Becoming Batman

I thought with Halloween coming up tomorrow this blog posting would be somewhat topical. I just finished a book called Becoming Batman by Dr. E. Paul Zehr.

This isn't really a book on creating a costume so you can go out and have some actual fun with tricks when you don't get treats.

Wow...that sounded wrong.

This book is about the feasibility of training yourself to become Batman. Batman is unique among the superhero genre in that he doesn't have magic powers, he doesn't have alien superpowers (like a well-known Kryptonian), and he didn't get any of his powers from a freak accident or by tempting the fates by playing God or any other origin story posed as a moral. He was a kid who was screwed up at the injustice of seeing his parents murdered.

He trained himself to the peak of athletic perfection, training his body.

He studied the arts, forensic science, martial arts...training his mind.

Then he pursued his inner demons by ridding Gotham City of criminals. Seeking justice.

He was an ordinary man. His powers came from gadgets purchased from his millionaire holdings in Wayne Industries and his physical prowess came from hard work.

(Sure, some will bring up Iron Man, Marvel's answer to Batman, but this is about a man that gained his talents through hard training, not technology. Although for the record I think Iron Man still rocks and is quite possibly still better than most of the Batman franchise.)

Batman's history is, of course, subject to some editing and revision over history. A great summary is here.

Aaaand thus ends the history lesson. The book was an uneven read in my opinion. It presents excellent information on physiology and training and exercise, and the author carries a "Dr." in his title as well as being a martial artist. He presents information on topics such as hardening bones and the biology behind it; basically the structure of the bone gains microfractures, and in the process of "healing" they get stronger. He gives an overview of a technique that some martial arts masters had used and he had once tried that basically amounted to "hitting something really hard 1000 times a day until you hurt like a !@# and wait for it to heal"...a tree, a wall, a thin pad on a concrete wall are all good. And it works. I remembered reading outside this book that Bruce Lee (if you don't know him...you don't have any interest in martial arts) used to punch buckets of stones hundreds of times a day to harden his skin and bones in his hands. The author tried a similar technique and found that while it does work, it also seemed to damage nerves in his hands because his fingertips began to tingle, which interfered with some of his day job duties at the keyboard.

There was information on sleep deprivation, effects of aging, muscle growth, even physical stresses and how it affects the body.

The problem I had were relatively minor. First, the book is called "Becoming Batman". But it's not a how-to. It's more of an overview of whether it's possible to train to become someone like Batman. And he gives an answer. But if you're looking for an overview of what you would have to do to become a physical specimen of athletic perfection like Mr. Wayne, you're not going to find it here. If you want to know what your bones are made of at the cellular level, this is perfect for you.

Second the book read more like a physiology lesson given by a comic-obsessed nerd. Which is okay given that this is a book about Batman. But it wasn't really written focusing on Batman. It was focusing on the body and how attempting to train it to a condition like Batman's body would affect it while being sprinkled liberally with Batman references. It's like reading a book about how to send men to the moon with references to Battlestar Galactica thrown in, sans Cylons (We'd need armor plating made of ___ ___ inches thick to withstand the radiation of space while traveling en route to the moon, just like Galactica repelled nuclear blasts during the attack on the colonies! Okay, bad reference, but that's the gist of the feeling I got).

In the end this could have been a good book on the affects of training your body even if the Batman references were removed. It wasn't a bad read but it isn't on my gotta-gotta save shelf either. I'll probably pass it on to someone else who might benefit from the information. Any fans out there interested? Let me know.

Scott Sigler's The Rookie

Scott Sigler rocks.

I first was introduced to Sigler's work with his debut podcast novel called Earthcore. This totally free book was released as a podcast and was a rich blend of science fiction, science, thriller and horror. I. Was. Hooked.

He released other novels, all freely available online, like Ancestor, Infected, and Nocturnal. The following garnered by his audio novels enabled him to finally get a publishing contract while continuing work on followups to many of his titles (Contagious has already been released as the followup to Infected, and I'm STILL WAITING FOR EARTHCORE'S SEQUEL!); and like many of his fans I've purchased some of his work to give as gifts to support an author whose work I truly enjoyed.

