Monthly Archives: December 2006

Resolutions, schmesolutions!

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on December 20, 2006 – 1:59 pm
Filed under Food, Money, Work and Business

A few years back I made some New Year’s resolutions; one of which was to keep a regular diary. If the eclectic posting dates on this blog are anything to go by, you can guess that this was about as successful as a lead balloon. I’ve never considered New Year’s resolutions since. That’s why this year I’ve decided to throw resolutions out completely in an attempt to actually stick to one or two “goals”!

The last 6 months or so have been psychologically and financially significant for me; I’ve started, for the first time in my life, to mange my finances properly, set targets in my work and home life, eat more sensibly and healthier whilst being more socially aware. These things weren’t accidental: I worked towards them gradually, and I’m still a long way off perfecting them.

Whilst this gives me clarity and a target I want to achieve in the relatively near future, it’s also very confusing: I now know what I want but I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to achieve it or how long it will take.

  • I’m managing my finances; but why? It’s not just to ensure that I’m not an identity theft victim (1 in 10 in the UK are!) or to ensure I’m not spending too much money on unnecessary alcohol, snacks and food: I want to increase my wealth by spending more economically. How can I measure my success at this, and how can I even start?
  • I’ve set targets at work so that I can become more successful at what I do. What exactly is being successful at what I do? What exactly is desirable - what will make me more employable?
  • At home I want to practice and get better at my hobbies. I want to learn to take much better photographs than I currently do. I want to make good progress on my projects whilst still being able to sit down, watch a film and have a drink.

How can I train, holiday and eat better food whilst not spending so much money? How can all the above tie-in with me being more environmental and socially conscious?

There’s a way… but I’m currently trying to find it. I’ll let you know what I find before the New Year.

A Kitten for Every Man, Woman and Child (Curing Alzheimer’s, One Cat at a Time)

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on December 6, 2006 – 11:35 am
Filed under Everything Else, Politics, Sci/Tech

Cats are quite amazing; in fact they are veritably awesome as fųck. This is a 100%, legitimate, bona-fide fact. We all know that if humans didn’t rule the world, then cats are next in line to the throne. Undeniably, cats already have half the world wrapped around their little, um, paw-finger(?!) - and we don’t mind one bit.

Regardless, today a story broke about feline dementia, specifically, feline Alzheimer’s: it has been discovered, by researchers at Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California, that the dementia that cats suffer (which has been known to exist for a long time) does in fact arise from Alzheimer’s disease.

Do not fret for your small, fur covered, balls of fun (not those ones… your cats!) - this is a good thing. Due to the shorter life-span of cats, scientists hope that it will become easier for them to identify how Alzheimer’s disease develops in felines, as well as in humans. This is a good step in the direction of understanding the disease - the most important step in finding a preventative measure.

Now, not only do I feel bad for laughing ever so slightly about the idea of a cat losing its marbles, but I’ve come across a bit of a brainwave - a preventative measure of my own devices:

Experts believe that diet, mental stimulation and companionship can reduce the risk of dementia in both humans and felines. Then does it not make sense, for the wellbeing of both cats and humans, for the government to ensure that all humans have at least one cat as a pet, and all cats to have a human as an owner? That’s companionship sorted, and maybe we should dispel of our taboo on the eating of ‘pets’ and eat our deceased cats in order to get some lovely lean meat too?

Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak? Or should that be ‘Killing two, um, diseases with… one… cat’? Yes, that’s it. I do wonder though; during their research, did they give these felines CAT scans! Muahaha! (Apologies!)

BBC News Story
Feline Advisory Bureau (FABCats!)
European Society for Feline Medicine
StuffOnMyCat.com

Pages of an Obsessive Diarist

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on December 6, 2006 – 10:48 am
Filed under Books, Everything Else

For almost 17 years from 1972, Reverend Robert Shields of Washington, USA kept an almost constant diary of everything he did. He wrote 35 million words before he was stopped by a stroke. His diary is thought to be the longest in existence.

This diary, of a man who only slept for two hours at a time in order to write about his every dream, has now been passed to the Washington State University to care for. You can read an excerpt from an interview with Shields and radio documentary maker David Isay here. Choice quotes include:

Robert Shields records everything he eats. He records his blood pressure and pulse at various times during the day, the temperature outside and in, every conversation he has, every piece of junk mail he receives. He sleeps no more than two hours at a time so that he can record his dreams. Robert Shields has also scotch-taped a variety of his life’s keepsakes into this diary. For instance: samples of his nasal hair.

The entire day is accounted for. I don’t leave anything out. I start in at midnight and go through the next midnight, and every five minutes is accounted for:
12:20 to 12:25: I stripped to my thermals. I always do that.
12:25 to 12:30: I discharged urine.
12:30 to 12:50: I ate leftover salmon — Alaska red salmon by Bumblebee, about seven ounces — drank ten ounces of orange juice while I read the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

I have the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations! Let’s hope I don’t start a diary!

A full page of his diary is available here.

(Found on Boing Boing)

As for David Isay, he’s currently working on the “StoryCorps” project:”It’s actually a very simple idea,” said Isay, explaining how the project works. “You bring your mother, your grandmother, anyone you want to our booth. You go in the booth, and the door shuts, and it’s kind of this magical sacred space. For 40 minutes you sit across the table, and you talk about the big questions in life. At the end of the 40 minutes, the CDs stop rolling and one goes to you and the second stays with us and becomes part of the archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.” [link]

Who would you take in there and what would you say?