The first step to confronting your caffeine problem is admitting that you have a caffeine problem. Let’s see here… I brew up about 16 ounces of coffee in the morning, which I usually have drank up by 9:30-10:00 AM. This means I’ll usually have to get a regular sized cup at my 10:00AM break which I’ll have drank by lunch. Then on my lunch break, in order to make it through the afternoon I’ll usually get a triple espresso or a 14 ounce cup of dark roast charged with a shot of espresso. This is an essential part of my daily routine, seemingly as essential as filling up my car with fuel.

My morning coffee is so important, that if I were running late and was faced with a time crunch where I had to choose between brewing my coffee or scraping the ice off my car windsheild, I’d brew my coffee and drive to work Ace Ventura style with my head hanging out the drivers side window to see where I’m going. Yeah, I have a caffeine problem. But guess what Bub… You’ll take my coffee away when you pry my cold dead hands from the cup.

This article coming across the news wire makes you wonder -

City of Shaker Heights, Ohio ( Jan 17, 2006 ) — Following a health trend that appears to be brewing up all over the nation, Mayor Judith Rawson has signed a proclamation for the City of Shaker Heights that addresses the issues regarding caffeine intoxication and dependency.

In the proclamation the Mayor is “calling upon all Shaker Heights citizens, public and private institutions, business and schools to increase awareness and understanding of the consequences of caffeine consumption.”…

City of Shaker Heights is one of several cities across the country recognizing this annual event. This will be the third year for this event which is sponsored by the Caffeine Awareness Alliance, a non-profit organization. Marina Kushner, founder, states, “Each year more and more people are waking up to the real truth about the dangers of this ubiquitous drug. We are delighted that the mayor has recognized that this is not a laughing matter.”

I try really hard to be as fair as possible toward respecting people’s opinions and point of view on things, but aren’t there any more pressing issues these people could be spending this kind of energy on? I read up on Marina Kushner, the founder of this activist organization, and I wonder if her passion for this cause has anything to do with the fact that she has a book for sale on the dangers of caffeine and also sells her own line of caffeine-free soy coffees. Busted!

Sure, there are problems with caffeine, and sometimes I worry about those certain side effects that come along with having a few too many tasty caffeinated beverages. I’ve been reading that the effects caffeine has on metabolism can be both good and bad, and also that many of the long term effects of caffeine seem pretty controversial and they haven’t been fully proven for the most part. So ultimately I don’t think we’ll be seeing any “Truth” commercials for caffeine any time soon like we do for the whole anti-tobacco effort.

“Ask Alice” at Columbia U. tells us how to tell we’ve had too much caffeine -

It depends on the person — oftentimes, you’ll know when you’ve had more than enough if it makes you feel:

* anxious
* excitable
* restless
* dizzy
* irritable
* unable to concentrate
* gastrointestinal (GI) aches
* headaches that don’t seem to go away
* trouble with sleeping

These are among the most common of caffeine’s effects on our bodies when taken in high doses (i.e., more than eight 8-ounce cups of coffee a day), but they can certainly occur from lesser amounts as well. Many are the result of caffeine speeding up metabolism.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve been dizzy, jumpy, excitable, anxious, and get headaches from too much caffeine. It’s an interesting world when 50% of your blood is composed of caffeine. My most common problem, which has been known to come from having a simple can of Mountain Dew after 6PM, is the trouble with sleeping. I dealt with what I thought was a serious case of insomnia for a long time, then it occurred to me that I was drinking way too much caffeine in the evening.

So I cut myself off, and started drinking caffeine free soda in the evenings. So far it’s been working well for me. I’ve debated with a couple of people recently whether or not you can tell the difference between caffeine free and regular sodas, and in my opinion, you can definitely tell the caffeine isn’t there. Same with decaf coffee, it tastes completely different. To me, decaf coffee isn’t even drinkable.

Fortunately I have been strong enough not to fall victim to any other kind of addiction. I don’t smoke, don’t do any illegal drugs of course. Heck, it’s usually like pulling teeth trying to get me to take the over the counter drugs that I need for common ailments. I don’t like taking any of those drugs, I can’t stand the drowsiness or the stomach problems or whatever other side effects are involved. Also, I’m not a big drinker. I only drink the amount of alcohol that would be enough to catch a buzz on certain special occasions, and those occasions can be spread apart longer than once a month most of the time. I’ll have two or three beers throughout the week regularly, but that’s just because I enjoy the flavor of the brown ales that I drink.

