So I was just chilling this morning, well fed and already exercised out, wondering what I should do today. I read this article during breakfast which linked to this article, and the thought hit me, why not watch a bunch of these and then write about them? So I added a bunch to my Instant Queue and started to open my mind*.

*Okay, well not really. I’m very aware that all documentaries are slanted and biased, but there are things that you can gleam out of them.

Below are the docs, and a billion Wikipedia links. The titles link to Netflix, where I watched these.

Dirt! The Movie (2009)
Narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, this documentary goes over the idea that the dirt is a living organism that we aren’t taking really good care of. It really resounded with my desire for husbandry. I wanna take some of the things and use them in my life. Like if I get a house, I might look into getting a green roof, cultivated and gardening my land.

I do wish that the documentary went more in-depth with some of the science behind some of the things they explained, like Agroecology, which was just mentioned very quickly. And I would have liked a deeper look into the whole “Being in the dirt makes people happy. People love tending things” idea at the end (which I totally agree with, at least for me personally).

Fat Head (2009)
In this response (I guess) documentary to the hit Super Size Me, the main guy in this one decides to find out if he can eat fast food to lose weight.  He’s tried some different diets before: Vegetarian, which made him lose muscle weight, but fattened his belly; the Pritikin diet, which made his depressed both times he tried it; Fit for Life, which made him feel great until the sugar from the juicing ran out. His fast food diet though, seemed to work well. He lost more than 12 lbs in less than a month.

This was a long documentary, mostly because it seemed poorly paced. The pacing might have been due to the fact that there was just so much information given. I liked this one cause it gave a lot of science on what goes on when you eat fat vs carbs. It does seem a little heavy-handed in the government bashing, but what it says is true. And it’s super funny to see the old web browser that he uses.

Food Fight (2008)
As the day gets longer, I’m finding that I have less and less to say. Food Fight really talks about how the government and special interest groups are really out to just make more money, with little care for the finished product and the consumer. It focuses on this restaurant in Berkeley and how during the 60’s they kinda stumbled on serving dishes with local food that tastes like food should taste.

This was a well put together documentary and I liked they way the presented stuff. One of the things that really blew my mind is that apparently in lower-income parts of many major cities, there aren’t many supermarkets. Though the content did seem to be a little stale since, one of the places visited in this one was also featured in the Dirt! documentary.

King Corn (2007)
Two recently graduated dudes decided to take a year and grow an acre of corn and follow it there. Along the way they learn about farming’s past, how it changed and a lot about the food supply of Americans in general.

This was the most “fun” documentary that I watched today, also the one that was the least science-y and the one that was the most balanced. The movie is lighthearted until they find out that a good deal of the corn grown is put into meat (which is really bad for cows), and used to make corn syrup (which is really bad for humans). There’s a part where they make corn syrup, and you realize that it’s quite an involved process with tons of strange chemicals in it. And when they start talking about what’s going on with the cows being feed corn, I’m now probably going to only get grass feed beef.

I also recommend all these documentaries; I don’t recommend watching them all in the same day. Basically “Food Fight” and “Dirt!” boil down to taking care of our soils and getting the most out of our fruits and veggies. “King Corn” and “Fat Head” are what you put in your body.

I hope you enjoyed my Sunday as much as I did. Now it’s time for some Downton Abbey.

Overdramatic warning is still overdramatic, and still in effect (I talk about poop). 

So I realized that my last post kinda left my readers with no follow up nor a status update. And if you are some amazing reader who isn’t a friend on Facebook and has the magical power to not be tracked by website analytics, you might actually have thought I died.

I am not dead and I’m all better.

There is some clarification I want to make. My roommate’s girlfriend came up to me yesterday and said the words that always make me feel odd: “I read your blog today”. I mean, I totally write blog posts to be read. And I totally want to hear that you read my blog. But some how, in the mix between the Interwebs and IRL kinda feels off.

Anyway, my roommate’s girlfriend said something like “you pooped. Good job.” Her feedback (truly helpful and much wanted) made me aware that I didn’t paint a good enough word picture with the phrase “evacuate everything in my system”. Maybe if I added a few more modifier words like “violently.” “Explosively.” Maybe something like “liquified” to describe which one of the three physical states of matter my fecal matter was in. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t fun. I’m sorry if I misled you with the nonchalance of returning to lunch after doing so (I washed my hands really, really well).

Another point that I want to bring up that I’m afraid might have been missed what that I actually saw chewed up lettuce in the toilet bowl. I really needed to chew better.

So, Andrew, does this happen much to you? No. But why it happens is pretty unusual, at least in my experiences. This normally isn’t something that is water cooler sort of talk in the workplace. I’m just doing my part of spreading the word, cause you know, knowledge is power and stuff.

Allergies.

Yes, I get allergies so bad that I have diarrhea. At least that’s what I think. Cause it’s happened before. Or it’s what I think happened before. It get’s a little fuzzy but the logic’s there.

