I have finally decided to take the plunge. Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop.
Follow the link to read more of the very funny satirical review of the latest Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows XP.
Found this on the paper edition of The Hater in The Onion’s A.V. Club
One of the things on a list of “thoroughly ridiculous, obscenely expensive gifts to keep normal people enraged and millionaires entertained will Neinman Marcus offer next year? Here are a few ideas:”
Monkey Twin — $250,000
Everyone knows monkeys are adorable, but how much more adorable would they be if they looked exactly like you, while also still being monkeys? There’s a scientist in Columbia who will engineer a rhesus monkey with your face—or the face of a loved one—for $250,000. The perfect gift for the kid who has everything. When your child asks, “Daddy, I want a pony,” you can answer, “Well, how about a monkey with your face instead?” You’re welcome.
I’ve been trying to get to the gym about every other day. It’s tough because I’ve been super busy with school. I’m a member of the WAC (Wisconsin Athletic Club) in Wauwatosa. For close to the first year I went in and just did my own workout. I get quite a bit of cardiovascular work through biking, tennis, skiing, etc. so tend not to run indoors on the treadmills. My workouts are, therefore, mostly just weightlifting. I would tend to do the same workout each time and slowly try to increase the weights. I didn’t have any strategy for working certain muscle groups. This past summer I remembered that new members get a free personal training session (a series of three). I had some free time this summer so I took up that offer. In the first session we just quickly discussed my current program and what I wanted to accomplish. The next time I came in he had a workout planned and we just had to go around and get a general idea of my 1-2 rep max on each lift. He then gave me a printout from a spreadsheet that calculated what I should lift for 70-90% exertions. I’ve been slowly moving up in weight (soon I might put up my workout on a Google Spreadsheet type thing). I’ve been doing 2 sets at about 12 reps. I definitely feel that this workout is much more beneficial for me than the one that I had been doing previously. I’ve already seen and feel much improvement. One of the things that I was particularly doing wrong was fatiguing my smaller muscle groups before working my larger groups. The problem with this is that the larger muscle groups rely on the smaller groups for balance and proprioception.
Anyway, in order to get the most benefit from my lifting and to help my body recover, I bought ON Gold Standard, 100% Natural Whey from Amazon. There’s a pretty funny review of a similar product on Amazon.
People often say in reviews of protein powders and other health and fitness dietary products that the product is delicious. I try it and am underwhelmed. The people who rave over protein powder are clearly unaquainted with good food (that’s what comes of living on egg whites and skinless chicken breasts), or they’re comparing it to some of the really horrible stuff out there. The best I can say about the flavor of any of these products is that it’s uninteresting. So let me say that the flavor of this whey protein is uninteresting. It certainly isn’t bad. It could certainly be made better by the addition of ice cream, but that sort of seems opposed to the spirit of drinking protein powder.
I’m sold on this stuff because it passes the kid test. My kids like it. Like most kids, they aren’t into interesting flavors, and they aren’t into eating the delicious and nourishing food we put in front of them every night. Also like most kids, they like chocolate. The double rich chocolate version is convincingly chocolatey to anyone who doesn’t know better (like my kids). I put this powder in a Nestle’s Quick can and tell them it’s chocolate milk (note: I don’t actually lie and say that it’s Nestle’s Quick, but my equivocation puts me on shakey moral ground and I’m sure I’ll someday pay for it), and they’re quite happy with it. I, alas, am something of a chocolate connoisseur and can’t be so easily fooled as my kids, but still I find the flavor entirely okay. I suspect that when my children first taste real Nestle’s Quick at a friend’s house, they’ll wonder what Dad’s been feeding them and there will have to be some sort of a reckoning, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, they’re getting a pretty decent protein supplement to make up for the meat and fish that they won’t eat at dinner.
Pretty funny… I’m not so sure about using this stuff for his kid’s chocolate milk, though. Sure, it might be healthy, but it is expensive compared to existing chocolate milk mixes.
