October 31, 2003

Girl Power

How would you like to tell your cellmates you were beaten up by a mob of teenaged girls?

    PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said on Friday.

    Rudy Susanto, 25, who had exposed himself to teen-age girls on as many as seven occasions outside St. Maria Goretti School, struck again on Thursday just as students were being dismissed, police said.

    But this time, a group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said. When Susanto tried to run, more than 20 girls chased him down the block. Two men from the neighborhood caught him and the girls took their revenge.

    "The girls came and started kicking him and punching him, so I wasn't going to stop them," neighbor Robert Lemons told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Susanto was later treated for injuries at a local hospital. Police said he would be charged with 14 criminal counts including harassment, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and corrupting the morals of a minor.
Hmm, when it happened to me (different dude, obviously), all I could do was exclaim, "SHIT!" laugh really hard, and start walking quickly in the general direction of other people. This guy was in a car, though.

I like the punching and kicking approach mucccch better.

hln

Posted by: hln at 11:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 251 words, total size 2 kb.

October 30, 2003

You Know You're Tired When

You lose the entire "I'm home, and I promise to read you all" post that you've kinda carefully crafted because you merely shut down the browser. Ugh.

So, briefly, I promise to read you all. I cringed when I saw the Bloglines totals of what remains unread. Cringed. I promise two large linkfests, and one will pertain only to the goodness coming out of MuNu.

I have mixed feelings about the cancer posts, so that's why I turned off comments. They're timely in that I can write them without needing reference material, and so that did make them good for the business trip. I find I remember things I leave out - like today's. I didn't mention that I lost quite a bit of hair on the right side and in a funky pattern. So, there you have it. It grew back normally, and life goes on.

One piece of advice from this business trip: Don't drink your dinner. In San Francisco, all of the restaurants and bars are non-smoking. This means I don't have to vacate the premesis in 5 to 10 minutes when I start to feel absolutely lousy because I'm chewing the air and each bite assails all of those lovely tissues that have been thus irradiated. It also means that I spent from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday at the hotel bar, in effect drinking my dinner. Yes, this from someone who advises my gentle readers to severely limit liquid calorie intake. Blush.

There's supposedly a pic of me from last night (another poor example of following my own advice, but I did manage to eat) where I'm trying to coax one...more...drop of wine out of the table's second bottle. And I trumpeted feeding the homeless with the leftover pizza. Yes, THAT much alcohol. Matt would've been highly amused. I stopped short of howling in public, though. So no hangover.

Ah, business trips.

hln

Posted by: hln at 10:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 330 words, total size 2 kb.

Wayward Parotid Gland, Part 4

I've turned off comments for this post. If you do have something to say or a similar experience, my e-mail is angelweaving@hotmail.com.

Part One is located here.
Part Two is located here.
Part Three is located here.

more...

Posted by: hln at 08:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1258 words, total size 7 kb.

October 29, 2003

Wayward Parotid Gland, Part 3

I've turned off comments for this post. If you do have something to say or a similar experience, my e-mail is angelweaving@hotmail.com. Part One is located here.
Part Two is located here.

more...

Posted by: hln at 08:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 810 words, total size 5 kb.

October 28, 2003

Wayward Parotid Gland, Part 2

I've turned off comments for this post. If you do have something to say or a similar experience, my e-mail is angelweaving@hotmail.com.

Part One is located here.

more...

Posted by: hln at 12:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 826 words, total size 5 kb.

October 27, 2003

Places

Travelling - safe in California, in a part of the state that is not burning, thankfully.

The flight was jam packed - maybe two empty seats. I sat between two gentlemen, all three of us plugging away on our laptops. All three of us taller than the average human (well, I'm probably the average man's height, but that still doesn't make for airline comfort).

A three-hour flight is actually a good, productive length. The one-hour flights basically leave you room to read an article or two or three chapters in a book. I like to watch take-off and landing...and basically anything else I can see out of a plane.

I retrieved my luggage, following the Heather rule that every other woman should heed. Do not pack your luggage to be heavier than what you can lift and carry by yourself. This is actually a newer rule, and possibly nothing has changed but my strength. I digress. (What was the point of that paragraph? I think I'll leave it anyway).

And so it came to pass that I found a cab to take me to the hotel. The driver was a Russian immigrant. I didn't pick up on that until he spoke. He asked me what my accent was. Funny, I have an accent? I guess so. A mix if Michigan and Missouri. Perhaps "ten" comes out a little less like tehhhhn and more like tihhhn. I hope not, but it's possible.

