Happy Birfday !

Hope you have a happy happy joy joy day.

If you do, or know someone who does, could you tell me what the devil this is?

Long enough to wish it were shorter. What we are about to discuss here is the massive breakdown of the human body. It will be a slow death and a messy one, but before we proceed let me say that science hopes you will step forward. Not until some selfless volunteer such as yourself eats bread and dies will your question receive the precise answer it deserves.

First the good news. You may assume that you would die of thirst. That’s not necessarily true–if you take certain precautions. Bread is about 35 percent water, but most breads also contain so much salt that a greater amount of water than is contained in a loaf is needed to rinse that loaf’s sodium out of your body. If you were to try to live on ordinary bread, you would become hypernatremic (too much sodium in the blood–for a fine word like that you should pay me), you would vanish into a coma and in about ten days you would vanish forever out of it.

So … if drinking water is out, as I assume from your question it is … find yourself a low-salt bread that doesn’t resort to potassium chloride or some other hazardous (in your case) ingredient as a substitute (salt keeps bread from rising too quickly and then collapsing, in case you were wondering). Then find yourself a nice room somewhere with a steady temperature of 65 degrees and relative humidity of 60 percent (optimal conditions for avoiding the disastrous loss of precious bodily fluids by sweating) and start to eat. And eat. Yes, a lot of eating is ahead of you, Irving, because to extract the two pounds of water you need each day you will have to eat nearly six one-pound loaves a day. Easy does it–you can’t afford to upchuck.

So in theory at least, we’ve licked the thirst problem. The next one’s tougher. Bread is great for carbohydrates but it isn’t exactly a teeming hotbed of proteins and vitamins. If you were a rat you’d be sitting pretty, because rats manufacture their own vitamin C. But humans must consume vitamin C in their diets, and bread, alas, doesn’t have any. (Not even raisin bread, and I am not going to sully this discussion by considering wacky, hypothetical “breads” like lemon-peel loaf.) So there doesn’t seem to be any way you can avoid getting scurvy.

Scurvy is the reason many of the seamen of old didn’t live to become old seamen. After about six weeks on a bread-only diet the level of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, in your body will drop to zero. The early signs of scurvy are fatigue, loss of appetite (you’re going to have to force those six loaves down) and aching bones and joints. Then your gums will begin to bleed and your teeth start to wiggle. Without ascorbic acid, a protein called collagen that holds the body together will stop doing its job. Look for hemorrhaging under the skin, with anemia resulting. Your hair will begin to split and coil and bury itself in its follicles. The nice thing about scurvy is that vitamin C can reverse it at any point, but we’re not going to allow any backsliding here. The preterminal signs are vomiting and swooning blood pressure. You will be weak by now, collapsing on so many fronts and so open to infection that it might be hard to pinpoint the exact cause of death.

Breads in general also won’t give you enough of vitamins A and D and some of the B vitamins. This deprivation will contribute to your general deterioration, but not as swiftly or as critically as the lack of vitamin C. Doing without vitamin A, for example, will eventually cause you to go blind, and your corneas will fall out, but you have a two-year supply of vitamin A stored up in your liver, and before it’s gone you’ll probably already have croaked of other causes.

So how long would you last? Judging from the experiences of old sea dogs and pilgrims with scurvy, it’s possible you could live two years, especially if you allow yourself to drink water. (Purists such as myself regard this as cheating, but I know how it is with you kids these days.) With water you can eat less bread and not worry about your sodium intake–either the perilous excess or, conversely, a deficiency of sodium, which would also mean a hastier death. But if you don’t drink water, and consequently try to shove six loaves down your throat day in and day out–and that means consuming about 8,000 calories a day, four times what a 160-pound man needs when he’s moderately active (and you won’t be)–you’ll be lacing your urine with glucose and wildly overtaxing your kidneys. Which means you should be happy to be alive six months later–that is, if you don’t wish you were dead.

paterfamilias pay-tur-fuh-MIL-ee-us; pat-ur-; pah-, noun;
plural patresfamilias pay-treez-; pat-reez-; pah-treez-:
The male head of a household or the father of a family.

Paterfamilias is from Latin pater, “father” + familias, “of the family or household,” the archaic genitive form of familia, “family or household.”

Packing a sack lunch. four slices of thick wheat bread, a tiny jar of honey, a container of peanut butter, a banana, two bottles of ibc root beer. (I like to assemble my sammiches fresh… honey gets weird if left on bread too long.)

Wondering where my sweetie is..I want to hear her dreams, how she’s doing… I had dreamt of her last night, knights and ladies, feasts and tents.. good comfy stuff.

