uk comic relief

a spot that ricky gervais did about kenya for the british comic relief. it's 8 1/2 minutes, but watch it all the way to the end, it's worth it...

go bruins!

the tournament starts in just a few minutes. boy, do i love me some march madness. i've got my "howland is my homeboy" shirt on and i'm ready to cheer on my guys! goooooooooooo bruins!

the corn mafia has found me

and it didn't take long.

so i received an interesting comment on yesterday's hfcs post. apparently, someone calling themselves marylandbluecrab has found my humble little blog. nobody reads it except my mom and my aunt and a random canuck or two, so i found it really interesting that someone would leave a comment on my hfcs post, especially one that so resoundingly stated that there's absolutely nothing wrong with hfcs. hmmm... a blank blog with a profile that simply states "female, marketing, washington, dc." could it be any more obvious that my new blog reader is some toady working for a marketing firm paid by a hcfs industry group or perhaps the american beverage association to search the interwebs for bad references to hfcs on a regular basis and post responses that spout their propaganda?

and i beg to differ, marylandbluecrab, that "there's no study out there..." sure, studies that are funded by the american beverage institute and the corn refiners association support your claim. but scientists in the pocket of tobacco companies said smoking is safe for you, too. what about independent studies, such as this one: "Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity," in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 79, No. 4, 537-543, April 2004)? the study's authors state in their abstract:

"The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis. In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain."

simply put, it appears that hfcs doesn't trigger the signals that your body puts out to make you feel full, as opposed to glucose, which does. so, you can drink a lot more hfcs-sweetened coke before you begin to feel full than you would if it were sweetened with sugar. seems like a perfect solution for coke, now doesn't it? yes, americans are chronic, excessive consumers of food (and many other things). but you can't ignore the correlation between the increasing prevalence (i'd almost call it ubiquity) of hfcs in our food and the corresponding rise in obesity and diabetes in this country.

so, welcome, corn mafia. happy reading! i'm glad at least that someone not related to me is reading this blog. ;)

UPDATE: i'm not the only one who has had this experience. check out this guy's article. you can see another corn mafia response in the comments to his article.

high fructose corn syrup

so, i have decided that high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) is the root of all evil. it's in absolutely everything and it appears to be really bad for you. the rise of the use of hfcs and the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in this country have happened at the same time. coincidence? i think not. ever the conspiracy theorist, i'll also point out to you the link between giant agribusiness (adm, cargill) and u.s. government corn subsidies and sugar tariffs that make sugar prohibitively expensive to import.

i'm really sick of being the victim of giant corporations' greed, so i have decided to give hfcs up for lent and see if i can stick with it after. the problem is, hfcs is in freakin' everything and lots of stuff you wouldn't expect. cokes and sodas, candy and off-the-shelf baked goods: it's pretty easy to guess that those items are loaded with the stuff and are pretty easy to avoid. but hfcs lurks everywhere, like in ketchup (which i discovered after eating some fries the other day) and in the mix for the cappuccino for my office's flavia coffee machine (realized that one several days into the process; very upsetting to have to give that up).

i'll be posting lists of products that i find it in as i go along and maybe some articles about hfcs. if i end up dead, you'll know it's the corn mafia and will avenge me, right?

you're on my list

look who stephen colbert has put on notice now...



who knew stephen and i hated the exact same things!?

gravity

john mayer doing a live version of gravity. the audio quality is so-so, but you get the point...

our disposable society

i was just kvetching the other day about the countless plastic bottles associated with my newfound bikram yoga habit: bottles of water; bottles of gatorade; bottles of vitamin water; bottles of propel fitness water. and then the path to freedom urban homestead folks had this little post: bottled water is like driving a hummer. they suggest purchasing one of their stainless steel water bottles as an alternative (yes, these hippies are serious capitalists). i'd try that, except after a bikram yoga class, i'd expect that my water would be hot enough to make tea! i've been lugging around one of those faux-nalgene bottles for a while, but if i forget it, i just buy the water before my class. now, i'm going to make a serious commitment to keep it by my side and try not to be tempted by the fancy vitamin waters and sports drinks. i'm sure by pocketbook will be happier, too.

how i buy it

"At age 41 you will die from wounds delivered by a blender after trying to make your sixteenth magarita [sic] of the day. (And it's on 3:00pm, shame on you!)"

The Amazing Death Predictor would seem frighteningly prescient, except i drink my margaritas on the rocks, not blended.

more knitting

a friend of mine is having a baby, so i thought it would be fun to knit a baby blanket. i'm kind of scarf-ed out for now, you see. although a baby blanket is kind of like a big, wide scarf, now that i think about it. anyhoo, here is the finished product:



and here is some detail:



for all of you knitters out there, here's the specs. it's a seed stitch border with seed stitch "spacer rows" (for lack of a better word) and stockinette stitch squares in between. it's nice because it looks like patchwork, but it's not separate squares (after two granny square afghans, i vowed never again would i stitch another blanket together). the pattern called for merino wool, but i used a 50/50 merino-cotton blend so it would be nice and soft. i thought i had my gauge correct, but it turned out a little bigger than the 21 x 24 inches; mine's more like 25 x 27 inches, or so. it could have something to do with the cotton blend. i knit it on size 3 circular needles.

