Stuff That Makes Me Mad - Part Four - CLEAN EATING

In the mood for a mini-rant?

This title might lead you to conclude that I'm a preservative-sprinkling, processed-cheese slugging, melted-chocolate-guzzling gorger. You would be mostly incorrect. (I prefer my chocolate cold or even frozen.)

But really, what's with the Clean Eating thing?

I stole this from JC Deen's article. Scroll down for the link.

Don't get me wrong...I'm a huge proponent of having a healthy diet. I've been a vegetarian for 19 years. I don't eat much over-processed, canned or deep-fried stuff. I never sprinkle preservatives.

I was even super excited to try my new kale soup recipe last night, for Pete's sake! Yes, I said KALE. (It was delicious, BTW.)

Me with my kale.

The Clean Eating thing just bugs me because:

• it sounds pretentious and holier-than-thou
• it seems to imply that the rest of us are eating filth

I don't know about you, but there are some nights when a handful of frozen Hershey's Special Dark chips and a glass of chilled Moscato (or a cold bottle of Miller Lite) are all that's keeping me sane. YOU try teaching kindergarten all day. I'm just saying.

Anyway, I was relieved to see that I'm not alone in my opinion of Clean Eating. If you'd like to read JC Deen's longer rant article, CLICK HERE. I've got to run and get the door...my triple-cheese pizza is here.

Stuff that Makes Me Mad, Part Three - Ridiculous Runway Fashion

I hope to God they did not kill an animal for those.

Is that straw?? Looks scratchy.

Partial zebra.

Cat boobs.

No words.

Okay, I may just be a Target-clothes-buying plebe, but I would not buy a "hat" in the basket department. Fashion designers are making millions by designing stuff that no NORMAL person is ever going to wear. I wonder if there's an inside joke to see how ridiculous they can get and still have reviewers call them geniuses.

Stuff that Makes Me Mad, Part Two - Cheap Knockoffs

I have a friend I've never met. (Actually, one of my very best friends is someone I've never met, and NO, she is not imaginary, LOL.)

Anyway, this particular friend's name is Jane and she has a shop on Etsy called SnoopCattyCatt (CLICK HERE to see), which I think is unbearably cute to begin with.

Jane makes cat clothes. Not clothes with cats on them. Clothes FOR cats. One would not think there would be much of a market. Till one saw some of her creations.

Like this.And this.

Isn't her model the most GORGEOUS cat?! His name is Salvador and I just love his expression, which, to me, borders on minimally-veiled disdain, LOL!! Anyway, so I was puttering around on Pinterest yesterday and happened upon a pin by a woman who also likes cats. It was SALVADOR. In fact, it was this exact tuxedo pic, with one exception - NO WATERMARK. NO CREDIT GIVEN TO JANE. Or to Salvador, for that matter.



So I immediately went to Jane's shop on Etsy and found this watermarked pic of Salvador and pinned it, asking everyone who had seen the other pic to use this one instead. Then I contacted Jane about it and this is really the point of this whole rant.

Jane says she had not originally put watermarks on her pics because...well...she hadn't seen the need. After all, she's making bow ties and "shirts" for cats and didn't think anyone would even really be interested. Then someone downloaded a Salvador pic and put it on LOLCats. From there, it went viral and is now on a BUNCH of sites, with no credit given to Jane or Salvador.

Here's the crux of the matter. Jane is 100% positive that with all the exposure her items have gotten, it's only a matter of time till someone in some factory starts cranking out cheap knockoffs. I can just picture Jane's idea made in some crappy, cheap fabric and available at your local WalMart and PetCo.

This is not limited to Jane and her adorable cat clothes. Cheap quilt knockoffs REALLY devastated the American quilt market for a while. Like the cheap quilt sets pictured below.

GUESS WHAT THE MINIMUM ORDER IS??!??
Two thousand sets.
TWO THOUSAND SETS.

There are still many people who don't know and don't care about the difference between QUALITY quilts made by HAND versus something cranked out in a factory overseas somewhere. In fact, fear of the cheap knockoffs is what has prevented me (thus far) from making quilts to sell on Etsy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-WalMart. In fact, we'll be there, shopping for groceries as soon as I hit "Publish Post". I'm not even so much anti-some-other-artist-copying-my-own-work. Like, if I post a pic of a quilt I've made and some quilter recreates it, giving it her own spin, then more power to her.

It just makes me sick, though, to think of someone's original idea being cranked out by the millions by an assembly line of machines in some factory. It makes me really sick to know that Jane herself is thinking of going into mass-production so that she at least benefits from her own ideas.

So PLEASE, if you happen to see some cheap imitation of Jane's (or any artist's) handmade work...PLEASE think of Jane and Salvador and DON'T BUY IT.

Stuff that Makes Me Mad, Part One

RIDICULOUS SALARIES

Average police officer's
annual salary: $48,210
They risk their lives daily,
to save the lives of innocent people.If you divide by 365 days in a year,
that's $132 a day.


Average elementary school teacher's
annual salary: $40,063
We teach kids to read. And write. And do math.
And, increasingly, how to be
a productive citizen
(since a lot of kids are getting
less of that at home.)Divided by 365, that's $109 a day.


Average NBA player's
annual salary: $5,150,000.
They're paid to play 82 games a year.
They're paid to play games.That's $14,109 a day.


And they're on strike because
their salary might drop by 5%.

Poor things will only be left with
$4,892,500 per year.

Only $14,000 more
per day than teachers.

How will they live on only
$59,664 per game?

Do they realize that they will still
make more for ONE of their 82 games
than a police officer or a teacher
makes for an ENTIRE YEAR?

Aren't they embarrassed to be
mad about that salary cut?

I know they have
special athletic talents
that most people don't have.I get that.

But how many lives
have they saved?

How many kids
have they taught to read?