I had great success with Weight Watchers last winter. I lost 30 pounds in a few months. But I last Spring I quit counting my points thinking I could just live off what I learned and eat better. It didn’t work very well. After hitting 225, I plateaued and have slowly gained back about five pounds.

Now, I have renewed interest in counting my points. I was trying to remember how many points I was allowed. I finally found a formula. Yeah, I know. Weight Watchers formulas are patented and I’m probably going to jail for life for publishing it. Then again, I like to live dangerously.

The food-point-value formula is widely available on the ‘net along with oodles of sites that offer pages and pages of food value tables. I’ve only found one site with the point allowance formula. So, I’m linking to that page and republishing it here to help folks like me have more success when they google it.

Based on a series of questions, you add up points to get your daily allowed point total. And don’t forget, no matter what your daily allowance is, everyone is allowed 35 “flex” points per week. You could look at this as an extra 5 points per day, but it’s better to take this weekly so you can have lighter days and heavier days throughout the week.

1. Gender: Female (2) (Add 10 points if you’re nursing), Male (8)
2. Age: 17-26 (4), 27-37 (3), 38-47 (2), 48-58 (1), over 58 (0)
3. Weight: Add the first two digits of your weight in pounds (ex. 199 lbs. = 19 points)
4. Height: Under 5’1″ (0), 5’1″-5’10” (1), Over 5’10” (2)
5. Activity Level: How do you spend your day? Mostly Sitting (0), Occasionally Sitting (2), Mostly Walking/Standing (4), Physical Labor (6)

For me, it looks like this:

So now I can start counting again and we’ll see if I can get down to 200 by Thanksgiving. That gives me three months to drop about 30 pounds. I think I can I think I can I think I can…

In case you’ve been living under a rock or only watching “MSM” coverage (these two are synonymous), Russia has thumbed its nose at the world to an even greater extent in the last week. Russia has now signed two cease fire agreements, both of which stipulate an end of aggression in Georgia and the latter of the two requires Russian’s to pull back to their August 6th positions. They have done neither.

In this clip, a Georgian reporter is making a live report for the outskits of  Gori (where Russian troops are razing the entire town and killing anyone who has not yet evacuated). In the midst of her report, she is struck in the arm by a sniper’s bullet, presumably Russian. From what I can find out, it’s an injury she’ll recover from, but the video is shocking none-the-less.

This is the third video I’ve seen in the last two days in which Russian troops open fire on press teams approaching the city. Remember what I said about the invasion and video coverage? The Russian army does not want any media within 100 miles lest the world get a glimps of atrocities they are perpetrating.

This news article confirms the location and identy of the reporter.

Okay, I need a sanity check here. First, watch this YouTube clip of a Heinz commercial currently running in the UK.

Do you get it? Mayo with a New York deli flavor. Mom is making the sandwiches with New York deli flavor, so Mom “appears” as a rough, tough, stereotypical New York butcher. Get it? Ha haaa… Clever-ish. And the kiss at the end comes off as slightly comical, with some shock value.

Enter my friends at the American Family Association. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I respect what those guys do. I appreciate the work. I need someone else to keep an eye on things that I don’t have time or opportunity to watch. Without the AFA, I would not have known about Ford pumping money into “gay pride” parades and running explicit ads in “gay” magazines because, well, I don’t go to those parades nor do I read those magazines. I don’t have eyes or ears in the advertising market to let me know when someone’s putting money toward that kind of thing.

But there are times, when the folks at the AFA really puzzle me. Did anyone watch that commercial and jump to the conclusion that Heinz was promoting gay marriage? I could be wrong, but I don’t think gay marriage is even a hot button issue in Britain. It’s not legal and I haven’t heard anything about a push to legalize it.

You can read the AFA’s alert here.

Is it just me or is the AFA way off the mark on this one? I mean, seriously. Who looks at that and thinks, “Oh, that big, burly butcher with the New York accent must be the homosexual lover of that wimpy little Brit. And look! They have kids!” I can just imagine what that big, burly butcher would say if you told him that, but I can’t print it here because my blog is rated PG.

