Thanks to Blogdex, we can keep track of what the blogsphere is saying about Wonton Food Inc., the company that puts URLs inside cookies.

• At guff, Kafkaesquí reflects on the meaning of having his Chinese fortune cookie deliver an Internet address:

  Sign #4,907 the Internet has permeated all areas of society...

• At evoque.org, its author provides a cute tale involving a Chinese dinner and a 18-month old:

  I had dinner—Chinese takeout, beef with broccoli, if you must know—with my nephew Parker (all of 18 months, what a cute kidlet he is) and he decided to smash open my fortune cookie for me. I had to laugh as it said "Please visit us at www.wontonfood.com."

Virtual Occoquan Alert

The latest issue is out, and it includes (finally!) the second participation from yours truly in Salon Blogs' unofficial digest.

You'll read Virtual Occoquan

Trying to Put Mexico First, With No U.S. in the Way
By Tim Weiner
January 26, 2003

Some in Mexico's Congress are trying to change the nation's official name.

Mexico, in the Nahuatl of the original inhabitants of that region, means "navel of the moon." Since any name that has "navel" in it is sure to produce a fit of the giggles, the world over doesn't really know what Mexico stands for and just uses that name. (Some Spanish speaking countries, by the way, having trouble twisting their mind around the concept that the "x" is pronounced by Mexicans as a hard "h" sound instead of a "ks", opt for the alternative spelling "Méjico".)

Even less known, though, is the fact that the country's official name (that is, the name it wrote out for itself in its Constitution and which is used in all government documents and currency) is Estados Unidos Mexicanos; that is, United Mexican States or, as I prefer to translate it, Unites States of Mexico. That's right folks, "United States." If you've ever held a devalued Mexican peso coin in your hands and took a look at the "tails" side (the one with the eagle), you've met the nation's official seal.

As it turns out, some Congressmen in Mexico have proposed dropping the whole "United States" thing altogether, considering that "People tend to forget that the official name is the United Mexican States. And when they remember, a great sinking feeling, a great restlessness, washes over them."

"A great sinking feeling?" Yes, because, with the large number of American corporations making business in Mexico, some feel the country is "an extension of that country."

C'mon, mis paisanos! Don't give up! The amount of money it would take to change every bit of paper with the official seal to read plainly "Mexico" is not worth it. And don't tell me you had forgotten what the official name of the navel of the moon was. Hadn't you been mocking it for years with the saying "estamos sumidos, mexicanos" ("we're down a hole, Mexicans") ?