Tag: food

A very very random thought

Ok, so it’s been pointed out multiple times that the Starbucks Trenta holds more than a typical human stomach.

Amateurs.

In Closing: keeping the average man down, or rather beating him until he’s part of the underclass who knows his place (and spy on him if he seems like he might think about doing something illegal about his predicament); arguments against TPP (which will only make the previous point worse).

Fail.

Some years ago, I read a book called the Inner Game of Music. In a manner of speaking, it was about getting out of your own way. Oddly enough, one of the things that stuck with me about this book was a peculiar concept: giving yourself permission to fail. Apparently many people have learned this lesson from many sources.

So yes, it can be a good habit to permit ourselves to fail. And although I am far from the first person to explore the concept, I would like to share why I think it is so.

Paying attention to failure teaches how to succeed. Of course, this only applies when we pay attention, and fail “mindfully.” The truth is that most of us fail a time or two when we are learning something new. One anecdote from the Inner Game of Music relays how when a pair of musicians tried to isolate when their duet went awry, suddenly it was perfect! When we pay attention to how, when, and why we fail, we come up with solutions.

Failure teaches us about ourselves and about reality. How we react to failure can give us insight to who we really are — but again, only if we are willing to pay attention. But more importantly, failure can be the beginning of discovery! Or, as Isaac Asimov put it, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That’s funny…'” Consider Alexander Fleming discovering that the “contamination” in his bacterial culture was actually exactly the exact bacteria-killer he’d been looking for. If he hadn’t been willing to learn, he might have thrown away that specimen and never discovered that antibiotic.

Sometimes, our failures fail spectacularly! No, I’m not talking about all those online videos we’ve watched many times of people doing stupid things on skateboards or motorcycles. I’m talking about a failure that turns out for the best. My favorite example occurred in the original Iron Chef series. Chen Kenichi was the chef who specialized in Chinese cuisine (a footnote, his father invented “shrimp in chili sauce”). A French challenger chef decided to take on Kenichi-san rather than the show’s French specialist, perhaps thinking this gave him an advantage. The secret ingredient was yogurt, unused in Chinese cuisine. You can see for yourself: between 8:30 and 9:00 minutes into the video, Kenichi-san gives himself permission to fail. After all, he’s never used this stuff, never even tasted it. But freed from the need to succeed, he experiments and innovates his way into one of his most memorable wins.

There’s nothing wrong with failing now and again, as long as you aren’t doing something colossally dangerous.

In Closing: milk fail; chart fail; vax fail (don’t do this one); wedding fail; jobs report fail; weight loss fail; just, fail; patient confidentiality fail; accidental paleontology win!

Eat It

Today’s question:

Do you tend to order the same thing at restaurants? Or do you like to jump around the menu?

Answer: yes. It depends where I am. There are places where I just want the one or two things that I know are awesome. There are other places where I am busy trying new things. Remember, Vegas is a world class food city! Sorry, I don’t have much more to say about the issue than that.

In Closing: no regard for the Supreme Court; catching the cold; one Indiana lawmaker doesn’t think you should have a choice whether you raise a child with severe disabilities; cybersecurity; doing the same thing and expecting different results; finally somebody said it out loud.

The Good, the Bad, and the Habitual

Today’s question:

Do you think you have more good habits or bad habits?

I thought about going a little zen on this question and simply saying “yes.” I have good habits, I have bad habits, I don’t know that I ever bothered comparing the two. I suppose I’d like to think I have more good than bad, and there are people who might disagree.

Sorry, not the best post. But hey, yesterday you got a good rant!

In Closing: Stingray; the London Stone; Women of the Senate; with more people identifying as liberal, I wonder when politicians will stop fearing the word; climate denial; policy; and the Real Johnny Appleseed.

Ok, Let’s Talk about Food

You know what would be a really good habit for 2015? Eating a better diet. Most of us could stand to do better. Furthermore, the cold hard reality is that 2 out of every 3 Americans need to lose some weight; one out of three needs to lose a lot of weight.

There are a handful of diet and nutrition tips that the overwhelming majority of experts agree on:

  • Fruits and veggies are good for you and most of us could stand to be eating more of them. Deep fried veggies don’t count. Come on, even these guys agree on this much.
  • Water is one of the best things you can possibly drink; green tea comes in second.
  • If you eat more calories than you burn, you’ll gain weight (and that’s easy to do).
  • Too much refined sugar is not good for you.
  • Olive oil is pretty good stuff.

I’m going to close with what 2000 calories looks like and what 200 calories looks like. Oh yeah, and these guys may have some useful information (come on, the Food Pyramid was retired quite a while back). Whatever you decide to make for dinner, be safe.

