Everything is awesome!*

William has designed and built his very own Lego city. It's a seaside town currently featuring a fairground, police station, hospital, church, school, baseball field, helipad, Mexican restaurant, ice cream parlor, and a Starbucks (a local government stipulation). There is also a supermarket cutely named Will-Mart. A fire station and a city park are planned for phase 2 of construction which is scheduled to begin just as soon as a few more base plates are delivered.

Velma Staplebot!

I am absolutely loving my child's current obsession with all things Lego. In fact, the day we struck gold and scored the Lego The Movie mini figure Velma Staplebot (thus completing our William's series 12 collection), I may have been more excited than him. For the uninitiated, these mini figures are sold in packets you cannot see through. In other words, a clever collect-them-all lottery-style marketing ploy. At $2.99 each ($3.99 in Toys R Expensive) you keep buying them until you have, well, collected them all, doubtless acquiring many 'doubles' along the way. Or, you get smart and figure a way to work the system. You can stand in  stores 'feeling packets' for tell tale signs of particular characters or you can meet a seasoned pro who tells you about 'bump codes'. Done and done! (You may add 'standing in stores feeling packets' to the growing number of things on my 'wow if they could only see me now' list.) 

Frequent customers include Abraham Lincoln and William Shakespeare. 

* Everything is Awesome is the Lego the Movie theme song.

Wordless Wednesday

The winter we had no school

Spinach power salad? I don't think so.

Dear Panera Bread

Today I visited your establishment for lunch. I was pleased to note that you had a range of healthy options on your menu including but not limited to the Spinach Power Salad. I ordered half a portion of this salad so only had half the egg, not the full egg as pictured below. Image courtesy of your website by the way. 

I am not entirely sure *what* I expected to see in my 'healthy' Spinach Power Salad but let's just say that it wasn't half a pound of fried bacon, fried onion, fried wonton strips and fried mushrooms swimming in oil along with half a boiled egg and 15 baby spinach leaves.

The nutritional breakdown of the Spinach Power Salad, also according to your website, states that it contains 29 grams of fat and 700mg of sodium. You know all that fat and sodium is not coming from the egg or the spinach, right? Let's put this into perspective and reveal that there are also 29 grams of fat in a Big Mac. I rest my case. 

Evidently my definition of the words 'healthy', 'power' and 'salad' are somewhat different from yours. Should I have enquired as to the exact nature of this dish before I ordered it? You betcha. Won't make that crazy mistake again. 

You on the other hand are a much-loved eatery serving food to a nation of people who struggle mightily with the concept of conscious eating and have the health problems to prove it. People perceive you to be a step above many other chain eateries. If someone enters your store fully prepared to resist all that bread, cake and delicious cheesy broccoli soup on your menu, they deserve not to have their attempt at making a healthier choice mocked by discovering their salad contains as much fat as a lousy Big Mac. Guys, how about being part of the solution instead of underhandedly contributing to the problem? Just a thought.  

For the record, I didn't eat it.