Posts tagged #life

Parametric gridfinity generator. Generate custom gridfinity bins and baseplates, openGrid components, multiboard, and honeycomb storage wall then download the STL or place an order to purchase.

Easily document cables and wiring harnesses. Contribute to wireviz/WireViz development by creating an account on GitHub.

Online panel cutting optimization software. Generate optimized cutting patterns based on the available stock sheets by nesting the required parts.

Curaçao Jews Home page –Learn about the Jews of Curaçao: their rich history, magnificent synagogues, historic cemeteries, fascinating museums, and other delightful other sites. Find everything you need to plan a visit. CuracaoJews.org is an initiative of the Jewish Cultural Historical Museum as we approach 400 years of Jewish life recorded on the island of Curaçao.

The Best Smokers Under $500 for Ribs, Pork, Brisket, and More –Whether you want a wood, charcoal, gas, pellet, or electric model, we have our top picks for smokers for less than $500.

Camp Chef Smoke Vault 24″ Review –Many gas smokers have limited temperature range and can’t get down and hold low and slow temps of 225⁰. We reviewed this big beauty that can go down to 160⁰ and crank up to 400⁰! AND it converts to natural gas so you don’t have to worry about you LP tank running out. We tested this model and gave it our AmazingRibs.com Platinum Medal.

Large Selection of strong and powerful neodymium magnets. Great Prices. Discs, Rings, Cones, Cylinders, Arcs, Cubes, Rectangles, Squares, and much more.

Wooden machines and contraptions

May 10, 2022 at 03:11PM

DIY Garden Poles Build your own garden poles and personalize your outdoor space. April 3, 2022 at 10:51PM

How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell An hour’s drive from Wichita, Kansas, in a little town called Potwin, there is a 360-acre piece of land with a very big problem. January 5, 2022 at 04:52PM

For finesse and fine work, hand tools get the job done. Here’s where to start.

Every Woodworker—From Rookie to Pro—Needs These Essential Hand Tools in Their Arsenal – Wood For finesse and fine work, hand tools get the job done. Here’s where to start. October 12, 2021 at 05:18AM

Choosing the right wall anchors – FineWoodworking Mario Rodriguez has gathered a range of wall anchors from toggles, to screws, to butterfly anchors and talks about how they work, where they are best used, and how to install them. October 10, 2021 at 02:51PM

How To Make a DIY Modern Birdhouse Learn how to make a birdhouse two ways. A modern, handmade birdhouse that doesn’t require power tools, and a mid-century modern birdhouse. June 19, 2021 at 11:47PM

The Sudden Rise of the Lab-Leak Theory Scientists and political commentators are no longer dismissing the possibility that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory. What changed? May 29, 2021 at 01:00AM

Birdhouse Dimensions and Sizes Learn why size matters for birdhouses. Includes a table of best birdhouse dimensions for different species. May 29, 2021 at 01:13AM

The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences. May 29, 2021 at 01:16AM

Grilling Food & Grilling Tips | Kingsford | Kingsford® Find out what\’s the best way to charcoal grill and smoke your favorite cuts of meat, fish, and veggies.

Groan but ok, funny

This is worth looking at: A couple of years ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to roast a whole chicken, just because. I wandered around my local Ralphs for a few minutes looking for poultry that hadn’t already been turned into individually shrink-wrapped meat units before asking for help. Link: http://ift.tt/1hHdpX1 My Blog

I feel really bad for President Obama and I am still a big fan. But. As we all know now, this is a total disaster, on a lot of levels. For first hand experience, I tried to create an account on Healthcare.gov about the middle of October. After several tries I managed to do it. Yesterday I tried to log into the site to see how things were going, and after several tries and I managed to log in. But I didn’t get too far before I got a 404 error.

Those of us who have worked on, or seen close up how a complex “web site” is built have a feeling of how complicated this is. And coupled with other factors and complications (like politics and buareaucratic ineptitude) we can’t say this is not a movie...

Really, this is NO JOKING MATTER

Rep. Upton said that “looking serious and nodding our heads a lot” contributed to the illusion that committee members had even scant comprehension of what was being discussed. “At the end of the day, a lot of it came down to not asking the questions you really wanted to ask,” he said. “Like, ‘What exactly is a Web site?’” (from Congress Spends Several Hours Pretending to Understand Internet : The New Yorker)

Who knew that a story about behind-the-scenes of a big restaurant could be gripping, but this one is. I guess it’s a combination of a fascinating operation with outstanding writing. Check it out.

