Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. --Joseph Campbell I'm trying to verify my sites as Norton Safe Sites, but on blogger adding meta-tags and accessing the root files are not possible. I spent half the morning trying to find Norton support, but all I get is "Nathan," a virtual assistant, who was, well, not too helpful. So I e-mailed the following to Norton: Dear Norton Support, Unfortunately, none of the [three coding] options [offered] work on the blogger platform, because blogger does not permit Meta-tags or any other kind of code in the heading, and there are no root files, at least that are accessible by blogger users. Although they do have an html gadget/widget, it cannot be placed in the head; however, it can be placed on the template, which surely could be accessible by your reviewers, no? By the way, "Nathan" was useless and could not answer my question. I called him a moron; I'm afraid I hurt his virtual feelings. Bes

I think comparisons are odious. --John Madden Researching and writing yesterday's post has worn me out, but on May 9, after receiving my latest issue of Consumer Reports , I knew I had to respond. The process was confusing and long because while Consumer Reports cited a study in a specific issue of JAMA, the writer failed to include the title of the article, so I had to dig through the table of contents of JAMA to suss out which article CR had used as its source. In my mind, the most likely article was "Treatment Options for Obesity: Do Commercial Weight Loss Programs Have a Role?" Logical, right? Not. In fact, the "logical" article was simply an editorial in response to CR's real source: "Effect of a Free Prepared Meal and Incentivized Weight Loss Program on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Obese and Overweight Women: A Randomized Control Trial." If you have already read Consumer Reports Diet Program Ratings ("

No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office. --George Bernard Shaw Okay, okay, so the above quote is a bit snarky, but I couldn't find a quote that directly addresses this particular issue, probably because one of the so-called iron-clad diet commandments is widely-accepted: Thou shalt not eat at least 3 hours before bedtime. This is absolutely ludicrous; not only are such "rules" ridiculous, but they are often the very dictums that send us to the fridge after midnight. These days, I don't go to bed hungry because I eat when I get hungry. From my past history, I know that my hungriest times are between 7:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. Sound familiar? A tendency toward mindless nighttime eating seems be one of the main nemeses of overweight people. So why fight it? Why not learn to work with your own biology and use it to your advantage?

Today is the last day of my "No extra PointsPlus" week, with good success so far. I had had two bad food weeks* in a row, something I obviously need to work on. Why do I cave when a piece of Key Lime pie or a plate of Chicken Pad Thai is placed in front of me? Why do such foods tend to kick in urges to overeat and then kick in mini-binges? I don't know. Of course, the thin people all around me also accepted and ate the Key Lime pie, but with one major difference: THEY ate only part of it. They drew a line in the pie and stopped eating it. I ate the whole thing, right down to the blob of whipped cream (and it wasn't a small slice, either). Like 99.9% of the human population, I'm a work in progress, and my Achilles Heel happens to be food, in particular, bad carbs, sugar, anything crunchy and fatty, etc. By the way, I have never met the perfect .1%; I'm sure they exist, but they must live in another realm, not accessible to you and me (LOL). Okay, so why I am I