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Month: August 2014

Going to Dubai? You May Want To Leave the Piercings Behind

Planning a vacation to Dubai? If so, you’ll want to remove any piercings on your body that make you look less than human.

Authorities at Dubai International Airport put a German national, named as Rolf Buchholz, back on a flight to where he had come from, preventing him from entering the country. According to a report in Emarat Al Youm, Rolf was sent back to Turkey.

Sources quoted in the report said the man was covered in piercings, holes in his faces and also had two ‘horns’ protruding from his forehead.

People at Dubai International Airport were horrified by his appearance, the report stated.

The man was reportedly coming to Dubai to make an appearance at a night club show which was to have strangest people in the world on display.

Rolf was attending as the person with the most number of holes in the face, ears and other parts of the body – a total of 453.
According to media reports, Rolf is a computer programmer who has had extensive plastic surgery to get this look.

Social media was rife speculation linking Rolf to black magic and Satanists. Rolf was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records in 2012 as the world’s most pierced man.

And in case you were wondering what 453 piercings look like, behold.

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I’m sure his mother loves him.

It Really Is Harder for Women to Lose Weight

The Washington Post looks at why it really is harder for women to lose weight.

Some of the differences stem from biology; other differences are behavioral.But the information that researchers are unearthing about the differences in the way that men and women lose weight inspires hope that the next generation of weight-loss advice will be more tailored and effective than the generic tips that have gotten Americans no closer to sliding into their dream jeans. (More than a quarter of Americans are obese, according to a May Gallup poll, a number that has been ticking upward for years). Although experts have long insisted that losing weight is simply a matter of burning more calories than you consume, they now say that it’s much more complicated than that.

How much weight we lose is really not just about calories in and calories burned. Much of what we think about food and how our bodies use the food we eat is attributed to what’s going on in our heads.

Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian and cauthor of “S.A.S.S. Yourself Slim,” says she has seen many women gain weight as soon as they get into a relationship with men because they start eating as much and as often as their male partners. “That turns out to be too much,” she says.

And then there’s the question of what drives men and women to eat: hunger for food, or some more profound craving. A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition established that women are more commonly emotional eaters than men.

And some emotional eaters, in an effort to feel better, are prone to reach for foods that will ignite the reward center of the brain, which tend to be the sugary, fatty, salty, hyper-palatable foods that can lead to weight gain, says Pamela Peeke, author of the “The Hunger Fix: The Three-Stage Detox and Recovery Plan for Overeating and Food Addiction.”

Häagen-Dazs at 2 AM? Sign me up.

In addition to all the normal things people do to lose weight, one thing many should examine is the mental stressors that are present in their lives. Clear those up, and weight loss could become much easier.

Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carriers Don’t Last Forever

An interesting story of the dismantling of the USS Enterprise, in service from 1962 thru 2012.

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The Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, protected the nation’s interests from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to the war in Afghanistan in 2012. Now retired from service, it sits in Pier 2 at Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.

She’s seen a lot of action.

Highest-Ranking Officer Killed in Combat Since Vietnam, President and VP AWOL

This is really unfortunate, and typical of the attitude in the current administration.

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When two-star Major General Harold Greene, the highest-ranking officer killed in combat since Vietnam, was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, neither the President nor the Vice President were present. 

Both Nixon and Bush 43 attended funerals of similar military men in 1970 and 2001 respectively. This time, Obama was golfing, and Biden was vacationing in the Hamptons. One of them should have shown up to this funeral.

More

Obama Resists Latest Fad

This is where we are today in America.

Yeah, that’s Jeff Bezos. The individual who brought us amazon.com, or the guy better known as “The Most Hated Man in Book Publishing“.

If you’ve been in a cave, this is The Ice Bucket Challenge. I think these fads are dumb. We’re like a bunch of kindergarten kids. Hey, watch me as I dump a bucket of ice water on my head, then you can laugh at me, and then I’ll challenge you to do it too. I’m not against donations to the ALS, but couldn’t we find another way?

I can’t believe how grateful I am that the President of the United States resisted this stupidity. Frankly, I’m surprised he did. There is probably some poll out there that says this would give him a bump.

New App Shuts Down Kids’ Smartphones

This is great.

Parents in the Tri-State and around the world can relate: Trying to reach your teen by phone, only to get ignored. One frustrated mom decided to do something about it.