22 Hours in Balthazar – NYTimes.com:

Produce comes in, too — 50-pound cases of russets from Idaho stacked head high and six deep; spinach, asparagus, celery, mushrooms, tomatoes — as do dry goods, dairy and some 500 pounds of insanely expensive peanut oil for the French fries. The restaurant employs six stewards to deal with deliveries and storage alone; they weigh goods and check them against invoices, putting everything in its proper place, keeping the Health Department happy. At a typical restaurant, as much as one-third of the overhead goes to food costs, and so efficiency is an imperative. “Monday, you’ll see,” Kelvin Arias, the head steward, tells me, “all the walk-ins will be empty.”

Pretty amazing that the govt is actually placing all the code for healthcare.gov on github for all of us to inspect. There’s only one commit, and it’s 3 months old. Also there’s a reasonable amount of developer information available.

Somehow I suspect that it is not all there or how fast it will be updated, but still whatever’s there is a big step forward from the SOP of the past!

...

How much do you want to bet that somewhere someone in this country a malware or other attack is being launched against the new “Obamacare” Web site?

I have great sympathy for the team(s) that put up that web site, back end and other support infrastructure for this site. And in the best of possible conditions there will be hiccups in deploying such a complex system. Add to that that at 8:00am today everyone on earth knew that the site was up and that they could start playing with it, and you are facing a real challenge. So don’t be surprised if there’s a small or big hiccup in the first few weeks and months.

But it occurred to me that over and above that, there ...

My favorite mustard these days is the Dijon from Trader Joes’s!

The Yellow Commodity Hotter Than Gold – Yahoo! Finance:

Mustard has always been seen as the perfect, zesty accompaniment to the all-American hot dog. But now it’s proving to be hot in an altogether different sense.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zngK13FMgXM&w=560&h=315]

Can Cholesterol Drugs Undo Exercise Benefits? – NYTimes.com:

An important new study suggests that statins, the cholesterol-lowering medications that are the most prescribed drugs in the world, may block some of the fitness benefits of exercise, one of the surest ways to improve health.

Well these stories appear from time to time, either saying it’s good or bad for you. What’s an addict to do?

“Coffee isn’t just warm and energizing, it may also be extremely good for you. In recent years, scientists have studied the effects of coffee on various aspects of health and their results have been nothing short of amazing.” (from Lifehacker)

Just tonight I squirted a few shots of Sriracha on my multi-layered-grilled-vegetable parmigiana. And now there’s an article about Sriracha in Business Week!

“…Like ketchup, sriracha is a generic term, its name coming from a port town in Thailand where the sauce supposedly was conceived. When people in America talk about sriracha, what they’re really talking about is Huy Fong’s version. It’s been name-checked on The Simpsons, is featured prominently on the Food Network, and has inspired a cottage industry of knockoffs, small-batch artisanal homages, and merchandise rangi...

There’s something about this Gruve product that bugs me:

“The Gruve Solution is a new, completely revolutionary approach to weight management that incorporates the landmark discovery of N.E.A.T. (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) which is all the calories one burns while doing normal (non-exercise) daily activity. Scientific research over 10 years found that increasing the N.E.A.T in daily life results in sustainable weight loss and a dramatic improvement in overall health. In other words, increasing daily N.E.A.T. activity is more effective at achieving sustainable weight loss and control than short term intense exercise!”

All the sup...

This is just funny. Ok it’s also a little scary as I love Calamari!

“Calamari is on one side of the plate, sliced hog rectums are on the other. Which is which? We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgangers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.” (from This American Life)

From the New York Times, an article by Nick Kristof, describing a real-life story of a friend of his and health care.

Whenever I hear, “We have the best health care in the world”, I think of stories like this. It is a travesty that in a wealthy country like the USA, there are 48 million Americans uninsured. Some 27,000 Americans between the ages of 25 and 65 die prematurely every year because they don’t have health insurance. From the article:

“Let’s just stipulate up front that Scott blew it. Other people are so...

