Random Friday: Lose weight, make $, and have your husband do the housework

[By Merry]

[Warning: Introductory paragraph contains potentially harmful levels of frivolous levity as well as trace elements such as irony. If you have been advised by your doctor or other health professional to take life seriously at all costs, avoid the first paragraph. You might want to only lightly skim the whole post for that matter.]

I asked Crabby if she wanted to stop undergoing de-box (a necessary part of re-Crab) long enough to do a Random Friday post, and her response... well, let's just say it was something like this:



So I figured I'd throw out a collection of oddities and leave her to unpack in peace. Much safer that way.


Protect your brain... or give it a workout and burn calories?

In the Good News department, drinking coffee protects your brain. I'll drink to that. They recommend you drink a cup of coffee a day. Well, if I must. No word yet on the health benefits of drinking frappacinos.

Did you know that hitting your head against the wall burns 150 calories an hour? Yeah, I didn't know that either. Sounds like it might be true, but I kinda hope that they didn't test that one too strenuously.


With this ring, I do solemnly swear... no more sweeping?

Today's husband creates an extra 7 hours of housework each week? Really? Women spend an average of one hour a day (see, I can too do that math stuff) cleaning up after their man? I'm trying to figure out how the husbands manage to create that much extra work each day. It must be that the men simply stop doing any housework once they marry. Huh. Now there's an argument for getting a sex change.


Pop quiz! How good is your memory?

Of course, you all took the video test at the end of that Random Friday post a couple weeks ago, right?
Ahem, I said, Right?
Anyway, in case you've forgotten it was a test about your powers of observation. Last I checked, everyone who took the test had the same result the first time around, and several of us bombed the second time as well. Or was it a failure? This link explains the condition of change blindness, where you 'see, but do not observe.' I liked this explanation, since it made me feel that I wasn't unobservant, I was merely a normally evolved human. Nice to be normal some times, y'know?

Lose weight, make more money, have a successful life

Apparently the skills needed to lose weight and keep it off are also the skills you need to make more money and be successful in your work: motivation and discipline.

A researcher from the University of Chicago claims that "after controlling for cognitive ability, general equivalency diploma (GED) recipients earn less than other high school dropouts." According to the study, people who took the GED to get out of high school didn't have the drive to succeed that other people who dropped out did.

Does that make sense? I knew highly intelligent people who took the GED to get out of high school early, and they certainly didn't make what's usually considered a success of their lives. On the other hand, I wonder if they wanted to. People who take an unconventional path aren't always unhappy with their choices.

Internet Weirdness

The Internet is a weird place. I mean, why have a website devoted to passing a little red ball from one person to another? Am I missing something here? I know it looks like an iPod advert, but what is the point? Is it supposed to be teaching me mouse-eye coordination or something? (Am I being especially foolish to expect that there be a point?)

And I'm all for stopping people from smoking, but an e-cigarette? This battery-powered device lets you "inhale nicotine without the tobacco smoke and tar" and other "nasty stuff."

I'm glad that people can smoke this thing indoors and get their nicotine fix without annoying the people around them -- but when did nicotine become something that wasn't "nasty"? I wonder who sponsored that research.



I don't know if the following video counts as porn for women or not. Strikes me as more silly than salacious, but I thought it was only fair to include it to refute the claim that men don't like to do housework. (They just apparently want to do housework in ways that are new and damn strange innovative.)

I mean, if men are so leery about doing housework, how do you explain the popularity of extreme ironing... underwater?



Have a great weekend!

Urinal Lot of Trouble Now...

It's Random Friday, Special Tasteless Edition!

It had to happen eventually: Cranky Fitness descends to bathroom humor to fill out a Friday post. However, don't panic: the actual urinal pictures don't appear until the end and you can cut away well before that and go visit a much more grown up health blog.

