soapbox

You may have noticed that dactyl sort of died this afternoon. It turns out that something died in the previous spam protection that I was using on the blog which caused some mysql problems. Those problems caused apache to start barfing and that pretty much brought down the whole machine.

I finally managed to ssh in and found out that the load (the average number of processes that were trying to run at once) was 90. Normally, that should be less than 1.

Anyway, I think everything should be fixed now and the blog spam blocking program has been much improved. You probably won’t even notice it. However, if comments start dissapearing or anything, let me know.

Can your dog/cat do this?

Or you can just buy one of the following puuuma shirts.

Nathaniel, check out the comments in moderation, pretty impressive.

With apologies to the ladies out there, you’ll have to come up with your own rules (dumb idea, nevermind), I present to you a new list of man rules for the over-30 crowd. (For the well-under-thirty crowd, consider this as a reminder of things to not take for granted.)

Selected favorites (with my comments):

11. Experiment with facial hair. (true, but kinda a shame.)

20. Own a futon.

21. Own a beanbag chair.

22. Hang art framelessly. (“framelessly” is fantastic, pseudohomonymically similar to “aimlessly” and implying a lack of culture, common sense, etc…)

37. Cook exclusively on a George Foreman grill. (too bad, but one should probably have upgraded by now.)

41. Use Internet acronyms, especially ROFL and LOL. (I’d say you forfeit this “right” around age 19?)

In a recent letter to The Sports Guy, Sean from Harrisburg, PA brings up a good point about Kate Mara: She is the absolute most gorgeous thing I have ever seen AND she’s the granddaughter of Wellington Mara, which means she’s freaking rich.

So, obviously, we the blog people need to work on such a Sugar Mama list… for starters, I’d go with Demi Moore (taken, but husbands are only speedbumps, not roadblocks) and Jennifer Aniston.

if you need some guidelines for consideration, here’s the SG’s commentary on the matter: (more…)

Apparently “just one” WILL kill you - a new study at the University of Calgary reports that people who ate a fast-food breakfast were more prone to suffer the negative effects of stress than those who ate a healthy, low-fat breakfast.

“What’s really shocking is that this is just one meal,” says researcher Tavis Campbell, PhD. “It’s been well documented that a high-fat diet leads to atherosclerosis [hardening of the arteries] and high blood pressure, and that exaggerated and prolonged cardiovascular responses to stress are associated with high blood pressure in the future.”

“So when we learn that even a single, high-fat meal can make you more reactive to stress, it’s cause for concern because it suggests a new and damaging way that a high-fat diet affects cardiovascular function.”