Note: I wrote the entry below this morning, but didn't post until now. Between then and now I thought of something I have gripe about with the iPhone. I hate that when using the audio player, the play/pause button is sandwiched between the back and forward buttons (see below). Too many times to count I've went to pause something and ended up starting it over or skipping it, completely losing my spot. It's annoying and easily avoidable, just put the play/pause button near the top of the screen by itself. This way it will be foolproof even for fat-fingered fools like me.
My sister sent me a link the other day of rude things said to pregnant women. Some of them are pretty funny / obnoxious. Before I talk about it though, let me express my annoyance about this new slideshow format that is apparently becoming more and more popular. It drives me crazy. I just want to read a normal story / list. I don't want to click the slideshow. And sometimes it's even worse, you have to click to the next slide and then click a link to a separate page altogether. What's the purpose of this? Do people not like normal article format? Is it an advertising thing? A page hits thing? I don't know. Whatever it is, I don't like it. Nine times out of ten, if I click a story and see it's a slideshow, I just immediately close it (it has to be something really interesting or something somebody sent me for me to look at it). Yahoo! is the worst offender (though MSN my default home page on my work computer is bad too), so much so that I refuse to open Yahoo! stories anymore. I've been fooled too many times by an intriguing headline only to find a boring story, an annoying slideshow, or a stupid video "Yahoo! News Minute" clip. Even if I see a headline on Yahoo! that looks interesting, I'll find it somewhere else and read it there.
Anyway, about the rude things said during pregnancy, I think the "kiss your life goodbye" is the most obnoxious. One I hear S complain about a lot is "Oh, I couldn't even tell you were pregnant" despite the fact she put on 20 pounds, has a noticeably protruding belly, and can't fit into normal clothes anymore. In general, I think S is getting a little bit self-conscious about her weight, which is absurd because she's, you know, pregnant, i.e., carrying another human inside her body. But, it's not a rational mindset (I blame Project Runway, those 6 feet tall 75 pound models are a bad influence and they're not super attractive either, most guys I know prefer curvier girls, plywoodesque isn't really a sexy shape). I try to console S by telling her that this is the time she can get big without judgement, so she should enjoy it, but I don't think it helps.
It also probably didn't help that I pointed out the fat content in her homemade "protein bars" (very high). But in my defense, I'm not saying that she shouldn't eat them (I eat them too), I'm just saying that she shouldn't delude herself by thinking that they're particularly good for her. They're delicious, very delicious in fact (that's the problem), but they aren't exactly wheatgrass and tofu in the health department. Here are the ingredients, chocolate (not baking or semi-sweet chocolate, but the fancy dark chocolate that you see at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods), peanut butter, peanuts, rolled oats, apple sauce, protein powder. A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that the fat content of a single bar is through the roof. They aren't protein bars so much as they are candy bars.
When I pointed this out to S, she protested a little, "But I used applesauce instead of butter!" (as if you can magically cancel out calories by adding apple sauce), and I think she was a little annoyed with me at first for being the messenger (admittedly, I'm not usually the most gracious messenger), but she understands that it's not my fault that chocolate and peanut butter are so high in saturated fat (and such a delicious combination). I'm just the guy doing the math.
The thing is, it's not something that's really open for debate. You can't argue down fat content. Something is either high in fat or it's not, regardless of what anybody says. The only thing we can do is make an honest assessment and act accordingly. This is how many things in life are, which is why politics drives me crazy. Way too many politicians are incapable of assessing issues through any lens other than that of political currency (or they're capable of it, but chose not to, I don't know which one is worse). As a result they try to use ideology to shape reality instead of vice versa. Unfortunately reality usually doesn't care who wins an argument. It just happens the way it's going to happen. Climate change is a perfect example. One's "opinion" on climate change has no effect on whether it's actually happening or not. It either is or it isn't, so we all should be trying to figure out which is the case, in earnest.
The economy is another great example of this. People love to argue about the economy, but what they seemingly fail to understand is that the economy is moving independently of their debate. You might convince a lot of people that your views are true, but unless they really are true, you haven't done anybody any good (unless of course you're a politician, particularly a Republican politician, in which case it will help your career, which is the whole problem). This is why I love reading Paul Krugman. He gets criticized frequently for having a leftist bias -- and he is unbashedly liberal on things that actually are up for debate (e.g., what's a "fair" tax rate) -- but when it comes to factual, evidence-based economic analysis I haven't read anybody more objective or accurate than he is. (You can listen to him give an interview here. He's been making frequent media appearances plugging his new book, pictured above.) He talks largely about our economic woes here at home, but his analysis of the crisis in Europe, in particular, has been dead on since day one. It's been pretty remarkable (and sad) to see things pan out almost exactly as he predicted they would up to this point so far. It's also been pretty remarkable, given his prescience and given the desperation of the Euro-zone countries, that his warnings still aren't being heeded by the powers-that-be. But, apparently American politicians don't have a monopoly on obstinate recklessness. Well, it's not like the stakes are high or anything. It's only the prosperity of an entire continent and our biggest ally on the line.
