Soylent and DIY imitations

I started using a Soylent imitation (copy, clone, DIY recipe, knockoff) 3 weeks ago, just for breakfast.
Soylent is a food replacement product. Unlike half assed diet products such as Slim Fast, 3 servings of Soylent (here's a wiki link)will give you 2000 calories or better. Any other product you see will usually be around 100 to 300 calories per serving. And no, you cannot just drink enough of them to add up to 2000 calories, or even 1500, because the vitamin/mineral/chemical content will kill your kidneys at that quantity.
Soylent is designed to completely replace food. You drink 3 servings of this powdered mix with water and you are set. Don't laugh, do some searches, there are people out there who have been doing it for many months as of this writing.

I ordered a one week supply, 21 servings, to only drink for breakfast for a month at first to test it out.
Turns out Soylent caught on so well that I'm back ordered 2 months.
Not willing to wait that long, I found another product that is an imitation of Soylent called 100% Food. That order arrived in a week.
As I mentioned, I've been using it for breakfast on weekdays, skipping weekends and holidays to help make it last a full month.

A little info about me, and what else I'm eating.
I am 56 years old, sedentary and overweight, but with no real health problems other than allergies (trees mostly).
I had been eating mostly frozen veggies and meats, very little processed food. However, a few months before I started this, I got so sick and tired of meal preparation that I started eating almost nothing but frozen burritos, fish sticks, and chicken nuggets and patties. I also started eating deli takeout a lot more, which I can ill afford. So this test came right on time!

I had intended to weigh myself weekly, though I did not expect to see any changes. But the batteries were dead in my scale and I haven't yet replaced them. Obviously, weight reduction is not that important to me.

What is important is girth reduction. I'm not fond of being a tub of guts, but I did not expect just breakfast would have any effect. So far, it has not.

I'm taping my gut using my belly button as a marker, and looking in a mirror to see if the tape is fairly straight. Not scientific, a lot of room for error, but it'll show a trend over time.
So far, I came up with, measured in inches, 53, 54, 53. So I was right that there would be no changes from just drinking it for breakfast.

I expect to feel no other changes in energy, alertness, etc. and indeed there have been no changes good or bad. Some folks complain of gas, but I have not had any issues with that.


So, as far as successfully drinking 100% Food for breakfast, how does it work?

IT WORKS GREAT!

I am very happy with this product! I drink it around 8:30am and I am all set until noon, when I start feeling that I could use a snack, but no big deal. Typically, I don't eat until somewhere between 12:30pm to 1:30pm and I have no problem with that. I do not have any snacks between breakfast and lunch. When I was eating "normal" food, I always needed a snack by about 11:00am.

I do not need a full month to know that I want to go to 2 meals a day ASAP.

I have ordered another product, Custom Body Fuel, to try it out. I plan to switch to that for breakfast to compare with 100% Food, and use the 100% Food for lunch. Again, I ordered a 21 day supply which is intended for a week.
Whenever the hell the Soyent finally gets here, I'll use that for breakfast so as to keep a consistent comparison. 21 day supply here too.
Let's see how I do on 2 meals a day.

There are more details, like pricing and such. But I'll go over that in the next post. I intend to continue follow ups every week to 2 weeks, depending on if anything interesting happens.

Meantime, I highly recommend using 100% Food for at least one meal a day replacement.

Angry Beavers

Going way out on a tangent here!

When my daughters were little ones during the 90's and early 00's, I used to watch cartoons with them. Being an anime fan, I am not completely out of touch with cartoons.

There were a lot of them that we enjoyed. One that I recommend for any wee one is Doug, as it's warm and fuzzy, but not disgustingly so, and it has neat little story lines and lessons that don't come across as being so. Hey Arnold fits this too. Really cute, and with some humor.

Other shows we liked during various stages of my daughter's young lives were Rocco's Modern Life (gotta love a show with a B-52's theme song!), The Big Comfy Couch, Rug Rats, The Wild Thornberries (with Tim Curry doing a great voice), Fairly Odd Parents (probably the best of all for adults, as it has a LOT of jokes only an adult would catch, such as "OK, I will let you go back in time, but do NOT interfere with the election of George McGovern as president") Aah Real Monsters, and Cat Dog.

Of course, Spongebob Square Pants is suitable for all ages, especially when under the influence of any drug as the creator of this show must have been.

But just recently, I was reminded of The Angry Beavers, and I'm really missing it.

What  brought it to mind was a mention of old Hollywood Horror B movies, which are generally low budget horror movies from the 1950's.
The main protagonists in The Angry Beavers, Norbert and Dagget, like those movies. I also like those movies. It figures.