But you know the neatest part?

Well, aside from his strong integration of science into his horror/scifi style, of course...

He had me enjoy a book that with every chapter released I thought, "I'll probably delete it soon..."

His story The Rookie is once again a thriller/science/scifi mix with a dash of mobsters and sports stirred into the pot. And I hate sports.

Here's the synopsis from his own website (linked above):
**********
Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, THE ROOKIE is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of "Any Given Sunday" with the space opera style of "Star Wars" and the criminal underworld of "The Godfather."

Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assassinated.

Follow the story of Quentin Barnes, a 19-year-old quarterback prodigy that has been raised all his life to hate, and kill, those aliens. Quentin must deal with his racism and learn to lead, or he'll wind up just another stat in the column marked "killed on the field."
*********

I mean it. I can't tell a touchdown from a linebacker. "Third in ten" is like speaking Aramaic to me. If they're on the ten yard line I don't know if it's good or bad.

Despite thinking I was going to delete the chapter from my iPod until he would release more of something my style, like The Crypt, I listened to every chapter the bastard released. And I enjoyed the story.

For someone like me that's really saying something about the story.

More than that Sigler ties his stories together; The Crypt takes place in the Rookie universe. Aliens from The Rookie are hinted at in modern-day Infected. Like a sociopathic sci-fi Stephen King, the man makes his audience feel as if they're part of a greater story arch with inside references that newbies won't "get" until they're initiated into the Church of Sigler.

He's worked 15 years to reach that point in his craft. And he got pretty damn good at it.

Sigler is one of the big names in podcasting of novels. As a matter of fact he was one of the handful that inspired me to actually sit down and try writing a novel. Not because he made it look easy, but because he made me realize that maybe I had a story to tell. And he was frank about his own story in trying to get published and what the industry was like; there are no gummy bears or rainbows in his off-book stories (although if there were I'd bet that the gummy bears would wield the rainbows as weapons to slice your head off, and there'd be a feasible line of reasoning behind how they did it, too).

If you have ANY interest in horror and science, or just horror and science fiction, check out his stories. They're freely available. I dare you to not have the urge to purchase one of the print books after listening to even two of his books. The crossovers, the hard science, the fact that the man goes out of his way to connect with his audience...all this comes together into a perfect storm of entertainment. He's a pioneer on the ground floor of podcast novels. Grab your media player and download them TODAY!

Look Me In The Eye

My wife bought this book and kept saying that she thought I'd like it. I dutifully took it and put it into my shelf to read later. Literally. I have an entire bookshelf of books to get to. And worse, I usually only get to read for a short time before going to bed at night, so at most I get a chapter done a night. Not a fast reader, I guess (part of this could also be attributed to the fact that I'm spending much of my after-work hours riding bike, at the gym, or working on a journal/blog/novel first draft...priorities, I suppose).

Anyway I finished a book and surveyed the shelves for what topic I should tackle next. My book on workouts that develop muscles? Essays on computer science? Starting your own business?...then I saw the book my wife gave me, Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison.

I was hooked by the second chapter. The book is about the life of the Aspergian brother of the author of the book Running With Scissors. Apparently he had one chapter about his brother John and had so much feedback from other Aspies that he urged his brother to try his hand at writing, and the result was this book.

I was in love with it. He described so many traits that slammed home in my own life. His inability to relate to people. His fondness for mechanical things. Inability to relate to what people were saying, his "eccentricities." Sensitivities. His compulsion to assign his own name for people or he'd forget who they were (his brother was for many years named "Varmint"). His rational, logical view of death of people he didn't know that neurotypicals find appalling. I totally understood his description because that was me. If a child of a friend's friend passed away in an accident, I don't react. It doesn't make sense to me, since people die every day. Thousands of people. We can't grieve for them all. I don't know that person, so I'm not sad. I'm glad that it didn't happen to my family or my immediate friends.

Neurotypicals apparently find this to be cold and irrational. It's perfectly rational.

Every chapter I read ended with me thinking, "Oh. My. God. This is me."

