Dixie currently feels:

Comforting

 

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Today, my dad bought me a black ink cartridge for my printer.

Today, my mam bought me a tube of PVA glue for my Textiles coursework.

Today, my nana bought me a four-pack of Lovehearts candy.

 

Lovehearts are small fruit-flavoured candies that seem to melt in your mouth.

On each one, there's a message.

There used to be few messages in them, and you'd get the same message a few times in the same packet.

 

Between these four packets, I haven't had a single duplicate message.

 

I think the American version of these sweets are called Sweethearts.

Lovehearts are made by Swizzels Matlow, if you were wondering.

A great sweet company - very high in sugar content.

 

 

I'm going to use them to send a message to my special friend, whom I love.

 

 

Emily:

 

"I love you." "Hold me." "Be happy."

"It's love." "Forever." "Trust me."

Dixie currently feels:

Pleased

 

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OMNER, BEST NEWS EVER.

 

Seeing as how MindSay is inhabited solely by Yanks, I'm sure you all know what Oreos are.

Yep, the greatest biscuit ever - slowly followed by the English Custard Cream and Rich Tea finger.

 

Well, up until now - I've never ever seen Oreos on sale in England.

 

I'd heard of them - for you see, having friends in America and Canada - obviously, I'd have been informed.

AND, I'd seen old 80's adverts for them on the episodes of YCDTOTV (You Can't Do That On Television) which I download, and I thought: "Hmm... I want some of those..."

 

I was in luck when I went to Rhodes last year.

Rhodes sell food products from all over the world in their little souvenier and essentials shops.

You see the English Heinz baked beans alongside tins of German frankfurters, and French bubblegum sat beside packs of Oreos.

 

When in Rhodes (har har, best pun ever...) I also tried the white chocolate and milk chocolate coated Oreos.

In the two weeks I was there, I must have eaten about...

 

Hmm...

Well let's say I ate a pack every day. So that's 4 biscuits every day on avarage.

 

So that's 14 multiplied by 4.

Gives you a total of 58.

 

58 in two weeks, I can't tell whether that sounds like a lot or not.

 

But anyway, sometimes when I was walking down streets of Rhodes, I looked and felt like a bit of a Yank.

Put it this way, I was wearing enormous shorts, Slipknot shirts usually, Converse all-star, either a Slipknot or New York Yankees baseball cap, and I sometimes had Oreos in my hands or pockets.

 

 

And looking like a Yank when you're an Englishman who hates 99% of everything American is not good.

 

 

Anyway, on the topic.

 

 

I've not ever seen Oreos on sale in England before.

 

I walked into my IT room the other day, and I saw an Oreo wrapper on the floor beside the wastepaper bin.

 

 

My first impression was: "...Oreos?! What the hell are they doing here?!"

 

My second impression was: "...Well maybe someone's been on holiday and brought them back?"

 

My third impression was: "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, I WANT OREOS NOW."

 

 

So today, about.. 15 minutes ago...

I'm at nana's, I've finished my Sunday lunch - and she calls me in the kitchen, goes in the cupboard and produces a packet of OREOS.

 

"OMG, OREOS." - I say.

 

She offers them to me.

I take two and stuff them in my mouth at once.

Oh, the heavenly taste returns to me.

 

"Where did you get these?" - I ask. "They don't sell them here."

 

But apparently - they DO now.

They must've just came over.

 

Honestly though, Oreos have been around since before the 80's, and we're only getting them in England in 2008?!

 

So, dad's said he's going to get me some when he goes to the ASDA supermarket.

I wrote "OREOS" on his list. Tee hee.

 

 

 

Yay, Dixie is reunited with the flavour she loves so much - ON HER HOME SOIL.

 

 

 

Oreos in England.

Now we are a better country than before.

Dixie currently feels:

Bored

 

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Today is Saturday.

Saturday the first of March.

 

...MARCH.

"Now, quick march!"

 

(Indeed, a quote from Fire of Glory, chapter 48, that Emily will indeed, instantly recognise.)

 

Every Saturday, nearly - I spend the day with my friend Adam.

I've known him for about nine years now.

We met in primary school, I think it was in about year two.

 

I was discussing the greatest video game ever - Final Fantasy VII - with someone else, and Adam joined in on the conversation, being a huge fan of it himself.

So it seems, if I didn't like that game, we may not even be friends.

 

The same could be said for Emily.

I met Emily through a fanfiction site called Fanfiction.net.

She'd wrote a story on there about the Gamecube game: Paper Mario: TTYD.

 

If I hadn't been addicted to the game at the time, I wouldn't have clicked the link, read the story, sent the reviews, sent the PMs, sent the e-mails, added a contact and started talking...

