reunion diet

I just found out I have until November 28th for my reunion diet goal.

That’s quite a long way from now. Maybe I should expand my mission? Reunion Ferrari? Reunion ZZ-Top-Beard? What else?

 

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swine all the time

Near the end of day two in Hong Kong we collectively noticed there is an awful lot of pork in our meals. Pork dumplings at breakfast, sweet fried pork dumplings for dessert, minced pork Shanghai dishes and on and on and on. I thought about it for a moment and realized that I had eaten some form of pork at every single meal since I arrived.

Immediately I took it on as a challenge to see if I could eat pork at each meal for my entire ten day stay. I’m about half way there and I’m optimistic I’ll succeed in my mission.

Apparently there is historical rational for this phenomenon. Basically every other kind of meat has gone through some kind of phase of health related disaster at one time or another. Currently you can’t get fresh duck due to some kind of outbreak for instance.

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coke light

So over here in China, we’ve all been noticing that the Diet Coke, which they call Coke Light, is much much more like regular Coke than what we get in the US. We’ve almost had drinks sent back at the restaurant because we were convinced it could not possibly be diet.

Enter Google.

I searched for the “sodium cyclamate” which the can listed next to Aspartame (NutraSweet) and discovered Stevia

Its name is Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni. … 300-400 times sweeter than sugar and not artificial anything. Stevia is 100% Mother Nature in the form of a green herb plant of the Aster/Chrysanthemum family, the leaves of which yield its naturally-occurring sweet substance, glycoside, or stevioside. Best of all, it has been shown in numerous research studies to have no ill effects on the human body. In fact, in China, Stevia is also used to aid digestion, lose weight and even stimulate the appetite. It is also reported that Stevia powder heals external skin sores while drinking Stevia tea reduces mouth sores and improve oral health. And if that wasn’t enough, Stevia cooks, bakes, sprinkles, and tastes, amazingly like real sugar, maybe even better.

The FDA has refused to approve it as a food additive in the US. There are numerous other articles which talk about the various potential health hazards. We batted around the idea that the Sugar/NutraSweet industry might be fighting it behind the scenes. Who knows, but I sure hope they figure it out – this stuff is delicious.

 

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super duper job, Iraq is a shining beacon in the middle east – oh wait

 “Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your leadership. You are courageously  leading our nation in the war against terror. You’re doing a superb job. You are a strong Secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.” -Bush 


Dick Cheney says, “Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had. . . . People should get off his case and let him do his job.” [via Paul Krugman]


Really best ever? Huh. I disagree.


UPDATE: Also read Slate’s War Stories – Fred Kaplan

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election timing

I have long suspected that Karl Rove has been dreaming about engineering a high profile arrest close to the election. Even if they captured somebody now they’d probably just come up with some bogus reason to hold him in secret until the political climate is more attractive for maximum possible votes.

Just to pass on some added information, about which we’ll be saying more. There is chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging ‘high value’ al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten days of July, 2004.

— Josh Marshall [via Talking Points Memo]
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hong kong – the arrival

So I made it to the other side of the world. The flight is fucking long – no joke. 21 hours with a stiff head-wind. Thankfully our otherwise stingy company flies us business class internationally so we get to sit upstairs on the 747 and sip champaign and eat warmed nuts. Personal on-demand video provided me with a few movie options and I chose 21 Grams based on a recommendation from my traveling coworker compainion. I liked the movie, but I don’t know if I would have made it through the whole thing if I had not been captive. (Side note, did you know that Benecio Del Toro is the “attorney” in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?) I started reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson and browsed Cargo magazine, which has been described to me as a Lucky for men.

The buffet at our hotel (Kowloon Shangri La) has a diverse “station” selection which can easily induce over-indulged, cross-culteral food sickness. An omlette does not go well with mu-shu Pork. Similar to the KFC/Taco Bell where you can’t decide so you opt for the #12 taco/fried chicken combo and regret it big time afterwards.

Photos forthcoming.

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F1

ferrari  I’m a big Formula One fan. Tivo is taking care of recording this Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix race, but I won’t be home for two weeks to watch it. The one side benefit of the almost total lack of state-side F1 coverage is that most likely I’ll be able to make it that whole time without finding out who wins and spoiling it for me.


 


schumachercorey


Side F1 note: When I first met Hollie’s brother (1995?) who introduced me to the sport, he called me Schumacher cause I kindof look like him. He still calls me Schumacher, which is fine by me because he has since become the all-time winningest driver in history and makes up near $100million/year.

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Binary scale

I was just introduced to the binary scale. Assign 0 for you wouldn’t, 1 for you would. Excruciatingly beautiful in design and execution.

Replace your outdated, inefficient 1-10 opposite sex ranking today.

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tee hee

Just in case I haven’t offended enough people yet.

Average IQ by state and how they voted in 2000

































































































































































































































































  State Avg. IQ 2000
1 Connecticut 113 Gore
2 Massachusetts 111 Gore
3 New Jersey 111 Gore
4 New York 109 Gore
5 Rhode Island 107 Gore
6 Hawaii 106 Gore
7 Maryland 105 Gore
8 New Hampshire 105 Bush
9 Illinois 104 Gore
10 Delaware 103 Gore
11 Minnesota 102 Gore
12 Vermont 102 Gore
13 Washington 102 Gore
14 California 101 Gore
15 Pennsylvania 101 Gore
16 Maine 100 Gore
17 Virginia 100 Bush
18 Wisconsin 100 Gore
19 Colorado 99 Bush
20 Iowa 99 Gore
21 Michigan 99 Gore
22 Nevada 99 Bush
23 Ohio 99 Bush
24 Oregon 99 Gore
25 Alaska 98 Bush
26 Florida 98 Bush
27 Missouri 98 Bush
28 Kansas 96 Bush
29 Nebraska 95 Bush
30 Arizona 94 Bush
31 Indiana 94 Bush
32 Tennessee 94 Bush
33 North Carolina 93 Bush
34 West Virginia 93 Bush
35 Arkansas 92 Bush
36 Georgia 92 Bush
37 Kentucky 92 Bush
38 New Mexico 92 Gore
39 North Dakota 92 Bush
40 Texas 92 Bush
41 Alabama 90 Bush
42 Louisiana 90 Bush
43 Montana 90 Bush
44 Oklahoma 90 Bush
45 South Dakota 90 Bush
46 South Carolina 89 Bush
47 Wyoming 89 Bush
48 Idaho 87 Bush
49 Utah 87 Bush
50 Mississippi 85 Bush


[Via MetaFilter “Morons for Bush?”]


UPDATE: Great quote from the comments on MetaFilter


It is well known that IQ is not a relevant way to measure “true” intelligence, and that many factors go into determining the political makeup of a stare’s electorate, including historic tradition, perceived affinity with the candidate, differences in campaign targetting, media influence, and haha ha hahaha ha ha ha!

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