And so I asked him where he was from, and he said "Russia, sad to say." I asked how long he had been in the US, and he said 33 months. You or I, we would've probably said, oh, about a year and a half. Or just over a year. This man knew to the month and told me so.

Then, the obvious question: "How do you like California?" He said, "California is like heaven." And he said, "Were you born in the US?" I said, "yes." He said, "Lucky." And then he reiterated, "I'm from Russia, sad to say."

Unfortunately, at this point we were on the freeway, and talking wasn't much of an option. My hearing isn't so great when there's lots of background noise, and he was concentrating on the road and the cell phone that would occasionally ring and into which he would occasionally respond in Russian (I'm guessing).

I met a grateful man today. I've given it some thought. He loves this country. I do, too.

No matter where I travel in America, it's still America. I've seen about half of the states, and while there are some obvious differences, there are more similarities. Such was illustrated again in slow motion to me when I took an afternoon walk from the hotel out into a residential area.

It started as a quest to find the eventual dinner restaurant, which I was never able to do. I was just itching for a bike because the roads are perfect for cycling. Wide enough to share with the cars. The weather, too. But, alas, no bike. Just Heather and her tennis shoes and a time limit because of the midday California sun.

I put in about 2 1/2 miles in just over a half an hour, I'd guess. I passed Electronic Arts and Oracle, and then I found myself in a completely residential neighborhood complete with a child in a green shirt piloting a skateboard. It seemed like Florida because that's something I can compare it to, but there were no palm trees. And then it just seemed like another day in another city that is still America.

And so few of us notice it, sad to say.

hln

Posted by: hln at 07:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 614 words, total size 3 kb.

The Story of the Wayward Parotid Gland

All stories have a beginning and supposedly an end. I'm not sure where or if this one ends, but I want to tell it now, twelve years later. It begins in the fall of 1991. I was 19 and a sophomore in college.

I've turned off comments for this post. If you do have something to say or a similar experience, my e-mail is angelweaving@hotmail.com.

UPDATE: Since this is now finally all written, and it's been linked to, I'm coming in after the fact to add the links to the other posts. Thanks for reading.

Part Two is located here.
Part Three is located here.
Part Four is located here
Part Five is located here

more...

Posted by: hln at 12:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1059 words, total size 7 kb.

October 26, 2003

Babies, Toddlers, and Food, Oh My

Is anyone really surprised by this study that finds that America's young children aren't eating a very healthful manner?

    Even before their second birthday, many American children are developing the same bad eating habits that plague the nation's adults — too much fat, sugar and salt and too few fruits and vegetables.

    A new study of more than 3,000 youngsters found significant numbers of infants and toddlers are downing french fries, pizza, candy and soda.
If I had gotten to this earlier in the weekend, I was going to address this at length, but Kelley at Suburban Blight has a very good take on this with an anecdotal twist, so I'll just link to that and be on my way.

hln

Posted by: hln at 09:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 133 words, total size 1 kb.

War and, Well, War

I'd like to note a couple of war-themed posts this evening. First, there's this post from Shark Blog that I found via Free Will. The author traces the words "imminent threat" through the media over time.

I link to Robert Prather a lot. There's a reason for this. He spends a lot of time putting together thought-provoking posts about economics and foreign policy. This particular post addresses thoughts and questions from a commentor from a previous post regarding Iraq, timing, justification, and the future.

hln

Posted by: hln at 09:51 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.

Taking One for the Bartender

A quiz, that is. Hey, Bartender. Here you go.

Going for the classic choice, none can go wrong with a classy Long Islander!
Congratulations! You're a Long Island Iced Tea!

What Drink Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

hln

Posted by: hln at 09:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

Origin of the Puppy Blender

I was talking on the phone with my mother yesterday, and she told me that her father, who was born in 1901, told her stories of the Igorots at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.

"Igorots?" said I. "I've never heard of them."

She proceeded to tell me that a tribe from the Phillipenes ATE DOGS at the World's Fair. Furthermore, the Dogtown neighborhood is aptly named BECAUSE OF THIS EVENT. Truly, I was shocked.

And then I made the connection. Glenn Reynolds and his family must be from St. Louis. The idea was born HERE!

Why else would I keep running into him? It's been a while now - almost a month - since our paths crossed. I need to hang out in Dogtown to find him.

