gone til monday night. if you want to get together in austin, call my cellphone (831-246-1325). 08:53 am

yay! my corset arrived. fits perfectly even under my jeans. it also makes me sit up very straight. no more slouching. 10:39 am

i am addicted to SoBe Lean tropical. being on a low-carb diet mean you can't drink fruit juice. this is so yummy and only 2.5g carbs per bottle. it also has a couple of good diet additives like l-carnitine. i've only seen the tropical and the cranberry-grapefruit tho. cranberry-grapefruit is disgusting if you don't like grapefruit juice. i'd like to try the green tee. unfortunately, as jason keeps reminding me, they're an expensive addiction. 10:15 am

Coffee knocks out women's pain. i always assumed that women had a better tolerance for pain. not because of childbirth, but because of the way jason squealed when i waxed his eyebrows. via bottomquark. 10:06 am

what tom said. i couldn't help but wonder yesterday whether bush told his aides "find me a link between iraq and al-qaeda so i can make it part of the war on terrorism". 09:56 am

off to austin tomorrow. i am not looking forward to the 90 degree weather. 09:39 am

Residents flee wildfire%u2019s path Thick smoke grounds air tankers; containment expected by Saturday. according to jason the whole valley smells of smoke. 09:25 am

something this article doesn't mention is that Topiramate can also cause weightloss. a good side effect for most people. 09:32 am

Crabshell toothpaste 'fights decay'. speaking of which, i went to the dentist last week. it's been a year since my last cleaning and i was prepared for another round of fillings. amazingly, my teeth are looking great, no problems. woo-hoo! 10:47 am

i saw this on tv a few weeks back. probably on tomorrow's world. using the body's immune system to wipe out cancer just seems to make sense. 10:45 am

Stem cell research OK%u2019d in Calif.. i'm so glad to read this. i find it really encouraging when states pass laws that contradict stupid federal laws. via bottomquark. 10:42 am

clarification of the epilepsy case 09:56 am

rollerweblogger's chilling effect just shows how these guys are morons. you can't copyright a word. they haven't trademarked it. and i would guess that it's probably too late to do so. as far as trademarks go, tm just means you've applied for a trademark. r means it's actually been registered. words that are in common usage can't be trademarked. here's the definition. unless you've registered or applied, you don't have legal recourse. 09:51 am

hmmm. seems like i'm not the only one who had problems with amazon's new supersaver shipping. i hadn't actually pinpointed that it was the free shipping that was causing such a long delay. dori points to matt's account. 06:55 pm

arghh. thanks andrea, i needed another timewaster... Book Worm. 06:32 pm

despite being sidetracked by thoughts of sex, i managed to thorougly enjoy lance's ode to coffee. mmmm. coffee. thanks liz. 06:22 pm

River found under Sahara. 10:44 am

Rate My Poo is really gross. but, i still feel the need to link to it. especially the #1 poo titled Holy Mary Mother Of God, Look At That!!!. 10:35 am

grrr. i still have weblogs that use blogger. i'm too lazy to swap over something that is only updated once a month. but, blogger isn't publishing. there's a nice little error message ( Error 503: Unable to load template file. We're working on this. Please try back later.) i think it might just be quicker to hand code it. it's only once a month after all. 10:07 am

Life gets real for simulated citizens. sigh. can't escape ads anywhere. 09:44 am

How food benefits mood. it's rather unsurprising that mental health is improved by eating the right kinds of food. pwe's (people with epilepsy) have known this for years. 09:40 am

20 years of emoticons. E-archaeologists find 'first ever smiley' :-) 01:02 pm

roflmao. via dave. 12:40 pm

happy birthday andrea! 12:21 pm

City leaders back medical pot giveaway. this is why i love santa cruz. what i find disgusting is the dea spokesman's reaction.

" Are you serious? That’s illegal. It’s like they’re flaunting federal law," he said. "I’m shocked that city leaders would promote the use of marijuana that way. What is that saying to our youth?"

At 78 I still like sex. i had always wondered about that. i assumed it was true, but it's not really something you want to think about your grandparents doing. 01:15 pm

wonderpants. i don't think i've ever really noticed men's "packages". then again, maybe i've just been married too long. i take that back, i definitely noticed the "packages" in the international male catalog. at least guys won't have to fly to england to get their wonderpants. they can order them online. via rebecca. 01:07 pm

i went shopping downtown yesterday. unfortunately, the only thing i could find to buy was a baby gift for my new nephew. when i went into camouflage, i was very tempted to buy the liquid latex. i just couldn't think of a good excuse tho. 10:29 am

How mothers dominate family life. well, i guess this would mean that i would have a girl. since i'd hardly classify myself as "feisty". i think i'd rather have a girl. until she hit puberty that is. via green fairy. 10:20 am

why doesn't Banana Republic sell bed and bath stuff online anymore? i want some more towels :( 04:15 pm

just in case you need something to waste your time on this fine day. AAA Shizmoo Games 01:24 pm

