I Am Doing Science To It, And Random Info

A couple of weeks ago, JR sent me a link to an article about the use of apple cider vinegar as a weight-loss tool.  As I am using valuable company time/resources to write this, and not my netbook, I do not have the link to the study.  Nutshell: 175 obese Japanese men drank either no vinegar in 500mL, 15mL in 500mL of water, or 30mL in 500mL of water after breakfast and dinner for 12 weeks.  Clarification: they drank one cup (250mL) of the mixture twice a day.  The selling point for me (and others, I am sure)?  Diet was not changed.  That's right, folks.  The study saw reduction of waist circumference by drinking a vinegar mixture twice a day. 

Since JR is all knocked-up, we thought it wouldn't be a good idea to be doing science to her and the parasite, so I volunteered to drink vinegar for science.  Today was day one.  I'm doing my best to adhere to the study guidelines, but I'm sure there will be slight variations.  If I remember, when I get home tonight, I will find the link to the study and include it.  I measured my waist circumference this AM, and then drank down my 250mL of vinegar/water after having breakfast.  I should say this: I usually don't eat breakfast, so I'm already changing things.  I may end up bring the mix to work and downing it after lunch instead.  And if you were wondering, vinegar in water isn't the tastiest of libations, but it isn't the worst thing ever.  Anyway, 250mL of water is easy enough to chug right down.

Other random info: I am trying yet again for a different position at my work.  One thing I may have on my side is that the person doing the interviewing used my as her bitch for a while, and also hand-selected me (like fruit) to fill in as the DE supervisor back when the Princess was out being all insurance fraudulent or whatever.  I should have an interview set up by the end of the week.  Annoyingly enough, the girl who got the last position I applied for is applying for this one.  I may have to hate her if she does it to me again.  What?  No, I don't think she is just the better person for the job.  Pfft.  What are you thinking?

That sucker up there was lunch yesterday at the Renaissance Faire, in Lancaster PA.  It was delicious.  We also watched a human chess match and some bawdy comedy (because that's all they had in Ye Olde Tymes, right?), had random people accost us in the streets, and got heartburn trying this Mount Hope wine.  It was unbelieveably harsh.  Wooo-eee!  Good thing I only had a taste.  BB tried the Swashbuckler Red Sea Amber.  I tried a taste, but it wasn't really to my liking.  The cinnamon almonds, however, yum.  Oh, and funnel cake.  What?  It's a faire.

The World Is My Laboratory

I wore a skirt to work yesterday. Nothing fancy; just a plain black skirt that hit me an inch or so below the knee. From the reactions of some of my coworkers, you would have thought that I was wearing a shiny leather micro mini with hooker heels. Anyway, in the spirit of my sociological forefathers and mothers, I decided to run a little experiment today. Depending on my observations, I could string this out all week.

Today, I put on mascara. Yep, I put on make-up in the name of science. See, if wearing a shortish skirt is an infrequent occurrence, the application of make-up is practically unheard of. While it's not quite going undercover as a Hell's Angel, it's definitely a deviation from my normal routine, and I'm curious to see if anyone make a comment.

Now, I'm not doing this to see how well people pay attention to me, in particular, it's just easier to do this solo. I'm thinking that if no one notices the mascara today, I may add eyeliner tomorrow. And if no one notices that, lip gloss the following day. I guess that point is to see how far outside my norm I have to go before it's commented upon. As of 1:30ish, no one has said anything. Updates to follow.

It is now after 5 pm and nothing. It would seem that mascara is a bit too subtle. Personally, I think it's a fairly obvious difference, but I did, after all, apply the stinkin' stuff.

Fucking Science

You've probably seen some items in the news about how divorced or widowed people are more likely to have chronic health and/or mental health issues. And that remarriage doesn't mitigate all the effects this. I had so far avoided reading about this because I get all salty when studies are done about divorced women and they (the results of the study) invariably make it sound like divorced, or never-married, women are sad, pathetic, ill, and depressed. I finally decided to read some of the articles. I got salty.

Here are some highlights from the WebMD article:

Compared to married people who had never been divorced or widowed, people who had lost a spouse to death or divorce but were not remarried at the time they were surveyed were 22% more likely to have chronic health conditions and 27% more likely to have mobility issues.

“People who did not remarry had significantly worse health than people who did, so remarriage helps,” Waite says. “But it does not erase the effects of being widowed or divorced.”

Well, isn't that a happy "fuck you" to us divorced women. As I couldn't find the actual article from the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, I don't have any information about how long people were married before the death or divorce happened, the age of the person during said event, or how long they were alone and sad before a remarriage. I can feel my sense of mental and physical well-being slowly eroding beneath the onslaught of social science.

Yes, I know that statistics are easily manipulated, and that extrapolating from a sample to a larger population can skew data. And that I'm not necessarily part of that 27% that will have mobility issues. I wasn't going to break out the walker, but if I don't get remarried soon, I may need to get me a Jazzy Chair. Yee-hah!

"The science was sound."

WARNING: Fringe Spoilers ahead.

Fringe is my new guilty pleasure. In case you don't know anything about the show, here's a quick sum-up. There is this thing called "The Pattern" which involves bizarre science, the Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI, a corporation called Massive Dynamic, a bland Special Agent named Olivia Dunham, a ne'er do well genius and his lovably crazy scientist dad (Peter and Dr. Walter Bishop respectively). The show is nominally about "fringe" science: teleportation, reading dead people's brain waves, super-awful super weapons, etc. What it actually is nonsense - wonderful, crazy, not-science nonsense.

Tonight's episode revolved around a series of seemingly impossible bank robberies. We the viewers get to see the robbers in action. There's some black curtains, a bunch of laptops, and some gobbledygook about having a grid. What this all amounts to is that these robbers can walk through walls. Did I mention that they are all spiffed out in scuba gear? And have to haul themselves into the vault using a rope attached to a super magnet? And one of the robbers gets stuck in the wall?

It turns out that the criminals are stealing safety deposit boxes that were stocked with funky camera-looking things. It also turns out that our very own Dr. Walter had opened those boxes 20-odd years ago (the boxes are based on Fibonacci numbers - go math!) to hide away a device he had made in an insane attempt to cure his son, Peter, of some rare bird flu. Walter created this device in order to reach back to the 1930s and retrieve the only doctor who had ever successfully treated this rare bird flu. Luckily for this bird flu doc, Peter got better all by himself and Walter secreted away his temporal lasso.

Do you see now why I love this show? It's completely preposterous. Walter spent almost 20 years in a mental institution but somehow a good percentage of his research is being used for nefarious purposes, Olivia is sharing her dead boyfriend's memories, the lady who runs Massive Dynamic has an arm that any Terminator would envy and there is a cow in their basement lab on Harvard's campus. The science, my friends, is anything but sound.