The Alzhamburglar

As Alzheimer's awareness month comes to a close, I wanted to comment on a book I recently read, titled "Dying for a Hamburger - Modern Meat Processing and the Epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease"


Looking back through history, reviewing scientific literature, and examining the practices of various cultures around the world, the authors make a complelling case that the processed meat industry is directly linked to the growing epidemic of Alzheimer's disease.

It's generally accepted that as people get older, they naturally become foolish and forgetful, having "senior moments" and things like that. Senility is assumed to be a natural development - but until about a century ago this was not the case. All of the great documentors and physicians of the past infrequently reported cases of dementia in the elderly. Yet today we are literally seeing an epidemic of the disease, and the majority of people over the age of 85 develop some form of dementia. And this disease is unlike any other - it robs people of who they are and who they were, not to mention the emotional impact on their friends and families.

Looking to the past, it appears that Alzheimer's disease only became prevalent as modern meat processing facilities developed. And the fact that all parts of the animals we slaughter are put to use - be it for human consumption, animal feed, or a plethora of other uses - it's hard to find many products that don't contain processed animals. (It's in your make-up ladies.)

A correlation is also found between countries that use these mass produced meat products (mainly Western cultures) and those that don't (i.e. India). Basically if you don't eat alot of meat as a society, you don't get many cases of Alzheimer's.

On the scientific front, a new theory has developed in the past few decades that aberrant proteins called prions can interact with normal proteins and convert them to prions as well, in animals and humans alike. This causes a cascading effect that leads to more and more prion production, which eventually leads to the destruction of cells. And it seems that the most susceptible cells are those in the central nervous system, which explains the shrunken and "Swiss cheese-like" brains that are found in Alzheimer's victims.

Coming from a scientific background, it's fairly easy for me to understand the fundamentals of the theory, but to lay it out simply, prions are tiny compared to viruses, which are generally accepted as the smallest infective agent known to the Earth. And viruses are thousands of times smaller than bacteria, which are the smallest organisms we can see through a basic microscope. Viruses can be readily sterilized using known methods, but prions are a new threat that can survive these precautions taken by doctors and scientists. Such evidence for this includes the fact that scalpels used to dissect the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been sterilized and reused on live patients, but still confer Alzheimer's to the living patient.

Scary shit eh?

A parallel is also drawn that shows how similar Alzheimer's disease is to Mad Cow disease and variant CJD - diseases that hit Britain especially hard, and was traced to the practice of feeding dead animals to live ones, in effect creating cannibals out of grass eating ruminants. And the goal here is to increase yields for farmers and make more money - make a cow eat a cow, and they become bigger and fatter. Always with the money...

Speaking of cannibals, the book also examines cannibalistic cultures and discovers dementias are directly related to eating your own friends! So don't eat your buddies, especially their brains.

The end result of the British follies was to prevent cows from eating other cows, and laws were passed to ensure this rule would stand (though mistakes are often made, and sometimes rules are ignored). But here's the brilliant part - you can still feed these extra cow parts to chickens and pigs to make them bigger and fatter. And then you can slaughter the chickens and pigs, and feed their remains to cows! So the prions flow everywhere, and the holier-than-thou race of humans can pat itself on the back. Well played sir...

One point that I found particularly unsettling was the argument against eating ground meats. Imagine 1 in 100,000 cows has prion disease - if you only buy steaks, your chance of getting those prions into your system is 1 in 100,000 right? But if 1000 cows are ground up in a large vat and hamburgers are pumped out, your chance of getting that prion just skyrocketed to 1 in 100. I'm not a big fan of those odds, especially considering how many hamburgers the average Joe is going to plow back in a lifetime.

So I've basically summed up some of the arguments, albeit not so eloquently as the book does, but it's certainly made me reconsider my food choices. And it also makes me want to visit an abattoir and become a vegetarian, but that's not likely. Though I will stick to the solid cuts of meat more often than I used to.

My main criticism of this book is the lack of alternative theories offered for the Alzheimer's epidemic. Many, many things have changed in the past century or so. Countless factors could be involved in this phenomena, but not much is offered beyond the apparent culprit of the meat industry.

Regardless, I highly recommend this book.
Read it, and I guarantee you'll grow a serious case of paranoia about your future in the old age home. Not to mention the paranoia we're bound to feel about our parents who are all getting to that age when the baby boom hits the age of senility, right?

It's just one of those days

Without the alarm going off, I woke up the the following sight:


Because my life is so awesome, I didn't get that extra hour of sleep. It was fucking twenty-to-seven.

