This time I'm being proactive and emailing the new owner and hoping they will sell it to me since they don't appear to be using it. Long shot, but maybe they'll respond.

If not, maybe I'll wait and try for .com in another year, or see if I can find something else. UrbanScrawl is not a network of sites, so for purely anal reasons I don't want to make this site active again with the .net domain. Stupid maybe, but there ya go.

If the .com domain owner happens to stop by, pleeeeease be nice and sell it to me ..do it for the kitty!

THE COMBINATION OF SUSTAINED WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH AND LOW TEMPERATURES FALLING INTO THE MIDDLE TEENS WILL HAVE WIND CHILLS RUNNING ZERO TO FIVE DEGREES BELOW ZERO THROUGH EARLY SUNDAY MORNING.

To convert that to °C, we're looking at windchill just shy of -21°C ..yup, 21 degrees below freezing ..and it comes complete with snow showers. Certainly don't see that kind of cold back in NZ - at least not in the North Island. Apparently it's nice and warm and hitting mid 20's °C back there (summer in the Southern Hemisphere). Oh, Happy New Year by the way!

**Update Sunday** : Weather.com updated their alert. It's even colder.

A WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST THIS EVENING. NORTHWEST WINDS 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH WILL CONTINUE TODAY. WHERE SNOW IS FALLING OR HAS FALLEN, REDUCTIONS IN VISIBILITY CAN BE EXPECTED DUE TO BLOWING SNOW. WIND CHILLS OF ZERO DEGREES TO TEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO CAN ALSO BE EXPECTED THROUGH THIS MORNING.

Ten degrees below zero ..and that's Fahrenheit. -10°F = -23.33°C. Nice.

An El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is expected to be a dominant climate factor that will influence US weather from now through to February, according to the 2009 winter outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. What struck me as particularly funny is what they had to say for the Northeast (where NYC is) :

Northeast : Equal chances for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and precipitation.

Wut? Just a wee bit non-committal isn't it? I mean what else can it be besides above, near, or below normal temperatures and precipitation? Fortunately they went on to clarify this somewhat :

Winter weather in this region is often driven not by El Niño but by weather patterns over the northern Atlantic Ocean and Arctic, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. These patterns are often more short-term, and are generally predictable only a week or so in advance.

Still, why not just say so right from the word go, instead of this "above, near, or below normal" bollox - it's a little bit redundant, don't ya think? I've seen better from the National Weather Service though (or worse, depending how you look at it) :

Unusually hot weather has entered the region for December as the Earth has left its orbit and is hurtling towards the sun. Unusually hot weather will occur for at least the next several days as the Earth draws ever nearer to the sun. Therefore, an excessive heat watch has been posted.

Apparently a trainee at the National Weather Service wrote the above as a test message, but it somehow managed to get published as an urgent weather advisory warning!

Amber, I tried calling you a bunch of times and eventually got Angela on her cellphone - she advised you were all down in Nelson with her mother who is seriously ill, and Angela said you've been fantastic with her, so thank you Amber, and I really wish you an awesome year - you deserve it. I'll talk to you in a few days. Miss you, as always.

Quick System Specs :

• i7-920 CPU @ 3.8GHz
• EVGA X58 SLI motherboard
• 2-way SLI : EVGA GTX 285 SSC
• OCZ Platinum RAM (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600MHz
• Prolimatech Mega Shadow CPU cooler + M12-P NoiseBlocker PWM fan
• 300GB Velociraptor SATA HD (system)
• 640GB Caviar Black SATA HD (data)
• SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
• Corsair 850TX PSU
• CoolerMaster Storm Sniper SGC case
• Vista Home Premium 64-bit o/s
• SyncMaster 2043BWX flat panel
• 3DMarkVantage score 28,503

System Photos :

Final Build :

Build and System Details :

The case is from the CoolerMaster Storm Series; a Sniper SGC with the black mesh side panel - a roomy case with awesome cable management, which I think is ideal for a first build (click the image to the left for a larger view). For some reason CoolerMaster left the inside of both side panels and the case unpainted, so I painted mine black to match the outside (note: CoolerMaster have recently started manufacturing the Sniper case with the insides painted black as well). If anyone was wondering, I used Rust-oleum 7220830 textured 12-ounce black spray paint to get a similar finish to the existing case.