Like for instance, That'sFit, where Crabby stole noticed these three items:

Apparently this past Wednesday was declared Sex Day in Russia, as couples in the Ulyanovsk region were given the day off work in order to, well, do their best to personally boost declining population numbers. For those with excellent timing, prizes like cars, or TV's will be awarded to reward couples who give birth exactly nine months later on "National Day." Quoth the Dude in Charge: "If there's a good, healthy atmosphere at home within the family, if the husband and wife both love each other and their child, they will be in good spirits... so there'll be a healthy atmosphere throughout the country!"

On the other hand, there's this depressing statistic: One in ten American women smoke while pregnant! Actually it was even worse than that: 22% smoked at least sometime during their pregnancy, and 12% were classified as nicotine dependent. The smokers also suffered high rates of depression which made it harder to quit. Reading this, Crabby found herself suffering a sudden high rate of depression and the emergency administration of Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds was required. (Is there a Patch for that?)

But on a more cheerful note, folks in Baltimore have been taking advantage of free exercise equipment stationed around Druid Park, including rowing, elliptical, back and leg press machines. Crabby will try to stow her usual pessimism and assume the absence of vandalism and the existence of magical Equipment Maintenance Fairies (or perhaps Druids?) to keep the things in working order. Or perhaps these machines function differently than the ones in her gym and do not break down ever three minutes.

And a couple more quick heath notes for women: First, get some sleep! Women are much more susceptible than men to blood pressure problems if they don't get more than 5 hours of shut-eye every night. And second, if you take the Pill and are worried about cancer--a new study suggest that cancer risk may actually be slightly reduced among Pill takers, at least for those taking it fewer than eight years. The study looked at data from 46,000 women over 36 years, back far enough to include years when the dosage was much higher than it is now. It also appeared the protective effects lasted at least 15 years after stopping.

Enough health? Now on to the Usual Randomness! (And the first few aren't even tasteless).

For those who haven't already found this over at The Goat's Lunch Pail or at Women of Mystery, there is a quick, fun, and often Weirdly Accurate Personality Test that tells you what famous novel you most resemble. There are only six questions to answer, and the answers tend to be put in mostly flattering terms, so there's little to fear!

Unfortunately, Crabby has been alerted to another funny blog, and she's not sure she she's supposed to get anything done if she keeps reading random posts and laughing and being overcome by murderous jealousy hearty appreciation and everything. (The culprit who alerted her was Vanilla over at Half-Fast, but Crabby is not even going to link to him again because he's going to think she's stalking him. But you know where to find him, or if you don't--just keep refreshing this page and adding to Crabby's Page View statistics looking for his blog until it magically appears in the blogroll over on the side bar).

This Awkwardness Survival Guide is also quite amusing, as it includes instructions on what to do in quite a few uncomfortable situations, including when:

"A waiter entreats you to enjoy your meal and you respond with 'you too;'

"Out of habit, you end a phone conversation with 'I love you' when not talking to your significant other; or,

"You call your teacher 'mom.'"

Crabby has done many of the Embarrassing Things listed, so she found it reassuring to discover there were others out there just as clueless.

And so, now to the Potty-related Part of the Post!

First up, Jennifer at Off-Beat Homes brings us, for real, plans for building The Poop House. She asks if you'd ever consider living there. Crabby says, "No Way in Hell!"

And then The Lethological Reader introduces us to A Perplexing new Product: Pee Powered Batteries!

And next are two pictures of Urinals, one that Crabby found Amusing, and the other Downright Offensive! Try to guess which is which, and feel free to tell her what you all thought, as well as sharing any thoughts, feelings, opinions, or off-color jokes or whatever else you may have going on in your Clever Creative minds!

First Urinal, photo courtesy of NerdTests:



Second Urinal, brought to you by Gadling:



And have a great weekend folks!

Borrowing "Cool": For Smokers, the Debt Comes Due

So yet another new study has just come out reminding us of the damage cigarette smoking can do to the human body.

One has to wonder: is there any possible Horrible Consequence that might make a difference to a young person deciding whether or not to smoke?