I didn't grow up with a mother in a mental hospital. I didn't have an alcoholic father. I did rather well academically and went on to college. But his mental issues were things I could relate to for the most part.

More to the point I finally found someone with whom I could relate. I often refer to Asperger wiring screwing with my viewpoint on things compared to other people because having this perspective is very lonely. It's hard for Normals to understand what it's like to be lonely but having an extreme aversion to relating to other people. It's not unlike having bariatric surgery and wanting that peanut butter brownie in the window with every tastebud on your tongue only to know that doing so could make you extremely, extremely ill. Not just an upset tummy. All out hours of agony ill culminating in sweats, palpitations and a toilet visit from the depths of Hades. See "Dumping Syndrome". Only this would be for social occasions and relating to people, not just food with sugar in it.

I haven't finished the book yet. Normally I finish before posting about it. But I was just too excited halfway through the book. Plus I discovered that he has a blog. I added it to the sidebar of this blog. He has his own website as well and a twitter account.

I think the best way to sum this up was summed up in my statement to my wife the first night I started reading the book; "How could you possibly have read this book and still not understand me better? This book is me." I learned that I'm not alone out here. There are others who have to cope with issues that I have to cope with (although it was a bit distressing to read the entry on his blog that points out there's a rather high incidence of suicide among people with Asperger's).

If you know someone with Asperger's this book can offer some insight to what it's like to be trapped in my head. If you don't know anyone with Aspergers,...well, it's still a great book telling you about a man with mental wiring that makes listening to neurotypicals a challenge in itself. Plus he worked with KISS. How can you not love a guy that made guitars that spit fire and smoke before it was a familiar spectacle on the performance stage?

Truly...I can't begin to describe how nice it is while reading this book to feel as if there are like-minded individuals in a world of neurotypicals. No matter how much we love our family there exists some things that they just can't relate to and they struggle to accept in us. This book highlights some of these issues, and maybe can help them understand a little better.

Urine Trouble if it's Dark

I don't know who first told me this or where I read it, but after the surgery I was firmly afraid that I was not getting enough water.

There were warnings about drinking throughout the day, keeping hydrated, and generally making sure I was drinking water; not juices, not carbonated drinks, but water.

It was worse now that I wasn't eating as much as I used to. You have no idea how much of your water actually comes from the foods you eat, and when you overeat you get even more fluids indirectly from your diet.

The fear was in the darkness of urine. If the urine was a dark yellow, the story went, it meant I was dehydrated.

There were times it was dark. I'd drink until it was running nearly clear. There were times when I was drinking and I wasn't even thirsty, just to make sure I was keeping hydrated.

I just finished reading Don't Swallow Your Gum! by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman, and it dispells a lot of myths and lies about health and how the body works. Among them: how much water your body needs.

It's "common knowledge" that you should drink eight glasses of water a day. The problem is that is wrong. Back in 1945 the Food and Nutrition Board of National Research Council said that adults should get 2.5 liters (which translates into roughly 8 glasses of water) a day and that most of it comes from prepared foods.

That in itself would be fine except that people like things in trite, easy to remember tidbits. That advice somehow had the "food" part chopped out: thus the "8 glasses of water" myth.

The body apparently works to regulate fluids on its own quite well. Ever heard that when you're thirsty, you're dehydrated already? Well, the book addressed that too. Apparently your body, when it senses that it needs to retain water, releases a hormone called vasopressin, signaling the kidneys to retain water. This regulates automatically how often you feel the urge to go number one. So feeling thirsty doesn't mean that you're dehydrated.

But the most important...or at least, relevant...question addressed was on page 24. "Your Urine Should Be Almost Clear."

The book states this is a half-truth. To quote:
The color of the urine depends on its osmolality, which is the technical term for how much stuff is dissolved in the liquid. When there is more stuff dissolved in a given volume of urine, the urine is more concentrated, and therefore it looks darker. However, the osmolality of normal urine can be very different from person to person. One specialist in fluid regulation tested teh urine of sixty-nine healthy young adults and measured the average volume and concentrations of their urine. For this group, all of whom were considered well hydrated and healthy, the average volume of urine was 1.5 liters per day and the average concentration was 600 mosmol/kg H2O. At this average concentration, urine is moderately yellow in color, which could be interpreted as "dark" compared to the recommended "clear" or "pale yellow" you may think of as your goal. This concentration is, in fact, well within the normal range. Most of the time, normal urine from a healthy, well-hydrated person may be very yellow.

