Bad News for Crabs!

Horrors. Crabby has just discovered she is less credible that a creepy-looking talking ketchup bottle!

At least according to this recent study of how much people trust various computer avatars. (And they have a picture of the yucky condiment, so you may just want to take a quick peek).

And those of you who think you don't know what an avatar is? Yes, you do. It's just a fancy name for those little pictures or cartoons or, in some cases, sophisticated 3-D animations, that people use to represent themselves on the web.

Like, for example, Crabby McSlacker. The grouchy little Crab who brings you all the Weirdness that is Cranky Fitness.

The study was really more focused on androgyny. Researchers randomly assigned avatars and had volunteers pair up and chat online for 20 minutes. Then people rated their partners on how credible and how androgynous they seemed. And guess what? Avatars like a Cute Blond with pigtails were more trusted than androgynous avatars, like the freaky-looking Ketchup Bottle.

But the least trusted avatar, the one that came in dead last--was a lizard!

So sure, Crabby is not a reptile, but she is a cold-blooded crustacean. And the lizard was called "intimidating," whereas Crabby is perhaps more accurately described as "crotchety."

But Crabby can't escape the sad conclusion that she is way more like an Intimidating Lizard than a Bottle of Ketchup. And she is even less like the Perky Pigtail Girl!

Sigh.

However, she is quite happy being a Crab. It suits her. So she is not going to transform herself into a Perky Pigtail Girl no matter how much you beg her.

Anyway, this study brings up some interesting questions. Others of you must choose how to identify yourself here and other places. We have Bunnies and Chickens and Royalty; we have Goats and Bananas and Cats with or without headphones. We also have brave folks who use regular names! But even doing that, there are decisions. Use your own, first and last? Or something else? And are you always the same person wherever you visit?

So Crabby is quite curious to see what you all think of avatars and how you decide how to represent yourselves on the internet. Does your chosen identity reflect something important about you? Do you give a crap what other people think about it? Ever tempted to "go wild" with something new?

Random Friday!

First off, some nutrition-related studies to get out of the way, so we can all feel Responsible and Informed. Then it's time for the usual Friday Silliness.

So a complicated study about fish oils and vegetable oils seemed to indicate yet again: fish oil is good for you! (The study involved discussions of prostanoids, inflammation, COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes, and other stuff that made Crabby's brain hurt. Smart Scientists: feel free to report back whether this rather indirect sort of "good for you" research seems persuasive or not.)

A study of goats' milk suggested it has health advantages over cows' milk, at least when it comes to preventing anemia and bone softening. Goats' milk appeared to aid the body in using minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium.

And who knew undercooked beans or rice could give you food poisoning? Crabby didn't.

In breaking snack food news, scientists may be getting close to developing allergen-free peanuts. And blue corn chips are better for you than white ones! (Note: Blue corn chips taste excellent when dipped in guacamole (good for you) and washed down with margaritas (not so good for you but what the hell).

And these stories were well-reported elsewhere this week, so you probably already heard that combining caffeine and exercise seems to help prevent skin cancer; and that people who drink diet soft drinks instead of regular still face similar heart disease risks. But Crabby hadn't gotten around to mentioning them here yet.

Now, getting progressively sillier but still food-related: Sara at Healthbolt has the ultimate Bacon Flavored blog post.

And if you haven't yet heard about Kopi Luwak, one of the most expensive coffees in the world, just guess what it's made from? Weasel poop! Well, actually Civet poop. Apparently the Asian Palm Civet eats ripe coffee berries somewhere on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. When the civet excretes the partially-digested berries, they are harvested and made into coffee. Yum!

Amazing pictures of the week: Mark's Daily Apple has a post about a very, very large man who lost weight. There are a few photos there, but then he links to more disturbing photos which are (warning), not for the faint of heart. It's inspiring and creepy all at the same time.

And speaking of warnings, would you like to create a silly warning sign like the one at the top of this post? Go here!

Comments, as always, are very much welcome if you can find anything in this mess you want to weigh in on.

Quick Note: Two New Blog Finds

Is Crabby capable of writing a very brief blog post? She never has before--but who knows, anything is possible.

She really only has two things to say: Chew On That and Half-Fast. If you are the sort who visits the Comments section, clicks on Commenter profiles, and follows people to their blogs, you may recognize these as the blogs of Jim and Vanilla, respectively. They are both quite amusing writers, damn it.

Crabby would just as soon stop finding new health/fitness/nutrition blogs that are amusing. However, she feels it only fair to alert you to them when she does. She already has Fitness Fixation and Sister Skinny and Elastic Waist and so many others to contend with, she really didn't need these guys to come by and be all witty.

Anyway. That is all. See you tomorrow for the usual Friday silliness.

Dog Gone It, The Crab Goes Visiting Again!

Remember how Crabby mentioned offhand that dog ownership might be healthy for you? Well over here at Diet Blog (sorry for the extra click) are some further thoughts she had on the subject. They are, of course, silly thoughts meant mostly in jest, and who knows if they will annoy people not accustomed to Crabby's weirdness. She hopes for the best.

