Well, I’m exhausted. Although I only wrote seven pages today, I also ended up rewriting another twenty. By the time the dust settled on my laptop this evening, I’d hit the 50 page mark. All I have to do now is finish off this conversation, completing Act V, then write the tag which will include not one, not two, but THREE surprises. So when the series finally airs, make sure to wait for those final credits – otherwise, you’ll miss something VERY important. And then you’ll definitely feel like odd person out at the water cooler Monday morning.
Anyway, I hope to get my writing producing partner, Paul, a first draft by Friday so that I can take a break…from episode #2 by starting the script for 3 episode #4.
We’ve also started talking about potential first season directors – and who will helm our big two-part opener. Quite a few incredibly talented candidates – some of whom you are no doubt familiar with…
Speaking of chocolate…What? We weren’t talking about chocolate? Well, NOW that we’re on the subject: http://www.answers.com/article/1184282/7-scientifically-supported-reasons-to-eat-chocolate-every-day?param4=fb-ca-de-health¶m1=null¶m2=null¶m5=5¶m6=6
Uh oh: http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5 Apparently only 1% of Americans suffer from celiac allergy. And I apparently know ALL of them.
And I needn’t remind you that like red meat animals fats coconut oil eggs coffee gluten (?), sugar is bad for you: http://dailyburn.com/life/health/sugar-bad-for-you-health-effects/?fb_action_ids=10204200568245260&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
My favorite part of this article: “…people who consumed more than a quarter of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die than those who restricted their intake to less than 10 percent of total calories, regardless of age, sex, level of activity and body-mass index.”
To which I reply: “Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence suggests that people who were born face a whopping 100% mortality rate (!) irrespective of age, sex, level of activity and body-mass index.”
yeah….this is absolutely correct. Cannot cheat the reaper, eh?
Regard your reply:
“Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence suggests that people who were born face a whopping 100% mortality rate (!) irrespective of age, sex, level of activity and body-mass index.” Or food and drink consumed!
You’re going with anecdotal evidence? I demand a scientific double-blind study! There could be some folks out here cheating death!
I feel awful if I have to start the day without some type of whole grains. I once stayed with folks who ate high protein and low carb, I felt terrible after three days. Bring on the bread.
This caught my eye, “certain preservatives like benzoates” … I have steered clear of benzoates for over a decade now. Even one diet soda can give me flu-like symptoms, body aches, fatigue, sinus congestion, and that general feeling one gets the first day coming down with a cold. One doctor thought I had chronic fatigue, nope, just sensitive to stupid benzoates. I figured it out on my own, thank you Diet Cherry-Vanilla Coke.
They’re even in butter and 7-up in Mexico. Fortunately, I can read labels in Spanish.
I saw this yesterday. http://io9.com/syfys-turning-john-scalzis-old-mans-war-books-into-a-tv-1616498760
As I read it, I thought to myself, “Self, is it possible that one Joseph Mallozzi might be connected to this?” Since I never got a definitive answer from myself, I concluded that, while the possibility is a good one, there is no proof. I will continue to wait patiently.
AWW!! How dute Lulu is, gaze into those eyes!! I didn’t even know it was LULU day, and I didn’t get her anything, well give a squishy hug from me please.
~~and as we all are gonna go somewhere someday, lets just enjoy while we can if we can, and more chocolate is involved for certain.
..Thanks for the sidebar of books you have recently read and ones purchased, always looking for new ones to read! Do you ever get asked to read and review any books? I think you would be a great person to be a reviewer.
dang, fat fingers, Cute Lulu, cute Lulu!!
Hi Lulu!
Aw. Cute Lulu pictures. 🙂
Well, any of us could have told you that chocolate is good for you. Except maybe JeffW. Chocolate is not good for him. So we’ll have to eat his share!
Maybe I should mark the dark chocolate bar in my desk drawer at work “for medicinal purposes only.”
Oh, no! Science says I have to go back to being in crippling joint pain all day every day instead of zero joint pain, not even if I concentrate really hard to find some. Is science going to take my kids to the park?