Typical Teenager or College Student has already heard thousands of times that smoking is addictive, that it can cause heart disease and cancer and emphysema, and will eventually choke the life out anyone who chooses to take it up. Fortunately, that does stop a lot of kids. But plenty of others go right ahead.

This recent headline might be slightly more helpful: "Smokers' Skin Is More Wrinkled, Even In Areas Shielded From Sunlight." But it would probably need to say "Smoking will Cause Huge Green Volcanic Pimples To Appear on Your Face Permanently--Starting Tomorrow Morning," to even register.

However, the study did at least put the focus where it should be when addressing the important factors a young person weighs when deciding whether to smoke: how will it make me look?

Anti-smoking campaigns can't change the fact that smoking will make a young person cool. Only young people themselves can change that, and why would they?

It's the easiest possible way for teens to rebel. Smoking won't get you thrown in jail, pregnant, exposed to AIDS, or so wrecked you can't remember where you live. You don't even have to visit a "bad" neighborhood to score. Plus it's a much more convincing "f**ck-it-all" statement than a simple tattoo or nose piercing.

And it works! You can indeed "borrow" coolness you don't actually own yourself. If you are of tender years, your social status will be likely elevated if you take up this toxic but glamorous habit. You will look more suave, more adventurous, more "up for anything." At least through much of your twenties.

But sorry, it's all downhill after that. No one looks at 36-year-old Brian from Accounting and thinks, wow, he's so sophisticated--he smokes! Just keep watch at any downtown office building where actual grown-ups work. Wait for break time. See those people huddled there in the doorways in the the snow, the hundred degree heat? Are those the "cool" people?

Oddly enough, there seems to be almost an inverse relationship between hipness and these folks. There's an air of depression and defeat about these gatherings. No one would mistake this for the "in crowd."

What's truly amazing is the number of young adults who still make this clueless bargain--who don't even need to! (Some of us geeky types who took a few experimental puffs back in the day, but decided the price was too high--we could have really used the help). Evening strolls through the trendy neighborhoods of Washington D.C. recently revealed hordes of twenty-somethings who looked rich, attractive, well-dressed, pampered, and ready to step into privileged lives--with cigarettes dangling from their lips.

Perhaps it was the air of smugness about some of them that brought on an emotion that wasn't, well, pity. You could almost hear them: "Can't you see how awesome we look? Don't you wish you were us?"

Yep, dude, sure enough--you do look awesome. But no. Absolutely no wish to be you.

Research Roundup

So here is the weekly Random Research post. This was a tradition started on weekends, but Friday is a good day for randomness too, isn't it? After all, by Friday, who can think clearly and pay attention to a single subject for more than a paragraph or two? Certainly not Crabby. So fasten your seat-belts and watch in amazement as we descend from health-related studies into truly random and chaotic linkage!

First up is an article about the general health of truck drivers in the U.S., and guess what? It's not encouraging.

Some specifics, from an upcoming study by the Transportation Research Board:

Nearly half of truckers are regular smokers, compared to about one-fifth of all Americans. Only about one in ten get regular aerobic exercise. There are also high rates of obesity and sleep apnea.

Add to this the fact that the trucking industry has the most fatalities any industry and that truckers also report more injuries than any other occupation, and you have a good reason to worry for these (mostly) guys. The article goes on to highlight some efforts being made to improve trucker health, but given the scope of the problem, Crabby's not laying down money on dramatic improvements any time soon.

So truckers tend to be smokers? Perhaps we'll use that as a crude transition to a trio of studies that involved smoking. Somehow it seems doubtful that many readers of Cranky Fitness are big smokers, but what the heck.

So one good news items for smokers: there's at least one disease you're less likely to get than nonsmokers are. A recent study suggests cigarette smokers are at reduced risk for developing Parkinson's disease. Crabby hopes she doesn't need to point out that you'll be at higher risk for a bunch of other more common deadly health problems, like cancer, stroke, and heart attacks. Because you knew that already, right?