 

It seems odd that a simple obsession or passion can lead to gaining and breaking friends.

 

 

Adam was born in 1992, one year after me.

I'm not exactly a year older, it's a few months, rather than a year.

We're both in year eleven.

We both want to go to Middlesbrough college.

We both like Guitar Hero, Final Fantasy and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

We're both slightly emo - or, so the chavs say.

 

We both like to drink Cherry Coke.

We both like to eat pizza.

I like cheese and onion crisps but he likes salt and vinegar.

He puts vinegar and tomato sauce on his chips - I leave mine dry.

 

 

This is a photo of Adam and I.

We took it today infront of the big mirror in my parents' room so we could see if we were both in focus.

I'm looking in the opposite direction to what he is.

 

I don't think I'm photogenic, and he thinks the same of himself.

Adam's holding the camera, and I have my hands in my pockets.

 

Adam likes online games, but I prefer offline.

We both like the occassional bit of J-pop, like Ayumi Hamasaki and Double You.

Adam likes anime, but I like cartoons.

 

Every Saturday we go across the field behind my house to the corner shop to buy chocolate and other junk food treats.

Adam usually pays for it - and I provide the pizza at lunchtime.

 

We've eaten pizza every Saturday for about five weeks now.

 

Today we played on the Wii downstairs - set up on the monster Sony Bravia 45" HD telly.

It makes your eyes sting sometimes.

 

We played Super Smash Bros. Melee.

We play team battles against two level nine computers.

I play as Peach and Adam plays as Sheik.

I tend to fight brutally, and Adam hides in the shadows and uses projectiles.

We win a lot, and we lose only to stupidly hard team combos like Fox and Falco, or Gannondorf and Captain Falcon.

 

We played coin matches, bonus matches and stock matches.

My favourite stage is Pokémon Stadium, Adam likes Hyrule Temple - but neither of us like each others' favourite stage.

 

I like small stages, Adam likes large ones with places to hide in.

We both like to use Pokéballs, Hammers and Green Shells as weaponry.

We share recovery items like Heat Containers and Maxim Tomatoes.

 

We're a good team, actually.

 

 

After that, we played Guitar Hero III.

We're pretty even, though Adam doesn't have GH3, he has GH1 - which is harder, because you can't perform hammer-ons and pull-offs.

 

We watched each other do a few songs.

I downloaded the whole GH3 soundtrack and sent it to Adam and Kyle.

He's got himself addicted to Radio Song, by Superbus. - So he tried that on Hard and Expert.

 

I tried playing on Expert, hyperspeed 5.

It's really difficult, the speed that the fretboard moves at makes you feel really sick.

 

We did some co-op songs and got some 5-star ratings.

Then we tried Through The Fire And Flames - by Dragonforce.

 

I tried doing rythm guitar with the Wii remote first - we only have one guitar, you see.

We got to about 60%, before we failed.

Then we swapped, and we lost at about 30% - I tend to play bass with the Wii-remote when we play on co-op. I don't mind. I'm quite good with both.

 

 

 

 

 

WE ARE STEALING YOUR SOUL.

Artificial sweetener linked to weight gain

Rats fed food with saccharin added more body fat, researchers found

 

WASHINGTON - Using an artificial, no-calorie sweetener rather than sugar may make it tougher, not easier, to lose weight, U.S. researchers said Sunday.

 

Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar.

In comparison to rats given yogurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat.

 

The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when sweetness in the form of artificial sweeteners is not followed by a large amount of calories, the body gets confused, which may lead to eating more or expending less energy than normal.

 

"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar," Purdue researchers Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson wrote in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.

 

"Such an outcome may seem counterintuitive, if not an anathema, to human clinical researchers and health care practitioners who have long recommended the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners as a means of weight control."

 

Other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame that also taste sweet but do not lead to the delivery of calories may have similar effects, the researchers said.

 

"Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship," the researchers wrote.

 

"With the growing use of noncaloric sweeteners in the current food environment, millions of people are being exposed to sweet tastes that are not associated with caloric or nutritive consequences," the researchers added.

The research was the latest to examine the question of whether artificial sweeteners -- used in many soft drinks and other foods — help or thwart those trying to lose weight. Various studies have offered mixed results.

 

Industry responds

The new research drew criticism from the food industry.

 

"This study oversimplifies the causes of obesity," Beth Hubrich, a dietitian with the Calorie Control Council, an industry association representing companies that make low- and reduced-calorie foods and beverages, said in a statement.

 

"The causes of obesity are multi-factorial. Although surveys have shown that there has been an increase in the use of 'sugar-free' foods over the years, portion sizes of foods have also increased, physical activity has decreased and overall calorie intake has increased," Hubrich added.