa"....ORLY???

Oh Nutella from the Jar, I love to eat you with a spoon.....

But as I was enjoying your hazelnutty chocolatey goodness (right now, you're an amazing substitute for chocolate when I get cravings) and not feeling at all guilty about eating you by the monster-spoonfuls, I started reading your pretty, pretty label.  

Apparently, in every 400g jar of Nutella, there's a cup of skim milk, 56 hazelnuts and a hint of cocoa.  That's cool, but I find the advertising claim and the label confusing and contradictory.  

The list of ingredients is:

sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk powder, whey powder, lecithin, vanillin.  And in BIG BOLD LETTERS TO AVOID ANY SORT OF LAWSUIT: "CONTAINS: HAZELNUTS, MILK, SOY" (Where's the soy you ask....it's in the lecithin, a soy by-product that acts as a lubricant and a sweetener..yay Food Science class!)

Now if you know anything about food labeling combined with advertising, you should be scratching your head right now.  You should be asking yourself, "Self, how can there be one cup of skim milk in a 400g jar and the two ingredients that make up the skim milk be the 5th and 6th ingredients?"

Honestly, I have no idea, but I'm going to try to apply logic to the situation.  

Here's how I see it:
A cup of milk is 250 mL.  Assuming milk has the same, or similar density, as water, 250 mL of milk should also be equal to 250g.  That's well over half of what's in the jar.  There should be more milk - or milk soilds, or whatever - than some of the other ingredients, likely combined.  Given there's only a "hint of cocoa" there should be more milk that cocoa.  According to the label, there's more cocoa than milk, and more sugar than anything else. 

According to the Nutella Website, a hazelnut has a mass of 0.85g (they say it "weighs 0.85g" but I think they're appealing to the colloquial and layman's audience).  Assuming that there's "56 roasted hazelnuts in each 400g jar", I'm not too sure that that's enough hazelnutty goodness to meet their advertising and labeling claims.  Assuming a 10% loss in mass over the roasting process (yay Food Science class, take TWO!), the average hazelnut now has a mass of 0.765g.  With 56 of them, there's about 42.84g of hazelnuts in each 400g jar. 

NOOOOOO!!!!!!  Nutella, YOU LIE!!!

Now, when companies make an ingredient list, they are required to make the list of ingredients in decreasing order, meaning that the most abundant ingredient is listed first, the second most abundant listed second and so on.....you get the point. 

I'm a little disappointed after some simple math that first of all "sugar" is the most abundant ingredient and according to their advertising claim, there should be 42.85g of hazelnuts and 250g of skim milk in each 400g jar.  If that's the case, why is hazelnuts listed before milk solids in the ingredient list.  AND WHY FOR GOD'S SAKE DO THEY CLAIM THAT THERE'S A "HINT OF COCOA" IN EACH JAR WHEN COCOA IS LISTED BEFORE MILK SOILDS!!!!??? WHY!?? WWHHHHHYYYYY!!!!???

400g Nutella jar label, you disappoint.  I'm going to continue to enjoy you with a very large spoon, when I need a "chocolate hit", but from now on, I'm pulling off the labels as soon as the jar hits my pantry shelf.  They're very disturbing....

Summer is for....not blogging??

I blame the lack of things to bitch, moan and whine about.  I guess that can be a good thing. 
I also blame a pretty awesome, yet predictable and mundane social calendar. 

Either way, I have this feeling that I'm updating simply for the sake of updating.  I think it's moreso that when I come back to this blog 10 years from now and want to try and make a book out of it, I'll know that July 2011 actually was fairly uneventful. 
Lately it's: Eat. Sleep. Process Images. 

Yup, pretty much. 

I was thinking earlier today about how I need to get away and explore another city...solo....like I did in NYC last fall.  I think this year will be a week in Seattle.  Flights are cheap, hostels are cheaper and I'm sure I can do it for under $1500, flights and hostel included.  With the dollar the way it is right now, I should get on that if I'm going to make it work.  I'm sure I can find lots to do in Seattle....if not for a week, then for 5 days at least.  I can't see it being as expensive and my NYC trip, but that was NYC, with high-end dining, Bloomingdale's and Broadway shows.  Seattle would be more jazz clubs, coffee shops, ocean-side hikes and whale watching.  I have a feeling my most expensive experience will be whale watching, and maybe Chaos' kennel/farm-stay. 

I can feel it right now.....Thanksgiving weekend in Seattle. 

Craven Adventures

Once again, I took a trip and neglected to take pictures, my bad.  But I do have an interesting story....

SO, it all starts in the Beer Gardens.  I was tired, so I bitched out and went home to bed.  I'm lame.  I know.  My crew continued until the wee hours....and boy did I NOT hear them when they got back. 

