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My breakthrough in healthy living

It’s not often that a person’s dream is fulfilled.

I have often considered adopting a healthier diet. Yet, like many people, I enjoy a cold one after a long day at the office. How could I abandon such a simple pleasure?

i am. canadian. i am also, by the way, a hater of pissy, factory beers like canadian and labatts.As it turns out, I needn’t have agonized over this dilemma. Reading an article on Canada.com, I learned that beer can help lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of coronary-artery disease, and is loaded with B-vitamins.

There are limits to its goodness, however: men can have only two beers a day (and only one for women). Not a problem. If I drink beer every second day only, I can have two days’ worth — four beers — all at once. Or maybe I’ll avoid drinking beer all week, and on Saturday, I can have fourteen! And if I abstain from the suds for a whole month then I’m entitled to 62 cold ones! Woooo!

This actually brings up a serious problem for teetotallers. If a guy hasn’t had a beer in two years, for example, then for the sake of a healthy diet, he’s pretty much obliged to drink 730 of them in one sitting.

If you haven’t had a beer for a while, please… consider the consequences to your health. Don’t fall behind on your beer quota.

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Geekdom is inhabited by plastic robots

Confession time. For over a year now, I’ve been playing with Lego. At first, I was a little hesitant to mention it to anyone. After all, I’m an adult playing with a child’s toy, right? That’s pretty… um… odd. To say the least.

Since then, I’ve encountered many more adults with the same odd obsession. As it turns out, it’s entirely likely that this Lego kit is enjoyed by more adults than children.

The Lego kit in question is the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System: a programmable microcomputer that lets you build and program your own robots. Actual, real, autonomous robots. Introduced in ’98, the kit became an instant sensation — a fad that sucked in countless people into the depths of geekness and spawned hundreds of Mindstorms fan sites.

one of my many creationsSo, yes. I have an odd hobby. Visitors to my home often have to avoid treading on some little mechanical creature or other robotic gadget. They may well think that I’m completely insane, but so far they have been kind enough not to say so in my presence.

I assure you, however, that I am by far not the worst of the Mindstorms geeks. From the creations on display at JP Brown’s website, it’s obvious that I’m not even in the same league as the real fanatics. Did you know, for example, that a Lego robot could solve a Rubik’s cube? And someone else hacked the firmware to create the first TCP/IP-enabled Lego brick.

My own attempts to build autonomous robots, then, are quite feeble by comparison. Oddly enough, that makes me feel better. It means that I am odd… just not as odd as those other guys.

I’m making converts, too. Recently, I lent one of my kits (yes, I bought two of them) to a friend. Yet another perfectly normal adult has been dragged into the zone of pure geekdom. Consequently, I may not hear from him again for months.

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Beep beep beep beep beep beep

Geek culture has a new teen idol. Like most Internet fads (remember the “All Your Base…” phenomenon?), this one doesn’t seem to have any reason. I personally don’t get these fads. The “Hatt Baby” site was fun for a while, and if you think way back you’ll remember the Hamster Dance (“Doo do-doot doo doo do-doo…” etc.). And there may have been dozens of others that I missed — or ignored.

Ellen Feiss, student, groggy teen-geek idolNow it’s Ellen’s turn. Apple has release a series of TV ads they call “Switch”, in which real people talk about switching from PC to Mac. (As an aside, does that ever happen? Personally, I think that once you’ve been possessed by the Microsoft demon, you’re doomed to serve the evil master of Redmond forever. I digress.)

A controversial ad in the Switch series features a teenage girl named Ellen Feiss, who appears to be, shall we say, a little… er… groggy. Some even conjecture that she’s sampled a bit of the happy herb. I’ve seen the ad on Apple.com, and I’m not sold on the drug theory. She just seems like a typical, sullen, red-eyed teen. Yet somehow, based only on one 30-second ad, this groggy girl has gained a loyal following amongst teenage geeks. Websites about Ellen Feiss have sprung up all over. Here are only a few:

http://www.deepmonkey.com

www.allyourtv.com

http://www.cafeshops.com

http://www.wemakedotcoms.com

http://efeiss.flatsoda.com/

Am I missing something? I mean, sure that “beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep” bit is kind of endearing, but how do you go from that to selling Ellen Feiss t-shirts and coffee mugs? To steal a line from Mr. Shatner (as I am wont to do)…

GET A LIFE, WILL YOU PEOPLE? I MEAN… FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, IT’S JUST A TV COMMERCIAL!

That’s all I really have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch a taped episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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Oh, all the animals I will never taste!

Gamera is really neat./He is filled with turtle meat...This morning I work up with an incredible craving for unusual meats. I blame this on last night’s exposure to Gamera Versus Guiron — another offering from MST3K. In this poorly-dubbed 1969 movie, a gigantic turtle-like creature battles to save two children from the clutches of Guiron — an oversized quadruped with a head like a ginsu knife.

During the ensuing mayhem, Joel and his bots are singing “Gameraaaaa! Gameraaaa! Gamera is really neat. He is filled with turtle meat…”. And it occurred to me that I have never tasted turtle. I can only imagine that it tastes like chicken, as every other meat does, apart from beef and Guiron.

Another meat I have often wondered about is penguin. All they do is eat fish all day and stand around. Sure it might be a little fatty, but if you drained that off after roasting, I’m sure you’d be left with some juicy, tender meat. Sort of like duck.

Mmmmmm. Roast penguin.

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About my recent facelift…

Those of you who read this blog regularly, if there are such people, will notice a few changes. I spent a few hours last night in a frenzy of HTML markup, giving this site a facelift. You’ll notice two major changes, apart from the new layout, which I admit is too wide for many screens. I’ll trim it down in the coming days.

Firstly, I changed the title from “Automaton: a blog of a cubicle dweller” to simply “Cubicle Dweller”. As a technical writer, I enjoy making things more concise. It’s one of the few things that bring meaning to my life.

Secondly, My name no longer appears on the site. This is something that has been brewing on my mind for several days now, prompted in part by a blog entry on Chris Taylor’s blog, DailyBlah.com, and in part by a blog entry on Escribitionist.com.

There seem to be three kinds of bloggers out there: those who don’t care much about privacy and anonymity, and put their name and photo all over their blog, like Chris Taylor; those who wish to be anonymous, and avoid revealing their name, photo, or other details, like Escribitionist; and those who really haven’t thought about it and do a mix of both. If you have visited my site before, you know that I was more like the first of those three. Now I’ll just remain semi-anonymous… for a while.

Anyway, if you haven’t visited here before, hello. I’m usually at least a little more entertaining than this. It’s an off-day when I can’t muster even just a little bit of sarcasm.

If you’re a returning reader… um… hi… again.