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Showing posts with the label Index I

I Write Essays For Money!!!! (What I Discovered in My Email This Morning)

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Original photo: Wikipedia Public Domain *Consider the rhetorical question posed at the end of this post. _____________________ “I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.” – Sophocles ____________________ Fellow bloggers: don’t you just love when hysterical content falls right into your lap? This morning, I received a breathless email, offering, for a price, to write papers for me – in other words, to facilitate me in plagiarizing my college research papers. The problem: I’m a card-carrying member of the other side, a retired adjunct professor, a cheater’s worst nightmare. Talk about lack of audience analysis! This dumb cluck simply mass spams and hopes to hit his target. This time, he hit the wrong target. I decided to offer this numpty a taste of his own medicine by “plagiarizing” his email  (with snarky interior commentary) , totally without attribution – He won’t mind, now will he? After all, isn’t that what he and his stable of wr...

I am a Total Blockzilla and Proud of It!!! And a Thieving Poet, Too!!!

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Blockzilla.com is for sale at Go Daddy ________________ Call me Blockzilla. This blog is moderated, which means I get to decide whether or not to accept your comment before your comment is ever published. If you visit my blog and post spam and dodgy links, I will reject your comment. For starters, I want to protect bona fide visitors from being tempted to click on your suspicious links. Your lame “comments” are easy to spot: your text proves that you have never even read the post but are just hitting and spamming random blogs. Oh, and then there are the funky-looking links for such products as male enhancement drugs, hinky software, malware sites, yada, yada, yada. Although I have deleted any possibility for your comments (with links) to see the light of day, I still have copies of your comments, so I have decided to use your text for what is called a “found poem.” How cool is that? While I have rearranged your text into poetic lines, I have retained your atrocio...

If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Has to Have a Nickname, Why Not Obamneycare?

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Obamneycare __________ Okay. I get why “ACA” might be a boring name for the Affordable Care Act; it doesn’t quite resonate and inspire. But why “Obamacare”? It seems to me that this nickname for such an important change in our healthcare system is too incendiary and polarizing, pitting Republican against Democrat, even among average citizens, cultivating an “Us versus Them” mentality when we should be working together to ensure that this change works for the benefit of all. I blame the media. Yes, you heard right: THE MEDIA. I expect Republicans to embrace the “Obamacare” term because it fits their narrative of “no” and negativity. No surprise there. But I don’t understand why the media (and even some Democrats) have jumped on “Obamacare” as the accepted lexicon for such an important and far-reaching change in healthcare, given that the ACA is actually a bipartisan idea, first carried out in Massachusetts as “Romneycare.” At the time, the term “Romneycare” made ...

Interview with a Naturally Slim Person: Harvey M. Rapp of Columbia, Maryland, and Some Surprising Facts About His Approach to Foods

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Harvey Rapp (right), posing with former Baltimore Oriole Boog Powell (left) at Camden Yards ______________________________ In Harvey Rapp's world, no hand goes unshaken. --The Webmaster To be social is to be forgiving. --Robert Frost For all of us who struggle with weight and eating issues, here's the burning question: How do slim people remain slim all their lives? In a series of interviews with both naturally slim and "thin-by-design" people (who have remained slim for two or more years after shedding their excess weight), I hope to unlock the secrets to a successful weight maintenance protocol. My first interviewee: Harvey Rapp, of Columbia, Maryland. Dr. Rapp, 65+, a psychologist in private practice, has been slim his entire life and has never had to diet. Before setting up his private practice in 1980, he taught for 10 years at Loyola University as an adjunct associate professor. The decision to give up tenure for self-employment was difficult...

Thought for the Day--May 5, 2011: I Want, I Want, I Want...

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No, you can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want And if you try sometime you find You get what you need -- The Rolling Stones Yesterday , I offered my take on how you can nudge your entire family to eat healthier; you may want this more than anything in the world, but the truth of the matter: you really can't force people to make changes, no matter how much you want it. You can change only your own behavior, but, even then, you really don't have that much control over the outcome. For example, you might set this goal: "I will eat 1,000 calories a day for 31 days [changed behavior] so that I can lose 10 pounds [expected outcome]." So you go on your new plan and stick to it (success); however, you lose only 5 pounds (failure?). You wanted to lose 10 pounds, but the outcome did not live up to your expectations. Is this an automatic fail? I don't think so; you lost 5 pounds instead of gaining 1 o...

Got 0? The Apple and "Improv"

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Photo by Abhijit Tembhekar from Mumbai, India ________________________ I'm beginning my series of "Got 0?" articles with the versatile apple. If you love apples, then embarking upon a lifestyle change can be easier and certainly much more satisfying with this 0 points food in your arsenal. The Apple must surely be a worldwide favorite, given its great number of varieties. If you hang out in the produce aisle of the grocery store, you will notice more space devoted to the apple than any other fruit or vegetable. Varieties of apples with concise descriptions While the above list seems fairly comprehensive, I did not see a recent discovery that I made. About a month ago, an unusual variety called "Jazz" caught my eye. At $2.49 a pound, I wasn't about to fill a bag full of them, but I was game to try one ($1.54!!!). This variety not only looked different, but it also smelled unlike the other varieties, more like a perfumy honey. Being an avid Jazz fan, I also l...

Thought for the Day--March 15, 2011: Is this Diet Heresy?

Here is something that might give you pause and could be considered diet heresy, but I'm going to put it out there for you to consider: Do NOT measure or weigh 0 PointsPlus foods. Yes, you read that right: Do NOT measure or weigh 0 PointsPlus foods. 0 PointsPlus food values have been established by Weight Watchers (TM), and, basically, includes all fresh fruits and canned fruits (in their own juice) and most vegetables (excluding the starchy ones, such as potatoes, corn, and peas). Simply use common sense and a good eyeball to estimate weights and measures. If you have been a serial dieter, then you have weighed and measured your food thousands of times--you know what you know--so why not offer yourself a break and simply stop measuring and weighing 0 PointsPlus foods? Do this experiment: Take some strawberries from their container and place what you think is a serving into a bowl. Now place them in a measuring cup. If your guesstimation is close, then you are ready to put away the...

Thought for the Day--March 11, 2011: Importance of Breakfast

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If you are hungry at breakfast time, that is a good sign. This suggests that you have not overeaten the previous night. One should be hungry in the morning (or whenever your morning begins). Have you noticed that most overweight people will tell you, "I don't eat breakfast because I'm not hungry then"? I was one of them. For about the first two months on my program, I disliked eating breakfast right after getting up and would often wait for hours. I was afraid that eating would kick in my hunger response (something that my grandmother always told me--as if you could avoid hunger by not eating at all). LOL Now I love breakfast, and often eat it within an hour of rising (I still need my coffee first). I eat a good breakfast, my standard fare: Egg white omelet (1/2 cup egg whites, 1 slice of non-fat cheese, and 1 ounce of lean deli ham), which = 3 PointsPlus 1 Deli flat bread, = 2 PointsPlus 1 fruit (usually an hour or two after breakfast), = 0 PointsPlus I may vary tha...

Thought for the Day--March 8, 2011: International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. ;=) If you are a woman, celebrate your womanhood; if you are a man, celebrate your women: mother, wife, daughters, friends, co-workers. After my trip to Macedonia, I'm getting back on track. A good day yesterday; today will even be better yet!

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment