Recreation & Sports
Popcorn - America’s Snack!
America consumes more popcorn than anywhere in the world. We eat more than 60 quarts of popcorn every year. That is more than 17 billion quarts of popcorn.
Americans love their popcorn with salt and butter. We even like our gourmet popcorn in different flavors. We add candy coatings and different flavors. We make it cool ranch, cinnamon, blue raspberry, pizza and more. We even add nuts and caramels to it.
Since popcorn is a whole grain it makes a great snack. It’s great for watching our weight too! Just don’t add candy flavorings. Air popped has even less calories. To keep your salt on your air popped popcorn, just spritz it with a butter flavored spray.
Popcorn makes a great snack to take with you as you travel. Make different flavors of your favorite gourmet popcorn and store it in zip top bags for the whole family. It will stay fresh for over a week.
Everyone loves gourmet popcorn! It’s a treat thats easy to make too. It’s easy to make different kinds of gourmet popcorn with all of the glazes and seasonings that are available. Glazes are usually added to the popcorn popper before popping. They are not for use in air poppers. The glaze coats the popcorn for easy eating.
Popcorn is one of the best treats for eating while watching movies at home. The cost to make a bowl of popcorn is pennies compared to the same amount of packaged snacks like chips. Popcorn is much better for you also.
Popcorn is a snack that is consumed more than others. It can be enjoyed almost anywhere. More snack producers are making popcorn. They make it in many different flavors including white cheddar, nacho cheese and others.
Almost 75 % of popcorn is consumed at home. The other 25 % is enjoyed from flea markets, movie theaters, concession stands, ball parks and large retail stores.
Popcorn has a song about it. It is sung at baseball games as part of our national pastime. The song is about popcorn with a caramel coating and peanuts. Popcorn is used for holiday decorations. It is strung together on string and used as garland for Christmas trees and fireplace decorations.
Gear of War 2: The Locust
Gears of War 2, is one of the best loved video games to be released for the Xbox 360. Gears of War 2 boasts realistic game-play, amazing graphics, and astonishing weaponry, machines, and beasties. Developed by Microsoft, through Epic Games, it was scheduled to be released on July 8, 2008. Due to developmental delays, the game is now slated for a November 7, 2008 release.
Led by legendary game designer Cliff Bleszinski, Gears of War 2 promises more entertaining violence. The demo played at the Game Developers Conference met with a terrific response. The game seems to build on the successes of the first Gears of War, utilizing jaw-dropping, lifelike graphics and deeper, more involved storyline. The novelist, Joshua Ortega, was hired to enrich the story and draw the player deeper into the world of Sera.
One of the most hyped items coming from the merchandizing of GOW 2 is the Locust Drone. A writer for GamerVision noted: “Way back in April, while scoping NECA’s wares at the New York Comic Con, I took notice the Gears of War line had a Locust with an exploding head…I was in love. I had never seen an action figure with quite the attention to the source material as this one. Immediately, I began asking (read: begging) NECA for information about when and where I’d be able to get this wonderful piece of craftsmanship.” The Lancer, a machine gun-chainsaw weapon from the game, is another poplar piece amongst GOW 2 fans. It has consistently been a popular item on Amazon.
Players, be warned: flex your thumbs. Gears of War 2 is said to be a tremendous challenge. The sheer number of enemy Locusts to contend with is staggering. Add to that an A.I. that adapts to your style of play and actively guns for the brave sons of the C.O.G., and you have the perfect cocktail for endless nights of aggravation. The Locust Horde is purportedly designed to never stop.
Enter the celebrated Lancer. The demo depicts a Locust getting sawn in half, with blood splattering the faceplate of the C.O.G. solider. The twist is you can pick up the bodies and use them as shields. The emphasis on finding and using cover is still well in place, keeping Gears of War 2 close to its roots. It’s no surprise Gears of War 2 was voted the Best Action Game of E3 2008. Check your pulse and mark your calendars.
Bottled Water Is An Environmental Disaster
Do you desire to live in a way that protects our childrens future? Do you choose to live in the greenest world possible with a conscience, respect and appreciation for the environment?
Many Americans have a strong sense of environmental and social responsibility. We try to make environmentally well advised choices in many aspects of our daily living, yet we ignore one of the major contributors to the endangered state of the planet.
Worldwide in excess of one billion people do not have an uncontaminated source of clean drinking water, this is in excess of 1/6 of the world population, yet we, as Americans, spend billions of dollars yearly for the convenience of drinking from a plastic bottle instead of a water tap. Shame on us.
