Intellectual Poison

Quick Rundown In Between Family Moments
Its early for me on a Friday in New England, the chilly northern New England that I grew up in but have long since changed my ways and gotten my warm blooded buttocks to California where the sun's up all the time and snow's something you drive to up in the mountains.

But Thanksgiving was most definitely a different vibe this year. Normally its a single large scale gathering of the family at my aunt and uncle's house in Thetford, Vermont. But not this year, this year things, sadly, fractured into two parts. And the divider was most unusual in that it was one little boy with chicken pox. Without getting on anyone for how things came to pass or why, the trickle down is that this infected though possibly not infectious little boy became the line of demarcation between the hads and had not hads yet (those who have had chicken pox and those who have not and then the third category, those who just don't know one way or the other).

Now, chicken pox is a pretty common illness for kids to go through and its generally not terribly serious. However, adult onset of chicken pox can be rather serious and even life threatening. So it would have seemed to make absolute sense to quaratantine the child with the open sores, no? However, this was not done and so the festivities split into two entities, a New Hampshire side and a Vermont side. With some spiritied debate between the two.

And honestly, none of this really bothers me. We had a fun dinner last night at my mothers with a good group of family and friends. And there was alot of visitation to both sides. As such, I've theoritically been exposed to chicken pox but am fairly certain I've had it before so I'll worry when the reds appear.

One last mini story before I post and go. I don't know about other families and I know that mine's unusual in more ways than one. But one of our traditions for Thanksgiving is to have lots and lots of pies, all kinds from pumpkin to rhubarb to lemon creme to grasshopper to apple/cherry to everything else imaginable (remember that I do come from gourmet cook stock). Well, last night, in the spirit of fun we decided to sham the other contingent with a faux pie (oh man, did I really just right that?) or two. We got a pie tin, put in some wood chips in the bottom, topped up with some fresh and tasty Soothing Aloe Barbasol, sprinkling cinnamon and then laid banana slices around the outside. We then took a pic of all of us with the pies and snuck over to place the faux pies into the mix with the others. And yes, we got a few finger dippers and one person to try a bite! Among the funniest things we've done in recent years really. Strangely, not everyone took it in stride and some of those who did not were really quite surprising.

I'm sure I will have the chance to chat with them and find out what's up and will try to report here but we all thought it was hilarious, Micah (who was a finger dipper) thought it was a great joke. And the general consensus was that it was pretty darned funny. The best part was the evolution of the idea from stealing all the pies to sneaking in some fakers and everyone at the table was roaring with laughter at just the thought. The actual execution was even better by far.

More missives as time permits.

It Will Be Interesting
I don't have very much time to write today and it doesn't matter as the world's got other things to attend to withThanksgiving festivities and football later!

But its been interesting already and promises to only get more so.

How do YOU deal with relatives who are behaving badly and selfishly?
How's that for a stringer?

Busy Day, Not Much Blogging
Twas the day before Thanksgiving and some monkeys have many miles to go before they can sleep. I'm one of them. I'll be heading east for the holiday this afternoon.

I'll have plenty of time to write but no time to post to the blog. So thing's'll be a little quiet for a little while. But pics are on the way and a few new story ideas. So stay tuned and we'll see how things go today.

Office Depot Takes the "Work" Out of Holiday Shopping
So long as you don't mind working extra hard to pay off all the extra crap you'll end up buying at Office Depot because they made it just so darned easy to get your shopping done.

No, I didn't read this article (its a press release and instantly suspect because of that alone) and I don't need to. Its pure marketing tripe and totally inappropriate for a news source to rebroadcast as news. Its not. The reason its here is because I found it on Yahoo's Business pages. For shame, Jerry, for shame!

But hey, if they make their holiday margins then you'll see everyone doing the exact same thing next year.

Insti-Rant

I just saw that Kelly Osbourne, the youngest offspring of the most enigmatic Prince of Evil (or Darkness or whatever) Ozzy Osbourne, has released her first solo album. Regardless of the fact that she cannot sing, cannot dance and the only reason people give a damn about her in any way shape or form is the fact that she had the good fortune to be born into Ozzy's family.
I heard her single on the Osbourne family album (they should just rename it Sharon's Exploitative Money Maker) and it was horrendously awful. Worse than unlistenable, music to drown cats by, music to commit suicide by. Not even music, it was more like the angered scratchings of a fat, ugly cat that had seen itself in the mirror for the first time.

