It's All in a Name

Well, I want to thank everyone who responded to my poll and told me to just keep posting, but after some careful thought I've decided to do a giant make-over and pretty much start over.

My reasoning for this is that I created this blog when I was very unhappy with the world. I hated my job, had no life, and was trying to find an outlet that had no real direction. Then my life started to change. I changed jobs, locations, got new friends, and my outlook on life has changed a lot since I moved and I wanted my blog to reflect that, to become a new outlet for me. So let me go through the changes here and explain some of them.

1. Name: It's probably going to be the first thing you ntoice since it also had me change the we address to the site. Handles are probably one of the silliest things in the internet. A name people create for themselves to take thesemselves out into the internet. Some find it silly and just use their real name, which is kinda what I was doing before. However, I've grown up with the internet and many different handles, I figure I should finally embrace it and stick with the one that's lasted me the longest.

Sissillie has been a nickname of mine since middle-school, my best friend at the time just started calling me it and it stuck for so long that when I was going through one of my handle changing times I decided to go with that and everything has become that since, forcing me to create this ridiculous spelling). I recently thought of changing my handle from Sissillie to Sicily because my real name is Sydney and a. I thought it would be symarty with teh two names that are places and b. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get away from Sissillie. After getting the amazing responces on Twitter on my name I decided that I not only wanted to keep it, but embrace what it means to people. Silliness. Therefore becoming the inspiration for this blog.

I'm sorry about the adress change and if it causes problems for anyone, but I thought I should change the address to reflect the new name as well.

2. Color: Who doesn't like a a little color in their life? I wanted to give my representation of my life a little color too.

3. Missing posts: Yes, I admit. I deleted a few posts. Mostly the ones of me being a winy twit about not posting in my blog. I'm feeling kinda done with that and didn't like how the majority of my posts lately seemed to be about that.

Sorry about that...I really doubt you wanted to see those again so I just got rid of it.

4. Links to other places: In case I scare you off, these are some of the best places and people I know of on the web. I think they are all smarter than me so go check them out.

5. Random Useless Fact: Because what's sillier than a random fact about something you never needed to know?

Well that about sums up all the changes here. I hope you like them and stick with me on this. And not everything will be silly, but I will try to find the silliness in everything. :-)

Should we start over?

So once again after trying to make a rpomise to write in my blog I've forgotten and not written in it again for a few weeks...so this is leading me to wonder why do I even have this blog if I'm not going to write anything in it?

Perhaps it's my lack of direction that I want to take this. Not sure what I want to write about or what to do here nothing is happening. Perhaps it's time to figure something out and maybe start completely over. Go with a theme maybe...or maybe not...who knows...

ARRGH!! Opinions would be nice...

Smoothies!!

Right, I said I would be writing everyday, so let's get this day started!!

Today, I'm going to give you a smoothie recipe of mine.  You should know I adore smoothies.  They solve that sweet-tooth problem of mine while not being fatty and calorie ridden ice-cream or other processed shit that I sometimes still indulge in.  And, if done right, they can be a meal on there own.

This is a fruit smoothie that is my breakfast today and serves one person if they want a large, or two people looking for a small/medium.

Put in equal parts strawberries and cantadew.

** For those who don't know cantadew is a new melon that is a cross between a cantelope and a honeydew.  The outside looks like a cantelope, but the inside is green and but still tastes like the yummy orange cantelope and is what I'm finding here in lovely South Korea.  If you want to subsitute real cantalope please do, I do not attest to honey dew though...

About a teaspoon of Vanilla Protein powder -

**I'm not a buff person, but I love this stuff because it gives me that little bit of extra flavor and some protein in my smoothie that supposedly keeps you full longer...does that work, I'm not a doctor, but if you put in only a little bit you get a nice vanilla flavor to it.  Warning though, too much and your smoothie will taste like shit, I suggest you experiment.

Then fill the rest of the container with berry juice. 

**Multiple juices are found all over Korea with a lot more ease at times than in the States at least.  For instance, I don't remember seeing a nice berry juice (rasberry is the focus on this one) without spending a lot more for a lot less than I would want.  Here, their cheap so you may see me expirementing with lots of different juices.

