Summer was gone and the heat died down
And Autumn reached for her golden crown
I looked behind as I heard a sigh
But this was the time of no reply.
So I like swag and free stuff. I’m not ashamed.
This was a sad excuse for a blog post. I’m not ashamed of that, either.
UPDATE 7.31.10: Coconut Bliss sent me a sweet custom-logo ChicoBag, a couple of stickers, and a neat little pamphlet with pretty artwork! I’ll totally use the bag all the time.
UPDATE 8.7.10: My Viso stuff came in the mail yesterday. The t-shirt looks a little bit more like a guy’s shirt than I wanted, but eh. I can wear it. The sweatshirt however looks really cool. Also, for posterity, I am hungry.
UPDATE 9.10.10: My Hunch stuff arrived AGES ago, not sure of the date. I just really suck at updates. Also, my Rogue citizenship packet came, which I completely neglected to mention. But it’s not like you really care.
IT can be hard enough to decipher the term “organic” when it comes to food. Are there hormones in that skim milk? Did those chicken wings get enough exercise?
But when it comes to personal care items like toothpaste and body lotion, claims like “made with organic ingredients” or “authentically organic” can flummox even the greenest consumer. No federal agency polices organic claims for personal care items — at least not yet — so manufacturers have been able to use these customer-pleasing terms loosely and liberally.
But now Whole Foods Market is blowing the whistle.
It took him years of searching in the Canadian Arctic, but in 2004, Neil Shubin found the fossilized remains of what he thinks is one of our most important ancestors. Turns out, it’s a fish. Shubin says his find, which he named Tiktaalik, represents an important evolutionary step, because it has the structures that will ultimately become parts of our human bodies. Shoulders, elbows, legs, a neck, a wrist — they’re all there in Tiktaalik.
Health experts now think it’s altogether possible to be overweight — but still fit.
They say measuring only an individual’s BMI, which is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight, can be misleading. Muscle weighs more than fat, for one thing. Extremely muscular individuals could actually have BMIs that classify them as overweight or even obese. Increasingly, health experts say a better measure of overall health includes not only BMI but a test of “fitness,” too.
Gulf of Mexico cleanup crews working to block millions of gallons of oil from reaching land may soon have a giant on their side, if a weekend test of a new skimmer goes well.
The Taiwanese vessel dubbed “A Whale,” which its owners describe as the largest oil skimmer in the world, began showing its capabilities on Saturday just north of the Macondo Deepwater well site. An April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig there killed 11 workers and began what is now the largest oil spill in Gulf history.
…And admittedly, aftercare for my first tattoo is something I have been stressing heavily about since the day after I got inked, almost to the point of being comical:
Friday: Got tattooed. Did the normal, recommended aftercare stuff: washed my tattoo with soap in the shower with my hands, dabbed dry with a clean towel, then applied the A+D Ointment Mark gave me (even though Etzel recommended Aquaphor or a similar generic product).
Saturday: I went to Saturday Market with Peggy and was flipping out because my tattoo was “gooey”: seeping a clear fluid that was likely just dead white blood cells and/or plasma. Later we met up with Mark for dinner, and he finally assured me that this was totally normal. Applied A+D ointment at regular intervals all day.
Sunday: My tattoo stopped being gooey, but my skin was starting to bunch up. Still using A+D regularly at this point. Not liking the thick goopy feeling of A+D on my skin (or A+D’s yucky smell), I contacted my favorite skin care brand - Badger - via Twitter and asked them if their Evolving Body Balm was safe for tattoos (since it’s REALLY good on stretch marks, acne, dry skin, abrasions, rashes, and other owwies), then patiently waited for their reply.
Monday: I woke up to my skin peeling at what I considered an alarming rate. Still using A+D regularly. Badger replied to my tweet saying that it was certainly better than A+D (by name, without me mentioning that was what I was using), but recommended I take a tin in to the artist and ask him.
Tuesday: My tattoo continued to peel but wasn’t peeling as actively as Monday. Started using a combination of A+D and the small tin of Lavender & Orange Badger lip & body balm I always have in my pocket. Mark of course started giving me a really hard time about it, and for good reason: considering there’s so much conflicting info about aftercare, and I wasn’t listening to two people who actually knew a little something.
Wednesday: My skin continued to look “peely” and tight, but peeled much less. I started using the Evolving balm exclusively, without asking Etzel about it. I let Badger know I was doing this and they asked me to keep them posted on it. I can tell you my skin really liked the Evolving balm a lot: my skin felt soft and very comfortable and relaxed on the peeling, but still looked peely and tight.
Thursday: My skin peeled almost imperceptibly, and my tattoo seemed to really like the Evolving balm. Mark inspected my tattoo and commented, “Oh, yeah, that looks like crap, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to look right now.”
Friday Morning (now): I’m sitting here looking at my tattoo and inspecting it under halogen light, and some parts of the ink look VISIBLY - SCARILY - faded. Of course I’m fucking freaking out… yeah, there’s a lot of build up of dead, peeling skin, and since the skin is tight in some places a lot of the lines aren’t even straight right now (the latter’s been true since Wednesday). Without picking or peeling, I kept looking really closely to see if there was loose skin coming off over the faded spots to see if there was brighter color underneath.
Is the Evolving balm working too well, making the skin just not want to peel off? Are the essential oils leeching out the ink (and if so, why isn’t it rubbing off on anything, like my clothes)? I’ve checked out a couple of commercially available tattoo-specific balms that are similar to Badger, and they both contain essential oils, and some of the ingredients are the same as what’s in the Evolving balm. I’ve researched the internet all night now for what could fade a new tattoo, and I’ve basically done NOTHING wrong. Evolving balm doesn’t contain petroleum, alcohol, fragrances (other than the ones from the essential oils), or lanolin. I’ve also avoided soaking my tattoo, making it too moist, or exposing it to direct sunlight. The more research I do, the more obvious it is that I’m just flipping out over nothing: in fact I learned that I’m not the ONLY person that has used Evolving balm for my tattoo, and the stories I’ve read are all positive.
*Sigh* But there’s so much conflicting information it’s hard to tell. I’ll ask Mark again later today after some sleep if he thinks my tattoo looks normal. Maybe I’ll even see Etzel and see what he thinks. In the meantime, though, I’d appreciate any feedback you may be able to provide.
“I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place,” writes the famed movie critic. “I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen.”
This past April, Ebert wrote a post titled “Video games can never be art” that carried dogmatic statements like this: “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form”.
