My weekend has not gone as planned.

The plan?  Movies, movies, and then perhaps, if time…another movie.

There are so many I haven’t seen — “Young Victoria” and “Nine” are on my short list.  And I have only seen nine of Entertainment Weekly’s ‘25 Movies to See before the Oscars.’

Embarrassing.

The long weekend stretched in front of me in opportunity.  The only other things on my to-do list were taking down the Christmas decorations and doing laundry, which I did simultaneously Saturday morning.

The rest of my free time was going to be spent in a darkened theater, eating trash food, being transported.

Perfection.

And then my DVR and my local PBS station ruined everything.

I mentioned yesterday that my DVR recorded the rebroadcast of Masterpiece Theatre’s wonderful ‘Little Dorrit’ — which I watched in its entirety on New Year’s Day.  I noticed this morning that it had recorded ‘David Copperfield’ as well — the version starring Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe in his first starring role.

So, once again, I found myself mesmerized for two hours this morning, watching another excellent Masterpiece Theatre production.  How fun to see Daniel Radcliffe and Maggie Smith together long before they played student and instructor at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series of movies.

Many advertising campaigns in 2009 emphasized staying home and rediscovering the entertainment found there.   Apparently it took the new year to remind me of the wonderful programming available on PBS.

Next up — “Oliver Twist” and “Cranford.”

As soon as I get back from the movies.

จ่าทหารหนุ่มสะพายกระเป๋าแฟนภายในมีเงินสด 2.3 แสนบาท จะนำไปเข้าธนาคาร แต่ถูกคนร้ายกระชากไปได้ และหลบหนีไปลอยนวล ตำรวจเร่งตรวจสอบกล้องวงจรปิดบริเวณใกล้ที่เกิดเหตุ เผื่อจะสามารถจับภาพคนร้ายได้
       
       วันนี้ (24 ธ.ค.) เมื่อเวลา 12.30 น. พ.ต.ท.วชิระชัย พันธ์ทอง พนักงานสอบสวน (สบ 3) สน.บางชัน รับแจ้งมีเหตุวิ่งราวทรัพย์กระเป๋าบริเวณข้างธนาคารกรุงเทพ สาขาสวนสยาม ถนนเสรีไทย แขวงคลองกุ่ม เขตบึงกุ่ม จึงรุดไปตรวจสอบ ที่เกิดเหตุอยู่บริเวณสามแยกเข้าสวนสยาม ที่หน้าธนาคารดังกล่าว พบ จ.ส.อ.ธีรวัฒน์ คำพลอย อายุ 27 ปี ทหารสังกัด บก.สส. อยู่บ้านเลขที่ 812/229 ซอยประชาชื่น 24 ถนนประชาชื่น แขวงและเขตบางซื่อ กทม. และ น.ส.พรรณณิดา อัศวกวินทิพย์ อายุ 25ปี พนักงานธนาคารไทยพานิชย์ สาขาห้างเซ็นทรัล ลาดพร้าว อยู่บ้านเลขที่ 45 ซอยเสรีไทย 81 ถนนเสรีไทย แขวงคลองกุ่ม เขตบึงกุ่ม แฟนสาว ยืนรอพบเจ้าหน้าที่อยู่ โดยฝ่ายหญิงตกใจจนช็อกเอาแต่ร้องไห้ จึงเชิญมาสอบปากคำที่ สน.บางชัน
       
       จากการสอบสวน จ.ส.อ.ธีรวัฒน์ ให้การว่า ก่อนเกิดเหตุได้จอดรถแวะกินอาหารที่ร้านวันดี อยู่ห่างจากธนาคารประมาณ 500 ม. จากนั้นได้เดินมาที่ธนาคารกรุงเทพ เพื่อเบิกเงิน 30,000 บาท ไปจ่ายค่าบัตรเครดิตของตน จากนั้นก็จะเอาเงินสดอีก 200,000 บาท ซึ่งเป็นของน้าไปเข้าธนาคารไทยพาณิชย์ ที่อยู่ติดๆ กัน โดยตนเป็นคนสะพายกระเป๋าพาดไหล่เอาไว้
       
       จ.ส.อ.ธีรวัฒน์ ให้การต่อว่า เมื่อเดินมาถึงบริเวณข้างธนาคารกรุงเทพ มีคนร้าย 2 คน เป็นชายวัยรุ่น 2 คน สวมหมวกกันน๊อกปิดบังใบหน้า ขับขี่จักรยานยนต์ฮอนด้า โซนิค สีน้ำเงิน ไม่ทราบหมายเลขทะเบียน เข้ามาทางด้านหลังก่อนที่กระชากกระเป๋ายี่ห้อกุชชี่ สีน้ำตาล ภายในมีเงินสดราว 230,000 บาท เอกสารบัตรเคดิต และโทรศัพท์มือถืออีก 1 เครื่องไปจากมือตน จากนั้นก็รีบเร่งเครื่องรถหนีไปอย่างรวดเร็ว ตนพยายามวิ่งติดตามแต่ก็ไม่ทัน เห็นแต่คนร้ายขี่รถหนีไปทางถนนเสรีไท ขาเข้ามุ่งหน้าไปทางบางกะปิ
       
       จากนั้นเจ้าหน้าที่จึงรีบวิทยุสกัดจับแต่ยังไม่พบรถคนร้ายแต่อย่างใด เบื้องต้นเจ้าหน้าที่สันนิฐานว่าคนร้ายอาจจะเป็นแก๊งวิ่งราวทรัพย์ที่ออกตระเวนหาเหยื่อตามถนนต่างๆ จนมาพบผู้เสียหายทั้งสองคนจึงได้ลงมือก่อเหตุ ซึ่งฝ่ายสืบสวนได้กระจายกำลังกันลงพื้นที่บริเวณจุดเกิดเหตุ เพื่อตรวจสอบหากล้องวงจรปิดบริเวณจุดเกิดเหตุว่ามีกล้องตัวใดสามารถบันทึกภาพคนร้าย หรือช่วงก่อนหรือหลังเกิดเหตุเอาไว้ได้หรือไม่ เพื่อจะใช้เป็นหลักฐานในการติดตามตัวคนร้ายมาดำเนินคดีต่อไป

กล้องวงจรปิด, CCTV, DVR, กล้อง CCTV, DVR

ขอขอบคุณข่าวจาก http://manager.co.th/

I have a queston for TiVo users.  Bear with me while I rant a little. I’ll get to the question in a bit.