Blend

If you find your too be too thick, which I often do because I freeze my fruit to last longer, you can do 1 or two things.  Leave your smoothie to sit out for about 5 minutes if you and let the frozen stuff melt just that little bit and mix again.  It works, I do this one often.  Or you can just add a little bit of water right then if you are impatient. 

Final step:  Enjoy.

If you like it let me know, if you want more recipes let me know.  I often expirement with cooking and other things like this.  Although I warn you, I don't always measure very well when I do this stuff...eyebaling FTW...

O.K...so I take it back. I'll watch Grey's after this, if only to see what direction they take Callie...if they have her straight again though I'm done.

But That's Why I Watched the Show!!!

Well nothing motivates me better than anger to write a blog post...Congrats ABC you have just made me angry.

I adore and check AfterEllen.com everyday for new blog posts and reviews of wonderful lesbian media entertainment to read (for the other end, AfterElton.com exists too). Today after work I decide I want to read the latest review of Grey's Anatomy, the hit prime time medical drama soap opera did something that did something groundbreaking and made me want to watch it again. They wrote in not only a lesbian kiss, but a full on couple featuring two of the main characters that would have been explored fully in this season. Even better, one part of this couple is Sara Ramirez who I've had a crush on since I heard her voice on my CD of Spamalot. Now, did I like how little we got to see of them or how Callie decided to not only get advice from Sloan on dating women, but had sex with him? No, but I was dealing with that.

Well wasn't I shocked to see next to the article on the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy there is an article about how apparently ABC has just fired Brooke Smith, the other half of my newly beloved couple and thus killing the entire relationship. You can read the full article here : http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2008/10/greys-fires-brooke-smith .

This was shocking news to clearly everyone, the writer/creator, the actress, media, and those of us who were watching for that very reason. They are not even going to give her a good send off, this Thursday will be Smith's final episode and all she's going to get is to drive off in her car. I'm sorry, what???? That's it?! No reason at all, not that she got so pissed off with Callie going back to sleep with Sloan for one reason after another each week, just driving off?? Fuck you ABC.

To add to my anger, ABC has also announced that

Melissa George's character is no longer bisexual. "Melissa came on as a lesbian character," a Grey's source tells Kristin, "but they changed the script and now she isn't. She starts off flirting with Callie but it never goes anywhere." From AfterEllen.com

Something that AfterEllen announced yesterday and had me all excited for controversy in our happy lesbian land. Now, this isn't controversy, this is a fucking dead duck.

Now why am I blaming ABC and not the writer/creator of the show? Well that would be because the rest of the article focuses on her and how shocked she was this was happening.

This is 2008 and people!!! Get your heads out of your asses and not only give us our gay/lesbian characters, but give us the same story lines you give the straight couples!!! I'm fucking tired of seeing either no one gay at all, or if they are gay they have to go with the safe story line showing as little as possible and heaven forbid that when we do get the gay characters they act the same way the straight ones do. And while it is nice and kinda morally uplifting to point at the daytime and nighttime soaps and go, "well clearly we are better than you because we don't sleep around on TV." I'm tired of this PC world where we can't risk offending anyone. I know there are too many people out in the world that would take what I want and use it against us, that is fine. But if execs are too afraid of even the safe story lines, how the hell are we going to get anywhere?

This also has me fearing for the future of another beloved lesbian character on a daytime ABC soap, All My Children. I love Bianca, I've loved her character even before she came out and now that she is out, I love her even more. Add to the fact that she is now back and in a committed relationship with another character Reese (another actress I had the hots for when she was on General Hospital) I'm loving that story line, even if we rarely get to see them kiss, let alone have sex. However, ABC pulled the plug on one groundbreaking lesbian relationship this week, what is going to happen to the other one?

I'm not going to boycott ABC, nothing will come of only me doing it, plus I still like Lost and Boston Legal a lot. However, I am not watching Grey's Anatomy after this week, I have no reason to, and if they do the same with All My Children, I'll have no reason to watch that either.

ABC you were doing great, breaking new ground on the gay character on the networks front!! Please don't stop now!!! Cause if you go the way I fear, I won't have a reason to watch at all...