You know the old joke that today they say something is good for you, tomorrow it’s bad, and the day after it’s good again? Recently there was a lot of press that sitting 3 hours a day could take years off your lifespan. “Sitting for More Than Three Hours a Day Cuts Life Expectancy”, so said the Wall Street Journal:

“Sitting down for more than three hours a day can shave a person’s life expectancy by two years, even if he or she is physically active and refrains from dangerous habits like smoking, according to a study to be published on Tuesday in the online journal BMJ Open.” (from ...

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. ‘House’ for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa.’ ‘Pencil,’ however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz.’

A student asked, ‘What gender is ‘computer’?’

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that ‘computer’ should definitely be of the feminine gender (‘la computadora’), because:

No one but their creator understands their internal log...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRC0nsjtKQ&w=420&h=315]

I saw this article in the Sunday New York Timestoday which starts promising but then becomes a bit ridiculous and makes a mockery of serious research, in my humble opinion.

It starts with a claim that sounds plausible:

“Recent advances in understanding what psychologists call “embodied cognition” indicate a surprisingly direct link between mind and body. It turns out that people draw on their bodily experiences in constructing their social reality....

Do you believe that you require 8 hours of sleep to be rested and effective. Well, in this really interesting article in the BBC News it seems like that pattern might not really be the most natural.Some experiments conducted came up with some interesting findings:

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.

“It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second fou...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILhiW76B3H8&w=560&h=315]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&w=560&h=315]

Funny insider lingo. I am sure you’d be able to do a similar video for Washington DC (politics) and L.A. (movies) and Kendal Square (Biotech). My word is computers. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8zFANeBGQ]

I’d be the last one to wade into commentary on religious topics, so I just share this link because for me it was interesting reading:

“For those who are committed to being a shomer Torah, I leave you with the following thought. If women rabbis or omitting a blessing are greater threats to Orthodox Judaism, and thus more worthy of collective outrage than are theft, violence, corruption, and abuse, then perhaps the Orthodox society has outlived its halakhic usefulness.” (from The Selective Sanctimony of Orthodox Judaism)

I am going to share my secret technology for losing weight. It’s a mental exercise that really works. It is inspired by the neuro-economics concept of “anchoring“. Here’s how it works:

Every morning you step on your scale, right? I do. Well let’s say my weight yesterday was 171lbs. Let’s say my goal weight is 165lbs. Before stepping on the scale, I think “165” and visualize seeing “165” on the read out. Then I step on the scale. I

see, let’s say, 170.5lbs. I am not surprised, but part of my subconscious is disappointed and I am re-motivated to keep working on it. My focus and motivation is pumped up. It works! (...

Ned Batchelder, my pal, points out that:

“Like the Super Bowl, Christmas is one concentrated day. For celebrants, it is the only thing happening that day, and it’s preceded by weeks of anticipation and preparation. Another similarity is the zeal with which businesses try to piggy-back on the excitement.” (from Ned Batchelder’s Blog)

He ends sweetly:

“While the daylight passes as it normally would, the evenings are spent specially, and the entire week is tinged with a special feeling because of it. If you have to miss one night for another reason, that’s OK, you’ve got others you can celebrate.” (from Ned Batchelder’s Blog)

(yeah, you heard me, I called Ned sweet 🙂

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzh-TKzXN2k&w=560&h=315]

Kashi is the new hot breakfast cereal. Wait, let me rephrase that: Kashi is a breakfast cereal that is getting very popular. It portrays an image of healthfulness and kind of a crunchy scrappy small company attitude. Turns out that they are just part of Kellogs Company.Oh Well!

From the New York Times, How Exercise Benefits the Brain:

“For some time, scientists have believed that BDNF helps explain why mental functioning appears to improve with exercise. However, they haven’t fully understood which parts of the brain are affected or how those effects influence thinking. The Irish study suggests that the increases in BDNF prompted by exercise may play a particular role in improving memory and recall.” (from NYT)

This is too funny. Here’s a taste, but you should read the whole article saying how an Israeli should adapt to living in the United States. For example, this is about the express line in the super market:

“The express line operates differently in American grocery stores, and might take some getting used to. The 10 item limit is strictly enforced. It would not be considered normal for you to haggle and argue with the sales clerk and to raise your voice because you only have 11 items. It is even less likely that as you stood your ground, the people in line behind you would start to call you names and to yell at t...

Here’s how we make Garoza (Charoset) in Curaçao.

