I went home for the weekend and saw some old friends.  Jason had a party at his new house.  I hadn’t seen most of those people since college or a little after.  Everyone is always the same mostly, except a little heavier, a little more wrinkled, a little less willing to get piss drunk (myself included).  I talked a lot about people’s kids and their marriage.  I liked it for the most part.

I wore a Halloween costume I last wore in graduate school in 2001 I think.  Its a pimp outfit with leather pants, a white fedora, and a really tight shiny shirt.  Its ridiculous but fun.  I was still able to get into the pants, but I couldn’t button the shirt anymore…not even close.  In fact, I wonder how I ever got into it.

Jason seemed good.  Its strange that so many of my friends are divorced now.  Actually, I guess its just two of them that are…but hey, how many close friends can someone have?  Two is actually a large percentage.

The next night I went to see Josh after shopping all day with my mom.  I bought this really cool piece of furniture that I don’t really need.

I’m going to use it as a TV stand because I can’t figure out any other place to put it.

Anyway, Josh was good.  His kids are super cute.  He was really drunk by the time I got there at 7 having watched the Clemson game.  You know he’s drunk when he starts talking about how good we were at basketball.  I admit its a fun conversation, since we were pretty good…but let’s face it:  I couldn’t throw a basketball in the ocean now…and if I could I’d probably hurt my back doing it.

I used to swear up and down I’d never have the “used to be” conversation, but now that I’m older I see why people have it.  Its like a fish story…it gets better every time you tell it.  You can forget the defeats and remember the victories…embellish here and there.  No one remembers the score anyway, right?  I did dunk on someone in a game one time though.  That’s true: Wes Jackson, I remember.  (Ok, the goal was about 2 inches short of 10 feet, but that’s just a detail to forget next time I tell the story).

Anyway, its weird to go home sometimes and think about all that stuff.  Honestly it seems like it all happened to another person.  Traveling sort of cut my life in half, and the first half is pretty distant sometimes….especially 10 beers in.

I guess I’m thinking about all this today because I went home for the weekend and got a message from some folks on Facebook today that made me think about some things I haven’t thought about in years.

We’ll see just how smart the neo-cons are come election day.

History/Macro trends are on the side of the Democrats in this election.  The polls have them in the lead.  The Republicans just completely f%*ked up the last 8 years.  The Democrats would be hard pressed to lose this election, and the Republican party leadership knows that.

I am beginning to think the McCain/Palin ticket was never meant to be put to a vote.  She’s obviously in over her head.  She is not qualified to be vice president.  She governed a small town in Alaska and then has been state governor for a bit (without significant distinguishing successes).

That’s like me playing flag football on Saturdays poorly, and someone suddenly asking me to be starting quarterback for the Cowboys.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Add on top of that McCain’s age….statistically he stands a good chance of dying in office.  Then Palin is president.  Surely the Republicans can’t be serious?

I think they’re going to bring out a dark horse vice presidential candidate at the last second.  Palin will have to step away from the nomination for some reason, and they’ll put forward someone else.

The Republicans got a bounce in the polls when they nominated Palin (which is natural; its new, exciting, etc.)…and then when she was vetted the poll numbers dropped (since she is woefully unqualified).  If the neo-cons could put forward someone else, and not give voters time to vet him/her, the bounce might be enough to help McCain get elected.

How would that work logistically, you ask?  How would McCain have any credibility if he selected Palin, then unselected her?  Surely that wouldn’t work?  Well, I can think of one way:  McCain is billing himself (rightly or wrongly) as a maverick.  He is the anti-Republican Republican in a political/economic environment where being Republican isn’t that popular.

As a maverick he can say he was pressured to select Palin, and now he’s breaking free of that pressure to give America what it needs in this time of crisis.  And who will his new VP pick be?  I think the correct play would be a conservative Democrat (perhaps Joe Lieberman).  Democrats and Republicans together on the same ticket; the reform and bi-partisanship America needs.  Its not a bad idea.

Think a play like that is too bold/rash?  Perhaps, but the Republicans are very likely going to lose this election and they know it.  They’ve got little to lose by doing something different.  If Americans want to elect a Democrat…give them one…on the Republican ticket.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Just a thought.  If I can think of doing it…so can they.

I had a consulting gig for work recently and got to see some pretty amazing sports memorabilia at a certain large sports apparel company’s headquarters.  This covered the entire wall.

Bottom line:  I loved Jordan.  He made basketball look good.  He achieved a greatness we all aspire to yet never reach…it transcended sport even.  He was just fucking good….period.

See that look on his face.  It says, “Go home.  I’ve already won.”

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I think about that as I watched the Vice Presidential debates tonight.  Politicians just pander back and forth; you never really know if what they are saying is true.  They leave and go do whatever they were going to do in the first place, probably something that’s going to screw us and has exactly the opposite effect they claim it will have.

But Jordan….no need to talk.  No pandering.  The score speaks for itself.  RESULTS.  You can believe in that.  You know its real.  He just hit that shot over Craig Ehlo.  That…just…happened.

People have an amazing capacity to suspend logic while maintaining that life makes sense.