The case includes a built-in fan and LED controller which is very handy, however I was a little confused at first with the wiring, and from online searches I quickly found I wasn't alone there. I figured it out soon enough and created a schematic in photoshop which should make it easier for others to follow in future (I have posted this diagram in CoolerMaster help forums as well):

The case comes with two 200mm fans with blue LEDs (one intake at the front, one exhaust on top) and a standard 120x25mm exhaust at the rear of the case, plus support for additional fans to be mounted on the side panel and on the bottom of the case. I replaced the fans with quieter Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans (model SFF21F) which have the fluid dynamic bearings, and they still move a decent amount of air at 1600RPM / 63.7CFM - the only fan I didn't replace was the CM 200mm intake fan in the front. I've also added another S-Flex 120mm intake fan on the bottom of the case, and another is mounted inside the case specifically for additional cooling on the graphics cards. All fans are fitted with anti-vibration kits, and most of the time they run around 40% power.

The CPU is an i7-920 (C0 batch # 3836B215) which I run clocked at an extremely stable 3.8GHz. It can go higher, but I don't want to over-stress it outside of bench-testing. Would have been nice to have a D0 stepping version as they can clock higher generally speaking, but I'm happy with the C0.

There is 6GB of RAM installed in the form of OCZ Platinum (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600MHz sticks, and have Corsair CMXAF2 fans on them for additional cooling. I keep the RAM fans powered low enough (around 40%) that it's next to silent as well. There is not much noise from the case at all other than the 'whoosh' of air most of the time.

The motherboard is an EVGA x58 SLI (model 132-BL-E758-A1, rev1.1) and I'm very happy with it. The clocking ability is great, as is the SmartFan function, and EVGA support is second-to-none in my experience. For my own reference as much as anything else, the BIOS settings are on auto / default other than the following:

• CPU Host Frequency : 200Mhz
• CPU Clock Ratio : 19x
• CPU VCore : 1.35V
• CPU VTT Voltage : +220mV
• DIMM Voltage : 1.65V
• Memory Frequency : 2:8 (1600Mhz)
• Memory Timing : 7-7-7-24
• EVGA VDroop control : with VDroop
• Turbo Mode Function : disabled
• Intel HT Technology : enabled
• SmartFan (CPU) : >70°C = 100%, <30°C = 40%
• PnP / PCI : init display PCIE
• Onboard Data : JMB362/3 disabled (I don't use them)

The CPU cooler I initially used was a CoolerMaster V8, although I replaced the stock interior 120mm fan as it developed a fairly loud noise at higher RPM. The replacement I dropped in was a Delta AFB1212SH-PWM 120mm fan with fluid bearing and significantly higher airflow at 3400RPM / 113CFM on full power, although it was a bit noisy on full load. I have since replaced the V8 with a Prolimatech Mega Shadow CPU cooler, and use a single NoiseBlocker M12-P PWM fan in push setup, and it is far more quiet on full load than the Delta, and the Mega Shadow cools better than the V8, particularly under load. The PWM fan is directly controlled by the motherboard SmartFan controller. I used top quality Shin-Etsu X23-7783D thermal compound for mounting the CPU cooler. At 3.8GHz, the CPU runs in the low 40's°C on idle, and peaks at 70°C under full load on Prime95 for hours (ambient room temp around high 70's to 80°F) - that was on core #1, which is the hottest; core #4 peaked at 66°C on the same tests.

The graphics are powered by a two EVGA Geforce GTX 285 SSC cards run in SLI (model 01G-P3-1287-AR). I only had one originally, but got another one later second-hand. These cards come with a stock core clock at 702Mhz, shader clock at 1584MHz, and memory clock at 1323MHz, which is what I run them at most of the time, although they can comfortably clock quite a lot higher than that. I replaced the thermal paste and padding in both graphics cards, which made a significant difference to the temperatures both at idle and under load. I used Artic Cooling MX-3 thermal compound on the GPU's, and replaced the stock thermal padding with 1mm EK thermal padding cut from a 160mm x 150mm sheet from FrozenCPU.com. Since then, the cards both run around 41°C idle and max at 79°C after 30 minutes under full load using the FurMark benching utility, with an average FPS of 60. Ambient room temps were around high 70's to 80°F at the time. Stoked. I use MSI's AfterBurner utility specifically because of the fan speed controls - I currently have the GPU fans set to run at 50% power at any temp up to 50°C, and then have the curve set in a straight-line ramp to hit 100% power at 80°C or above. As mentioned at the start of this post, other parts in my build are as follows:

• 300GB Veliciraptor SATA HD (operating system and most software)
• 640GB Caviar Black SATA HD (data)
• Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer sound card
• Corsair 850TX PSU
• SyncMaster 2043BMW wide-screen flat panel at 1680x1050 res
• Vista Home Premium 64-bit o/s
• BIOS version E758SZ2R
• NVidia driver 186.18

I also threw in a couple of blue cold-cathode lights for effect since they were so cheap. I have tested the system on 3DMarkVantage (benchmarking utility) at performance level and scored 28,503 (GPU 24,741, CPU 52685). That was at 3.8GHz clock CPU, and the graphics running at 710/1602/1341 clocks.

Note in the last couple of photos that the added cooling fan blowing on the graphics cards looks like two 120mm fans screwed together (or one really fat single fan). What happened is that the airflow from the 120mm fan by itself seemed to blow on a wide angle, so it was not all directed at the graphics cards as I intended. The solution was to add a fan shroud to focus all the airflow towards the cards. Rather than pay for a shroud, I just ripped the guts out of an old 120mm fan so all that was left was the outer frame, and there ya go - instant shroud, and much cheaper than buying one! On the very last photo with the Mega Shadow CPU cooler, I moved the lower GTX 285 down to a lower PCIE slot for improved airflow and cooling.

Most of the parts were purchased through Newegg.com, although a few parts came from FrozenCPU.com and one of the graphics cards I got second-hand through the EVGA forums. In most cases I purchased items on sale or with good mail-in rebates, and in some situations was able to get additional combo discounts as well, although I did not buy any refurbished or open-box items (other than the second-hand graphics card).

Newegg.com sent me a couple of large items in open-box condition by mistake (the original motherboard and graphics card and a couple of smaller items that came in one shipment). After the hell I went through with Dell, I just thought, "oh no, not again!" when these open-box items arrived, but Newegg were awesome about it; they were very apologetic, replaced the items at no additional cost to me and put them on overnight delivery, and gave me a surprising $200 total credit for my troubles. That is great service, and because of it, they have assured my custom in future, as well as my strong recommendations to others.

Here's the kicker; after discounts and rebates etc, the total cost of this system was just under $2,000. The system I was going to buy from Dell originally was far inferior, and cost just over $2,000. When I went to Dell and configured a PC on their system similar to what I ended up with, the price was nearly $4,000. Amazing huh? All that, and their service sucks too.

The artist's name is Kurt Wenner, and I urge you to check out his website at www.kurtwenner.com showcasing some of his work as well as his biography etc. Make sure to check out his fine art portfolio and street painting portfolio in particular. A truly gifted artist.

Pictures published here with the express written permission of Karen Schmidt for Kurt Wenner.

About 2 years ago, the original Dell XPS that Ice used finally died and was replaced with a new Dell E520 - nice deal with a decent 3GHz dual core processor with Vista o/s, then-current NVidia graphics card, and I added RAM to bring it up to max for the system. Ran great, and still does.

All was good, until eventually my 4600 could not handle some of the newer software on the market that I needed to use, and was very slow on the newer software that it was able to run. After increasing frustration with it, I managed to convince Ice that an upgrade was in order since the PC was about 6 years old, with the provision the the new PC should not need replacing for about another 5 years. Considering we had enjoyed a good history with Dell, I ordered a new Dell XPS 630i which, although pretty expensive, would likely be as future-proof as I could get for quite a few years into the future without buying some monster $4,000+ beast ..plus the 630i was on special.

Things went downhill very fast from that point. I found out before the PC had even been assembled that the expensive single graphics card they were selling it with was not compatible with the motherboard - it would work, but it would be significantly bottle-necked. I could instead have ordered two of a different model graphics card running in SLI for several hundred dollars less than the single one alone, and it would have given much better performance! I was not impressed.

I called Dell to change the order to the cheaper cards in SLI, and did not expect much problem as they had clearly sold me a system that could not function to their advertised specifications. Quick online research confirmed Dell had already returned the same system to earlier customers for full refunds. Unfortunately for me, Dell had recently outsourced their 'help' desk to India, and the one thing that Dell really had above all the other PC retailers - top customer service - was instantly destroyed in the process, as I soon found out.

