Yeah, right.

Well, at least according to this guy.

Like 99.4%* of all women, I am very, let’s just say, interested in weight issues and have been trying to make my number go down since probably the age of 12**.

You can name any diet and I’ve probably tried it. Possibly more than once. And probably to little or no effect.

But I’ve always thought that if I weren’t as lazy as I am, would get off my butt and do some serious exercising, I would no longer have this problem.

That myth has now officially been shattered after I ran across this article from a guy named John Kiefer who tells me that everything us women do is wrong and no matter what we will always be fat.

Specifically he talks about how running, instead of making you lose weight as you might expect, will make you gain even more weight because “cardio chronically shuts down the production of the thyroid hormone, T3″ which, in turn, will make your body store more fat.

This is very sad news to me. I always thought that running was the single most effective way to get in shape and lose weight and this guy is taking that away from me. Unfortunately he doesn’t give a solution to this other than to say that you should stop running every day (and do what? run every other day? don’t run at all? WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO???) and he also proceeds to scold and make fun of all of you sweating it out in the gym because, if you didn’t already know it, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. You’re doing EVERYTHING wrong.

And on top of that, you’re also a fat, fatty, fat, mcfatty who thinks that if you run every day it will help you lose weight but then you go and eat tons of pasta and carbs. HA! “I don’t feel sympathy” says John Kiefer who, obviously thinks that #1 he is unbearably smart and #2 he has the secret to weight loss and training but if he tells it to you he would have to kill you.

Other than that, interesting article. He seems to have done his (shady?) research and is also heavily defending said research in the comments. Lest you think that he is less than bearably smart.

So there you have it. You’re fat*** and you will stay that way no matter how much you work out and how little you eat and, also, you’re doing everything wrong.

Have a nice day.

*I made up this percentage but it feels accurate.

**Also a made-up number because I can’t remember.

***Seriously. We need a font for sarcasm. Somebody please invent it?

I’m not sure where this list came from but it’s pretty good.

So I’m shamelessly re-posting with my own edits. I’m not even going to say what I’ve edited out because that’s just another adult truth: it’s not stealing. It’s improving an existing entry.

1. Sometimes you look at your watch three times in under one minute and still don’t know what time it is.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong. Especially when you don’t have a comeback and you just have to stick by your guns.

3. I now realize what an idiot I was for not wanting to nap when I was younger. I take it all back.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font. And a sarcasm smiley. WHY CAN’T WE PUT SARCASM IN WRITING??

5. Google Maps could start their directions at #5. If you don’t already know how to get out of your neighborhood maybe it’s a good idea to just stay home.

6. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

7. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired. I’m also tired of talking about how tired I am.

8. Bad decisions make good stories.

9. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

10. Can we all use agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? It’s getting confusing and, quite frankly, I can’t see the improvements. And I really don’t need to have Avatar on three different disks.

11. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page document that I swear I didn’t make any changes to.

12. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.

13. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger. And that is why I’m fat. I probably need a hobby.

14. I don’t know how many times it is appropriate to say “What?” or “Excuse me?” before I just nod and smile because I still can’t hear or understand a word the other person has said.

15. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and pinning the tail on the donkey. But I’d bet that everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

16. The first tentacular hard, the “Cup” was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in Hockey in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realized hat their brain is also important.

Leslie2, originally uploaded by opentuning.

This is a shot of Leslie – one of our models we had the pleasure of shooting at our Smithsonian Portrait class.
She’s gorgeous so it was easy. Light makes a wold of difference.
Hope to have the chance of working with her again.

While working today I had to edit some code and because I’m not a programmer (duh) I had to get a little reminder for a snipped of html code that will not show up in the browser but that will be there when someone looks at the code. It’s basically used to exclude some elements that you don’t need but might need later so you don’t want to delete but you just want to hide.

Or to include snide comments. Programmers are famously snark-y people.

So I did a search for “comment it out”. The default search engine at work is Bing (brilliant partner marketing strategy by them) and this is what came up:

Did the same thing in Google and this is what came up:

See Bing? I don’t need you to make decisions for me because your decisions suck. I can make up my own mind, thank you very much.

Thank you Google for figuring it out that what I’m looking for was the snipped of code and giving me relevant results without trying to decide for me that I’m interested in Will.i.am’s featuring Nicki Minaj’s Check it out video. Really?? Blah.

This morning, after wading through what could qualify as the worst traffic of the year I saw that CNN ran an article about the weirdest 15 excuses that people give (or gave) to get out of work.

I figured, yeah, there could be some great tips here on how to call in sick* while retaining your badass image and not sounding like a whining pansy for staying home with just a sniffle. Or a hangover. Or a pain in the ass. Although I’ve been tempted before to stay at home because of a pain in the said ass.