Hug Your Dog For Me Please.

Well, so after I made the big post about posting more, work had me well, doing work so that didn't happen. So again, I apologize and I hope to be able to post more.

However, this is not the reason why I'm blogging today. Basically, I've just found out that our family dog, named Max, has cancer in his stomach and is going to a special place today where they will do an ultrasound to see if it has spread to his liver. If it has not spread then is he going to go into surgery, if it has, then the only thing that they can really do is make him comfortable.

I honestly never thought I'd be praying my dog had surgery today.

Now, he has always had a weight problem, not an over-weight problem, but an under-weight one. He is a little strange in that he has never been all that excited when we put food down for him, so we leave it out all day. Now, when he has a special treat like leftover eggs, steak and chicken juices he would go nuts for it, but otherwise, he wasn't such a fan of the dry food. This has never really been a problem, just strange in a house full of over-weight people that the dog is skinny. But lately he has been eating less and less and getting under the healthy weight zone, we thought he was getting better, but now it turns out that we have to pray he gets surgery.

He is older, 9 years old, and a small dog, which means that he has a shorter lifespan already. But not this short. What makes this worse is that I'm overseas. I can't pet, hug, and give all the loving I want him and I can't. So I ask all of you dog lovers and owners out there to please hug your dogs for me today. Because I can't and it is breaking my heart at the moment.

This is a picture of him as a puppy, it is the only one I can find at the moment which is really making this worse. Excuse me, I need to go off and cry now.

If Plastic is bad for Babies Then Why Am I Alive?

So, I'm on the phone with my mother and she tells me about how there are new news reports about how plastic is now bad for you. Or more specifically babies.

Now, needing more information I immediately Google and see what I get, ignoring the first two which are essentially Mom's going nuts for green, something I really want to avoid, I go to U.S News and World Report and read this article http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/09/22/the-problem-with-plastic-bpa.html .

The article proceeds to go into how there is this chemical Bisphenol A, BPA, is harmful, especially to infants because well, they are still developing. Except, it seems that all the side effects happen when you are an adult, after all, I don't think babies need to worry about decreased sperm counts, prostate cancer or breast cancer...And apparently uterine fibroid and endometriosis affects women at the reproductive age...did we change when the reproductive age is? However, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that possibly we build up BPA and then it affects it later on. But then, how do you know it affects infants more? Also, going back through the wonderful world of Google I found only one other credible site other than sites featuring parents or other journalists/commantators freaking out over that at msnbc on the first Google page. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26531316/

What no CNN? Uh Oh I'm smelling something else wrong with this...And MSNBC doesn't even mention what the side effects could be!

Then there is the most important evidence of all: Me! Standing right here before you a healthy (if not slightly obese, but quickly loosing weight) 22 year old girl who drank from not only plastic baby bottles, but plastic cups, and is drinking a massive thing of water from a plastic bottle right now! I'm perfectly fine, not dumb at all, even though I'm sure my grammar and spelling could use work, but I blame my public school system for not teaching me in the first place.

Now, if you're going to say, "Oh but it may be a link to obesity!" Umm...no...my family pre-disposition and more importantly, massive amount of junk food and lack of exercise are the reason why I'm having weight problems, not plastic.

Not to mention, do you really want to go back to the joy of glass again parents? Think of all the times your baby likes to throw their nice, durable, plastic bottle/cup and how it can come back safe and sound with just a little wash, and then think of them throwing a glass bottle/cup and how often you will have to make a huge fuss of cleaning it up, because a baby won't know not to touch it, and how many you will have to go through...Can we be practical?

So, thinking practically, thinking that not only myself, but my brother and I'd say 98% of my friends are fine (maybe a couple had the glass thing, I dunno) I'd say this may be a bit of a hoax, overstretch, and possibly a way to shift blame again.

And I think I'll wait until the FDA announces their results on this testing before I even hint at worrying. Until then, I'm going to keep drinking from this plastic bottle and keep on planning on giving my future, way down the line, maybe 10 years from now babies, the same plastic treatment I got if another material doesn't come out before then.