Don't get me wrong, I love the show on MTV. Its among the funnier offerings on the supposedly Music TV channel (supposed because they rarely play music anymore, its shows about pretty teens and their problems mostly and I couldn't give the first tiniest damn about any of them, except for the sorority girls show, that was gold!).

But Kelly Osbourne is an incredibly annoying talentless waste of space. And she's influencing a whole new generation of idiots to scream their opinions at all times and to be vacuous hair freaks. Jack's at least entertaining, Kelley's just a fat bitch really. So no wait, I was wrong, she does have some talent, talent for belittling people and being rude to everyone. Woohoo, maybe she can get a guest spot on the Anna Nicole show (another complete and utter waste of space, earth to Anna, you're a fat moron who got rich by sexing up a wealthy ocotgenerian, good for you).

She may have some redeeming social value (as in, how NOT to raise your children) but I can barely see past her veneer of pure hatred for the world because no matter how rich she is, no amount of money can get over the fact she's just plain mean and an ugly human being.

But then, it is just my opinion and it doesn't really count for all that much, does it?

Another Bit of Sad News

This may not mean a whole lot to too many folks but it means something to people that are important to me and that means it goes up here.
Just wanted to take a moment and say goodbye to Sophie, my sister and brother in law's dog. She's an aging greyhound with advanced dog cancer (pretty sure that's what's getting her) and today is her last day alive. A very sad event but apparently she's not doing well, is in pain and has absolutely zero chance of recovery.
Besides, she's been very sad for the last several years since her twin sister, Sadie, passed away.

So, to Su and Dave and Andrew, I'm terribly sorry for your pending loss. This has been a most cruel season for our family.

And for Want of a Field Goal

This'll be short because I'm bitter but the Niners sucked last night. And they couldn't even score one extra field goal to get to a 58 tie breaker. No, instead they had to settle at 55 which is exactly where someone else had placed their tie breaker. I was a measly field goal from taking the football pool this week!

Damn! And its all because Paul had me cheering for a low scoring affair in the beginning of the game!
Oh well, there's next week and I'll be out of town so watch out, that's the kiss of death for the football pool win!

Cool Side Bar
An event that'll probably happen today and means nothing to anyone aside from me is that Intellectual Poison will get its 5000 visitor! And I think that's pretty damned cool! If it turns out to be someone local or fairly close then you get a free beer on me or lunch or something cool like that.

Busted Tag Board

Damn, Tag Board's all kinds of screwed up again today. Even the main site is totally munged up. I'd love to get one of these things that I can host on my own web space sometime. That would alleviate alot of the load time lag. But I do think the speed should have improved considerably since the redesign. Less server connects and less graphics equals faster load time.
Oh yeah, and going to be a single commenting system seems to have helped quite a bit too as one or the other was always failing.

Side Note: Great Long Post on Pal's Blog
Its not short by any means (seven pages when someone printed it out) but it was most definitely enthralling to read Rambling Rhodes the other day and came across his long post about a relationship with a fan that became more and then much, much less. While its sad to read, its also really entertaining in a I'm-glad-this-isn't-happening-to-me kind of way. Glad it all worked out reasonably well for you, Ryan! Sorry she was damaged goods though.

Internet BS Detector

Check out Snopes for the debunking of numerous internet propogated myths. A fun site to surf through even if you're not trying to figure out if someone's giving you a line of bull. Like the oft-forwarded shark attacking the helicopter in South Africa? Bunkum. Check it out here.

I could waste an awful lot of time on this site just poking big holes in all those lovely internet stories. They even have the one about the girl getting a spider's egg sac injected into her face and giving birth to 50,000 baby spiders!

Or this one about a grave in Montreal where I learned a whole new word. Acrostic, for when a word is formed by the first letter of each new line. Check out the link and you'll understand it quite a lot better.
Have fun!

Nipple Ring Causes Lactation in 20-Year Old Woman

Nipple Ring Causes Lactation and yes, I could just leave well enough alone, post this news story and move on to the next episode. But no, I'm just not capable of it.
I can only imagine the conversation with her parents or her boyfriend.
"No, I'm not pregnant, mom!"
"Well then, why are you producing milk if you're not pregnant?"
"Because my nipple piercing's gone haywire."
"Nipple piercing? What nipple piercing?"

Ahhh, maybe it wouldn't be quite so funny. But I'm sure her boyfriend was quite surprised when they got naked last time and she was, um, leaking.
And there's a new danger in the whole freakish cult of piercing. Early onset of lactation. Now we've just gotta see it happen in a man and we'll be all set!