OK, so here’s your top 15. Use it wisely:

1. Bats got in my hair. Only if you have hair.
2. A refrigerator fell on me.
3. I was in line at a coffee shop when a truck carrying flour backed up and dumped the flour into my convertible. You need a convertible for this so don’t use it if you have a Camry.
4. A deer bit me during hunting season. Even if you don’t hunt. Who checks anyway?
5. I ate too much at a party.
6. I fell out of bed and broke my nose. Make sure you have swollen nose the next day.
7. My 12-year-old daughter stole his car and he had no other way to work. I didn’t want to report it to the police. Indicates a badass 12 year old daughter. One of my favorites.
8. I got a cold from a puppy. Throw ‘em for a loop. A puppy cold is much better than a human cold.
9. My child stuck a mint up his nose and we had to go to the ER to remove it.
10. I hurt my back chasing a beaver.  No need to elaborate. Really. No need.
11. Got my toe caught in a vent cover.
12. I had a headache after going to too many garage sales.  OK, this is a bit lame. I mean, garage sale? Really?
13. My brother-in-law was kidnapped by a drug cartel while in Mexico.  I know someone to whom this really happened. No joke.
14. I drank anti-freeze by mistake and had to go to the hospital.  Although this one is a double-edged sword. If you’re going to drink anti-freeze by mistake you may just have proved that you’re too stupid to be employed.
15. I was at a bowling alley and a bucket filled with water (due to a leak) crashed through the ceiling and hit me on the head. I don’t know. This one may just sound a bit too elaborate. Use it as a last resort only. And only if you’ve already taken advantage of the previous 14.

So here you go. Do what you will with it. Just don’t Facebook or Foursquare after claiming, say, #11. It totally blows your cover.

*This list is for illustration purposes only. The author by no means is suggesting that you skip work, fake-call-in sick or otherwise eschew your responsibilities.

Very interesting perspective on money. Worth checking out in detail even if you don’t believe the accuracy of the data.

Randall Munroe is super smart, funny and snarky so if some of it is just a joke it’s a funny and smart one at least. (autocorrect: buzz off, I know snarky is a word and if it’s not, I’m making it one.)

I especially like his musing on “lessons learned”:

1. The world’s most expensive thing by weight is probably the Treskilling Yellow postage stamp
2. The US’s 400 richest people have a greater combined net worth than poorest 50% of the country
3. The EPA has a dollar value for human life; it’s currently $8.4 million. They don’t like to talk about it; they call it a VSL (Value of Statistical Life) and tend to use terms like “1000 Micro VSLs”.
4. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System is arguably the most expensive public works project in the history of mankind.
5. We spend roughly the same amount on cancer treatment as we do on cigarettes. I’m not sure what lesson to take from that.
6. Given their annual marketing budget, Coca-Cola could afford to literally buy the world a Coke. However, singing lessons for every person on Earth would be prohibitively expensive.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png

Dear Santa,

first of all let me start by saying thank you for everything that you do. I appreciate you taking the time and delivering all those gifts to all those kids and stuff. Also, thank you for giving me what I asked for in, like, 1999 which was makeup.

I really appreciate it even if it was a few years later than expected. And a lot more than I expected.

At the same time, I have to sincerely apologize for my 1999 self who didn’t know any better. That dumb bitch should have asked for something a lot more meaningful.

So I will spare you the effort of going to Sephora or Ulta or whatever stores you go to to get me these gifts and I will only ask for one thing: money.

I’m thinking some cold, hard cash – maybe around $10 MM each year should totally do.

Oh, and please if you’re going to wait some years to fulfill this request like you did with my previous ones then make sure you adjust for inflation, mkay? Ten million dollars five years from now are NOT like ten million dollars today.

Also, this needs to be MY money and not me managing someone else’s cash. I know how you operate. I’ve known ever since, in first grade, you gave me a toy food processor instead of a robot. Just because the box said “kitchen robot” you thought you could get away with it. That is NOT a robot. A robot is shaped like a man only boxier and does stuff. A food processor may have the word “robot” in its name but it’s far from being one.

So please make sure that you get it right this time, ok?

Thanks in advance. Appreciate it and stuff. Good luck with the rain deers.

Some pictures from our trip to Jamaica.

Round Hill is a resort near Montego Bay and it is beautiful and the villas with the private swimming pools are amazing.

View from villa

In the villa everything was a pristine white.

Livingroom

This was the view from the bedroom

Pool

…and this is the bedroom

Bedroom

The beach was a bit small but beautiful:

Beach

We even had our own little terrace where we could have coffee, eat our breakfast and watch the ocean:

Terrace

I miss the beach. Le Sigh.

Muah!

My husband says it was a dream come true for me. Soooo… OK, let’s go with that.

