Week of 2007-01-06 17:00 to 2007-01-13 16:59

From the BBC: “Going ape”,

What if humans cast aside processed foods and saturated fats in favour of the sort of diet our ape-like ancestors once ate? Nine volunteers gave it a go… and were glad they did so.

Being locked in the zoo and offered bananas to eat is the kind of extreme diet scenario to wake some of us screaming in the night. But that was how a group of volunteers opted to try to cut their blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

This is a very cool idea — makes me want to try it out. What they ate:

• 5kgs or 2,300 calories of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey
• On a 3-day rota, typically:
• Broccoli, carrots, radishes
• Cabbage, tomatoes, watercress
• Strawberries, apricots, bananas
• Mangoes, melons, figs, plums
• Satsumas, hazelnuts

Davids could be next MLS superstar: “Edgar Davids is another big-name midfielder who could be playing football in the United States soon.”

(Via FOXSports.com News for FOX SOCCER.)

Rest in peace, Robert Anton Wilson.

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”

“The shock of discovering that most of the power in the world is held by ignorant and greedy people can really bum you out at first; but after you’ve lived with it a few decades, it becomes, like cancer and other plagues, just another problem that we will solve eventually if we keep working at it.”

“I think I got off on the wrong planet. Beam me up Scotty, there’s no rational life here.”

“… there are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven’t noticed already.”

Fnord.

Looks like it’s official. $250 million official. I’m looking forward to seeing if the hoped-for New Pele Effect actually happens.

Beckham to leave Real Madrid for L.A. Galaxy: “David Beckham will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season to join the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer in a five-year deal believed to be one of the richest in sports history.”

(Via Los Angeles Times - Sports.)

The author answers the question “Why do I Write?” on his website:

I was once asked this question by a newspaper. It is a very hard question to answer - once you have put aside things like ‘earning a living’ and ‘you make your own hours’ or in my case ‘half hours’. Then I thought a little further - about why I choose to do this and came up with the following .

It is in the nature of every child to play - unless hungy or sick - and when I was young I used to like playing farms - setting out the toy animals, ducks on a round mirror pond, and the farmer and his wife, maybe one day face to face, the next day with their backs to each other. Making up a world, moving people within it. Even commentating aloud about what the various people or animals are doing, as they do it.

Writing is perhaps the grown up version of this activity - a way of trying to make sense of a difficult world.