The timing for the appearance of this post was good, actually, as last night Crabby was finishing up her post for this morning, and guess what? She carelessly dragged the base of her thumb across her touch pad, and in a split second managed to both highlight and delete 7/8ths of her post!

That should be no problem, right? Because in any other software program Crabby has ever used, if you accidentally delete a huge chunk of material, you don't save that version! You either "undo" your delete, or worst case, you go back and open up your old version where all that material hadn't been carelessly deleted yet.

But welcome to Blogger! Because if there's an "undo" function Crabby hasn't found it yet. (Readers, please tell her if there is and this will never happen again!) In addition, Blogger's lovely "AutoSave" function makes sure transient errors become permanent by deleting your old version within seconds. By the time she tried to open up her old post, it was gone.

So today she will rewrite the rest of the lost post, perhaps pop back in with something small later this afternoon (there are two great blogs she wants to recommend, and Friday's Roundup was looking a little crowded) and in the meantime, send you over to Diet Blog.

If you have any thoughts about Dog Ownership and Exercise, please share them either over at the Diet Blog post, or here, or both places, or neither! If you have any thoughts about Stupid Software, Accidental Deletion, Blogging Platforms, or computer frustrations generally, this would be the better place as the poor Diet Blog people have no idea Crabby is whining about that today.

Great Hikes! In, um, pretty much Canada.

So in an earlier post, Crabby asked her smart readers for their hiking (and camping) recommendations, and readers came through! Crabby will just mention a bit about each hike; further details can be found at the "Great Hikes" page in Crabby's somewhat creepy Google Page Annex.

However, here's the funny thing: Crabby was all excited to tell you about one of the best hikes she can remember in recent years. It was a little far afield for her: it started at Lake O'Hara in Yoho Park in Canada. (The photo from the previous post, like this photo, were both from the same hike. The air was crisp; the peaks were snow-capped and the larches were golden. The whole hike was stunning. (These last photos were not ours, however; different time of year). Anyway, it was a fairly easy day hike; not a hardcore back-packy hike. However, there was a bus ride involved and reservations were required.

But... perhaps Crabby should have sent you to some of her other favorites instead: to coastal California perhaps, where you can hike gorgeous bluff trails, or to Yosemite or Glacier National Park, or Bryce or Zion or Yellowstone. Somewhere that's not in Canada? Because the majority of the other suggestions were also for hikes in Canada!

Crabby figures either: Canadian readers are more into hiking and camping than Americans (confirming her grouchy fears about US folks abandoning their parks) or: all the best hiking is in Canada and we should all move there right now.

Crabby loves the hiking at Banff and Jasper and Lake Louise and other well-trafficked locations, but readers were more clever and adventurous and sent in less obvious choices. And again, Crabby is only going to mention them briefly here; highlights and other details that readers sent in are here. Or, you could go to their blogs and beg them to tell you more.

First up, Geosomin of I Am Woman Hear Me Run and The Supposed Golden Path recommends Prince Albert National Park. Besides Lake Waskesui, there are four main day hikes. She also mentions the back country camping routes and canoe camping packages which are "amazing." And along those lines, she also recommends the Otter Lake/ Lake Missinipe area, where the The Churchill River Canoe Company has some great vacation packages. And further south is Cypress Hills Provincial Park, with forests, cliffs, and "an area of the forest where all the trees grow crooked and strangely." Cool!

And, in a demonstration that Crabby still does not know the first thing about uploading photos to her blog, here is Geosomin's picture of Waskesui Lake which looks to be in miniature (at least in Preview Mode) even though Crabby told blogger "large":



Next up are Leah's suggestions, Leah of The Goat's Lunch Pail and Prozac Palace.

She recommends Siffleur Falls along Highway 11 east of the Banff Park boundary. The trail includes rivers and waterfalls and suspension bridges and lovely cool trees. The walk is fairly easy, very popular, and kid-friendly. And: siffleur is the French word for marmot!

She also recommends the Coral Creek hike, a horse trail featuring a stream and an evergreen forest, mountain peaks, and if one perseveres further than Leah did, embedded marine life.

And here's a picture of the area courtesy of Leah:



And finally, to the United States, where Christina at Do or Diet recommends the Noligchucky Gorge Campground in the Appalachians. The "Noli" is a river starting in NC ending up in TN. The campground is set right on the river with great views of the mountains. Nearby is the Appalachain Trail and a train right-of-way hike that is a "genuine pleasure." The river is visible for most of the hike. Other highlights include a Sunday night pot-luck and jam. She also recommends the Virgina Creeper Trail which runs from Damascus to Abingdon. It's mild and very scenic trail and perfect for biking.

So Crabby thanks her helpful readers, and sorry she doesn't know how to do photos yet. And please let her know if she has made any transcription mistakes your submissions.

So have we exhausted this subject of camping and hiking and the joys/annoyances thereof? Or can we muster up anything else to say about it? Comments, about anything at all, are always welcome!