Parents pay to choose baby's sex. i wonder why it would be unethical to choose the sex of your baby. then again, i'm all for genetic modification. aside from wanting a healthy child, i'd be really bothered if i had an ugly child or a stupid child. if i could avoid those two things, i'd do it. 11:34 am

why is it that the common defenses against sexism are completely sexist?

first defense, "i know a man who was discriminated against." does "reverse sexism" justify sexism? no, because there is no such thing as "reverse sexism". sexism is sexism is sexism. just because a man was discriminated against does not excuse or cancel out or make right all the sexism against women. "my male friend who was discriminated against didn't protest so you have no right to protest". bullshit.

or is it the fact that "women are interested in different things than men." excuse me? could you be a little more condescending with your assumption that babies are more interesting to women than war? i wouldn't presume to know what other women are interested in. i certainly wouldn't assume to know what men are interested in. to make a broad generalization like that is reprehensible. people have specific interests. none of which can be generalized. for example, jason really loves cars. therefore all men must be obsessed with cars. some of the men would show just a touch of condescension toward the women, thinking that they could not really understand about "cars" and similar subjects. but that's ok because men know much more about cars. all men must be gear heads who get a hard-on everytime they see a nice car and are just itching to get their hands greasy by digging in the engine, does this amount to sexism? <sarcasm>not by my definition</sarcasm>. 10:21 am

it's hot here. i hate it when it's hot in santa cruz. 99% of the year air conditioning is a laughable concept. then along come some of those days... 02:49 pm

US attacks 'contributed to mistrust of science'. i have a feeling that this article was slightly altered to give it a september 11th spin. however, i did find the main premise extremely interesting.

"If anything, we have succumbed to a lack of faith in the notion of social progress and a suspicion amounting to an assertion that the growth of knowledge does not guarantee human happiness - rather the reverse."

Epilepsy Action: News on the lawsuit. 02:28 pm

cross Shadowbane off the list of holiday mmorpg releases. 11:59 am

i find this really disturbing. how exactly could someone win this lawsuit? she was "upset by his contorted face during a seizure". i'm just too astounded to write anything. via natalie solent. 11:50 am

unsurprsingly considering the nature of her post, the sexism debate has been turned into a popularity issue. 11:45 am

don't know if i mentioned this, but we'll be in austin the weekend of the 28th of september. yay! a vacation. 11:24 am

sometimes, i link to yahoo articles and the javascript creates a bad link. it's very irritating. 10:57 am

is the blogosphere sexist? most definitely. as letter from gotham says "The world is sexist, and the blogosphere is no exception."

as a mildly interesting stat, out of 4876 authors, 1069 have entered their sex. 704 of those are male, 365 of those are female. approximately 2:1 ratio (34% women). of course, there are a few mitigating factors. are women less likely to list their sex than men? does this dataset extrapolate to the rest of the blogosphere? (god, i hate that word.) 1239 weblogs have been edited since i implemented gender. 174 (14%) did not list their gender. even if we assume that all of those were women, we can raise it to 44% women. on the other hand, if you look at globe of blogs, 63% are women and only 37% are men. and, just to throw in a few more facts, the nua survey states that 52% of home internet users are women. although, men spent 24% more time using the net. and in the workplace 60% of internet users are men.

given those numbers, i conclude (completely unscientifically of course) that at minimum, 33% of bloggers are women. more likely, 40-60% are women. therefore, the small percentage of women listed in blogrolls clearly indicates sexism. which brings me full circle. the world is sexist, it's unsurprising that the blogosphere is too. 10:50 am

glad to know that there was a good reason for needing a license to send a probe to the moon.

"To get federal blessing it had to prove the Trailblazer satellite would not contaminate the Moon with biological material, pollute the lunar surface or disturb previous landing sites."

if you're coming here from the st. petersburg times article, you're probably looking for the weblog portal. 09:50 am

Gene-Altered Follicles Grow Glowing Green Hair. cool. 09:26 am

The Skinny on “Weight Loss” Supplements. it's not surprising that none of them work, but it's still nice to hope. 11:19 am

Obesity Threatens to Reverse Gains in Longevity. i have a hard time increasing my physical activity. despite vowing to work out every day, starting today, i'm already trying to come up with excuses not to do it. my weight loss has plateaued tho. so if i don't, i ain't gonna lose that last 15 lbs. 11:13 am

U.S Recovering Despite Bumps. i still find it hard to believe that the economy is recovering. i'm much more apt to believe this part "However, some analysts on Wall Street say the economy will stumble enough to require further rate cuts from the Fed, most likely by December.". 11:09 am

a very well thought out post by john scalzi on why the blogging network won't work. i agree whole-heartedly. it just isn't going to happen. 11:04 am

babies. babies. babies. i can't stop thinking about them. bottomquark can't stop finding articles on them. Why women cradle babies on the left, People Born in Autumn Live Longer and Kids Born Too Early May Be More Fearful as Teens. 10:55 am

i may need to come back to this and use it instead of my library app. odd book "helps you keep track of your obsessive reading". via rebecca. 10:49 am