The Best Sporadic of All Time

This comes from Pud of Fucked Company and has been reprinted without his permission. I've asked him for it but have not heard back yet and no answer's just as good as an endorsement, isn't it?

Today's is a long sporadic but it's a good one [try three pages!]. I think. Or it sucks, I dunno, but I had fun writing it.

When was the last time you were picked on by a bully? Heckled?

I thought I was done with that shit after that dude Roberto who used to beat me up in sixth grade wound up in jail for dropping a rock onto a moving car from an overpass.

More?

How To Help Beat the Middle East Oil Crisis (or Not as the Case Has Turned Out To Be)

And Be a Better Citizen at the Same Time (or just make some Texans richer)
This comes from one of the Kims at the 20/20 Kim Site, thanks Magnolia Hottie. And its a pretty good concept. Not sure how it works out in the long run but for now it'll help make me feel better about using my car and motorcycle.

[Ed's Note: Its come to my attention via the ever vigilant intellectual properties that said idea/comment/patriotic gesture is, well, bunkum!, Check it out at Snopes. So now I guess this is more a post of what not to do.]

Read this and tell me where you are going to start gassing up.
Instead of putting a flag sticker on your car, read and follow the following if you really want to fight terrorism. Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of the Middle East. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from there.Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends. I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from.
Major companies that import Middle Eastern oil (for the period 9/1/00 - 8/31/01).

Shell............... 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco....... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil......... 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon............ 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco............... 62,231,000 barrels

If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to
over 18 BILLION!

Here are some large companies that DO NOT import
Middle Eastern oil:
Citgo 0 barrels
Sunoco 0 barrels
Conoco 0 barrels
Sinclair 0 barrels
BP/Phillips 0 barrels
Hess 0 barrels

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and can be easily documented. Refineries located in the U.S. are required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing. They report on a monthly
basis. Keep this list in your car; share it with friends.
Stop paying for terrorism
But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gasbuyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't wimp out at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it, THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!. Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people.

Mind Vacations

When I need a break but can't get away, the simplest solution is to take a minute or two and return to a place where you were serene and happy. For me, its this Stump Pond Cabin back in New Hampshire.
A number of years ago I lived there for a summer and into the fall.
A couple of things to bear in mind about the place. No electricity, no running water, no telephone, no bathroom (none inside at least) and no heat aside from my woodstove.
But it had severaly truly awesome things about it, a private lake almost right outside my door, no more then 15 feet deep anywhere so in the summer it got quite warm. Which made it very, very appealling for after work skinny dipping at 3 or 4 in the morning. I also had many many acres of land going back up and into the real country, where bears and wolves and other nasty beasties lived.
Which meant that, to protect myself on my late night walk from where I parked my car to where the cabin was, I started carrying a pistol with me. Not to macho by any means but because of a real and present danger presented by wild animals. And in the course of my time there I did come across numerous critters but nothing large enough to offer any real danger. But it felt kind of cool to get home from work, park the car, strap on the iron and head up into the dark woods to my cabin by the pond.

And that's where I go now when life gets to be a little too much. Just close my eyes and go wandering around the property there again. Walk along the dam, into the woods, go canoeing, spend an entire day off buck naked in the woods.

Side Note: Log design notes
Some of you may have noticed that there have been some changes made to the design and function Intellectual Poison since last week. If not then never fear, reality rarely intrudes into your universe. But I had a lovely word to describe the redux of the site, bouleversement \bool-vair-suh-MAWN\, noun: - Complete overthrow; a reversal; a turning upside down. Its a real word too!

But let me know how the redux of the site works for folks, I'm still finishing it up (like getting the flying face gif back) but overall I like the simplicity and ease of use so far.

Saturday Reading

Part of my Saturday's list of things to do involved sitting around at my mechanic's shop while he changed over my rear brake pads on my SV. Good thing the did it too because it was a severe pain the butt.
But one of the things I was able to do was catch up on at least a little bit of my media. I've got a stack of magazines that I slowly whittle down before it gets repiled up again with next month's issues, or next week's.

Anyway, I had my last issue of Wired with me and was looking for a possible in with an editor to try and become a regular resource for them.Yes, work stuff. I come across a page about Linux called Infoporn. And it looked exactly like the place where we should be. Nearly raw data about the Linux developer market. And just as I was thinking how perfect a placement it would be for the company, there it was, an attribution to my company. Which means that I have a couple of good starts to my Monday ahead.

