Getting political

I've resisted blogging on political topics for the most part, although I have mentioned Tom Friedman before.

But his column in today's NY Times is just dead-on. PLEASE read it.

Did you know that the USA is no longer the world's largest exporter? It's not China, either. Nor Japan. India? Nope.

It's Germany. Why? Because they know how to attract burgeoning industries like tech and clean energy.

Rethinking the clock

I've come across two very cool clock sculptures in the blogosphere recently:

The Indoor Sundial (complete with second hand!) seems to have been thought up as a joke, but dozens of commenters have expressed interest in buying one. I would too.

Dutch artist Christiaan Potsma has designed a complex analog wall clock with mechanical clockwork (animation) that constantly rearranges a set of "hands" to spell out the name of the current hour.

Eating disorder

A bum came up to me on the street and said he hadn't had a bite in a week.

So I bit him!

This joke has been around longer than dirt. Some people find it funny. Some people think it's not funny because it makes fun of bums. Me? I think it's not funny because I haven't had a bite in a week.

That's only a very slight exaggeration. But today marks a full week since I've been able to eat in the normal sense.

This all started, quite inconveniently, on my birthday. Since that morning, I've had virtually no appetite whatsoever. I feel full -- too full -- all the time. It's uncomfortable. I've been surviving on liquids: mostly ginger ale and gatorade, with some tea, both hot and iced. Yesterday, for example, my diet consisted of ginger ale, tea, four gummy bears, a slice of bread, and about three bites of pasta. At no point during this time did I actually feel hungry; I ate because I figured it was a good idea.

I saw my physician on Monday. He suspected it might be a stomach infection picked up from the last meal I ate (more on that later), and put me on an antibiotic in case it's bacterial. He also ordered blood tests and recommended that I see a gastroenterologist who happened to be in the same building.

I managed to get an appointment with the GI doc for today (Wednesday), probably due to a cancellation. He turned out to be a rather useless individual, spending a total of about ninety seconds with me and offering the sagely advice to stick with a bland diet and come back in a week if I'm not better. His Physician's Assistant, however, was kinder and spent time understanding my situation and offering advice. She also gave me some free samples of a prescription antacid, deserving of its own digression...

Somewhere, in a cubicle inside the headquarters of a giant pharmaceutical company, sits a copywriter who missed the day of kindergarten when they taught phonics. In fact, several layers of management must also have flunked phonics, in order to let this slip by. Either that, or they were all "in" on the joke and I simply fail to share their sense of humor. For you see, dear reader, some giant pharmaceutical company saw fit to release an antacid called Aciphex. Seriously. A medicine for digestive problems that is pronounced virtually identically to "ass-effects".

So that's the deal. I haven't felt hungry in a week. Each day of the past week, The Boy (17 months) has undoubtedly consumed more calories than his Daddy. And the strangest part of all: despite all this, I've only lost a little weight, and I still have a reasonable amount of energy -- all the more surprising since I've avoided caffeine throughout this whole episode. I am surviving on ginger ale, with a slice of bread or (that's OR, not AND) some applesauce each day.

Oh, and about that meal that might have been the culprit: I'll continue to eat at tex-mex restaurants. I'll even happily go back to the same tex-mex restaurant that started all this. But tex-mex restaurants, my friends, are not the place to order grilled tuna. (In this case, served over a caesar salad - the very notion of which turns my bloated stomach every time I think of it.)

One of those great parenthood moments

The boy has been learning lots of new words lately. Today while
playing with his shape sorter, we tried to get him to say the names of
some of the shapes. The first one he got was "oval". Then he was able
to say "star" very clearly, which we celebrated with a rousing
rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle.

Fast forward a few hours. We're getting him ready for bed. His Mommy
and I spontaneously burst into song:

"Twinkle, twinkle little..."
...wait for it...
...wait for it...
"Oval!"

Nothing I can add to this

Except a HT to הציד.

Best Little League Game Ever

With another HT to the Good Experience blog, I have to share this.

The group ImprovEverywhere has previously wreaked such pranks as the pantsless NY subway ride, the topless Abercrombie & Fitch innundation, and dozens of other public stunts. This time, they've outdone themselves by giving a bunch of little leaguers in California an experience they'll never forget.

Check it out here.

The oil bubble

Please read this excellent article in Business Week, by Ed Wallace.

Congratulations, American consumer. You've done your part. You've stopped buying SUVs, resulting in a net drop in petroleum consumption in the US year-over-year. Unfortunately, speculators in oil futures (Goldman Sachs, for a very big one) don't get it - they're ignoring the fact that oil reserves are at their highest level in almost 20 years; supply continuing to grow and demand shrinking. All the while, they're profiting by making dire predictions for a continued rise in oil prices ($200 a barrel, anyone?) while investing more and more in oil futures. Wouldn't those practices be illegal if they were issuing reports on, say, a stock, while holding a huge position?

The administration, more interested in protecting the profits of oil futures speculators and Big Oil in general, isn't about to step in and regulate things in the interest of John Q. Taxpayer.

But sooner or later - like dotcoms, like housing... isn't this bubble going to burst? Keep on buying efficient cars and using less oil. Eventually, when refineries have to stop production because of the surplus already in the market, maybe a few speculators will get scared and begin the massive sell-off.

Handle with Care Hampton redux

Yep, injured. Again. 15-day DL.

AJC

Jeff Schultz:

Mike Hampton isn’t an injured pitcher anymore. He’s a wrenched ankle away from being the poor schlep on the Operation game. He’s way south of Chris Chandler and just north of Monty Python’s Black Knight.

Deja vu.

Grow your own gas!

What if you never had to pull into a gas station again? What if you could refuel your car with a renewable energy source, right at home?

Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been promising this for many years. But I'm not talking about EVs. I'm talking about cars (and trucks!) that are readily available today, at comparable prices to what you probably drive now. There are even vintage cars out there that could run on this renewable energy source, with no modification!

Are you starting to wonder what Flipper has been smoking? Well, that's a fair question... Diesel fumes!

The Brazilian Diesel Tree (scientific name: Copaifera langsdorfii) can be tapped, not unlike getting syrup from a maple tree. But instead of syrup, you get diesel fuel. No need for refining - simply filter the stuff, and pour it right into the tank of any diesel-fuel vehicle. Bonus: Diesels tend to get 20-30% better mileage than similar-sized regular gas cars anyway.

Given, you'd have to wait 15 years for saplings to produce fuel. But with just 1/2 acre of land dedicated to Copaifera langsdorfii, you might get all the fuel you need from your own backyard.

Read all about it here.

HT to B-dot on this one.