Much of the prepared food we eat is engineered for maximum firing of the satisfaction areas of the brain. From our hunter gatherer days, when food was not on a shelf, the body came to relate high energy foods as something that tasted good. You weren't sure when the next meal was coming along, so the one you were eating now better be loaded with energy to cover you for awhile. High energy foods are high in fat and sugar. That's why a plate of green beans doesn't taste as good until you slap some butter on it. That's why ice cream tastes so damn good (fat+sugar)..... the food companies have carefully engineered the ice cream to have just the right amount of fat and sugar through focus group after focus group to hit the pleasure center with a nice kick.

I can see why this can be addictive. The brain gets a chemical satisfaction response, just like with a drug, so why not keep it buzzing happily?

In the end, it comes down to knowing your body and how it deals with caloric intake vs what is burned. Some people have inefficient digestive systems and can eat without weight gain. Some have efficient systems that extract more energy from the food, so they need to reduce the amount of that food to avoid weight gain. If the food amount is difficult to reduce, then eat food with less calorie density (more veggies). I try to eat a balanced diet (with an occasional treat) and exercise regularly. I've been disciplined (or lucky) to be the same weight for the last 25 yrs.

DVRs are great for American football and baseball. Considering there is approximately 15 minutes of actual gametime/action in a 3-4 hour baseball or football game, that's a lot of time that you can get back. A football fan spends more time watching replays than the actual game. With a DVR, you can choose to watch the replays or skip 'em.

'Real' football (ducks for cover), or Soccer, is more continuous, so it is more difficult to skip. It has around 60 minutes of gametime/action in a 2 hour broadcast, but I still DVR the matches. I'll start them a little late and then skip over halftime and the talk. I'll catch up to the 'live' game by the time the game is up. Sometimes I don't have time to watch the entire game, so I'll just skip around to watch the goals. If I do have time, I cannot properly watch 2 games at once, so one game gets DVR'd.

Sport preferences aside ... I think we can all agree that the main attractive thing about watching any sport 'live' is if you're watching with a group. There's the whole socialization aspect of it that doesn't work with DVRs (outside of a quick replay). Any dead time can be spent talking about what you just saw and sharing the agony or euphoria. If you're watching alone: skip skip skip to the good bits, no one will complain!

For those in disbelief about the gametimes, google is your friend. Not intending to slam football/baseball.

My G3 had that random rebooting feature until I replaced the battery. For some reason some of the OEM ones didn't play well. I bought a non OEM one from Anker, as I recall. Since then the phone has been very reliable (speed was never an issue)

I'm mainly a lurker, but ....
(rant on)

If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on the continued devolution of English, but it stays dominant due to mass media (music, video, etc). Yes it apparently continues to add new words every few minutes, but the spoken word had devolved to the point that I can hardly stand to listen to some people.

"Ummm, like, you know, we need to do something about that problem, right?"

"Yea, I was, like, gonna say something dude, but you were all..."

"Right. Like, I mean when I heard about it, it made me angry, you know?"

"An then she was, like, you know"


True stories: I was in a meeting with a guy that used "I mean" and "you know" over 100 times in 15 minutes. One stops listening to the message after being bombarded by those fillers. I have another co-worker that uses the word "essentially" as if he has to hit a quota. I'm not a perfect speaker or snobby by any means (I have my share of umms), but damn.... try to keep it simple and say what you have to say without the filler. Make your 2015 resolution to remove "like (unless comparing two things), you know, right, I mean, you know and stupid ass sayings such as "it is what it is" from your lexicon, unless the phrase is essential (damn... I used it) to the conversation. You'll be a better communicator and people may actually listen to you.
(rant off)

On the lighter side: I have a couple of like minded fellows I work with (with respect to frustrations of verbal English annoyances), and we have a game of reverse bingo going on. Bingo is if you hear a word on your corporate-speak bingo board, you mark it off. Reverse bingo is using an unusual or seldom used word (from a list of mutually agreed upon words) properly in a meeting with witnesses (at least one of the "like minded fellows"). The trick is to have it be a natural part of the conversation as if the word was the right word for the moment. Often the word is a bit obscure/seldom used and sometimes is hard to pronounce (and you catch hell if you screw it up). The funny thing is that though we've busted out words such as tenacious, juxtapose, superfluous, equivocate, analogous (an alternative to using 'like'),surreptitiously and deleterious ... only ONE person has said anything or looked at us funny.

As the experiment goes on, we think folks either aren't listening or don't want to say anything to show that they don't understand us. I can say that my listening skills have improved and as such, I still shake my head at what people say versus what they wanted to communicate. One fellow told me he wanted to secularize the data (he meant segregate). Another said they were going to socialize a procedure (socialize isn't used that way). Anyhow, I'll do my part to improve the language in my small land of cubicles.

Have a happy new year, sorry for the long post and happy communicating.

I was going to reply that is was the Doctor, but someone could type faster than me. Unfortunately they didn't note that the person is the 15th Doctor's companion. "When" I'm typing this from, we're on the 15th one. "Googletime" beta tester