| New Blog/website |
[Apr. 12th, 2006|02:11 pm] |
I'm leaving you guys. Sorry! It's been real, though.
Check out my new site, kholera.com. I will be blogging there, and you can still make comments there. It's not that scary to go to non-LJ blogs!
Also, I will have lots of webspace in case you need me to host something.
Werd. |
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| guinness: Is there anything it can't do? |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|09:52 am] |
Eat To Live: Toasting St. Patrick
By JULIA WATSON
WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- In the past four weeks leading up to this coming Friday, Americans will have knocked back 54.25 million pints of Guinness. That's according to the company's owners, who say that each year a total of 217 million pints are swallowed in the United States.
But 25 percent of it is glugged in the one-month stretch that propels us toward St Patrick's Day, March 17.
Is there any other saint with such an influence on our drinking habits?
One of the brew's more successful campaigns was based on the slogan "Guinness is good for you." It's still not unusual for doctors in the United Kingdom to prescribe it to pregnant women with low blood counts.
Can you imagine that happening in the United States?
But the 1920s tagline dreamed up by the S.H. Benson advertising agency was abandoned years ago, and Diageo, the corporation that now manufactures Guinness, judiciously says: "We never make any medical claims for our drinks."
The Irish keep the faith, however. Blood donors and stomach and intestinal post-operative patients are given their dose of Guinness to this day, apparently. Perhaps we should check that fact with the Guinness Book of Records. It was launched as a means of settling arguments that probably started in pubs based on rumors.
Still, back in 2003 a team of researchers told a conference of the American Heart Association that Guinness might well reduce blood-clotting.
People at risk of a heart attack as a result of hardened arteries in which a blood clot could lodge and block the heart's blood supply might find this interesting. Guinness is a lot more fun than the low dose of aspirin that is often prescribed to cut the blood's ability to form unwanted clots.
Except the research at the time was carried out on dogs.
The scientists found the greatest benefit came from the consumption, at mealtimes, of just over a pint -- 24 fluid ounces. This must be an Irish joke. Picture a) a dog with a pint of Guinness alongside its kibble and b) a dog after drinking a pint of Guinness.
But then, it may surprise you to learn that Guinness isn't quite as strong as other beers.
While Budweiser is approximately 5 percent alcohol by volume, Guinness only weighs in at 4.2 percent, with 125 calories for a 12-ounce glass as opposed to the 147 of an equivalent amount of Bud.
The Wisconsin team of researchers believed that antioxidant compounds similar to those in some fruits and vegetables were responsible for slowing down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on artery walls. But people in the brewing industry are understandably wary of attributing health benefits to any kind of alcohol.
Almost the best thing about Guinness is the typically Irish tale of its origins. Arthur Guinness Jr., son of the founder of the brewery, stumbled across it pulling a fast one over the British.
He had developed a dark ale that required the use of barley malt. Malted barley comes from soaking or "mashing" barley in hot water, forcing it to sprout and produce enzymes that convert starch into sugar.
But malted barley was taxed far more by the British than unmalted. So Arthur substituted about 10 percent of the grain for plain roasted barley, which gave the finished drink its signature midnight color and bitterness. And him his fortune.
Guinness makes an appropriate St. Patrick's Day substitute in the Flemish stew that traditionally uses beer.
As with Carbonnade Flamande, all you need to do is make a beef stew, frying two finely sliced large red onions in a little vegetable oil, removing them with a slotted spoon to a warm plate and frying 2 pounds of chuck steak cubes in the same pan.
They get removed to join the onions, and all the good brown bits are scraped up from the bottom of the pan by pouring some of the Guinness carefully over.
Put the whole lot in a heavy-bottomed lidded casserole with the rest of the Guinness, a bayleaf, salt, freshly ground black pepper and two springs of fresh thyme, and stew slowly at 300 F for three hours. Serve like the Irish with a baked potato.
A green salad completes the feast. |
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| What should you do if your eyeball pops out of the socket? |
[Mar. 15th, 2006|11:24 am] |
Link, to slate
Villanova basketball star Allan Ray had his eyeball literally poked out of its socket by an opposing player on Friday night. Ray has been treating the injury with eye drops, and he planned to meet with doctors on Monday to find out if he can play in the first round of the NCAA tournament. What should you do if your eyeball comes out of your head?