But still have a big day and an awful lot to get taken care of. Short week and all that, many things to get taken care of before I head back to New England for a the holiday. I'm not looking forward to travelling again, especially since I'm not yet over the cold I got from my last trip east.

I do have a new chunk of work to process through, a chapter I banged out last week and need to fill out and finish up. And a couple of other ones in the works too.

Why I So Thoroughly FUCKING DESPISE MICROSOFT?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's heard it before but so what? Every day's a new day to find another reason to hate Microsoft for thier incredibly shitty products.
My shining example for today? Word. Which should be a simple word processing program but no, it has to overthink every single goddamned thing I do and do it its own way. Which means I spend more than half my time fixing Word's own FUCKING mistakes. Does this make me a better and more productive worker? No, it makes the vein in my temple throb because this is the most outrageous waste of my time possible.

How can I turn off every single damned automatic thing Word does? I want nothing but exactly what I do to happen, no auto formatting, no spell checking unless I do it myself, no fucking around with things I've cut and pasted (like changing the font, font size, style and justification). No nothing. Can I get it to do that? Can I make Word actually do what I NEED it to do?

Fucking Microsoft sucks balls and Bill Gates should be forced to apologize to every computer user in the world that he's inflicted his shit-ware computer products upon. Or, shall we say, bug-ware? Or Exploit-a-port-ware? Or pay us now and again for it later ware? Or, we're the biggest software company in the world and don't have to do it right ware?

It sucks and I want nothing to do with any of it again.

I Dream of Africa

Lately its been one of my first thoughts when I wake up in the morning (or middle of the night depending), I wake up and have an image, a sense that I was just in Africa again. Waiting for a bakkie (minivan taxi, otherwise known as a black taxi) to take me into town, riding my bike past a group of workers protesting some action, the Lightening Squad (or Blitzkrieg) cars tearing by at high speed in pursuit of serious bad guys. Staying up all night long drinking whiskey and watching the South African National Cricket Team take it the Aussies.

Or my high speed runs across the flanks of Table Mountain on my souped up Katana that ran leaded gas with an Octane rating of 93 (lead's bad for the universe but boy did it give that bike some extra punch!). Up the Kloofnek and down the steep streets into CapeTown from the beach towns along the coast. Of weekend getaways to beach houses, estates in the South African wine country, of mornings spent lolling about the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, of pedaling home from downtown through Green Point, Moiulle Point and then into Sea Point. Of witnessing the ass kicking of a seditious and very intoxicated member of the disenfranchised masses who was bad mouthing the US in a bakkie where I was the only American and one of two white people in it.

Ahhhh, the Suiker Bossie (spelled wrong and pronounced Sayker Bossy) way out along the coastal road and just below Chapman's Peak if memory serves, and it may not). In english its called the Sugar Bowl and was a wonderful place to go out to for a late brunch. I can vividly remember one such meal with Michelle many, many years ago now, we had the entire patio area to ourselves with a view of False Bay (on the back side of CapeTown) and out into the ocean. But, of course, she was the real view. It had been earlier in our relationship, before her severe anorexia really caused serious problems with her and with us. We were still very much in love with each other and had one of those meals that seems framed by clouds or something. An impenetrable cloud of joy or something.

Those are my dreams of Africa, the visit me often. More so when I'm stressed and feel the need to disappear into the wilderness. Or to retouch my roots, all of our roots again. Feel the soil that the first humans walked upon, see the sunrise over the same hills, experience just a tiny glimpse of what the world had once been like. And then I'll catch a jet contrail overhead and the illusion is lost for a time again.

When I close my eyes, I dream of Africa. And wish that, when I reopen my eyes, that I am there again, stepping off the plane into the bright sun of the Jo'burg airport.

When I close my eyes, I dream of Africa.

Nostalgic for the Backyard Camping Trip

Last night was kind of cool. We had that nearly full and super bright moon way up in the sky, it climbed out of its marine layer fog halo and was clean, clear and radiant. And made it possible to read outside, after midnight, without any lights at all. It reminded me of camping trips gone by, the ones that start in the backyard and progress all over the world. And, in that spirit, I grabbed a spare futon from downstairs and camped out on my deck last night.

