No no no, why?!? No!

Happy New Year! As a present, a post I wrote a couple of months ago when I was writing my thesis one night trying desperately not to do what I was supposed to be doing and became easy distracted by flashing lights. I should have known I would never actually get through it, but here, I finished it off for you today:

I haven't blogged in ages. And I'm probably not going to start up again until I graduate, just so you know. I just haven't had time, and when I found something that would have motivated me to post before, I had something else to do and I quickly forgot about it. Then Zero Water happened ... two weeks ago. Which I promptly forgot about after having written half a post and now was reminded. But I'll try and display my frustration for you 2 weeks later.

Yeah, I quit on this post like 3 times. Should that have been a sign not to post it? Probably, but I am determined.

Oh my god.

I've seen these zero water commercials lately and laughed them off as I tend to do when I see stupid things for sale on TV, but every time I wonder what that little meter does that says 000 when you put the water through the Zero Water filter, but then I stop worrying about that and continue worrying about N-methyl glucamine. However, this time, I (stupidly) decided to google it to see what exactly it's measuring when it comes up with "000." I wandered around for a bit mostly spotting Zero Water propaganda and people who are selling it, and then I found this guy. I started reading, because I thought it was a joke. Oh silly silly me. I have been away from blogging for far too long. I did learn that the Zero Water meter is measuring total dissolved solids PPM (parts per million), which, it's not actually doing. It's just a pH meter--measuring the acidity or conductivity of the water. This doesn't measure TDSPPM as well as other things, but it gets within 10%. Super pure water doesn't measure properly this way anyway, but you don't want to drink that, because it will kill you ... seriously. But don't worry. Zero water is not anywhere near that pure.

A couple of things to point out. The writer of the linked blog discusses a few things that make me smile. For one thing, 000 TDSPPM isn't "zero total dissolved solids" like the dude says--it's just less that .5 parts per million. Trust me, there's a lot more than a million parts in your glass of water, and that's good, because like I said earlier, totally pure water will kill you. Also he complains about chlorine and iron being in his water claiming that chlorine is 'bleach' .... while that's sort of true, but he better not feed his kids salt, because by his definition, that's bleach too. This contraption also removes iron and mercury. Now, of course mercury is bad for you, but Iron is good for you. Is it worth it to take out the good with the bad? The answer is "Who the hell cares??" They EPA and the FDA set regulations on tap water so that it will be safe. If you don't like the way your tap water tastes, I can see getting a filter. If you are trying to be overly safe, you are worrying too much and a paying too much money.

And nevermind that some places like New York have some of the best tap water you can find because of all the minerals it picks up on the way to your faucet naturally from the reservoirs in that area. Your water is not going to give your children autism or make them sickly or anything like that. Unless it's brown ... don't drink it if it's brown ...

That's it for the previously written post. If I haven't talked to you in a while, I just graduated (hence the spare time to post), and I'm starting a job in Oklahoma City after a quick vacation in the Virgin Islands (it's really hard to find a floppy beach hat in Oklahoma in 20 F weather, and I know you feel really bad for me about that). I'll probably be moving half an hour North to chill in the city (yes, OKC has big buildings and *gasp* culture ... when I find it, I'll tell you all about it) soon and trying some new things with my oodles of spare time now that I only have one job and it does in fact end at 5 pm.

The burning question that I'm sure you have is, "Kendall, will you restart your blog?? (since it is so awesome and I miss your continual musings about crazy people??)." The answer to that is, I hope so. I am am working on a list of long term and short term goals because my friend @stephtheblogger was talking about it earlier this week, and jump starting the blog is on the list, so I hope to talk with you more. That's all for now.