As CBS 2’s Alice Gainer reports, Sharon Standifird, was livid the day she called and texted her teenagers and they didn’t respond.Once she knew they were safe but ignoring her calls, she got an idea, Gainer reported.

“We need to develop an app that just shuts their phone completely down and they can’t even use it,” Standifird said. “And I started — literally just started researching how to develop an app.”So after months of design and working with developers, “Ignore No more” was born.

With one tap, a list of only parent-selected contacts come up. The child can call, get the password and unlock the phone.“Bradley needs to call me because I’m the person that has the unlock password,” Standifird said.

“It takes away texting, it takes away the gaming, it takes away calling their friends. The child will always be able to call 911,” said Standifird.

In my house, the only way to get the teenagers’ attention is to shut off the WiFi. Once it’s down, they come running. This app is a must-have for me, since I can only control my own WiFi right now. Too bad the app is only available for Android. We’re an Apple iPhone house. I’m sure it will just be a matter of time before an iOS app is available.

Back

I’m coming back.

Some of you may know that this blog used to be a pretty active place. It started nearly 10 years ago. Just before the 2004 presidential election I started PunditGuy. It was great then. There were few political blogs in those days. It was relatively easy to get noticed. Most of the other bloggers were happy to link to PunditGuy, and many took my posts. It didn’t take long to get a following, and in just a few months, I had over one thousand unique visitors reading me per week. Talk about fun! I loved blogging. It became my hobby, and I put a lot of time into it. For the next few years, I blogged every day, got mentioned in the mainstream media, and had stories written about me in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. I had links into PunditGuy from MSNBC, CNN, and many well-read blogs. More and more people read what I had to say. It was really great.

Then, something changed.

I started getting bored. I missed a few days, then a week, then a month of blogging. I stopped caring. I was distracted. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I became disinterested in it all. Little did I know then, but I was entering into a moment of my life that would occupy my mind for the next 7 years.

Yep, 7 years.

I’ve been struggling with a myriad of issues. Family problems. Drug addiction in an immediate family member. Mental issues. Anxiety. Confidence issues. Professional issues. You name it, I have probably been through it in some form or another over the past few years. It’s been exhausting. Doctors. Tests. Treatment centers. Counseling. Pressure. Stress.

Fear.

All of this zapped every ounce of creative energy from me. Oh, on the outside I looked like I was coping. Inside, I was a wreck. I just didn’t want to do a lot of stuff. I didn’t want to deal with a lot of stuff either.

I lost a solid 7 years of my life.

Recently, through the help of professionals, and confidants, I’ve been looking into these things and realizing their cause. They aren’t simple things. They are lifelong things. But I’ve learned some interesting information, and I’ve gathered some tools to address them on a daily basis.

A friend asked me recently to recall a time when I was really happy, and interested, and “in the zone” with things in my life. I thought about that, and the truth is, I was in that place when I was writing on this blog every day. I felt good. I really loved meeting other bloggers, interacting with readers, and keeping up to date with all that was going on in the world of current events and politics. I really had a lot of fun. My friend asked me why I don’t go back to that. I immediately had a bunch of excuses. I didn’t have the time. There were too many political blogs now. Politics is exhausting. Blah Blah Blah. My friend then said something interesting. He said, “Who cares? You were having fun. You were doing something you liked. You were keeping busy. Your mind was focusing on things that you were really interested in. Go back and start over. Do it again, and light those areas of your brain back up!”. 

Wow. I had never thought about that. I never thought that just the exercise of writing on this blog again could bring back some of those memories in my brain. Those fun times. A time when I was a little less troubled, and a lot less narcissistic.

So, that’s why I’m back. I don’t care if I get a thousand readers again. I don’t care if I get mentioned in mainstream media. I don’t have to be famous. I don’t have to worry about trying to get linked by a big-time blogger. I don’t have to look at my blog stats every few minutes. I just have to write, about everything. Not just politics, but anything I want. The act itself is rejuvenating. It’s what I like to do. It’s what brings me a bit of happiness.

I’m going to be in this place. I’m going to spend time writing again. And it will be fun.

So, welcome back if you’re reading this and you used to read me here. If this is new to you, then, I’ll just say, “Hi”, and “Thanks for reading”, like I used to say, every day, years ago, right here on PunditGuy.