Last night was just as rough - the drive home took three times longer than usual since it was snowing and people can't drive in snow. Computer files wouldn't load. The wife wouldn't stop complaining. All the lights were red. And sleep was lacking for the past week.

My stress level was through the roof since I had to give a 45 minute presentation today in my cancer class. After almost 3 years of hiatus, I'm thrown back into the fray with a week's notice. I fell pretty good about it, but there were definitely some questions that left me scratching my head. Plus the guest prof was a complete cock, but then again I already knew that since I had met him before. The guy is only here for two weeks, and I get stuck presenting to him. Typical...

I'm glad it's over though, and I'm glad that I have almost 2 months before my next presentation. And the next prof has got to be better than the one I just had. You can't really get much worse - arrogant, socially defunct, wild mood swings, and worst of all, FRENCH. Couldn't even understand some of the things he was saying as he looked down his nose at me. Prick.

Anyway, this weekend should be good. The bro and old man are in town, and we're hoping to catch some football and hit the canal. And I'm also looking forward to catching up with my cousin Sean tomorrow. Maybe check out some tunes somewhere, who knows.

They made a movie about me and you - it was half good and half true

Last night I had a dream that I was partying all over the US with Anthony Kiedis in the mid-90's. Bitches, blow, booze, etc. Crazy times we had! And for some reason I called him "Tony" instead of Anthony. We were buds tho, so whatever.

It probably came to mind because I read his autobiography a few months ago. Although I found it pretty entertaining, about halfway through it seemed like he was stuck in an endless loop of behaviour that went nowhere. Despite his alleged recovery from drug addictions as the book wrapped up, I was left thinking "this guy is probably ramming a needle in his arm right now", since the book was published a few years ago. And it also occurred to me that half of it was probably true; the other half bullshit.

I also read Heath Ledger's biography a few months back. Boring, boring, boring. Poorly written too.

Xmas treated me well this year.

Sidenote: The wife hates it when I don't call it Christmas... and yes, it has to be capitalized. Yawn. It's all about the money these days anyway. Plus Jesus was probably born in March anyway, so there's no use getting excited about things.

I finally got an Xbox, and it came with a couple of games. Halo 3 is alright, but I'm hankering for COD. And the racing game, Forza Motorsports, is surprisingly entertaining. I haven't played a racing game in years, but this one is pretty solid.

I also got some sweet new sheets and towels for my pad. Never thought I'd see the day that I'd be excited about fuckin linens. But I suppose everybody's gotta grow up sooner or later.
Also got a couple of books - Vonnegut and Bukowski (mint), new headphones, liquor, some custom coasters from my sis-in-law (one of which sports a studly-lookin pick of me), new gloves and scarf (yuppie), awesome new work boots, and a few other things that escape my memory at the moment.

On a melancholy note, I think I just saw our old wise cat for the last time. He was looking mighty frail, and he's definitely taken a turn for the worse in the past two months. But I also got to hang out with my bro's new cat, Ollie Williams. He's got a double set of fangs right now since his adult teeth have come in before the babies fell out, so he looks menacing... if only he weighed more that 3 pounds. Even still, he's something to be feared at the moment with those claws.

The break was busy with travel, but I got to see a bunch of friends and family along the way. TO, Barrie, Chatham, Sarnia, London. And I even wrote xmas cards to the aunts and uncles I didn't have a chance to see. Look at me, all grown up and shit.

My workplace packed up and moved on the 29th/30th, and we had two brutally busy and tiring days for that task. Even now we're still setting up and unpacking like mad.

New years was spent at The Velvet Room, aka the geriatric farm. Actually it was only an old crowd when we first showed up, then the younger crew took over. It was alot of fun, and it was nice to be away from the stupid undergrads for once. Though I could've used a little more cleavage bouncing around cuz I'm a pervert.

And now it's back to the normal swing, with a twist of a "Biology of Cancer" grad course in the mix. I'm looking forward to it.

In conclusion - xmas, xmas, xmas.

The state of love and trust

As far as I'm concerned, the whole Wikileaks situation is one of the most influential occurrences of the internet generation, and for some reason people are really missing the point.

To summarize, the US had established a sort of "2nd internet" system (disconnected from the web as we know it) sometime before 9/11, and it was designed to be kept quite small so only vetted sources could access it. But since that time it's expanded to include almost 3 million users. And now it's happened that one or several of those users has allowed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to be released to the public.

From what I've read, well over 95% of the leaked documents have yet to be released to the public, but the small fraction that has been released has been embarrassing, if not damaging, to various governments. And I have no doubt that the best is yet to come. But the content itself has taken a back-burner to the various spins that have been generated by the media. The most obvious one is the Julian Assange arrest/extradition situation.

