Metric blindness
Via Slashdot, I found this interesting article about so-called "Metric" paper sizes (A4 and so on) that implies that those 0h-so-smartypants Euro types are way ahead of us North American Babbitt frontiersman warmongers. Oh, yeah, if they're so smart how come golf courses all over the world are still measured in yards? Even the new ones? I especially love the way the article slips in a "yet" whenever it says that not everybody uses the devilspawn Metric system. I'd be willing to bet in fifty years the good old English pound-inch-gallon system will still be alive and well.
And as to those paper sizes fitting so well with each other because the sides have the ratio of one to the square root of two: Am I missing something or couldn't that work in any measurement system, not just the Metric system? What's that got to do with the soulless, unnatural millimeter?
Friday, May 14, 2004
Disappointed
OK, I did it, I admit it. I got on a darn scale yesterday at lunch before my big new job interview. And I had GAINED weight. Now I know why the Cortislim people tell you not to weigh yourself for the first month. I could be wrong. I've noticed before that I weigh different amounts at lunchtime, dinner, and in the morning. Usually I'm lightest in the morning, before the cares of the day have burdened me. Who knows how much the anxiety of going to a job interview weighed me down? But my clothes aren't any looser. And the guy in the Cortislim radio ads seems to have changed his spiel to say that he's taking four pills a day instead of two. What does THAT mean? I'll stay the course, though, and do my two-pill a day routine for another few days, which will be one month. Then maybe I'll switch to four a day for a month. Of course then the 60-day money back guarantee will be expiring. HAH! JUST LIKE THEY PLANNED!! Or maybe not. Hope not. Is this just the 200 pound plateau? Why does my war against weight seem to parallel the War against Terror and to Liberate Iraq? Maybe by June 30 I can declare victory and buy new pants with a thirty-inch waist. Not that I really want to be that skinny again. Perhaps the shedded weight will take with it all the wisdom I've accumulated over the last thirty years. But wait a minute. If the foolishness sloughs off as well, I can start over with a clean slate. And a full plate. Sorry. I love to eat.
OK, I did it, I admit it. I got on a darn scale yesterday at lunch before my big new job interview. And I had GAINED weight. Now I know why the Cortislim people tell you not to weigh yourself for the first month. I could be wrong. I've noticed before that I weigh different amounts at lunchtime, dinner, and in the morning. Usually I'm lightest in the morning, before the cares of the day have burdened me. Who knows how much the anxiety of going to a job interview weighed me down? But my clothes aren't any looser. And the guy in the Cortislim radio ads seems to have changed his spiel to say that he's taking four pills a day instead of two. What does THAT mean? I'll stay the course, though, and do my two-pill a day routine for another few days, which will be one month. Then maybe I'll switch to four a day for a month. Of course then the 60-day money back guarantee will be expiring. HAH! JUST LIKE THEY PLANNED!! Or maybe not. Hope not. Is this just the 200 pound plateau? Why does my war against weight seem to parallel the War against Terror and to Liberate Iraq? Maybe by June 30 I can declare victory and buy new pants with a thirty-inch waist. Not that I really want to be that skinny again. Perhaps the shedded weight will take with it all the wisdom I've accumulated over the last thirty years. But wait a minute. If the foolishness sloughs off as well, I can start over with a clean slate. And a full plate. Sorry. I love to eat.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Americans are prisoners in our own Abu Ghraib
The obscene pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison have been compared by "conservative" commentators to the images popular culture on cable TV and in NEA-funded "art" expose Americans to every day. The obvious difference that compulsion is involved in the prison doesn't refute the basis of the comparison. If it is horrendous and unacceptable for prisoners to be exposed to sexual images, why is it any less horrendous for American taxpayers and TV watchers to be exposed to images like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, "Piss Christ" and profane and obscene "performance art", simulated sex and constant foul language in hip-hop videos and booming rap filth streaming from loud cars at stoplights? Is it any wonder some of us feel like prisoners in our own country?
The obscene pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison have been compared by "conservative" commentators to the images popular culture on cable TV and in NEA-funded "art" expose Americans to every day. The obvious difference that compulsion is involved in the prison doesn't refute the basis of the comparison. If it is horrendous and unacceptable for prisoners to be exposed to sexual images, why is it any less horrendous for American taxpayers and TV watchers to be exposed to images like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, "Piss Christ" and profane and obscene "performance art", simulated sex and constant foul language in hip-hop videos and booming rap filth streaming from loud cars at stoplights? Is it any wonder some of us feel like prisoners in our own country?
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Can I be (Gasp!) Wrong??
Paul Campos of the Guardian has an interesting article about weight loss whys and wherefores. Of course, being a Guardianista, he blows it at the end by relating America's "obsession" with weight loss to SUV's and "Imperialism". Fool. And isn't it the svelte, sophisticated Europeans who are always complaining about what fat, low-class pigs Americans are? Then American liberals breathlessly and shamelessly copy their attitudes, just like Mencken noticed a century ago.
Nevertheless, he makes some good points about the lack of real evidence that being fat hurts anyone. I am losing weight, though, so I can get strong and feel attractive and energetic. It probably is a class thing, to some degree. But it also feels good to be thin. Now I'm going to worry about why thin feels better, why I obsess about losing weight. But I shouldn't.
Paul Campos of the Guardian has an interesting article about weight loss whys and wherefores. Of course, being a Guardianista, he blows it at the end by relating America's "obsession" with weight loss to SUV's and "Imperialism". Fool. And isn't it the svelte, sophisticated Europeans who are always complaining about what fat, low-class pigs Americans are? Then American liberals breathlessly and shamelessly copy their attitudes, just like Mencken noticed a century ago.
Nevertheless, he makes some good points about the lack of real evidence that being fat hurts anyone. I am losing weight, though, so I can get strong and feel attractive and energetic. It probably is a class thing, to some degree. But it also feels good to be thin. Now I'm going to worry about why thin feels better, why I obsess about losing weight. But I shouldn't.
Just in time!
Whew! Looks like I decided to get rid of my toxic fat just as more evidence came out that fat is incredibly bad for you. So why are fat people so jolly, anyway? I know! Because they can eat anything they want! Seriously, the article could be an ad for Cortislim:
One of the main ingredients of Cortislim is something called "Leptiplex" (TM) which underwhelms when you see it's just extracts of green tea leaf and bitter orange peel. But it could be just what you need to combat the chemical signals being sent to the rest of your body from the fat, according to the AP. And they never deceive. Do they?
Once again, it seems that I have taken to something just as it becomes wildly popular. Atkins was like that. Is it perhaps the other way around? Does a particular ideology or lifestyle become wildly popular because I adopt it? Hmm. (or "heh"))
Whew! Looks like I decided to get rid of my toxic fat just as more evidence came out that fat is incredibly bad for you. So why are fat people so jolly, anyway? I know! Because they can eat anything they want! Seriously, the article could be an ad for Cortislim:
The first real inkling that fat is more than just inert blubber was the discovery 10 years ago of the substance leptin. Scientists were amazed to find that this static-looking flesh helps maintain itself by producing a chemical that regulates appetite.
One of the main ingredients of Cortislim is something called "Leptiplex" (TM) which underwhelms when you see it's just extracts of green tea leaf and bitter orange peel. But it could be just what you need to combat the chemical signals being sent to the rest of your body from the fat, according to the AP. And they never deceive. Do they?
Once again, it seems that I have taken to something just as it becomes wildly popular. Atkins was like that. Is it perhaps the other way around? Does a particular ideology or lifestyle become wildly popular because I adopt it? Hmm. (or "heh"))
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