Month: August 2003
-
McDonalds’ New “Salad Plus” Line: A Review First things first – I love McDonalds. I grew up as a typical American kid who thought Happy Meals were the greatest meal ever. I cheered when I moved to England and discovered that my beloved back-catalogue McChicken was still available there. I also got pretty damn chunky.…
-
Friday Annoyances: Some misguided fool at my office thought it was a great idea to designate Fridays “No Lift Day”. This means that the elevator is turned off and we’re all supposed to use the stairs. (As expected, all of us on the second floor* are grumbling, while those damn lucky ground dwellers don’t mind…
-
Trivia Update: Fourth place, then third, and now – inevitably – second. We lost on a tiebreak. My own personal highlight was knowing the names of the actors who played Bill and Ted. Other memorable questions included the nine European capitals that have hosted the Summer Olympics, the name of the spellbook on Charmed, and…
-
Congratulations to our friends Major and Steph, who just announced their engagement tonight. (This is disturbing. It’s only been one week since I made my anti-marriage proclamation and already our ratio of married-to-single friends is shifting.)
-
Geek or Serial Killer? I am ashamed to admit that I only got three correct out of ten! No wonder slashdot meetups are so intimidating for me; I subconsciously think everybody’s a murderous psychopath!
-
I’ve been pretty discouraged with the diet lately. After the vacation I went back to hard-core induction but no matter what I did I just couldn’t get into ketosis. That stupid Ketostick just refused to turn pink. Without that encouragement I found myself unable to resist the siren call of carbs. (Last weekend alone I…
-
Problems With Having an American Accent in Australia That I Never Noticed in England: I regularly get twice as much hamburger from the butcher as I request. Seriously. You see, we Yanks pronounce “have” and “half” almost identically. The vowel sound – at least in my Midwestern experience – is the same. Australians, though, pronounce…
-
I always thought using “they” or “them” to refer to a singular person was a grievous grammatical sin. Instead it turns out that it’s actually not so bad! We English-speakers have been doing it since the 14th century, in fact. So the next time someone tries to correct you on it, tell them to stick…
-
I just got an e-mail from my friend Julie asking me to take part in the Small World Experiment. Some researchers at Columbia University are basically testing the whole “six degrees of separation” theory. They designate a target person somewhere on the globe and then observe how many e-mails it takes to reach them. Julie’s…
-
The Run Log is having the intended effect. I actually thought to myself today, “I better hit the gym tonight so I don’t look lazy.” Ah, the power of peer pressure. I went. My overall pace wasn’t blistering but I did manage to finish the first mile in 11:28 (a personal best). I think I…