A choice selection of the health news that was. All in one convenient dump.
How was the first week of 2012 for everyone? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? For me, the week was not much more than rehearsals for NOISES OFF and getting ready for the m*th*rf*ck*ng BCS national championship game in New Orleans in three m*th*rf*ck*ng days. (Good lord, is it really only three days away?)
We start our news off with this item from Deadspin (the only sports blog worth reading, if you ask me) about how an open mike caught Charles Barkley’s real thought’s on his endorsement deal from Weight Watchers:
“I’ve been on weight watchers three months. I have to lose two pounds a week. I’m at 38 pounds now. They come and weigh me every two weeks. I ain’t never missed a weigh-in. Never going to…I’m feeling much better. But I ain’t giving away no money. I’m not giving away no free money. I thought this was the greatest scam going—getting paid for watching sports—this Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam.”
Key point to note here: He’s not calling Weight Watchers a scam. He’s calling his deal to make money for losing weight a scam.
As far as Weight Watchers goes, it’s one of the weight loss plans I can sort of endorse (although that’s somewhat qualified by me never having tried it). It seems simple and relatively inexpensive, and it seems to work for a lot of people — at least the people I know who have tried it seem happy with it.
OK, lunch time crowd, consider this your fair warning. Stop eating whatever you’re munching on for this next story from the New York Daily News on what PepsiCo’s own scientist says will happen to the rat unfortunate enough to find itself entombed in a can of Mountain Dew:
It’s another reason not to do the Dew.
It can turn a mouse to jelly.
PepsiCo may have succeeded in grossing out customers while attempting to defend itself against a man complaining he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew in 2009.
Ronald Ball of Wisconsin claimed that he purchased a can of the bright green, supercaffeinated citrus-flavored soda only to discover mid-sip that there was a dead rodent inside, according to the Madison Record.
Ball claimed that he sent the mouse in a Mason jar to Pepsi and that the company destroyed the evidence.
He is seeking damages of $50,000.
PepsiCo is fighting back with some pretty disgusting proof: a scientist who testified on behalf of the company said that there was no way a mouse could have made it through the bottling process intact, that its body would have dissolved into a “jelly-like substance.”
The strange details emerged last week when PepsiCo asked a judge for more time to prepare a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
We know, it’s the new year and you just made a resolution to start going to the gym regularly… for the fifth year in a row. But you really mean it this time, don’t you? There’s an intriguing way to make sure you stay motivated throughout 2012 — the almighty dollar. And we’re not just talking gym memberships, either, though you’ll probably need one: an iPhone app called GymPact offers cash rewards if you honor your weekly fitness commitment and makes you cough up some of our own hard-earned money if you slack off. Here’s how it works: you first make a pact on how many days you’ll go to the gym each week (minimum of one day per week) and how much you’ll fork out if you miss, with the minimum penalty set at five bucks for each day you miss. If you have to pay, that money gets taken out of your credit card and goes straight into a community pot, which then gets divided up and doled out to everyone who honored their weekly commitment.
How does the app know when you’ve stayed true to your vow? It’s easy enough: you have to check-in to the gym using the app and stay for at least 30 minutes in order for your visit to count. The negative motivation seems to be working so far: according to GymPact, the startup saw a success rate of 90 percent in its six-month Boston-area trial. Unfortunately, iOS is the only platform the program is currently available on, but the company says it’s working on an HTML5 web app that would allow check-ins from any smartphone.
I remember reading about this when it was still in beta — I thought it was a good idea then, and I think the same now. Money is a powerful motivator in nearly all aspects of life. (On a side note, is anyone interested in signing up for this? I need some fools that I can relieve of their money.)
That’s enough for me today. Enjoy the weekend, and I’ll see y’all in NOLA. Roll. Tide. B*tch*s.
The Thrill is OUT.
That’s not going to affect my Diet Mountain Dew drinking. At all. Love the stuff.
Hey, that’s only what regular Dew would do to a rat. Diet Dew might give him superpowers.
I’m not against this phone app in theory, but how hard would it be for someone to just show up at the gym, hang out for 30 minutes, and leave just to make a buck? The whole thing sounds like one of those ideas people come up with stoned and don’t really think through.
What loser would stand around at the gym for 30 minutes doing nothing? You have a fair point, but I suppose the program presumes people actually want to work out.
Sent from my iPhone
I haven’t stepped foot in a gym since….well, I’ve never done that, but don’t they have TVs and snack bars and stuff? I don’t know. You could even just give your friend your cell phone while they go work out. I have no idea how much money is possible to make doing this, so who knows how worth it that would be, but it just doesn’t seem like there’s any realistic way to monitor this.
I don’t so much see people trying to beat the system by just going to hang out at the gym but rather people that either work at the gym, live or work immediately next to a gym, or some other reason you would regularly be close (regular enough to meet your obligation).. it would be a way for a gym employee to make a little extra cash and possibly never work out.. I never see some of the people that work at my gym actually working out..
Sure, you could go to the gym, check in, then screw around for 30 minutes. No one is stopping you. But for the vast majority of people, actually getting up and going to the gym is the hard part. I know if it were me, once I got to the gym, I’d have no issue working out. But I make excuses to not even go. With the incentive of money, I’d go more often – if for no other reason than to NOT lose $5! Once I’m there, I might as well work out.
I’d wager that the number of people who milk the system will be balanced out by the number of people who decide that they don’t really want to go workout that day, money or not.
Those two British cleaning ladies who had a show on BBC America, maybe it was called “How Clean is Your House?”, used to recommend using Coke to clean tarnish off of silver, so I am not surprised in the least that chemicals in sodas could do that to a living thing.
There was a Mythbusters episode where they used it to clean chrome. From what I remember, it worked pretty well.
Sadly coca cola is the one thing I can’t seem to give up. I don’t buy it for the house anymore, but when I go to class on Monday and Wednesday nights especially on days I have to work, I have to get a 16 oz bottle to make it through accounting class! Coke is the only flavor I drink, I tried hot tea and that put me to sleep LOL. Had to leave class and go sleep in the car.