Seasons 'becoming muddled'. living in california, i've forgotten what seasons are. 01:00 pm

condom applicator. no more trying to figure out which way it unrolls. 12:56 pm

Hey Buddy, PayPal Me a Quarter? reading this article, and looking at help jennifer makes me wonder why i don't do the same thing. i mean, i'm suffering from a debilitating disease. my epilepsy makes it impossible to work at the moment. we're struggling to live on one income. if i made a website begging for help, with useful epilepsy links, would people send me thousands of dollars? then i realize that it's a matter of pride. i'm not a charity case and begging for money in that way would be rather despicable. especially since there are people in much worse shape financially than me. i am tempted to create a begging site that turns around and donates all the money to the efa however. 12:30 pm

i love it when the medical establishment argues with each other. i don't understand how "ecstasy causes depression and memory loss" turns into "ecstasy destroys parts of the brain". i especially love how ecstasy is blamed for the death of leah betts instead of the medical establishment. how many times did we hear that ecstasy causes dehydration and can kill you if you don't drink enough water. so someone drinks too much water and dies. and that's ecstasy's fault? 12:16 pm

i seem to be missing something. why does a company need permission from the u.s. government to send a commercial probe to the moon? via bottomquark.

btw, the discovery show surprise by design sucks. if you like that kind of thing, stick to changing rooms or trading spaces. 12:08 pm

New dietary guidelines offer flexibility. i wonder when they'll admit that they have no idea what constitutes a "healthy" diet. via bottom quark.

speaking of which, i did a high carb seizure test in the last 2 days. wednesday i loaded up on the carbs eating cereal and lots of sugar (yummy). i avoided anything containing wheat tho. although i had a serious sugar high after eating 2 tablespoons of lyle's golden syrup mixed with ricotta, i didn't have any seizures. i ate less carbs yesterday avoiding wheat until last night at dinner when i had to eat some of jason's bread pudding. last night in my sleep, and this morning while awake, i had a seizure. in a few days i'll do a serious wheat test and eat lots of bready products. 12:01 pm

people coming up with good ideas always makes more work for me. 11:33 am

as of late last night, i have a new nephew. devin. congrats to my brother and sister-in-law on the new baby. 10:18 am

daypop is down. thanks to graham for the link. 11:56 am

is anyone else having problems with daypop? the top news page is blank for me. 10:14 am

although it's a great "feel good move", i personally wish they'd announced that they'd gone back to their original french-fry fat and *more importantly* that they were re-introducing the *fried* apple pie. who cares if it wasn't "healthy", they tasted damn good and all they've managed to do since then is make them taste worse. "baked" apple pie, yuck. they're still not any "healthier". besides, then they never would have had to deal with a lawsuit over their natural (beef) flavor 05:26 pm

well, Icewind Dale II turned out to be a rather poor game. extremely complex character info (ala d&d) and 6 characters to keep track of set up the single player for aggravation right away. jason and i tried playing multiplayer but the game just didn't grab us. in fact, it was quite boring. the fact that it was 2d, poor graphics, and several poor interface problems didn't help a bit. don't bother buying it unless you're really desperate for something to do. 04:38 pm

the shortening of weblog to blog has finally corrupted the definition. "This Blog has run for over 70 years of continuous Print, Radio and Internet commentary." i'm impressed that this guy has been writing for so long, but the medium is a very strong part of the definition of a "blog" or more exactly, a *web*log. via radio free blogistan. 03:19 pm

i'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner, but i think articles about trampolining would be much more interesting right now than articles about blogging. 03:06 pm

i just realized why i really don't like comment systems. the beauty of a weblog is being able to skim down a page looking for interesting content. comments force you to follow a link in the hopes that something interesting has been said. when it hasn't, you've wasted your time. alternatively, you can, like me, skip over all the comments links, but then, you risk missing out on the interesting discussions that actually happen. it seems the only time i end up in comments sections are when someone has actually linked to that specific discussion. someone needs to figure out a solution for this. maybe more webloggers need to point out when interesting comments are going on. 03:04 pm

i find this kind of discussion interesting. mostly because i've always enjoyed reading/watching dialogues take place. via spartaneity. 02:49 pm

Weblogs4Hire.com. i would love to see this work for people.

"Weblogs4Hire.com is a free job site for webloggers. If you're looking for work as a personal trainer, chef or landscape architect then use one of the other job sites. If you want to weblog professionally, this is the place to post your availability."

i don't think i could handle a raw food diet. then again, i didn't think i could handle a low-carb diet before i did it. via bottom quark.

speaking of which, i've had several days where i've had seizures in the past few weeks. none of which i ate wheat on. so i'm back to the hormone or carb theory. 12:01 pm

How Fair Is Fair Isaac? 11:35 am