Obesity contributes to global warming: study

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

The study also revealed that "heavy breathers" contribute more than their fair share of carbon emissions.

Home Owners

Taylor and I closed on a house about three weeks ago. It’s a three bedroom, two bath, fixer-upper, and considering where we live, it was actually a steal.

I have to admit, that we came into the whole “fixer-upper” thing with starry-eyed optimism. We looked around at our grimy house and said “No problem, we just need to paint the walls and ceilings of every room, and rip up the carpet, and redo the cabinets, and regrade the front yard, and replace the gutters, and …”

All this improvements are easily accomplished in one’s naïve imagination. We thought we’d get our master bedroom completed in three days, then complete the kitchen shortly there after – why, the house would be ready to live in within two weeks! Three weeks later, we just now finished the living room, have of the kitchen, started the downstairs path and have to complete the upstairs bathroom tonight.

When we first start home-improving, the phrase “money-pit” began to ring around my head, but I have to say that after dedicating 4-5 hours after work every night straight for the past three weeks, we’ve come a long way. Tomorrow we hope to actually get our stuff in the house, and we may be living in our home by the beginning of next week – as long as I can clean the 20+ years of mold and soup scum out of the bath tub …

Starbucks

Starbucks Closing All Stores for 3 Hours Tuesday Afternoon for Barista Re-training.

Meanwhile, zombie-like hordes of caffeine addicts pound at the doors screaming "grande non-fat mocha!"

Meetup Groups

Morgan is going to a Puggle Party today. I joined a puggle-owners group on Meetup.com in an effort to meet new people.

The puggle group was the only one in which I was really interested. A lot of the other groups focused around politics, which I find interesting, but can't really see myself joining a group where that's the main topic. I'd rather join a group where our main interest is unicorns and politics can be discussed on the side, particularly regarding its effect on unicorn rights, etc.

The group I thought the most amusing was "Fascism in America." I can't help but think this group would quickly turn into a whine-fest led by people who feel that their personal liberties can't be infringed upon in anyway.

"I got ticketed for parking in a no-parking zone by my fascist local government!"

"The newspaper wouldn't publish my 1500-word essay comparing Bush to Dracula - they are such fascists."

"My mom says I have to be home by 9:00 - what a fascist!"

Yeah, that would get old after a while.

Morgan after a Bath

Tuesday Night Time-Waster!

Net Disastor lets your wreck havoc on unsuspecting websites! Fun!

Whole Foods

Lest my last post make you think I'm completely heartless when it comes to the environment and animals and naive Cambridge hippies, I wanted to assure you that I'm really not. I appreciate initiatives that raise awareness and help create clean air standards and nature reserves.

However, I think many issues are better dealt with by the people as consumers rather that the government, because government is alway very heavy-handed and tend to make problems bigger.

For example, I had a friend who told me he thought factory-farming was bad, and there should be laws banning it. I agreed with him that factory farming was pretty bad, but said he needed to look into the issue a little deeper before choosing to legislate the problem away. Factory farming exists because it efficient, and animals are fattened up and slaughtered very cheaply, which means poor families shopping at Wal-Mart can afford to buy more meat. Pass a law that takes that away, you can cause the factory farms drop business because of extra costs associated with raising animals free-farm, creating a shortage in the available meat supply, thus making it cost more to get.

I believe a better solution is supporting companies like Whole Foods. At their website I discovered they have "Animal Compassion Standards" and only purchase their meat from farmers who meet their standards. I think this is a great way to deal with this problem. And as more consumers support Whole Foods because of their practices, other food producers will start changing their practices to in order to compete. The more competition, the lower prices will be. This process is slower, because changes take time, but in the end it is much better for society then the government passing some sweeping law.

We already see this happening in the "green" movement that's occurring right now. Everywhere I look I see companies promoting how environmentally friendly they are.

Maybe I'm being a naive capitalist, but I really believe we have a lot of power to create change just by choosing wisely to whom we give our money.

Global Warming

Boston is having one of it's snowiest seasons in recent records. By now, most of us are pretty tired of cold feet and wet gloves, but one advantage I have discovered is that it's been too cold for the Greenpeace acolytes to stand around Central Square and harass me about global warming.