this project became quite an obsession, as i started a little late and bit off a little more than i could chew. i was knitting for about two solid weeks from when i got home at night until i went to bed and at every spare moment in between: at lunch, on the bus, during half-time at the basketball games! there are a bunch of mistakes, but i don't think the baby will notice and hopefully it makes the gift that much more "charming."

a poll...

in which order do you put your shoes and socks on?
	sock-shoe-sock-shoe
	sock-sock-shoe-shoe
	shoe-shoe-sock-sock, like jebus and president bush intended
	don't know, don't care
pollcode.com free polls

?se habla espanol, suc "student" athletes?

i fear this blog is fast becoming one long rant about why i hate suc, but they just make it so easy. apparently, it turns out that some of their football players, the dumbass song girl who cheered for a texas touchdown and several other athletes can't hack the courses at suc, so they tried to take the easy way out with a guaranteed a (or b, if you're lazy and don't show up for class) with a former suc grad who teaches an easy spanish class at l.a. trade tech.

rabbit kicks snakes a*$

...or why i will never, ever walk under a tree again, ever.

oh please oh please oh please

suc may have their national championship taken away because of reggie bush and his greed. ha ha! [say in nelson voice]

video game violence?

so bunky and i have gotten a little hooked on the new xbox game viva pinata. it's vaguely japanese, in that it is a mix of strange and cute. however i'm getting a little worried that it's starting to affect us in the wrong way. our new favorite phrase? "i'm going to whack that guy until the candy comes out." hmmm...

arron afflalo's game winning shot against suc

new year...

...new version of blogger, new mp3 player, new laptop on the way.

so, i finally switched to the new version of blogger. or, as mooncrazy said it, "jumped to hyperspace." [have you ever really thought about how much "star wars" has influenced our culture?] let's see how this switch goes. i have recently found myself concurring with mooncrazy's recent rant on the topic; blogger is not very high on my list of favorite people right now. what with all of its recent problems, it's like blogger's getting treated like a discarded wife now that google's gone all mid-life-crisis and got youtube as its, younger, hotter, more popluar trophy wife. get it together, google. i'm just sayin'.

so as not to sound like a complaining harpy, i'll turn this post toward the more positive topic of my new mp3 player that was a gift from my bunky for christmas. as you may recall, i killed my ipod a few months ago. i thought it had come back to life for a brief period, but that was apparently a cruel trick inflicted upon me at the hands of the ipod gods, because it's definitely dead now. so, anyway, bunk surprised me with a shiny, new creative zen vision m for christmas. very generous, wouldn't you agree? especially, considering he also got me a new food processor which could liquefy a small planet in about 30 seconds. apparently, i'm spoiled! :) anyway, i'm just getting used to the player. it's no ipod, but that's not a bad thing, because this player is compatible with the rhapsody monthly subscription service. that means i don't have to buy too much new music because i can put as many songs or albums as i want on my player as long as i keep my subscription current. it's a good way to discover new music that you like (like, arctic monkeys) and yet not waste money on something that you didn't like (umm...belle & sebastian) and fill out holes in your record collection (can you say everything otis redding ever recorded). they don't have everything, though (dmb, beatles). the zen also can display photos and videos, which i didn't have the ability to do before, so i'm looking forward to playing with those features.

so, what have i been listening to on my new player? right now, i'm stuck on the new john mayer album, "continuum." i tried to like john mayer before (circa "heavier things," but couldn't really get into him. this new album, however, is great. first, it's an album - all of the songs are good, not just one or two. second, it was fairly accessible, fairly quickly. i don't have a lot of patience and if something doesn't catch me right away, i'm done. jm seems to be branching into a more bluesy direction. hespent some time with bb king recently, and you can tell. skip the radio-friendly "waiting on the world to change" single, although it's good (and i really like the line "and when you trust your television, what you get is what you got, cause when they own the information, oh they can bend it all they want") the standout tracks on the album are: "gravity," "the heart of life," "bold as love," "in repair" and "i'm gonna find another you." his live album (as john mayer trio) is also very good. his singing has a different quality, not the pretty, lyrical voice on his album, but a grittier, stevie ray vaughan (but on key) quality and he just generally rocks harder. anyway, give the "continuum" album a listen, i don't think you'll be disappointed.

i can knit

so i've picked up the trendy new chick hobby of knitting. see stich and bitch. i had been knitting scarves like a madwoman when i decided, "why should my friends and family be the only ones to suffer from my new hobby, when i can torture my dogs, too?" and thus began the search for an easy dog sweater to knit. i found this one online. i like it a lot; it is quite simple and only took me about a day. granted, it was all christmas eve day on the couch watching christmas movies, but it was a day nonetheless. max was the first victim. here he is modeling his new garment...


squinty mc squintersons


side view

multy, you're next. mwaaa haa haaaa!

life is good

a client sent some see's candy to the office and i ate BOTH the chocolate butters. i'm just sayin'.

bollywood thriller

this is the best thing i've seen all year...



thanks to reynolds for bringing this into my life.

square wreath

we were at the flower market this saturday and i found a square, boxwood wreath. one trip to moskatel's later and this is the result...



[this makes more sense if you know that i also have square dinner plates]