Topic the first: I used to wear a lot of brightly coloured clothing.  In fact, I once had a coworker comment to me that she didn’t recognize me because I was wearing a black & white sweater paired with black pants and she was used to seeing something more colourful on top.  The year I spent working in a marketing department really did my wardrobe in.  The other day, I put in a load of laundry that was entirely composed of black clothing.  (For those keeping score at home, the fact that a load of laundry was so precisely sorted means that Mike was very much involved.  He doesn’t approve of my laundry sorting process.  And by “process” I mean how I gather up an armload of random items of clothing and toss said armful into the wash.)

Topic the second: When I went shopping in Michigan with my aunt, I purchased a few boxes of Jell-O sugar free fat free instant pudding mix, in “Cheesecake (artificial flavor)” flavour.  I cooked up one of those boxes last weekend (and by “cooked up” I mean added it to some milk and whisked a little bit) and enjoyed it bit by bit over the next few days.  Then, whilst sorting some recycling, I came across the box and made the mistake of reading the ingredient list (and by “ingredient list” I mean the random assortment of chemicals they toss together in a little packet):

modified food starch, maltodextrin, tetrasodium pyrophospate, and disodium phosphate (for thickening); contains less than 2% of nonfat milk, natural and artificial flavour, salt, calcium sulfate, xanthan gum, mono- and diglycerides (prevents foaming), aspartame and acesulfame potassium (sweeteners), yellow #5, yellow #6, artificial colour.

There is also a warning for phenylketonurics that the product contains phenylalanine.  Better living through science, no?