I love my DVR.  Usually.  But it’s not smart enough to know when a show goes over its time limit.  Case in point, while the Rose Bowl finished in its allotted time, ABC “had” to show some of the post-game hoopla—for nearly 10 minutes.  Consequently, my recording of Better Off Ted (an episode I hadn’t seen before) started 10 minutes late.  So not only did I get only 20 minutes worth of entertainment (ok, more like 14.5, taking commercials into account—because you know the networks aren’t going to cut commercial time), I missed a huge chunk of the ending.  Fortunately, Better Off Ted is not “must see tv” for me, but still, I might have missed one those golden lines that Phil rambles off; although I can’t imagine anything funnier than “It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if you massacred the chainsaws.”

This happens all the time on TNT, because they butt the shows right up against each other, going so far as to overlap the ending credits with the opening of the new show.  A week or so ago, they aired “Refuge, Part 2.”  It’s one of my favorite Law & Order episodes, and it’s Benjamin Bratt’s last appearance.  Even if we hadn’t had Rey Curtis doing all the things we fans loved (speaking Spanish, tackling bad guys) the last few minutes were gold.  Rey Curtis says a heart-felt goodbye to Lt. Van Buren and Lenny Briscoe, and walks out of the 2-7.

That scene depicted the real friendship between Benjamin and S. Epatha Merkerson and the legendary Jerrry Orbach.  In fact, they interviewed that the tears in their eyes were real.   I knew TNT would cut the show short, so I even recorded the following show.  But there’s a time blip between recordings, so missed the ending of Lennie & Rey’s exchange, Rey walking out the door, and the poignant look between Lennie and Anita.  I suppose I could have just set a manual recording for the time, but my success with that has been iffy.  I wouldn’t complain so much, but L&O season 9 isn’t out on DVD yet.  I do have it on video tape (somewhere), but geez!  Who watches those any more?

So, here’s the question.  I’ve heard claims that TiVo knows when a show has gone over schedule and adjusts its recording accordingly.  So, if you TiVo owners planned to record, say, the premiere of Glee last summer, did you get to the end of the show, or were you  unceremoniously cut off during “Don’t Stop Believing” because American Idol ran long?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Omaha.com – The Omaha World-Herald: Living – Best of the decade: Technology

This Jan. 29, 2009 photo shows Twitter founders Biz Stone, right, and Evan Williams at their office in San Francisco. Twitter Inc. revolves around riffing in messages limited to 140 keystrokes. Revenue has been conspicuously missing from the mix so far, raising questions about whether the nearly 3-year-old service can make the leap from intriguing fad to sustainable business.

More Photos (6)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published Sunday December 27, 2009
Best of the decade: Technology

By Wes Taylor
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

“In the year two thousaaaaaaand!”

That cry heralded one of Conan O’Brien’s recurring late-night gags in the ’90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.

In the year 2000, O’Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.

Who could’ve guessed he wasn’t being absurd enough?

Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn’t recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.

It’s not just the simple stuff that’s changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.

But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?

This week, we’re gonna try to sort it out for you. We’ll dig through the past 10 years and pick the most powerful, the most far-reaching and the most prominent of popular culture.

We’ll cover one category per day, starting with today’s entry: The best of technology, 2000-2009.

Enjoy, reminisce and maybe even dream a little.

We’ve got a brand new decade coming up, after all. Anything is possible.

The technology that defined the decade: What was huge, what was unavoidable, and what changed the way we live

1. Google
Advertising
The best of the decade
Today’s article is the first in a series of seven highlighting the best of the decade in entertainment and pop culture. Collect them all in the print editions to form one giant poster.

You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet’s oxygen.

Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it’s always around, it’s absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you’re not paying attention.

Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it’s not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.

Face it, it’s Google’s Earth. We just live on it.

2. iPod

It’s a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple’s iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.

As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.

3.Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg may be, depending on your privacy preferences, the best or worst thing that ever happened to the Internet.

While MySpace may have been the original big-time social networking site, Zuckerberg’s 2004 creation, Facebook, truly changed the game.

By simplifying and streamlining our ability to find and talk to friends, post pictures, reveal too much about ourselves online and communicate in new ways (poke, anyone?), Facebook effectively ended online anonymity.

4. Smart phones

Starting with the business-based successes of the Blackberry and Palm Treo, the first popular combinations of cellular phone and personal digital assistant (PDA), cellphones over the 2000s have evolved from a means to talk to anyone from anywhere, to a means to do, well, anything from anywhere.

Smart phones are basically tiny computers, with full Internet access, e-mail, music players, GPS capabilities and the near-limitless possibilities of downloadable programs known as “apps,” first popularized by the iPhone.

We can now control our lives from the palm of our hand. Welcome to the future.

5. YouTube

There was a time when that obscure song/skateboard stunt gone wrong/full-court basketball shot/political speech/music video could only be recalled to friends orally, and, with sufficient luck, caught on TV in the off hours. Then came YouTube.

Founded in 2005 to simplify the sharing of video online, the site quickly became the place to find pretty much any video you could think of, and a million more you couldn’t. Making “YouTube Stars” of random people with funny or amazing videos (think the Laughing Baby), worldwide sensations of virtual unknowns (think Susan Boyle), and real the conflicts of those far away (think Iranian election protests and Neda Agha-Soltan), YouTube has given us a wider view of the world than ever before.