The point is that compared to many things, caffeine dependency is a pretty trivial issue. Let’s hope it stays that way and we don’t discover in fifty years that we shouldn’t have been drinking the stuff.

I was reminded recently of a conversation that I’d had with an old college roommate some time ago when he claimed that “Newspapers and magazines are obsolete.” He went on to make the point that “The Internet lets people publish faster, cheaper, and better.” I really had my doubts about the internet being “better” for obvious reasons, but the “faster and cheaper” parts were reasonable points. He also said that he “wouldn’t be surprised if there are no magazines left in print ten years from now, they’ll all be online.” Then, he stood up and headed for the bathroom. Ironically, he grabbed a copy of “Sports Illustrated” from atop his shelf in the corner on his way.

I was reminded of this conversation because many are talking about the trouble newspapers are in, particularly when marketing toward young people. Let’s face it, newspapers and magazines are definitely in trouble. Last time I looked at the cost of a magazine subscription I broke out laughing at how asinine it was. You can get all of this information online, for free (except for the monthly cost for your internet service).

They say young people my age don’t read newspapers. Well I guess I’m an oddball, I personally love newspapers. Sure, I do a lot of my reading online, but you can’t really count on the reliability of what you’re reading online most of the time. Sure, you can’t really count on it in the paper all the time either, but you can usually find a good journalist in those pages if you look hard enough. And at least the diversity is usually there and not just one side of the story.

Besides, I like to sit in the lunchroom at work or in a coffee shop to spread out the paper and just read everything. It’s easier to do that in a newspaper. I don’t always want my news tailored to what I’m interested in, and that’s too easy to do online. Online you see the button for the section you want, click it, and you’re there. There’s no shuffling through pages and noticing a headline that catches your attention. Papers cover a broad spectrum and you often end up reading things you wouldn’t normally have looked for. The more we take our news online and adjust the filters to our interests, the more and more insular we become in our outlook. You may read a liberal or a conservative paper, but at least the stories are varied. At least you’re broadening your perspective and listening to what EVERYONE has to say instead of what a few bloggers with little or no journalistic background have to say.

Like most people, I find myself more interested in opinion than fact often times. It’s easy to find a lot of opinions online, many are misinformed and much of the time the opposing point of view isn’t even acknowledged. At least in a newspaper, this usually isn’t the case. Opinion is great, it’s what keeps people interested. If a story is based purely on the facts, it would usually only take a few lines to write. Also, when news stories are pure facts, they often become cold and uninvolved. Maybe simply reporting the facts is the job of the news, but any human elements seem to disappear in those articles.

So what they’ve done is started injecting their opinions into articles because that’s what gets people reading. That comes with consequences, however, they lose a lot of credibility as a reliable news source. Basically newspapers have found themselves in a bit of a pickle - They can either lose readers by boring them to death with pure facts or they can lose readers by coming off as biased by injecting too much opinion into their stories.

Recently, a conservative talk radio host I was listening to on my commute home was taking calls from people under 24 years old to find out where they get their news. Most listed off a few conservative bloggers and talk radio hosts, and said they NEVER read the newspaper. While the radio host thought of this as a good thing - because he’s a partisan who thinks that it’s a good thing that people only listen to his side of the story - I found it to be quite scary. I don’t think it’s wrong that they enjoy getting their news from those sources - as it’s certainly their right to do so and those sources have the rights to their opinions as well - but I worry about how closed minded people are becoming to the opposing view as they listen to only the points of view that they agree with instead of getting multiple sides of the issue or story. This trend leads us down a dangerous path I fear.

I think it’s great that all sides can voice their views freely in this country, but when everyone ignores each other it makes it difficult for us to ever find any common ground. Someone confronted with the opposing view will automatically dismiss it because they’ve never even heard of it or taken the time to intelligently think about it and consider it. If they’d taken the time to read about the opposing view and tried understanding why someone might think that way, maybe they’d be a little bit more respectful toward that opponent instead of just dismissing them as “ignorant” as so many do. You don’t have to agree with everyone, just recognize that in this country an opposing point of view is just as legitimate as your point of view and that YOU ARE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!

While bloggers think they are doing a great service to this country by taking a stand against the so-called “liberal media” or “conservative media,” I feel that they are actually only making it worse. However, what they are doing is working, and newspapers are struggling to compete with online sources no matter whether those sources are credible or not.