I’ve never actually dreamed about it because, let’s face it, how many people look at a dolphin and say to themselves “I wish I could swim with HIM!”? But I digress.

We were in Montego Bay, Jamaica and were staying at Round Hill (more on that later). The “swim with dolphins” activity was one of the options listed on the activity list “Explore Jamaica!” along other things like “Visit the Jamaican bobsled team’s practice grounds” and “go ziplining” – both options while extremely appealing are not something someone would pine over. Maybe I’m wrong.

From the many options available at the dolphin place, I chose the “Encounter Swim” experience – which promised to be all that and more. This was not the most expensive option but not the cheapest either so I was hoping that I wouldn’t feel completely ripped off and would get to see (and potentially touch) one dolphin.

Dolphin Cove Jamaica

Here we are some $200 later ($103 for the “Encounter Swim”, $60 plus tax and service for the taxi to the place, $35 for the admission for my husband, some money for tips – you know, the usual), I’m strapped in my life jacket, waiting for someone to come and give us our training. And here he comes.

His name is Skinny and he shows up humming Tina Turner’s “What’s love got to do with it?” which is sort of a relief after a whole week of nothing but “One love, one life” and “No woman, no cry” in every imaginable style. Yes, even easy listening and yes, even jazz. Shudder…

Skinny is very much into what he’s doing. He loves it and wants us to know that he does. And the best way to do this is by yelling at us really, really loudly and trying to get us to yell back all sorts of random stuff like “bay!” (I say “Montego”, you say “Bay!”) and “cove!” (I say “dolphin”, you say “cove!”) which I assume will be essential in case one of us starts drowning or is pulled over by a overly playful animal. I’m telling you, this stuff can save your life.

Skinny is putting up a real show pretending to write stuff on a blackboard and quizzing us on what dolphins eat, (fish, in case you’re interested) and how they reproduce (they give birth to live offspring and they gestate for 18 months). Again, life-saving information delivered in a super high-energy, extra annoying loud voice that’s supposed to pump us up and make us have fun, have fun!

Eventually Skinny is done with his little intro and they ask us to line up in two rows: red bracelets at the left, gray bracelets at the right but some people don’t speak English so we all end up in this random mob not making any sense anymore.

Eventually they sort us out and lead us to the floating dock where the dolphins are corralled swimming around in circles. The more expensive red bracelets are led to the left while we cheapskates go to the right.

Dolphin enclosure

There’s a last tug on my life jacket by the trainer guy that takes the wind out of me and we’re encouraged to jump right in.

Once in the water the trainers start directing us to swim this way, no, that way, a little more to the right, keep going, stop there, line up, shoulder to shoulder until we’re all bobbing up and down in a straight line twenty meters away from the floating dock. Then they ask us to start spinning and I’m starting to wonder if we’re the ones actually doing the show? You know, you get what you pay for and apparently I didn’t shell out enough money to swim WITH the dolphins, I have to swim FOR the dolphins.

Putting on a show for the dolphins

But spin we do, all ten of us, neatly lined up and eventually the two dolphins show up and start spinning along with us.

Their names are Sandra and Shakira (if there was a large bottom somewhere I didn’t see it) and they are extremely well trained.

The trainer has a whistle, barely audible to us but one that gets the dolphins to execute in very precise motions all sorts of commands. Their eyes are locked on their trainer who holds a bucket of fish and throws one to each dolphin every time they do something more complex than just swimming to and from another spot. The trainer gets them to demonstrate how they sing and how they communicate through their blow hole and they dutifully make the cackling dolphin noises and the click-of-the-tongue sounds that allow them to use their sonar for orientation.

They spin, jump out of the water, pretend to nod and shake their heads and get a fish or two after every such move.

Applause

We each get to take our picture with one of the dolphins pretending to give us a kiss and they stand there with their nose stuck to my face until the photographer is satisfied that he got a good shot. We’re not supposed to touch them though so we’re grabbing onto our life jackets to make sure that our hands don’t accidentally go for an unauthorized touch.

Authorized touch

Finally we line up for one last “encounter” and we each wait at the end of the line for the dolphin to pop up in front of us, stand up while we grab onto its fins and let us be dragged on top of its belly for about fifty meters or so. I watch each person in front of me wait for their turn, raise their hands and grab onto the fins before being dragged along the surface of the water and can’t help but wonder at the precision of these amazing creatures. They never get too close, they pop up a few centimeters away from the person and stand there waiting to be grabbed by the fins. If someone loses their grip, they patiently wait for the person to latch back on and keep going.

Dolphin piggyback ride (dolphin back?)