6. Blogs

Be it serious political discussion or poorly worded ranting, blogs (from “web logs”) have leveled the playing field of online information sharing. Everyone can speak, even if they shouldn’t.

7. Gaming consoles

Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, gaming has become a multibillion-dollar industry that rivals the power of Hollywood. Too bad only gamers are aware of it.

8. DVR

Digital video recorders, starting with the popular TiVo, changed the way we watched TV by allowing us to catch our shows when we were good and ready, which in turn profoundly affected network television.

9. DVD/Blu-ray

As DVDs became the go-to movie format, they also became the financial backbone of the movie industry. However, by the end of this decade their sales had slowed dramatically. Time will tell if the industry can adapt.

10. Hybrid/electric cars

Remember when Hummers didn’t elicit looks of disgust from others? The race to slow gas use made hybrid and electric vehicles must-haves. The technology continues to advance as we strive to move past fossil fuels.

Nebraskan who most affected technology this decade: Evan Williams

Raised in the town of Clarks, Williams helped found a note-taking feature that became Blogger, the popular blog publishing site now owned by Google. He went on to co-found Twitter, the hyper-popular micro-blogging site.

Top 3 most aggravating technologies of the decade:

1. Auto-Tune: You can blame singer T-Pain for popularizing that singing robo-voice now heard in every song on the radio. We do.

2. Twitter: It’s not so much Twitter as it is everyone talking about Twitter. Stop. Please.

3. Musical ring tones: No, “Rhythm of the Night” blasting from your phone does not help define your personality. It just irritates those around you.

Technorati Tags: World-Herald, technology, Twitter, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, San Francisco, Twitter Inc., Wes Taylor, Conan O’Brien, new millennium, 2000, reality TV, Google, GooglEmpire, iPod, Apple, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, MySpace, Smart phones, Blackberry, Palm Treo, PDA, cellphones, apps, YouTube, YouTubeStars, Blogs, online information sharing, gaming consoles, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, DVR, TiVo, DVD/Blu-ray, Hybrid cars, electric cars, Hummers, fossil fuels, Clarks, Nebraska, Blogger, Auto-Tune, Twitter, musical ring tones,

Omaha.com – The Omaha World-Herald: Living – Best of the decade: Technology

This Jan. 29, 2009 photo shows Twitter founders Biz Stone, right, and Evan Williams at their office in San Francisco. Twitter Inc. revolves around riffing in messages limited to 140 keystrokes. Revenue has been conspicuously missing from the mix so far, raising questions about whether the nearly 3-year-old service can make the leap from intriguing fad to sustainable business.

More Photos (6)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published Sunday December 27, 2009
Best of the decade: Technology

By Wes Taylor
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

“In the year two thousaaaaaaand!”

That cry heralded one of Conan O’Brien’s recurring late-night gags in the ’90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.

In the year 2000, O’Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.

Who could’ve guessed he wasn’t being absurd enough?

Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn’t recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.

It’s not just the simple stuff that’s changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.

But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?

This week, we’re gonna try to sort it out for you. We’ll dig through the past 10 years and pick the most powerful, the most far-reaching and the most prominent of popular culture.

We’ll cover one category per day, starting with today’s entry: The best of technology, 2000-2009.

Enjoy, reminisce and maybe even dream a little.

We’ve got a brand new decade coming up, after all. Anything is possible.

The technology that defined the decade: What was huge, what was unavoidable, and what changed the way we live

1. Google
Advertising
The best of the decade
Today’s article is the first in a series of seven highlighting the best of the decade in entertainment and pop culture. Collect them all in the print editions to form one giant poster.

You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet’s oxygen.

Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it’s always around, it’s absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you’re not paying attention.

Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it’s not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.

Face it, it’s Google’s Earth. We just live on it.

2. iPod

It’s a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple’s iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.

As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.

3.Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg may be, depending on your privacy preferences, the best or worst thing that ever happened to the Internet.

While MySpace may have been the original big-time social networking site, Zuckerberg’s 2004 creation, Facebook, truly changed the game.

By simplifying and streamlining our ability to find and talk to friends, post pictures, reveal too much about ourselves online and communicate in new ways (poke, anyone?), Facebook effectively ended online anonymity.

4. Smart phones

Starting with the business-based successes of the Blackberry and Palm Treo, the first popular combinations of cellular phone and personal digital assistant (PDA), cellphones over the 2000s have evolved from a means to talk to anyone from anywhere, to a means to do, well, anything from anywhere.

Smart phones are basically tiny computers, with full Internet access, e-mail, music players, GPS capabilities and the near-limitless possibilities of downloadable programs known as “apps,” first popularized by the iPhone.

We can now control our lives from the palm of our hand. Welcome to the future.

5. YouTube

There was a time when that obscure song/skateboard stunt gone wrong/full-court basketball shot/political speech/music video could only be recalled to friends orally, and, with sufficient luck, caught on TV in the off hours. Then came YouTube.

Founded in 2005 to simplify the sharing of video online, the site quickly became the place to find pretty much any video you could think of, and a million more you couldn’t. Making “YouTube Stars” of random people with funny or amazing videos (think the Laughing Baby), worldwide sensations of virtual unknowns (think Susan Boyle), and real the conflicts of those far away (think Iranian election protests and Neda Agha-Soltan), YouTube has given us a wider view of the world than ever before.

6. Blogs

Be it serious political discussion or poorly worded ranting, blogs (from “web logs”) have leveled the playing field of online information sharing. Everyone can speak, even if they shouldn’t.

7. Gaming consoles

Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, gaming has become a multibillion-dollar industry that rivals the power of Hollywood. Too bad only gamers are aware of it.

8. DVR

Digital video recorders, starting with the popular TiVo, changed the way we watched TV by allowing us to catch our shows when we were good and ready, which in turn profoundly affected network television.

