Because I'm (probably) the only woman in the nation who has TV crushes on both Jim Bob Duggar and Chef Duff?

High-fructose corn syrup is contaminated with mercury. So, in addition to obesity, now HFCS is poisoning us. You might want to check your pantry for the following products that tested positive for the toxic chemical (figure after colon is total mercury detected ppt):

Quaker Oatmeal to Go: 350 ppt

Jack Daniel's Barbecue Sauce (Heinz): 300 ppt

Hershey's Chocolate Syrup: 257 ppt

Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce: 200 ppt

Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars: 180 ppt

Manwich Bold Sloppy Joe: 150 ppt

Market Pantry Grape Jelly: 130 ppt

Smucker's Strawberry Jelly: 100 ppt

Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry: 100 ppt

Hunt's Tomato Ketchup: 87 ppt

Wish-Bone Western Sweet & Smooth: 72 ppt

COCA-COLA CLASSIC: 62 ppt (times how many cans you drink per day)

Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt: 60 ppt

Minute Maid Berry Punch: 40 ppt

Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink: 30 ppt

Nesquik Chocolate Milk: 30 ppt

Kemps Fat Free Choclate Milk: 30 ppt

When will food processors realize that poisoning its customers just AIN'T GOOD BUSINESS? What, do they have “the only good consumer is a dead consumer” posters up in their boardrooms? Maybe “With a Name like Smucker's, it has to be Mercury!” Effing a-holes. China sentenced two of the people in the contaminated milk scandal to death. Maybe it's time we call the heads of corporations to task for their literally toxic business practices.

Version 2.0 of CardHub.com launched today, and I couldn't be happier if I birthed it myself. Maybe this is because CardHub is unlikely to wake me up six times a night, demanding food, or because it probably won't be sticking its face into mine at six in the morning, demanding to “watch something else on TV!” Or maybe I'm just happy because the site is efficient, effective, and will save a lot of people's monies and credit scores. Yeah, that's it, the last one. Definitely.

Go see for yourself. Tell 'em Motormouth sent you.

And what a day it was, what with the New England citizenry having group sex on Main Street. Ok, maybe not group sex, but they were smiling openly, and with that might as well have been naked.

(caveat: I don't get any sleep at night so forgive any typos)

I think one of the reasons I've been away from the blog for so long is I'm tired of the Internet telling me what to do. For instance, I received an email from LinkedIn whilst on vacation, telling me that my profile photo was deleted because it violated their Terms of Service. Apparently, you can only post a picture of yourself. My photo was of my chattering teeth trademark that frankly, more people recognize about me than my actual face. LinkedIn decided what was best for me.

Likewise, Facebook. I abhor Facebook and will not resign myself to joining. When you're the most enduring female blogger in the United States (going strong in one form or another since 1995), Facebook is unnecessary. If I want to know what my friends' “status” is, I'll call them or read their blogs. If people from my past want to find me, they just have to google my name — whether firstname-maidenname or firstname-maidenname-lastname, I show up multiple times in the first page of Google results (and then there are a bunch of links to “Ice Castles”, which truly could not make me happier). But my best guy friend (the one I'm not married to), joined Facebook and now I'm getting emails that say things like “Jim Marbury added you as a friend on Facebook.” Which is fine, because I haven't spoken with Jim in many years and it would be great to hear from him, BUT, how can he add me as a friend when I DON'T HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE? Moreover, what right does Facebook have to 1) email me when I am not their client, and 2) extort membership from me (if I want to get in touch with Jim, or see his message, I have to sign up at facebook.com). Not to mention the fact that some of the greatest minds of our generation (and of my group of friends) are spending more time on Facebook collecting “friends” than on writing new poems, creating new artwork, reading new books, etc. Is this a good thing? I don't see how. The popularity contest of the new millennium has us all reverting back to junior-high; keeping tabs on people we didn't really like in the first place, to try to inflate our own sagging self-esteem. And yet, the acting chair of the business school at the college where I'll resume work next week wants me to teach Facebook in my Writing for the Media class. Gag me with a status update, please.

And yes, this is even spilling over in to work. iContact suspended my account. Again, the company didn't listen to me, just decided what was best and threw a brick wall in front of my face, hindering my income potential at Christmas-time (can't call people in reference to an email you just sent them if the email service won't let you send an email).

Finally, and this is hard to say, I'm even becoming disillusioned with this blog. I no longer feel like I can say anything on it — too many other personalities in my life could be pissed off or hurt by it — and if I can't say everything, it's hard for me to say anything.

I think this is all boiling down to the dumbassification of America (thank you Chuck D), which I expect to be outlining in future posts.

So, where do I go from here? I'm thinking that this might be becoming a Not Safe For Work site. I'm excited by the changes made at BSUWG (see blogroll) and think that Jim is putting forth an interesting model for Blogosphere 3.0.

And maybe then I'll take a quick break from my five jobs in order to catch 30 minutes of sleep. Good night and good luck.

And happy new year, about 20 days too late but oh well. New photos for your viewing enjoyment are to your immediate right.