Saturday 18 September 1999
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Pic of the day: Cheez doodles! Some kind of maize (corn) based snack
with cheese powder. And some fat.
Woke up this morning a bit past eight, my stomach was a bit upset. It complained about the late night snack (ca 1 in the night) of a few handful cheese snacks and a yoghurt. It refused breakfast for a few hours more.
I am reminded of some intriguing find that was reported in a scientific
magazine some months ago. In the experiment, two groups of test
subjects were given cheese, one fatty and one fat-free. The fat
content in their blood was measured. However, it turned out that
the ones with the fat cheese had a rise in their blood fat immediately.
Before there was any chance of digesting the fat. In fat ... uh, in fact, the level of fatty acids in the blood rose even if the test subjects did not swallow the fat cheese. It was enough that they chewed on it for a little while. The implications of this research is quite wide. For instance, the fat must have come from somewhere. This means that at least some of our fat reserves can be activated quite easily. There is a downside however, especially to us males. Fat in the bloodstream is traditionally correlated with plaque in the large blood vessels, which again leads to heart and brain infarcts and strokes and some more of our main killer illnesses. (It is not quite as simple as we tell the kids, that the fat settles on the inside of the blood vessels. It seems to require a genetic disposition, and recent studies indicate that a bacterial agent may also be involved. But both of these seem to be quite common.)
So at least if you are a male, your small bite of fatty snacks means
that you are in trouble. Luckily there is a solution: Half an hour
of moderate exercise, such as a brisk walk or lawn mowing or biking
or sex or manual labor ... and your blood fat plummets again. Yay!
I've stayed at home this Saturday, except for a walk to the nearest grocery to buy some food. I happened upon two packets of fruit soup, which I'm still hunting for. On the down side, I was set upon by rain as soon as I came out of the store. I had to wait until the shower subsided.
I considered going to work to prepare a bit for teaching my coworkers
on Monday. But I decided to play Ultima 7 instead, and watch the small
non-playing characters run around and do all kind of everyday stuff.
On my new portable they run with amazing speed, it is pretty
fun to see. Of course, that means that I'll show up pretty unprepared
on Monday. But hey, that's how I usually do it. And after all, I do
know everything I am supposed to teach and a lot more. The trick is to
remember everything and present it in the right order. My two fellow
instructors have prepared thoroughly, at least one of them has made
a great PowerPoint presentation. (Of course, at that time I ran around
helping my coworkers connect in the first place.) I guess I could
borrow it, but it just ain't my style. I do it my way...
I was very tired this afternoon and laid me down and slept for an hour or so. I dreamt that the phone was ringing. I took it, and some man spoke about some verse in Revelations (one of the first two chapters, but I've forgotten the exact verse) which I supposedly had e-mailed him. He spoke haltingly, even mumbled, and finally stopped speaking all together. He did not put on the receiver or anything, he just stopped speaking and even did not respond when I talked to him. Most strange. I was quite satisfied to wake up and find that it was all a dream. Time to finish this, log on and see if "Amber" by any chance is online. Probably not. She'll probably read this, though, and know that I've been thinking of her just a little bit. :) |