It's Thanksgiving weekend up here in the Great White North, which leads me to think of... food.

I just read these 20 rules of thumb for food from the New York Times. I don't agree with all of them, but I see each one's value.

Oh, and if there's an ad for "2 rules to a flat stomach" or something else stupid-sounding, DON'T click on it. I finaly got tired of it and followed it through to the end, to see what the heck they were hawking.

It's just another useless diet book.

If you want something really useful to read, I'd suggest these:

In Defense of Food, by Micheal Pollan (Amazon link... too bad I don't have an affliate click thingy set up!)

Micheal Pollan has put the introductory paragraph up on his website (warning! PDF link!)

Another great book (that I re-read from time to time) is Mindless Eating - Why we eat more than we think, by Brian Wansink.

Now, you might think that I'm thinking of dieting, but I'm not. I'm thinking about eating. And how to do it better, more thoughtfully, with more enjoyment and less automation that tends to make me eat when I'm not hungry or keep eating long after I'm full. (I just drank 16 ounces of coffee simply because that's how much was in my travel mug.*)

If that happens to lead to fewer bites in, then great. If that makes me feel more energetic and less lethargic, then even better!
--

*This reminds me of when we were traveling in New Zealand in 2002. I was looking for a travel mug as a souvenir. I couldn't find one anywhere! I asked a very helpful cashier at a big shop, and explained to her what one was when she looked at me quizzically. "You know, a big mug with a lid, so that you can take your coffee with you when you're driving to work," I said. She looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Why would you ever want to do that?" And that's another reason why I wanted to move to NZ after that trip.

OK, we made it home, and we still haven't unpacked anything except our cameras.

Here's a link to some of our pics....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30175837@N04/sets/72157622323646434/

Now, to go unpack, do laundry, somd food shopping... other "real world" things.

(The "real world" sucks. Maybe we can watch some classic Trek during dinner!)

Aarrrgh!!

Dragon-Con is almost upon us, and I'm getting ever more frustrated by the Canadian wireless companies.

Did you know that if we use our Canadian cells phones in the US, it costs about $1.45 per minute, and text messages cost 75 cents per text, sent and received!?!?!

We have the option of paying a one-time fee of $40 for the priviledge of having the voice cost reduced to a mere $0.57 per minute. The texting fee never goes down.

And don't even get me started on data fees.

Instead of paying those exorbitant prices, I've been looking into Pay As You Go phone plans in the USA. It seems more reasonable for voice, to be sure, but the texting details are often hard to find on the major players' websites.

At this point, I'm leaning towards:

- AT&T: $3/day only on days you use the phone, unlimited talk, no roaming, no US-long-distance, and $5 gets me 200 messages... or,

- T-Mobile: $1 per day of usage, 10 cents/minute and unlimted calling in the US from 7pm til 7am (and to other T-Mob phones). Texts are 10 cents out and 5 cents incoming.

Both of these options will also incur a one-time cost for buying a phone (or SIM card, since I've unlocked my iPhone) as well. It sounds like that will be anywhere from free to $100.

Any advice out there from other cell users?

Is there a huge preference for one company or other with respect to their PAYG services and support?

Canadians, any other ideas to save considerble dough?

Any and all help is appreciated.

Guess!!!

Who's???!

Coming!

To.....

DragonCon!!!!!!

Yup. It's him.

Holy. Freaking. CRAP.

I'm totally stoked!!

The Magpie and I were lazing the day away, watching Corner Gas, and they had a scene with a training montage to the theme of the 80's commercials called ParticipAction. Well, that was enough to send me on a YouTube time machine into my childhood!



There's even more ( behind the cut! )

Only one month to Dragon*Con!!!!

Oh... crapcrapcrap*squeeeee*crapcrap!!!!

And have you checked out the guest list in the past few weeks? Awesome!

Oooh, and we got the little program thingy in the mail a while back.

Is anyone planning on going to the Aquarium night? (We're not at this point... maybe next year!)

WTF?!!? It was 22 degrees C on Monday, then it snowed 10 cm on Wednesday. Crazy weather!



I need to be back here. It was one of the best vacations ever. Highly recommended, even for a 3-minute virtual break by video...

( Vacate now... )

... it's been quite a ride.

For those who didn't have enough proof of the relevance of BSG, here's a link to a session at the United Nations (yes, really!) that a few of the cast and writers were invited to.

There's a lot of info about this online. I thought that I'd link to the UN page that has the video archives.

Once you get there, scroll down to March 17th for the links.

Enjoy.

Instead of doing taxes and bookkeeping stuff that I have to get done, I'm cleaning my desk and rolling my change.

Here's a question: why do I have so few nickels?

I ended up with:

103 pennies
41 nickels
104 dimes
121 quarters
35 loonies
36 toonies

(Yay, I'm rich! I love having $1 and $2 coins -- there's a fortune sitting on your desk and you don't even realise.... Maybe I'll go buy an Apple TV finally.)

I attribute the low numbers of loonies and toonies to the fact that I grab those out of the coin jar to use them, but I never grab quarters or anything smaller.

So why so few nickels?

Maybe there's a mathematical answer out there. I'd go find it myself, but I really have to go bake a cake.

Let me know in the comments, 'k?

Amazing fire safety video. I'd tell you more about it, but I have to go water our tree.....



Have a safe holiday!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here's a timely story about the sequel to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

If you haven't seen the first movie, where the heck have you been? It's terribly funny.

As a bonus, the movie contains the best explanation to-date of how Scientists think!

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- A.C. Clarke.



I want.

Okay, seriously, must sleep now!!

I love old-timey rayguns.

And I really enjoy Wired.

I wish I lived in the Bay Area. It seems like so much cool stuff goes on there.

*sigh*

Must go sleep before another night shift. I suppose shouldn't really be making important decisions on 3 hours sleep.

Hey gang,

The High Holy Days of Halloween are fast-approaching.

If anyone out there needs some ideas for vintage-looking props, have a look at this website.

Enjoy!