Trust me, add a little horseradish, a couple of matzah, delicious!

Michael Arringtonis a famous Tech-pundit-commentator-blogger who recently left or got fired from AOL because he wanted to be a VC while being a journalist covering the companies he is investing in.

One way or another that led him and AOL and the super-popular blog he started, TechCrunch, to part ways. All that is interesting back story.

Arrington recently wrote a very ...

From Science Daily: Couch Potatoes Beware: Too Much Time Spent Watching TV Is Harmful to Heart Health.

“Data show that compared to people who spend less than two hours each day on screen-based entertainment like watching TV, using the computer or playing video games, those who devote more than four hours to these activities are more than twice as likely to have a major cardiac event that involves hospitalization, death or both.” (from Couch Potatoes Beware: Too Much Time Spent Watching TV Is Harmful to Heart Health

Another old-wives-tail bunked. (opposite of de-bunked?) “At the end of the study period, the group that regularly gargled had a nearly 40 percent decrease in upper respiratory tract infectionscompared with the control group, and when they did get sick, “gargling tended to attenuate bronchial symptoms,” the researchers wrote.” (from New York Times)

I stopped posting thoughts about the mess that all of congress has made of health care reform. There are daily articles in the news to confirm the dysfunction in government today. Here are key quotes two from today which again hit home. I recommend that you read both articles in full:Health Care Letdown in the New York Times and The Spirit of Sympathy in The New York Times ...

An article from Canadian Healthcare Technology notes that US Healthcare wastes up to $800 billion a year. I don’t disbelieve this article but it doesn’t make me not want to start with healthreform now that it seems possible that it might happen this year, warts and all. One might even say that that it shows how from the perspective of the Canadian health system, the US system ‘has problems.’ The Massachusetts experience as covered in the press here is that the majority of the public like it; that it was consciously designed originally to try to tackle universal coverage and get to cost containment in future revs; oddly enough I have also heard some s...

Yeah, I just received the renewal paperwork for health insurance, and it’s up. This is with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, with whom I have been having a fine experience. I am happy with the service, and the responsiveness. But from 2009 to 2010, my bill is up 15%. Wow.

Technorati Tags: healthinsurance, costs, bluecross

More stuff that I learned at Transparency camp. Every city has their own way of talking. In New York, I guess you talk about wall street and finance and so on. In L.A. you talk about movies and moviestars. In D.C. you talk about all things politics. (In Boston you talk about the Red Sox 🙂

The President’s limousine, is known as “The Beast“

You’ve heard the expression: “It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.” In DC it’s “Proceed until apprehended.”

You mark yourself as an out-of-towner if you don’t know what CQ stands for.

Originally posted on Mar 03, 2009. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

Sure, one isolated story doesn’t prove anything, but then our health care debate often seems to be carried on the basis of isolated stories, so here’s an article about the British Health Care system that I came across this morning. From that article: ...

This is from his blog: “When our third child was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome almost two years ago all I can say is that my heart was aching. A child that I had raised to that point like his siblings, I couldn’t understand how he could be so different. I was in the doctors office when I heard the words ” On the spectrum of Autism” Aspergers.” (from 38 Pitches)

Breaking news from CNN: “Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes leave until end of June; Jobs says health issues “more complex than I originally thought.”

In case you didn’t see this, it’s kind of interesting if you follow Apple and our pal Steve Jobs: ““I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors,” Jobs, who turns 54 in February, said today in a statement. “After further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been ‘robbing’ me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy.” (from Bloomberg News)

Read the rest of the article about Steve Jobs Health. It’s basically commentary. The key is the paragraph above.

Suddenly when you learn about something once, you start seeing it everywhere… “Dr. Paul Grabb, a pediatric brain surgeon, said he was surprised when he discovered a small foot growing inside the brain of 3-day-old Sam Esquibel. “The foot literally popped out of the brain,” Grabb told TheDenverChannel Wednesday.” (from Colorado Doctor Finds Foot in Newborn’s Brain)

This is another example of a Teratoma which I wrote about recently. This story is even weirder.

The secret Howard Stern in me wants to make a joke about this along the lines of “even worse than putting your foot in your MOUTH!” But I would never say that. It would be in such bad taste.

Here’s a truly weird article, which a sticks in my mind a week after reading it: “Clark had seen teratomas. They were common in the reproductive tract, often found accidentally in the course of an operation or on a scan done for some other reason.

