Friday, August 22, 2008
Orientation
I had orientation at the ETC today. I am incredibly excited about starting class on Monday.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Xbox 360 Elite + 2 Games for $349 Shipped (I want one!)
Click here for the deal
(from Spoofee.com)
This is for an Xbox 360 Elite (120GB hard drive, wireless controller, HDMI cable, 1 month to Xbox Live) with Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance Gold Edition. Note: $349 is the same price as the Xbox 360 Pro, so if you're in the market for an Xbox, you should take advantage of this deal. However, if you can wait a few months, there's a good chance there will be a price drop for the holiday season.
(from Spoofee.com)
This is for an Xbox 360 Elite (120GB hard drive, wireless controller, HDMI cable, 1 month to Xbox Live) with Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance Gold Edition. Note: $349 is the same price as the Xbox 360 Pro, so if you're in the market for an Xbox, you should take advantage of this deal. However, if you can wait a few months, there's a good chance there will be a price drop for the holiday season.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Albums I'm Looking Forward To / Recent Purchases
August 19 - The Academy Is... - Fast Times at Barrington High (album is streaming here)
August 26 - Deas Vail - White Lights EP
September 23 - The Morning Light - The Morning Light
September 30 - Jack's Mannequin - The Glass Passenger
October 14 - Copeland - You Are My Sunshine
I just picked up the new Rookie of the Year CD, Sweet Attention, and am enjoying it. A few of the songs aren't up to caliber, but it's worth the purchase if you're into them. Also, I recently discovered Abandoned Pools and bought their most recent release, Armed to the Teeth. I am a big fan of the entire CD.
My information comes from AbsolutePunk.
August 26 - Deas Vail - White Lights EP
September 23 - The Morning Light - The Morning Light
September 30 - Jack's Mannequin - The Glass Passenger
October 14 - Copeland - You Are My Sunshine
I just picked up the new Rookie of the Year CD, Sweet Attention, and am enjoying it. A few of the songs aren't up to caliber, but it's worth the purchase if you're into them. Also, I recently discovered Abandoned Pools and bought their most recent release, Armed to the Teeth. I am a big fan of the entire CD.
My information comes from AbsolutePunk.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
My Gastrointestinal Tract / Intolerances / Diet
Note: I originally wrote this post about three weeks ago while sitting in a doctor’s office, but haven’t had a chance to post it until now.
All right, this is an overdue update, but I have time in the doctor's office right now so I can finally get to it. Note: an intolerance is similar to an allergy, but if I remember correctly, the difference is that allergies have long-term effects and intolerances do not (please correct me if I'm wrong).
I'll start with a brief history of the gastrointestinal portion of my body. In middle school, I figured out I was lactose intolerant because products with lactose in them would give me adverse effects (but I was never officially tested for it). In my sophomore year of high school, after being absent from school for 3 months due to headaches/lack of desire to do work or go to school (it's hard to understand unless you're actually feeling it), I was tested for a number of things (I also have gastrointestinal problems of which I will spare you the details). Originally, my blood tests pointed to Celiac's Disease, but an endoscopy on the lining of my digestive organs proved that false. Time passed and my mother came across a test called the Hydrogen Breath Test (HBT) (I can recommend you a doctor or tell you all I know on the subject if you'd like). In my experience, each test is about 2.5 hours long, and consists of the patient drinking a cup of a certain liquid (depending on which HBT is administered) and about every 30 minutes the patient exhales into an air capture device. The doctor monitors the levels of certain molecules exhaled by the patient. I don't completely understand the science behind it, but I do know it can determine the following intolerances: fructose, sorbitol, lactose (milk sugar), sucrose (table sugar), and bacterial overgrowth. Bacterial overgrowth is just what it sounds like: an abundance of bacteria in the small intestine.
So, after missing so much school, I had the HBTs for fructose and sorbitol, and both tests came back positive. I immediately changed my diet to avoid these ingredients as much as possible (go to the links to find out where these ingredients occur), and I felt much better. Over the course of college, I started "cheating" on my diet more and more (i.e. eating foods I should not) because I no longer felt their side effects. I thought I would eventually be in the clear. However, my gastrointestinal problems returned even when I would stick to my diet, so I knew something else had to be done.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. I had the HBT done for bacterial overgrowth and that also came back positive. In addition to keeping up with my diet, the treatment for bacterial overgrowth is to take two antibiotics that kill the bacteria. I took the antibiotics and started sticking to my diet much more strictly (in the process, I found out that wheat has "fructans" in it, so I removed most of it from my diet), and now I feel better than ever. I am having two more tests administered as I write this post: the HBT for sucrose and the "pill cam" test. Check out the link for the pill cam test -- it involves swallowing a pill-shaped camera that takes pictures as it travels through the gastrointestinal tract, relaying the pictures to a receiver I wear as it goes. The pill cam tests for many different things. I will post the results of the tests when I receive them (Update: the pill cam and sucrose tests came back negative – yippee!).