It’s that time of year, boys and girls, when we gather around the charcoal pit, turn on the flood lights, flush two extra times, and leave our SUVs idling in the driveway. Yes, June 12th is Carbon Belch Day!

In response to the idiocy of the “carbon footprint” nazis, we, the intelligent few who recognize a poorly conceived conspiracy theory when we see it, are celebrating today by producing as much “climate changing” carbon dioxide as we can in a single day.

Read all about it at the official Carbon Belch Day website. You can even calculate your own personal belch. (Tammy and I combined will belch approximately 145 pounds of carbon today.)

And in honor of this great celebration, last night Katie helped me make a Carbon Belch Day video. Thanks, Katie!

And please don’t think that Carbon Belch Day in any way besmirches my parents’ wedding anniversary, which is also June 12th. Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Surely you’re not serious!! Four years?!

It was June 9, 2004. I’d spent a week in a Microsoft training class with nothing else to do but read other people’s blogs (most notably, “cockeyed.com” and “I Awoke in Britannia”). I was amazed at the creativity, but still couldn’t help think, “I could so do that.”

So I did. I signed up for a free account on blogger.com. For months I had scoffed at the idea of blogging. As I wrote in my first post:

“[W]elcome to the 21st century, where entertainment has become as trite as reading someone else’s diary.”

You might say I was a cynic. That’s exactly why, when I was asked for a title for my blog, I typed, “Surely You’re Not Serious.” No one would believe that I had a blog.

This year, I’ve got a couple of goals for SYNS. I’d like to start adding an audio or maybe even video feed in which I read a few choice posts to give them the voice they deserve. I also hope to redecorate. I’ll stick with the 40’s advertising line art, but with a new design and color scheme. After all, this one’s nearly four years old!

So here’s to you, faithful readers, and here’s to four more years!

I blame it on the non-conformist within me. I’ve never liked Starbucks. Their just too trendy. Too snobby. (Are “small”, “medium”, and “large” beneath your “grande” dignity?) Besides, I really do hate the taste and smell of coffee.

Still, I have to chuckle at the latest media scandal surrounding the burnt-bean-juice vendor. For the third time in the company’s 37 year history, they’re redesigning their logo. The original logo “gave the impression of an authentic 15th century European woodcut” and featured a “”twin-tailed siren” (according to wikipedia). In the original logo, the siren’s breast and navel were exposed, again, much like the European art on which it was based. Through the years their java girl has become increasingly modest. I think you you can guess where this is going.

The new Starbucks logo is a throwback to their original, except that the new version obscures the nipples. Still, the ink was barely dry before the boycotts began. Several groups are decrying the artwork as obscene.

“[The logo] has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute … The company might as well call themselves Slutbucks.”

(Heh heh… Slutbucks…) Seriously though. It’s a mermaid, people! Mermaids don’t even have legs and unless your only exposure to mermaids has been the Disney variety, you aught to know that mermaids prefer to air out their mommy parts. Besides we’re not talking about high definition boobage. It’s a woodcut for goodness sake. You can get more titillation from your favorite PG-13 stupid-teen move.

Is it any wonder that the world has a disparaging view of “puritanical” Christians? *sigh* Just drink your devil bean juice and shut up, okay?

Clicky for the news article with all the logo goodness, new and old.

Regardless of my views on the origin of the Universe, Darwin has his place.

According to this snopes article, some teens have figured out that drinking bleach will keep you from contracting AIDS. I say, you can bleach the AIDS away and bleach the gene pool at the same time. Bonus!

Per the article, a capful of bleach with not save you from AIDS. However, I propose that a gallon of bleach will absolutely prevent the dreaded disease… by killing you before you have the chance to catch it.

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, you already reviewed two of the three Bournes! You must be completely out of ideas. Now you’re just retreading old content just like Hollywood.”

Well, I never… In fact, this is completely new stuff. Except for the two thirds that I’ve said before. So… nuh huh!

Watching the Pirates trilogy got me in the trilogy mood. (If you haven’t read that review, please do. There’s more retread in that post concerning how trilogies generally work.) As I said before, the Pirates trilogy fell into the trap where episode three is too complicated and contrived trying to tie up all the loose ends. Let’s see how Bourne three does. WARNING: Spoilers appear below.

