Philip Morris Companies Inc. Announces Proposal To Change Name Of Parent Company; Consumer Goods Parent To Ask Shareholders To Approve “Altria Group, Inc.”; Tobacco Operating Companies To Retain Philip Morris Name

uh, yeah. because they don't want consumers to REALLY know that nabisco (oreos!) and kraft (mac and cheese!) products are distributed by a company that produces a product that is an addictive killer. go cigarette companies. since i the aquisition of kraft by phillip morris, i have consciously made an effort to avoid buying kraft products, along with the numerous other brands it now controls. i know, i know, cigarette companies are a big part of our economy, and if everyone stopped smoking tomorrow it would not be a good thing, money-wise. and many people (many that i know, for that matter) just enjoy smoking. which is fine. their decisions. just, please, not around me. we californians are allergic to tobacco smoke. ;) it's easy to not support smoking by not purchasing cigarettes. now that includes not buying a host of other products. philip morris is trying to hide that behind a new name:

The significance of the name, “Altria,” Bible said, is derived from the Latin word “altus,” which reflects the corporation’s desire for its family of companies to always “reach higher” in striving to achieve greater financial strength and growth through operational excellence, consumer brand expertise and a growing understanding of corporate responsibility.

corporate responsibility? hahahaha. i find it somehow ironic that the chairman and chief executive officer is named geoffrey c. bible. bible, eh?

enough lecturing for today. :) i am looking for a job. a job job. i still plan on continuing my web design work, but it has been slow. and i think i need to get out of this house more. my dogs are sick of hearing me talk.

u2 tickets came in the mail today. guess who is going to be one ecstatic person on tuesday? no, not that person. me! :)

while i don't watch tv now, i watched quite a bit as a kid. my parents did not restrict the tv time. their theory was the more you tell a kid they cannot do something, the more they want to do it. i didn't watch a horrendous amount (i read a lot) but my fair share. one of my favorites was the facts of life. (stop laughing. now.) they are having a facts of life reunion show sunday night. i heard about it on the radio this morning. so i expect you will all be glued to your televisions sunday. watching the simpsons, that is. ;) random fact: tootie's real name was dorothy. and they put her on roller skates the first two seasons because she was so much younger than the other cast members. don't you feel so much more powerful knowing that?

and william fucking shatner (look what wil has done to that man's name!) is hosting the americanized version of 'iron chef'. i suppose we will ruin it - why can't we let other country's ideas just be?

< mushy stuff >the everyday video made me cry. cry! wouldn't it be nice if we hugged each other more often? < /mushy stuff >

here are all of the owens river pictures. aren't you guys sick of my vacation shots? hey, at least i don't have you trapped in my living room with a slide projector. ;)

'one day, for no apparent reason you simply know you cannot continue to play by the rules you have accepted for years.'

i think i may have one line-its today.

happy birthday, ron! hand, fingers, knees and toes - that'll get you 24. :)

i drove my car today with no problems whatsoever. no traffic, no rain, and most important - no median.

"at the same time my feelings of sadness and patriotism don't translate into automatic support for an all-out military assault on anyone and everyone that the white house doesn't like"

:..it seems important for us to remember that responding to terrorism with bloodshed on an even larger scale will only make us feel less safe. every new escalation of violence provokes more of the same. it is not unpatriotic to talk of peace" - jay walljasper, utne reader: nov-dec 2001.

"darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that...the chain reaction of evil...must be broken or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation" - martin luther king

these words above speak the thoughts that i have been unable to verbalize myself. as this war has continued, i have grown more frustrated with the human race. we have been on this planet thousands of years, and we have come so far. yet, we cannot seem to find respect and understanding for each other. are we in a downward spiral of the demise of homo sapiens? will we cause our own extinction? we have destroyed so many other species, i hope it is not now our turn.

there is not a 'right' way to fight this war. i don't have the answers, nor does anybody else. but that does not mean we all have to blindly jump on bush's bandwagon. will we ever see peace? i know that there are many holes in my ideas - however, i cannot bring myself to support what is currently happening. i wish i could explain myself more eloquently, as well as more clearly. this is the best i can seem to do.

if i ever live somewhere where i have to commute in horrendous traffic everyday, someone shoot me. i decided (in an unmistakable flash of pure brilliance) to leave for the climbing gym around 4pm. i live in the city, and the gym in in the 'burbs, about 12 miles away. arriving at 4pm meant that i would be leaving around 5:30pm. coming home the 'reverse' commute isn't too bad, even during rush hour. (that term always bugs me. you.are.not.moving. hello?). today? today that was not the case. it took me 50 minutes to drive 12 miles. that's, oh, an average of 24 miles or so an hour. 24. like the hours in the day. slower than the speed limit on residential streets. how do people do this everyday?? time in the car is wasted - nothing you can do while you sit. well, you CAN do whatever you want - i have seen people reading the newspaper before. i swear. LA style. however, most activities require your hands. and your brain. driving needs those things too. (the brain part is really tough for many people to get the hang of) even at 24 miles an hour. i wonder how many hours the average commuter spends in their car during their lifetime. aside from 'too many'.

