Health Tips from Somewhere Else...a well known Mens Magazine

 

1. Laugh. Apparently having a funny bone helps. That's it I'm watching Coneheads every week until my wife turns it into a frisbee.
2. Sleep. A good eight hours apparently is what the good doctors order. I'd rather combine exercise & sleep...ie. get laid and then nod off. Certainly improves my mood the next day.
3. Eat breakfast. I had one of those protein shakes I wrote about yesterday for breakfast & I'm still full. I did alter the recipe a little: I used Sustagen, there was no fruit and rather than honey, I used date syrup. I also upped the milk.
4. Crap and then take a long look....oooh, that certainly looks like a turd. Hmmm! I think the bit on the left looks like my brother.....in-law!
5. When your back is killing you...or in my case sciatica...drag your sorry arse out of bed....DO IT NOW!!!
6. Eat all the fruit & veggies your parents had to threaten you with death in order to get you to eat them when you were a kid.
7. Try brushing your teeth more frequently than once a fortnight.
8. Meditate. I meditate daily and to honest there are days when I'd rather take an axe to a planet that seems overly abundant in fuckwits, wankers, showponies, turds, hypocrites and complete fucking arseholes who should just fuck off and manage their own fucking lives before they should their needle brained, dimwitted, inbred fucking opinions into mine....sorry Tourettes Moment. Other than that I can and do use the time for a spot of mental housekeeping....and axe sharpening.
9. Join a Yoga Class. Apparently flexible men get to fuck like horny goats. Women like them.
10. Share your feelings. Mind you, most women I know would be out of a place quicker than a 16 year old can get an erection if the date starts blabbering into his wine about how stressful life is and how his boss just doesn't appreciate him.
11. Stay the FUCK AWAY from the magazines like No...sorry New Idea. Fad diets, don't work. If you've poisoned your liver that fucking much it needs cleansing/detoxing, then for fucks sake man up & join the queue for a replacement. Also it isn't rocket science...eat less, exercise more.
12. Help your doctor pay off his house....or how to live happily as a hypochondriac. Once you are over 40 make sure the numbers with cholesterol, BMI etc., stay on the postive side.
13. I'm crying as I write this and periodically running around the room screaming NOOOOOOO!!!!! Give up the beer. Take up drinking high grade spirits instead. I can buy Grappa that hids the tonsils at 50% pv. Mind you, the last time I deepened my friendship with my Italian friend I ended up multi-tasking and doing it whilst asleep.....passed out on the bathroom floor and at the top of the shitlist with my wife.
14. Make serious efforts to lose the belly. The bigger your belly the less chance you will get laid and the bigger the chance that you will drop off the perch sooner than you otherwise might.
15. Green Tea. Fuck it, man I like my tea like I like my women....deep brown and sweet. I remember there being a dieting aid called Ford Pills. The secret, well it wasn't a secret, to their success was that the pills were nearly 100% caffeine. They simply made you so fucking perky that you never felt hungry. So rather than the green variety of tea, I make mine a brownish mud.
16. If you aren't sweating then you aren't working hard enough.
17. Hide your money. Apparently saving reduces stress. And it isn't like you'll be spending much time in front of the TV anyway.
18. Fuck like a Horny Goat. Tell the girlfriend/wife/mistress that the more frequently you get laid the longer you'll live. 
19. Develop a plan to lose weight. Unless you are already stick thin we all need to lose a couple of kg.
20. Do weights...and I don't mean lifting a beer glass. K-Mart stocks weights. I'm lifting a combination of 2 & 10 kg.
21. Eat nuts. This is problematic as nuts are incredibly rich in fats. Macadamia Nuts can and do go rancid. So if you are wanting to lose weight, then go easy on the nuts.
22. Fondle yourself. I said FONDLE not WANK. Check your goolies for anything unusual. If in doubt, check it out.
23. Dance. I figure the guy who was compiling this list was either running out of stuff to write about or gay.
24. Yep, this is proof, he's repeating himself. Exercise....frequently! Apparently it helps with getting erections....not that I have much trouble.
25.  Learn to cook. Now this makes sense. Few things get a man into bed with a woman than the ability to cook something reasonably complicated.

 

The weight loss programme hit a bit of a wall. It's called "Needing to write Assignments". I started drinking a lot of sweet tea, drinking beer and spending a lot of time on my bum. I also restarted eating meat and eating when I'm not hungry. I gained a kilo.