In Identity we are introduced to Jason Bourne. Poor guy has amnesia, doesn’t know who he is, why he is so adept at kicking butt, or why so many people are availing their butts for him to kick. He hooks up with Trippy German Chick who reluctantly helps him learn more about his past. We learn that Jason was an assassin working for a secret CIA program called Treadstone. The guy running Treadstone is dripping with super-evil-Hollywood-hates-government-guys ickiness. Clearly the bad guy. His boss is slightly less icky and tells him to “take care of the problem” that Bourne represents. Of course, Bourne ends up doing all the care taking and super-icky CIA guy ends up dead. Less-icky CIA guy covers up the mess and shuts down Treadstone. Jason and Trippy-German-Chick live happily ever after. Everybody wins.

I absolutely loved this movie. The action, the acting, the script, everything. I had no complaints about and it earned a very rare and coveted five grin rating.

Now for episode two. Supremacy finds Jason and Trippy German Chick living the good life in rural India where out of nowhere somebody comes to kill them. Trippy German Chick takes a bullet intended for Bourne. Now, if you’ve seen Braveheart, you know that if they kill the girl in the first half hour, there’s going to be some serious retribution. Bourne does not disappoint.

Remember good ol’ Less Icky CIA guy? Turns out he’s more icky than we thought. (Insert huge gasp of sarcastic non-surprise.) Bourne assumes that Treadstone is back in action. Insert Non-Icky CIA Chick who fights against the red tape and uncovers Treadstone. Now More Icky CIA Guy sets a record for how many different ways you can say, “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.” This time it turns out Treadstone is not the bad guy per se. Instead, Now More Icky CIA Guy himself has his hands dirty with Russian mafia and he used Bourne to do a hit for the Russkies. Now the Russkies decide to “taken care of the problem” just in case Bourne gets his memory back and exposes their mafianess.

Bourne exposes Now More Icky CIA Guy who takes the coward’s way out (i.e. .32 caliber lobotomy). The Russkies get arrested by the Russian police. (But we all know that didn’t last. C’mon. Russian mafia in a Russian jail? Get real.) And Non-Icky CIA Chick and Bourne have an intimate phone call before Jason disappears. Everybody wins.

Supremacy was a perfect sequel. It was a little bit better than Identity in every way. So naturally, it also earned five grins.

So we’ve come down to it. Will episode three work? Episode two didn’t really leave you hanging on anything, so there’s no contrived lose ends to wrap up… or are there?

I really liked how episode three picked up within minutes of the end of episode two. Bourne has the same injuries and is on the same street that we saw him on as the credits rolled on Supremacy. (Thus reinforcing my opinion that you really get the most out of series movies when you watch them in order within days of each other.) So, if Treadstone is truly dead, both bad CIA guys are gone, the Russkies are in jail, and Bourne is walking free, why are we here? Well. Wouldn’t you know there still people intent on killing Jason Bourne. A pesky newspaper guy has dug deeper than he was supposed to and publishes some stuff about Bourne. Bigger Ickier CIA Boss is really mad about it. Non-Icky CIA Chick is in big trouble for letting Bourne go. Now it’s her job to find him again (and “take care of the problem”) before he and Pesky Newspaper Guy meet up and publish even more stuff not suitable for public consumption. Here’s were things start to stray away from the previous episodes.

We see the CIA machine from the inside, agents appearing out of nowhere, computer wizes hacking into mall surveillance cameras, and Even Ickier CIA Guy ordering CIA Killer to “take ’em out!” It seems much less cloak-and-dagger and much more all-out-war. Non-Icky CIA Chick is as taken aback as we are. When she objects, she gets (surprise surprise) “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.” Turns out Treadstone is now reborn as Blackbriar and Pesky Newspaper Guy has found someone within Blackbriar willing to talk about it. Pesky Newspaper Guy is “dealt with” but Bourne gets away.

Now we’re basically back where we started in episode one. Bourne knows who he is this time, sort of but not really. Now he’s looking for the guy who programmed him. The CIA secret program is trying to kill him. A girl gets involved and has to live on the run. It’s all too familiar.

Still, the acting is brilliant. The action is amazing. The plot is… pretty good, if a little more predictable now that we know the story. Ultimatum ends feeling a bit like a remake rather than a sequel. It still manages to come off as a bit contrived. For that, I’m going to have to dock a couple of grins.

Does Bourne fall victim to the trilogy pitfalls? It’s not a story in three acts (you don’t have a downer act two), so it’s a continually building story. That opens it up for the should have left it alone pitfall (a la Back to the Future, Highlander, and Lethal Weapon). Episode two was better than episode one, but episode three was a bit shaky. I prefer to look at it this way. The first two were off the chart. They got five grins for Pete’s sake! There’s no six grin rating. You can’t beat ’em. When you’ve set the bar as high as it can go, it can only get worse. I don’t fault Ultimatum for not maintaining nearly unattainable awesomeness. The Bourne trilogy is just a casualty of it’s own success.

I caught a teaser on GMA this morning about yet another twenty-something teacher getting married to his teen aged student. Robin Roberts posed, “What has caused this alarming trend?”

I didn’t see their story (I did find it on their website), but I had an answer for Robin on the spot. (Imagine that! I have an opinion on the matter. That never happens.</sarcasm>)

I have a favorite quote from Ronald Reagan that I’ve mentioned before. “What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces.” The Gipper was talking about communism, but the statement holds true for almost anything.

Let’s look at the previous generation in this case. In the 60’s and 70’s, the sexual revolution taught that sex is good and love is free. That generation chided their parents for “repressing” our “natural” sexuality. They believed that children should be taught about sex as early as possible and taught that it’s a beautiful thing that should be expressed and experienced freely. (See novels like “Brave New World” were “sex games” are part of elementary education and abortions are as common as flu shots.)

When the youth of the 60’s and 70’s came of age in the 80’s and 90’s, they became the teachers and policy makers. They brought their ideals with them and taught them to the youth of the 80’s and 90’s. My generation was indoctrinated. We were taught that sex is good so enjoy it. “Embrace your sexuality.” “We can’t stop you from having sex, so we’re going to teach you to have sex safely.” (What a crock!)

Now, the youth of the 80’s and 90’s are the teachers and policy makers of today. The 27-year-old teacher who was raised in this post-hippy, free-love culture is preprogrammed to think that sex is natural and good and should not be hindered. It’s a very short leap from that preprogramming to “Sex is good and natural so I should not hinder my 16-year-old, hormone-crazed student’s sexual awakening. Nor should I hinder my own sexual growth. So sex between me (the adult teacher) and my student is good and natural.”

We have raised a generation (my generation) of people with no moral emergency brakes. A 16-year-old doesn’t have moral emergency brakes yet. Kids are going to be infatuated with a teacher. That’s natural. But, said teacher should be smart enough, and have enough of a moral compass to stay miles away from such a situation. As long as the teacher keeps things professional and is mindful of not giving any shred of credibility to the crush, the crush will fade and the kid will learn to identify a crush for what it is.

But this current crop of twenty-somethings never learned the moral background they need to be the grown up and do the grown up thing. This “alarming trend” should be no surprise. We are reaping what our teachers sowed. God help us when the coming generating takes the reins.

Interestingly, according to the article, this most recent case takes place in Texas. The 27-year-old, male teacher was arrested despite the fact that the girl’s parents signed a consent form allowing them to file for a marriage license. The teacher faces up to 20 years in prison for having sex with a student. See, we don’t put up with that kind of hanky-panky in Texas. We know that, “That boy ain’t right!”

While I’m no longer paying for WeightWatchers, I’m still employing what I learned. I’m not “on a diet” but rather I have “changed my diet.” Last week I broke the 230 (227.8) mark for the first time in seven years. Then I got cocky and this week I’m back on the wrong side of that mark by a quarter pound.

This weekend the weather in DFW was gorgeous and Tammy and I busted out the bicycles. We stuck to pavement, but still got a great “break-in” workout of 15 miles (followed by some sadistic weight lifting).

This leads me to this week’s white board quip on dieting.

I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people.
– Steven Wright