Nicest of the Damned

Atkins Thanksgiving

We made it through Thanksgiving, although it's psychologically hard to come in the day after Thanksgiving, and rather than having mounds of leftovers, you've got a few slices of turkey and a couple of deviled eggs. Christy represented for her mother (who was visiting in Miami) with two pecan pies that looked delicious, but would have accounted for our carbohydrates for about a year on the Atkins plan.

I'm also back to working out; I did about 35 minutes on our Concept II rowing ergometer tonight. I don't think I felt any better or worse than I usually do when I start on the rower, so I can't say Atkins has drastically improved or decreased my stamina.

Concept II has had a basic website for years, but in the last year, it's morphed into something that's actually useful. You can now keep your logbook through the web, and see how you stack up against others in your age group, geographical area, or college affiliation.

There are training tips, a selection of workouts, random drawings for prizes, and a holiday challenge, where they'll give you a pin if you row 200,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Big UGA-Ga. Tech secret

In honor of the impending Georgia-Georgia Tech game, kicking off at 3:30 pm, I'm going to share a UGA-Georgia Tech secret.

My junior year (summer and fall quarters of 1987), I was editor of The Red and Black, the independent student newspaper at UGA. We received a lot of collegiate newspapers as part of an exchange, including Tech's paper, The Technique, which I read fairly regularly, looking for story ideas, and reading their comics (they ran about 5 times as many comics as we did).

The Technique, a weekly, was at its best for one day a year, April Fool's Day, when they would parody UGA. In 1985 or so, they did a combined parody called UGA Today, which looked for all the world like a tabloid-sized USA Today, but with stories recycling your favorite cow jokes. The R&B also ran a parody issue on April Fool's Day, but it too parodied UGA, since Georgia students didn't typically give Tech a second thought.

I got a call from a reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, working on a feature story about the Technique, and wanting some quotes from the editor of their "rival paper." I gave my honest opinion, that they did a pretty good job, considering that nobody went to Georgia Tech with the intention of being a writer.

When the story came out, the reporter followed that up with a gleeful recounting of the Tech editor showing him a front page from the R&B where former UGA president Fred Davison's name was twice misspelled (as Davidson). Heck, that page may to this day be hanging in the Technique's office.

When I read the story, it took me about 30 seconds to explode into laughter. I remembered that particular front page, since it had led to one of my roommates losing his job as the front-page copy editor; he had written the cutline and caption that misspelled Dr. Davison's name (among other fauxs pa) during his first week on the R&B staff.

And why, you may fairly ask, would the editor at the time have given him such an important job in his first week as a full-time staffer? Why, because he had spent 4-5 quarters copy-editing the student paper at the school from which he had transferred.

Georgia Tech.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Friday uncommentary: Links without logorrhea

TheStar.com - Bush anything but moronic, according to author

Shellshocking | Things you can only say at Thanksgiving

Apple Thanksgiving+1 deals

Apple Store - Thanksgiving

Apple's running a special promotion tomorrow evening (6 p.m. to midnight) at retail locations, with "free stocking-stuffers, special values and a chance to win a new 15-inch iMac." The last time they did a special values promotion, it was 10 percent off any computer or display, so if you're in the market, this might be the perfect time....

That's some screenwriter

frodoharryskywalker_furymix.jpg (JPEG Image, 416x502 pixels)

Marked-up synopsis of the storyline of Star Wars Episode IV. Er, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Er, Lord of the Rings.

Seen at BoingBoing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

WSJ.com - If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How to Set It Straight

What if you fit in a demographic segment to which you don't really belong? If you're a TiVo user, you may wind up with every program with gay themes. If you're an Amazon customer, you may (like me) get books for preadolescent girls based on your gift-buying habits. Amazon got around this by letting you uncheck a "Use this item for recommendations" box.

Seen at What Do I Know?.

Frank the green-eyed PowerBook monster

> ... buying a TiBook next week. Probably will get the top
> of the line with dvd burner or the one below it. Do you have any
> advice or comments on that? Where do you recommend we buy it from?
>
> C.
>
Sounds like a very merry Christmas indeed. As I've said here before, I can't see why anyone would opt for the combo drive when the SuperDrive is only $200 more.

I did some checking around online and here's what I found for PowerBook shoppers:

You've got three retail locations in town: AIS, CompUSA, and Apple. AIS doesn't show any PowerBook promotions on their website right now. CompUSA is likely to offer a bundle of some sort (commonly an inkjet printer) in lieu of discounts, but none were evident when I was there yesterday. Apple currently has a $40 special to double the memory (to, drool, 1 gig in your machine), adding a 512-meg SO-DIMM worth about $140 on the street these days (you can opt for that deal on the web or in the store).

One advantage of face-to-face is that you can fire the machine up in the store to check for dead or stuck pixels, if they drive you nuts (both my PowerBook and external LCD have exactly 1 bad pixel, which I very occasionally notice). One disadvantage is that they will charge sales tax.

Online, Amazon is offering a free Palm Zire and free shipping (but not showing a price, and reporting that "the item is not stocked"). J&R in New York is doubling memory for free (but it looks like you have to call in, not just order through the web). MacConnection is just selling it with the full gigabyte already installed at $2999. MacWarehouse is the only online retailer that claims to have the 1 ghz model in stock right now, at $2994, no sales tax, with a bundled inkjet, a case, and a 128MB mini flash drive. Only Apple (and Micro Center) charge sales tax for orders to Georgia.

For a full online price comparison, see: http://www.macprices.com/g4tracker.shtml .

Through January 7, there's a $300 off Microsoft Office promotion, where it's $199 if bought at the same time as a Mac, that you can use with any of these.

All Apple promos: http://www.apple.com/promo/

Atkins 1 week in

The diet is progressing well; I'm down about 6 pounds in a week. Atkins opponents suggest that must be all or mostly water, but judging by my bathroom visit frequency, I can't imagine I'm two-thirds of a gallon short of last week.

Haven't felt hungry all week, haven't cheated once. It helps that we discovered some reduced-carbohydrate chocolate bars made with Splenda and sugar alcohol (maltitol), which are both Atkins-compliant.

One downside to this diet is that you can get pretty tired of eggs. For breakfast, there aren't a whole lot of other choices, so I've had scrambled, fried, poached, boiled, and omelette since we started. Atkins addresses this in his book by suggesting you "break out of the breakfast box" and eat leftovers or salads for breakfast. Yech.

I'm trying to make up for the lack of variety with vivid flavors: Tabasco, taco salads, Dijon mustard, garlic butter, sour cream, etc., and that makes it feel less like denial. So far, I've punted when eating out, just ordering buffalo wings, which are generally sugar free.

980 Christmas songs ... and then 20 Doobie Brothers ... and 1 Sheryl Crow

Apple - Switch - Ads - Holiday Fun

Apple has posted 2 more Will Ferrell ads, with Will as Santa. I don't think we'll see these on TV.

Tuesday uncommentary: Links without logorrhea

Cantenna; What is a Cantenna?

Sophisticated Windows app helps Bush run country
Both seen at BoingBoing.

nytimes.com | 1970's Computing Pioneer Alan Kay Joins Hewlett-Packard

MSNBC |AOL may get content from Time Inc.: Some sites could be transferred to AOL's proprietary service

PCWorld.com | Comdex-Goers Size Up Budget PDAs