Bethany found this dude in the Beer Gardens with a Master's in Ag Bio, so she partied with him for the evening, all this time with something scheming in her twisted little mind. 

4:30 comes around and I hear this rustling outside my tent.  I woke up, but I didn't get out of my sleeping bag.  All of the sudden, my ten door is zipped open and this dude is pushed in.  He falls on his forehead, and I hear, "Shit, you OK?  Do I have to call 911?".  I roll over, open my eyes. 
"What's Remoue doing in my tent!?"
"Oh, so you do know him."
"Yeah, but that doesn't explain what he's doing in my tent."
"I figured it would be funny if you woke up and there was some random 'stranger' that you thought you knew laying beside you."
"Bethany, you're sick and twisted."
"...and drunk!"

This is the point where I try to be social and chit chat around the circle of crushed beer cans. 
Turns out, Bethany had met Tyler in the beer gardens, found out that we may have known each other and can up with this crazy idea of putting him in my tent, then having a familiar and random face to wake up to....as she put it.  It worked, but it would have been more funny if I had been drunk. 

Proves to show that I can't go ANYWHERE in Saskatchewan without running into someone I know. 

I love Bethany, but I need to get out of this province. 

Also, in other news, I henna-dyed my hair.  It turned out ginger.  I didn't feel it when my soul left.  Turns out I may have never had one in the first place. 

Holy Social Networking Overload BATMAN!!

Well, last week, hell last month, was pretty unproductive.  After the July long weekend, where I got more sun in 4 days than I've had in the last 4 months, I did sweet-piss-all when it came to my project.  Oops.  I'm feeling it this week.  Shouldn't have taken the Mulligan.  Either way, although I'm not behind (I'll never be behind), I'm definitely not ahead.

I think part of my being behind has to do with diving head-first into Google+ and Twitter (@IsItBrokenYet).  I've been pretty hardcore procrastinating before, but now it's taken to a new level.  I'm kind of excited to see where these 2 new services take me, even if it's nowhere.  Now, instead of just one website running in the background at work, I have 3; which is fine by me.  It's not like there's a lot of activity on the 2 new ones....yet.

If you're not signed on to Google+ yet....DO IT!  My buddy Tom put it best,

"The 'follow' behavior of Twitter, the general style of Facebook, and the sharing model of Tumbler. The photo features foreshadow an emphasis on photographers; the post formatting and editing an emphasis on blogging. News in the form of Sparks, and micro-communities in the form of Circles.
Google+ is an innovative culmination of so many services around the web."

...and a reply on the comment,

"Not only that but the big seller for me is that nothing I ever post on here is owned by Google."

BONUS!!  I get to post, and keep the rights to my own material and ideas...YAY!  (Not like I post a lot of original stuff on the web, but now that I have a medium for posting that's a little more protected, I may just start.)

Although I'm not going to delete my FaceBook account....I did spend 5 years building up that network, I'll definitely post less and link to a few other accounts.   


Moral of the story, if you're not following me on Twittah, or would like me to follow you....get on fixing that...and....if you're not already on Google+, get on that. 

This calls for a rant.

This morning was a wreck.  Chaos was sick (of the really smelly, runny, explosive poops variety....you're welcome for the visuals) and I'd slept in, so I decided to skip the hour-long commute and drive today.  On a side note, it's a damn good thing I drove because I had a meeting in the industrial area at lunch time that I completely forgot about until I opened my e-mail at school. 
When I drive to campus, I usually park under the Ag Building.  In the summer there's LOTS of ROOM so, it's easy access. 
So, there I was, driving my gass-guzzling-emissions-test-failing-rusted-out-can't-miss-it-in-a-parking-lot 4-Runner down the ramp under the Ag building when I had to SLAM on the breaks because some PRINCESS was trying to park a HUGE TRUCK in a spot that was WAY TOO SMALL!  I'm pretty sure she decided to park there because it was the first open spot she could find and maybe was in a hurry.  I don't know, but if she was in a hurry, she lost a 5-minute head-start.  In the summer, there's absolutely no shortage of spots under the Ag building.  Absolutely no shortage, and if you hunt a little more, you can even get away with taking up 2 spots in a huge truck. 

I guess this rant really has 2 parts: really big trucks and bad drivers. 