1.5 million tons of plastic are consumed to bottle water annually. It takes in excess of 25 times the amount of water to make each plastic bottle than the bottle contains. 300 million gallons of bottled water are imported to the United States yearly. This is unacceptable waste.
Often, in America bottled water is simply an indulgence. Despite our rationalizations, it is not a harmless indulgence. Bottled water is an environmental disaster. Thirty years ago bottled water hardly survived as a business in the United States. We Americans now spend more on “designer” bottled water than we spend on iPods or movie tickets - $15 billion in 2007. The expected United States expenditure for bottled water will be $16 billion a year before the end of the decade.
As a nation we drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water per year. Bottled water is the fastest growing beverage industry in the world, valued at $22 billion a year. Less than 15% of plastic bottles are recycled, the rest end up in the waste system and cost America’s major cities in excess of 70 million per year to handle processing and landfill expenditures. America yearly produces in excess of 800,000 tons of plastic bottle pollution that substantially magnifies global warming.
Last year, Americans threw away 38 billion plastic water bottles, about $1 billion worth of plastic. That’s an overwhelming waste, especially considering 1.5 million barrels of oil - enough to power 100,000 cars for a year - were consumed to manufacture these bottles. And that’s not even including the oil and gas required for shipping and delivering this massive volume of liquid.
If you are spending money on bottled water, you are basically purchasing plastic, which is manufactured from petroleum. When we purchase a bottle of water, what we’re often purchasing is the bottle its self. One of the essential problems with bottled water production is the reliance on fossil fuels. From packaging to transportation, bottled water relies on oil, using 17 million barrels of oil and producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide every year.
In the United States alone, we are hauling 1 billion liters of water around a week in trains, trucks, railcars and ships. That adds up to a weekly giant convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers. Water weighs over 8 pounds a gallon. Water is so very heavy you cannot fill an 18 wheeler with bottled water, you have to allow empty space.
There is an simple eco friendly solution. Tap water is much less expensive. As a reporter for the NY Times pointed out, almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands.
Clean and pure drinking water should be public and inexpensive. The more the wealthy opt out of drinking tap water, the less political support and funds there will be for investing in developing, maintaining and repairing America’s public water supply. That would be a dreadful loss.
Access to affordable, pure water is basic to a nations health. In Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the trendiest bottled water on the U.S. market, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have a pure or dependable source of drinking water. Therefore it is easier for the average American in Seattle or Boston to quench their thirst with refreshing Fiji water than it is for the majority of people in Fiji.
Should you elect to get your suggested eight to ten glasses a day from bottled water, you may spend up to $1,500 or more every year. An equal amount of tap water would cost pennies a day. Recent studies show that many brands of bottled water fail to meet industry guidelines and the cost of even poor quality bottled water can grow quite high.
A lot of bottled water is just plain tap water. Many bottled water businesses repackage tap water into plastic bottles, then sell them back to you at prices higher than gas and increasing just as rapidly. Aquafina, as an example, has finally been pressured into amending its labels to advise consumers that Aquafina water comes from tap water. Why not just drink tap water? In fact, more than a quarter of bottled water is just processed tap water.
Plastic containers leach dangerous chemicals. Have you considered why your plastic bottle of water has a warning on the label telling you not to reuse it? The longer you use that bottle, the more likely it is to leach hazarous chemicals into your water.
There is a to solve the dilemma. If you are unsure of your local water supply or wish to easily filter tap water when on the go, carbon-filtered tap water is safer and costs much less than bottled water. As reported by the Environmental Working Group, carbon filtration of tap water will dramatically lower levels of toxic by products; it is also 10 to 20 times less expensive than bottled water, and does not produce the waste and pollution associated with the packaging and transport of bottled water.
A portable water filter is a perfect solution for water filtration on the go. A portable water filter allows anyone to filter their own water, no matter where they travel; across town or around the world. A portable water filter allows you to free yourself from any unpleasant taste, contaminates or additives. while protecting the environment and your pocketbook. Involve the whole family. A five member family will save well over $7,500.00 a year.
Stop being unwitting victims of manipulative advertising. When a entire industry is built up by overwhelming us with a product we do not need, when an entire industry is based on packaging and presentation, not the product, it is worth asking how that happened and what the future impact is upon our precious planet.