Update! Here’s a “study” showing that fast food portion sizes haven’t actually changed that much between 1996 and 2013. Well, just based on this reporting of the “study”, I see at least two problems. First, much of the portion size creep started long long before 1996. Heck, I remember how the 20 oz. drink at Wendy’s seemed absolutely huge when I was a kid, and now I think they call that size a small. Second, the items that researchers compared included “2 oz. and 4 oz. cheeseburgers.” Well alert the media, 4 ounces is still 4 ounces. Never mind that these days, there may well be a 6 ounce and an 8 ounce burger on the menu! In short, it is possible to eat moderate portion sizes at a fast food restaurant, but you’re going to have to read all those little calorie count numbers carefully.

Big Bad Shorties

It’s the Food: It turns out that people do pay attention to nutrition labels. That’s a good thing, because soon and very soon obesity will overtake tobacco as the #1 killer of Americans. Have some truth in comic form.

Zombies!!: Well sure, they aren’t allowed to try and collect it, but they can still claim you owe it!

Act Two is Coming to Ferguson: The grand jury will speak soon. And it looks like the police are prepared for anything that happens… by which I mean that they are heavily armed in a manner that is itself inflammatory.

On Privacy, not Piracy: Americans are aware of how little privacy they may have.

A few last election items: Yeah, voters are disappointed in Democrats. Yeah Republicans simply “lost less.” And yeah, anybody who wants to win in 2016 better pay attention to how things are going for normal Americans.

And Finally: It would appear that I am the one person in America that does not give a single **** about Kim Kardashian’s ass.

Music Monday: Manic

 

I was going to write something about Ebola, but the stupid out there is so strong it burns. Look I know that I’ve had a total of one course in Microbiology, but clearly I know more about the subject than 90% of Congress. Seriously, I hope I that Ron Paul, Joe Heck, and Howard Dean know more than me since they’re doctors.

In Closing: selective breeding; change; a couple diet items; a big turn-off; African Samurai; TPP sucks; fail; backdoor; a higher minimum wage is good for a small government.

Shorties Untold

Appetizers: Let’s start with the NSA poppers, and perhaps a beer flight to wash it down?

Soup or salad: The soup du jour is puree of police violence and race issues with a hint of civil forfeiture, topped with prison visit data. Perhaps the lady would prefer our Cosmo-inspired salad with cranberry vinaigrette?

The main course: Make sure it has enough protein! It’s good for you.

A few quick words about your server: Don’t forget that he or she works for a living.

Can I interest you in dessert?: My local news is excited about a study that says we are relatively safe city compared to, say, any major city in Oklahoma. Among the data collected was crime (both violent and property), cops, and traffic fatalities per capita — seems legit. Also included was the number of sex offenders per capita. A quick look at their data table without breaking out the stats tools would tend to make me think that the number of sex offenders has little to do with much of any other data they collected. It’s as if they put it in because they thought it would be important, or thought it made their data look more complete. What makes several California cities, Scottsdale, Augusta, Mesquite, and Chicago more safe than Tulsa despite having at least ten times the number of sex offenders per capita? Could it be that the risk sex offenders will re-offend is overrated?

Oh, need a doggie bag?: Here you go, tips for dealing with strange dogs.

Put the Outrage where it Belongs

So, this story has been making the rounds: a worker at a Subway sandwich shop was allegedly fired because she left sick. More specifically, she went outside to puke some more and a worker at a nearby Pizza Hut noticed her, calling an ambulance on her behalf. Cue the outrage and petitions saying she should get her job back. As the article points out, Subway has a history of labor violations, so the story is plausible but not confirmed. Remember that the overwhelming majority of these shops are franchised.

Let’s assume that the allegations are true.

Sure, be outraged that this worker was fired for leaving her shift sick. Be outraged that American workers can’t afford to be sick, even on so-called days off.

But remember to be really outraged at the manager. Oh, not for firing a sick employee. Be outraged that he was willing to endanger the health of every employee and every customer of that store.

Justice would not simply be hiring that employee back. Justice would not even be firing that manager. Justice would be random weekly inspections by the local health department every freaking week until they are absolutely sure there will be no more problems. This would, by the way, send a message to every restaurant and fast food joint in town: don’t play games with customer safety.

In Closing: Aw no it’s time for some more NSA and terror related links; more reasons not to like that sportswear company with the three L’s in the name; the DEA somehow thinks FedEx can be responsible for knowing whether or not a package contains prescription medication for which there is no prescription; pretty much the conclusion I reached; funny how the news media refers to Hamas as “militants” when in fact they are the democratically elected government (and shame on the media that a freaking CARTOONIST has to point that out); but it makes a pretty scatterpoint graph; a couple Affordable Care Act links; and LEGO Beach.