9. DVD/Blu-ray

As DVDs became the go-to movie format, they also became the financial backbone of the movie industry. However, by the end of this decade their sales had slowed dramatically. Time will tell if the industry can adapt.

10. Hybrid/electric cars

Remember when Hummers didn’t elicit looks of disgust from others? The race to slow gas use made hybrid and electric vehicles must-haves. The technology continues to advance as we strive to move past fossil fuels.

Nebraskan who most affected technology this decade: Evan Williams

Raised in the town of Clarks, Williams helped found a note-taking feature that became Blogger, the popular blog publishing site now owned by Google. He went on to co-found Twitter, the hyper-popular micro-blogging site.

Top 3 most aggravating technologies of the decade:

1. Auto-Tune: You can blame singer T-Pain for popularizing that singing robo-voice now heard in every song on the radio. We do.

2. Twitter: It’s not so much Twitter as it is everyone talking about Twitter. Stop. Please.

3. Musical ring tones: No, “Rhythm of the Night” blasting from your phone does not help define your personality. It just irritates those around you.

Technorati Tags: World-Herald, technology, Twitter, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, San Francisco, Twitter Inc., Wes Taylor, Conan O’Brien, new millennium, 2000, reality TV, Google, GooglEmpire, iPod, Apple, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, MySpace, Smart phones, Blackberry, Palm Treo, PDA, cellphones, apps, YouTube, YouTubeStars, Blogs, online information sharing, gaming consoles, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, DVR, TiVo, DVD/Blu-ray, Hybrid cars, electric cars, Hummers, fossil fuels, Clarks, Nebraska, Blogger, Auto-Tune, Twitter, musical ring tones,

This article is part of a series on physical fitness and physical culture that I’m working on. To see a convenient summary and listing of my previous articles, please click here.

There’s a lot of junk science and  fancy marketing out there about losing weight, getting “fit,” and even getting “ripped.”

In my professional work, I edit many highly-technical medical documents, and I transcribe a lot of medical dictation for patient health care documentation. As a consequence, I am constantly looking up health-related terms and concepts. I also look up a lot of information on newer drugs, experimental therapies, and new surgical techniques not already in my rather extensive library. And as many patients take so-called “alternative” medications and herbs, the doctors want to document them, and they dictate them into the reports I transcribe, and I often have to look these up too. I also write on public health, medical-related, and exercise-related topics both here and elsewhere.

Naturally, I look like a goldmine to a lot of electronic snake-oil sales-bots. The search engine cookies notice that I am constantly searching for information on such topics as weight loss, strength training, medications, surgical procedures, pharmaceuticals, experimental medical trials, and even herbs.

As a consequence, I get literally hundreds of targeted ads and not a few spam messages touting this or that “miracle” breakthrough. These ads have pictures of young men with rippling arms, chests, and abdominal muscles.  They promise that I, too, once I know the secret, can look like them in a matter of  weeks. Beautiful lonely young women will fling themselves at the new me. These ads offer to let me buy the secrets of amazing breakthroughs to enhance my manhood, my chest, reduce my gut. They offer business “opportunities” to make $70 an hour at home, doing easy work on my computer in my spare time, and methods to make me irresistible to the opposite sex, have them begging for more of me, if only I’ll part with a few shekels, but I have to act now, offer limited!

You may get similar ads if you do much Googling or Binging for fitness and health-related information.

Here’s my take. Don’t believe in miracles. If your medical condition allows it, a sensible approach to nutritional eating and a well-designed exercise regimen will reward you with results you can be proud of. Even if your medical condition imposes certain limits, you can make progress.

But unless you’re an adolescent undergoing a growth spurt, progress won’t be spectacularly rapid. It will come, but it won’t come overnight

Nevertheless, you’ll feel proud of  your progress and feel more control over your life.  It will be easier to move, and you’ll feel  lighter, have a spring in your step, because you’ll have a lot more strength, coordination, and flexibility than just the mere minimum required to haul your carcass through your daily activities of life. You’ll have more respect from others as you develop the personal poise that graceful strength and coordination can give.

And more importantly—much more importantly, getting there will be a whole lot of fun!

Two years from now, you’ll be 2 years older. The question is, will you be enjoy being in your skin, moving your body through space more than you do today, or will you decline  over the next 2 years? Will you suffer the decline aging brings so many? In large measure, that’s within your control. Even if you are ill or have physical limitations, there probably is something you can do to strengthen yourself, modest though it may be. And it’s you exploring the limits of your own capabilities that’s important, not what somebody else can do. So act for yourself on behalf of yourself! I just know you can!

SUPPLEMENTS VERSUS A VARIED DIET

I also think that getting nutrients from food is preferable than getting nutrients from pills and potions.

I’ve written about coming up with a sensible diet here and balancing calorie consumption to activity level here and here. The three things I’ll add about diet is that it should be (1) basic, (2) varied, and (3) home-cooked.

1. Basic means unrefined carbohydrates such as whole grains and beans, vegetables you cook yourself, or even quick-frozen vegetables. Fresh veggies, of course, are better, but frozen vegetables are picked, cut, minimally steamed, and then frozen shortly after picking and can also be very good. And they’re not canned!. Basic also means as unprocessed and unrefined as possible. Why drink canned concentrated orange juice when you can eat a fresh orange? Why get a frozen whatnot that has noodles, rice, meat, and veggies all together with some magic cream sauce when you can get them separately and assemble them yourself? Why eat white rice when you can have brown rice? Why eat white balloon bread when you can eat whole-grain bread?
2. Varied means lots of different fruits and vegetables, smaller portions of protein like soy, fish, lean meat, and different kinds of whole grains. The more colors your food naturally has, the better. I love bright green vegetables, red peppers, deep purple plums, blue potatoes, yellow and orange squash. They’re a joy to look at, a joy to cook, and a joy to eat.
3. Home-cooked means the guys at McDonalds didn’t cook it for you. For example, make your own breakfast cereal. It’s so much cheaper, so much tastier, and it’s not full of fluff, added sugar, added high-fructose syrup. See below for a great hot-cereal recipe idea. Home cooking allows me to feel gratitude for the labor that went into raising and transporting the food, even gratitude to the chickens and plants that I eat. I know that sounds corny, but that’s how I feel. It’s such a privilege to be alive, to be sentient, to cook food and eat it. It’s a ceremony of that great feast of life, a feast where we first are the honored guests and then eventually become the main course. Beautiful is the cycle of life!