If you clicked on the previous link, you know basically what the show is about. But I can tell you that it too is one of those shows that has references to styles, events, people, and etc. that only an adult would catch.

The show often references the peace/love/drugs "movement" of the 60's and 70's. This is usually when Norbert's unobtainable love interest Tree Flower is in the episode. Other references are free toys inside boxes of cereal, cut out and save the coupons for neat toys on those cereal boxes, and some other historical bits.

Their favorite B movie actor, Oxnard Montalvo, is in episodes well worth a YouTube link, one of them here. Oxnard is the guy who is not the scientist:

Food of the Clods
 
 If you're not familiar with B movies, you'll miss a lot of references and jokes. But it's still good.

I can't find a link to a video, but one of my favorite episodes was where Norbert wanted to be a Lipizzaner Stallion. It was magnificently absurd!

TV.com link

Here's a link to a bunch of episodes on YouTube. If you find this show airing in your area, it's worth watching, even without your kids.

Full Episodes

Electric Cars

Believe it or not, I am a big fan of electric cars. That seems to go against my favorite subject, Global Warming Is Crap.
Though I am a climate skeptic, I still do believe we should cut down on fossil fuel consumption as much as is reasonably possible.
Ay there's the rub, "reasonably."
I've been here a bit before, but it's too cool to leave alone.

Electric cars are getting better all the time, and are fast becoming practical, especially with the rapid increase in charging stations.

Here are a few links to some electric car manufacturers, and some other links of interest.

DETROIT ELECTRIC
The name is from a company long gone, but this is a startup. Very spiffy. Lotus based.

Detroit Electric Home

TATA TECHNOLOGIES
This is not a production car, it's a design study. But it does appear tantalizingly close to realization. We may someday see these on American streets.

Tata Technologies eMO

TESLA
So far, this seems to be the greatest of all electrics. Performance, luxury, long range. Nothing to dislike.

Tesla Home

MITSUBISHI
At the other end of the spectrum from Tesla is the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. I know someone who drove one of these and he tells me it's basically an enclosed golf cart. Crazy overpriced, except for one dealer!

Mitsubishi i-MiEV home

But there is a dealer in Illinois who offers leases on these for $89/month, making it the most affordable electric car out there, as far as I know. It was $69/month back in January 2013. Just let the video play, it'll show you the lease option.

O'Brien Mitsubishi

FISKER
This one makes me sad. What a beautiful car. High performance too!

Why Fisker crashed and burned

Here's the company home page, for however long it stays around.

Fisker Home

MYERS
A few years ago, this was the Corbin Sparrow. Nice to see the quirky looking thing is still around.

Myers Home

TANGO
Very narrow, it looks very odd, like it had been squashed. But with a 0 to 60 time of 3.2 seconds, and a top speed of 150mph, this is one FUN electric. Crazy expensive too. But then, most fun things are.

Tango Commuter Car

CODA
Much more conventional in appearance and function. Still, a very interesting car.

Coda Home

NISSAN
Can't leave this one out! About the most affordable electric car around that isn't a tin can.

Nissan Leaf



END
Well, no, not the end of electric car lists. There are others, such as Chrysler's GEM. And there are several under development right now. Startups from all over the world. It's an exciting time in the world of electric cars.
Some will fail. Some have already, such as Phoenix and Ox. Many have taken millions of taxpayer dollars down with them unfortunately.
But those that survive will make the world a little better place I think.

Global Warming is Crap XX

One of the accusations the warmies like to hurl at skeptics is that we cherry pick our starting points.

For example, the temperatures haven't gone up for about 20 years, leading many to question global warming. I must agree that 20 years isn't enough to determine a trend. But neither is 50 or even 100 in my book.

Note however, that the warmies are finally admitting that global warming hasn't increased for about 20 years. They got very upset whenever the stall in climb was mentioned before, going so far as to eject those who brought it up at meetings.

Here is an article that reports several possible explanations for the warming trend's hiatus.

Twenty Year Hiatus

Here is a paragraph from the article:

International Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri recently told The Weekend Australian the hiatus would have to last 30 to 40 years "at least" to break the long-term warming trend.

OK, so we skeptics are full of beans for finding a 20 year stretch significant (and again, I agree that it probably isn't). But note that they do seem to find 30 or 40 potentially important.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So with 30 to 40 years in mind, on to a chart.

This is an example of one the warmies like to break out to put us skeptics in our place.

