Saturday, January 31, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
OK, Coke got me...
[UPDATE: Unfortunately, Coca-Cola Life was discontinued completely in 2020 as an underperforming brand. It is possible that the 2016 change in formula to reduce sugar content might have contributed its decline in sales.]
Coca-Cola Life could be a winner. I only found the new beverage by accident at a nearby Target. The odd color caught my attention, so I got a 2L bottle to try it out. It is a drink that about matches the taste of Coke, but having only 63% of the original caleries (90 vs. 143 calories of Coke Classic). They acheive this improvement by using cane sugar and Stevia instead of corn syrup. Some people claim cane sugar has a better taste than corn syrup. (I'm one of those people.)
I think the timing for this improvement is very important, as medical field is just now beginning to understand that sugar is the real culprit in heart disease. Even though there is still substantial sugar in Coca-Cola Life, there is less than Coke Classic. Not only that, Stevia has been showing promising results that suggest it might help lower blood pressure. (If someone is taking blood pressure medication, this may have unintentional compounding effects with their medication. Moderate risk of interaction between Stevia and a few mediations has been asserted.)
For myself, although I find the name a little awkward, I like Coca-Cola Life. It pretty much tastes like Coke Classic. There is a slight difference, but certainly much less difference seen from diet drinks. It certainly doesn't have the annoying aftertaste that I experience with every other sugar substitute. I'm on the lookout for more packaging options, such as those tiny cans that seem to popular these days.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Snowy day, ugh
Today is the first really bad snowy day for Eastern Massachusetts this winter (2014-2015). It's not the fun and somewhat enjoyable light flurry. The snow is the annoying wet kind. It pelts you almost as harshly as rain, and gets you almost as wet. The snow is also annoying because it really puts a damper on the weekend (today is Saturday). Although snow is just as annoying on weekdays, at least there is can be used as an excuse to work-from-home. On the weekend, you're just stuck at home. Ugh.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Accosted
My wife and I are at the grocery store. She just walked up to the ginger inbetween two older gentlemen looking for various other vegetables and things. One gentlemen almost immediately asks here for advice on how to pick good ginger. I can only presume he felt comfortable/secure in asking her because she is Chinese American. He thanked her and moved on with his fine pick of ginger.
Then immediately, the other gentlemen engaged her in a conversation about her heritage, Chinese language, etc. I didn't interfere because it was more adorable than anything.
We finally broke away with our fine pick of ginger.
Then immediately, the other gentlemen engaged her in a conversation about her heritage, Chinese language, etc. I didn't interfere because it was more adorable than anything.
We finally broke away with our fine pick of ginger.
Friday, January 16, 2015
It finally happened
Its Trouble blog is 13 years old. It had one major facelift in 2002, just before Blogger.com's buyout by Google (2003). Its Trouble has had a subtle renaming; I had to remove the apostrophe in "It's" because it was bad for linking. As a result, the name looks fine, but has a drastic typo that should bug me more than it really does.
The 2002 facelift for Its Trouble was created by Jennifer Szabo, who has since renounced all things webdesign. The design of pretty cool for its time. It was certainly unique, with the curled parchment theme. I had my website loaded up with services, custom pages, and moderately useful functionality. Everything worked nicely. However, as time went on, stuff stopped working as old services went away and external websites died off. For example, there are a lot of really good comments on my early posts which are lost due to the original comment service going away. I was not able to maintain the overall website because Google shutdown FTP access for blogspot accounts, only allowing me to edit my home page. As a result, I have several dead pages which I will never be able to change or remove. Images, services, and weblinks stopped working on these pages many years ago. Its Trouble has been on a slow decline in terms of presentation, all the while having new content with 1000+ posts.
Well, I finally bit the bullet. I embraced the new Blogger.com stuff and updated my website with the biggest facelift in over a decade. The problem with Blogger.com is that everything is canned. You have only so many layout styles, and only so many templates, and only so many useful widgets. It is way more limited than Wordpress.
Even still, the new design is cleaner. There's noting broken. Its functionality is limited to the bare basics allowed by Blogger.com. I was able to keep a similar color scheme and background image as before. It's not half bad. I'm fairly happy with the result, if not a little disappointed that I cannot do much more.
Use in good health!
Well, I finally bit the bullet. I embraced the new Blogger.com stuff and updated my website with the biggest facelift in over a decade. The problem with Blogger.com is that everything is canned. You have only so many layout styles, and only so many templates, and only so many useful widgets. It is way more limited than Wordpress.
Even still, the new design is cleaner. There's noting broken. Its functionality is limited to the bare basics allowed by Blogger.com. I was able to keep a similar color scheme and background image as before. It's not half bad. I'm fairly happy with the result, if not a little disappointed that I cannot do much more.
Use in good health!