Unfortunately, I think my old roommate was right. Eventually, newspapers will die out and we’ll all just read the opinions we like, about stories we like, from sources we like and it’ll all be online. While technology will keep taking steps forward, finding a middle ground in society and in politics will keep taking giant leaps backward.

Fox 9 News is one of the news stations in Minneapolis that is always out taking a stand, investigating all that is wrong with the world and making sure we know about it. While I was watching Family Guy and American Dad last night, Fox 9 kept promoting their big news story which they claimed would uncover “another Minnesota sports team scandal.” They are of course playing off the recent Minnesota Vikings charter boat sex scandal that left Minnesotans outraged.

So what team is in trouble now, I wondered. Yeah, I took their bait and had to watch to find out. I wondered, could it be the Timberwolves, the Twins, the Wild? No, apparently Fox 9 News has been following around the University of Minnesota Hockey team with hidden cameras to bars and drinking parties. Oh no, college kids drink! Who would have thought!?! They had hidden camera footage of 19 & 20 year old players drinking at parties and in bars.

Seriously, Fox 9. They drink? No kidding. Going after a bunch of college kids for drinking is rediculous. This stupid news station sees that Minnesota cares about off the field/court/rink/what-have-you sports scandals, and so to boost their ratings they go after some barely under-21 college kids for something as piddly as drinking, consequently probably ruining these kids’ sports/college careers. Most college kids drink, big deal. If they were shooting up heroin or snorting cocaine, that’d be different. But going out and having a few drinks really makes no difference to me. Are they going after the bars that are letting them in? That would seem like a good scandal for a news station to go after. No, they didn’t hold the bars accountable at all. That’s not the story, after all.

I get so sick of these Minneapolis news stations, always trying to sensationalize everything they can. It’s pathetic. They screw up people’s lives in the process, even young college kids who are just doing what college kids do. Perhaps my view about college drinking is immature or irresponsible. Yeah, I know it’s illegal to be under 21 and drink. I understand it’s probably against University rules for an athlete to drink underage. I see the issues they are raising, I just don’t think it’s something serious enough to be ruining young lives over for the sake of boosting news ratings. If it were about punishing bars who let underage drinkers in, fine. If it were about reducing college drinking in general, fine. There was no solution to the problem offered in this story. This was just about ruining young lives for ratings, and it’s despicable.

I read the below article in the news recently. I guess it’s time to move to Sweden and start a hot dog stand. I could sell at 75% off and still make a killing!

THE world’s most expensive hot dog will go on sale in Stockholm as part of a United Nations-sponsored event aimed at highlighting the problem of poverty as world leaders gather at the UN summit in New York.
Hot dogs and veggie dogs will be sold in downtown Stockholm for 999 Swedish kronor ($170) a piece, said Klas Waldenstroem, a spokesman for the United Nations Development Programme’s Nordic office.

“The goal is to highlight world poverty during the UN summit in New York by using a simple metaphor - the customary Swedish ‘korv’ (hot dog) - to show people here what it would be like to live life without having enough money for even the most basic things,” he said.

More than more than a billion people worldwide live on less than one dollar a day, according to the UNDP.

“We’re not just talking about having it tight financially. We’re talking about poverty that is paralysing,” Mr Waldenstroem said.

For someone who lives on a dollar a day, buying a hot dog at the regular price of 20 kronor ($3.40) would be as impossible as asking your typical, well-to-do Swede to pay one thousand kronor for a “korv”, he pointed out.

Read the whole article here.

Seriously now, this is such a lame comparison. Beggars can beg for $1.50 or whatever it costs to buy a hot dog in New York City because they are surrounded by wealth. Real poor people who would dream about hot dogs are surrounded by nothing but other poor people. When you’re starving in the middle of an African desert, in a country ruled by a ruthless government, relish, mustard and ketchup packets we throw away would seem like heaven.

The world’s poor need caring, honest leaders and protectors - something I’m afraid the UN could never provide. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the UN is totally useless. The United Nations is primarily a relief organization. It’s their job to prevent war. By saying the United Nations is useless, I would be making the argument that they have never assisted anyone, nor has their presence prevented a single war, and I’d be very wrong on both counts.

But with modern day transportation, communication, and agriculture technology, famine should be a thing of the past. The only reason people starve these days is for political reasons, and that is something that unfortunately the UN has little power over.

