Timewaster's Guide Archive

One of my supervising clinician's (John)  beach house neighbors is a 22 year old guy who works at the organic supermarket. He's a beach rat, not well educated as he's addicted to the beach. Nice guy though.

Anyway, he comes over for a few drinks on Saturday night. He mentions how great it is at the organic supermarket and how wonderfully healthy all the food is. He was even drinking vodka mixed with some wheat juice stuff (how the heck do you get juice from wheat?). He's disappointed John will be leaving soon as he said we'd have to try the espressos at the market. He claimed what made it so good was that is wasn't homogenized nor pasteurized.

Huh? Rewind that.

I had too much to drink at that point to bring up that there was no legal way to get unpasteurized milk and that he was most likely mistaken. I instead, after choking a laugh, asked him how he steralized the milk since cowpox still exists in untreated milk.

Steam, he said. The coffee was steamed in the shop. Uh-huh. So the shop has an autoclave? Exactly how many ATMs are you inducing? What followed was an explanation of bacteria, how they survive, and how you kill them...and why Louis Pasteur was a genius.

He then complained that pasteurization changes the chemical structure of the milk and changes the taste. He specifically cited the increase of people who were lactose intollerant. First I had to explain that pasteurization doesn't change the chemical composition of milk nor the taste, that's why it has been around so long...it leaves milk as milk but gets rid of bacteria. Second, there hasn't been an increase in the number of lactose intollerant people. It's just that medicine now has been able to diagnose and treat a disease that we couldn't do anything for until recently. It used to be thought these people were just allergic to milk and couldn't drink it. Now that science has come along we understand they lack the enzyme to break down milk and we can give drugs that replace the enzyme.

Then he moved on to complaining about antibiotics in animals. Long story short, the antibiotics help the animals and keep the meat from getting infected. If there is any residue of this when we eat the meat, it passes right thru. There is no harm in this at all, in fact, it's a good thing.

Next we tackled genetically modified food and how horrible he claimed it was. Of course that depends if you're more against pesticides on your food or genetic engineering. We've been able to cut way back on harmful pesticides by engineering foods that are natually resistant to bugs, plus they produce way more food. This is the stuff that is helping starving nations. Call me crazy here, but I say less pesticides please.

Uh. Science has always had a problem with helping the layperson understand recent discoveries. The result of this is backlash that drives people to eat organic foods and try holistic medicines. People long for the good old days where we didn't need all these pills and treatments.

People, the 'good old days' sucked. I despise taking pills, but I don't want to go back to the world before antibiotics. There's a reason life expectancy has jumped up exponentially in the last century. I don't want to die from a cut I got on my hand while gardening like happened in yon good ol' days.

Medicine has responded to the holistic medicine craze in an appropriate way. We're putting the remedies to the test, the same way we test any other drug. Double blind tests where there is no bias. We're testing what the old wives tales and anecdotes have said for years and we're finding 99% of them to be completely false, in some cases causing further harm. The people who support holistic meds claim these trials hold no water because they don't believe in the science behind it. Trials aren't any crazy-science, they're just controlled studies to see what works. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Oh, lastly, any of you who use holistic meds and herbs and think that they're not drugs. Sorry, they are. Most of the drugs used today were at one time as natural as the holistic drugs claim. Now we've just found ways to synthesize them at lower costs so people can actuall afford them. So don't fool yourself, that natural remedy is a drug.

So there's a rant...

So I haven't played Magic in years.  Since like 1998 or so.  But looking at the art on some of the recent cards I was pretty blown away.  So I'm semi-interested in getting back in (at least until Pirates of the Spanish Main is back in stock).

But I have no idea where to start.  Guide me back!

Anyone else pick up Hasbro's new boardgame, Heroscape?

It's pretty dang cool and you get a ton for the price.  Build your own battlefield and get like 30 minis to duke it out with aliens, dinosaurs, robots, and vikings.  

It's strictly beer and pretzels, but its fun.  I may get another set for the terrain alone.

First, the teaser trailer:

Fade in onto a barge floating in the middle of the river.  A couple of men stand near the wheel, sweeping their searchlight across several upcoming bridges.   The camera steadily zooms in until the wheelhouse is in full frame.

Man 1:  Quiet night…

Man 2:  Yeah, I think we’ll make good time through here.

Screen fades to black.

Text fades onto the screen:     <in> This fall <out>

Fade back to wheelhouse

Man 1:  Hey, you ever actually been to St. Louis?  Frank says that some place called &#8220;The Landing&#8221; is not to be missed.  Drunken girls everywhere!

Man 2:  Nope&#8230; Never really had any mind to go.   One bar&#8217;s a good as another to this old riverman.  And I wouldn&#8217;t pay much heed to anything Franks says.

Man 1:  Yeah, well Frank&#8217;s seems to know&#8230;

A loud crash against the bottom of the barge startles the men and shakes the entire boat

Man 1:  What was that?

Screen fades to black

Text fades onto the screen:     <in> On the WB <out>

Screen fades back to men scrambling

Man 2:  Don&#8217;t know&#8230;must have hit something.

They sweep the light around the water near them.  Just past the edge of the light, something disturbs the water, but quickly submerges as the light approaches.  The men look at each other with wide eyes confirming that they both did see it.

Man 2 (nervously):  Better have a look to make sure we&#8217;re not taking on water&#8230;

Screen fades to black

Text fades onto the screen:     <in> The Gateway City<out>

Screen fades back to men walking toward the starboard side and then peering into the water.  Suddenly, another loud crash rocks the boat, sending the two men to the floor.  Large tentacles burst forth from the water, gripping all sides of the barge.  The men scream as the barge is capsized and drug under water.

Screen fades to black

Text fades onto the screen:     <in> Earns Its Name <out>

Screen fades back to the now calm waters where the barge drug under

Close up on Man 2&#8217;s hat floating downstream.  The camera pans up to reveal the Arch and the St. Louis skyline.

The screen flashes and fades to black

As a fan of all things Metroid, I can't wait for this game!

It's not supposed to be released until the 9th, but Tycho mentioned picking up a copy in today's news post at PA.  He specifically mentions getting it at a store, so its not a review copy.

Anyone seen this in stores yet?  If it released early I'll be devoting a chunk of my weekend to it.

This topic has been moved to [link=http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=rantage;action=display;num=1134492355;start=0]Rants and Stuff[/link] by Tagenog.

I'm a great fan of B-horror movies.  Love them to death, in fact.  So it is no surprise that I spent many a night in high school renting and watching the good, the bad, and the absolutely terrible movies that these two giants of horror had been featured in.

I waited years for this movie to get made...ever since the end of Jason Goes to Hell when Freddy's hand pulls the hockey mask into the dirt..., expecting the worst.  I mean, c'mon, how could anyone do justice to this concept.

Well, justice was done.  This was such a fun movie and it was done perfectly.  If you're a fan of either of the 80's great horror icons, you have to see this.  I doubt you'll be disappointed.