what i trite thing to complain about, isn't it?? i am somewhat amazed at the mess our development patterns have created. traffic is everywhere. all the time. slaves to the automobile. thanks, henry ford.

one second is 9,192,631,770 vibrations of a cesium-3 atom. good vibrations.

this is ania (the fuzzy one) on our climbing trip. more picures soon. hee. i am geeked on my dogs. and too lazy to write more today. :)

happy birthday mom. i love you and miss you.

no more rain driving for alissa. today i decided i was going to frame a watercolor i painted in college. i have been meaning to do it for years, finally got it out and decided to head to michael's to order a frame and mat for it. it is raining outside. on my way to michael's, this became a torrential downpour. i desperately searched for my rear window wiper. well, the rear window wiper is on my rear window (fancy that), but i couldn't turn it on. see what happens when you live in sunny californina? on my way home from micheal's i hit mad traffic on the freeway. it was not.moving.at.all. i saw the exit sign for garden highway, and thought i could take it as a shortcut home. exiting the freeway, i turn left.

and slammed into a median. wham! it was a low median - only curb height, about 10 feet wide, and covered with asphalt. it extended pretty far into the intersection. how the hell was i supposed to see it? fortunately, the subie rolled over it. and continued to function. scared and shaking, i continued to drive, praying my car was not totally f*cked up. i expected my wheel to fall off and roll down the street. and then i got lost. really lost. garden highway was NOT the shortcut home i thought it was. i ended up in a scary neighborhood (north sac is not a nice place). i imagined my car breaking down, and cell phone-less, i would be stuck there.

after a couple of very wrong turns, i found hwy 160 (which is what i thought garden highway was) and headed home. and made it. finally. i am not sure if my car is really ok, though. argh. driving in the rain sucks. so if you see a maroon subaru with a firedancer sticker on the front window and a nancies.org one on the back, driving in the rain, turn around. quickly. drive as far away from it as you can.

i am actually considering a cell phone. hmm. join the 21st century, right? i promise not to talk on it while i drive. :) i know i was going to ramble about the utne reader...tomorrow. if i am not at the mechanic trying to repair my front axle. i need to go smoke a bowl and calm down. :P

thank you vetrans, as today is the 'official' holiday. yet we witness another plane crash. i heard about it out running this morning, and was stuck by the feelings i felt just two months ago. was it mechanical? will we ever really know? *sigh* i really don't know what else to say.

delete those cookies and vote for nancies again. i really do wonder how they monitor these electronic votes. and why they publish the rankings. are they just after zillions of hits on the vh1 site? their system seems to encourage the electronic ballot box stuffing. bon jovi? bon JOVI? vote again while you're at it. that site pales in comparison to the new and improved nancies.org.

mwahahaha...alissa kramer is played by jenny delaney on star trek voyager 5. what you get links to if you search my name. (i had google referrers, and was trying to figure out what people searched to get here)

128mb smart media card for $49.95...finally more than 64mb on my mp3 player. it's amazing how quickly technology becomes cheaper. 5 years from now i will laught at the $150 i paid for a player with only 64mb.

reblogger is eating comments. i think. people must have been making really good tasty comments, and they were eaten. (damn, that's bad. no funny) so, now, new! improved! it's blogback. i'm going to give this one a try. comment away, if you feel so inclined.

jeffery zeldman wrote a great article on design and style. discovered it while milling around adobe today.

sunday. newspaper highlights...how many new products can the food and beverage industry invent to waste precious resources in the name of convenience? now the have created disposable bibs for babies. what happened to those hard plastic ones with the little tray at the bottom to collect food bits and drool and various baby output? then there is the disposable stoneware. why? if you want to use a paper plate, for god's sake, use a paper plate. if you want to use a dish, grab a plate. but throw away plates? i just don't understand. the amount of trash generated when a paper plate is thrown away is significantly smaller than throwing a stoneware dish away. we live in a disposable world. instead of more convenience, we need more time to enjoy our lives - time to wash the dishes, do laundry, cook a real dinner. we are throwing away the earth.

prego now makes a pasta sauce that allows you to use uncooked lasagna noodles! i truly do not want to know what scary chemicals they may use to cook noodles while baking lasagna. *steps down* ok, i am now off my environmental soapbox. :)

rest in peace, ken kersey. i am sure you and jerry are having a good time...

next sunday it sounds like there will be quite a show in the sky. i may even be motivated to go to bed after 10pm to see this one. a storm of stars. better than an group of angry famous actors in LA surrounding a coffee bar demanding lattes...storm of stars - get it? (i know, not funny either. my coffee wasn't strong enough this morning). unfortunately, the majority of the news is depressing. bin laden and nuclear weapons (exactly what i was worried about), the ability to manufacture enough anthrax in russia to kill the entire US, more bombing. happy veterans' day. i am afraid we will add many more veterans before this war is over. there were some great articles in my utne reader this month that spoke to the way i feel about this evil mess we are now in the middle of. more on that one later...off to the climbing gym.