Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: LennG on June 26, 2021, 01:44:33 PM
In my 'younger' days while I was serving in Germany, I had the 'pleasure???' of eating chocolate-covered grasshoppers. A bit crunchy but if I didn't know what they were, I might have enjoyed them a bit more.

As I said in a thread a while back on foods you hate, I HAVE eaten some green beans once and I thought I would puke. I HATE green beans. 

You just made me think of something. When were vacationing in Bali several years ago, we were eating at an outdoor restaurant and the food was very good. I had some sort of meat dish that was on the spicy side, and there was something on my plate that looked like a simple green bean. So I ate it, thinking that's what I was eating. I bit into it and it tasted fine... more or less like a green bean. About 4-5 seconds later I was blasted with an absolutely unbearable, crazy wave of heat that had me sweating, completely flushed, and visible writhing in pain. I have never eaten anything like that. The waiters (who were obiously locals) were trying to control their giggling but they clearly thought the situation was hysterical. It was so powerful that I could still feel it the next morning, and that was a lunch. That was definitely my most regrettable food experience ever, even though it was a pretty good restaurant.

Moving back to insects, I admit that I'm a little curious, but the concept just disgusts me so much. I mean why would anyone want to bite into a grasshopper? I get that in a poorer country if that is your only affordable protein source, then obviously that makes sense, but why would anyone with alternatives want to do that other than as a one-off, fear factor type experiment purely for shock value? The thought alone disgusts me.

I love escargot and find myself ordering it frequently when I see it on a menu. I also love good sea urchin. I have tried a number of weird things in my life. I have had haggis, tripe, frogs legs, and other somewhat weird foods. None really bothered me, and some I actually liked. One that I regretted though was durian. I tried that several years ago when I was in Singapore. For those who don't know, durian is a fruit found in that part of the world. It looks like a spikey cantaloupe. When opened, the fruit has a yellowish color and a custard-like consistency. It sounds inocuous enough, but man is it vile. It is one of the most foul-smelling foods I have ever come across. Some say it smells like gross feet. I would liken it more to badly rotting onions. It doesn't taste good either, although it's the smell that is really the worst. And yet it is considered a delicacy by many in Asia. Different strokes for different folks obiously. I'm sure they find certain western foods disgusting, such as cheese.

One thing I have not tried yet is insects. I think I probably draw the line there. I have friends that have tried Mexican style grasshoppers before. They are found in Oaxaca Mexico and are called chapulines. They're cleaned, cooked, and seasoned. I'm told it's basically like eating a chip or a sunflower seed, and that it's no big deal. I am just not sure I could do it. With that said, 50-100 years from now insects as cuisine could become much more commonplace, if not sooner than that.

MG,

Thanks for the comments/info. Informative and helpful - appreciate it.

Tragically, I have to assume that most if not all of the missing have probably perished by now. If your were trapped after the collapse, even if you were not seriously injured in any way, you can't really go more than three days without water, and it's probably less than that in what I would assume to be pretty significant heat.

I wonder if there is a paper trail somewhere that will lead to either gross negligence on the part of an inspector or superintendent, or, worse, that someone in a senior position in the building management company or an owner somehow knowingly looked the other way or otherwise circumvented the system out of greed or laziness.

Buildings don't just collapse like that on their own. Someone somewhere had to know that things weren't right structurally.

Quote from: MightyGiants on June 25, 2021, 08:25:03 AM
there could be nearly 100 people dead in that pile of rubble, this is a pretty tragic event

Agreed, it is beyond awful. Lots of children too.

Quote from: MightyGiants on June 24, 2021, 08:36:34 AM
How does something like this happen?!?!

Sinkhole and paid off building inspector seems to be the best bet right now.

Bowie and Floyd. By a lot.

Runners up would be U2 and The Dead.

Very true about the exercise/diet/weight loss relationship. Exercise is an important component of weight loss, but it won't move the needle if you're not dieting appropriately.

One thing I have noticed is that I tend to eat better when I am exercising consistently. Not sure if others have experienced that, but when I get into a rut and don't exercise enough, my diet tends to worsen.

For me, if I'm actively trying to lose some weight, I make sure I stay below 2000 calories in a day while exercising 4-5x a week. That formula has always worked for me. 1700-1800 calories is a good daily target area for weight loss, I find, assuming you're exercising. If you make good food choices that is more than enough calories to be satiated.

Of course, it's easier said than done to give up things like pasta, bread, alcohol, pizza, etc for an appreciable period of time.

I'm normally in the gym anywhere from 3-5 times a week, usually for 45 minutes a time. Average four times a week generally. I generally do 35 minutes of cardio, often on the arc trainer (similar to elliptical but wider range of motion), but I also use the rowing machine and sometimes walk on a steep incline on the treadmill. I always stretch for several minutes at the end of the workout. I've given up on trying to run, as this has led to intermittent lower back pain and (more recently) plantar fasciitis. I sometimes swim laps as my cardio, which I know is great exercise but the whole process from start to finish takes a lot longer plus I hate not being able to listen to music while I work out, so I don't do swimming that often. I do mix in strength training as well, but on average I'm only doing that about once a week. I could probably stand to increase the frequency of strength training, but I have not done that yet.

