Lazygirl's blog

I just got a call today from a friend. She’s actually a co-worker but we’re more buds than anything. When I’m not doing work for clients, my desk at the office is right next to hers. Over the past two years, we’ve bonded a lot. And last year, me and a few co-workers including her took a couple of weekend trips together. So we’ve gotten pretty tight.

Anyway, she was calling me to let me know that she just got news that she’s going home to Japan for good in a few weeks. I’m gonna miss her a bunch, but I knew this was coming. She’s been asking for a transfer for a year now and they’re finally letting her do it – only after stringing her along for so long (my company sucks, but that’s another story).

So I’m sad to lose a good friend and I really hate goodbyes… but I’m also happy for her.

She hasn’t lived in Japan since she graduated from university and I know she misses her mother a lot. Her dad passed away a year ago and she’s an only child so they mean a lot to each other. It’s really, really good news and I’m happy for my friend.

Still. I can’t help but notice that my friends leaving has become something of a trend at my company.

Last year, two of my close friends moved back home for good. One got his work contract terminated and the other got her expat contract switched back to a local one. I still miss them dearly.

At this rate, I’m gonna need to find me some new friends. Is there a friend store or something?

Apple’s new iPad. I want it.

But I already have a desktop PC, an Eee PC and two iPods (a nano and an iPod Touch). Clearly, I don’t need it. But I do want it.

(Damn you, Apple and your shiny new toy. )

Luckily for me, I am not at all an early adopter. In fact, I’m a very late adopter. The reason for this is that I have some amount of guilt whenever I contemplate buying something for myself (apart from the necessities).

As long as it’s over the $50-mark, I stop. I think. I don’t spend. I think some more. Then I buy. Or not. It’s usually the latter. Most of the time ,the self-imposed wait has made me either 1) completely forget about it, or 2) realize I didn’t want it that much in the first place.

For example, it took me three long months of agonizing before I finally dropped the $300 (then) for my iPod touch. And I was contemplating buying an Apple refurbished model. So yeah.

While it’s really nice to watch the new Youtube videos on the iPad, in the end, I know I probably won’t buy it. At least not this year.

I think there’s a kind of serenity in knowing that a shiny new toy is just that. A shiny new toy.

Will. Not. Buy. (Sorry, Steve!)

Forbes magazine has declared Monsanto “Company of the Year”.

In case you didn’t know, Monsanto in a big corporation that pretty much controls agriculture throughout many parts of the world, including the US. Like the big red devil, it has no qualms. In fact, I’m pretty sure Satan is a shareholder.

Here’s a very much shortened list of Monsanto’s many transgressions. Excerpted from mercola.com.

• Suing small farmers for patent infringement after Monsanto’s GM seeds spread wildly into surrounding farmers’ fields, contaminating their conventional crops. (Watch Food Inc. There’s a heartbreaking scene where Monsanto’s team of lawyers take on a poor old farmer. )
• Secretly discharging toxic waste into an Alabama creek, and dumping millions of pounds of PCBs into open-pit landfills for decades after PCBs were banned in the US for being a possible carcinogen.
• Was found guilty of bribery to bypass Indonesian law requiring an environmental assessment review for its genetically engineered cotton.
• The supreme court of France found Monsanto guilty of falsely advertising its herbicide Roundup as “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly.” The active ingredient in RoundUp is acutely toxic to fish and birds and can kill beneficial insects and soil organisms.
• The South African Advertising Standards Authority found Monsanto guilty of lying when advertising that “no negative reactions to Genetically Modified food have been reported.”
• According to one EPA scientist, Monsanto doctored studies and covered-up dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. She concluded that the company’s behaviour constituted “a long pattern of fraud.”
• In 1999, the New York Times exposed that Monsanto’s PR firm, Burson Marsteller, had paid fake “pro-GMO” food demonstrators to counteract a group of anti-biotech protesters outside a Washington, DC FDA meeting.

All of these apparently went over the Forbes’ editors heads. Scratch that. I’m sure the editors at Forbes have been well-compensated, i.e. wined and dined by Monsanto’s PR execs. How lovely.

A Forbes editor, hard at work

Forbes, you are just another sad washed up publication. Forbes’ editors should be ashamed of themselves, if they had any shame left.

RIP Forbes. Say hi to the devil for me when he’s poking you with a short sharp stick in the pit.

Hugs and kisses,

Lazygirl

Monsanto's many "supporters". Unfortunately, Forbes' editors were out to lunch when this protest took place. Shame.