I totally agree with this sign from outside Fuddruckers.
Monthly Archive for August, 2007
I discovered a neat Greasemonkey script that greatly enhances my favorite RSS reader, Google Reader. The Google Reader Preview Enhanced script lets you see blog entries in their original context–including site design and comments. Here’s a demonstration. This is a recent post from my blog in Google Reader.
If you click the little preview button in the bottom right corner of a post…
You can read the comments from the post and see it as the web designer intended for you to see it. And you can do it without opening up a new tab.
It requires the Greasemonkey Firefox extension, but all the software involved is free and easy to use.
According to the Spartanburg Herald Journal, my local paper, “Restaurant Portions [Are] Swelling Like Waistlines.”
Many restaurant chefs are serving Americans two to four times more food than is recommended by dietary guidelines, according to a new study authored by a Clemson University food scientist.
Most of the surveyed chefs think the extra-large portions they’re dishing out are actually regular-sized, said Marge Condrasky, assistant professor in the food science and human nutrition department at Clemson. Perceptions of what is “normal” are skewed, she added.
I don’t know about you folks, but almost every time that I go to a non-fast-food restaurant, I eat about half of my entrée and then take home the other half in a box to eat for lunch the next day.
Now, I would still say that these were normal-sized portions. I would be upset if I got half as much food as I was expecting. But that doesn’t mean that I’d be eating it all in one sitting.
In fact, that’s really the only way I can justify the high cost of the food in these restaurants. A $14 steak dinner isn’t as bad for your wallet if you split it over two meals.
The point is that this survey is being used to say “restaurants are helping to make America fat by serving too-large portions” when, in fact, it proves nothing of the sort.
We’re not actually celebrating my birthday until Saturday, when my brother gets back from California. But we did get a big birthday cookie that we brought to the fellowship at church tonight.
Today is my 23rd birthday! Yay me!
For the past few days, I’ve been working with my Dad and Jesse on remodeling our bathroom. My mom has lots of details on that project. Yesterday and the day before, Jesse and I stripped most of the wall paper in preparation for repainting the room.
Note to future home-renovators: Do not put wall paper in a bathroom.
I’ve also rediscovered Civilization 4. I bought the new Beyond the Sword expansion pack, which adds all kinds of neat stuff. I never got the Warlords expansion, so this is the first time I’ve gotten to use Great Generals. These guys are awesome.
The great Portuguese empire was under attack from Pericles of the Greeks. He sent in a half-dozen phalanxes in an attempt to sack one of the border cities. The defense forces were able to hold off the initial attack, but soon another wave of phalanxes, catapults, and spearmen crossed the border. All appeared lost–until Sun Tzu and Oliver Cromwell arrived, leading a band of axemen and a group of horse archers. They drove out the invaders, and soon Portugal mustered enough troops to lead their own invasion. They sacked Athens, and then offered Pericles a chance at peace.
Though the peace treaty was accepted, all was not well with the Portuguese Empire, for the treacherous Native Americans, led by Sitting Bull, declared war from the West. They even led Portugal’s friends, the Koreans and the Indians, to betray Portugal and declare war as well. The Portuguese are protected by the ocean, but how long until ships full of enemy troops land on Portuguese shores?
You see why I like this game?
I found this collection of illustrated HTTP errors to be amusing. This one, for example is Error 400: Bad Request.
I am woefully out of shape. But I’m fixing it.
This morning I started the “Couch to 5K” running jogging plan. At the start of this plan you walk for five minutes, then run/jog for 60 seconds, then walk for 90. You repeat the 60 running/90 walking several times, then walk for five minutes to finish. Over the course of weeks, the running increases until you can run 5K.
Embarrassingly, I had to stop after the third 60 second run. But at least it’s a start.
I also found a handy podcast where the guy will prompt you when you’re supposed to start running and when you can slow back down. It’s nice, because then you don’t have to be watching a watch or counting time in your head while you run.
I’ve have been overweight since about the fourth grade. In high school during my senior year P.E. class, we had a timed 100-yard dash; I came in dead last, behind some fat girl that I disliked. This qualifies in the top five of my most embarrassing moments.
In fact, I was denied health insurance because I was overweight; at the time, I was applying for a personal life insurance policy, and I was 255 lbs at 6 ft tall. They won’t accept anything over 250 for my height.
I don’t think I have the excuse of some kind of hormonal problem or something else outside of my control. I’ve just never been a physically active person, and I ate too much sugar. It’s my own fault, and now I’m going to fix it.
I want this to be real.