WordPress wants to charge me $10 a year to do that, which totally isn’t worth it IMO. But the point it,

I’m not really gonna update this blog any more!!!

I’m now lucky enough to have my own domain name, so you can find me at http://jakeforthewin.com/ or jump straight to my new blog at

http://jakeforthewin.com/wp

I’m totally not leaving the interwebs, just moving around. Trust me, it’s better for all of us.

<shameless self promotion>You can, of course, always find me at Twitter (plzicanhasramen.twitter.com), it’s really my favorite method of communication outside email.</shameless self promotion>

The democrats have been kicking ass so far. But I’m worried.

Here’s the thing. McCain got pwn3d, for lack of a (better) word, but he obviously didn’t want to show up. He was unprepared, and showed only because not showing would be committing political suicide. He’s got 12 days until his next debate, and he’s going to be preparing. Obviously, Obama will too, but he’s going to do better. And that means Obama must also get better.

And, did you all see Palin? Yeah, she sucked pretty hard. But I was expecting Ms. Teen South Carolina in there, she didn’t do horrible. Of course, we need more than just “not horrible” from our potential vice-president, but she’s done with debates. But looking at how much she improved, I’m actually rather scared about how McCain’s going to do at the next debates. I don’t know, perhaps he’s dumb enough to be satisfied with his performance, so we’ll see. But I don’t think he’s going to get worse. So while I’m really hoping the democrats will continue to own the debates, I think it’s quite possible that, by the last debate, McCain might win. And that’s really scary.

So, this’ll probably be my last anti-phelps post, but I saw this video, and decided it was simply too good to resist posting.

Since it won’t let me imbed it… http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/08/26

Michael Phail

Today, I was welcomed to Facebook by a honking banner congratulating Michael Phelps. I’m no fan of his, so I’ll assume that this message went out to, that’s right, every single member of facebook. At least those in the United States, anyway. He’s got some 800,000 fans on his facebok page, and I’m sure he’s got more that haven’t declared their fanhood (is that a word?) on facebook. It doesn’t stop there. Today in World History, we had a class discussion about Mr. Phelps (“Have you seen what he eats for breakfast!?”) for a good quarter of the hour-and-a-half long period. I’ve never been a great fan of sports, I enjoy participating in and watching cycling, though the only biker I could identify is Lance Armstrong, but here’s what confuses me most about Phelps. He was virtually unknown before the 2008 olympics. I think he broke quite a few records, if I’m not mistaken, and would definitely set one in a pie eating contest. For comparison purposes, I did a google search for “world records broken at 2008 olympics.” The first article I could find that seemed a tad legit had this as the third sentence:

 It was unfathomable that Michael Phelps could have possibly done so well and captivated audiences around the world. 

I dug further. Almost all the relevant pages were based entirely in swimming. When did we become so interested in swimming? Last I checked, football was the most american sport; that or baseball.

One last thing that’s been bugging me is the fact that, not too long ago, the good people in America decided to boycott the olympics, due to the fact that China wasn’t doing much to help the tragedy in Darfur. Now as far as I know, China hasn’t changed their policies much, and has instead focused on telling the chinese people what to wear to impress American tourists, and making sure farmers don’t use too much water for their crops, so that there will be enough to feed thirsty tourists. Yet here we are, about a week into the games, and I can’t enter my second period class, without hearing rants about Phelps, “Phants” I like to call them.

Now I’m not quite sure there’s a point to this post, but I kinda needed to get my opinions out there, and am hoping that someone else out there isn’t mesmerized by Phelps’ diet. By the way, ladeez, I can eat a lot too, if that’s what interests you.

Update: Turned off related posts. I’ll lose a bit of traffic, but oh well. Thanks, marcys!

Give this one a shot?

Datamatrix, for those to whom this is news, is a new form of barcode, and is meant specifically for use with cellphones. The idea is that a rightly equipped cellphone can scan a datamatrix code with their camera, it will return a binary pattern, and yield a website, phone number, email address, or string of text.

This technology is, for the most part, untapped, and in my opinion, it has a really great potential. Think about going grocery shopping, and for each item you put into your cart, you could scan a datamatrix code for it. The stores could put this on their labels, with the price. Your phone could then add up the cost of your trip, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise at checkout that you’d spend almost $50 on instant noodles. Tourist attractions could be stamped with them, so if you wanted more information about where you were, a page could be retrieved, along with your LAT and LON coordinates, so you could get directions to your next stop.

There are fashionable uses, too, for those not obsessed with mapping. Imagine a datamatrix on your Vans, sewn into the shoulder of a jacket, or tiled on a tshirt. People would be snapping pictures of you all day, just to figure out where this datamatrix might lead. It’s a really cool technology, and vastly untapped, for the most part.

hot pepper beef and spicy pork...yes, my family enjoys spice.

