difficulties of being vegan

There's a new Vietnamese restaurant opening in my town and I got a copy of their menu. They have a fabulous selection of non-alcoholic drinks, including smoothies and "jelly pearl" drinks. The avocado, sour-sop, and jackfruit smoothies, and the various jelly pearl drinks sound very intriguing... The durian smoothie sounds intriguing too, but based on my experience with durian-flavored hard candies, which tasted like onion, it wouldn't be my first choice. I just wish I knew what ingredients they use... I doubt they are vegan.

I found a website of a same-named restaurant in California (perhaps it is a chain) with the exact same menu. It has photos of the drinks (smoothies here and pearl drinks here) and they look like they probably contain dairy. If they are fresh-made, and I knew the ingredients, I could request one made with soymilk instead of milk, for example, since they also have soymilk on the menu. But having to first ask what the ingredients are, then interpret the results, then request a customized version, to someone who might not even be fluent in English.... it seems too much of an ordeal. And if they contain ice cream, or if they are made from powder-mixes, they couldn't be easily veganized anyway.

(no subject)

I was trying to finish up my taxes, but had to print another form.
My printer indicated it was out of black ink, and refused to print.
Suspecting that the black ink wasn't truly empty, I took it out, shook it, and put it back in.
The ink-out light went off and the printer printed, but without any black ink.
I ran the head-cleaning utility and tried again, but still no black ink.
Caving in, I went to Staples and bought a new ink cartridge.
I also disposed of my old keyboard and zip-drive to be recycled while I was there, hurrah!
Back home, I opened the new ink cartridge package and prepared to do the switch.
I did some more head-cleanings and test prints, trying to spur the ink-out light to come on again, since replacing the cartridge is tricky otherwise.
The black ink started working again, without me having replaced the cartridge.
Argh.
Fine.
At least I didn't pull the sticker off the top of the new cartridge yet.