Here’s what I had for breakfast this morning: 

• 1/3 cup masa harina (Mexican corn meal, the kind used in making tortillas),
• 2/3 cup oat bran.
• Half a cup wheat bran
• Half a cup of cottage cheese, nonfat.
• Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt
• A tablespoon of peanut butter
• Sweetener (I used Splenda, zero calories)
• Cinnamon powder, about a teaspoon.

That’s not faddist. But it’s sound nutrition. I assembled it in 5 minutes and then  cooked it 15 minutes in the microwave, and it came out steamy and creamy. The cottage cheese and peanut  butter broke down and disappeared into the hot cereal as I stirred it, adding a wonderful creamy rich texture, and the lovely odor of cinnamon, vanilla, and peanuts floated into my nostrils. I had done a couple of sets of pushups and squats while it cooked. My breakfast had about 475 calories. It stuck to the ribs, had plenty of fiber, kept me from feeling hungry for hours, is basic, and I just loved it.

I eat meat at lunch, and about 90% of that meat is either lean chicken or lean turkey breast. I make it into a soup with greens and mixed veggies, beans, and sometimes a tablespoon of peanut butter.

I eat oat bran, beans, Mexican corn meal (masa harina), cottage cheese, egg-whites, lots of vegetables and a fair amount of fruit, chili peppers, bell peppers, hot peppers, a cocoa drink made with unsweetened cocoa mixed with cinnamon and cayenne and vanilla and Splenda, green tea, and coffee.

My added fats are olive oil and sesame oil.

I usually don’t eat meat at dinner because my wife fixes that meal, and she’s a vegetarian. She roasts squash, potatoes, tofu, and various vegetarian entrees of her own invention. And I think she’s absolutely beautiful, even as an old woman! I choose to not drink alcohol or use any drug other than caffeine.

SUPPLEMENTS AND VITAMINS, DO YOU NEED THEM?

Think about supplements for a moment. The health-food stores push them hard and label them “natural.” But really, they’re not “natural.” They’re actually highly-refined and highly-processed food items that contain unnatural concentrations of vitamins, minerals, etc (and that’s assuming they’re honestly labeled).

For a half million years, we have been evolving to derive our nutritional needs from food we cook and prepare. Our digestive system derives those nutrients from food. So our job is to make sure we eat a wide variety of quality, multicolored, nutrient-dense food, and that means varied, basic, and home-cooked, as I said above! So go easy on the highly-refined sugars and added fats.

You probably do not need vitamin supplements unless you are deficient. As I live in a very northerly part of the United States and don’t get much sun, and as my blood tests tend to show a slightly low vitamin D level, I take  an ordinary low-potency vitamin D supplement on the advice of my family doctor. I also take a low-potency senior multivitamin when I remember, and I often forget it.

PRINCIPLES OF STRENGTH TRAINING

As a senior citizen, strength training is important to me as it builds muscle, and muscle burns much more fat than other body tissues, even at rest. Studies seem to indicate that exercise has a positive effect on cognition and the brain, especially as we get older. Strength training also helps me stand straight, improves my circulation and coordination. That makes me less susceptible to falls, and helps me to maintain my bone structure. I think it has actually helped me to develop my endurance. And if I do fall, I’m much more capable of breaking that fall than a few years ago, now that I can do 100 push-ups in a day and I weigh 70 pounds less than I did, when I could barely do a single  push-up.

The principle of building muscle is simple: You challenge the muscle to contract maximally or near maximally against resistance. If that muscle meets a challenge near the limit of its capacity consistently, it develops to be able to meet that new challenge. The muscle adapts to that demand by becoming bigger and stronger. Although this is not a rapid process, especially as we get older, one can make progress over time.

The muscle has no idea where the resistance came from. It just contracts on a command from the brain. That resistance  can come from a dumbbell, a barbell, an exercise machine, a spring or rubber exercise band, the weight of your body, or even another muscle.

STRENGTH TRAINING WITH WEIGHTS

I’m into strength training, but I don’t lift weights. It’s not that I’m not against lifting weights, but I think weights are overrated. They’re fine if you’re going out for Olympic lifting or power lifting. But unless you’re willing to spend hours in a gym doing a wide variety of lifts from a wide variety of angles, you’re likely to over-develop some things and under-develop others. And there’s the constant danger to the joints, especially if you lose control of a heavy weight. Safe weight lifting requires expert direction, and lots of “experts” are really not that expert.

There are several reasons I don’t lift weights:

• I find it boring. I constantly have to change plates or wait my turn for a weight or a machine.
• Weights take up too much room and are ugly in my house, and I don’t want to go to a gym, get undressed in front of a bunch of strangers, take a shower, or deal with a bunch of guys who are into heavy lifting and look down on guys like me. And I don’t want to clutter up my house with a bunch of weights, pulleys, and benches. I have one small bench in my basement, one chinning bar hanging from my overhead beams in my basement, and a few 5-pound dumbbells for aerobics. That’s it!
• When in the gym, I find it’s all too tempting to deal with weights that are too heavy. Maybe that’s just egotism, but hey! I’m human.
• Weights make my joints hurt sometimes, and I’ve lost enough cartilage between my vertebrae over the years that I don’t want to do squats with heavy weights.  I actually am 1.5 inches  (3.8 cm) shorter than I was 50 years ago. A bit of pain in the muscles is okay, but pain in the joints is a sign of injury, often long-lasting or even permanent injury.
• If you are anything more than a casual lifter or go to a gym for more than 6 months, people are going to start hustling “supplements” to you, and lots of times, those “supplements” are some kind of steroid. And a lot of the supplements that  aren’t steroids are untested for efficacy, overrated, or even quackery. This contributes to an atmosphere of crass commercialism.
• Weights provide unidimensional resistance. That’s why weight machines like Nautilus were invented, but they also have their limitations. I cover that below.