Webcam for 9.99 after rebate

I very rarely post ads, but this looks like a great deal… how can folks not send in rebates? yipe!

more info on the camera here.

Going for walkies, then a shower.

I find myself wondering what being a hobo with Newton would’ve been like in the 1930’s. Pondering what my hobo name would’ve been. “Man-Mountain” Scotto? (With my back, and medicine at the time, maybe ‘Corkscrew Scott’ is more likely.)

update – 9:10am

Bleah… to hot and steamy already for a long walk. 20 minutes was enough. Showering now! It’s like walking in crisco soup out there, evaporating puddles in the sun.

If I was part of a UFO/supernatural investigation team, I don’t think it’d be Men in Black. Odds are better that it’d be a part of-

“Men in Forest Green”
“Men in Deep Blue”
“Men in Light-colored tropical prints”
“Men in Tie-Dye & Khakis”
“Men in Comfortable T-shirts”
“Men without Hats” (Does the SAFETY DANCE)

Having Your Employer Pay for Your Hookers
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UA police are investigating John C. Buckingham Jr., the former head of the graduate business program, for allegedly using university money to pay for escort services while on business trips.

Some Kind Of Major Malfunction
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Police say that a drill instruction has been brutally beaten by a teenager that he was trying to help. The alleged beating happened at the “Boot Camp” in Martin County near the sheriff’s office.

Attack Of The Killer Vacation
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A Colorado newspaper reporter, one day into a hard-earned vacation with his girlfriend, died after being struck by lightning on Fort Lauderdale beach Saturday afternoon, according to police and rescue officials.

Rules are made for a Reason.
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Because it puts them at greater risk of being harmed, police officers in this state are trained not to reach inside cars they have pulled over. Still, Seattle police Officer Greg Neubert reached into the white Cadillac he and his partner had stopped for erratic driving late Thursday.
Neubert, police say, was going after a license that Aaron Roberts, the driver of the Cadillac, had offered and then withdrawn. Roberts, an escaped felon with a history of drug addiction, is believed to have been baiting Neubert.When Neubert, who is white, reached in for the license, police say Roberts, who was black, gunned the Cadillac forward and began dragging the officer along 23rd Avenue near East Union Street. The dragging stopped when Neubert’s partner, Craig Price, who is also white, fatally shot Roberts.

Wacky Prank, results in much trouble
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Inserting strong-bonding glue into the locks of 50 doors in the high school got Matthew Wien, Jeremy Umansky and Michael Powidel suspended. They missed both their prom and graduation. But the youths, all 18, also face serious adult vandalism charges. “This is a case of not knowing the consequences of what you do,” said Solon police Lt. Chris Viland. “These poor kids are looking at a felony record.”

Smart Dealing Teen
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A 14-year-old south Fort Myers girl is accused of taking $1,300 worth of jewelry from her mother and pawning it for $73 so she and her friends could go to New York.

We Still Have To Wait For Space Porn
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Cosmonauts claim that it is forbidden to have sex in space.
“A lot of different commissions — moral, ethical and medical ones — that were discussing this, finally ruled that one must not do it so far, because the consequences are unknown for those who would be born,” Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev said in an interview published in the Friday edition of Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Musabayev also gave a negative answer when asked whether anybody has ever had sex in space. “Definitely not, although there is a lot of idle talk around this,” he said.

Creating list, everything I can think of in 5 minutes. and… go!

Researcher
Kindly older brother
Karmic Enforcer
Patsy
Brute
Clown
Santa’s Helper
The Only Voice of Reason
Anonymous Benefactor
Anonymous Malefactor
Secret Admirer
Choir Boy
Boy Scout
Storyteller
Actor
Programmer
Author
Leader
Assistant
Follower
Coward
Caregiver
Pilot
Gossip
Distraction
Guardian
Narrator
Teacher
Student
Lover
Friend
Medic
Taxi Driver
Bank
Bum
Homeless Man
Babysitter
Censor
Cataloguer
Exterminator
Teetotaler

Being apart from the woman I love is a stress I dislike to a huge degree. I actually spent a good amount of my time out tonight picturing her with me, sharing dinner and watching Knight’s Tale with my pals and me (Dave and Cathi… Cath’s stating to get a little pregnancy pooch showing… she’s so cute. I shared the botulism honey connection with her, and she was happy to get the info.)

Now, she’s in bed, and I’ll follow…hopefully to rejoin her in dreamland and have her in my arms. I miss her so much.

check this out –

http://www.livejournal.com/portal/

How nifty! Try it logged in for the biggest bennies.

Update: Upcoming boxes/options include:
— Friends view (customizable)
— Recent Entry view (with the [ ] Include text option working)
— Random User (optionally, with a picture)
— Filter group filter on Birthday View