The 'help' desk was anything but helpful. When I said I wanted to change the order, they at first flat-out refused, and said I had to cancel and order new. Ok fine, so I said cancel the order. The guy became extremely argumentative and reluctant to cancel, and said if they canceled it I would have to pay a substantial restocking fee - despite me being able to provide a website written by their own XPS PR guy confirming exactly the problem I had with the existing order, and that Dell had already issued full refunds on it to other customers. The guy then said I had to contact their tech guys in USA, get them to note on my file that the issue was valid, then for me to call back to the help desk and they would cancel the order with no restocking fee.

It was a mission to get through to the tech guys in the USA, and although they seemed surprised at the request coming from a customer, they were happy to confirm the issue and note it on my file accordingly - as soon as I mentioned it they knew exactly what I was talking about. So from there I rang back to the unhelpful desk (and I will mention that wait times on the phone were at least half an hour every time I rang, sometimes much longer). The guy I spoke to confirmed that the previous rep had noted on the file there would be no restocking fee with tech confirmation, then confirmed the tech guys had confirmed the issue was valid, then proceeded to tell me that they could not cancel the order and that I had to wait for it to be assembled and delivered, and then call back for a return. What the.. It didn't matter what I said from this point, he flat out refused to cancel and said the order had to go through the system. Ok whatever, if they want to pay all that shipping because their return/cancellation process sucked, then so be it (turns out that was a lie, made so they could get credit for the sale and keeping the return rate down).

In the following days while waiting delivery, I contacted the head of PR for the XPS in USA by email (name slips my mind now) and he replied that I was correct and that they had been giving refunds in the past and that if I had any problems all I had to do ask for a manager and mention his name and it would be fine. Great.

As soon as the PC was delivered, I called them. I couldn't believe what happened next. The guy I spoke to this time (yet another Indian guy called 'Dave' or something like that) confirmed everything I said was noted on my file and said he would process the return, but then said I would be charged a restocking fee of 15%. I said, "What?? You just confirmed not 2 minutes ago that my file said there would be a full refund if the tech guys confirmed the issue!" At this point the guy became very aggressive and proceeded to yell at me (seriously) and threatened to hang up if I couldn't take no for an answer. I was stunned for a few seconds, then I let rip. I'm sure half our apartment building heard the string of expletives I used at this point, but I didn't care - this guy was an asshole and he deserved every bit of it. Surprisingly the guy didn't hang up, so I told him to put me through to his manager. I was furious.

The manager was a piece of work - yet another guy with a thick Indian accent and a very English name, and clearly didn't care what was written on the file or my claims of what the bigwig PR guy said, he was backing his team member and that was that. After some ridiculously obtuse comments from this guy, I once again mentioned the PR guy and that I had an email to prove it. He called me a liar (I'm not kidding) so I called him a worse name and said, "give me your email address and I'll forward you a copy right now while we are on the phone". When he received the email a few minutes later he went very quiet for about a minute, and then said he needed to confirm it. I said go ahead, but I would wait on hold while he did it. About 20 minutes later he comes back sounding a little shaken and saying, "well this changes everything - you should have told me about this earlier." Had I been in the same room I would have punched him right in the face at that point.

In the end I got my full refund back and will never deal with Dell again. Idiots - had they not been such complete and utter assholes, I would have bought a differently configured PC from them and they'd still have a sale plus a satisfied customer! As a result of their crap, they have lost a couple of once-loyal customers. In addition, this story has been repeated to a number of people online and off, and I know for a fact of several individuals that were about to buy a Dell and have been dissuaded as a direct result of this story, and have purchased another brand instead.

But what about replacing the 4600 PC? Well that's another story - I ended up building my own PC, and literally saved thousands of dollars doing it. What I ended up building cost about half of what Dell were asking for a similar configuration. I'll post about it soon.

Check out this similar story titled, "Trapped in Dell Hell" from another Dell victim - certainly some similarities. No surprise to see Dell stock is currently down about 50% from what it was 2 years ago.

So I'm taking Spanish - or attempting to at least. I would have preferred Russian since my other half is a native Russian speaker, however the university only offers advanced Russian literature classes, so that was out of the question. Since I have absolutely zero prior experience in Spanish, it has meant spending an additional 6 hours or so at the library every day (and some in the weekends too) to try to get up to speed, as almost everyone else in the class already has at least 2 years of Spanish from high school prior to attending university.