The last point, about being unidirectional, deserves a bit more expansion. To illustrate, consider an exercise called the dumbbell curl, an exercise where you flex the biceps muscle against resistance that a dumbbell provides

The dumbbell curl starts with your arm hanging straight down at your side, a dumbbell in your hand. Your arm looks like this (dumbbell is not pictured).

Without moving the elbow, you flex the forearm, bringing the weight up to your shoulder. As you do that, your biceps muscle contracts. That’s what moves the arm.

When the forearm is parallel to the floor, the biceps are under the greatest stress, as the hand is holding the dumbbell further away from the fulcrum of the elbow. The arm looks like this:

You continue moving the weight by bringing your hand to your shoulder until your arm looks like this:

Note that the maximum resistance the dumbbell provides is during that very short part of the range of motion when the forearm is parallel to the floor. That’s because gravity resistance is straight down, toward the center of the earth, instead of circular, like the movement in space the hand travels in doing the curl.

To get around that limitation, various weight machines, such as the Nautilus, were invented. The virtue of the Nautilus machine, as well as similar machines, was that it provided resistance throughout the arc, but its limitations were that it isolated muscles too much and could not adapt sufficiently to the unique anatomy of any particular individual. It was adjustable, but not adjustable enough, in my experience. Other machines were invented by other people, and they all had these considerations in mind. None of them, in my opinion, really solved more problems than they created.

Muscles are made up of muscle fibrous strands that contract when the brain commands them to do so. These fibers contract 100% when they contract. So to move a light weight, only a few fibers contract. But to move a lot of weight, more muscle fibers need to contract, And as the muscle shortens, more muscle  fibers contract. The brain sends signals to the fibers to contract,  and a great part of strength training, no matter what modality, lies in teaching the brain to send commands to more and more muscle fibers so as to challenge the muscle as a whole.

STRENGTH TRAINING WITH BODYWEIGHT AND SELF RESISTENCE

I find other ways of strength training to be more versatile, more enjoyable, and better for me than weight training or machines. But then I’m not aiming to become an Atlas, a super athlete,  and I’m not into something like Olympic lifting. I’m just an ordinary older guy wanting to achieve a reasonable level of fitness, and I’m actually more fit than most men 30 and 40 years younger than me. I did it through self-resistance exercise and bodyweight exercise. My approach is based on Charles Atlas’s dynamic tension, John Peterson’s Transformetrics system, Greg Magnan’s Visualized Resistance Training (Megapump) system, and Dr. Leonard Schwartz’s Heavyhands system.  Personally, I feel I’ve made more progress and had more fun with this approach than I ever did with weights or weight machines, although when I was lifting weights and using weight machines, I did not go for super heavy or for body building.

I’ve already discussed Transformetrics a bit. In my next physical culture essays, I will be describing  how I use these four systems further and how I’ve adapted them to my own needs.

Until then, may you grow in health and wellness.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent

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My little brother is mortified that I call Monkey, Monkey and insists that I stop calling him that ASAP because he feels I am going to do him severe emotional harm if I don’t.  Being the stubborn bitch that I am, I insist that Monkey is a totally rad nickname and I’m quite positive that if I was a 16 year old teenage boy, I would like nothing more than to be called Monkey by my adoring family and friends.  Right?  I know Hubby LOVES it when I call him Tank.  Which, mind you, was the nickname he chose from a list requested.  So I see no harm in Monkey staying Monkey.  And Tank staying Tank.

Speaking of Tank, everyone has been asking what tattoo I got.  So, because I know you have all been losing sleep with anticipation and curiosity…

Hubby and I got our wedding band tattoos on Saturday for our six year anniversary.

We got married the day after Christmas in 2003 in a courthouse in Castle Rock Colorado.  It was the perfect day.  We had a big wedding the following September with family and friends, but on 12.26.03 it was ALL about us.  Nobody to please.  Just us.

So to mark the occasion, we each had the others name tattooed on our wedding ring finger.  I will have to check with Hubby to see if he is comfortable with his name being outed because as you may have noticed, I only refer to him as Hubby and (as of today) Tank.  So you may or may not get to see the pics of that.

We are supposed to get snow today.  Like an inch of it.  I cannot wait! I miss snow.

I am hoping I will get to see some of the puffy white goodness when we get to COLORADO! Which, in case you missed it, we will be arriving in the GORGEOUS state of perfection on Thursday, WOOT!  Talk about the AWESOMEST way to start off 2010!

Everyone wants to see us when we get there, but I will only have 16 days.  And trying to see 23984103298741 friends and family members in that amount of time is really difficult.  Which means that no matter what, people always get their feelings hurt because I simply cannot make time for it all.  I hate it but it’s part of not living there.  *sigh*

I am trying to catch up on some TV before we leave so that my DVR doesn’t pack up and leave me for overloading it while I’m gone.  But it’s not easy trying to watch my shows, do laundry, clean the house, chase a toddler, pack for our trip, write a blog *ahem*, and all the other countless things I am trying to do at once.  Which while it isn’t new, it is irritating.

Oh and in case you didn’t notice, which you probably didn’t but TRUST me, poor Hubby HAS, I have PMS.  Yes like SEVERE I want to rip the heads off of helpless bystanders PMS.  If I don’t get aunt flow seriously soon, I can’t be held accountable for what I may do.