My basic strategy has evolved into one of losing weight...in my case 5 kilo's. Consolidate the weight loss....i.e. deal with blow outs like the one I've just had and then proceed to the next goal. If we keep a desired weight loss for over a month, then there is the overwhelming chance that we will have lost that weight permanently.

Fair enough, you may suddenly go on a complete bender and smoke cannabis like a chimney, be responsible for the sudden surge in profits for your local shit food outlets and decide that trakkie dacks are the fashion statement  and make a stroke as your preferred lifestyle choice, but I figure that by now you, like me, are liking the change in your looks, so that isn't going to happen.

I found the protein shake on a website. After Shane Warne's almost spooky weight loss using these things I've found them interesting. I'm not wild about the Whey Protein Isolate...if you intake enough of this stuff it actually does fuck up your kidney's. I'd either add more tofu or toss in a raw egg.

Protein Shake:

• 1 glass of light milk
• 6 table spoons of oats, 1 table spoon honey
• 2 slices paw paw
• 1 table spoon of WPI (Whey Protein Isolate)
• 25gm of Silken Tofu
• 1 banana

You can see where the shake actually works. There is a shitload of both fibre and protein in this shake, both of which will keep you feeling full. It seems nutritinally balanced and a vegan version could be made using soy products...soy milk instead of cows milk and soy powder in place of the whey.
This reminds me...gotta go buy my Bamix/Immersion/Stick Blender so I can make one of these shakes up.

My lunch today: Ryvita with Hummus and Chilli Chutney....the other half thinks it looks revolting

The PRO'S & cons of Aspergers

 

It's just over six months since I was gifted with Aspergers and here is a summation of it.

By and large the knowledge of my gift has been overwhelmingly positive. The simple knowing  that this is what has made me different the entire lifetime has helped.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNXMaNfiYA

Now I can unleash the Aspergers positive aspects such as the ability to research and ask questions and not give up until answers are found. Recently when my Aspie chromosome went completely fucking apeshit I researched and  wrote a 1600 word essay in three days.

The patience is a plus. I can, will and have simply waited things out.

The need for routine helps in my meditation practice. I need the hour of solitude that waking at 4 a.m. gives me. It's my hour and I reluctantly share it.

There is a discipline that I have. Once a goal is decided upon the march towards it is relentless. Even if it appears I have lost interest in something...I haven't. Nothing that I have ever wanted has been beyond me. The results have been some truly beautiful meditations, some wonderful places I have visited and the most awesome, wonderful, beautiful thing of all...being Selina's husband and Ariels Dad.

I now share the different way I look at the world. I know Selina enjoys the memory that I have. It gets disconcerting for her to have so many facts just reeled off. Recently a classmate of mine asked me 

"How can you remember so many things?"

I replied with "How can you not?"

It's an Aspergers thing.

There are moments of intense creativity...I happen to be a poet.

I have a tolerance for people...of whatever species, that I would like from others.

The negatives are when the Aspie chromosome does go completely fucking apeshit and I end up incoherent and raving about something. 

There are times when I am a cringing witness to my own words. I can hear myself saying stuff and it's like I'm watching a train wreck...there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I wish I could suffer the foolish better...make that at all. I've never done it at all well.

The sense of isolation was very, very hard to deal with. An Aspergers really does feel they are on the wrong planet.

If there was a cure for Aspergers, you wouldn't find me in the queue. There is absolutely no way that I would ever want to be "normal". It has been fucking hard. There are times when I would have loved to be able to cut and run from bullies the way I saw people around me doing, but I am utterly incapable of that. Instead I have always stood & fought it out. This included the depression I had for so long. The loneliness was the hardest. 

For all this, the wonderful, unforgettable moments have outweighed, if not outnumbered, the preferably forgotten moments.

As the photograph at the top of this says " You have no idea what it's like to be gifted with Aspergers."

Book Discussion 1421: The Year China Discovered the World.

The Author

Gavin Menzies  (1937 - Present) is a retired Royal Navy submarine commander  who served with the Royal Navy from 1956 -1970. In 2002 he realised 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. In 2008 the book  1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance was released. Menzies has no formal qualifications as a historian.