At any rate, here's a bit more information, possibly more than you ever wanted to know.

    The head-hunting, dog-eating Igorots were the greatest attraction at the Philippine Exhibit, not only because of their novelty, the scanty dressing of the males and their daily dancing to the tom-tom beats, but also because of their appetite for dog meat which is a normal part of their diet.

    The city of St. Louis provided them a supply of dogs at the agreed amount of 20 dogs a week, but this did not appear to be sufficient, as they had also encouraged local people to bring them dogs which they bought to supplement their daily needs.

    The poaching of dogs became so common in the area near the Igorot Village such that the neighborhood was warned to watch for their dogs; even then, many dogs were disappearing in this neighborhood, angering and upsetting many people.

    There were obviously many people who objected to the supplying of dogs to the Igorots, particularly the St. Louis Women's Humane Society, but there were also many people, perhaps much more, who sympathized the Igorot's need for dog meat.

    As one Missourian, who had been to the Philippines and realized the difficulty of not being able to eat the food that one is used to, noted, "Every dog has his day, and every man his meat." He donated 200 fat Missouri dogs to the Igorots!
And there's MORE!

    I have no doubt that the name "hot dog" was picked as a label for the sausage-on-a-bun to attract the attention of potential customers at the Fair by riding on the popularity of the eating of dogs by the Igorots, which had inspired the creation of the name.
hln

Posted by: hln at 06:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 427 words, total size 3 kb.

Nothing Says "I'm an Individual" Like...

...posing naked with 449 of your "closest friends" in the name of art.

Hey, grandkids, that's me - see, number 332! I was so special.

hln

Posted by: hln at 12:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 38 words, total size 1 kb.

New Blog Showcase

Another week, more blogs. This week, I'd like to vote for Demosophia's long Totalitarianism post. Also, Sebastian Holsclaw talks abortion.

hln

Posted by: hln at 11:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.

October 25, 2003

Grumble Clothes Shopping Grumble

If you were to ask me the downside of being female, I would give you an immediate answer. It's shopping for clothing.

Rant warning in effect. Semi-long post.

more...

Posted by: hln at 01:42 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 857 words, total size 5 kb.

More Boobage Terminology

You guys think that manboob thing is getting old? Well, today I learned about the quadra-boob. (Blogspot blog - so Control+F quadra should get you there).

hln

Posted by: hln at 01:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 33 words, total size 1 kb.

October 24, 2003

Soreness and Hindsight

Some words of wisdom for you.

Men have more testosterone than women. We all know this - it makes them physically stronger than the female sex. I failed to remember that last evening.

Tuesday and Thursday evenings were Noggles-working-same-body-parts nights at the gym. On Tuesday, we worked our chests, and here I'm smart - I KNOW I'm not as strong as he is. Really, I do. We worked free weights - barbell that night. Put on the Heather weights, took them off, put on the Brian weights, blah blah blah. From incline to flat to decline presses and then pec flyes with a machine. This went well, but the disparity was apparent. I worked up to 60 or 65 pounds on the flat press, don't remember (bar plus 7 1/2 on each side or bar plus 10s). Brian's considerably stronger than that with his chest.

So, fine. Where I get into trouble is legs. My legs can really take some punishment, and, well, I tried to keep up with him. And, for the most part, I did. Mostly, er, ow.

We did a leg press machine, plate loaded. Started at 220 pounds - 15 reps I think. Then just kept adding 20 and slightly dropping reps. Up to 240. Up to 260. Knees back to almost touching chest. Then Brian jumped to 280, and, on my 4th set, I stayed at 270 and squeezed out 5 reps before I declared the legs to be jello. Then we went and did another press, an angled one (more emphasis on quads and thighs). Less weight here, but three solid sets at something like 180, 200, and 220. That's guessing, but I'm sure it's close and may be low.

Then hamstrings, calf muscles, and quads. We both wobbled out of there.

A day later, I can tell I'm going to be sore like I haven't been in weeks tomorrow. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. (Plus, now you know I can lift more than the average dude with my legs but definitely not my chest). Actually, about two weeks ago, I had a guy comment exactly that to me - that I was lifting more weight than him. I never know if that's true incredulity or general flirting, but I smile and am nice but curt (if that's possible) and serious still the same. All business at the gym unless I'm actually working with Brian, and then I loosen up a bit.

And, ladies, if you're fearing you'll bulk up if you lift heavy weights - don't. Remember this pic?