Here is my Daily Photos for today…

The dryer beeped, thus ending our conversation together.  It was fantastic, but honestly, it did feel a little one sided anyway.  I’m afraid I didn’t get you get a word in edgewise.  So have a fanfriggintastic Tuesday, nnkay?

Smootchies!

What is random about your day?

Five years ago if you tried to get the media to talk about set-tops, you were usually laughed out the proverbial door. I distinctly remember one cover of a Forbes magazine with a big picture of a Motorola set-top splashed across the front. I remember it specifically because it was such a novelty. Set-tops were uninteresting in the middle part of the decade. Everyone wanted to talk about cell phones and MP3 players instead.

Now things are different. Everyone wants to talk about set-tops. The FCC wants to talk about how to accelerate set-top innovation. The CE pubs want to talk about retail set-tops. And service providers want to talk about everything you can do with their set-tops (most of which are made by Motorola) in the new digital world.

While set-tops get bad-mouthed pretty regularly, they’ve become increasingly popular with consumers in the latter half of this decade. Set-tops brought digital video recording to the mass market. They made in-home TV networking possible. They’ve enabled the growth of Video on Demand services. And they’re supporting new interactive TV apps.

The biggest complaint against set-tops as a category seems to be that consumers don’t want another box in the living room. But I’m not convinced that’s really true. Consumers buy new boxes all the time: audio speakers, DVD and Blu-ray players, media servers, and Internet video hardware. It’s all part of consumer gadget lust, and boxes can be upgraded a lot more frequently than the big flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.

Some day entertainment technology may all take place in the cloud. As far as Motorola’s concerned, that’s just fine. Motorola is a leader in video encoding, video encryption, and video infrastructure. As we look to 2010, however, there’s still a lot of growth and change ahead for the set-top. As far as Motorola’s concerned, that’s just fine too.

กทม. เตรียมเข้าไปติดตั้งไฟส่องสว่าง และกล้องวงจรปิด ตามที่ กองบัญชาการตำรวจนครบาล ผุดจุดเสี่ยง

It’s something that has been around for probably a decade now, and it lets you watch your TV shows on your time.  DVR or TiVo.  Now even cable providers have DVR services, which has made this more mainstream.  We can pause, rewind and record the one thing in our lives that is entertaining and keeps us up to date in the news world as well as the pop culture world.

Note: No, I haven’t forgotten you! I apologize, once again, for the lack of updates in the past few weeks. I will have a lot of time immediately following Christmas, however, so expect several reviews every day until the New Year.

No cutesy introduction this week – Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s One to Rent, One to DVR for the week of 12/22/09 – exclusively at ForReel.net.

RENT

Still Walking (2008)
dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Availability: NetFlix Instant View (12/24)

Why?: Considered a successor to the great Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, Kore-eda has established himself as one of the great auteurs working today. “Still Walking” is a remarkable, low-key family drama. Not much happens on the surface level, but so much is revealed about the family through expertly crafted dialogue. It’s a film that demands a patient viewer, although anyone who sticks through to the end is sure to find a little bit of themselves on screen. This is a film that’ll stick with you.

DVR

Susan Slept Here (1954)
dir. Frank Tashlin
Playing: Friday, December 25th, 6:00 PM (eastern) on Turner Classic Movies.

Why?: Well, it’s not exactly a Christmas movie, although Christmas ITALICdoes happen in it.

I caught this one when TCM aired it a few weeks back. It’s pretty remarkable. On the surface, it may seem like a simple-minded light comedy – but notice the hints that question Dick Powell’s character’s sexuality. The film, to me, is about a gay man becoming straight. Now, what I make of it’s perspective on the matter (is it a tragedy, or disgustingly homophobic?), I haven’t quite decided.

I’d love to hear someone else’s viewpoint – the evidence that Dick Powell is a homosexual are in a great abundance, and only with that analysis can you make sense of the bizarre dream sequence that happens late in the film. Or, if you don’t buy that he is completely homosexual, is he simply in love with this one specific man (a sailor friend, who clearly has no interest in women throughout)?

With that tangent out of the way, it’s important to note that “Susan Slept Here” is currently not available on DVD. This may very well be your last chance to see it until TCM airs it again.

This movie starts off in the 1960’s in Texas right before the Civil Rights Movement begins in earnest.  Rodney Freeman is the grandson of Miss Eunice Freeman.  Rodney’s mother ran off when he was a baby.  Miss Eunice has raised him from birth.  He is ten years old when he gets into a fight on the school bus with DJ.  DJ’s father is a widower who works his deceased wife’s father’s farm (The Jerrick Place).  Billy Ray Cyrus plays the father who plants alfalfa hay instead of soybeans on the farm he leases from Wylie Jerrick.  Miss Eunice Freeman owns her land outright.  DJ doesn’t even realize that he is the “low SES” child of the two.  Their neighbor, Carl Hammer, is lifetime friends with Wylie, but is a consummate and unapologetic racist.  His son, Carl Jr., is in prison for killing an African-American man in town.  Not to spoil the movie, but motivate your desire to see this great flick, DJ and Rodney become best friends.  How they do so, why, and how it turns out are left up to you to find out as you watch this excellent movie.

DVR’s are super, super cool. Recording a show, delaying it so you miss commercials, watching something you like on your own time  – especially great when there’s nothing else on.

Effin’ awesome. Betamax, shmetamax.

I don’t have a TV.  And hey – doesn’t make me a hippy, got it? Living on The Ridge, my old diesel Mercedes, organic food – that’s what makes you a hippy. I like that stuff, but right now I’m in an office wearing what my mom used to call “good school clothes” – shirt with a collar, etc. And I just had a meeting. Not very hippy. Actually kind of a post-milennial /post-dotcom yuppie.

Ouch.

But one of the things a PM/PD Yuppie’d have is a DVR hooked up to their plasmatic home entertainment system.

And if I had one I’d totally use that DVR. Totally.

But – and here’s what maters: I would not watch big-game, live sports delayed – even a couple of minutes – on my DVR. No way.