Get it put back in, and soon. The longer you remain in this rare condition—known as "globe luxation"—the more strain you'll put on the blood vessels and nerves that connect your eye to the rest of your head. Your luxated globes will also be susceptible to corneal abrasions or inflammation, and the feeling of your eyelids clamped down behind them won't be pleasant.
You should be able to get your eye back in place without serious, long-term damage. (If the ocular muscles tear or if the optic nerve is severed, your outlook won't be as clear.) The treatment for globe luxation is pretty simple: Doctors apply some topical painkillers, hold back your lashes, and poke your eyeball into its socket by pressing on the white part with gloved fingers. (In some cases, they'll use a simple tool like a bent paperclip to shoehorn it back into place.) You might get antibiotics, lubricating drops, or steroids to follow up for a few days while your vision returns to normal. If your doctors can't pop your eye back in—because you've got too much swelling in the socket, for example—they'll give you an eye shield and consider a more invasive procedure.
If your eyeballs fall out of their sockets repeatedly, you might be a candidate for a lateral tarsorrhaphy—in which doctors sew up your eyelids part of the way to keep them from opening too wide. You could also learn the following technique for popping your eye back in yourself: First direct your gaze downward. Now pinch and pull your upper eyelid with the thumb and index finger of one hand. Lay a finger from your other hand on the top part of your luxated eyeball, taking care to press only on the insensitive white part. While you continue to hold your eyelid up, push your eyeball gently down and back at the same time until it's part of the way in. Then try to look upwards; if everything goes right your eyeball will rotate under the upper lid and back into its socket. |
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| 10 Things you didn't know about Albert Einstein |
[Mar. 15th, 2006|11:19 am] |
link
1. He Liked His Feet Naked
"When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock," he once said. "So I stopped wearing socks." Einstein was also a fanatical slob, refusing to "dress properly" for anyone. Either people knew him or they didn't, he reasoned - so it didn't matter either way.
2. He Hated Scrabble
Aside from his favourite past-time sailing ("the sport which demands the least energy"), Einstein shunned any recreational activity that required mental agility. As he told the New York Times, "When I get through with work I don't want anything that requires the working of the mind."
3. He Was A Rotten Speller
Although he lived for many years in the United States and was fully bilingual, Einstein claimed never to be able to write in English because of "the treacherous spelling". He never lost his distinctive German accent either, summed up by his catch-phrase "I vill a little t'ink".
4. He Loathed Science Fiction
Lest it distort pure science and give people the false illusion of scientific understanding, he recommended complete abstinence from any type of science fiction. "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." He also thought people who claimed to have seen flying saucers should keep it to themselves.
5. He Smoked Like A Chimney
A life member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club, Einstein was quoted as saying: "Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs." He once fell into the water during a boating expedition but managed heroically to hold on to his pipe.
6. He Wasn't Much Of A Musician
Einstein would relax in his kitchen with his trusty violin, stubbornly trying to improvise something of a tune. When that didn't work, he'd have a crack at Mozart.
7. Alcohol Was Not His Preferred Drug
At a press conference upon his arrival to New York in 1930, he said jokingly of Prohibition: "I don't drink, so it's all the same to me." In fact, Einstein had been an outspoken critic of "passing laws which cannot be enforced".
8. He Equated Monogamy With Monotony
"All marriages are dangerous," he once told an interviewer. "Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an incident." He was notoriously unfaithful as a husband, prone to falling in love with somebody else directly after the exchanging of vows.
9. His Memory Was Shot
Believing that birthdays were for children, his attitude is summed up in a letter he wrote to his girlfriend Mileva Maric: "My dear little sweetheart ... first, my belated cordial congratulations on your birthday yesterday, which I forgot once again."
10. His Cat Suffered Depression
Fond of animals, Einstein kept a housecat which tended to get depressed whenever it rained. Ernst Straus recalls him saying to the melancholy cat: "I know what's wrong, dear fellow, but I don't know how to turn it off." |
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| NIN remix |
[Mar. 8th, 2006|11:39 am] |
I've been learning music editing lately. trent Reznor's having a remix contest for his song "Only." Here's the original and my remix. Keep in mind I'm new! Only been doing this for a week.
Original
(listen to that first)
My Remix |
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