For those who are trying to quit smoking, and also struggling with a drinking problem, it looks like there may be one medication that helps for both addictions. It's called varenicline, and it's already available to help people stop smoking. But it may also help heavy drinkers and people struggling with other addictions by targeting a "pleasure center" in the brain.

Also, on the smoking front, there's this research concluding that smokers lose more muscle mass in old age, which then "predisposes smokers to an accelerated decline in physical function and loss of independence." Which means some earnest underpaid nurse's aide in your nursing home is going to be snatching those cigarettes out of your weakened grasp anyhow. So you you might as well quit now while the quittin's good.

And for those who might be partial to a bit of Friday Beefcake, Diet Blog has a great run-down on a recent study claiming that women really do go for brawny guys with lots o' muscles. Crabby's stereotype was that the shallow preoccupation with superficial aspects of physical appearance was a male vice, not a female one. But she discovered she was Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

Diet Blog, unlike many other health reporting sites, actually showed the blob-headed but strangely studly pictures used in the studies, and went beyond the headlines to actually analyze the data. So gals (or guys) who have an opinion on Male Physique may want to check this out and report back to Crabby what they think about the whole thing.

And our good friend Martha over at That'sFit has a review of Fat Girl by Judith Moore that made Crabby eager to read it. Have any of you gotten to it yet, and if so, what did you think?

And finally, were we speaking of largeness? (Crabby is not even making a pretense of logical connections anymore). Here is a gratuitous picture of a Very Huge Cat. Seriously, do click on the link; you have to see this; scroll down a bit to get the full impact. This then allows Crabby to mention a favorite blogger, Penelope, Who Does Not Pretend to Be An Ordinary Cat. She has opinions about politics and all sorts of things, and has been rated NC-17 because of her use of objectionable language. Her sidebar is frequently updated and not to be missed.

Have enough random subjects been mentioned for now so that everyone might have an opinion about something? Crabby hopes so, because she loves to hear what you all are thinking!

Second Hand Smoke Hurts Kids

So yet another study is out detailing the dangers of second hand smoke; this time the research focuses on the damage it does to kids who are exposed to it.

Said one of the researchers: "Even a little exposure to smoke at home or in the public environment can be harmful to the cardiovascular system of healthy schoolchildren."

Second hand smoke is a known killer; every day non-smokers who have to breathe it die of lung cancer and heart disease.

The whole issue makes Crabby very angry. People who don't choose to smoke themselves should not have to endure the associated health risks. Especially not children.

The fact that smoking is harmful is not news--people younger than about 50 years old knew damn well when they started that they were risking their health. Crabby knows nicotine addiction is incredibly powerful; had she become a smoker herself she's not sure she would have been able to quit, though she certainly hopes so.

But if she hears one more smoker whining about how his "right" to smoke in public places is somehow more fundamental than the rights of others not to die of cancer, she's going to slap someone--and it's not going to be a non-smoker.

Crabby figured out by the time she was about ten years old that if smoking was bad for people, breathing second hand smoke was probably not too good for you either. She has been waiting since that time for the rest of society to catch up so that she and all the other nonsmokers out there don't have to choke on any more obnoxious and dangerous smoke. Times are finally changing, a bit. But people are still taking up the foolish habit and other people around them are still having to deal with the consequences.

Crabby lives in a metropolitan area that actually bans smoking in most indoor public places--but even this isn't quite enough to keep it at bay. At some of the trendy bars, for example, smoking seems to be making a comeback. (Crabby is not the least bit trendy, but she has friends who are, so she's found herself at these places on rare occasions).

She was appalled the first time she saw people at one of these places starting to light up. Surely they knew it wasn't allowed? However no one said a word. It was clear everyone was just supposed to just shut up and be "cool" about it. How could this be happening again?

"Would you mind putting that out?"

Crabby has braved the wrath of those around her to ask that question, but it makes her feel like a freak. She longs for the day when no one has to say it anymore because it will seem so obvious: smoking indoors, in public, is unacceptable. Unfortuately, we're not there yet.