The last time I can remember camping out under a full moon like last night's was while I was still overseas in Africa. We were on a hiking trip down a section of the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. What's that? You've never heard of the Fish River Canyon? Well, it is only the second largest canyon in the world (excluding those trenches deep in the ocean) after America's own Grand Canyon. The Fish River is, oh about, 23 hours or so north of CapeTown by over stuffed mini van, through some of the lesser known parts of southern Africa.

The canyon itself is incredible in its scope and I'll try to amend this post with the pic I'm thinking off that gives some sense of the scale of the place. Its a long distance pic of the side of the canyon and waaaaay down at the bottom, tiny little figures that are the rest of the group we were hiking with. Majestic only begins to scratch the surface. Dangerous would be another apropos term for the place but the danger came from the animal kingdom and not from our two legged brethren. Baboons loved the canyon just because of the crazy echoes they could make. Some nights it would sound like a woman crying several hundred feet off but it was just a baboon having some fun with us.

There were so many things that went wrong on the trip that it would be easy to focus on those aspects but that would be doing a disservice to the really superb events that happened. Like planning the trip for the full moon, ever gotten stoned and wandered around an African desert? Its about ten times more fun then it might sound, especially with some companions to go and play around with. We'd come across these eerie moonscapes, made all the stranger for the blue light everywhere, and spend some time exploring them. It was incredible, how alive the world became at night there. We'd see creatures that no way would anyone see during the day. Little furry critters skittering all over the place, getting their day done in the cool of the night (temps during the day were right in the mid 90's but could easily top a 100 in places where the wind couldn't get to.

I remember one evening, we'd all set up our camps in a big long line along a dune near a bend in the river. There was a gentle slope to our beds so it was easy to prop myself up, set my book in the moonlight and read completely easily and clearly. Visibility was great, it was easy to see several hundred feet in any direction. And it made those middle of the night trips to the acacia tree quite a bit easier (just remember to wear shoes, India!). Acacia's are, for those who do not know, basically a thorn tree. They have woody thorns protruding from everywhere and they are definitely not a kid friendly plant, I'd even heard the thorns coat themselves with a bitter tasting secretion from the tree to further encourage foraging elsewhere but I never did try that one out.

Anyway, sleeping out on my deck last night was a tiny hint of what it had been like all those years ago. Instead of being lulled to sleep by my sound machine playing recorded wave sounds, last night I fell asleep to the natural and real and ever changing sounds of the Monterey Bay surf trying to break my beach down the street. And I slept really well, until the street sweeper started making runs up and down the street at 6:30. But it was alright, it was nice to lay on my futon in the morning light and just enjoy the new surroundings. I think I'll be sleeping out there again tonight too.

Brass Cahones to PUD from FuckedCompany!

I don't know how many people read Fucked Company very often. I confess that I don't log into it very often but I've been a very loyal reader of PUD's sporadics. The latest of which is his best ever posting. He talks about the CEO of MyCoupons.com being a complete and utter moron at a tradeshow he was speaking.

Well, well worth the effort to read it. I'll check later to make sure its on his site and if not then I'll post his missive here (just checked and no, its not up there, I've emailed Pud for reprint permission). And I'll make a big note to never, ever do business with MyCoupons.com. No reason to make an asshole ex-jock frat boy CEO any richer than he already is and doesn't deserve to be.

Rock on, PUD, some of us out here totally dig you. And no, I'm not a chick, sorry! Hahahaha.

Prelude to a Moment's Peace

Breathe is a really very nice site that tries to reset one's attitude and reorient one's perspective from a position of negativity to one of positivity. It seeks to open one's mind to the amazingly good fortune we have to be alive today and each day we do get.

Much of this resonates so strongly with me because of my father's recent passing but I think anyone who's under some stress (which is, well, everyone) could benefit from taking a few minutes out to relax and breathe some.

Great thanks to Paul for the connect!

Short Post

Ed's Note: Found this missing post today in my draft's folder. Somehow it got tossed in there instead of onto the web page. Oh well.
Been a busy day in Erik land today. From IM'ing with pals, to work to all kinds of other distractions. Its been busy but ended up well, very well!

As I was getting ready for a meeting with my boss I did a new coverage search which didn't yield too much. So I tried again with some different parameters and found out that we had been picked up by Business Week (yeah!). Which means that, well, we just got a nice, high profile placement that is an excellent demonstrator of what I'm doing for our PR efforts. Very, very good stuff.

That and who needs me? Layne's Back OMG, OMG, OMG! Hehehe! Welcome home!