So urine color being yellow or "darker" doesn't mean you're dehydrated. I was worrying over nothing! Live and learn...

Diet Myths that Keep Us Fat

I just wrapped up reading the book Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat (and the 101 truths that will save your waistline-and maybe even your life) by Nancy Snyderman, MD. If you've heard her name before, it's probably because she's the medical correspondent for NBC news. She's a doctor, a correspondent, a TV personality...so I suppose that qualifies her as being an authority, certainly moreso than the numerous names that are slapped onto books without any verifiable backgrounds for the majority of us to find.

Nancy apparently has a real love of commas...I don't know why that stuck out to me, but it did. I thought she totally overused commas.

As for the content, though, it was a good summary of a number of the little floating bits of information and misinformation floating around out there. It reviews carbs. It review fats. It reviews pills and supplements and sugars found in foods and all sorts of wonderful things. It also has plenty of "truths" written in colored boxes that review things like, "You can lose more weight in cold weather" (sure!), "Belly fat has been linked to dementia" (yuppers), and "Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat" (a pound is a pound, dude...)

There was one item that I was skeptical of. On page 158 there is a blink bit about certain OTC painkillers helping muscle development in workouts. Being someone who has been having trouble seeing any results in my workouts, I thought this might be worth following up on...only to find that every hit of the keywords "advil muscle growth" is coming up with the opposite information. They inhibit growth! Yikes! I don't see any information in the back of the books, the notes, about where she would be citing information from what study. She has plenty of citations, just not for that "truth" I was looking for. I don't think after doing some quick Googling that it's a good idea to try taking the painkillers for a boost in results.

Otherwise it's a good book. Quick read, just took me a few nights to get through. I did skip the section on Nancy Snyderman's own dieting plan, though. Just stick to checking out her take on the 10 myths and see how many misconceptions she clears up for you!

Food Choices: Eat This, Not That!

I've been reading an interesting book about food choices. It's actually a small series of books, called Eat This, Not That!. The latest one is Eat This, Not That! The Best (And Worst) Foods In America!: The No-Diet Weight-Loss Solution. The title is a mouthful and has a few too many rah-rah exclamation points for my taste, but it's a fascinating read. The book reviews foods from major restaurants and supermarkets to and illustrates just how bad things get without customers thinking about their choices, then offers alternatives to order (or purchase) instead.

Some examples: Worst "Healthy" Sandwich? Blimpie Special Vegetarian (12"). 1,186 calories, 60 g fat, 19 g saturated, 3,523 mg sodium and 131 carbohydrates.You'd be better off eating 2 Big Macs.

Worst Fast-Food Breakfast: McDonald's Deluxe Breakfast (large size biscuit) with syrup and margarine. 1,370 calories, 64.5 g fat, 21.5 g saturated, 2,340 mg sodium and 161 g carbs. The calories are more than 4 McD's cheeseburgers (300 a piece). They recommend instead the McMuffin (300 calories, 12 g fat, 5 saturated, 820 mg sodium, and 30 g carbs).

Want a real slap in the head? Worst Italian Entree: Romano's Macaroni Grill Spaghetti and Meatballs with meat sauce. 1,810 calories, 118 g fat (54 saturated), 4,900 mg sodium, 109 g carbohydrates. It's almost 3 times the recommended intake of sodium for the day combined into one meal! I mean, if your average intake is supposed to be 2300 mg of sodium and 2300 calories (rough average), this entree is way too much...but how many people would think they're taking such a hit in health from have spaghetti and meatballs?

