Wednesday, February 25, 2004
I'm pro-carb. Really, I am.
Something about this Atkin's diet just doesn't really ring right with me. Sure, I understand the logic that's behind the whole low carb movement that seems to have settled in recently, but I just don't buy it. For one, carbs are cheap. You can buy a huge box of pasta and get many meals for the same price as a steak, which gives you one meal. Second, as long as you, y'know, do stuff and not sit around like a gelatinous cat, having the extra energy from carbs is kinda nice. Third, I don't like everything suddenly going from your usual advertising emphasizing the little things like taste and price, to LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB!!!!! (Funny story, I was going to have that all was one word to boost up the "in yo face" factor, but then it looked like blow car, and that just wouldn't make sense.) Lastly, trying to drop back on carbs doesn't really leave you with much left. I mean, you can't even have your standard meat and potatoes, since potatoes are slightly (and by slightly, I mean entirely) starchy, and starch = complex carb.
On other diet-related matters, I remember having conversations with certain people and joking about how vegans have to live on their own body hair and such due to the narrowness of their diet. Turns out this isn't the case, and that some vegans really can kill veggies and eat them, thus avoiding the whole "wait for the apple to fall down" or "wait for the carrot to jump out of the ground for you" bits. For reference:
Vegetarian: no meat products
Vegan: no meat or dairy products; may also refuse wearing leather or wool
Lacto vegetarian: same as vegan but will eat dairy
Ovo-lacto vegetarian: same as vegan but will eat dairy and eggs
Pescetairan: vegetarian diet that includes fish
Fruitarian: same as vegan, but only eats foods that don't involve sacrificing the plant in harvesting (ie. eating apples from a tree doesn't kill the tree, but carrots are out)
Memory hooks and other fun tortures
I have some very odd memory hooks for things. It really doesn't seem to matter what I do to remember something, only that I do something. Hence, I have done everything from throwing my pants in front of the door, to putting a Kleenex on my alarm clock. It's all very odd, but it did help me remember a drinking game I made up while lying in bed last night. I'll let you know if it's any good when next I give it a try, but here's how it goes. It's basically a variation of the category card from Sociables, if you've played that.
You can have as many players as you like, and the more you have would probably make it easier for counting and stuff. Anyways, one player starts and picks a category, something like actors, or bands or something. Best to keep it not too vague and unbounded (ie. not states or provinces that have a set number), for reasons that I'm getting to. Having picked a category, the person then starts listing things in said category, keeping each item withing 10-15 seconds of the next one. Take too long and you're done. Once you run out of things to say and have a total, you pick your victim. That person can then try to name things from the same category and burn you, or pick a different one and avoid burnage. If they get less items than you, regardless of category, they drink the difference (ie. getting 4 less means 4 drinks). If they get more in the same category, you drink the difference. Should they decide to pick their own, they then challenge someone else (or the previous person) to do the same, and it starts all over with the new high total. You lose when you're too drunk to talk.
Basically, it's just an excuse to test your knowledge of useless stuff, but since you get to pick your own category, there's bound to be something that you can prattle on ad nauseum about. There are a few extra little rules though:
1. You CANNOT repeat a category unless it was the one immediately preceding. This prevents the repeated use of God Categories like Simpsons characters or sports teams. Also stops someone from listing things that only they know about.
2. You CAN repeat things previously said in a category. This means that it pays to listen to what people are saying, since you could be next.
3. The group CAN veto certain things. This stops people from trying to sneak in silly things into a category. If the group can't come to a concensus peacefully, just have everyone take a good long drink and start a new category.
So if you do happen to give it a try, do let me know if it's any good please!
Repent!
Are you sharing music illegally? Do you fear being caught in a lawsuit? Are you (most importantly) a Canadian? Well step into these guys' offices. The Canadian File-sharing Legal Information folks want to help you in the fight to keep you sharing those mp3s. Also, if you think you are one of the 30-odd users targeted by the recent Canadian RIAA equivalent lawsuits, they have the usernames on the forums. Check it out.
Halt Citizen! Please step forward and be scanned! If you do not have your barcode, you will be taken to the Center for Citizen Registration and Traitor Deporation. (This is actually pretty cool. Don't let my mediocre fiction dissuade you from clicking)
Got a reference to this book from BoingBoing, and it looks pretty cool. I thought Dragons of Eden was kind of neat, and it dealt with similar things. This book seems to go more into some of the nitty gritty details of how the brain works though, and less on the evolution of intelligence. The BoingBoing guy said it was a total mind trip reading it and thinking "wow, this is really cool!" and being thrown when he realized that the bit going "wow, this is really cool!" is the bit that the cool book was talking about.
Anyways, I should probably clean up if I want to get anything else done tonight, and that means getting out of my chair. Daunting task, I know, but I do try occasionally. ¶ 5:46 p.m.