So allergies, they make your nose run. But have you ever had the snot run down the back of your throat instead of out of your nose? It’s called post-nasal drip and it’s a real thing. Due to post-nasal drip, I’ve had sore throats. I’ve had upset stomachs. It’s quite possible (and probable) that it’ll just keep spreading its reign of terror further as it marches down my intestinal track on some mucus warpath (I’m not overly dramatic at all…).

I also learned that if your intestines feel that there’s something really bad in them, they just say “Screw this, we’ll start over” and simply flush everything down the toilet. Hehe. Toilet. So being irritated by the mucus and such, provoked by my poor eating choices in the morning, and put over the edge by filling my stomach with cold food, my intestines did just that.

But now I’m all better.

This post probably won’t get graphic, but will discuss intimate details of the workings (or the current unworkings) of my body.

You’ve been warned. Also, I apologize if the warning is far harsher than is necessary. I don’t want any of  you gore hounds all excited to only be left wanting and disappointed.

It all started this morning. I woke up rather late and only had two rashers of bacon for breakfast. Not the best, but I was planning on going and getting some eggs from the taco place a block from the office. As you can tell by my use of the word “planning”, that I didn’t quite make it. Work was productive and distracting and I didn’t realized I was hungry till about 10:50. Which is a horrible time to realize you’re hungry. I ended up just roughing it out till lunch, and did pretty well. I wasn’t super grouchy, but still a little. I was quite excited about eating my food.

So I made my salad and started eating it. My stomach was all “Wait! What is this stuff? I’ll trust you, but I’m not super happy about it”. I know that eating a lot of cold salad can sometimes make your stomach a little upset as it gets stretched out and what ever stomachs do when they get a bunch of salad put in them, so I pressed through. About half way through the salad, my lower digestive track was all “Um… I know you’re busy and all, but I kinda need to go.” I figured I could always wash my hands and return to my lunch. So I sat down and managed to evacuate everything in my system. I thought it was a little weird, but washed my hands really well and went back to lunch.

After I finished off the rest of my salad, my stomach was still upset and things were all wambling down there so I decided that I should just take like an extra hour to let things settle. So I sent a text to my boss letting him know. Well, letting him know my stomach was upset and I was taking an extra long lunch to hopefully settle it down, nothing more than that.

30 minutes later, my stomach was still wambling (someone learned a new word today) and I had to go again. I proceeded to empty my previously thought emptied bowels. I did this 2 more times, with the last one having bits of my lunch from today in it. Which is surprising, and I realize that I need to chew a little better.

So if you were on Facebook today and happened to see that I was on, it’s not that I’m a slacker and checking at work or anything, it was that I was laying in bed trying to get warm (the house was like 50 at lunch).

Now it’s time for some comfort food and more “Never being more than 30 feet from the toilet”.

It’s been a while since I’ve written (one of these days I’ll write frequently enough that I don’t have to start each post with “it’s been awhile…”), and I thought I’d let you know what’s been going on.

And instead of letting you know what’s going on, I just thought I’d make a list of things that I’ve been liking and tell you a little about them.

1. Fitocracy – Fitocracy (regular link, or fancy affiliate link*) is this awesome social network that’s based on fitness. You track your workouts and activities and people comment on them and you comment on them. It’s really awesome for finding people who do the same things as you, and while you’re still separated by distance, you get to be encouraging and encouraged by people who like doing what you like doing.
2. Timehop – Timehop is this awesome (free) service that you just sign up for and they send you emails with what you did the year before on that day. I realize this isn’t for everyone, but I love it because A) I post awesome links regularly and it’s great to see them again, B) It’s fun to remember what was going on a year ago.
3. LostWinds  – LostWinds is an iPhone/iPad game that is quite fun, well done, and I picked it up for free (I guess now it’s like $3.99). It was a steal at free, and still quite a bit of fun for 4 bucks. Once I finish the first one, I’ll be totally picking up LostWinds 2.
4. The fifth (and sixth) season of Doctor Who – Man, they really kicked up their production with these seasons. Rarely are there times where it’s “campy” and some of the plots really make you think.
5. iPhone 5 – Yeah, I have one of these, and I’ve had it for over a month. The main differences between the 5 and the 4 I had are the screen size and the speed. I was one of those who hated the idea of having a bigger screen on my phone, but I’m surprised how nice it is. And it’s so much quicker than my 4 was.
6. Letterpress – Another iOS game. This one’s kinda like boggle, but the letters don’t have to be touching, and you fight over tiles. Oh and there’s not score attached to the letters, which means that longer words are worth more and it’s a great change from something like Words With Friends or something like that. I totally recommend that you go download it now and hit me up for a game (My Game Center username is cldar).
7. This article – Titled “The Island Where People Forget to Die”, it’s just a great read about these people who live to be really old.

That’s it for this post. 🙂

* The affiliate link really doesn’t do much for me. If I get ten people to sign up I get a month free of their paid subscription. I already pay for it, so it’s no real gain to mine. In fact, putting it there and then writing this about it is actually more work than it’s worth. So I’m going to stop.