When you kick a hornet's nest, you've gotta expect a few stings. So it's no surprise to me that he's being persecuted right now. It's awfully timely that these women have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct (I'm not totally clear on the charges), but I think it was wise of him to turn himself in, rather than make a spectacle of his capture.

Regardless of the outcome of his case, the key point should be noted that it has absolutely nothing to do with the leaked documents. (And if found guilty, you have to question the validity of the verdict. It's probably not that hard to cook up a few witnesses or documents, especially if you've got the power of the US gov't to do it.) But the US would love nothing more than to draw the spotlight away from itself in this situation.

Nothing is more damaging to US foreign relations than the truth.

I absolutely love the fact that governmental policies and diplomats everywhere are having their masks removed. These jokers are being shown for who they really are, without all of the political correctness that has passed as the status quo for so long. And I expect that countless people will be fired or removed from their positions once all is said and done.

But I do have to feel for Obama. He's struggling to account for ideologies that have been in place for decades, most of which he had no power over.

On the other hand, I don't have any compassion whatsoever for the gutless companies (MasterCard, Paypal, etc.) that have been the victim of cyber attacks by the Anonymous group after doing all they can to cut Wikileaks down. If you side with the powers that be, be prepared for the day when the masses unite against you.

And I think that's the point we should all look at more than anything - for too long people have turned a blind eye to the deeds of the governement, but recent events have shown that we should've been paying more attention before. And now that the lights have been turned on, we don't fucking like what we see. And if enough people see that light, viva la revolution baby. The future of transparent governments, the interwebs, and society as a whole might hang in the balance. Exciting times we live in...

The Girl in the Green Bugatti

For the past 6 years I've been dragging this painting around with me, moving it from house to house, always hanging it in the bathroom.

It originally came from my undergrad house, but I have no idea who put it there. And strangely enough, even though they look nothing alike, the girl in this painting always reminds me of my old friend Joc. She actually bailed on her room at the last second in that house, leaving only 5 guys, myself included. So I suppose this picture took the place as the lone female.

I always assumed it was one of those generic print that you'd buy at Walmart or Winners or something, and I had no idea it was a famous painting. That is, until I stumbled across it on the cover of The Great Gatsby at Chapters last month. Having never read the book, I decided to pick it up because it was on cheap, and it was a hardcover.


The book itself was decent, but didn't live up to my expectations since I've heard the name dropped many times over the years.

And even more surprising was my discovery that this very painting hangs above the kitchen table of the legendary Hank Moody from Californication. Apologies for the poor quality screenshot of Karen and the painting, but thar she be:


Just another prod in my ass that I should start into my own epic writing career...

Shitter

In an act of pure gutlessness, I have joined the most jokeworthy of all social networking sites, and it's even worse than MySpace...
Against all common sense, I am on Twitter.

To be clear, there are three simple reasons that I've joined:

1) If, by some miracle, this terrible system sticks around and becomes an important part of the interwebs, I don't want anyone stealing my name. Mintvis is as Mintvis does.
2) Apparently employers are starting to use this thing to post jobs, and I'm always in the market for an upgrade.
3) I'm so fucking funny, that I've had a few prods from friends to join, just so they can read the brilliant BS that I spew forth.

I've never liked the system from the beginning. I think it reflects of terrible self-importance that pervades our society these days. Anyone can post their bowel movements, their dog's bowel movements, and various other forms of crap. And for the most part, nobody else gives a fuck, but people think that if they post it online it somehow gives them meaning in their lives. Guess what? It doesn't. Despite your mother's assurances, you're not special, you're just another goat in the line of a million other identical goats. Get the fuck over yourselves.

And secondly I fear that this thing will further decimate the English language as we know it. With such a limited amount of space with which to convey your most intelligent* thoughts, it's hard to imagine that the use of short-forms will do anything but expand in everyday speech.

Thus far I have made two tweets - one tester to see how things work, and one inadvertent tweet that happened as I commented on one of the less-than-exciting tweets my brother seems to be making on a regular basis. I don't know how the system works really, but I'm sure I'll catch up soon. All I see is a bunch of @ and # signs, and they don't mean jack at the moment. Just more noise in an already noisy-assed world.

I don't see myself using the thing much, but the one thing I will admit is that it takes alot less energy to post on there than it does on here. So keep an eye if you like, it might become more useful in the future. Personally I'm not holding my breath.


*Stupidest

We all need a little more Meat Loaf

For the first time in over a year I am gainfully employed!