Even appetizers aren't safe. Well, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise if you do any research on them. Worst Starter: Uno Chicago Grill Pizza Skins, Full Order. 2,400 calories. 155 g fat, 45 saturated. 3,600 mg sodium. I mean...you do share them, right? Yeah, right. I'm sure you're not having too many of them...instead, they recommend the Thai Vegetable Pot Stickers, at 400 calories, 20 g fat (2 saturated), 1,080 mg sodium, 46 g carbs instead.

The book also harshly slams restaurants for pulling an Applebees; they highlight the places that won't tell you what they're feeding you by hiding nutrition information. When I was dieting pre-surgery in January, I started going through online nutrition information and downloading lists for my iPod so I could make decent choices in places like Red Lobster (by the way, stay away from the admiral's feast...the book put that one into perspective relatively quickly. But on the other hand, Red Lobster also had a lot of healthy choices you can make. Tread carefully.)

Applebees was among the restaurants that won't make the information available, and it was a restaurant that we often went to, as in once or twice a month at least. I emailed their customer service, and they simply said they couldn't provide the information (Um, let's be real...you wouldn't provide it. Don't tiptoe around it) because they can't guarantee ingredients and there were variations from restaurant to restaurant location.

So...are you telling me that if I go to a different Applebees, your food is significantly different in each location, so I can't rely on any consistency in your dishes??

I was so pissed that I stopped going there, and would spread the word whenever the opportunity arose that they are consumer-unfriendly. Red Lobster provides it. Olive Garden provides it. Applebees,...well, I'm going to Red Lobster or Panera.

Oops. Side rant. Anyway, the book harshes on restaurants that pull this by giving them an "F" on a restaurant summary chapter. The only information they could pull from places like these were calorie counts, due to a law that was passed in New York about providing this minimum bit of information (Funny...you can't provide consistent nutrition information unless it passed into NYC, eh? Do I sound a little irked at this?)

I got curious because the book harshed on a lot of wraps in different restaurants; I didn't think my wraps for my average meals were all that bad. So I looked at some of the information labels for what I have been putting in lately.

Tortilla. Azteca. 120 calories, 2.5 g fat, .5 saturated, 0 chol, 300 mg sodium, 22 g carb, no sugar, 3 g protein.

Add a slice of reduced fat colby-jack cheese from Sargento. 50 calories, 4 g fat, 2.5 saturated, 10 mg chol, 120 mg sodium, 0 carb, 0 sugar, 5 g protein.

Add some thin-sliced honey ham. From the label of one brand I use, 2 oz is 80 calories, 2.5 g fat, 1 g saturated, 30 mg chol, 710 mg sodium, 4 g carbs, 4 g sugar, 10 grams protein.

I normally use probably half a serving, so the count I'm using is closer to 40 calories, 1.5 g fat, 15 mg chol, 355 mg sodium, 2 g carbs, 2 g sugar, 5 grams protein, and that's the story I'm sticking to.

Then a slice of 2% cheese from Kraft. Off the label: 45 calories, 3 g fat, 1.5 saturated, 10 mg cholesterol, 250 mg sodium, 1 g carb, 1 g sugar, 4 gram protein.

Then mushrooms to add filler from Green Giant: I use probably 1/4 cup, and the information on the label is for 1/2 a cup. So I'll write the estimated 1/4 cup information here. 12 calories, 0 fat, 0 chol, 220 sodium, 2 g carb, .5 sugar, 1 g protein.

So some math would estimate that my wraps are in the neighborhood of 267 calories, 11 g fat, 5 saturated, 35 mg cholesterol, 1,245 mg sodium, 27 g carbohydrates, 3.5 g sugar, and 18 g protein, plus some sodium for the mustard I add on.

I don't think that's too bad. In most restaurants the wraps come out horrible...for example, ETNT says in the vocab guide that a wrap weighs in at 600 calories on average, with the average tortilla being 300 calories. Applebee's Chicken Fajita Rollup weighs in at 1,450 calories, listed as the worst wrap in the "Worst Healthy Foods in America" chapter. The honor of worst wrap in the Worst Sandwiches in America list also went to Applebee's with the Applebee's Oriental Chicken Rollup at 1,550 calories.