Oh, it looks like the study was just looking at gastrointestinal distress. Phew, that was a close brush with a baseball bat hitting my back all the time for the rest of my hopefully shortened life. Yes, celiac disease is at a steady 1%. However gluten sensitivity that causes a myriad of other symptoms, symptoms not looked at in the study, is a discovery that has changed my life.
This FODMAP information would actually be very useful to people who need to figure out that connection, but, no, that’s not what science is for. What passes for science these days is for carefully ignoring the actual symptoms people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity are claiming to be relieved of so the writers can get more Facebook shares from people who are annoyed their daughter-in-law won’t eat cake at the birthday party.
Lulu’s a cutie pie. 😃
Hope the writing goes smooth today! Technically, we all die from heart failure. 😉
@ DP – And to add to what you’re saying, whether a person has celiac or non-celiac gluten issues, those issues don’t just clear up overnight – or appear overnight. According to my friend (who has been diagnosed with celiac), it can take about two years for the body to heal completely – and that’s without any gluten exposure. Also, gluten exposure may not have an immediate reaction in a person, sometimes taking a couple days before any ill effects are noticed.
It took me weeks on a gluten-free diet before my gut issues cleared, but immediately I had relief in other ways – less insomnia, more energy, and less brain fog (though that comes and goes and could be attributed to my age and hormones). But the biggest difference I see (besides digestive peace) is my dizzy spells have stopped. I was starting to feel as if my head was falling off my shoulders, and had talked to doctors about it, even my eyepeeper doc. Also, the chronic discomfort/tenderness I felt on my left side – another thing I had been telling the doctors about for years but they just ignored it – is gone.
On this subject, just the other day my dad was talking about his father, and all the digestive problems he had throughout his life. My dad – who usually doesn’t buy into this stuff – said he now wonders if his father had a problem with gluten, or some other type of sensitivity. They’ve always compared my gut issues with my grandfather’s, so whatever my problem it’s quite possible it’s hereditary.
The biggest problem with these conflicting studies is that it just makes the skeptics more skeptical, which makes it harder for people who truly have a problem to be taken seriously*.
*see Joey’s snarkyarse ‘tude. 😉
das
Yeah, I was over-simplifying by focusing on one hole in the study and just one of my symptoms that cleared up. I actually initially went gluten-free because of the brain fog thing, which only takes 12 hours gluten-free to clear up for me so it was way easier to figure out that connection. Then, 5 days later, I discovered the joint pain went away. Nice surprise there. Even later, I slept better because it turns out my deviated septum is only a little deviated, and a lot swelled by gluten, so now I’m no longer a mouth-breather.
Also, the study fed people whey protein as a placebo, then there was opining about “imaginary” symptoms. :facepalm
And of course this FODMAP thing is a breakthrough for understanding what could be going on with IBS. There are people just as homebound over IBS as any other symptom. They need to focus on figuring that out, but this study was funded by a baked goods company so the IBS patients will just have to wait for the gluten stuff to die down so someone important can notice there was actually something that needs to be followed up on.
The attitude thing is concerning. I can’t blame Joe. These things are engineered to prey on doubts. These are professionals at this. But it causes real problems for people.
1) There’s more social friction because of it. Love you, Joe, but this counts as social friction. I wouldn’t even be bothering writing this if I didn’t think you were man enough to see what we’re saying here.
2) Food served may not be honestly represented if food service people think problems are imaginary. My mom is in a nursing home. She has other food sensitivities, but runs into problems because the food service people don’t take them seriously, even get attitude when they get her food wrong. If she were any weaker, she wouldn’t be able to advocate for herself. If she were any more depressed, she wouldn’t be able to withstand the friction to advocate for herself. If she were a bit confused, she’d eat the food and be in even more pain.
3)People who have real problems may be delayed in figuring them out because they believe all that food sensitivity stuff is just a fad.
4)I don’t even want to read the local Facebook posts going on in my cousin’s school district, which just went nut free because of one kid. If folks take their treats more seriously than a kid’s life, they sure as heck don’t care if lying about what’s in the pie crust might make me bed-ridden with pain for four days.