Why? Because THAT”S NOT LIVE.

The essence, the nut, the raw deliciousness of watching sports live is the drama and immediacy of the event. In. The. Moment.  And sharing that moment with an army of people – die-hard fans that ache like you do in those final, agonizing seconds – sharing it with this army of scattered strangers on that metaphysical level that is experienced in the moment of sudden victory. A moment that can only be experienced in that moment.

Look at these (not-live, I know) highlights for example:

The Catch  –

NCAA Tournament –

Fisk waving it fair in 1975? Joe Carter in 1993? Brian Johnson against the Dodgers in ‘97? Buckner and Mookie?

MIRACLE ON ICE?!?!?!?

Ohgeezthisisintenseohgodherewego-ohmygoddidyouseethat?!?Ithinkhecaught-hedid!!!hecaughtit!!!ohmygodohmygodohmygod….  Then you start yelling “woo” a lot and jumping up and down and being totally psyched cuz – did you just see that?!? – it was AWESOME.

Imagine seeing that stuff tape delayed  – even like a three-hour delay or something. Would totally suck, right? So not did you just see that?!? – it was AWESOME.  Much less cool than seeing it in the moment, right?

Well it’s the same damn thing with DVR’s – taped is taped, live is live, the twain shall not meet.

I was at that ‘81 Championship. I saw The Catch. Live. In Person. If I’d been in a beer line, heard the cheer, and saw it on the Jumbotron – even 30 seconds after – I’d be PISSED. And I couldn’t say I saw it. I didn’t.

You don’t see it live, then it didn’t get seen. You didn’t share it with your army of scattered strangers on that metaphysical level – you let those comrades down.

Shame.

Facts is facts. Whether it’s 30 seconds, 3 hours, 2 days – whatever. It’s never the same when it’s delayed.

Be here now, for crissake.

If I find out friends are DVRing during big events, I will – and this is a solemn, heart-crossing oath – I will call them up and TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED.

HA. Serves them right.

Excuses: Had to work, anniversary dinner, traveling, game’s not that big a deal to you but you want to see it anyway – sometimes you just can’t be in front of the TV. Then it’s okay to record. Especially if you fast forward until you catch up to live action.

But DVRing just to avoid commercials? And not seeing a 14-seed bust a bracket with a bad-ass buzzer beater in the NCAA’s cuz your attention span won’t withstand some blah-blah-blah about beer, F-150’s, and Pepsi?

Not in my house.

If I had a TV.

This is a high class surveillance DVR wrist watch, encased in polished stainless steel and held to your wrist with black leather straps. Secret Agent DVR Spy Watch is the best way to record all your encounters, interviews, meetings and on the scene discussions without anyone knowing what you are doing. If you have ever had to spontaneously run into a meeting or had a sudden encounter with someone that just needed to be caught on camera, now you can instantly and secretively record that conversation for later review. Record up to 7 hours of video footage with this DVR wrist watch thanks to the 4GB internal flash memory, and view the artistic fruits of your labor, with a simple connection of the DVR spy watch to your laptop computer using the USB cable provided.

View this DVR Spy Watch at:

http://www.szprice.com/products/Secret-Agent-DVR-Spy-Watch-Classic-Design_581.html

This is the best way to record all your encounters, interviews, meetings and on the scene discussions without anyone knowing what you are doing. If you have ever had to spontaneously run into a meeting or had a sudden encounter with someone that just needed to be caught on camera, now you can instantly and secretively record that conversation for later review.

This model offers you the chance to record both video and close range audio simultaneously. This classy looking DVR “spy watch” is the solution for both ladies and gentlemen! The camera is beautifully disguised, no one will ever suspect being spied upon at all.

Primary Function: Spy DVR Watch
Watch Design:
- Analog 12 hour display (hour, minute, second hands)
- Metal, leather and glass construction
- Time adjustment via crown
- USB port
- LED status indicator
Dimensions: Watch Face Diameter:50 x H:15 (mm); Watch strap is designed to adjust to most wrist sizes
Catalog Ref: Portable Surveillance Video camera, Hidden Video and Audio Recorder

Feature:Memory: 4GBVideo Record Format: AVI (640 x 480, 20FPS)Recommended Video Range for Objects: up to 8 metersBuilt-in MIC: YESRecommended Audio Range for Objects: up to 3 metersPower Source: Built in rechargeable Li-ion battery (recharge directly from USB port)Battery Life for DVR: up to 2 hours (when full charged)Battery Life for Watch: Quartz battery life up to 3 yearsOperating System Compatibility: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista, MAC OS

Package Contents

Spy DVR Watch
Power Adapter (100-240V 50/60HZ)
User Manual – English (Burnt in CD)

Product Notes

Looks very stylish will go well with both smart and casual wear
All round high quality leather and stainless steel material
Easy recording start and stop
Can also be used as portable USB flash drive

The House passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act on Wednesday. If it becomes law, the FCC would control the volume level of television commercials. Some of them are noticeably louder than regular programming. This is, to put it tactfully, irritating.

Rep. Rick Boucher told the Associated Press that “It’s an annoying experience, and something really should be done about it.”

He was talking about the commercials, though his remarks better fit the regulations he voted for.

Still, he’s right that something needs to be done. Loud commercials are a nuisance. They are also avoidable. For example, I avoid them by watching as little television as possible. Maybe read a book or spend time with loved ones instead. There are other ways, too. Here are a few:

-Use the mute button on your remote.

-If you have DVR and you’re watching a show you recorded, you can fast forward through the commercials.

-Change the channel.

-Let broadcasters know how you feel. Tell them not to run loud commercials. You can contact ABC here; CBS here; Fox here; and NBC here. They’d rather you watch their channel than not, after all. And the best way to prevent a viewer exodus is not alienating them.

Besides, they’d probably rather hear from you than the FCC.

(Hat tip to Fred Smith)