W00t! He finished the book!

Went to Borders yesterday. Wasn't sure why. Didn't have anything specific in mind. Went to the cartoons & humor section. There it was, in bright shiny yellow:

Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe 3: From the Rise of the Arab World to the Renaissance.

Man, I've been waiting for this since college. He must've only finished it recently; one of the early chapters makes a reference to the giant Afghan Buddha statue at Bamiyan that was destroyed by the Taliban. I don't think I even had time for my brain to process the image before that book was off the shelf and in my hand. I've been reading it when I've had the chance and he's in his general excellent form; I'm about halfway through at this point, and we just saw El Cid flash through the pages. (Quick note on the Song of Roland: apparently the historical version of events has the knight in question getting cacked by some Basques, rather than much more poetic Moors.) I've been inspired to work on my Chinese history pages again by this, so there'll be an entry on the Warring States and the Classical Kickers of Ass by tomorrow night (I need to dig up the Sun Tzu story about the concubines and maybe one or two others on the Ass Kickers, but I've started the entry in earnest).

But this is cool. The more you read Gonick, then read other stuff to corroborate what he writes, the more you find that he really does know what he's talking about and the more you wind up learning. He's cool. Go buy the book. You won't regret it.

Today's pulp survival tip is #14. If someone in the party starts having visions or weird dreams of a previous time or a distant locale, start packing your bags. Make sure to include a good quality history or two and/or volumes of local lore.

What the Hell is This? Round 3

Morning, folks, and welcome to the latest round of What the Hell is This? - the irregular feature where yours truly goes into the nearest available Asian grocery and buys snack food off the shelves on the sole criterion of the package making her exclaim "What the hell is this?". This week we've got a full slate of competitors, so let's have a big hand for our entrants:

Team China: White Rabbit Candy
Team Japan: Hell if I know, the only English name I could find was on the nutrition label and said 'Hard Candy (Lion Ramune Candy)' but I think that's the brand name
And a surprise entrant - Team UK: Ribena Blackcurrant Juice Drink

Team China's effort is a commendable one in that it's the only candy I've encountered so far to boast an actual nutritional reading beyond the peel-them-off-the-ceiling caloric/sugar content. White Rabbit is a good simple candy, made from 'corn starch syrup, cane sugar, butter, milk'. That's it. No colours, no nothin'. This product of Shanghai comes in rolls that look about the same size as Atlantic City salt-water taffy, or maybe a bit smaller, so I was expecting a similar experience. They're individually wrapped like the taffy, too, but when you get the outer wrapper off there's a problem. Either the things are wrapped in a very thin wax paper type substance underneath, or the corn starch syrup forms a flakable coating that FEELS like a paper coating. There are bits projecting off each end that make me think it needs to be peeled further, but attempts to do so merely flake off in my hand, and attempts at getting a fingernail under the seam-line to peel the 'paper' off get no results. Bending the candy back and forth yields wrinkle lines and ruptures that look like the coating is paper, and initial taste tests give a mouthfeel that's roughly the same as a piece of paper, but within seconds of putting it in your mouth you can taste the candy through the 'paper' coating. The candy is billed as 'creamy' but is in fact more 'chewy' than creamy, at least in terms of texture. The taste is distinctly milky, so I guess creamy is an acceptable word to use. This stuff sticks like hell, though. If I had fillings, it would have ripped them out on the first go-round. Don't use this if you're worried about your teeth staying where they belong... I'm afraid White Rabbit makes me work too hard to rot my teeth. Third place.

Team UK's surprise entry was picked up when I was looking for something in the canned drinks aisle. For a product that has nothing but English on its label, making the contest at all is impressive. Blackcurrant flavour alone wouldn't have been enough to get it in, but the labeling made me wonder whether it was supposed to be a drug, a liquid vitamin, or a drink. Here, judge for yourself:

Refrigerate after opening and consume within four days. Remember to look after your teeth and visit your dentist regularly. Follow directions for use carefully: Take drinks at meal times and use within a healthy balanced diet. If given to a toddler (1-3), maximum one 250ml serving (half a bottle) a day. Don't use with a dummy/bottle. Not suitable for babies under one year.

