Yikes

I think Born Loser says it all when it comes to the news lately.

Topic: Sir Edmund Hillary

Remember Sir Edmund Hillary? He's the British guy who first reached the top of Mount Everest. Most people have never heard of his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, who deserves credit alongside him as being first to the top of Everest.

Other little tidbits:

• Hillary was by profession a beekeeper, of all things.

• Hillary left a crucifix at the summit in honor of George Mallory who had gone missing on Everest 30 years before.

• Hillary continued to love adventure long after Everest, venturing to the South Pole in 1958 and battling up the Ghanges to its source in 1975.

• He maintained a deep connection to Nepal and its people, serving as ambassador to India, Nepal and Bangladesh,  and founding the Himalayan Trust to build schools, hospitals, and airfields in Nepal.
  

Wanna know more?

Britannica

Encarta

Wii Fit

So, my boyfriend managed to nab one of the last Wii fits available on opening day in Los Angeles. He was so excited that he took it quite good naturedly when the Wii Fit baldly called him overweight and made his little Wii character look quite pudgy. On the other hand, my wii mii looks quite anemic and the Wii keeps trying to fatten me up.

There has been some outcry because the Wii Fit is not all that accurate when evaluating kids (there are so many factors in the health of a growing child) and will often end up calling a quite normal child "fat." Perhaps the wii needs to restrain from making BMI judgments on children. Should be a simple fix since the game asks for your birthdate anyway.

However, all in all, my take is that the Wii Fit is the most powerful tool we've seen in a long while for fighting childhood obesity. In a society obsessed with TV and video games, it's nice to see a video game that gets people up and moving. I wouldn't say that the Wii Fit offers a vigorous workout routine but I'd say it's probably just about perfect to get a typical couch potato's blood moving. Hey, every little movement helps!

Keeping your computer organized

I have the bad habit of saving everything to the desktop so I can find it easier. Of course, that means I can't find anything. If I'm good, I have a To Org folder in my documents where I stick things if I don't have time to organize it into a folder in my documents. Every couple of days I make sure I organize everything out of that folder. Another idea that works for me is to organize everything in my documents in a logical file structure. Then I have a folder on my desktop called Current Projects. In it are links to all the files and folders that I'm currently using regularly. That way the game show I'm developing stays filed with all the other gameshows I've developed previously and the schedules I'm working on stays with all the past schedules but their shortcuts are easily accessible to me without having to dig through all the past projects. Anyway, I like it! Everyone works differently of course!

Continued learning

Education these days can be massively expensive. What happens then when you have that degree and venture out into the workforce, but still want to keep on learning? It can be hard to justify spending the money if the classes won't in someway further your career (and as far as I know, modern philosophy rarely does). Yet look at it another way. Since you wouldn't be taking the classes to put a degree on a resume, you don't need to pay big money for a big name in education. Community colleges are amazingly inexpensive (in California, a 3 credit class can range between $60 and $80) and you'll still get a good overview of whatever topic you are interested in. Some community colleges even offer online classes so you can learn at your leisure.

An unwelcome guest

Don’t you just hate it when you are scrambling around at the last minute finishing the food and trying to beautify yourself you hear that knock on the door twenty minutes early? An early guest is almost worse than a late guest.

And fire season is here… early… Not that we really enjoy it when it shows up on time, but we should get at least a little more time! But, alas, record high heat has sped up its arrival. I’m used to fires being from Idaho. But the difference in LA is that the fires actually rage in the middle of the city. Which is dang inconvenient. When the hill between you and work is ablaze it puts a crimp in your commute. And air quality is certainly not helped when you are living next to what amounts to a ginormous barbeque of smoke.

However, in true So Cal fashion, my Pasadena neighbors (who have been blessed with the first blaze) are keeping wary eyes on the fire making its way towards their homes with mochas and martinis in hand. If you gonna stay home from work to make sure your house doesn’t burn down, you might as well do it in style!

Need healthcare? No problem! Oh wait, you might actually need it? On second thought…

It’s stupefying to think that in our first world country those who need healthcare the most (i.e. people who are actually sick) often can’t get it because no insurance company will insure them! And, on top of that, we now have the ability through genetic testing to find out if we are at more at risk to BE sick in the future. From a medical standpoint this is huge since then preventative measure can be taken to, well, prevent these ailments from occurring. Who wouldn’t want to get this testing done? It could save your life! But, here’s the catch, now the insurance companies ALSO know that you have a greater risk of getting sick than the lady sitting next to you and they just may refuse to cover you. It’s freaking insane! Fortunately, the senate has passed an Act today that will ban genetic discrimination. So, your health plan can’t deny you coverage or boost your rates based on your genetic profile. Oh, and your employer can’t fire you because of it either. The House is expected to approve the legislation next week and even President Bush seems to be on board. Finally, something sane to come out of Washington! Though in the long run, a lot more than this will need to change.

Seriously here people, I’m all for capitalism but I have to agree with the commentators, bloggers, and Europeans who are starting to call America “the richest third world country in the world!” We are ranked 42nd in life expectancy, our babies are more likely to die in the first year of their life than if they lived in Cuba, and, this just came out this week, life expectancy has actually dropped for some US women for the first time since the freaking influenza in 1918 infected 25% of the world’s population! Something is horrifically, horrifically wrong here. Perhaps we need to stop treating medical care as a perk for well-off Americans but as necessary a public service as a well-run police force and fire brigade!