I completed the final exam for Spanish 1 last week and somehow managed to pull off an A grade for the semester, which surprised the hell out of me. I'm now one week into Spanish 2 and feeling completely clueless, as it seems about 90% of the class are already reasonably fluent in Spanish. As a result the professor seems comfortable speaking very rapid Spanish while teaching, with the occasional bit of English to clarify some points, so I really have little idea what's going on - I catch maybe one in every five or six words he says. We have our first exam for it on Monday morning. Joy.

I attempted to take Spanish 1 last year during a normal semester, however was forced to drop out as the professor refused to speak a single word of English whatsoever, so sitting in the classes was a complete waste of time for me as it was just gibberish. I tried to teach myself, but it started dragging all my other classes down, so I just dropped it. It is for this reason that I have taken the summer classes instead of working, as it is the only way I'm going to get through this language requirement - by working on it 24/7 without having other classes to worry about. Fortunately the Spanish 1 professor I had for the first summer semester spoke English as well, so I could actually ask if I had a question. I still will have to do Spanish 3 next semester along with all my other classes, so that will be fun.. assuming I don't fail Spanish 2. That's all.

The diet is in the form of a 7-day eating plan, which can be used as often as you like. If correctly followed, it will supposedly clean out your system of impurities and give you a feeling of well-being and energy. After 7 days of this process, you can lose 10 to 15lbs, depending on your initial weight (well that's the claim anyway). Of course you have to eat sensibly once you lose the weight too - watch your calorie intake each day and try to minimize things like candy bars, as they pack in a huge amount of calories for such a relatively small amount of food. It's a whole lifestyle change really, but it doesn't need to be drastic, and if you start gaining weight again, just go back on the diet for a few days. It's also a good idea to cut down on soda drinks - even though there are plenty of zero-calorie soft drinks on the market (I'm partial to diet coke), it's not so much the calories but the effect of the carbonated liquid that has a negative affect on dieting. The reason is that the little bubbles actually help your guts absorb the drink (and food already in there) much faster. Ever notice how drinking champagne gets people 'tiddly' in a shorter space of time than still wines? That's why - the carbonated liquid enables your body to absorb the alcohol into your bloodstream much faster. While some may say this is a good thing (and I wouldn't argue that point), it's not such a good thing when it comes to dieting. This diet specifically says not to drink any carbonated drinks whatsoever (even diet drinks) while on the 7-day plan, but I'll get to that later. First of all, here's the main component of the diet - the soup.

With the following ingredients, a can size is about 14.5oz / 411grams. I prefer low or no salt ingredients because salt raises blood pressure, and although I don't have high blood pressure, I don't particularly want to develop it. The stock cubes I use are larger than normal (each is about 6 grams), which is why I wrote ½ a cube - if you use standard stock cubes, use a whole one. The soy and worcestershire sauce amounts can be altered according to taste - I've been fairly conservative there, and probably use significantly more myself. You can also season with pepper and salt if you wish, but I think the two sauces cover the need for salt and pepper fairly well. The light cheese triangle segment I use is made by a company called 'Laughing Cow', and each wedge is about 21 grams and contains 35 calories. I use either their garlic and herb light cheese or the french onion light cheese - both taste nice even on their own. I use 'Poland' brand spring water as opposed to tap water because the quality of tap water here isn't the best, although I think spring water actually improves the taste too.

soup ingredients :

• 1/2 can stewed tomatoes (I use the type with no salt added)
• 1/2 can french style cut green beans (again, I use the type with no salt added)
• 3 large green onions (also known as spring onions, or scallions)
• 1 bunch of celery
• 1/3 lb baby carrots
• 1/2 medium green pepper (also known as capsicums)
• 1/2 large cube of chicken stock
• 1 triangle segment of light cheese
• 4+ tbsp worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins)
• 4+ tbsp soy sauce (I use the 'lite' soy sauce with less salt)
• spring water
• a pot that holds about 1 gallon (3.75 liters) or more of liquid - certainly no less.

soup instructions :

Dissolve the stock cube in a cup or so of boiling water at the bottom of the pot. Cut all the celery, carrots, green onions and green pepper into small to medium size pieces and then throw them in the pot, along with the stewed tomatoes and green beans. Add enough water to cover everything, then add the soy and worcestershire sauce. Chop the cheese into smaller chunks and toss it in, and then give the whole lot a good stirring to mix it all up. Put a lid on the pot (if you have a lid with a small steam vent, even better), bring the soup to the boil and keep it boiling for 10 minutes, then reduce to a slow simmer and continue to cook until the veggies are tender. Voila, the soup.