Disappearing Posts

Well, after a long period of Blogger behaving quite well, its begun to misbehave a bit again.
I'd written a post, posted it and published it. It even appeared in the window below but never has shown up on the web log itself. And now the post below is gone too.
Which ups my impetus to find another means to write and publish the blog. Maybe I'll have the time this weekend to get it done. I'll try but no promises.

I'm sure today will provide its own share of news so there will be more posts, more news and more links to stupid pics.

On a side note:
Sorry it didn't work out to meet up last night, Amy. Hope you guys had a great time down here regardless. And next time I'm north or you're south, we'll have to hook up.

BMR's, Fitness Regimes, Stretching and Spot Reduction

Okay, so I lied about the last one, there is no such thing as spot reduction that doesn't involve a suction hose. Sorry.

First step is determining where I stand in relation to the number of calories I burn in the course of a normal day. There are, no doubt, dozens of formulas and calculations to determine this. First one I came across that didn't involve higher orders of math was the Harris Benedict version, this is the adult male formula. Its pretty straight forward really, BMR (basal metabolic rate)= 66 + (6.3 * body weight in lbs) + (12.9 * height in inches) - (6.8 * age) and presto I get 1834.2. Add in daily activities (not part of Harris Benedict formula) and my daily burn comes in at 2310. Weekly that's 16170 calories. And for the record, I'm 5'9", 175 pounds and 33 years old.

What that means (for those who really need things spelled out clearly) is that so long as I stay under 2310 and maintain my current level of activity then I will lose weight. Not quickly as there is a lot of caloric energy in a pound of fat but it'll start to go and that will be pretty darned awesome. And pics of my six pack will be up here! Hell yeah they will be! If and when I get to a six pack then you'll have to hold me down to put on a shirt.
All of this is coming from FreeTrainers which is turning out to be a really good resource. Free sign up to generate an entire fitness plan including diet. There will likely be a catch at some point but I've not come across it yet.

First night of workouts as prescribed by FreeTrainers is tonight and is not especially tough. The main difference with these folks is that they emphasize stretching a helluva lot more than any other workout folks I've seen. But hey, unless I see something I know (rememeber, six years as a personal trainer equates with good to better BS detector) to be harmful, why not give it a shot?

And with that said, I'm off to hit 4 descending sets of incline benches and 3 descending sets of flat flyes. Oh my!

Other quick goodies to check out:
Two BMR calculators, one for boys and one for girls (sorry ladies, nature screws you here, that whole retain energy to reproduce directive means you have slower metabolisms)
Howstuffworks: Female BMR calculator

Howstuffworks: Male BMR calculator

From The It's-Gotta-Be-Dutch Files

I give you the shoebike.

Thanks Jay! And MounTain Bike Review Dotcom

Bad, Bad Baby Names

Babies Named Bad, Bad Things is a pretty good place to start looking for baby names to NOT use. Its a clearing house for all of those names that make you wonder whether mom and dad were crackheads or just stupid.

My favorites are the names that just has an A added to the end. Or the names with "La" added to the front like it makes it hard to figure out that the mother was eating Doritos, with a daughter named Ladorita or something equally appalling. Its the fastest way to White Trash Nirvana there is, isn't it?

But then, I'm quite curious as to what they might make of me contemplating the addition of a new name to mine. Not for vanity at all but because I want to carry a little of my dad with me every where I go and they wouldn't let me near his body so maybe taking my father's other middle name would be cool. What do you all think? And no, I'm keeping the name to myself for now but its a cool one, if there's enough interest then I'll post it but not yet.

Pending Fitness Post

Okay, I know its lame to pre-post a post but I've got too much to today and can't write much to the blog. So I'm going to talk about what will come later on.

And no, there was no major redesign of the web log this weekend as you all can tell. Waaaaay too nice out to be inside monkeying with code that I can't write, can't understand and can barely smash together to function.

Nope, I'm working on a bigger post about a new fitness regime that I'm starting up. Based on caloric burn rates, intakes and all that good stuff, with links to calorie calculators, BMR (basal metabolic rate) calculators and ideas for how to organize a workout programs parts: cardio, resistance training and nutrition.

Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Who knows but it'll be up soon.

Ho Hum, Another Near Death Experience

Or, Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned While Riding My Motorcycle
This may surprise and it may bother some people to read but that's alright. I walk away from all of it, keep that in mind.
Its good old football Sunday with lots of games being played and people coming by the house to hang out and spend time together. All that wholesome good stuff.