@Joe on what’s bad for you:
Everything is bad for you at some dosage, and I think that level varies among different people. I try to live by my grandmother’s motto in this: “Everything in moderation.” I do go overboard on certain foods at times, though.
Fortunately, alcohol has never been one of those things I go overboard on (I’m mostly a one or two and done kind of guy). Coffee was one of the things I overdid in my late 30’s, but I’ve since scaled back on it, and I’m only an occasional coffee drinker now.
I used to go overboard on hot sauces as well (habanero, ghost peppers, et cetera). My favorite sauce was Dave’s Insanity Sauce, but middle-age plumbing forced me to cut back on that as well. I still indulge every now and then, plumbing be damned!
@Sparrow_hawk:
People are already getting in line for my “chocolate share”…you may have to take a number! 😉
@Tam Dixon:
I had to put the Tandoori Chicken on hold due to cheesecake requests (one from a visiting family friend and one from church for the picnic on Sunday). Then there’s the Chicago Stargate convention next week (I’ll probably make another cheesecake as a centerpiece since several fans loved it last year). We also have another smoking cookout on Saturday, so my meal schedule just got too booked up. Hopefully I can get to it later in the month before I make my Savannah/Tampa trip.
You know how those shows end with the production tag at the end of a show. The Mary Taylor Moore Show ended with a kitten meowing, the other have a typewriter bell ring, another having a guy saying,”Sit Boobo, sit,” a shark riding a bike, etc. What about your show ending with the sorting sound of Lulu and circle to black? Now that would be a surprise.
@DP:
I tend to be a skeptic on a lot of the media driven studies (remember when any form of salt was bad for you or that Alar on your apples was going to kill you?) That doesn’t negate real food sensitivities and allergies, but all the bogus studies make it harder for people to take the real sensitivities/allergies seriously.
My own chocolate sensitivity (where I get skin rashes) is easy enough to manage, I just avoid chocolate. And chocolate being what it is (as in craved by most of the populace), if there’s chocolate in something, they’ll advertise it in big letters on the front of the package. I have more problems in restaurants where the chefs like to get artsy and dribble chocolate across the desserts (with no mention of chocolate drizzle on the menu).
Since avoiding chocolate is easy enough, I haven’t had a reaction in at least 15 years. I think the last time was when a guest at one of our parties brought a carrot cake that had cocoa in the recipe. I couldn’t taste the cocoa, and I didn’t know anything was wrong until the next day when I broke out in rashes. A couple of phone calls later, and we identified the culprit.
Gluten sensitivity has to be something like this (having a reaction, but not immediately knowing the cause), as gluten is used in so many things. A friend at our church (he’s the junior pastor) is gluten sensitive and he is one of two people at church that are. Given the size the the church, that is about right for Joe’s “1% of the population are gluten sensitive” figure. He’s very conscientious about what he eats as a result; he brings his own gluten free buns to cookouts and I’ve made sure to make him a gluten free cheesecake on special church occasions (I make the crust with almond flour instead of graham cracker crumbs). So, he manages it well.
I hope your mom can keep on top of the staff at her nursing home. Some homes can be very open about diets and allergies, and others…well bad can get very bad indeed. Good luck!
Well, this is timely. I have to get a blood test tomorrow to see if I have celiac disease. I’ve felt like a dozen knives stabbing in the gut lately.
I know chocolate is deadly and I’m surprised I haven’t died yet. I eat tons of sugar every day. It’s literally become my cocaine, and I can’t get off the damn stuff. I wish there was a patch I could wear.
But what I’m really craving is to know what show you’re doing!
@JeffW , Watch out for chili if you get close to Cincinnati. I use cocoa as a spice.
The jist of the controversy is the occasional wheat industry push back that tries to claim non-celiac gluten sensitivity doesn’t exist. The numbers of people eating gluten free are far beyond 1% and that’s with not all celiacs understanding their problem. Celiac and other gluten sensitivities are very different conditions.
Yeah we really got to sort out that 100% mortality rate for life, it a terrible statistic.
<>>
Oh wait. What happened to the LULU comment in between the brackets?