Month: January 2004

American Dialect Society’s Words of the Year 2004

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

Once again, the American Dialect Society has released its words of the year for 2003. Each year, the Society votes on words invented that year (or which gained prominence that year) and announce winners in various categories.

Given the war on Iraq, many of the words centered around that theme:

embed: verb, to place a journalist with troops or a political campaign. Noun, a journalist who is so placed.

pre-emptive self-defense: noun, an attack before a possible attack.

weapons of mass deception: plural noun, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war.

Most of those aren’t much of a surprise. However, several of them were rather amusing to me. For starters, ass-hat made the list for some reason, though it seems like I had heard that on South Park for some time now.

One of my favorites, though, is probably torture lite, a term so euphemistic that only the military could have come up with that one. Then again, pre-emptive self-defense also just rubs me the wrong way as a term seemingly designated for rationalization.

Dennis Miller Returns to Television

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Dennis Miller is returning to tv… on CNBC. I was a bit baffled that a financial-news channel such as CNBC would pick him up, but it appears that they’re doing this for the halo-effect — to boost ratings for that timeslot with the idea of bringing viewers to their other shows as well:

CNBC won’t care what Miller does as long as his eponymous 9 p.m. show brings the network a modicum of visibility in primetime, where its audience has fallen off the radar screen. The cable network's long-term plan is to follow Miller with John McEnroe — probably in about three months — after an 8 p.m. newscast. […]

Since I don’t have HBO, I’ve never seen his regular show there. But, I’ve seen clips from his SNL days and he seems like an amusing guy. So, I’m not really sure what to expect of the show, but I’ll give it a try. “Dennis Miller” airs weeknights at 9/8c and midnight/11c.

Muppets Take Manhattan at The Inwood

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I went to the Inwood Theater last night to see Lost In Translation. It’s been out for a while (since September, it would appear) and I was pleasantly surprised that it was still showing. I’ve heard so many good things about it and, until last night, I had figured that I had missed my chance to see it in theaters.

Lost in Translation scored 88 at Metacritic, but that only tells part of it. Of the 43 critics listed, 17 of them gave it a perfect “100” (and 9 more scored it between 90 and 100). More importantly to me, all of the critics I trust rated it highly (Salon, Film Threat’s Stina Chyn and Film Threat’s Rick Kisonak).

The film doesn’t have much of a plot to it (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson’s characters mostly hang out in Tokyo), but that doesn’t detract from the film. It that sense, it can be a bit like a Seinfeld episode (in a good way), but the film seemed to remind me more of Amélie — each scene worked on its own, but I couldn’t wait for the next one.

In any case, I also noticed on the Inwood’s marquee that they're showing The Muppets Take Manhattan at midnight on Friday and Saturday this weekend. I enjoy the Muppets and I think I’ll go see that. One IMDB reviewer calls TMTM “The Best of the Muppet Films”. And, while it is a good film, I think The Great Muppet Caper may still be my personal favorite.

Working for rd2

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I’ve been busy with work (which is a good thing, I suppose), and so I haven’t been able to write many entries recently. I’m working as contractor for rd2 (yeah, they always seem to write it in lowercase). The name “rd2” outlines their development process, “Research, Design, Develop”, and the company was started by a friend of mine who worked at Hybrid with me.

The company is relatively small, and I enjoy that type of environment. I’m doing front-end coding for them and I’m able to work from home most days as well. It looks like a decent company and I’m pleased with how it’s working out so far.

Atkins Cuts Back on Saturated Fat

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The New York Times reports that Atkins Nutritionals is now recommending that people on their diet limit saturated fat to 20% of their calories. They’re trying to play this off as a clarification, but it sounds like a revision to me :-/.

Responding to years of criticism from scientists that the Atkins version of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat regimen might lead to heart disease and other health problems, the director of research and education for Atkins Nutritionals, Colette Heimowitz, is telling health professionals in seminars around the country that only 20 percent of a dieter’s calories should come from saturated fat. Atkins Nutritionals was set up by Dr. Robert C. Atkins to sell Atkins products and promote the diet. […]

Revision or otherwise, I view this as a positive move as many had dismissed the diet due to its lack of restrictions on saturated fat. For those already on the diet (which doesn’t include me), I was curious about how much saturated fat that would allow in a day…

Supposing a caloric intake of 1500 Calories, 20% would be 300 Calories from saturated fat. And, with 9 Calories/gram, 300 Calories would be about 33g saturated fat. So, to keep within 33g, you could eat:

But, don’t let the numbers fool you — those calculations are for an entire day’s worth of fat. For instance, if you were to have three bratwurst, that would leave virtually no fat for the rest of the day. But, you can mix-and-match to evenly distribute your saturated fat allowance (which works out to about 10-11g saturated fat per meal).

And, if you’re on Atkins, you can stay under your limits by eating other sources of protein such as chicken or fish. Just checking my freezer downstairs, I see that trimmed boneless/skinless chicken breast has less than 1g saturated fat per serving. Likewise, canned tuna also has less than 1g saturated fat. Mayo has about 1.5g/TBsp, so a tuna salad could work also.