Low Carb Mistakes
I've been noticing some low-carb products disappearing, some becoming harder to find, although there's still a trickle of new products.
Now, low-carb eating is still a mighty effective way to lose or maintain weight. So why aren't we seeing low-carb products win out the same way low-fat products did?
Freakonomics
Link: http://www.freakonomics.com/
I really like the cover on this book. Apples to oranges - cute, I get it :) (NOTE: The paperbacks I saw overseas don't have this mutated-fruit cover)
This marks the first time that I've bought a book because I saw the author on The Daily Show. Sosumi; it sounded pretty interesting.
This isn't a book about capital-E dollar-sign-instead-of-an-S ol' boring Economic$, this is a book about the human side of economics, the economies of cheating, incentive, fear and information.
Vanishing Rabbit
Link: http://vanishingrabbit.com/
My fiancé was giving me a ride down Centre Street N, which has a hodgepodge of old stores, small businesses and restaurants along its length, when I spotted what appeared to be a magic store. "A magic store," I effused as we passed it, after already noting a number of cool spots along Centre during our driver, "we will have to remember to come back along here."
Dena paused, then made the next right, and smiled, and we went around the block. Indeed, would we otherwise remember to come back?
It was, indeed, a magic store. Entirely dedicated to magic.
Language Learning Books
I love languages. I love learning languages. So it will come as no surprise that I own quite a few language-learning books.
It's a very uneven field of quality and helpfulness out there. Sometimes you can weed them out by thumbing through them in the stores, sometimes it's a book-and-tape-only combination that you have to take a chance on, and sometimes, you only find out about the problems when you've gone a few chapters into the books.
No Work Garden : Bob Flowerdew
I picked this up on sale; a quick flip through the book gave me an inkling is was a good book. Indeed, it is.
Bob Flowerdew, with his all-too-appropriate-sounding name (though a web search turns out other people with the same last name) is a popular organic gardener in the UK. The title, as you might figure, is a misnomer; the only 'no-work' garden is one you completely ignore. That said, he certainly focuses on ways out of the back-breaking labour gardens sometimes entail.
Sin City
This... is an intriguing movie. Violent, gory, mostly black-and-white with spots of colour, stylized, film noir. It's a living, gangster comic book with a sassy edge. Ang Lee's The Hulk got the comic book feel down with camera shots. This doesn't have the camera shots, but it has everything else.
Tugging On Heart Guitar Strings
Was reading through an entry on Tom's blog re: music theory, and was inspired to dredge up one of my own pet hypotheses.
The hypothesis, and I'd be surprised if it hasn't been investigated, is that harmonics in music reflect the more subtle harmonics that reflect emotions in speech.
Edward's Garden Center
As far as Calgary garden centers go, I really like this quirky, small garden center out in Bowness.
It's shocking how much the employees like plants. No, love plants. I swear they'd take them all home if they could. They can identify most plants at ten paces, it seems. For all their lack of room, they make up for it by bringing in interesting plants.
Icy Dead People
I am glad that Terri can finally rest in peace. I hope that Michael can heal, and that the parents can finally start coming to terms with her passing.
Not two days afterwards, Pope John Paul II, an extremely engaging emissary of the Catholic faith, also passed away.
Let Terri Go!
Okay, okay, everyone and their dog has weighed in on this case already, but it has been much on my mind.
What should have remained a relatively local, personal tragedy has turned into the a bigger battle cry for 'human rights' than Rwanda ever did.
Down for the Count
As you can tell, I'm back online, after my domain departed from me briefly.
It's not a very long story, but for those of you who want to know what happened, here's the scoop.
Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon
If this book was like a dessert, it would be like ordering chocolate cake, and having the waiter come back to the table with something that was so ornate, you almost felt guilty eating it.
It's the fervent attention to detail that feels like the same expenditure of effort that another author would have spent cobbling together six standard novels.
The IB Experience
When I was going into high school, I had the good fortune (though I didn't think so at the time) of being put into Western Canada High School in the International Baccalaureate program.
What's That Around Your Neck?
If you don't know the story behind what I wear around my neck, here's the goods :)
What's So Special About Charge?
In the course of pursuing other questions, I ran across something in particle physics that I didn't know.
(Okay, okay, you can list what I don't know about in text and fill up a 40 Gb drive, but I digress)
I had always heard that gamma rays can produce particles "out of thin air"...