Tomorrow's agenda is my back, and probably no bike ride.

hln

Posted by: hln at 09:52 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 444 words, total size 3 kb.

Blackfive!

Jennifer interviewed Blackfive - check out the results.

hln

Posted by: hln at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 11 words, total size 1 kb.

October 23, 2003

Battle of the Bars

No, it's not what you think.

Rather, this post is all about carbohydrates, money, and, well, whatever else pops out of my head in the next 30 minutes.

You see it everywhere now, especially this past two or three years. LOW CARB! LOW CARB! Everywhere you look, it's carbs carbs carbs - from the radio commercials that now tout the glories of light beer to the weight-lifter Michelob Ultra water, er, I mean beer (or so I hear) billboards.

I've never really worried too much about carbohydrates as an isolated group. You know - those things that with exercise burn away. Stored glycogen in the muscles. I have, though, in recent years watched calories pretty closely as I honed my food intake plans and execution to where they are now, which, on a day where I'm especially diligent, might pass for a low/controlled carb diet (but I eat a WHOLE lot of fruit and salad with fruit, and there's no way I'd give up the Kashi, so perhaps not). I don't much care.

I got this idea a couple of weeks ago, though, because you see SO much marketing, as I mentioned earlier, for low-carb diets and dieters. I mean, there's a whole new section in the grocery store just filled with this stuff - pasta made out of soy flour, tiny tiny chocolate bars for a buck and a half apiece. Now, granted, there's a whole section of the store for me, too - sometimes a whole STORE (Whole Foods) - with the Luna Bars and the Genisoy Extreme Bars, and the whole wheat pasta. Mmmm. So, in this spirit, I bring you the side-by-side comparison of two chocolate bars (okay, so one's "Pecan Chews" - humor me).

In the upper corner, weighing in at ONE, yes, ONE ounce, I bring you the Russell Stover Low Carb Pecan Delights. And, in the bottom corner, weighing in at TWO ounces, the Reese's Fast Break. I've never eaten either of these - have no idea on taste. But, here you are - pictures.

lowCarb1.jpg
fastBreak1.jpg


Ooh, aah. What does all of this mean? Well, here's the other side of the wrappers. The top is the Pecan Delights, and the bottom is the Fast Break.

lowCarb2.jpg
fastBreak2.jpg
These are pretty large, so you can probably read this pretty well. Before I give you the breakdown in a table, though, I will, of course, assert that neither of these bars is a compact, bursting mound of nourishing manna. (I'll write a post about the Snickers Marathon as soon as I've held one in my hot little hand and later consumed one). But, here's how they stack up against each other...

(Forgive my ugly, boring table)
  Russell Stover Pecan Delights Reese's Fast Break
Weight 1 oz 2 oz
Calories 130 280
Total Fat 9 grams 13 grams
Saturated Fat 4.5 grams 4.5 grams
Protein 2 grams 5 grams
Carbohydrates 16 grams 35 grams
Price 99 cents 69 cents


Okay. Statistics. We can prove anything we'd like now, right? We could start with the "candy bar" that's cheaper than the "healthy low carb bar" if we believed that. We could, rather, talk about serving size of 1 oz versus 2 oz of something. Someone want to put up a placard with "Obesity" on it - bigger font, please. But, what I'd really like to focus on is equalizing the information - basically, what happens if you make the serving size the same - 2 oz.

This is basically the size of my mid-morning snack, but I usually don't exceed 200 calories. So, this would be for a "light" breakfast or lunch day - the day I consumed two packages of the Russell Stover's candies or one Fast Break. (Here's the table "equalized."

(Again, forgive my ugly, boring table)
  (2) Russell Stover Pecan Delights Reese's Fast Break
Weight 1 oz 2 oz
Calories 260 280
Total Fat 18 grams 13 grams
Saturated Fat 9 grams 4.5 grams
Protein 4 grams 5 grams
Carbohydrates 32 grams 35 grams
Price $1.98 69 cents


Okay. I went to a two-ounce serving rather than cutting the Fast Break in half because 130 calories is not ENOUGH to satisfy you as a meal - even a mid-morning snack. To illustrate, 130 calories is about what I consume every hour I'm on the bike when I take my little break. EVERY hour of biking. And that's after having eaten a full, nutritious breakfast.

