This is just a test post from my new Google Nexus One phone.

I can’t resist:

This isn’t the Droid you’re looking for.

A recent Princeton University study (HT: Slashdot) would seem to debunk the recent ad campaigns by the corn industry that HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is just the same thing as sugar, only repackaged. This study showed that rats, given the same amount of calories, became significantly more obese when those calories came from HFCS rather than from sucrose (table sugar).

I can’t remember where I saw it now, but I remember watching a documentary piece which attempted to show just the opposite – that HFCS is virtually identical to sucrose. They did this by showing that the levels of fructose and glucose in the two substances are virtually the same, and that, therefore, they must act the same in our bodies. However, almost in the same breath, they added that HFCS behaved differently in the consistency of the product produced, making more appealing to food manufacturers. I remember thinking at the time that they can’t have it both ways — either it’s the same as sugar, or it’s not.

This study seems to make it clear: it’s not. Wendy and I are making a concerted effort to avoid HFCS whenever possible, but that’ surprisingly difficult.

This weekend, Wendy and I are at the annual TNT conference, held this year in Beaumont. As a part of this festival, our theater put on an excerpt from one of the winning entries for the play writing contest, since we’ll be putting on the full show some time in the next year. The play is called “The Lost Tribe” by Jeff Stolzer. It’s about an older Jewish couple in a rapidly gentrifying area of L.A., who are dealing with the changes in their neighborhood, as well as their own past.

In this excerpt, I played Isaac, a retired barber who is helping out in the main character’s barber shop.

Well, in this excerpt, I’ve reached a new milestone in my acting career. I had to drop my pants! And not just my pants, if you get my meaning.

My mother will be so proud.

Yesterday, Facebook suggested that I might be interested in becoming a fan of the coffee party. So I checked it out. The name is an obvious reference and counter to the TEA party movement, which is a movement I definitely don’t support.

The Coffee Party’s objective seems to be to be, at least in part, to show that, even in diversity, we can have agreement. They’re certainly NOT looking to form together as a bunch of same-thinking, brainwashed automatons, which I think is characteristic of some of the criticism that’s been launched against them, but are instead encouraging lively but respectful discussion. The item I liked the most from their site is the Civility Pledge, which I was happy to “sign”:

As a member or supporter of the Coffee Party, I pledge to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest, and respectful toward people with whom I disagree. I value people from different cultures, I value people with different ideas, and I value and cherish the democratic process.

I don’t expect that the Coffee Party is going to become a political party in the sense that the Democratic and Republican parties are, and that I think the TEA Party wants to be. Rather, they’re speaking on against the bickering senseless posturing that’s characterized US politics recently, from both sides of the aisle. And that’s a position I can heartily agree with.

I just spent yesterday evening and most of today at training for the next Houston Presbyterian Cursillo weekend, which will be  April 14-18. I’m going to be on the music team. This will be the third time I’ve served on a Cursillo music team, but the first time that I’m going to be playing an instrument (bass guitar) instead of just singing. I’m somewhat nervous about it. I’ve been playing bass in our praise band at church for a while now, but there are a lot of talented musicians I can “hide behind” there if I need it. The only instruments at the Cursillo weekend will be Steve Arnold on guitar, and me on bass guitar. So, if I screw up, everybody’s going to hear it.

I’ll be practicing, but prayers would be appreciated!

I’m also going to be giving one of the talks (“rollo” in Cursillo lingo) but I ‘m not really too worried about that. It’s not like I’m not used to speaking in front of a crowd.

Oh – any of my Presbyterian friends who haven’t attended a weekend, please talk to me about it. I’d love to see you attend the weekend with me. It will be in Palacios, TX, right on the bay. It’s a very beautiful setting

Well, it’s official. As of this morning, Wendy and I are now both on the “South Beach” diet. It felt like we were buying out Kroger’s entire produce section last night. I wish we had a more convenient, better stocked produce section near by. That, or I think we need a second refrigerator to store all this stuff! I cooked the first item this morning — something called a “Cheesy Frittata.”

We were on this diet once before, and did pretty well on it. Unfortunately, we “fell off the wagon” when I fell off my bike. So now we’re trying again. One of the biggest challenges from last time, other than produce storage, was the rather time consuming chore of putting togerher a meal plan for the week, and then figuring out what groceries we’d need. This time, we’re turing to technology to help. Wendy’s got a piece of software called “Mac Gourmet” that we’re going to try. She’s going through the painstaking process of entering the South Beach recipes. Once that’s done, it will be much easier to create weekly menus and shopping lists.

Wish us luck!

That last video I posted got me thinking — I think I need to “up the ante” when it comes to my geek factor. Sure, I program computers. I play World of Warcraft. At one time, I even had an official chess ranking (though not a very high one). I also do some geocaching, play around with FourSquare and Twitter, and I’m active in community theater. But I also ride a motorcycle, which I think would count against me.

Well, there’s one geek “badge of honor” that I DON’T have — I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons. What makes it even worse is that, while I don’t play, my daughter DOES! This unnatural state of affairs should not be! So I’m looking for people in the Baytown/Houston area who might like to take me under their wing (or scale, as the case may be). Or, failing that, perhaps find other like-minded geeks who want to learn together.

So, who’s up for it?

Dork, and proud of it.

HT Tom Cottar

Wiesenthal Center accuses Presbyterians of declaring war on Israel.

I find this very disturbing. I certainly agree that the Jewish people in general, and the state if Israel in particular, have faced enormous challenges to their existence. But to say that we, as Presbyterians, are declaring war on Israel because of this document is ridiculous!

I have not read this document, so I may be way off base here, but I’m certain that there’s nothing in it that calls for the elimination of Israel. To quote:

“We want to be sure to say to you in no uncertain terms: We support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. No `but,’ no `let’s get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say.’ We support Israel’s existence as granted by the U.N. General Assembly. We support Israel’s existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.”

Israel has a right to exist, but I don’t believe that ANY nation has the right to exist at the cost of repressing another people. It’s my perception that Israel is guilty of that repression, but I’m perfectly willing to be proven wrong. Israel should be willing to have it’s actions and motives examined, in a calm, rational manner.

(Is anybody besides me using the BlogWatcher web app that I wrote?)

I found that there was a bug in BlogWatcher that would cause some feeds to show up with no content, other than an “A.” For the longest time, I thought that it was a bug in the feed in question, because I only saw it on one feed that I subscribed to. Then, recently it showed up on another, and I began to get the idea that the feed wasn’t the one a fault. It took a while, but I finally found the bug in the library I’m using to parse the RSS/ATOM feeds, Magpie RSS Parser.

So, for the one or two of you that might actually be using this, that bug should now be gone