I got into an argument with one once, and during the course of it I mentioned how just 30 years ago the big climate crisis was global cooling. He informed me that global cooling was a part of global warming and that "it's like Robert Frost poem, Fire and Ice, you know?"

I blinked at him a couple times, because, not being a poetry buff, I didn't know. I then countered that it seems silly to claim that the world heating up would simultaneously cause it to cool down.

He then asked me if I saw Al Gore's new movie.

"You mean his glorified power point presentation? Why yes, I had."

Not only have I seen An Inconvenient Truth, but nearly ten years before I read Gore's book, Earth in Balance.

I didn't want to, but my mom made me because she thinks silly things like "knowing both sides of a debate" is important.

I wasn't convinced, particularly when I noticed that his graphs showed that carbon levels rose after temperatures rose. This was so contrary to what he was claiming that I even showed the graph to my mom to make sure I was reading it right.

So imagine my delight stumbling across this John Stossel report on Gore's latest creation.




I just wish I knew about this when I was debating with Greenpeace. After all, if I can watch An Inconvenient Truth, surely he could spare eight minutes and watch a video.

Gross

And yet I'm fascinated: Scientists find really old lice on mummies.

The Good Life

Sometimes I wish I could take a vacation from my life and be my cat for a while. He's got it so good!

Fortune Cookies

As a fan of Chinese food, I've opened many fortune cookies over my lifetime, and I have to say that the quality of fortunes have really declined. Maybe the Hollywood writers' strike is affecting fortune writing.This is a barely concealed advertisement for green tea ice-cream. Which I've heard isn't that good.

Then there's this:This just shows a lack of effort on the fortune's part. I come to the cookie looking for guidance, and it tells me to flip a coin? That's like Ann Landers telling someone to see what Dr. Phil has to say.

I mean, how hard is it to write a fortune?

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, my point in easy to prove through a Fortune Cookie Fortune Generator!
See? Easy! Now make your own and show those Hollywood writers we don't need them! And then tell them to hurry back because I'm really missing watching new episodes of Bones.

Too Cold to Snow

Taylor W. and I were riding the T together when we were talking about the weekend forecast. Taylor said he didn't think it would snow, since the temperature was going to drop very low.
"What," I said, "You think it's going to be too cold to snow?"
Taylor then began to describe to me the scientific reasons why snow can only occur in the right temperature.
"That's why Antarctica is considered a desert, because it doesn't get enough precipitation."
I was incredulous, but since I arrived at my stop I told him he was probably right and left. But I wasn't convinced, so I asked a couple people at work, and finally, my mom. All of them said that yes, it can be too cold to snow.

Which just doesn't make since to me. I'm left with the conclusion that nothing likes to be active when it's cold outside, even snow clouds. Go figure.

Old enough to know better, but too senile to care?

Sweeny Todd

I went to see Sweeny Todd last night with a group of friends. Being with my friends was more fun than the movie itself. Chris has a good analysis of the movie, so I'll let you read his thoughts and know that I "ditto" them.

Happy New Year!

Laundro-Mat Doodle

Every weekend I do a couple loads of laundry at the corner laundro-mat. This is how I entertain myself. Since I'm pretty lazy over the weekends, this might be a regular feature since all it requires is that I scan a picture or two. What do you think?

And yes, I have major geek love.

Funny Prank

Click here. Then search for my blog. You'll like it ... or not. *evil laugh*

Veganism

While I was trapped in the airport on the Day after Christmas I diverted myself by glancing through the nearest bookstore. I'm always a little disappointed with airport bookstores, because they never have anything I want to read (i.e. geeky fantasy novels) and a lot of autobiographies of of left-leaning political candidates. I've decided I'm going to start using Barak Obama's title, The Audacity of Hope as my new obnoxious catch phrase: "Well, I don't think I'm going to leave this airport before I turn 40, but I have the audacity to hope the plane will arrive sometime this decade."

I found this little gem of a book, called Skinny Bitch, which is so delightfully annoying that I can't help commenting on it. Basically it's a manifesto on veganism painfully disguised as a witty, hip, in-your-face guide to eating. Which, in this case, translates into writing like you're 14 and using lots of profanity.

Now, I really don't have a problem with veganism as an idea, but I can't stand the attitude that seems to go with it. Adopting an air of superiority because you've chosen to due away with animal products is really not merited, especially when your eating choices make you a really obnoxious dining companion.