I know it’s a bit outlandish a statement to make after my first meal there, but I think it’s quite possible that Frank Ma South has become my new favorite chinese restaurant. Frank Ma, located by Atlanta’s older whole foods, at 2088 Briarcliff Road, doesn’t look like an amazing chinese place from the outside, I’ll be quite honest. I believe it was formerly known as chopsticks, and the lady who answers the phone still refers to it by that name. However, she will reassure you that it’s currently called Frank Ma South. Upon entering, you’re presented with a relatively vast menu. The traditional smorgas bord of chinese food lies within, kung po chicken, sweet and sour soup, etcetera. I tried the fried (pork) dumplings, spicy pork, and hot pepper beef. The dumplings were cooked perfectly, had a delicious spice mix, and were not that greasy, something that’s not always easy to accomplish at a Chinese restaurant. My previous choice for chinese food was Hong Kong Harbour or Little Bangkok, the latter which is delicious, but more thai focused, and the former greasy and sometimes bland. Maybe it’s because we ordered based on our love for anything that makes our tongues burn, but both the dishes were perfectly seasoned–and not spicy for the sake of being spicy either. While Frank Ma plans to offer take out, currently their only takeout menu was printed under the old ownership; our waitress promised an updated one soon. If you’re in the neighborhood, or even if you live in Atlanta and need some good chinese cooking, I’d reccomend you head to Frank Ma South.

See also: Atlanta Magazine Review and http://www.yelp.com/biz/frank-ma-south-atlanta

I’m going off of caffeine as of August 11th, when school starts. So today at lunch, I had a Monster, so I can get my fill before I’m done for at least 2.5 months. I was sitting with my brother, who’s a vegetarian. I asked him if he wanted a sip, and he said, “no thanks, I’m a vegetarian.” I asked him what this had to do with Monster, and he told me that it contained taurine, which was produced from animal tissue. I wasn’t so sure of this, so I did a bit of research (that is, as far as Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers can be considered research).

Apparently, there are many ways of producing taurine (3). Taurine is an amino acid, and is found, amongst other places, in your long intestine. It’s a main ingredient in bile. While 10 years ago, the common method was to extract it from animal tissue, since 1998, a new method has been discovered, synthetic production. I’m not sure if it’s still considered organic, but through synthetic production, taurine is created via a chemical reaction, rather than scraped from animals livers.

Most energy drinks nowadays use synthetic production of taurine in their beverages. Red Bull does, Monster does, and as far as I looked, I couldn’t find an example of a manufacturer that used non-vegetarian taurine. However, interestingly enough, it hasn’t yet been proved that taurine actually gives energy. So why everyone seems to use it, I’m not quite sure. I did, however, go to Europe, and sampled a local energy drink called Burn. This drink contained no taurine, synthetic or non. And it tasted pretty much like monster. Energy drinks are fairly new to the beverage scene, within–I’d say the last 15 years or so. (I realize coffee’s been around much longer. It doesn’t count.) Coca-Cola had cocaine in it, too (hence the name), so perhaps at some point Taurine could be removed from energy drinks. On the other hand, it could be like MSG–in that, while people say it has certain effects on you, it’s not been proven, and it sure makes it delicious.

So I’m up in Vermont right now, and we went on a bike ride. At about the half way point, I decided to try a local drink, Moxie.
It’s a carbonated beverage, with a brownish colour similar to coke, root beer, etc. The taste, according to Gregg (who grew up in the area), is acquired, but I acquired it straight away. The ingredients are nothing out of the ordinary; carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, etc. The taste is different than you might expect from a soda, however. It’s like a cross between root beer and ginger ale. Here’s the thing; it’s not insanely sweet. This contributes to a lighter taste, while still delivering a healthy dose of sugar and caffiene. Should you ever come across a bottle, I would definitely reccomend it. You may not love it, but it’s a nice break from your average cola.

I’ve been very busy lately. Good stuff and bad has happened. Exciting, and mundane.I’ll start with the good. Debate season has started up again. I’ve got a tournament coming up in February. Unfortunately, it’s my birthday weekend. I wouldn’t go, but this tournament could qualify me for nationals, which would be really exciting. Plus, I’ve decided that, while important, my birthday is simply a date, and I want to debate (that rhymed!). So I’m going.I should be getting a new guitar soon. This is the one I want to get. It shall be awesome. Deans are, in my opinion, some of the most well built guitars. Well, a Gibson Les Paul would be nice, but that’s not happening any time soon. The bad–my good friend Chet died, after a long fight with cancer. He went off chemo about 2 weeks before he died, yesterday. I think I’ve been dealing with it well, and funeral happenings are set to take place a week from yesterday. That is, I think, all that’s been truly shitty recently. I’ll try to go eat some more good food, since my readers seem to like those reviews (isn’t it exciting! I actually have readers!).I’m getting tired, so I’m heading off to bed now (mother would be proud), but I’m going to try to start blogging more over the coming weeks. Sometimes it feels good just to write shit out, even if I only get about 200 hits in 3 months. Take care! -Jake