Source Jockey

Vegan.  Again.  Attempt #1 was about a year ago, and ended on the fifth day with me devouring a filet mignon, medium rare, and a brilliant baked potato with sour cream, butter, cheese, and bacon bits.  Oh, and spinach artichoke dip to start.

What’s changed this time around?  How have I made it 3+ weeks?  Well, for starters, I have a goal: losing weight.  And it’s worked so far. I went from 254 lbs to 239 lbs (that’s 15 lbs for those of you who can’t do basic math).  But the REAL deal is that I’m allowing myself to cheat–one or two meals a week, I’ll have meat/dairy.  I haven’t craved.  This is a good thing.  I’ve also found a lot more substitutes for things, and have done my best to explore new options.

So am I a vegan?  Absolutely not.  I like leather, both as my car seats as well as my shoes and belt.  I still like the occasional burger, steak, or chicken; but I’ve scaled it WAY back.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.  As it stands…if I can get to 230 lbs and stay there through 12/31, I’ll be up $300.  Wish me luck!

A few days ago, I read about another one of those “what happens if we leave McDonalds food out” experiments.  McDonalds apparently read about it, too, and responded.  This is the general gist of the experiments:

Null Hypothesis: McDonalds is bad for you because it does not get worms, moldy, smelly, or show visible decomposition.

I’m not a McDonalds advocate.  In fact, I don’t eat there, unless I’m über hungry and want a sausage McMuffin.  And now that I’m trying to be a vegan (no, I’m not actually a vegan, I just try really hard to be), McDonalds is all but out.  But here’s my complaint: the people who are using the lack of decomposition, etc, as a reason that something is bad for you, are completely full of shit.  I mean, seriously, what kind of argument is that?  I *THINK* they’re trying to draw the conclusion that if something doesn’t decompose, it must be fake, and because it’s fake, it must be bad for you.

They have flawed logic.  And that’s what bothers me about this experiment overall. People are not showing an adequate amount of critical thinking when it comes to Internet stories.

See, in the experiment above, as the Atlantic Wire article points out, the woman put the meal on her coffee table in her apartment or house.  So there really shouldn’t be any worms.  Because that would just speak to her environment, really.  In terms of mold and other decomp, well, dry stuff doesn’t get moldy.  Like a toasted bun.  Or dried out fries.  Or dried out meat.  And salt is a gazillion (yep, it’s a number) year old method for preserving stuff.  And McDonalds is, well, the best at over salting stuff.

Now maybe that information isn’t common knowledge, or maybe people WANT to believe this stuff without thinking about it.  But what I’m predicting is more homemade experiments on everything else “proving” things with flawed methodology.  You’ll see stories (and video) of people claiming that drinking and driving is bad, and proving it by running over a liquor bottle with a car.  In slow-mo.

Pretty please, be critical thinkers.

I bought the new Apple TV with my American Express points.  It’s pretty darn neat; it’s very very small (that’s me holding it right there; it’s smaller than three old-school CD jewel cases stacked up), and it’s quick.  It loads right up, and connects easily to my computer, iPad, iPhone, and the internet.  Very impressive.  My primary goal of buying it was that I’d be able to watch hi-def versions of my favorite TV shows on demand.  The problem?  TV studios apparently didn’t all agree to the pricing model.  Apparently, $0.99 per episode (to rent, not buy) just isn’t enough.

I don’t agree with this sentiment.  While $0.99 per show may not sound like much, it actually is right on par with the competition.  A viewer buys every episode in a season, which adds up to between 20 and 30 episodes.  Let’s assume that’s an average of $25 per season.  What in the world is wrong with that?  That’s a lot of money, and if you add up all the shows someone like I would watch (let’s say it’s around 10 shows), that’s $250 per season of shows.  That’s pretty good, given that that’s $250 they wouldn’t have if I decided to watch the shows on TV or on Hulu.  Advertising?  Give me a break.  I see all kinds of product placement in these shows–and I’m still paying hard cash for the episodes.  And what about companies like Netflix?  I pay less than $10/month, and watch TONS and TONS of old TV shows–in fact, that’s how I watched Dollhouse and 30 Rock (and other shows).  Well over 100 episodes over the course of a couple months; I effectively paid less than $0.25 per episode.

The amount of money an advertiser pays MAY be greater than the aggregate of people purchasing the shows one-off, but the AppleTV, in addition to all the other set-top boxes, offers an amazing avenue into peoples’ living rooms.  Content is king, but not when the pricing is out of reach.