Unless my estimate are really really off, my wraps aren't that bad. Three a day comes to 801 calories, give or take for variation (swiss cheese instead of the colby-jack, for example). the only thing I add on top of this are my peanuts and peanut butter, which I'm gradually moving to more peanuts than PB; they early on showed promise in anecdotally reducing some dizziness I felt when going to the gym or riding bike, so I added them in during the course of the day.

But here's the kicker; choices you make in your diet mean paying attention to labels, and things you'd think would be no-brainers take more brains than you'd think. I came to the conclusion that my numbers probably aren't too far off from restaurants simply because they must be made differently. What cemented that idea?

I have a jar of peanuts that I've been refilling from a Sam's Club ginormo pack of peanuts or mixed nuts. The jar is from Target, their "Market Pantry" brand of dry roasted peanuts. I figure...how hard is it? Peanuts, some salt, right? Well, I happened to look at the label. In order: dry roasted peanuts, salt, sugar, maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate (um...isn't that MSG?), torula yeast, paprika and other spices, natural flavors (they're PEANUTS! What did you ADD?!), hydrolized soy proteins, onion and garlic powder.

Wha...?!

I picked up the ginormo pack of peanuts from Sam's, which happened to be Planter's Extra Large Virginia Peanuts. Listed: peanuts, sea salt, peanut and/or cottonseed oil.

Two of the same products; peanuts. Two very different labels.

I recommend this book not just because it has great information, but because it made me think. Books that make you think make an impact, a difference, and for that reason I very much recommend it to other people in hopes that they, too, will be driven to think and take action or maybe alter some of their habits or perspectives.

Three Signs of a Miserable Job

I had read Three Signs of a Miserable Job awhile ago and thought it was fantastic. I enjoyed it so much that I even wrote the three signs down on a paper and found them again recently while going through my desk and it reminded me of where I remembered ideas like having measurable goals and how in part to try managing other people in the workplace in a way that hopefully doesn't leave me looking like a PHB.

You can read a quick summary here (although I REALLY encourage ANYONE with questions about their job happiness to read the book...it's short, it's easy to read through, and the story format is very user-friendly!) but the three signs are:

1. Anonymity, the feeling employees get when they realize their manager has little interest in them as a human being and know little about their lives, aspirations and interests.
2. Irrelevance, when the employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others in one way or another.
3. Immeasurement, which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contributions or successes. Without a means of doing this employees have to rely on subjective measurements and opinions of others, usually their manager.

It's something that gives me pause to think once in awhile and sometimes a reason that I plant myself down and start researching either the programming language hobby or plug away at that novel in my head; the hope that maybe one or the other could pay off in a better job function for me. But no matter what my situation is, these three nuggets of wisdom are invaluable for anyone in the working world and that book may help you evaluate if it is time for you to polish your resume and see if the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence...once you can get over the fear that it's greener because of the hidden septic tank, that is.

Weight Training for Dummies

It took me about a week to finish reading Weight Training for Dummies (this review is being posted long after I've finished the book) by Liz Neporent, Suzanne Schlosberg, and Shirley Archer.

The book includes the trademark Dummies 5th Wave comics and is filled with the entertaining, down-to-Earth writing style I've come to expect from Dummies books. At a glance, the book includes chapters on "Before You Pick Up a Weight", "Weighing In with Weigh Training Wisdom", "Tackling the Exercises", "Setting Up Your Workout Programs", and of course no Dummies book is complete without "The Part of Tens".

I'm a complete novice at the whole weight training thing. More than that, I hate the whole fitness "thing". Hearing people slinging lingo like "abs" and "glutes" makes me immediately try to tune out the conversation and being lectured about the importance of fitness sounds like one long la la la la la...

However, due to the surgery, I had to do something to try exercising. I love biking, but the area I'm in makes it difficult to ride. I managed to stick with a stationary bike routine but I still wanted to do something to add some variety.

I mentioned to my parents that I was considering doing something with a local gym and they decided to gift me with a one-year membership there. Knowing nothing about working out in a gym, I picked up this book to try learning some of the ins and outs of what to expect with a workout routine.

Keep in mind that I am anti-fitness and knew next to nothing about it.