Right now I stay away from the following foods/ingredients; there are redundancies, but they get the point across (Note: I take Lactaid pills when I eat dairy, so they are not listed [this makes me wonder why there aren't "Fructaid" pills]):
- fruit -- this is where fructose and sorbitol naturally occur -- this is the big one
- fruit juice
- jelly
- honey
- candy
- soda / energy drinks
- wine
- vinegar (salad dressing) (rice vinegar is ok, though)
- many snacks
- mass amounts of wheat/whole wheat (consuming too many fructans = adverse effects)
- molasses
- corn syrup / high fructose corn syrup
People start to wonder what else is left when the above foods are taken away, so here are some examples of foods I can eat:
- all nuts (peanut butter)
- all vegetables
- cinnamon
- oats
- rice (many cereals and snacks)
- corn (tortilla chips, many cereals)
- potatoes (potato chips, french fries, vodka)
- all meat (any kind)
- soy (soy milk, tofu, soy yogurt, soy pudding, etc.)
- chocolate
With all of that being said, if you have any intolerances in common with me, I would love to share foods with you in terms of our diet discoveries.
I don't mind living with my special diet. Things could be much worse. I just figured not many people knew the details of it, so I wanted to share. My diet has been a work in progress for a long, long time, so it is an important part of my life.
...I'll have a post concerning my less-than-perfect feet another time ;).
All right, this is an overdue update, but I have time in the doctor's office right now so I can finally get to it. Note: an intolerance is similar to an allergy, but if I remember correctly, the difference is that allergies have long-term effects and intolerances do not (please correct me if I'm wrong).
I'll start with a brief history of the gastrointestinal portion of my body. In middle school, I figured out I was lactose intolerant because products with lactose in them would give me adverse effects (but I was never officially tested for it). In my sophomore year of high school, after being absent from school for 3 months due to headaches/lack of desire to do work or go to school (it's hard to understand unless you're actually feeling it), I was tested for a number of things (I also have gastrointestinal problems of which I will spare you the details). Originally, my blood tests pointed to Celiac's Disease, but an endoscopy on the lining of my digestive organs proved that false. Time passed and my mother came across a test called the Hydrogen Breath Test (HBT) (I can recommend you a doctor or tell you all I know on the subject if you'd like). In my experience, each test is about 2.5 hours long, and consists of the patient drinking a cup of a certain liquid (depending on which HBT is administered) and about every 30 minutes the patient exhales into an air capture device. The doctor monitors the levels of certain molecules exhaled by the patient. I don't completely understand the science behind it, but I do know it can determine the following intolerances: fructose, sorbitol, lactose (milk sugar), sucrose (table sugar), and bacterial overgrowth. Bacterial overgrowth is just what it sounds like: an abundance of bacteria in the small intestine.
So, after missing so much school, I had the HBTs for fructose and sorbitol, and both tests came back positive. I immediately changed my diet to avoid these ingredients as much as possible (go to the links to find out where these ingredients occur), and I felt much better. Over the course of college, I started "cheating" on my diet more and more (i.e. eating foods I should not) because I no longer felt their side effects. I thought I would eventually be in the clear. However, my gastrointestinal problems returned even when I would stick to my diet, so I knew something else had to be done.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. I had the HBT done for bacterial overgrowth and that also came back positive. In addition to keeping up with my diet, the treatment for bacterial overgrowth is to take two antibiotics that kill the bacteria. I took the antibiotics and started sticking to my diet much more strictly (in the process, I found out that wheat has "fructans" in it, so I removed most of it from my diet), and now I feel better than ever. I am having two more tests administered as I write this post: the HBT for sucrose and the "pill cam" test. Check out the link for the pill cam test -- it involves swallowing a pill-shaped camera that takes pictures as it travels through the gastrointestinal tract, relaying the pictures to a receiver I wear as it goes. The pill cam tests for many different things. I will post the results of the tests when I receive them (Update: the pill cam and sucrose tests came back negative – yippee!).