Emphasis theirs. This is a product of SmithKline Beecham, which immediately makes me think drug or vitamin supplement, esp. since the nutrition label indicates that it's got around 200 percent of the British RDA of C per 500 ml bottle. Also you just don't see 'anthocyanins' listed as an ingredient on most drinks, or an admission that the Blackcurrant Juice Drink is 6% juice. It's a disorienting experience that's somewhat like drinking Welch's grape juice, but the taste is subtly different. I don't like it much but it's odder than White Rabbit and it doesn't mess with you trying to get it open, so... second place to Team UK.

Which leaves the Japanese candy as our first-place winner. I bought this because the label was blue and white and silver and showed what looked like a ball full of fizz emerging from a glass full of something carbonated. According to the front label the sound the individual wrappings of the candies makes when you squeeze it open is 'PON'; while I would dispute that, having had several of these, what I cannot dispute is the fizz. My God, the Japanese figured out how to make Pop Rock sourballs. Seriously, these pale blue-greeny things are mostly a little smaller than standard marbles (there were at least two in this package that were twice the size of the rest), and when you put them in your mouth and suck on them, they start fizzing. This would explain the presence of calcium carbonate on the ingredients list. This was actively entertaining, had an attractive package, tasted decent, and filled a niche American candy just doesn't bother with, namely: fizzalicious hard candy. First place to Team Japan.

That's all for now. I bought a tube of some Nestle-made blackcurrant candy, but I'm mailing that to cadhla rather than eating it; besides, I dunno whether it's Team UK, Team China, or Team Singapore. The point of origin on the label is a little obscure. We'll have more next week!

Location, location, location...

Just for the hell of it I went to http://www.findyourspot.com and took their quiz. It's a series of questions about what you want in a place to live and what kind of stuff is important to you in your general area, and a little bit about the work you do and your political/religious/social beliefs. There's also some stuff about how much you'd be willing to pay for a house or an apartment. I took the quiz and sat back to see what came up. The first screen's worth of suggested places? Virtually all of 'em were in New England. That'll teach me to put museums and cold weather into the 'very important' category. Portland, Oregon was on the first screen, though, so that was cool too...

Thing is, my instinctive response was 'noo! I want to get away!'.

I love my family. I truly do. They're wonderful people and better by far than 9/10 of the families out there, at least from what I've seen. Both my nuclear family and my extended family are chock full of people I actually like. But... I don't want to live near them. I want to get away. I want to be somewhere that I know if I screw up, I'll be the only one to bear it; where I can reach my family by phone, but anything else takes a lot of preparation; where I can live on my own and not worry about pleasing/displeasing my relatives because they aren't there. All of my family except for a few isolated pips live within three hours' drive of New York City. Seeing that many New England cities crop up on the list of suggested semi-affordable spots to live (Providence, RI was the number one match) made me want to scream.

I can't wait until I finish my master's degree. I love my family, but I'm young (28), I've got no kids, and I inherited my great-grandfather's gene for wanderlust and Doing Big Time Stupid Things. (I don't think normal people would have stowed away on a boat from England to Australia before 1925, do you?) I want to live somewhere else, somewhere without my relatives, so that I can feel unique and make my own damn identity without being one of the big extended clan unless I need to be.

*sigh* Congratulations, I just had my teenage spasm of 'I wanna escape the family' about thirteen years later than schedule. Ah, well.

TEN MINUTES LATER:

Tweaked a few answers, incl. the statement about wanting a thick heavy blanket of snow during the winter. Removed Little Rock, AR, and New Orleans, LA from the list of spots. I mean no offense to the residents of those cities but sweet mother of mercy I don't deal well with summertime south of about Cape May, NJ. Okay, re-score, please...

... jeebus. What part of 'not interested in the Southwest, not interested in warm climates' didn't you understand? Albuquerque?...

Well, heck. Half the rest of the list is cities in Oregon, incl. Portland, Eugene, Bend, and Corvallis. The also suggest Honolulu (I think because I was strongly in favour of national parks, hiking, and similar outdoor activities) and Sheboygan, of all places - but they mostly suggest Oregon, a handful of New England cities, and Sacramento, CA. Interesting.