What do you see here - wow, these are SURPRISNGLY similar. Actually, if you're like me and you watch saturated fat, you're nearly gawking. And the Reese's provides more protein, which is probably of no matter if you're on a low-carb diet - you're likely already getting plenty.

The packaging for the Russell Stover's Pecan Delights states "For Low Carb Dieters." On the flip side, it also states that the Net Effective Carbs - also often called Impact Carbs - are only 2.4 g per serving. Having never seen a "real" nutrition (not stilted toward a carb-controlled diet or really ANY diet but rather an overall nutrition site) even mention these little wonders, I tried to find a good definition anyway. So, here we have it - don't take it to the bank, though.

    The FDA previously allowed a disclaimer on all wrappers, which was an asterisk noted on the bar stating that glycerin, maltitol and fiber had been omitted from the total carb count as they have a neglible impact on your blood sugar.

    What dieters and diabetics are trying to avoid is a spike in their "blood sugar" as this releases insulin. Dieters are trying to avoid this, as insulin is a trigger to store fat. Diabetics must avoid this as well. Carbohydrates cause this spike in blood sugar. Simple carbs cause it quickly and Complex carbs more slowly. (Simple carbs are all sugar, pasta's, all white flour and rice. Complex carbs are veggies and salad greens)
That actually makes sense - a slower rise in blood sugar. But, still - they're CARBS. I saw another site advertise a meal replacement bar with 22 carbohydrates as "carb controlled" as it lauded its low "impact carbohydrate content."

I could go on and on. I won't. I'll consume these two sometime in the next two weeks (but not together, of course), and I'll point back to this post. About the only thing that could convince me that, of the two, the Pecan Delights are the way to go would be EXTRAORDINARY taste.

The info's just here for you to decide. And I'll provide the standard disclaimer now. Heather and Angelweave do not endorse chocolate bars such as these as good nutrition. If you say I did, I'll deny it. Treats are okay every once in a while, but they should not supplant more healthy, more important food options. Blah blah blather blah.

Good night.

UPDATE - 10/24/03. I ate the Pecan Clusters for a snack this evening. Wonderful - heavenly. When I opened the packaged, they seemed very small, but because of the carmel and basic consistency, they actually took a while to eat.

Definitely a good treat when they go on sale. I'm surprised I'm endorsing them.

hln

Posted by: hln at 10:37 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 1204 words, total size 8 kb.

Labels on Menus?

Our beloved federal government is hopefully just planting the seed and won't insist on laws to water the plant, but...

Yahoo reports that the government is "encouraging or even requiring" labels on restaurant menus to detail calories regarding food items.

Restaurants doing this voluntarily: fabulous! And do more than calories, please. I want info all the way down to fiber grams.

Unfortunately, this is spearheaded by the radical Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is probably why the word "require" even appears in this article. Yes, this same center that pretty much says, "if you're fat, it's not your fault." Gag. I have Restaurant Confidential, which I should've mentioned earlier in my post about calorie counters. There really isn't anything earthshaking in the book - a lot of it is common sense once you start learning about nutrition, but there may be one or two eye openers.

hln

Posted by: hln at 07:02 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 156 words, total size 1 kb.

Quick Links

No time to make this yesterday's letter of the day, but enough time to get 'em out here quick before making the morning commute to work

1) Alpha Patriot tells a tale of two immigrants.

2) Serenity of Serenity's Journal defines conservativism. It's very nicely done.

3) Wizbang: tch tch tch tch tch tch tch-ching!

4) Swirlspice shows us the mullet! Uh, yeah, I DO remember that joke we played on...

5) Mooooove away, said the cow. It seems as if this behavior is not limited to kangaroos any long.

6) Thanks to Boots and Sabres for the blogroll addition. I'll probably continue to sneak in via my RSS thingee, but I'll get you added soon (probably during the week next week).

7) CommonSense & Wonder discusses "Frankenfoods." This appears to be the same article I mentioned this weekend.

Here's Arthur Silbur on brains, weight, and food.

9) This is the "I laughed out loud" post for the morning - Thanks, PhysicsGeek. 10) I'm very late with this, but Jennifer interviewed Daniel, and here are the results.

11) Harvey links the same interview (Daniel's), but he has an interesting little thought at the end. I've been scratching my head all morning but while laughing.

hln

Posted by: hln at 07:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 210 words, total size 2 kb.

<< Page 1 of 6 >>
82kb generated in CPU 0.269, elapsed 0.3377 seconds.
91 queries taking 0.2668 seconds, 266 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.