Well, in checking my tracker, I see that I've received my first genuine, bona fide "hit" -- that is as something other than someone clicking the link on Moggy's blog or a link that I put into one of my own emails. Someone searched Google for the keywords "chai machine", and my blog came up number 22 out of some thirty thousand or so. Have to admit this rather surprises me. My blog being what it is, I wouldn't have thought I'd ever get indexed anywhere at all, let alone this near the top of Google's results.
Well, whoever you are -- thank you for clicking my link, if you ever see this message. :-) Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to finding someplace for dinner this evening. Dinner last night was so-so... I'm glad we went, but it wasn't really worth it. Full report later.
Posted by Zathras at July 6, 2003 03:45 PMJust think, you'd get more hits with Zanthras' Great Chai Machine.
Why the hell do folks like Chai? I had one at Borders once - Chai tasted like Chalk. I wanted to spit on a chalkboard and write with it.
Posted by: Shaw at July 7, 2003 08:07 PMI think it depends on how well the chai is made. Borders sometimes flubs the powder mix, resulting in gritty/chalky stuff, and I hate it when that happens too. I prefer Starbucks (hot/iced/frappe) as their recipe relies on liquids instead -- thus, no chalk texture. "Oregon" chai is also a liquid, but a bit too honeyed for my tastes...
I'd be craving it right now (there's *none* in my house) but I'm just too damn tired. I wish airplanes served chai along with everything else, it would be so much nicer on long flights than cola after cola. (Perhaps next time I'll bring some powder with me, request hot water, and mix my own right there at the seat. Better than getting sick from drinking too much Coke or Sprite!)
Posted by: Moggy at July 8, 2003 03:53 PMAirplane meals suck - even the sodas! It's hard to eat a "good" meal when you're flying up all that high - heck, it's hard enough keeping the food DOWN!
Posted by: Shaw at July 8, 2003 07:36 PMThe meals on the two JetBlue flights I had to/from Maryland was all fairly high-quality stuff I'd voluntarily buy on my own to eat (but probably could not afford). Southwest, however, served stuff that you might find in a spoiled kid's lunchbox. It even had a package of Gummi Fruit labeled "real fruit product" and a package of generic peanuts that says "processed in a plant that processes nuts."
Even though I'm very happy that I had the opportunity to go at all, I'm looking forward to *not* flying Southwest in the future... *snicker*
Posted by: Moggy at July 8, 2003 09:15 PMThat's almost as bad as the layover I had in Atlanta GA. at 6am on a Sunday - only place open for eats (after a real long, dreadful flight) was a place that sold fried goop. I had simulated egg fried goop, potatoe fried goop, and goopy juice.
Posted by: Shaw at July 8, 2003 11:19 PMWhat, no Denny's in the area? That's the one universal late-dinner spot I'm aware of...though as my friend commented at our post-midnight dinner, "I'd have a cheeseburger, but last time that gave me food poisoning!"
Last night's travel story beats any food-related nightmare I've had in a long time, though. I'll be posting the tale to my blog in a few minutes...
Posted by: Moggy at July 8, 2003 11:31 PMI'll check it out. No, it was an airport - no Denny's for thousands of miles around
Posted by: Shaw at July 9, 2003 09:29 AMthat and it was Georgia - apparently they luv fried goop
Posted by: Shaw at July 9, 2003 09:30 AMIn the Bronx, they like fried twinkies:
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/06/26/Taste/The_Twinkie_transform.shtml
Scotland likes fried mars and snickers bars:
http://yumfood.net/recipes/deepfriedmars.html
and they like fried pizza too:
http://arno.meulenkamp.net/pics/glasgow_july_2003?&page=2
and:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/living/archive/12-4-19101-20-45-6.html
fried pickles from Canada:
http://www.strubpickles.com/Recipes/recipesfrieddills.htm
Wisconsin deep fried cheese curds:
http://appetizer.allrecipes.com/az/dpfridchscrds.asp
they like fried green tomatoes in Georgia and Illinois:
Deep Fried Turkey:
http://www.allrecipes.com/cb/kh/thanks/friedturkey/default.asp
deep fried cookies:
http://dessert.allrecipes.com/az/dpfridckis.asp
fried apple pies:
http://pie.allrecipes.com/az/friedapplepies.asp
Just plain fried apples:
http://christmas.allrecipes.com/az/friedapples.asp
fried ice cream:
http://dessert.allrecipes.com/az/fridiccrm.asp
can you tell I am on a diet? :)
Posted by: Matt at July 9, 2003 03:16 PMDude! I have high cholestoral! Those linx scare me!