I would say I'm in average shape. Maybe slightly above average but certainly nothing to write home about. I was talking to a good friend recently who is in terrific shape, and he pointed out to me that one should not think about exercise in a binary way. Meaning, it should not be "I'm either going to the gym today or I'm not, and that's the end of it." He said for him, exercise is much more perpetual and spontaneous than that. On top of frequently going to the gym, he said if he's at home watching a game for example, he'll spontaneously just bang out two or three sets of 25 push-ups on the floor without even thinking about it. Or if he's on the laptop, he might decide to hold a few planks. Or if he's in a texting conversation with a friend, he'll just start doing squats for a few minutes. Or if he's on the subway, he might get out a stop or two before his stop and just walk an extra 1.5 miles if the weather is good, etc. He does this on top of 4-5x to the gym every week. Or maybe it's a simple 25 minute walk right after dinner. I think this is a great way of thinking about exercise and it really combats a sedentary lifestyle wihout dramatically changing how you allocate your time. I am going to try to do this type of thing more, because right now admittedly I really don't. I'm more of the mentality that if I went to the gym four times in a given week, I've covered my nut, which is not the optimal way to think about it.

All in all though I feel I do an adequate job on this front.

Excellent post.

Today's society discourages what you are advocating as the line between the two genders continues to be delibertely blurred, but I think it is important to remember and continue to promote these traditional values. When I observe the behavioral behavioral tendencies and values of millennials and gen-y, it is very hard not to be somewhat concerned about the future.

I'm not a big milk drinker these days, but I do consume it for coffee/tea and sometimes cereal (albeit I am eating cereal less and less these days).

For the past 20 years or so, I have always been a skim milk guy, but recently I have been trying out other types of milk such as oat milk and almond milk. I have not tried soy milk yet, and to be honest I'm not dying to. I am not lactose intolerant as far as I know, but reducing dairy intake does seem like a good idea as I get older, as dairy contributes to inflammation.

I'm curious, does anyone have a strong preference with some of these other milks? So far, from a taste perspective I prefer oat milk to almond milk, but I have read that oat milk has higher sugar content than almond milk (and regular milk), so I am not sure whether the health benefits are a net positive.

I have not done a great deal of work on this subject to be honest, and I do intend to read more, but I was curious if anyone had any strong or well-researched thoughts/recommendations on the subject.

Apologies in advance if this has been mentioned already somewhere else (either in this thread of a past one), but has anyone watched a Netflix series called "Startup"? I had it strongly recommended to me by a friend who is normally razor sharp with his recommendations, so I'm very interested and surprised I missed it. There have apparently been three seasons so far, and it debuted in 2016. It is some sort of a crime thriller/drama that involves cyber and crypto. It has an 8.0 on IMDB, which is a very strong rating. I'm about to delve in and see if it's good, but I wanted to check with the braintrust here beforehand in case anyone had any direct insights.

I think hygiene, respect of others' personal space, and just general awareness of health-related matters will exist at a permanent higher level than they did before. I think people in general (not all, but many) will be much more conscientious about this stuff moving forward. This is probably obvious, but nobody else mentioned it so I thought I'd just throw it in. I think the days of snickering at people for being germ-phobes are probably largely over, with the exception of with people who have been covid-deniers this whole time and who have been contemptuous about any sorts of safety measures. Those folks of course won't be any more conscientious in the future than they were before covid. In fact some might even be less so, just to try to make their point.

I think work-related travel will not just decline, but collapse. Very few people I know ever really liked business travel in the first place. It's a major pain in the neck, it's expensive, and it's overrated. I think companies now understand this and will really consolidate a lot of their employees' business travel and also eliminate a good part of it. And with the growing intensity of focus on environmental concerns, decreasing one's carbon footprint is the natural direction of things right now anyway.

Work from home is an interesting one. It really depends on the work. Some tech companies have told employees that they can work from home forever if they want to. Banks on the other hand have been much less comfortable allowing it and have made it clear in the past couple of months that they want people back in the office. I suspect most office type jobs will offer at least partial WFH plans for employees. I think it's tough to tell anyone who is part of any sort of team environment that they never have to be in the office, but partial/rotational WFH arrangements at the very least seem likely to be permanent at most companies.

I can't stand when olives are cooked (particularly in a sauce). I don't mind olives by themselves when they're in a bowl on the table, but when they're sliced and cooked in food I find them gross.

On very hot days I shower more frequently (two, and sometimes even three times a day instead of once). Even just a quick, 3-4 minute room temperature or cool rinse-off in the shower makes a difference.

Hydration is important. In serious heat I probably drink at least an extra liter of water a day on top of my normal 2.5 liters.

I don't mess around when it comes to AC and very hot weather. I try not to be too indulgent with air conditioning when it's just moderately warm, but when it's serious heat, I don't play games. Especially at bedtime. I can't sleep in a sweltering bedroom. In fact I like my bedroom to ideally be a couple degrees below room temperature (ideally 69 or 70 degrees).