I kid you not. At the Progressive Universal Life Church (PULC) you can become an “ordained” minister with the “legal right to use the title ‘Reverend'” for a “small loving offering of only $19.50.” With this degree you are supposedly authorized to preform all functions including marriages, baptisms, funerals, and services.
So what does this “church” believe? “[The PULC wants] to help you reach your full potential in life. [They] want to help you become all God meant you to be. [They] want to help you achieve wholeness!” Ironically, they say that this church stands for “religious freedom.” “The freedom for each and every person to believe as they choose and the right to express that belief–so long as it harms no other.” The stated doctrine of the church is: “every man and woman has the right to determine what is right for themselves.”
BUT WAIT!!! (I’m not making this up.) “For a limited time only, we are offering our Doctorate courses for an unbelievably small donation… ACT NOW! You are guaranteed to pass all courses.” Here is a list of the available doctoral programs that upon completion, you “have the legal right to be known as ‘doctor’.” Ahh no, in the US, only medical doctors (allo and osteopathic) are legally titled Dr.
A common theme reverberating throughout the PULC’s webpages is the allure of obtaining wealth. This is on the page regarding the ministerial license: “As a point of passing, thousands of Ministers have become enormously wealthy performing simple religious ceremonies.” Wow, enormously wealthy. This is the kind of religion that I want to join! I not only will get a certificate of ordination printed on high quality paper perfect for hanging in a very visible spot in the house, but I will also be making upwards of “$500 for performing a simple ceremony”!
I put this under the category of “funny” because that is exactly what it is. This is a company with the sole purpose of making money. I find it hard to believe that donations to it are tax-deductible. They do not talk about worshipping God and only use the name of God when referring to how He can help us. The few quotes from the Christian Bible that they use are there only to motivate the reader to buy into the scheme. However, they are definitely not a Christian church…there is not one mention of Jesus anywhere on the site.
Sadly, I heard about this company on a blog that I read occasionally on Google Reader. This guy had actually gotten married by the PULC and then went on to become a “minister” himself. Some of the stuff that he writes is pretty interesting, but I’m not so sure about him now…
To read more about this “religion” and other strange ones, visit Breakaway Beliefs: That Old-Time Religion is So Passe
Found this article on ESPN.com today. It is called “Could Roddick beat an average player with a frying pan?”
Andy Roddick is a 25-year-old professional tennis player with 23 ATP titles to his credit, including the 2003 U.S. Open. Having spent his entire childhood training on the tennis court, sometimes for as many as 10 hours a day, he now has the ability to strike shots at speeds and with a level of accuracy that are almost impossible to comprehend. Andy has hit the fastest serve ever recorded, at 155 mph. If you had never played tennis before and hit with Andy, you would immediately understand that you were dealing with an incredible athlete. You wouldn’t win a point and would possibly get injured by one of his serves.
I play tennis, too! While Roddick was the world’s No. 1 player, I made it to No. 2 on my high school team the season I played. Like Roddick, I can hit all of the shots. Unlike Andy, I can’t hit any of them particularly well or with any kind of power or placement. I hit my first serve around 105 mph, which is slower than his second serve, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of action Andy’s ball does. I pray to God the first one goes in, because if it doesn’t, I could easily double fault.
The best way to make the comparison is to say that there’s no comparison. Roddick spends his time plowing through opponents in major tournaments, while I spend too much time on my couch watching him do so. Still, like Roddick, I am a tennis player and a competitive guy, so although I never had the dedication or the talent to play at his level, I wanted to know what a win over a player as great as he is felt like. In my heart I knew that I had what it took to beat him. I just had to figure out an unfair way to do it.
As to how unfair, well, that would take some thought. While someone with no tennis experience would not win a point from Andy in a set, I probably wouldn’t have a prayer of winning more than a point or two either. This is, in part, because I’m not that good, but also because the difference between a recreational player and an actual pro might be greater in tennis than in any other sport.
The story continues and is a very entertaining read. The story is actually an excerpt from Todd Gallagher’s book “Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan — Taking the Field with Pro Athletes and Olympic Legends to Answer Sports Fans’ Burning Questions.”
