Water May Have it in For Us

We have drinkable tap water again!

And given Tennessee's current issues with having way too much water, and the issues with water being half oil as it sweeps toward the gulf coast, well, I'm just going to say that Boston's recent water adventure was a pleasant stroll in the park that I am totally not even concerned about anymore.

Hang in there, Tennessee and coast.

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Bloggy Goodness Awaits

My legions of devoted followers, I bring exciting news: I have been selected to be an official blogger for Medical Library Association annual meeting in DC next month. Woohoo!

I did this last time I was at MLA, in Chicago in 2008, and I, at least, thought it was a lot of fun.

I vow to bring to this important task the same somber mien with which I approach all important things I do: ever alert for killer robots and free food, taking notes at near-obsessive levels, and with a highly critical eye for health and technology tie-ins in any movies that may be shown. (I don't see any on the event calendar, but one never knows.)

In the meantime, I will continue to boil water for at least one minute, since the metro Boston area still lacks drinkable tap water. People were very unhappy about the lack of coffee today. It seems that the coffee makers in places like Dunkin' Donuts are automated and hooked up to the pipes, so they don't have the option to boil the water before making coffee. As a result...no coffee.

I don't usually drink coffee, but I did miss my morning tea. It's just more trouble than it's worth to try to heat tea water in the microwave.

Seeing people carrying their stores of bottled water around reminds me of how I lived in the country in Arizona for a while when I was little, and people used to carry water around there, although in big sturdy containers instead of little bottles.

The advantage of the current situation is, at least the water is OK to wash in. Life would be less pretty if we couldn't take showers.

Oh my yes.

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Just Stock up on Wine Instead

Perhaps you've heard that Boston and surrounding towns are having some drinking water issues. I'm just waiting for some delicious boiled water to cool right now, in fact.

I heard people talking about just stocking up on bottled water, but I also read that some stores are running out of it, plus, come on, I'm going to buy water using my perfectly good hard-earned money when I can just stick some in a pot and turn on the gas? (The use of gas does require some perfectly good hard-earned money as well, but even without doing the math I'm going to state with a high degree of confidence that the cost per potable ounce of water will be significantly less.)

Boiled water has at least two advantages over bottled water in my book:

1. I don't have to spend the aforementioned perfectly good hard-earned money
2. I don't have to leave the house, which holds my beloved laptop/internet combo and my video games
3. I don't have to deal with getting rid of all those stupid little plastic bottles when the water is gone

OK, so there's the reason I didn't want to do the math on the cost of gas vs. bottled water: I can't count.

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Ah, Marketing

Interesting post on The Slow Cook about a marketing campaign (by companies that sell bottled water) to discourage people from drinking tap water.

Now in some places in the world it is certainly true that water from the tap (or tap-equivalent) is actually unfit for drinking from a health standpoint, so I'm not going to issue blanket condemnations of drinking bottled water. Although blanket condemnations are a lot of fun and I'm all for them in principle.

Still, being that here in the United States the tap water is fairly uniformly potable, I personally find it silly to pay good money for something you can get for a lot less good money by being on the local water system, for which our good tax dollars presumably pay anyway. I will therefore continue to drink the heck out of tap water as a matter of course. 

Especially since we keep hearing that bottled water generally comes from various city water systems anyway, just conveniently repackaged (convenient in the sense that one can carry it around easily, and, more to the point, charge a lot of money for it. I wish I'd thought of that.)

Every once in a while, in a restaurant, the option has been presented: "tap or bottled water?" I suppose this might be part of a subtle attempt to push the bottled stuff, since they can charge for that, but I'm too socially clueless to have ever felt the slightest hesitation in saying "tap is fine." 

Laugh in the face of peer pressure, everyone! 

flip flopping joy pointed out this story before me.

Water Bottle Smackdown

I am relieved to hear, once again (this lively and thorough discussion, including coverage of common beliefs like "if you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated," from Junkfood Science), that there does not appear to be any solid scientific evidence for the notion that all humans should be drinking at least 8 8-ounce glasses of water per day to stave off dry, parched brains and eventual desertification. 

I had heard this previously, and pretty much determined to feel OK about drinking water whenever I'm thirsty and not worrying about it otherwise, but I'm always pleased to hear that I'm already doing whatever it is I should be doing. 

I do carry a bottle of water with me if I'm going to be wandering around for a while without ready access to liquid and think I might get thirsty, but aside from my five daily mugs of tea (which, come on, is already enough liquid to drown a small animal), I don't go out of my way to suck down the stuff, and I'm still functioning so far.

Besides, I've read that potable water is likely to be the next big shortage (I like to keep up on potential approaching disasters), so why encourage people to get in the habit of swigging gallons of it if they don't need to?