Playing hooky. For values of 'hooky' in which I sneezed so much between 6 and 7 that I gave myself a headache. Ah well, I'll take the stupid drugs and go sit and wait for my car to get smogged. I need to remind myself where the nearest station is....

No idea on the robberies. Still not clear to me if they are burglaries or muggings.

sarameg, have you tried [link] ? It's kind of depressing me, but I don't have a baseline, so you may have to use TV and movies to decide what's a normal level of crime.

Here's something. February in Chicago had the lowest murder rate of any single month since like 1957. Of course, that was still 14 murders, so.

Unrelatedly, so I'm not editing to add it to the previous post:

True Lemon is still having their offer where you can get free Lemon, Lime, Orange, or Grapefruit if you order more than $9.98 from their site: [link] Do note that they have two lines: For Your Water and For Cooking, Baking, & Beverages. The former has Stevia and a wider range of flavours (lemonade, mango, iced tea, etc...), and the latter has the basic lemon, lime, orange unsweetened and some more savoury flavours (although orange ginger might make an interesting drink...).

I've found that not only has it made me drink dramatically less sugar at home (soy milk is the sweetest thing I drink), but even if I'm not dropping a packet in when I'm eating out, ordering water is getting more and more reflexive. Admittedly, I was never a big sweet drink drinker, but my weakness for fizzy soda with fruit juice was kind of ridiculous, and my thing for lemonade didn't pay my delicate stomach lining any mind.

It's probably been more than a month since I had a drink out with my meal that wasn't water (and I have meals out a decent amount, since I'm too lazy to pack lunches), and I'm not really feeling a void--when I have a craving, I'll fill it, but the default feels like its shifted, is all.

February in Chicago had the lowest murder rate of any single month since like 1957. Of course, that was still 14 murders, so.

What is it usually--30 to 40?

Maybe it was all the snow. Or people were tired out from the huge number of murders in January.

ita, do you drink the For Your Water or the For Your Cooking. I don't like my lemon to be sweet.

Where is everybody? I can't procrastinate properly when no one's nattering.

Nothing interesting is happening to me.

As often, I'm trying to make it look like I got anything done this week. Also meeting 3/1 deadlines.

yep. weekly reports, plus month end reports, plus getting travel for the next 2 weeks double checked.