Posted by: Shaw at July 9, 2003 06:33 PMHow's the diet going, Matt?
So far I'm on track with mine and got out to walk a couple of miles last night. I'm hoping to walk three more miles tonight but I'll be happy with two. I lost three pounds this week.
I'm looking forward to school starting because I'll be able to use the weight room for free and start adding some muscle mass to increase my metabolism. Technically, since I'm 36 and haven't done any weight training in 18 years I'm going to start out *replacing* the muscle mass I've lost (after a certain age - some say 25, others say 30 - the body loses a certain percentage - some say 1%, some say 3% - of muscle mass every year.)
Hope the dieting is going well for you, too, Matt, and it's not driving you too nuts. At least you're on a diet where you can eat as much food as you want so you're not hungry, just missing things you used to eat. I, on the other hand, can eat pretty much anything I want but I do get hungry at times, especially in the evenings before bed because I can't eat as much as I want of anything other than a head of cabbage (and yes, I could probably eat an entire head of cabbage in one sitting. Especially purple cabbage.)
I've lost 24 lbs in two months, so it's going well. Only 40 more lbs to go :( After going on Atkins, my triglycerides dropped like a rock - from 230 down to 85. Unfortunately, the bad cholesterol went from 126 to 146 - my doctor says I need to excercise more :P
I was having carbohydrate cravings today for some reason, so thats why the links. Actually, if it is fried meat, I can have it with my Atkins diet - just not fried anything else.
Hmm - at 3% per year, that would mean when you were 90, you would have lost 90-30=60x3%=180% of your muscle mass - that sounds like a bit too much :) You would have lost 100% of your muscle mass around 63 years old, and would have been flopping around like a rag doll after that :)
Posted by: Matt at July 9, 2003 09:33 PMIt doesn't work quite that way. :-)
Say I have 100 pounds of muscle mass.
Next year, I have 100 - 3% or 97 pounds muscle mass.
The year after that, I have 97 - 3% or 94.09 pounds (not 94 as your math would make it.)
Next year, it's 94.09 - 3% or 91.2673 (your math has us at 91 because you keep taking the 3% off the original weight, not off the current weight.)
At this rate, at age 63 the sedentary person who started with 100 pounds of muscle mass does not have zero pounds of muscle math as you'd claim but rather 36.61 pounds of muscle mass.
When I think about my own father (who spent most of his adult life sitting at a desk and sitting in front of the television and laying around on the bed all day) at age thirty and then again at age 63, I'd have to say that he did lose about two-thirds of his muscle mass over those years. It's kind of sad to look at how feeble his body got over the years.
That's the idea behind the "use it or lose it" theory. When you're eight, you don't lose much muscle mass by sitting in front of the Nintendo all day. When you're thirty-eight, you do.
*getting out da zamboni machine to clean up da bottom of da blog*
Posted by: Shaw at July 13, 2003 03:08 PMWell, I knew there was something wrong with losing 180% of your muscle mass :) I've seen articles that say with weight training even seniors can increase their muscle strength by 1/3 - c'mon Grandma - five more reps or no Hollywood Squares for you tonight! :)
Hey! Watch the Zamboni! You almost got my foot! Darn amateurs... :)
Posted by: Matt at July 13, 2003 04:25 PM"I've seen articles that say with weight training even seniors can increase their muscle strength by 1/3 - c'mon Grandma - five more reps or no Hollywood Squares for you tonight! :)"
Yup. You can't reverse the aging process (at least not with current technology) but you can slow it down quite a bit. I've seen 80-something and 90-something trapeze artists with bodies I would love to have right now as a 30-something!
Some of it's genetics, of course, but a lot of it is just keeping on with life and using yourb ody to its fullest.
Posted by: Sparrow at July 14, 2003 05:50 AM