These strange cysts have been a source of fascination since their discovery in the 19th century because, although smooth and normal-appearing on the outside, on the inside they often contain hair and teeth and other tissues not normally seen in the reproductive system.

The name “teratoma” is derived from the Greek word for “monster,” because of their creepy contents. These cysts rarely cause trouble and are usually removed only if they get too large or cause pain. This cyst was the size of a peach pit. Could a small growth do all this?” (from Brain Drain)

Many more where this one came from. Good for a chuckle 🙂

This is a dramatic and well told story of one patient’s patient search for a kidney donor. Also notable is that the donor turns out to be a pretty well known blogospherian, Virginia Postrel. And that she, as far as I can tell, has not really talked about this touching and generous act herself.

If you know or remember the great Inner Beauty hot sauce, then you will be interested in this article whice (claims to) reveal the actual, original recipe for Inner Beauty Hotsauce. Let me warn you, it is very hot. I tried making a batch. It’s quite easy in the food processor. How did it come out? I would give it a B+ on my first attempt. It resembles the real thing but I thought the spicyness hid the flavor a little, and also it was a bit too watery.

Next time I will try to up the mustard quantity a little.

Still quite good, worth a try!

Have you had this debate? Does cold weather cause people to catch colds more easily or not? Well here’s an interesting article that says there is ‘scientific’ proof that flu infections do in fact spread more during cold winter months: “Researchers in New York believe they have solved one of the great mysteries of the flu: Why does the infection spread primarily in the winter months? The answer, they say, has to do with the virus itself. It is more stable and stays in the air longer when air is cold and dry, the exact conditions for much of the flu season.” (from New York Times)...

Reading this article about The Casualties Of the NFL, in Men’s Journal the other week really colors my view of the NFL and football. Here’s a bit of it to give you a taste: “…But the men on the field who generate those billions are real; they bleed; they break; their brains cloud. The nature of their injuries, particularly the mind-dimming concussion, has dominated the off-the-field news of late. Post-mortem exams of Andre Waters (suicide at 44), Terry Long (suicide at 45), Justin Strzelczyk (car crash at 36), Mike Webster (heart attack at 50) — showed staggering brain damage in men so young and affirmed that football is...

Check out this post from WSJ.com: Health Blog: Contrary to the earlier paper’s assumptions, Dr. Godar et al. found that children aren’t outdoors more than adults: “Surprisingly, it is adults over the age of 40, i.e. 41–59 and 60+ years, especially men, who get the highest UV doses.” They added that a rise in incidence of skin cancer “may have occurred because adults assumed that they no longer had to worry about getting too much UV exposure because they were told that most of the damage was done before 19 years of age.

(from: A Summer Myth Debunked)

A friend of mine has been experiencing debilitating back pain for a year now. He’s seen pain specialists, surgeons and so on, and so far the only treatment has been pain medications, strong ones. He is desperate. He recently came across an advertisement for treatment with a device called the DRX 9000. I’ve been reading about this treatment on the web and find positive reports apparently concentrated on a few sites, and then sporadic reports of shady dealings, FBI investigations and so on.

Here are some links and quotes I was able to find. Do you know anything about this one way or another? Please comment or email me!

...

Recently I visited Curaçao to participate in the celebration of the 275th anniversary of the building of the Snoa. This is from an article written by Sam D. Gruber (who I met there) “As evening fell in Willemstad in Curacao on April 16, scores of well-dressed people headed to the narrow Hanchi di Snoa, and into the courtyard of the Snoa — Curacao’s venerable synagogue built in 1732, home to Congregation Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, the oldest surviving synagogue in the Americas, and one where no Sabbath or major holiday has gone uncelebrated in 275 years.”

Read the whole article ‘A Birthday Celebration for Curaçao’s historic synagogue.

Here’s an email I received recently. How many different languages do you count? “Danki pa e artíkulo d Sam. Mi a haña un email di dje siman pasá kaminda ela kontami ku pronto e artíkulo lo sali i ku e lo manda mi e link. Maar jij was veel sneller. Avery a gusta e artikel hopi (mi tambe trouwens). Lo mi skibi Sam. He is a good writer. Trouwens su mama a muri in the meantime (ela skibimi).