Right now I stay away from the following foods/ingredients; there are redundancies, but they get the point across (Note: I take Lactaid pills when I eat dairy, so they are not listed [this makes me wonder why there aren't "Fructaid" pills]):
- fruit -- this is where fructose and sorbitol naturally occur -- this is the big one
- fruit juice
- jelly
- honey
- candy
- soda / energy drinks
- wine
- vinegar (salad dressing) (rice vinegar is ok, though)
- many snacks
- mass amounts of wheat/whole wheat (consuming too many fructans = adverse effects)
- molasses
- corn syrup / high fructose corn syrup
People start to wonder what else is left when the above foods are taken away, so here are some examples of foods I can eat:
- all nuts (peanut butter)
- all vegetables
- cinnamon
- oats
- rice (many cereals and snacks)
- corn (tortilla chips, many cereals)
- potatoes (potato chips, french fries, vodka)
- all meat (any kind)
- soy (soy milk, tofu, soy yogurt, soy pudding, etc.)
- chocolate
With all of that being said, if you have any intolerances in common with me, I would love to share foods with you in terms of our diet discoveries.
I don't mind living with my special diet. Things could be much worse. I just figured not many people knew the details of it, so I wanted to share. My diet has been a work in progress for a long, long time, so it is an important part of my life.
...I'll have a post concerning my less-than-perfect feet another time ;).
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
700 Select MP3s for Free from Amazon
Click here for the deal -- from Hot Deals Club
Amazon requires a one-time download of its mp3 downloading software, but after that it's smooth sailing.
Edit: It appears that not all 700 mp3s are free...but most of them are.
Amazon requires a one-time download of its mp3 downloading software, but after that it's smooth sailing.
Edit: It appears that not all 700 mp3s are free...but most of them are.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Western Digital 500GB External Hard Drive -- $89 at Walmart (online and in-store)
Click here for the deal -- from Hot Deals Club
This is a nice price for a 500GB external hard drive, great for backing up one or multiple computers. I have a model similar to this one with the same storage capacity, and I've never had a problem with it. It cost me $185. I recommend backing up your files if you don't already; I've had two different internal hard drives die on me, so I'll never chance keeping my files in one place again.
This is a nice price for a 500GB external hard drive, great for backing up one or multiple computers. I have a model similar to this one with the same storage capacity, and I've never had a problem with it. It cost me $185. I recommend backing up your files if you don't already; I've had two different internal hard drives die on me, so I'll never chance keeping my files in one place again.
Dr. Horrible -- A Miniseries by Joss Whedon (Buffy Creator)
(image from Steam Jacket)
I didn't know what to expect when I initially heard about Dr. Horrible from Steam Jacket, but now having seen all three acts of the miniseries, I can say it is excellent. It takes about 3.5 minutes to get into the good stuff in the first act (I think the first portion of Act I should have been shortened 30 seconds or so), but it is worth every minute of it from there on out.
I recommend everyone to watch it before it goes down on Sunday. Each act is only about 13 minutes long.
We Cheer Game for the Wii
Doesn't this look like a great game for aspiring cheerleaders/dancers and people that just like to groove? Kotaku knocks it, but I think it looks great for what it is. It's going to sell like hotcakes, specifically to the female tween set.
I originally found this on Kotaku, but apparently I can't embed much more than YouTube videos on Blogger (unless someone knows otherwise) so I had to settle.
I originally found this on Kotaku, but apparently I can't embed much more than YouTube videos on Blogger (unless someone knows otherwise) so I had to settle.
Blogger Buddy Gadget for Windows Vista Sidebar
Grab it here if you're interested. It's yet another way to post to one's Blogger blog. It supports multiple blogs on one account, HTML, and previewing your posts without having to go into a browser (although mine is always open anyway...).
As you may have guessed, this post was created via the gadget.
As you may have guessed, this post was created via the gadget.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Mirror's Edge
I am really excited about this game, specifically the unique, free running-based puzzles and the ability to go through the game without firing a single shot. It's called Mirror's Edge and it is due out for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in late 2008. Go about 30 seconds into the video and enjoy yourself.
40% Off One Borders.com Item (free shipping on orders of $25 or more)
Click here for the deal -- from Spoofee
My posting hiatus is due to the antibiotics I'm taking (I have 4 days left), but I can't miss spreading a good deal! A Spoofee commenter says the item you buy can be shipped to Borders stores for free if you can't seem to make that $25+ free shipping cut off.
My posting hiatus is due to the antibiotics I'm taking (I have 4 days left), but I can't miss spreading a good deal! A Spoofee commenter says the item you buy can be shipped to Borders stores for free if you can't seem to make that $25+ free shipping cut off.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Micro-Update
I am behind on blog posts at the moment, but I should have content on some or all of the following areas soon:
-Google's Lively
-Xbox 360 game Schizoid
-Xbox 360 game Schizoid
-my foot
-my bacterial overgrowth (and other gastrointestinal ailments)
-my bacterial overgrowth (and other gastrointestinal ailments)
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