This book communicated in a clear and fun way to a complete novice different things to remember when weight lifting, from safety to courtesy in gyms to some background on the Nautilus machine versus the Nautilus brand.

If you're considering starting a weight-lifting routine and don't know a dumbbell from a barbell, you should definitely start with this book to start your learning journey. I didn't finish the book an expert by any means but I definitely had a better grasp of my goals and understanding of working out; it was at least enough to help put me a little more at ease the first time I walked into that gym.

Lunacy and Ctrl+Alt+Delete

I just finished one book and am in the middle of another book that I thought I'd share.

The first one is Lunacy: The Best of the Cornell Lunatic. It is a large paperback filled with selections from, as the title suggests, the Cornell Lunatic, a student paper filled with satire and comics of various topics. The humor is a bit on the blue side at times so if you're more on the conservative side I'd recommend not bothering; if, on the other hand, reading an editorial by "Clark Kent" fighting rumors being spread in the media that a recent rise in breast cancer rates (especially in the Daily Planet building for some reason) are being caused by Superman's use of X-Ray vision makes you laugh like a crazed baboon then this book may just be worth checking out.

The second book is Ctrl+Alt+Del: Volume 1: This is a Great Idea. There's a great geek web comic called Ctrl+Alt+Del that chronicles the adventures of a computer gamer, Ethan, who is a total idiot, and his roommates and his wife (now). The first volume is a collection of the earliest comics of the series and was a nice revisit of his early adventures including the psychotic break he experienced when a certain video game sequel was released and how he met his gamer-girlfriend Lilah along with a few side bits commenting on new video games as they were released, such as some of the stupidities included with the programming logic of a certain Star Wars game. The whole King of Winter-een-mas arc during a heating failure in the apartment building was a nice setup for his later reign as the head of a video game religion (not covered in this book, though...I know about it from the online comic).

If you have any interest in geek comics, check out Ctrl+Alt+Del online. If you like humor on the risque side check out Lunacy. If you're not interested in either of them...well, thanks for reading anyway.

Heaven Season Five: WAR!

One of my favorite podcast authors has released the fifth (and final?) book in her Heaven series: WAR! Mur Lafferty has started releasing her novel on Podiobooks.com as a free audiobook. I've listened to every one of her Heaven series wherein two friends, Daniel and Kate, die near the time of the "end of times" on Earth and discover that the afterlife is not at all as they thought it would be; they travel through various afterlife worlds including Heaven and Hell and the Norse Heaven and even Dog Heaven and Hobo Heaven. They embark on a journey where they end up gaining god-like powers...there is simply too much from four books to round up here.

If you have an MP3 player...an iPod...etc...I really recommend checking out the novels. They are all free but if you want to donate to the author the donations can be made at Podiobooks.com, and the percentage given to the author is much better than what they normally get through a publisher. Even registering and getting a podcast feed from Podiobooks is free. You've got nothing to lose and enjoyment to gain!

Mur is one of my favorite podcast authors and is a well known personality in the podcasting world. She's also host of the podcast for wanna-be writers called I Should Be Writing. So next time you're plugged into your player while working out, trying to maintain your weight loss, consider adding Mur to your list of content to listen to!

Book Review Followup: The Emotional First Aid Kit

I recently posted a review of the book The Emotional First Aid Kit by Cynthia L. Alexander. I noted that there wasn't any mention of addiction transfer and mused about emailing the author.

I managed to track her down (thanks, Kosmix.com!) and emailed her a note asking if another edition was in the works. She replied in part with the following:

Thank you so much for the feedback about the book, so glad to hear it is helpful to you. Interesting you should ask about this because we are coming out with a 2nd edition this summer and it will discuss transfer of addiction.

The second edition is really the original book, plus a few new chapters.

There you have it! If you liked what you saw from the review and Amazon links, wait a couple months and look to see if the 2nd edition is out yet!

The Emotional First Aid Kit

I just finished the book The Emotional First + Aid Kit: A Practical Guide to Life After Bariatric Surgery by Cynthia L. Alexander, PsyD (Yes, the book has the plus sign, but Amazon lists it without...look at the cover shot from the link!)