Sundays for instance.  All week everyone requires proof….receipts, contracts, documentation, follow ups, passwords, meetings, blah, blah, blah….but then on Sunday they go to Church and praise somebody that is plainly not there.  They sing songs about the justice, love, and compassion while ignoring the death, disease, war, destruction and plain bad luck that makes up most people’s lives.  I’m not saying they’re wrong on Sundays…..I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense.

Which brings me to my first point:  There is no superfood that will keep you young.   All these people are drinking 40 dollar concentrated acai juice, eating wild salmon for omega-3s, touting blueberries, and free-range beef or whatever.  It doesn’t help.  How do I know?

Japanese women are the longest lived group on the planet at slightly over 85 years.  Vilcabamba Valley in Ecuador is said to be the healthiest environment on the planet with people regularly living over 100.  Barbados (along with Japan) boasts the most Centenarians per capita.

What do these places have in common?  Honestly, other than perhaps generally healthy lifestyles and maybe a diet rich in seafood…..nothing.

The point isn’t that something isn’t making them live longer…its that Japanese women at 85 are not THAT much different than the USA at 77.

If there were some lifestyle/diet change that would make us live significantly longer, someone would’ve adopted it, and it would be so apparent that soon everyone would be doing it, and then we’d be back to the same situation:  Everyone living approximately the same life span.

In fact, there WERE lifestyle/diet changes that made people healthier and presumably live longer.  We are the descendants of those people.

In short, if you like the amazonian fruits, eat them.  But they aren’t going to make you live longer.  If they did, the jungle people eating them naturally would have abnormally long life spans.  They don’t.  They die sooner than we do.

Next point:  ESP.  It doesn’t exist.  Not in anyone.  You know why?  Easy.

It would be SO advantageous to be able to know other people’s thoughts or tell the future or any other ESP-like skill, that whoever had the skill would get so rich and bang so many women, that their descendents would soon outnumber everyone else…..then everyone would have ESP.  The fact that everyone doesn’t have ESP strongly suggests that it doesn’t exist.

So…go to church, drink Acai juice, and try to bend spoons….it can’t hurt.  You never know these days.

Tags: biology

I started writing something, but I lost patience to finish it.  Its filed with all my other unpublished posts that will likely never get done.

It was about routine.  Adutlhood is about routine.  It consumes my life.

It was about acceptance of average, simply because at any given moment you are likely to be doing something you commonly do.  In other words, your life, by statistical inevitability, is made up of average things.

It was about fear of the future and longing for the past, even though the past was not always that great, and the future is likely going to be better.

It was probably leading toward the sobering realization that no matter what you do, there you are.  I am by nature a cynic, overly nostalgic, temperamental, and hard to please.

This post seems also to be about all those things too, but in less detail….because I’m impatient….and tired.

This weekend my tennis team is playing in the ALTA city championships.  I’ve been runner up before, but never won.  We’ll see….not that it will give me any lasting pleasure if we win.

That’s what this whole post, and the one before it that I never finished, is about.

I know I haven’t written much lately…just don’t have that much to say lately.  I have a house, a job, and a girlfriend.  I have bills and keep busy with tennis.  Its a good routine, but its a routine.  Its not that I don’t have thoughts…its just that I ignore them and don’t take the time to sit down and write like I used to, just busier.

I just got back from a week of vacation at the beach.  That was good.   I haven’t been on a real vacation like that in years and years and years.  It was a normal beach week where you eat food, take naps, lay out at the pool or the beach, play cards and drink in the evening….basically hang out and do a lot of nothing.

I noticed just about at the end of the week that I was very relaxed.  I hadn’t been relaxed like that in years so it was an odd feeling.  It pointed out that I am generally stressed, since to be relaxed you must’ve been more tightly strung to begin with.

I certainly don’t feel stressed on a daily basis, because I’m accustomed to it.  If you are always slightly stressed, then you don’t recognize it.  It feels normal….or better said it IS normal.  Being relaxed then is abnormal.

Why can’t relaxed be the norm?  Well, I suppose it could, but no one ever promised us a stress free life.  In fact, I think the mere act of having to survive the day means that it is possible not to survive it….which is stressful.  Life is, by definition, somewhat stressful.

That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy a few weeks more vacation though.

This really is one of the most troubling things I’ve read in years.  It is so bizarre you think you’re reading Catch 22 or some Kafka novel.  It reminds you of the surreal, draconian stories of the police state of authoritarian regimes….but its in our own country.

It is frightening really.  You know it goes on I suppose, but to hear the story like that, with all its absurdity, reminds me that the difference between “us” and the “them” we are supposedly against….is very, very thin.

Thinking back to how exited I used to be about my life, I can only say that little has changed except my anticipation of what may come.

When you are young/er, you are never living your life, you are always living in anticipation of it, and so if it is good today, you are stealing a lick…since you are really preparing for tomorrow, and anything you may suffer today is in preparation for the great arrival that you will have later.