I posted every day this week, as you can see. Mostly nothing personal, all just plain silliness. It was fun. A great way to spend my lunch break, writing little blurbs of utter nonsense. Here’s the plan: Long boring posts about my daily life one day on the weekends, short and sweet little posts about miscellaneous nonsense (including personal stuff, when it arises) five days a week. I might skip a day or two, but I’m going to start writing more now that we are getting into fall and I’ll be spending less time out doing things. It’s that time of year again to start hibernating in our warm little holes. And now that I’m seeing more traffic to the site than ever, perhaps this will increase return visitors. Or decrease it? I can’t imagine anyone can take too much of my blathering.

Anyway, it was a great week. I was in a pretty good mood all week. I think it’s the weather, and the fact that my allergies haven’t been so bad. Maybe I’ll skip a year and not have to go through the annual 3-4 month long hellacious allergy struggle. That would be great.

I’ll write tomorrow or Sunday. See you then.

Undoubtedly you’ve been paying attention to the disasterous hurricane aftermath in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in the past few days. Today’s chatter in the news and on the internet has been most disturbing. No, I’m not talking about all the delusional people blaming the whole thing on George W. Bush, or the delusional people who honestly believe that Bush and the Government have handled this situation perfectly and heroically. I guess I’m ignoring the politics, what’s baffling me is the chaos. The AP photos of young kids looting stores, not for food and drink, but for designer clothing and televisions, that just disgusts me. And then there are the people shooting at the rescue boats and helicopters. I’m sure I’m not alone when I sit around thinking long and hard about why in the hell that sort of thing is happening.

It’s possible they’re shooting at help because they want the boats, they want the boats because they know the boats aren’t there to rescue them right now. Those boats are pulling out sick people, women, and children only at this point. While this is going on the desperate, able bodied people are taking irrational actions that they probably think will get them out more quickly.

As sad as it is, it is difficult to understand just how desperate some of these able bodied people are getting, especially now that many of them are near day 4 without food or water. People get stupid when they panic, things like morals and order seem rather irrelevant to people who really believe they are fighting for their lives. Hopefully the National Guard troops will arrive soon, hopefully that will help bring things back to order. I worry that more and more innocent people will either drown or starve to death while rescue operations are suspended, because people are getting desperate.

Well, my ultimate theory is: there’s no way for anyone to know for certain. It’s hard to consider the state of mind you would be in had you just spent four days either being shredded by a powerful hurricane or baking under a 90+ degree sun, without shelter, without any idea where your friends and family are, without drinkable water, without edible food, at risk of being attacked by roving criminals, quite possibly physically ill from the conditions around you, and fearing that this hell on earth would be the last thing your eyes saw before you die. Times like this, it’s understandable how logical thought can go completely out the window. I suppose that’s just all part of the human condition.

Also part of the human condition is a lack of ability to understand the conditions that would drive people to this level of desperation. It’s a lot easier to weather a disaster like this when comfortably seated hundreds of miles away in front of a computer in an air-conditioned room.

I hate to discount the efforts by people who are down there being truly heroic. I know there are probably thousands of people there saving lives and risking their own, and it’s too bad that this is being overshadowed by a media only interested in the politics. Yeah, there’s a lot of hard questions to ask, and a lot of fingers to point, but before you spend too much time on those questions, do the easy stuff. Give and organize as you would hope folks would give and organize if your family, home, and community had been so devastated.

But I guess this is the world we live in. In my short lifetime a federal office building was blown up in Oklahoma City, a group of kids shot up their school in Colorado, terrorists flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington D.C. and into the ground in Pennsylvania, and a war on terror has affected millions of lives, even sending members of my own family off to fight. Tsnunamis, tornados, and now a devastating hurricane have reminded us that natural disasters aren’t to be left off the list.

Each of these tragedies gets embedded into our memories with a name, such as “9/11″ or “Columbine.” I’m not sure what the point of naming hurricanes is. You know, names like “Katrina” or “Andrew.” But those names get embedded in us as well. As a young person, I wonder how many of those names stay with you and if they stay as strong as the day the tragedy happened. I wonder if my parents can remember the exact heartbreak of the day Kennedy was assassinated, or if my grandparents can remember exactly how they felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I’m sure that for my parents and grandparents it was a real wake up call seeing and hearing those tragedies from a distance. That’s how I feel, it’s a real wake up call. Today I feel more fortunate than usual to be sitting here in the comfort of my home. But as far as those people who were actually victimized by tragedies like those that I’ve mentioned are concerned, and certainly as for the victims who are struggling to survive as I write this, I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like.

My thoughts go out to everyone effected, and good luck to all those who are needing it.

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