Unbelievable, I know. I'm just working part time for now, and it's at a small sign shop down in the west end. I worked for Owen Signcraft back in Barrie for a couple of summers in the past, so I've got all the skillz to be useful here too. And although it's been a number of years since I've done the work, I'm amazed that after only two days it's all coming back, all coming back to me now. Standing all the time is damn hard on the legs though...

My list of financial priorities as of now are:

1. Buy an Xbox 360
2. Buy COD Black Ops
3. Subscribe to Xbox live
4. Buy groceries
5. Pay the rent
6. Buy a new laptop
7. Buy flowers for J
8. Pay back my broheim

A man can dream, can't he?

You might cast around forever, and never find the peace you seek

I went out to see Josh Ritter Last night. I had high hopes, since the only other time I saw him it was at an awesome show back in London.

And last night he didn't disappoint.

Basia Bulat opened, and despite one of her strange instruments (she probably played 4 or 5 through half a dozen songs) being off-tune, she was pretty solid. Great voice and a talent for playing many different types of instrument, half of which I can't even name.

I was surprised how much old stuff Ritter played, especially from the Golden Age album. It's especially weird since his new album just came out recently. You'd think he would be focussing on that stuff. But realistically it's a pretty toned-down album energy and volume-wise, and he seems to put a ton of energy into his shows.

He did a few from the albums in between too, and besides Thin Blue Flame I don't think he missed any of my fav's. And it was a pretty long show too - had to be a 2 hour set for him. And his bassist Zack Hickman is still rocking the incredible moustache:


The one thing I notice even more in live shows than I do on the albums is that Ritter is a fucking incredible writer and lyricist. I'd probably have to say he's the best I've ever seen live.

I gotta say that he seems to have slipped a little towards the crazy side in his banter, a la Joel Plaskett once he got more confidence in public. But it makes it more entertaining. And my favourite part of the night was the final crescendo came, the whole band was rocking out, then looked back to the drummer for the final beat. But instead of hitting it, the whole band froze in their positions like mannequins and stayed like that for about half a minute until the drummer decided to let loose.

And the crowd goes wild...

No electricity and no hot water make Mintvis... something something

Yesterday our building was privileged with a 13-consecutive-hour electricity blackout while the city did god-knows-what to our wires and breakers. These fools seemed to think that 9 am-10 pm is the optimal time for most regular people to go without electricity. And the hot water ran out in a hurry considering we're a pretty big building, which is also ideal for an entire day. Fucking clowns...

Last weekend was the end of the hectic life for awhile. The 16th was the last day of wedding season for me this year, and we headed down to Chatham for my cousin Kelly's big day. Despite leaving Ottawa in cold wind and rain, the weekend weather was amazing down south.

Unfortunately I was absolutely exhausted on Saturday night, but we managed to party it up anyway. On Friday morning, the fire alarm went off on the floor above mine, and we had the brutal sound echoing through our hallways from 5 am-6:30. Despite the fact that the emergency was done at 6 o'clock, the alarm went off for an extra half hour. A few weeks ago there were drills all through the day for about a week while the whole system was checked. Unfortunately the doormen (despite these countless tests) were unable to shut off the alarm on Fri morning. Even after 6:30, they just put the PA system on the cancel off the fire alarm. So instead of raging beeps we got incoherent mumbling and humming for a few extra hours... fuck.

Friday night was just a long drive to my dad's place, which ended at 1:30 am and resulted in minimal sleep again since my bro came to get us at 8 am to head down for the wedding.

The wedding itself was good, not too long or anything. We had some lag time in the afterrnoon to have some beers at my aunt and uncle's place, then hit the dinner around 5:30. The venue looked like a barn from the outside, but they did a great job of renovating the indoors to make it a perfect spot. It was on a vineyard, and one wall was completely windows that overlooked the fields of vines with the lake in the background.

On Sunday we stopped off in some little town with a really cool rich-man's B&B for all you can eat brunch. It was basically a bday celebration for my dad (a bit early since I won't be back down there anytime soon) but it was really nice. I mostly stuck to the extravagant things - crab salad, lentils, calamari salad, etc. They even had a chocolate fountain for the strawberries and pies. Mmmmmmm.

The rest of Sunday consisted of non-stop driving to get back home for my first indoor soccer game of the year. It was at 10 pm and I was exhausted. I haven't played soccer in years, and I've never played indoor, but I got into the rhythm pretty quickly. Despite my bro's shitty shinpads and socks that kept sliding down my damn legs, and the brand new shoes that had yet to be broken in, I think I did pretty well. We ended up beating a team of Ital's 3-0. Not too shabby for a bunch of hacks that have never played together! Our jerseys are uglier than sin - maroon and white. I feel like a fucking 5 year old out there.

