Dave Mancuso dot Com

So I’m pushing low carb again. I’m desperate–I was over 250 again (254, to be exact) and I was feeling crappy, tired, just not energetic.

So I go on the diet again and a week later I’m 7 pounds lighter and feeling much, much better.

But.

Low carb eating requires variety if you want to make it a lifetime diet. That means you have to build thst variety into your foodstuffs and seasonings, which requires a bit of menu planning. I mean, I made a killer beef stew the other night with some leftover red peppers, onions, and mushrooms along with my chuck roast, but that doesn’t happen that often (chop it all up and put in a pot on low for an hour and a half with some red wine, beef broth, worcestershire sauce, and steak seasoning , by the way–it turns tender and you can thicken up the juice by putting it through the blender with some sprinkled Xanthan gum).

So the two ingredients I can’t find are “Chinese Five Spice Powder” and Asian “fish sauce.” The five spice powder is supposedly available everywhere, but I haven’t seen it anywhere in Pennsylvania Dutch country. I can widen my cuisine choices with this stuff, but I guess I have to hunt down a food store that has it (since I’m not into making it myself).

Then I have to find a steady supply of low carb tortillas, since no one around here has them. The quest continues…

Looks like MHz racing has reached the law of diminishing returns. Intel’s newest chips are running so hot that they’re actually slowing down. In fact, they’re slowing down to the point that they’re actually slower than the chips they replaced.

Intel has already started pushing in other directions–the Pentium M chip is lower MHz but better designed than other Pentiums. It’s not just for laptops–it’s a better chip strategy, and Intel is looking to expand the line. Oddly enough, the Pentium M didn’t come from Intel’s home office–it came from their Israeli branch.

I’m not sure why the failings of MHz are so difficult to explain. I mean, I can make a ’69 VW Beetle engine run at 8,000 rpm, but it’s still 53 horsepower (it would throw a rod inside of 30 seconds too, but that’s beside the point). Wouldn’t you rather have an engine that pulls 300 horsepower at 2,200 rpm?

Well, one reason I was so excited to get satellite dish service back last month was TechTV. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Comcast bought TechTV and is merging it with their own G4 gaming network. They have a webpage about the new “G4TechTV” network that explains a bit about the merger.

They say they’re keeping The Screensavers, but they’ve given notice to everyone at TechTV. The only staff who get to stay are the ones who want to relocate from San Francisco to LA (and if you’ve never been to California, you might not know how far apart these two cities are).

Man.

Yes, Homestarrunner has a Wiki now (it’s hard to describe a wiki–it’s kind of a website encyclopedia with multiple authors–just check it out). The Secret Pages is a nice treat.

City of Heroes may be the answer for multiplayer suprehero games. I’m lousy at games, but I’d give it a spin. Maybe they’ll take Freedom Force CDs as trade-ins…

But I find this site just too funny. Maybe it’s even real.

Thanks again, Metafilter.

We went camping last week, and we had a lot of fun with our friends. Alyssa gathered up 18 seashells, even though we were just in the beginning of the Chesapeake Bay. How do I know that it was 18 seashells? Because I picked all 18 out of the washer later, along with 4 small rocks that Drew had collected.

To quote little Rob, check this out: Colin Powell’s aide trying to chop off an interview with Tim Russert and Powell straightening her out (“Emily, get out of the way.”). The first movie link has been disabled, but check the mirror sites lower down on the page I linked you to.

It’s hard to hear the exchange, but you can hear the aide saying something about perhaps Russert asking questions he wasn’t supposed to? And then Powell saying “but he’s still asking questions.” An audibly angry Powell told his aide to get out of the way and had the camera put back on him for the final question.

My only guess is that the aide didn’t like Russert’s question, or Russert asked an embargoed question and Powell answered too much. But to pull the camera off indicates some alarm or anger on the part of the aide with respect to the interview. Powell’s answers do contradict testimony of Rumsfeld’s aides in front of Congress, so perhaps that could have been a factor. A shame. Powell seems to have a lot of integrity–I think he’s a man caught in political situations where he’s been forced to unneccesarily break his code of ethics. Then he gets dinged for speaking the truth.

Update: the NYT has more.

Check out these two studies on low carb diets. Good info, and the part about low carb cutting bad cholesterol and triglycerides is nice to see in print. When I had blood tests before and after low carb dieting, my cholesterol went from way high risk down to normal on my diet.

I’m back on the diet, after being off it for a couple of months. I hope to really peel back the pounds again. I’ve been toying with the idea of posting my weight daily on the site here, but I don’t know if I want to make it that kind of site. I’m 249 today, though–lost 5 lbs. since last Wednesday. I need to get to the 180s (or at least 190s) and stay there like Brad.

Drew: Daddy, what does Knee-Whomba mean?

Me: What does what mean? Drew, did you make that word up?

Drew: No, Daddy, Knee-Whomba–the special word.

Me: Oh. The sacred word. Um, that’s just a made up word, Drew. The knights just made it up to be silly.

I’ve got to stop expsong my kids to snippets of Weird Al Yankovic and Monty Python.