After a while I got hungry so I pulled on some warmer clothes (it is the middle of November here in the Northern California so it must be down in the 60's by now, brrrrr!) and jumped on my Suzuki to go and grab a bite to eat. Which is almost always gauranteed to make me grin at least some, there's nothing like riding a motorcycle to induce happiness so consistently. But the other side of the double edged coin is that, sometimes some dumb fucking asshole behind the wheel will come incredibly close to punching my ticket. Sending me off to see Daddy a little early and alot angry. I'll normally find a way to inform said moron by pulling up next to them at a stoplight and screaming a litany of curses intersparsed with what they did and how close they came to killing me.

To any of you would be bikers out there. If you are not concentrating on what you're doing, most especially around cars and trucks, then you will go down. You'll get tagged by some fool who never even saw you coming before they made an illegal left in front of you, cutting off all avenues of escape and making you try to choose the softest part of the side of their car to slam into. One other thing and then back to my rant, before impact, stand up on your footpegs and bail. Let your momentum launch you over the car you're hitting, maybe jump a little to clear your bars but the big thing is making sure your balls are above (hold on, ABOVE) the gas tank when you collide. Believe me on this one, I know first hand what happens when the primary point of impact in an accident is balls to gas tank.

Lesson completed let us return to the story. Where Water St. crosses Soquel in Santa Cruz is a fairly normal intersection, lots of cars moving through, pulling in pulling out of traffic, turning to go up Broadway or down into town. Lots of cars all around which means that it makes sense to take it somewhat easy through this area. And I do but I'd just buzzed the intersection on a yellow with some gas going and then I saw the crappy white long bed pick up truck that had pulled out of the hotel on the right and was trying to insert itself into traffic going the other way, can you say illegal left, yep, I can too. But at the time my main interest was trying to not become close pals with the broad side of the truck.

Which was pretty easy, most of riding is about assessing and dealing with obstacles. I sat up straight, got on my binders hard for a second to knock my speed down by fifteen miles an hour almost instantly. Then it became a very simple matter of swerving right around his back end and pausing enough to call him a fucking moron before continuing on back home. And then realizing a few hundred feet further down the street that I really had come damned close to being flattened and either hurt or killed. Just like that.

And it sort of shocked me to further realize that I wasn't all that angered by it this time. I took it in stride and just kept on going. Because I hadn't been hurt, I hadn't been killed, why waste the energy to get pissed off about it. I live to kick again and have my fun out in the hills.

Some of Hockey's Shortcomings

I'm sure that lots of people couldn't give a damn about hockey but I'm not one of them. Since I don't like basketball I do like having a winter sport to follow until baseball starts up again in the spring.

And I'm struck by how much Karl Marx's old catchphrase, Religion is the opiate of the masses, compares to sports now. Soccer outside of the US is followed with religious fervor, fans rioting for losses (and wins, a phenomenon that's happened a bunch in the US but still makes absolutely no sense to me at all), the Columbian player who was killed for accidentally scoring on his own team, the crushings of the crowd, hooligans and all that warlike frenzy surrounding it.

But let's talk about hockey, the NHL.
I'm watching the Sharks play right now and saw what I'd have to call a pussy play, or more appropriately but less sonorically unsportsmanlike conduct. Owen Nolan's the Shark's captain and a few minutes ago he got a penalty called on him for elbowing. Not all that unusual in hockey but the replay showed what really happened.

The Tampa Bay Lightening player grabbed Nolan's arm and threw himself backwards as if he'd been hit in the face. He was shamming, faking it. And as a result of his act, his team had a power play. They didn't score but that's not the point. The point is that part of the game is being decided by people trying to cheat the officials, they are faking attacks and gaining an advantage because of it. Which means that they'll be positively reinforced to do it more and other teams seeing it will be encouraged to adopt the same practices.

So the possible downstream effect of not dealing with players who cheat in this manner is the degradation of the entire game. And don't get me wrong, hockey is a good game, its unique in lots of ways and I could make wild guesses on how it originated. I like it alot because, at its best, it is an symphony of very crisp puck handling, hard checking and constant flowing motion. Other games are not so pretty but can be equally captivating with their sheer brutality, fights taking place on skates on ice (stop and think about that for a moment) and slapshots at alot more than a hundred miles an hour.

There are other aspects of the game that are lacking that a game like football does not have to deal with. Visibility of the ball or puck. Many people find it hard to follow a game of hockey on tv because the puck's so small and moves so quickly. And I've never been able to get a satisfactory explanation of the plus minus rules. I have some idea but have not been able to find a definitive answer online.