It's a great guide for people who are considering bariatric surgery or are nearing the time for their surgery. It isn't anything I'd consider breakthrough; it's more of a personal coach to reiterate what your surgeons and support group will tell you about the surgery and life changes that go hand in hand with the surgery. It has several small case studies and tips sprinkled in text boxes throughout and many large-print repeats of sound bytes for inspiration and memorization. The book also has several exercises to follow, such as writing a pros and cons grid if you're on the fence about having the surgery.

The book explores the decision to have surgery, self-talk about the surgery and your weight, a plan to handle yourself in different situations after the surgery such as family dinners, and beginning a consistent exercise program and how relationships can change post-operatively (or post-weight change). There are also chapters dealing with depression and how the patient and other people react to the weight loss, as well as handling relapses and how to affect a change in behaviors and habits, as those will help or hinder your weight loss and weight maintenance success (the book differentiates between weight loss and weight maintenance, as many people are successful at weight loss...they just go "off" their diet and regain the excess weight.

At approximately 163 pages the book is a relatively quick read and is a good refresher of the information that patients should have received, but may not have or may not have listened to, as they went through the process of having the surgery. I recommend it to anyone about to go through the process as there aren't too many guides like this out there tailored specifically to bariatric patients.

Edit: The book does not cover information on addiction transfer, a phenomena I recently blogged about; I am beginning to suspect that this area of study is only recently gaining attention as a phenomena for bariatric patients...but still the book does contain useful information for anyone undergoing the surgery. Perhaps someday an updated edition could be released...I wonder if I could contact the author and find out?

Review: The Little Earth Book

I picked up The Little Earth Book by James Bruges as a bargain price title at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago; it was a small book, I figured it might be a nice little time killer while waiting for appointments and before falling asleep.

The back cover is promising; it has bullet points stating, among other things:

• If everyone lived as we do in the U.S., it would take four earths to support us
• Three-fourths of all plant species have become extinct since 1900
• The number of people living on two dollars a day in the world has risen by 50% in the last twenty years
• Charging interest is a major contributor to inequity among nations and billions of people
• Genetically modified crops have farmers using more herbicides and pesticides, not less

The chapters are small and flow rather well as segues into the next topic.

Though interesting, every time I stop to think for a few moments about a point the chapters are trying to make I mentally stumble. The information slams you like a street preacher telling you every reason you're going to purgatory, or in this case an armchair activist telling you about all the ways the government and big pharma are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and destroy not just America but the whole planet.

Take this from the chapter "Making New Plants: improving on Creation":
"GM (Genetically Modified) foods have been consumed for seven years without harm, they say. But during this period food-derived illnesses have doubled. In California the number of children with autism has doubled in the last four years. The sperm count of men is steadily reducing. Allergies have greatly increased. But no one knows if this is consequence or coincidence because no monitoring of the long-term clinical or biochemical effects of GM has been done."

None of that has scientific proof of causality; it's speculation. But it throws in a lot of scary effects that maybe coulda sorta be contributed to or caused by this scary thing called "genetically modified food"...it's an abomination (improves on CREATION! Man tinkering with power we shouldn't be encroaching upon!) and so this is why you must be afraid.

The book runs the gamut of social, political, and economic woes and how these faceless corrupt politicians and corporations seem largely to blame. There's a lot of fascinating information, but in the end I find the book to be a bit like watching an accident...I'm drawn back to reading more chapters, slowly, but then toss it aside because I get fed up with the one-sided bias that gives me the impression it's trying harder to make me afraid to leave my house than educate me about a problem and the possible solutions.

I think this book is one of the great preaching-to-the-choir books. If you have a friend that likes telling you how natural foods will cleanse your colon and herbs are far superior to prescriptions because big pharma is out there spreading lies about their antibiotics (plus they will eventually lead to superbugs that will wipe out all of humanity then this could be a nice gift for them. If you're mildly curious about various planet wide ills and issues, this is a nice starting point from which to start researching some information...but I think you definitely need to pull from other sources to get a less biased and more rounded perspective on the problems than this book presents.