Something about this Atkin's diet just doesn't really ring right with me. Sure, I understand the logic that's behind the whole low carb movement that seems to have settled in recently, but I just don't buy it. For one, carbs are cheap. You can buy a huge box of pasta and get many meals for the same price as a steak, which gives you one meal. Second, as long as you, y'know, do stuff and not sit around like a gelatinous cat, having the extra energy from carbs is kinda nice. Third, I don't like everything suddenly going from your usual advertising emphasizing the little things like taste and price, to LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB LOW CARB!!!!! (Funny story, I was going to have that all was one word to boost up the "in yo face" factor, but then it looked like blow car, and that just wouldn't make sense.) Lastly, trying to drop back on carbs doesn't really leave you with much left. I mean, you can't even have your standard meat and potatoes, since potatoes are slightly (and by slightly, I mean entirely) starchy, and starch = complex carb.
On other diet-related matters, I remember having conversations with certain people and joking about how vegans have to live on their own body hair and such due to the narrowness of their diet. Turns out this isn't the case, and that some vegans really can kill veggies and eat them, thus avoiding the whole "wait for the apple to fall down" or "wait for the carrot to jump out of the ground for you" bits. For reference:
Vegetarian: no meat products
Vegan: no meat or dairy products; may also refuse wearing leather or wool
Lacto vegetarian: same as vegan but will eat dairy
Ovo-lacto vegetarian: same as vegan but will eat dairy and eggs
Pescetairan: vegetarian diet that includes fish
Fruitarian: same as vegan, but only eats foods that don't involve sacrificing the plant in harvesting (ie. eating apples from a tree doesn't kill the tree, but carrots are out)
Memory hooks and other fun tortures
I have some very odd memory hooks for things. It really doesn't seem to matter what I do to remember something, only that I do something. Hence, I have done everything from throwing my pants in front of the door, to putting a Kleenex on my alarm clock. It's all very odd, but it did help me remember a drinking game I made up while lying in bed last night. I'll let you know if it's any good when next I give it a try, but here's how it goes. It's basically a variation of the category card from Sociables, if you've played that.
You can have as many players as you like, and the more you have would probably make it easier for counting and stuff. Anyways, one player starts and picks a category, something like actors, or bands or something. Best to keep it not too vague and unbounded (ie. not states or provinces that have a set number), for reasons that I'm getting to. Having picked a category, the person then starts listing things in said category, keeping each item withing 10-15 seconds of the next one. Take too long and you're done. Once you run out of things to say and have a total, you pick your victim. That person can then try to name things from the same category and burn you, or pick a different one and avoid burnage. If they get less items than you, regardless of category, they drink the difference (ie. getting 4 less means 4 drinks). If they get more in the same category, you drink the difference. Should they decide to pick their own, they then challenge someone else (or the previous person) to do the same, and it starts all over with the new high total. You lose when you're too drunk to talk.
Basically, it's just an excuse to test your knowledge of useless stuff, but since you get to pick your own category, there's bound to be something that you can prattle on ad nauseum about. There are a few extra little rules though:
1. You CANNOT repeat a category unless it was the one immediately preceding. This prevents the repeated use of God Categories like Simpsons characters or sports teams. Also stops someone from listing things that only they know about.
2. You CAN repeat things previously said in a category. This means that it pays to listen to what people are saying, since you could be next.
3. The group CAN veto certain things. This stops people from trying to sneak in silly things into a category. If the group can't come to a concensus peacefully, just have everyone take a good long drink and start a new category.
So if you do happen to give it a try, do let me know if it's any good please!
Repent!
Are you sharing music illegally? Do you fear being caught in a lawsuit? Are you (most importantly) a Canadian? Well step into these guys' offices. The Canadian File-sharing Legal Information folks want to help you in the fight to keep you sharing those mp3s. Also, if you think you are one of the 30-odd users targeted by the recent Canadian RIAA equivalent lawsuits, they have the usernames on the forums. Check it out.
Halt Citizen! Please step forward and be scanned! If you do not have your barcode, you will be taken to the Center for Citizen Registration and Traitor Deporation. (This is actually pretty cool. Don't let my mediocre fiction dissuade you from clicking)
Got a reference to this book from BoingBoing, and it looks pretty cool. I thought Dragons of Eden was kind of neat, and it dealt with similar things. This book seems to go more into some of the nitty gritty details of how the brain works though, and less on the evolution of intelligence. The BoingBoing guy said it was a total mind trip reading it and thinking "wow, this is really cool!" and being thrown when he realized that the bit going "wow, this is really cool!" is the bit that the cool book was talking about.
Anyways, I should probably clean up if I want to get anything else done tonight, and that means getting out of my chair. Daunting task, I know, but I do try occasionally. ¶ 5:46 p.m.