And that's the second period so I'm outta here.

Joseph Campbell Saves the World

Joseph Campbell Saves The World, In which the late, great master of myth reveals just how foolish all our religious impudence is, again.
By Mark Morford, of course. Much of my great material is derived from his fount of wit and wisdom!

I'd repost his column here but that's not my right. Click the link and enjoy him. He is a national treasure! And I think I'm going to write him right now and tell him so. Yep, I'm officially a fan now. Once you start writing letters to people, then you officially cross the border to fandom. He kicks ass, I told him that twice!

And the freaky link in today's Morning Fix? Yeah, its funny and nowhere near as horrifying as the Animal Dildo link from the one of the last issues. Check out the The Disciplinary Wives Club. Why? Ah, who knows, you were probably bad this week, weren't you? Well then kick down some cash and get yourself back in line! Seriously, this is site that's unofficial motto is: The Couple That Spanks Each Other, Stays Together. Um, sure, get down on it.

Karmic Payback for Ms. Cleo

Well now, maybe I'm the psychic because I saw this coming a couple of years ago. I've always loved the whole psychic network garbage. How could some un-educated fake Jamaican know a damned thing about me?
Or the fact that they didn't talk about the future in their ads, just stuff that's already happened, which is really useful because everyone's got a time machine, right?

Check out the story at SFGate for more news about it.

If you could really see the future, Ms. Cleo, then you would have seen the cops coming and already high tailed it. Proof you're a fraud from, where was it, Brooklyn. Nothing like having to return $500 MILLION dollars in billed calls. I'll bet that smarts just a little bit. Poor baby. Read your cards and find out which scam will make it all back for you. Hahaha!

The PR Pimp Shoots and Scores Again

Some days are better than others and some days become better than others through the course of the day's events. Today started out alright, took a little bit to get my ass out of bed and on the Bowflex but I did it anyway. And I knew that today was going to be at least reasonably good because of a call I'd had set up for this morning.

A call with the Associated Press to interview one of my analysts! Yeah, the Associated Press! Which means that this one article could, conceivably, be picked up by a dozen or more other news agencies. And all that coverage counts! Its all gravy for the PR train and that means accolades from my boss.

Of course, that doesn't mean I can slack at all, still have a whole bunch of stuff to crank on but this definitely eases some of the tension from on high!

Lots to Talk about But Not Enough TIME

I've been having some really good ideas for blog posts lately but the main problem is that they come to me at the most inopportune time possible, like when I'm in the shower or tearing over Highway 17 on my Suzuki.

But the other side of the whole hassle is that I just don't have enough time lately to write much of anything aside from blasts and quick rants alongside story posts. But there are changes in the wings. A redux, if you will. No promises but I'll be putting in some time this weekend (unless its just outrageously gorgeous out which it might be) on a blog makeover (where's Rikki Lake!).

Anyway, with some luck we'll have the comment system sorted out before I lose my mind. But no promises.

Skip Bayless on Hiring Felipe Alou

Skip Bayless of the San Jose Murky News actually wrote a really good column today about why hiring Felipe Alou is a good idea. Check out his article,
Mercury News | 11/14/2002 | Though he's 67, Alou still has the fire to lead Giants.

And I stand by my prior excitement. Alou will make the Giants a better team than they were with Dusty Baker. They will be tighter, sharper and better played strategically. Of course, straight comparisons will be all but impossible if Jeff Kent's gone (I'll miss his bat but not his holier-than-thou disdain for his fame, you get paid to play a game, jackass). But I think Alou will make them a more fun team to watch too. And Barry Bonds won't have the balls to give Alou any crap whatsoever at all.

I'm very much looking forward to next baseball season! Bring it on and let's see the Giants take the west outright! Maybe Alou can convince Jose Vidro and Vladimir Guerrero to come out west too? Oh yeah, that would work just fine!

Other News: Layne's Back, Sort Of
I was alerted to the news of a post on Plain Layne from Layne, who's overseas right now. Its well worth the read for those of us who are daily Layne-aholics. And its good to hear that she's doing well and having a good time, not a great time as she's with her ex and her ex's new chica. But heck, she's in Europe, how bad can it really be? Anyway, good to hear something from her even if she is still far to into the jackass, Mal, not Mark. And if none of that made any sense then her post will probably not make much sense either. Go read it anyway.

Today's Quote

Not an everyday thing but when I come a