I know there's a purpose for REALLY BIG TRUCKS - mostly as compensation for lack of, well, you know - but I really don't see the purpose for any typical city-dweller, except if you have a boat or a HUGE RV.  Honestly though, those trailers are so light, you could get away with a 1/2-ton, just fine....without the lifts.  Why people life their trucks, I really have no idea, simply because the gear box is still dragging about 18" off the ground - in the center - and really doesn't add much to the suspension.  If you're going to be that much of an idiot to get stuck, you're likely going to high-center the son-of-a-bitch and you're no further ahead if you lifted it or not.  Yeah, I'll never really understand.  I'm no expert on why someone would truly decide to put a lift kit on a truck, I'm pretty sure it's because they prefer to show their balls off on their trailer hitch, but seriously.... 

Getting on to Princess.  I really hate women drivers who make bad decisions and make the rest of us lady drivers look incredibly bad.  FUCK!!  I'm a hell of a good driver.  I've driven very large equipment through very busy city streets and have done just fine....and have even met my fair share of idiot drivers there too.....FUCK!!  I know the limits of my vehicle, I know how quickly and tightly I can turn, and honestly, put me in a different vehicle and I'll figure that out pretty damn quick too.  I know where the edges of an '82 Lincoln Continental are and even parallel parked the sucker for my driver's test.  I'm a really good driver.  I can back a 30' long, 8' wide trailer into the space between a NH Precision drill in transport position - I'm threading it into a 9' hole.....I'm THAT GOOD!!  Now when some pretty girl who thinks she can park a huge truck into a spot too small, and has to re-align herself 6 TIMES (I counted) that really chaps my ass.....yes, the assless kind.  Her best bet would have been to give the fuck, turn around and park outside where she is less likely to hit shit. 
Very frustrating morning. 

Business as Usual

Once again, I figure that the lack of updates is proportional to the amount of excitement worth sharing in my life. 
Stuff's been pretty normal lately.  Eat, sleep, drink, research.  Sometimes in that order, sometimes in even proportions.  Most of the time not.  More drinking than I'd like to admit to, to be honest.  Between 1/2-price wine at Original Joe's on Tuesday night, Wednesday Patty O'Steak and Wednesday Volleyball, I managed to get 3 good buzzes within 24 hours.  Go me??

Lately, I've been hooked on "My Drunk Kitchen".  I could rave about it all day....and night!  It's epic.  I have a lady-crush.  If you haven't watched it yet, DO IT!!  Right NOW!
The latest episode made my afternoon so much better.  I'm in Moose Jaw at APEGS meetings all day today and tomorrow.  My nod-off count so far is somewhere between 10 and 15, all between 1:00 and 2:15....I blame lunch and the presentation on law.  Something about presentations on law that instantly put me to sleep.  After a good meal really doesn't help either. 
I figure I'm doing pretty good actually.  To only nod-off within one presentation is a personal best for me at these things. 
Tomorrow I'll stay awake, or at least I'll make that promise to myself. 
Tonight though....I get to lounge in the Spa.  Gonna bring a book and have a little R&R.  I've been jonesing for a "Soul Vacation" lately.  Maybe this will be a brief get-away.

I didn't find the humor in this at first...

This week, I've been trying to have a more positive outlook on life and such.  Normally it is pretty positive and I'm usually optimistic, but the last couple of weeks I've been shifting more to the "Debbie Downer" end of the spectrum than the "Abby Upper".  Either way, I decided to try to be more positive. 

It was really tough on Tuesday.  I think it started when I stepped out of the shower.....

I got out of the shower, like I normally do - one leg at a time - but for some reason I was cranky.  I think it was because I had uber razor-burn and was running late. 
Either way, I had to deal with the razor-burn, because that's hella-uncomfortable.  I reached for what I thought was moisturizer, lathered up my legs and continued on with my morning...in a reasonably crusty mood.  
So, there I was "Derp, derp, derp",  moisturizing my legs.  Nothing out of the ordinary, and I went on with my morning.  I decided on jeans....mostly to hide the razor-burn. 
The day was mediocre, I was having some trouble with some code, but nothing I couldn't handle.  I managed to move ahead with some of my analysis.  It works, but not exceptionally.  Just an average day. 

I got home and decided to put on shorts to walk Chaos.  Well, what I thought was moisturizer at 7:30 Tuesday morning happened to be crazy streaky "fake-tan-in-a-bottle" on my bright orange legs at 5:30 Tuesday afternoon.  Shit.  Looks like it's pants for the rest of the week too. 

It never got brought up again until lunch today, when Amy and I decided to eat our sushi outside.  She was making fun of her pastiness and how the light was actually reflecting off her legs (and in all honesty, it kind of was).  The light would have been reflecting off my legs too if it wouldn't have been for Tuesday morning's crusty mishap.  Amy thought that it was much more funny, mostly because I was crusty. 

Yeah, well.....I guess being crusty have some high points too. 
Thanks Amy.