Chag Sameach (Shavuot)”

Check out this post from Boing Boing: ** David Pescovitz**: Physicians are now removing appendixes by entering the body through the mouth. The procedure, called Natural Orifice Translumenal Endosurgery (NOTES) involves the insertion of tools down the throat and through an incision in the stomach lining. Once the appendix is cut loose, it’s pulled out of the mouth. Apparently, there are other variations of the technique, including gall bladder removal through an incision made in the vagina. One big benefit is that these surgeries don’t leave any visible scar. Advocates say NO...

I don’t know, maybe it’s because he’s a mini celebrity but I found the continuing story of Scott Adam’s voice problems just gripping. Check out this post from The Dilbert Blog:

...

If you’veheard of Dilbert, then you may have heard about the author Scott Adams. And of course everyone has heard of Dilbert.

His blog is almost always funny and sometimes really interesting to the point of touching. In a recent post, Scott Adams reveals that he suffers from something I never ever heard of before. Check out this post where Scott Adams writes in the The Dilbert Blog:

...

Our friend Dave Weinberger shares: “I had my first colonoscopy today. They didn’t find anything, except a piece of fruitcake I ate in 1978. But I figured if Katie Couric can show her colon on national TV to encourage people to get checked, then I should too.”

The only surprise is that this is his first colonoscopy. David, what took you so long? (I guess my second surprise is that he didn’t link to Wikipedia’s definition of Colonoscopy.)

Technorati Tags: medical

First I was an instant coffee guy. Then I got into brewing whole pots, which led to my wasting a lot of coffee. Then, my friend Charlie started working at Keurig, and so I got exposed to that machine and how wonderful it was, and one year I got it as a Christmas gift.

We still use the Keurig a lot, but truth is that we’ve been going through about 10 K-Cups per Day! I was starting to notice that this wasn’t a good deal. Not to speak of the Starbucks card which I’d been reloading from time to time. ...

This is an interim report on “Life with a Capresso espresso maker“. The topic for today is what kind of grind of coffee to use. Note that my experience is now about 3 or 4 days so you are learning right along with me.

Basic lesson, although I haven’t fully debugged it yet: too fine a grind ends up blocking the hot water totally, meaning no coffee comes out. (By the way, I am not exactly sure yet whether the water is literally blocked or is getting diverted into some waste reservoir.)

The Capresso which I bought from WholeLatteLove (best price...

I’m a big coffee drinker, ok? I’ve been putting my Keurig single serving machine through it’s paces for the last few months and I really like it. I’ve already spent more on little coffee pods from Keurig than the machine ever cost. Another post will go into what I’ve learned from that.

Recently though I’ve gotten enamored of short non-fat Lattes at Starbucks. That’s a story in and of itself, which again will wait for another post.

The real story is that I just unpacked my new ...

The Freakonomics blog often has good stuff in it, even if you haven’t read the book, which also has good stuff in it.

“Mitai Sandy, a 29-year-old graphic artist and comic-book publisher in Tel Aviv, came up with the following solution: a new anti-Semitic cartoon contest, with the submissions drawn by Jews themselves.

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” Sandy said. “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!” (from “Applying the Old Incentive Switcheroo to Anti-Semitism“)

Also see this and this.

Technorati Tags: cartoon

Amusingly, several posts on the wonders of Tylenol. Here’s when we really run out of things to write about…

Still, it’s an opening for a little tidbit that I’ve had floating around my head, because, I too, am a Tylenol fan (actually not Tylenol itself but its generic version – Acetaminophen - available in various pharmacy store brands.)

So, Tylenol fans, did you know that Tylenol overdose is a serious problem, and can actually cause ...

The street

filled with tomatoes,

midday,

summer,

light is

halved

like

a

tomato,

its juice

runs

through the streets.

In December,

unabated,

the tomato

invades

the kitchen,

it enters at lunchtime,

takes

its ease

on countertops,

among glasses,

butter dishes,

blue saltcellars.

It sheds

its own light,

benign majesty.

Unfortunately, we must

murder it:

the knife

sinks

into living flesh,

red

viscera

a cool

sun,

profound,

inexhaustible,

populates the salads

of Chile,

happily, it is wed

to the clear onion,

and to celebrate the union

we

pour

oil,

essential

child of the olive,

onto its halved hemispheres,

pepper

adds

its fragrance,

salt, its magnetism;...