Anticipation is a great thing, since it is hard to be let down…you just imagine what you want, and try to move towards it, and as long as you are trying and making small progress, well…its out there to be had.  You are always moving forward towards some great unknown that will surely be more wonderful that what you have today.  If you take a step backwards…no biggie…its all still out there; you’ve just had a “learning experience”.

The rub is that you must one day LIVE your life, instead of live in anticpation of it.  That is something I have not learned well.  I always thought that living in the present is rather bunk.  The present is so blasse.  It is in quiet anticipation of the future and warm reminiscence of the past that you find great joys as well.

One day the present arrives though, and anticipation leaves you a bit cold….anticipate what?  Will it ever be the time now?  Anticipation is a youthful activity.  Adults cannot afford to anticipate….the must simply “cipate” or “pate” or whatever word you want to invent.

I think of this because I always hear “be in the present”, and you will be happy.  Well, the present for me is sometimes good, and sometimes bad.  The past can also be good or bad, depending on what you choose to remember; however, THE FUTURE….its always good.  You can anticipate whatever you like.

As an adult, being robbed of the eternal anticipation of my life is something I’ve never dealt with.

I have already professed my love for the iPhone.  Only cheap women and stiff drinks are better on a lonely night.

Even though I just recently plopped down $400+ for iPhone 1.0, I still thought I might upgrade.  I watched a gaunt Steve Jobs in his little black turtleneck deliver the keynote on the iPhone 2.0 with great anticipation.

Alas, it is not to be.

The iPhone 2.0 does have wireless high speed Internet, and true GPS positioning….but:

iPhone 1.0 will still connect to a wireless LAN at high speed if one is avlb.  The positioning function on the first iPhone is pretty darn adequate, and it was mentioned that 2.0 still doesn’t have turn-by-turn GPS, like the Garmins do.

There are other functions the new iPhone has too, and some that I’d like…..but they’re all software related. I can just wait for the new firmware to come out and I’ll have that functionality too…no need to upgrade.  That’s what’s so yummy about the iPhone compared to other phones:  it continues to get better even after you buy it.  As mentioned, its really a little computer, not a cell phone.

Here are features that I’ll get with the new firmware:  push email, search contacts, save photos from web, VPN, better support for viewing Office documents, and my favorite:  third party applications.

Here is what it doesn’t have…that I’d really like; however, these will be software upgrades not hardware, so I’d still not have to buy iPhone 2.0:  wireless modem capabilities (so I could use it as a mobile internet connection for a laptop), cut and paste, MMS instead of just SMS, iDisk (that’s my term, but I’d like to be able to use it to store files other than mp3s).

So what would make me upgrade?  A better camera (the camera is unchanged).  The camera on iPhone 1.0 is not bad under certain conditions, but its not ready to replace a stand-alone digital camera yet.  Its very convenient not to have to take a camera to a party or a gathering, but always have a good camera handy (because its your phone).  I would take more pictures under more candid conditions.  I’d be willing to pay for that.

At least iPhone 2.0 got rid of that stupid recessed headphone jack.  That’s the only thing I don’t like about it.

I’ve read a fair amount lately about resveratrol (found in red wine, said to slow aging), and other related compounds that affect SIRT1 and SIRT2 gene expression, as well as people trying to mimic the effects by caloric restriction (something found to increase life spans pretty dramatically in lab animals). Then there are those chasing drugs that lengthen telomeres, bind free radicals, repair mitochondrial DNA, etc., etc…..blah, blah, and so on.

I’m not going to comment about whether or not I think any of it works currently…since I don’t know; however, I do know that whether or not we are genetically programmed with a clock that runs out, or we die simply because we wear down…..you can slow, and perhaps stop the process of aging. It will happen. It is definitely possible. Its not even worth arguing.

What puzzles me is how short sighted people have been about the importance of the research. We pour billions and billions and billions of dollars into cancer research, heart disease prevention, obesity treatments, Alzheimer, Diabetes, Parkinson’s, Strokes etc., etc.

Guess what? Those (and many more I couldn’t think of off the top of my head) are all diseases of aging. I can cure 8 of the top 10 causes of death in the US with ONE DRUG, one that stops aging.

This is the f#cking mother load of drugs. It is a literal cure-all. It will also cure or slow wrinkles, improve fitness, decrease chronic pain…..I could go on and on. It is the single most important thing to ever happen to medicine, perhaps to mankind.

It will extend productive working years. Think of how much more inventive our greatest minds will be if they don’t age?? Einstein could’ve kept on thinking, more sharply, for decades. The economy will prosper like never before. It will be a literal golden age. (yes, overcrowding will become a problem…but people living in space will happen more quickly.)

In short, pretty much ALL money currently being spent on medical research should be diverted to the study of aging. The government should be handing out grants in flocks; its in their best interest to keep us alive, healthy, and working.

Why try to beat stroke, cancer, heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s and diabetes???….when its plain that young people do not suffer from these ailments to nearly the same degree as the elderly. ONE DRUG….cures them all.

Anyway, mark my words…..Nanotechnology, cold fusion, gene therapy, stem cells, quantum computers, whatever….they’re all bunk. Anti-aging medicine will be the biggest thing to hit mankind….like, pretty much ever.

Tags: biology, predictions