Wendy's Won A Burger Blind Taste Test

I've always thought that Wendy's burgers were the best among all the fast-food joints. This fun blind taste test further confirms it.

Zz.

What It's REALLY Like To Have A Colonoscopy

I just read this account of the process leading up to and the procedure of having a colonoscopy. If you are over 50, especially if you are still in your 50s, you should have this done soon.

My account isn't as "dramatic" as this one. In fact, it was actually quite easy. Certainly the day-before-procedure cleansing of one's bowels isn't pretty, but it actually wasn't horrible either. I forgot what I had to drink, but it wasn't the awful liquid that I heard about from others. In fact, I get to mix it with sodas such as 7-up or gingerale. I also get to eat jello, lots of jelly, till 6:00 pm that day. It is only after that that I can't consume anything else. I think the cut-off point for all liquid was midnight.

The procedure the next day was early in the morning. After the prep, I was given the option of being put out for the entire procedure, or being fully awake. The gastro-int specialist told me that most of his patients opted for the latter, and described to me the kind of discomfort that I will encounter. I decided to bite the bullet and stayed awake for the entire thing. The advantage of not being put out is that there was almost no recovery time. You can get dressed and drive away afterwards, whereas if you decide to be put out, they will have to put you in the recovery room and made sure you are fine before they let you go, and even then, you can't drive yourself out for the rest of the day.

Just as a precaution, they put an IV drip in just in case I changed my mind. I didn't.

I got to see the entire procedure on a large-screen monitor. The surgeon described to me in detail what we were seeing. They found a total of 5 polyps, which they snipped and removed. The discomfort that I felt happened whenever they had to pump air into my colon. When they do this, it felt like you're having a tummy cramp. While it is a bit painful and uncomfortable, it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. The surgeon and the nurse kept telling me to pass gas whenever I was having such cramps, but it wasn't that easy when your instinct has been trained not to do that in public, and when you have something stuck up your butt!

Because they found polyps for this first procedure ever, I will have to go back and do another one in 3 years. But after having done this for the first time, I won't say that I am looking forward to the next one, but at least I now know it isn't going to be as bad as most people expected.

Zz.

Dinner at Field Museum

Donors enjoying a nice dinner at Field Museum Donors Night.

Field Museum Donors Night

We are at the Fiekd Museum Donors night. Still waiting to get in for the dinner and exhibits.

5 Web Predictions That Were WAY Off!

It is always fun to read something like this, where someone goes out on the limb and takes the risk of looking really, really foolish by making some sort of prediction of the future. We should do this to all those astrologers as well!

But in this case, these were all predictions, often by well-known individuals, about the future of the web. We all know Bill Gates (who is on this list) have made several boo-boos in his tenure as Microsoft CEO. But this Clifford Stoll guy! He made so many predictions that were so way off, no one should put any more credibility on what this guy has to say! I mean, really!

Fifteen years before plunging ad revenues forced its owners to sell Newsweek for $1, the magazine published an anti-Web screed from cybersecurity expert, astronomer and author Clifford Stoll. He called the Web "a wasteland of unfiltered data", and complained that reliable voices were being drowned out by the rabble.

"The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper," he wrote.

"Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet," Stoll added. "Uh, sure."

But there's more!

We return to Stoll for this last one. He managed to get a staggering amount wrong in just a few hundred words. He also scoffed at the idea of "virtual communities", doubted the Web could have practical applications for government, and wondered how anyone could get any research done in the maze of online information.

But with regards to retail, he thought the lack of human contact would doom the Web as a sales medium. The evidence? His local mall "does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month."

The only thing missing from this article is a followup interview of all the characters involved. I'd like to ask Bill Gates what he thinks of the SPAM activity now and why he got it so wrong. And definitely, I'd like to hear from this Stoll fella on how he could have been THAT wrong THAT many times?

Zz.

Flatulent Cows Started Fire At Dairy Farm

You can't make this up.

Methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a German farm shed on Monday, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals, police said.

Zz.

When you defend Phil Robertson, this is what you are defending

This is a pretty accurate article that blows away the smoke and the distractions.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/defend-phil-robertson-heres-youre-001248300.html

Somehow, the Ted Cruz's and the Sarah Palins seem to have glossed over the other stupid remarks that he made.

Zz.