Inert Ramblings

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  • Atkins for Life

    Kelly came home with a copy of Atkins for Life the other night and I’ve started flipping through it. I’ll definitely read it from cover to cover at some point, but it’s written as a reference manual to help configure a lifestyle change to maintain weight that’s already been lost.

    It is possible to start the Atkins Diet using this book, however the information is presented in such a way that makes it difficult. In order to take full advantage of the Atkins Diet it’s recommended that you purchase New Diet Revolution as well. Since I had a borrowed copy, I’ll be picking up Dr. Atkins’ Three-Book Package which includes New Diet Revolution, New Diet Cookbook and New Carbohydrate Gram Counter.

  • Brownouts suck.

    So all of the UPS boxes in my office were firing randomly all night. Plugging a voltmeter into the outlet revealed consistent drops under 112 VAC every minute or two so I called Mass Electric to report the problem. After blaming my internal wiring the incredibly chipper CSR agreed to dispatch a tech. A few minutes later, a Mass Electric service van rolled up, he plugged a voltmeter into my box, said “235 VAC/118 VAC, perfectly within spec” and left. He couldn’t have had the meter plugged in for more than three seconds. When I stopped him and said that we had well over a hundred brownouts, he said he’d “let them know” and drove off.

    Bastards. The lot of them.

  • Tanita BF-662-S Scale

    Since our aging analog scale has been getting more and more flakey lately with fluctuations of up to four or five pounds I’ve decided to bite the bullet and order a Tanita BF-662-S digital scale with athletic mode and body fat analysis. Tanita has quite a few other scales available, but the BF-662-S seemed like the best choice with all of the features I needed.

    My primary concern is weight but the body fat analysis and athletic mode will help keep the reading accurate since I’ve started working out. The BF-662-S is missing some features like weight logging and history, but those were features I didn’t feel the need to pay for due to the fact that I am using Eat Watch for that.

    Once the unit shows up I’ll post a full review.

  • [email protected] has been terminated.

    I got responses back from systems administrators at primushost.com and livin4.com. The user account that was being used for the fake Love@AOL Web page has been shut down by livin4.com and the open formmail.pl script that was being used to send the email was terminated by primushost.com.

    What’s really a shame is that [email protected] sounds like a legitimate email account (and a cool one at that)…so this kid probably used his personal email address to launch the attack. Another assclown bites it.

  • More AOL password theft…

    I was hit by a spam attack this morning and received around 350 emails over the course of 12 hours. The attacker was [email protected] and he used a Yahoo! bouncer to forward people to a fake Love@AOL page. After deconstructing his email and Web page, I sent analysis to abuse, webmaster and security accounts at all the services he used (yahoo.com, primushost.com, aol.com and livin4.net). The only provider that has not responded yet is livin4.net (their “tech support” phone number consisted of a consumer answering machine).

    Yahoo! has terminated this user and I don’t know what other action has been taken.

  • The gourmet $4.25 Atkins lunch…

    This afternoon I figured I’d troll the frozen foods section for Atkins safe foods. Just about everything out there is either in the 30+ carb range or comes in a bulk sized bag (grilled chicken or fish) that requires a kitchen to prepare. To my surprise, I found some relatively inexpensive items in the seafood section that came in easily prepared single servings that could be nuked in the office microwave.

    Lunch today consisted of Gorton’s Cajun Blackened Grilled Fillets (2 carbs) with a side of Frico smoked cheese (0 carbs) and a handful of sliced almonds (1 net carb). The fish was amazingly good for a frozen block. Although the cajun spices were a little tame the overall flavor was delicious, especially with the cheese and almonds as a side.

  • People are a bunch of zoomtards!

    Why is it that, for the most part, the more expensive a luxury car is the more of an asshole the driver is? For whatever unknown reason the town of Methuen, MA decided to shorten the green time on one of its primary lights to an excruciating five seconds. This, of course, caused traffic to back up all along both highway exits, the mall and all surrounding side streets. Result: people driving expensive luxury cars are fucking zoomtards.

    Case 1: While getting off 213 at The Loop I made my way into the left lane to turn left onto Howe. Someone in a high end Lexus cut by me on the left over the double yellow and forced me into the middle (straight) lane.

    Case 2: I figured I’d just go straight and cut through the parking lot at The Loop. Traffic was backed up there as well (single lane) and the following cars crossed over the double yellow and drove through oncoming traffic to try to cut back in at the last minute: Mercedes CLK, Mercedes AMG, Lexus and an Explorer.

    Case 3: After fighting traffic and successfully turning onto Howe St., three or four cars blocked traffic even worse by trying to use the left turn lane to gain 30 seconds and cut back into the straight lane…effectively causing gridlock through the next three green lights.

    Case 4: After finally getting to the last light of the intersection, some guy in a highly modified F350 attempted to intimidate me by blasting up the left turn lane and crossing over the double yellow into oncoming traffic while trying to cut in front of me. Luckily, I daily drive a beat to crap rally car and don’t care about my paint. With the assistance of first gear, lots of horns and a few hundred watts of forward facing spotlights I convinced the F350 driver that I really didn’t care if he hit me because his paint would be more expensive to fix than mine. He then proceeded to tailgate me to my destination as if I were the asshole.

    People suck.

  • Ignore your weight, watch your weight trend!

    One of the most discouraging things about keeping track of my weight is seeing that I’m on a plateau that seems impossible to get past. It seems especially difficult if the plateau lasts more than three or four days…it’s very easy to fall into the rut of thinking “what’s the use, I’ll just have a candy bar since I can’t lose the weight anyway”. Fortunately, I’ve found an easy way to keep myself motivated!

    One of the analogies that is explained in depth in The Hacker’s Diet is that the human body is nothing more than a glorified rubber bag. Since multiple pounds of food, water, O2, CO2, etc. all flow in and out of the body each day it’s quite possible to be losing fat but retain the water and other miscellaneous nasties that flow through the system. As unpleasant as it is to discuss, I can think of many times that I’ve weighed myself both before and after a bathroom trip and found myself much lighter than I’d care to think about.
    (more…)

  • I’m hopelessly addicted…

    It’s official…I’m hopelessly addicted to Poland Spring Sparkling Lemon and Sparkling Lime spring water. The fluid flows over the tongue like liquid crack and leaves a crisp burning sensation as it rolls down the throat. The slightly bitter quinine-like aftertaste lasts for a few seconds, and then you crave more. It’s quite odd. I really don’t like the taste of the stuff. It’s the sensation that I’m addicted to.

  • What is an inert ramble?

    According to Google, I seem to be the first person on the Web to use the phrase “inert ramblings“. I guess that makes me a pioneer (a pioneer of what, I’m not quite sure). Regardless, inert ramblings are defined as the inability to move about aimlessly or the inability to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way.