OK, I gotta quit here before I get too depressed. Until next time...
My sister sent me a link the other day of rude things said to pregnant women. Some of them are pretty funny / obnoxious. Before I talk about it though, let me express my annoyance about this new slideshow format that is apparently becoming more and more popular. It drives me crazy. I just want to read a normal story / list. I don't want to click the slideshow. And sometimes it's even worse, you have to click to the next slide and then click a link to a separate page altogether. What's the purpose of this? Do people not like normal article format? Is it an advertising thing? A page hits thing? I don't know. Whatever it is, I don't like it. Nine times out of ten, if I click a story and see it's a slideshow, I just immediately close it (it has to be something really interesting or something somebody sent me for me to look at it). Yahoo! is the worst offender (though MSN my default home page on my work computer is bad too), so much so that I refuse to open Yahoo! stories anymore. I've been fooled too many times by an intriguing headline only to find a boring story, an annoying slideshow, or a stupid video "Yahoo! News Minute" clip. Even if I see a headline on Yahoo! that looks interesting, I'll find it somewhere else and read it there.
Anyway, about the rude things said during pregnancy, I think the "kiss your life goodbye" is the most obnoxious. One I hear S complain about a lot is "Oh, I couldn't even tell you were pregnant" despite the fact she put on 20 pounds, has a noticeably protruding belly, and can't fit into normal clothes anymore. In general, I think S is getting a little bit self-conscious about her weight, which is absurd because she's, you know, pregnant, i.e., carrying another human inside her body. But, it's not a rational mindset (I blame Project Runway, those 6 feet tall 75 pound models are a bad influence and they're not super attractive either, most guys I know prefer curvier girls, plywoodesque isn't really a sexy shape). I try to console S by telling her that this is the time she can get big without judgement, so she should enjoy it, but I don't think it helps.
It also probably didn't help that I pointed out the fat content in her homemade "protein bars" (very high). But in my defense, I'm not saying that she shouldn't eat them (I eat them too), I'm just saying that she shouldn't delude herself by thinking that they're particularly good for her. They're delicious, very delicious in fact (that's the problem), but they aren't exactly wheatgrass and tofu in the health department. Here are the ingredients, chocolate (not baking or semi-sweet chocolate, but the fancy dark chocolate that you see at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods), peanut butter, peanuts, rolled oats, apple sauce, protein powder. A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that the fat content of a single bar is through the roof. They aren't protein bars so much as they are candy bars.
[Protein bars or dessert? It's a fine line.]
When I pointed this out to S, she protested a little, "But I used applesauce instead of butter!" (as if you can magically cancel out calories by adding apple sauce), and I think she was a little annoyed with me at first for being the messenger (admittedly, I'm not usually the most gracious messenger), but she understands that it's not my fault that chocolate and peanut butter are so high in saturated fat (and such a delicious combination). I'm just the guy doing the math.
The thing is, it's not something that's really open for debate. You can't argue down fat content. Something is either high in fat or it's not, regardless of what anybody says. The only thing we can do is make an honest assessment and act accordingly. This is how many things in life are, which is why politics drives me crazy. Way too many politicians are incapable of assessing issues through any lens other than that of political currency (or they're capable of it, but chose not to, I don't know which one is worse). As a result they try to use ideology to shape reality instead of vice versa. Unfortunately reality usually doesn't care who wins an argument. It just happens the way it's going to happen. Climate change is a perfect example. One's "opinion" on climate change has no effect on whether it's actually happening or not. It either is or it isn't, so we all should be trying to figure out which is the case, in earnest.
The economy is another great example of this. People love to argue about the economy, but what they seemingly fail to understand is that the economy is moving independently of their debate. You might convince a lot of people that your views are true, but unless they really are true, you haven't done anybody any good (unless of course you're a politician, particularly a Republican politician, in which case it will help your career, which is the whole problem). This is why I love reading Paul Krugman. He gets criticized frequently for having a leftist bias -- and he is unbashedly liberal on things that actually are up for debate (e.g., what's a "fair" tax rate) -- but when it comes to factual, evidence-based economic analysis I haven't read anybody more objective or accurate than he is. (You can listen to him give an interview here. He's been making frequent media appearances plugging his new book, pictured above.) He talks largely about our economic woes here at home, but his analysis of the crisis in Europe, in particular, has been dead on since day one. It's been pretty remarkable (and sad) to see things pan out almost exactly as he predicted they would up to this point so far. It's also been pretty remarkable, given his prescience and given the desperation of the Euro-zone countries, that his warnings still aren't being heeded by the powers-that-be. But, apparently American politicians don't have a monopoly on obstinate recklessness. Well, it's not like the stakes are high or anything. It's only the prosperity of an entire continent and our biggest ally on the line.
OK, I gotta quit here before I get too depressed. Until next time...
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