This will make a little shy of 1 gallon (3.75 liters) of soup, with a total of about 265 calories. With the bowls I use, this equates to about 5 bowls of soup, of 53 calories each. If you want a full-on break down of the nutritional content, here it is (this is for one whole pot of soup) :

7-day eating plan :

Now for the 7-day eating plan. During this period, the soup can be eaten any time you are hungry. Eat as much as you want, whenever you want - the more you eat, the better. If you're going to be away for the day, take a thermos of soup with you. At the very least, have three bowls of soup each day.

Permitted drinks :

• unsweetened juices
• tea (including herbal tea)
• black coffee
• cranberry juice
• skim milk
• water, water, and more water.

Day 1 :
Any fruit (except bananas) - cantaloupes and watermelon are lower in calories than most other fruits. East only soup and fruit today.
Day 2 :
All vegetables. East until you are stuffed with fresh raw, cooked or canned veggies. Try to eat green leafy veggies and stay away from dry beans, peas or corn. Eat veggies along with the soup. At dinner tonight, reward yourself with a big baked potato and butter. Don't eat any fruits through today.
Day 3 :
Eat all the soup, fruit and veggies you want. Do not have a baked potato. If you have eaten as above for 3 days and not cheated, you should find that you have lost 5-7 pounds.
Day 4 :
Bananas and skim milk - eat at least 3 bananas and drink as much milk as you can today, along with the soup. Bananas are high in calories and carbohydrates, as is the milk, but on this particular day you body will need the potassium, carbs, proteins and calcium to lessen the cravings for sweets.
Day 5 :
Beef and tomatoes - you may have 10 to 20 ounces of beef and a can of tomatoes, or as many as 6 tomatoes on this day. Eat the soup at least once today.
Day 6 :
Beef and veggies - eat to your hearts content of the beef and veggies today. You can even have 2-3 steaks if you like with green leafy veggies, but no baked potato. Be sure to eat the soup at least once today.
Day 7 :
Brown rice, unsweetened fruit juice and veggies. Again, be sure to stuff yourself and eat the soup. You can add cooked veggies to the rice if you wish.

By the end of the 7th day, if you have not cheated on this diet, you should have lost at least 10 pounds. If you have lost more than 15 pounds, stay off the diet for a couple of days before resuming again. This diet is fast, based on the principle of burning more calories than you take in. This diet does not lend itself to drinking any alcoholic beverages at any time, because of the fat build-up in your system. Go off the diet at least 14 hours prior to drinking alcohol.

Due to the variety of digestive systems in individuals, this diet affects different people differently. You may find after several days on the diet that your bowel movements change. If it's a problem, eat a cup of bran or fiber. The basic fat burning soup can be eaten any time you feel hungry during the 7 days - remember the more soup you eat, the more you lose. You can eat broiled or baked skinless chicken instead of the beef if you wish. If you prefer, you can substitute broiled fish for the beef, but only for one of the beef days, as you need the high protein the beef will provide.

Do Not, Do Not, Do Not :
Do not eat any bread or drink any alcohol or carbonated drinks (including diet drinks), and no fried foods whatsoever.

Do, Do, Do :
Drink plenty of water - at least 6-8 glasses every day, as well as any combination of black coffee, unsweetened fruit juice, cranberry juice and skim milk (where mentioned).

This diet allegedly comes from the Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital and is used for overweight heart patients in order to lose weight rapidly, usually prior to surgery. If you ask which Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital, I don't have a clue. All I know is that it worked for me.

disclaimer :

This information is not presented by a medical practitioner. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Neither UrbanScrawl.net nor the authors warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of the information provided here, nor any guarantee of results. Please consult your doctor before starting any weight loss plan - we are not responsible for any medical conditions that you may have, or even medical conditions that may occur while on this weight loss plan. If you decide to undertake this plan, you do so at your own risk. The views and statements expressed here represent the opinions of the authors and should not be considered scientific conclusions.

If you get around to making it before I do, please comment how it came out.

• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp olive or sunflower oil
• 225g cashew nuts, ground
• 2 cups fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
• 450g carrots, cooked or mashed (keep the water you boiled them in for stock)
• 1½ tsp caraway seeds
• 1 tsp marmite or vegemite
• juice of ½ a lemon
• 75ml stock from the carrots
• salt and pepper to season

Fry onions and garlic in a pan until onion is soft. Remove from heat and transfer into a large mixing bowl.
Add all the other ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Place mixture into a greased loaf tin and level off the surface.
Cover with tin foil and bake at 180°C / 350°F for an hour.
Remove foil and bake for a further 10 minutes.
Leave to stand in loaf tin for at least 10 minutes before turning out.
Serve in slices with roast potatoes, salad, garlic bread etc.

I'm stunned at how many people are enamored with Obama without actually having any reason to be, I mean heck, the other day he was asked a question about the massive multi-billion dollar Hanford nuclear waste site and what he proposes to do about it. His reply was, and I quote, "I'm not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don't know exactly what's going on there." Guess what happened? The crowd broke into applause! I'm not kidding. I've never seen anything like it. It's like there's this huge swath of sheeple who just fall over themselves at anything that comes out of his mouth, regardless of what it is. Totally bizarre.

Earlier this month in Oregon, Obama even managed to mess up how many states there are in the United States: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go". And of course complete silence from the media - in their eyes he can do no wrong apparently. In fact it seems like the media decides elections here - many voters seem only to care if there's a 'D' or an 'R' after the name, and beyond that will vote according to which candidate seems to be favored by the press ..at least that's the impression I'm getting. Insane.

If you want an example of media bias, I'll gladly give it. At one point, Hillary Clinton made a claim that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who first reached the summit of Everest in May 1953, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. As it happens, Hillary Clinton was born in October, 1947. Kind of hard to be named after someone who was unknown at the time. That little claim got plenty of media attention, and became a real rally cry for the Obama fans for a while. Similarly and more recently was the claim Hillary made about landing in Bosnia 'under fire', which the media (and Obama fans) had a field day over.

Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, Obama claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement, and I quote: "There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born." Well guess what? Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. Go figure that one out. Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was "speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole." Yeah right. This is almost an exact parallel to Hillary's little birthday gaffe, yet the media of course completely ignored it.

When Obama made a big song and dance about supporting Reverend Wright after the initial uproar over his racist sermons, Obama was portrayed as a great and loyal man of honor and dignity by the media. Later, when Reverend Wright got completely out of control with his comments publicly, Obama did a complete 180° turn and effectively disowned Reverend Wright (so much for the lauded loyalty). Of course the media, instead of pointing out the glaringly obvious, chose to paint Obama as a betrayed victim of his faith in others. What the f..?

In perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over last weekend that Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us", cluelessly arguing that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets can't do the US any harm, and then he promptly flip-flopped the very next day, claiming, "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave." And people just don't see it. It's unbelievable.

This is just a couple of many examples. It's kind of scary, and makes one wonder who's really pulling the strings in this country in light of how the media play this. Great stuff for conspiracy theorists, that's for sure. I'm not saying either Clinton or McCain are necessarily a better option, but the Obama phenomenon is just so far out there that it's, well, it defies explanation. As the saying goes, 'you can't make this stuff up'.

Been up to a lot this year. We went to London for 7 days, staying at a hotel in Baker Street about a block from the BakerLoo line station. It was a work trip for Ice, so I just sneaked along in her basket, as ya do. Pretty awesome. Hope to post some pictures eventually. Amazingly enough, the weather was really nice just about the entire time we were there, which is almost unheard of in London for that time of year. Lucky huh. We also did another trip to Las Vegas which was great, and then I spent another week in Los Angeles when my father was gravely ill and the Doctor didn't think he was going to survive. It was the first time I'd seen my father in about 20 years. He has since recovered remarkably well, although is still in a recuperative hospital for now. In the space of a month or so, I changed time zones seven times. Don't think I ever recovered from it - the last two nights I didn't get to sleep until maybe 5:30am, and then up again a couple of hours later. Had a lot of that for a while after I came back for L.A. too.

Got down to the final five for a permanent auditor position with one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms here in NYC - I was the only person left from New York, and there were two flown in for the final interviews from Texas, and two others from somewhere down south around New Orleans I believe. Was a little surprised I didn't get it actually, and disappointed obviously. Never mind - onwards and upwards. I still have 1 year to go to finish my degree, so there's light at the end of that tunnel at last. My eyes are getting too tired to continue staring at the monitor. Later.