Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Sleep and Obesity, Rich Ginger, and Narnia…

Whew! With any luck, and a bit of bed rest, you’ve had time to recover from the excitement that was the ceremonial naming of Sportsperson of the Year…Relax, this time, nothing as colossal as that happens. But read anyway…

Time recently named Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg “Person of the Year” and received a lot more attention than the Bohunk with such an award. Zuckerberg created the largest social networking medium in the history of the world. Nearly 500 million people around the globe log in to update their status and stalk each other’s pictures, all on the most complex and integrated network on the face of the earth. Facebookers represent one-twelfth of the world population, and though one may not recognize it, Facebook is a world phenomena. If Facebook’s users were a country, it would be the third largest in the world, only behind China and India. And though users may not realize it, but 70% of Facebook users live outside the US. Zuckerberg definitely reaped the benefits of his network’s popularity; his estimated net worth is around $6.9 Billion (that’s a B, you’ll be sure to note) at the ripe old age of 26. Not bad for a guy with red hair and partial color blindness (he can see blue the best, which is why it’s Facebook’s dominant color) and a Harvard drop-out. Congrats on being named Person of the Year, Mark….Perhaps one day you’ll earn the more prestigious award of the same name given by the Bohunk….Don’t lose sleep waiting for it, either….


Creepy soulless ginger Mark Zuckerberg…

Techies who claim to know such things have stuck the proverbial fork in Microsoft for being almost completely absent in the tablet market. While Apple has hit it big with its iPad, and mobile phone manufacturers like Samsung have introduced their own tablets, none run using Microsoft operating systems and many have adopted the Android OS because Microsoft has no viable contribution to the emerging market. Intel is also lacking a platform for a tablet, though many claim that Microsoft’s failure is more alarming because the company had always been well ahead of the competition in anticipating market trends. With new tablets soon to emerge, including efforts by Google, Samsung, and a new iPad 2 by Apple, many manufacturers are making a second model before Microsoft has even made one platform. Some have claimed it will the end of Microsoft; the Bohunk says, “No, sir, not quite so very fast.” Microsoft is too smart and too big to go quietly. Tablets are still a relatively TINY market compared to notebooks, laptops and even desktops, and Microsoft still dominates in those areas.

Would you like to be a more attractive person? Two separate studies have contributed some obvious but reaffirming information. Young adults, ages 19-30, who are active and at a healthy weight level can avoid gaining the average weight gain of their mid to late 30’s by staying active and staying below obesity rates. The study showed that people who were obese as a young adult became morbidly obese in their thirties, while those at a healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) only gained negligible weight even into their forties. The study suggests that as little as 4% of obese people at the age of 25 will ever return to a healthy weight over the course of the rest of their life. In the second study, researchers found that people who get at least 8 hours of sleep and do so at regular intervals (go to bed and wake at roughly the same time) have a remarkably better look. The study followed young adults and also parents to monitor the effect their sleeping habits had on their appearance and personality. People who stayed up past 11 o’clock and slept in past 10 am were irritable, grouchy and looked like Hell, (trust me, those pictures were alarming) while those who slept regular hours, usually 10 pm to 8 am, looked better and had a more positive outlook. One researcher claimed regular sleeping patterns might even make a person age much more slowly. So the next time you pull an all-nighter, think, perhaps, of the future and GO TO BED!


Sofia Vergara: She must sleep constantly. Congrats on the Golden Globes
nomination, Fox.

A suicide bomber killed 39 worshippers in Iran yesterday at a mourning ceremony outside a mosque in southeastern Iran. The Iranian government quickly announced that it believes the US is responsible for the attack, citing the use of advanced techonolgy and intelligence. The mourning ceremony was in honor of the death of Imam Hussein, supposedly the descendent of the Muslim prophet Muhammad who lived in the 7th century. Most of the worshippers were Shiite, and no claims for responsibility for the attack have been heard, though many suspect that the large Sunni population in the area could also be suspected. The US government, at the time of my hitting “Publish” on this baby, had made no comment to confirm or deny their involvement in the incident.

For a quick review of the recently Bohunk-ed Candide by Voltaire, I offer this book as the best read ever in a span of 137 pages. The story of a young man, Candide, who by trial and strife is forced from his home and to cross the globe in search of his love. His teacher, the philosopher Pangloss, tells him that his home of Westphalia is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide and Pangloss live by the mantra of “everything is for the best” though they are hanged, kicked from their country, whipped, flogged, abandoned, robbed, burned and beaten. Voltaire repeatedly mentions some of his own sneering critics in the book, labeling them liars and thieves. The adventures of Candide are hilarious and cruel and equally so. It is an absurdist work, and contrary to what many claim, it is not an examination of the origin of evil or the immorality of mankind. Instead, Voltaire looks at how the individual reacts to injustice; each character or member of Candide’s band has fair claim to being the most mistreated by the world, but Candide and Pangloss seem to bear all with a positive heart and learn to live life for the very admirable reason of living. You can get it at Barnes and Noble here.

 
Jesus, shoot, I mean Aslan, the most easily identifiable Christ allegory. 

The new Chronicles of Narnia flick is in theaters and is atop the Box Office earnings list. The Bohunk is quite interested in how many of the books will actually be made into the film. For those who have not finished all of the books, the series ends SPOILER ALERT DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE INTENTION OF READING THE BOOKS with all the children dying while battling an army of what C.S. Lewis allegorically represented extremists Islamic soldiers. Way back in the day, Lewis already was quite sure that Muslims would begin to start trouble in the new millennium. The dead kids are then brought to what Lewis presents as Heaven, which is a version of Narnia ruled over by Jesus, I mean Aslan. The king of the Muslims is also there, however, and Jesus, dang it, sorry, I mean Aslan, says that the Supreme Being doesn’t care what religion you follow as long as you have a true and noble heart. Can the American public accept this type of ending? They would never accept a Muslim in “Heaven” (ruled, again, by a talking lion) let alone all the hero children being slain in a violent but bloodless (look at their swords in the last two movies; no blood, even when they stab an enemy combatant) battle scene.

In the on-going case of Alberto Contador and the Tainted Spanish Beef case, WADA officials have leveled quite frankly that the minute amount of clenbuterol found in Contador’s positive test July 21st is enough to be banned and punished for. Any amount of the drug found is reason enough to suspend Contador, the two-or-three time champ of the Tour de France. Contador’s blood revealed just 50 picograms (that is less than ‘trace’ amounts in other blood tests) that would probably not been found in most laboratories in the world. That would be written numerically as 0.00000000050 grams. The WADA spokesperson charged with dealing with the Spanish Sports Agency in charge ruling on Contador’s case was quoted as saying, “Just because it’s small doesn’t mean it’s not doping.” Many experts believe Contador mistakenly used transfused blood that was contaminated during the Tour de Swiss. Plasticizers found in the blood sample also serve to confirm this suspicion. The Bohunk’s take: Congrats on your default 2010 win, Andy Schleck, and you won’t be race El Pistolero in the next two years….

Thanks for reading everyone, and sorry for the late post. Some serious technical difficulties. Enjoy Modern Family on ABC tonight!

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