It’s my turn now and I’m standing there, threading water, with my arms up in the air waiting for the dolphin to swim towards me. I can’t see where she is but all of a sudden she pops up in front of my face and stretches her little fins out to me. I grab on and it feels very fragile like I could easily rip it off if I’m not careful. But I’m also worried about letting go, we’re going fast now and if she’s in any pain I can’t tell. The water is whizzing past me like I’m on jet skis and before I know it we’re almost at the floating wall and we stopped.

Hand in flipper

I want to reach out and touch her as a way of apologizing for being a burden but before I can get to her I hear the trainer yell at me “no, no, don’t do that! move away! move away!” and I sort of lose my grip and start sinking under the floating pier. You cannot touch a dolphin whenever you damn well please. It has to be authorized. I should have known. Oh well…

By the time I catch my breath, we’re being ordered to form another line so that we can “touch a dolphin” in an organized manner. We all stand there with our hands outstretched while the two dolphins swim by and let us touch them. Their skin feels rubbery and warmer than I expected it to be even though I know, because Skinny screamed it at me earlier and because I learned in seventh grade, that they are warm-blooded animals.

And that’s it. We’re now ordered to clap and to start swimming towards the steps that lead out of the water, we are told where the fresh water showers are and that, of course, tips are appreciated. Oh, and if we want to buy any of the pictures, there are packages available to us. There’s video also. Just like at Six Flags.

But who can resist a picture of being kissed by a dolphin?? Even a staged one like mine? And another $50 later the “dolphin encounter” is over and off we go.

Fake kisses

My husband asks if it was amazing and it was. It was really amazing to see these creatures up close like that. But at the same time something feels very, very wrong about it too. These are the smartest animals on the planet (allegedly, next to us) and yet here we are teaching them how to jump through hoops and drag tourists through the water and pose for pictures. We’re hunting them and cooking them and if we occasionally rescue one (like one of the dolphins here was rescued) we make them star in a circus meant to entertain whoever has a couple of hundred dollars to spend on it.

And I was just part of it.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe that they would just swim around freely and come over if they wanted to play? Maybe something closer to a petting zoo and less of a show? I don’t know but I do know that if I ever swim with a dolphin again (which I hope I get to do) it will not be in captivity like this.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the $175 version of the dolphin encounter program was similar to this but with more cowbell. You got to swim with TWO dolphins at the same time and you got to be pushed from the water by their noses and fly through the air.

…and thanks for all the fish

So this one was just hanging out there. I was happy for her.

I lost my phone a couple of days ago.

Now I realize that in general this may not sound like a big deal but the thing is, I live by my phone. It is the last thing I see before I fall asleep and the first thing I check in the morning. It is my alarm clock, my compass, my map, my connection to the world, my camera and my blanky when it’s cold outside. OK, it’s not my blanky but you get the idea.

At first I didn’t notice that I have lost it. I was in a store, I was walking around trying to find my husband when I reached in my purse and realized that I could not call him, I could not ask him where he was because I didn’t have my phone. I probably left it in the car as I often do.

A couple of hours later, when we got back to the car, we tried calling my phone to see if we can hear it ring underneath the front seat maybe? But we didn’t.

That’s when I knew I was in trouble. We try calling again and while we’re holding the other phone away from our ear to better hear the buzzing of the lost one, someone answers my phone. Holy cow! Someone has it.

“We found this phone in a parking lot” someone says, “can you help us find the owner?”. I am the owner, I say. Where are you? “We are at home”. And she gives me the address.

I punch it in the GPS and, bingo, the place comes up, it is maybe ten minutes away from where we are. We drive over, a gentleman comes out with my phone, introduces himself and asks us if we want to come inside for some water or tea. No, we answer, we have a car full of groceries but thank you for rescuing my phone, thanks so much for returning it! You really made our day.

We drive back, phone in my pocket, talking about how lucky I am for having recovered it.

The man’s name was Sayed. He was from Afghanistan. I think it was his daughter or his wife who answered my phone and talked to me when we first called and gave me directions to their house.

They sort of restored my faith in humanity that day. Sayed not only crossed a busy street to pick up a phone from the middle of the road but he tried to find me (I later found out that he texted a friend of mine asking about the owner of the phone), he answered the phone when I called and, more importantly, he gave me his home address where I could go and pick it up and invited us into his home when we showed up to collect the lost item.

I have to say, he’s a better person than I am. Finders keepers they say, no? Why would I try to find the owner of a lost phone? Who has time for that? Why would I take that risk?

I was an airhead, I never noticed when this thing fell out of my pocket and in the middle of a busy street. But he did go through all this trouble, he tried to find me, he returned my phone to me and was incredibly gracious about it.

So I want to say thank you, Mr. Sayed. Thank you for showing that people are still capable of selfless acts. I truly hope that, if something like this ever happens to you, you will have the same luck as I did. What goes around comes around. And I really hope that, if I don’t get a chance to return the favor then someone else will in the same way you did.

Thank you.