Global temp chart

Look at that huge climb from the late 70's right up to 2000. Ye Gods, we are gonna fry!
Well now look at the 0 point for temperature anomaly. Note that from about 1978 right back to 1850 the temperatures were abnormally low, except for a brief period around 1940. Looking at it that way, we still see a sharp rise. But it is only a high anomaly for about 20 years, after which point it will level off, though the graph ends at just past 2000 so doesn't show that.
So, a 20 year hiatus is not important, but the 20 years before that is. Let's go back further, as many warmies do. Let's start at 1950, and we see a much larger change. Heck we could bounce around and pick points to prove anything here. And we're looking at over 150 years. It would be best to start at 1850, and hand it to the warmies that, yeah global warming is real, and looks to be man made when you figure the start of the industrial revolution.

Right?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's just cut the crap shall we?

65 million years

Is that long enough to determine a trend warmies? Hell we don't even need that long, how's about 5 million years? 10,000?

Here's a quote from the article:

Temperatures are only considered to be increasing if viewed for the last 150 years, from 1850 onward, which is roughly when thermometers began collecting global data, and is also the period of time the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has chosen for its review.

Oh well how very interesting. That chart in the previous link. That's the data the UN uses to prove global warming is real and is certainly man made.

So warmies claim us skeptics are bought by the oil companies, practice pseudo science, and lie about everything.

Yet they base it all on a measly 150 years.

Suck it warmies.

Harley Starter Problem

I'm pulling this from memory, so forgive my lack of detailed info.

I had a 1989 Harley-Davidson FXRT Sport Glide that I bought new that year. One of the improvements was a high output starter. I didn't find it to be a damn bit better than on my 1975 Super Glide, so I figured it was just marketing hype.

A few years later, the starter acted up. I'd hit the button and nothing would happen, a couple of more tries and it would work. I cleaned and tightened whatever wires I could, but no good. The button seemed to be working fine. Then it died completely, and I trailered it to the shop.

I brought it to Mancini's in Danbury CT on Kenosia Avenue. Sorry, Ray Mancini is no longer there and it's a shame because that guy was one of the best bike mechanics I've ever known, and certainly the most honest.
He checked it over, and determined the starter was shot. $300 later, I had a brand new genuine HD starter. It was no better performing than the original.

A few months later, that starter died abruptly, no warning as with the original. Back to Mancini's.
Ray took the starter apart, and found that one of the structural rods in it was also a current conductor. It was made of a very weak metal, much like potmetal, and it had simply melted!
Ray replaced it with a high strength steel unit he fabricated.

HOLY CRAP what a difference! The starter now was indeed a high output! One touch of the button, and that engine spun like mad! It was beutiful!

I don't remember what Ray charged me, I actually think it was nothing since the starter he installed hadn't lasted but a few months. Customer service to the max, as usual.

So, it's likely the original had that crap metal as a conductor too.

I sold the bike a couple years later, so I don't know what the long term result was. I am sure it is still working though.

So, this comes about 20 years too late, but if you have an 89 Harley big twin with a factory starter (I don't know how many years they used the same starter), and it dies or acts up, don't replace it, take it apart and look for crap metal rods and other parts. Replace them with good steel and prepare to be amazed.

Gobal Warming is Crap XIX

First up, Andy Cuomo must get starry eyed when he thinks of Mikey Bloomberg's ability to outlaw everything. So he of course just had to follow suit regarding guns.
And naturally, someone this in love with playing citizens like harps from hell can't possibly be expected to stay away from the Global Warming circus.

Cuomo's Climate Change History Revision

Stick to what you know best guv, regulating without care for constitution or efficacy. History is not your strong suit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I'm going to link to something that is pro warmie. I haven't yet looked for anything to refute it.
This may be an indication that, indeed, there is global warming. Now as much as I rail against it, I do admit that there may be some warming going on. But there's so much alarmist crap and data manipulation by the warmies that it's impossible to believe them. Still, I'll link to this one. But I'm skeptical still. We'll see.

Climate Contradiction

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, I'll link to another article that supports man made global warming theory. It claims that volcanic eruptions have decreased the severity of global warming by 25%.
Well, if true, it would explain why the temperature hasn't actually risen for the last 16 years. Geez, I wonder how all this relates to the previous snowy article?

Volcanic Activity

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Normally, I have little interest in linking to pages that support global warming, as that is the gospel preached across all major media. You have no doubt heard it over and over and are likely wondering why we are not all crispy fried already. But the other side is the one that is hidden and silenced, so that's what I link here. Nonetheless, I found the previous two articles interesting.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I leave you with an article about the rapid return of Antarctic Ice. The title is tongue in cheek, actually a bit of a dig at the Goracle.

Antarctic Ice

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winter is officially coming to a close, but it still isn't nearly warm enough for me!