And somewhat surprisingly (due to my relatively consistent workout regimen lately) I am still completely incapacitated from the waist down. Two whole days and I can barely walk, I'm so stiff. Hopefully next week I fare better in the aftermath.


I meant to note that the previous weekend was Thanksgiving, but it was pretty uneventful really. Just saw the fam, drove for countless hours, and read and slept and ate alot... and rocked some seriously stylish duds:

I am le tired

It's Friday night and I finally feel like I have enough energy to function normally.

Last weekend was a big one, but at the start of this week it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my energy level. It's not like I was sick or sore or fatigued, I was just completely exhausted. My eyes kept trying to close all day Monday, and as the week went by it finally subsided. Thankfully I've been able to sleep alot, and each day I've progressively felt better.

I gotta say I haven't felt anything like this in years, back in highschool when I had mono. Except this time I felt much healthier.


Last week I took off early to Toronto on Weds and met up with KP for dinner downtown. Hadn't seen her in awhile, and it was great to catch up. It turns out that a buddy of mine was at the same place, but rather than come and say hi, he just creeped on me from a distance, then sent me a text afterwards. Fucking weirdo... but I ended up seeing him at the wedding on Saturday anyway.

Thursday I went down to London for homecoming, and I had a hilarious plan for my arrival. I was in desperate need of a haircut, so I went to my old-school barber by the gates. Fortunately for me, I had forgotten to return my keys to Betty when I moved out of the sublet, so I took it upon myself to just show up at her place, let myself in, and have a nice shower. Needless to say she was a little surprised to find me half naked in her house, just coming out of the bathroom.

I chilled there for a bit, then hit up the Wave for dinner with Yakob. Young hoors galore, but none of them could drink. It was priceless.
It was actually my buddy Ty's bday, so we ended up boozing pretty hard that night. We had some serious discussions on how the world is falling into ruin, and I woke up with a brutal headache on Friday. Ended up chilling at Tys for half the day because my car was blocked in at the back of the building.

I spent the rest of day pwning at Jake's place, and that afternoon I hit the GC for some beers with the old lab rats, and it was good to catch up with them too. We got these wicked 1L beermugs full of Sleeman, and you got the keep the huge mug. All for $9.50 - can't beat that shit.

That night was Betty's kegger, and it was a pretty rockin time. Got nice and boozed, pwned some more noobs, and I actually ran into some old faces from Pano. Jeff Gordon (aka Dupont) lost his shit when he saw me at the party. I hadn't seen him in two years, but it turned out that he had been working in Betty's lab all summer and neither of us knew it. What a waste of good boozing days, he's a solid guy. It was good to catch up with Binnsy too, and despite the fact that I'm finally in Ottawa, it turns out that he finally left. He did give me the heads up on the copious amount of outdoor hockey games that take place in this town come wintertime, and I'm definitely gonna hit them up.

I woke up decently early on Saturday to head to Waterloo for Laura and NVP's wedding. Despite the rain, it was a really good day for everyone. The service was long but wasn't unbearable, and I'm rather impressed that the poor bastard didn't faint or something.

My third night of boozing in a row called for a wide variety of booze to be mixed together that night. The dinner was great, the music dancing was good, the speeches were solid, and the venue was really nice. It turns out that Calderon was also celebrating his 27th bday that night, so we did more shots than I can possibly remember. The bride happens to have prominent bangs, and apparently I was yelling "Laura Bangs! Laura Bangs!" about 5 feet away from her mother. Just my luck.

They had rented a photo-booth for the wedding, and rather than have a formal guestbook, you'd get two copies of the pictures and tape one into the book, then sign something beside it. Naturally we abused this right, and had tons of photos just for the hell of it. Bunn and I were flying solo, so we had a solid set with forearm flexing and nipples included. Great times!

My wedding gift was an absolute debacle, since I forgot to get a card. I ended up using the wedding invitation envelope that my brother had randomly brought in his luggage. I crossed out his and Mangela's names, put in my own, and wrote "return to sender" on the front. The boys made me stuff the envelope full of teabags for some reason. What a joke... classic Mintvis??

Mangela was quite pissed at me that night since I was drunk and stubborn about some fucking thing, and she was extremely unimpressed with my slowness the next morning as well. I drove back to TO and during my massive hangover I agreed to help my old buddy Findlay move into his new pad downtown. We had the most incredibly heavy shelves to lug up from the parking garage, and I almost tore my arms off in the process. It's a pretty sick place, with a view of the ACC and the waterfront. Tres badass. Fin bought me a beer for my struggles, and we hit a pub for dinner.

I went home, crashed, and woke up super early to catch my train back to Ottawa. And so began the week of le tired.