Their first argument describes meat as decaying, decomposing lump of waste, so ewww, why would you want to eat that? Except it was more like "So why in the f****** h*** would you want to eat that s***?" Well, dead is dead, whether animal or vegetable, so I would think that by this same logic, a salad is really just a nicely tossed compost pile. But what would I know? I'm just a fat slob who's idea of a nice dinner is decaying meat and potatoes.

The second argument was against dairy. Apparently "big dairy" should joining the ranks of "big oil" and "big tobacco" as an industry that's really trying to exploit people by taking their money then killing them. Now, this may be true, but from my experience, it's usually the people who don't eat animals that are interested in exterminating people. According to the authors, humans are the only species that drinks milk from another species and that drinks milk into adulthood. My response to this is that the authors are either A. Stupid, B. Have never actually spent any time around the animals, or C. Pushing an idealogical agenda.

I decided to test their theory on test subjects of both different stages of life and species.
Apparently, full-grown kitties and 8-month-old puppies enjoy drinking cow's milk. What's more, the draw of cow's milk was so strong they were able to overcome their natural aversion of each other and drink in harmony.

I've also milk goats on a goat farm, and the goats when nuts trying to drink their own milk, even the adults, so I don't buy that.

Here's something else humans do that animals don't do: actively care for the sick and wounded, not only of our own kind, but other creatures as well. We follow a rule of law, rather then resolving our problems through violent means (at least until we evil red staters take over). And we waste our time reading and writing on decaying remnants of trees.

Here's something people don't do that animals do: Eat poo. My dog seems to think the litter box is actually a treat box.

Now, I love animals. I couldn't live in a 650-square foot apartment with husband, two cats and a dog if I didn't. But animals don't deserve to be on a pedestal. Anytime spent around animals will reveal that on the whole they are selfish, gross, and nasty creatures that are mainly interested in eating, whether poo, grass, or each other, and procreating. After centuries of domestication dogs and cats are barely tolerable, but even thats only after individual training and time to make them worthwhile to be around.

Another things humans do is is allow each other to make their own choices on how to live their lives (at least, the humans who live in the West do. But still, it was homo sapiens who came up with the idea). So don't eat meat if it makes you sleep better at night. But don't look down at your nose at me if I do. Now I'm off to eat some eggs for breakfast. And my pets will have the audacity to hope that I'll share some with them.

My Birthday

Was yesterday. Yay! :)

Sales Seminar

My boss comes to me the other day and says "So, how would you like to attend this sales seminar next week?"

My immediate thought is "I think I would hate it," but I have learned that saying what you really think rarely advances you forward in life. So instead I said, "Sure." And then thought "Heck, if I'm getting paid, I'll wash your car for you. Oh wait, I've already done that. "

The seminar wasn't as bad as I thought. First, they served free food, which almost guarantees my presence at an event. In college I once attended both the College Republican and the College Democrats rallys just because they served free pizza. I didn't even hear what any of their platforms were, but I do remember the Democrats had a puppet or something like that.

The real purpose of my attending was not to learn to be a better sales person, but a better secretary. I learned all the new dirty tricks sales people are engaging in order to push their wares. One of the best was calling the secretary and asking, "Hey, is so-and-so out of their meeting yet?" The secretary will probably answer yes and the salesperson will have created the impression that he knows the boss. So sneaky. But now I know better. I feel like I was engaged in a covert operation to learn the game strategies of the enemy.

Inevitably, when you get a bunch of business people together, they want to start networking. However, networking isn't quite as effective when everyone is applying the same tactics they just learned together on each other.

"So Meghan, is your boss gonna be around on Tuesday?"
"Um, you know I was just at the same seminar as you, right? I know what you're trying to do."
"Well, I have some really great insurance to offer. Do you think I can drop by sometime next Tuesday?"
"Dude, what are you doing? We don't want your insurance!"
"If Tuesday doesn't work, maybe Wednesday? How 'bout it, Tuesday or Wednesday?"
"STOP IT!" I then grabbed a stack of my business cards and started flinging them at him like Chinese stars. "Get back, back I say!"

Needless to say, I'm not going to be invited to any corporate parties this year, which is a shame. That's a lot of free food I'm missing out on.