One of the comments at the end of the story is this: “No one on my college team could break into triple figures on a serve…..Todd, there is no way you serve 105 when Federer first serve average was 119 in US Open final…..but nevertheless, a very entertaining article.”
I don’t know where he went to college, but I’m not a Divison 1A college-level player and I can serve a 105 mph serve, though, not super consistently like any professional or college player could.
The Panflute Flowchart was “borrowed” from Toothpaste for Dinner. This site claims to be “The most addictive comic on the web.”
San Francisco is considering a facility like Vancouver’s InSite program. Vancouver’s program, “[is], exempt from federal drug laws so users can visit without fear of arrest, has 12 private booths where addicts inject drugs such as heroin, cocaine or crystal. They can use equipment and techniques provided by the staff, and then relax with a cup of coffee or get medical attention in the ‘chill out’ room where they are observed, said program coordinator Sarah Evans.” Addicts would be able to “shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses.” (Continue reading…)
There does appear to be some promising results that show that Vancouver’s site may in fact be increasing the amount of people seeking drug treatment while decreasing drug-related crime.
My gut instinct was “what a waste of taxpayer dollars!” Why would anyone think that giving people the right to take illegal drugs and then expect nurses to care for them is an appropriate thing to do? Part of me feels that they screwed up their life and should have to deal with the consequences. Society shouldn’t have to pay to provide care for the people that abuse the system. It just doesn’t seem right. And I, for one, would sure as heck not want such a site anywhere near where I live. I guess, though, that in some parts of the country/world, it would be much better to have a safe area for drug users to take their drugs than have the whole neighborhood “shot to pieces” by a bunch of homeless HCV+ men walking around tossing contaminated needles all over the place. This way the homeless men get their place to stay (hey, why not allow them to sleep there too; it would keep them off the streets) and the city can keep the streets safe. I thought the section about using equipment and techniques provided by the staff especially funny. And then the fact that they can get a cup of coffee while they are “chilling out” even more ludicrous.
On the other hand, we are spending a lot of money on the “war on drugs.” And, without spending much time researching the issue, it seems that much of the reason for drug trafficking into the US is an economic issue. The street drugs that a minority of the citizens want is illegal. It is this very illegality that makes it expensive to run the operations necessary to covertly bring them into the US. The more difficult it is to bring the drugs into the US, the more the drug dealers can charge the end users. This results in more profits for the people that finance the drug trafficking business and more of a financial hardship on the users of the drug. Also, the drug money leaves the general economy and does not get taxed. If the US were to end its war on drugs, the profit incentive for bringing drugs into the US might decrease, forcing drug dealers out of business. The drugs would become relatively “cheap” and the incentive to bring them to the US would go down. Hopefully this would result in less drugs coming to the US and then less people starting or continuing to use them.
I do worry that if this were to happen then people may begin experimenting with drugs because a) they are no longer illegal, and b) the drugs are more affordable. I personally would have no inclination to begin using drugs because I understand the neurochemical long-term damage they can cause. (And I don’t need drugs to help me have fun in my life.) I also find smoking to be a horrible thing and despite it being legal, tend to stay as far away from it as possible. Just because it is legal doesn’t make it safe. Part of me doesn’t want the government to interfere with our lives. Yet, banning smoking in public places would go a long way to protecting my right to have a safe and clean environment.
It will be interesting to see how or if the San Francisco facility will go. After thinking through it, I kind of hope it does go through so that the Freakonomics guys will be able to analyze it. Maybe the government could even use its buying power to purchase drugs in bulk at less than cost for the users of this facility. Do you think that would work?? 😉
A friend of a friend (OK, so this is probably just a joke…) is entering Australia for an extended work contract, and the immigration official asks him if he has ever been convicted of a crime in his country of origin. He replied, “I didn’t realize that was still a requirement for entry.”
Interesting story about a person who scams an Ebay scammer.
A compilation of clips submitted by Gmail fans as part of our collaborative video project. Selected from over 1,100 clips from fans in more than 65 countries. Learn more at http://mail.google.com/mvideo
This was very well done!