Underpinning Arguments of 1421

Menzies basic supposition is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  The essential theme is that because the Ming Dynasty had the capacity to do what Menzies claims they did and there was absolutely nothing stopping the them from pursuing a programme of global exploration at that time,  that is exactly what they did do. The complete absence of verifiable supporting evidence is, in Menzies mind at least, not an obstacle because he  provides that evidence. The main source of Menzies expertise is based on his experience as the commander of HMS Rorqual. Many references are made in 1421 to Menzies use of and expertise with traditional methods of  navigation.  He claims repeatedly in this book to have visited many of the places that the Chinese fleet  visited in 1421 during his time as a submariner and he uses this as a way of gaining  credibility. Menzies also gives himself a loophole in the statement that when the Ming Dynasty changed its political posture from  outwardly engaged to isolationist that the mandarins running the bureaucracy were utterly thorough in destroying all evidence of the voyages he claims to have happened.

The case against 1421

Responses from the professional academic and naval communities to 1421 have been scathing.  There is simply no  established authority on Zheng He who supports anything Menzies writes from the moment Menzies has the Chinese fleets leaving a geographical area bounded by Java in the south, East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula in the west and the Philippines in the east. There  is very little that Menzies has written in 1421 that is not dismissed outright by the academic community.  The Australian  Professor W.A.R Richardson sums up the arguments against Gavin Menzies and  1421 best:  “Works of historical conjecture such as his relyfor their success upon a number of persuasive techniques. These include the use of that false logic called begging the question or circular argumentation, the all-pervasive and persuasive presentation of assertions as though they are established facts, the selective use of evidence, and frequent repetition. Menzies’work is permeated by the above techniques. He relies extensively upon secondary and even tertiary sources, mainly works of the same speculative genre as his own, and upon any

unsubstantiated rumour which can conceivably be interpreted as supporting his case.”[1]

The website www.1421exposed.com has articles that challenge everything from the maps used by Menzies through to the size of the ships Menzies says the Chinese built and the contributors to this website are all established authorities on the subjects that they criticise Menzies on. Menzies briefly mentions Erich Von Daniken in his book, which is odd given that the same type of distortions of evidence and statements of assumptions as fact of which Von Daniken stands accused of in his book “Chariots of the Gods” are exactly what Menzies detractors level at him.  

The case  for 1421

There is some support for the theories expounded in 1421. Professor Wei Juxian, published a book titled Zhongguo ren fa xian Aozhou [The Chinese discovery of Australia] in 1960, Louise Levathes, a former staff writer for National Geographic wrote “When China Ruled The Seas” in 1994 and she has the Chinese making contact with the Americas as early as 219 BCE, but this happens initially by accident and follow up attempts to cross the Pacific Ocean quite literally vanish. Levathes thinks that at least one of these attempts may actually have started Japanese civilisation.  However there is no evidence from these authors  to suggest that anything remotely like what Menzies presents in 1421 actually happened.

Has Menzies and 1421 been hijacked by Beijing?

The second biggest winner from 1421 after Gavin Menzies bank account has been the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). It would seem that someone in the PRC leadership was so happy with what Menzies has written that he has been awarded an Honourary Professorship at Yunnan University in Kunming, Yunnan.

China has every reason to want to be seen as she is portrayed in 1421. The picture painted by Menzies  in 1421 is of a technologically and militarily superior, confident, wealthy and outwardly engaged China. China is at the present time pursuing an outwardly engaged foreign policy, she is active in Africa both diplomatically and economically and she has an active manned space programme. To establish a tie no matter how tenuously to a past that paints China as being a positive force in the world is in the interests of the Peoples Republic. In short: if this history is to be accepted, China wins.

Is 1421 an enduring contribution to scholarship?

There is little chance that 1421 is contributing to anything more enduring than Gavin Menzies net wealth. The  book is  littered with loose ends in the form research yet to be followed up and unsubtantiated claims.  Furthermore the response from both the academic and professional naval communities in the West has been uniformally hostile. Essentially in the West the debate over the material presented in 1421 has two sides: one side is Gavin Menzies, the other is every living academic that has ever expressed an opinion on Ming Dynasty China. There is a complete rejection by these communities to any idea that Menzies has engaged in scholarship with established authorities on Ming China prefering to call 1421 a work of fiction. There is the consensus that seeing how Menzies hasn’t engaged in scholarship in the first place, how can he make an enduring contribution to it?

 References

www.gavinmenzies.net/

www.1421exposed.com

Richardson. W.A. R  “GAVIN MENZIES’ CARTOGRAPHIC FICTION:THE CASE OF THE CHINESE ‘DISCOVERY’ OF AUSTRALIA”  The Journal of the Australian Map Circle.

Levathes. Louise: “When China Ruled The Seas” Oxford University Press 1994.

http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/gateways/issues/83/story01.html

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