Crappy study, interesting data.

In My Yahoo this morning, there was an article titled Study: Young gay men use more drugs. So I clicked.

The study is where researchers went and interviewed gay men at bars. To quote: "Nearly one third of 3,492 young men who have sex with men interviewed in seven U.S. cities said they use drugs at least once a week, and 59 percent said they'd smoked marijuana in the past six months." That is interesting. Scary, but interesting.

However, they go on to say that this is higher than the national average, because, "By contrast, national surveys suggest that only 37 percent of young men in general used marijuana over the past six months, Thiede said. Only 14 percent had ever used cocaine, compared to 31 percent of the young gay men." but I am willing to bet they didn't survey straight men at bars clubbing with friends.

Sigh.

When will people compare apples to apples? I am not arguing that homosexuals don't do more drugs (it could very well be possible) but in order to make comparisions, I would like the same survey to be given at comperable clubs in the seven cities sited (not just nationwide -- really, where does a kid in rural Iowa get access to X, Tina or coke?) to make conclusive comparitive statements.

Hallucinations (Olfactory and otherwise)

The other day at the gym, when I was doing my yoga plank exercises (for those of you who don't know ashtanga from downward dog, it is when you lay on your stomach, put your elbows directly underneath your shoulder blades, and keep your body straight as a board -- nay plank! -- and keep it there. Sounds kinda easy -- I mean it looks like you are stuck half way through a push-up and how hard can that be? Well, if you hold if for a minute, your stomach does get quivery.)

Anyway, there I was, sweat dripping off my nose, and I smelled it. Now usually, the smells in the gym are foul: bad BO coming from the pseudo-homeless guy or the sweaty Neanderthal that thinks that that using anti-perspirant some how makes him less manly. But this time, I distinctly smelled Chef Boyardee Beefaroni. Not only that, but I distinctly smelled that crappy granular Parmesan cheese that comes in the green shaker cans on top of said Beefaroni.

I dropped out of the plank, sat up, and the smell was gone.

Retail Therapy

Well, it has been a while since a substantial post and I have made a lot of progress working through Frank's death.

The death has altered very deep and very fundamental areas of my psyche. It is hard to explain because most of those areas aren't really consciously accessible by me (I think I live utilizing the very surface of my personality, rarely delving deeper to the psychological issues. With excess idle time comes that delving, but often in really unproductive ways like picking at a scab again and again until it becomes bloody.). So I have found myself unusually frustrated with my current space in life.

Most of these center on my career: my job is basically to be lubricant in the cogs of commerce making it easier to sell tractors, dishwashers, cell phones and laptops. All of my clients look to me to find faster, cheaper, customized solutions of the age old problem of getting reluctant shoppers to actually put money down. So when Frank died, I thought about my life, and what I want to leave as a legacy to the world. And building tools to help companies isn't it.

I read (or was it heard?) if you want to change your life, change it.

Simple.

So, as a good subject of the marketing apparatus (that I have helped create -- ooh, the irony!), I have started spending my way to a different life. I bought a new Apple Powerbook because I am tired of dealing with crappy Win2k at work. I bought a tangelo bike because I want to start commuting via bike more to work. (Not the most rational thoughts because I have used it all of 3 times before I have decided it is too cold to ride to work. But I did get a good deal on it because no one else is buying bikes going into winter.)

I have started getting my personal skills updated so I can start doing personal side projects -- probably volunteering -- to get a better connection and more importantly, get a better perspective on life. I am spoiled and I need to be knocked off my perch of privilege.

On a related but really tangential note, I think under different circumstances I might have been a religious person. I have been listening to The Life of Pi which has a strong religious undercurrent to it and it has got me thinking to that area in my life that I fill with a melange of other things (consumerism, vanity, hedonism, general altruism, etc.).

So how would my life be different if I believed in god?

I'm Back

Really. Sorry about the server problems... The domain expired and I didn't want to manage another domain. So, I have consolidated it back to my roughgroove domain.

More to come soon.