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December 03, 2007

Gotta love those research results: Chocolate, sex and meat

So, there's a book out which suggests that the best way to boost your brain power is to:

  • Have lotsa chocolate
  • Lotsa sex
  • Lotsa cold cuts for breakfast

Wonder if the researchers were all guys?

Here's a link to one of umpteen articles about this: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23425278-details/Why+chocolate,+sex+and+cold+cuts+can+boost+your+brain/article.do

Posted by Viren at 12:00 PM | | Comments (0)

January 02, 2006

Chocolate laziness

Foxtrot had an apt comic strip the other day. What made is especially funny was that just as I began reading the paper, I yearned for a good mug of hot chocolate, but decided that I was feeling too lazy to get up and make one (especially since I do it the old-fashioned way: on the stove). Usually it's when I'm nicely ensconced in bed or on the couch with a good book to read that I feel the need for a good cup of cocoa. Of course, by that time it's too late to get up and make one.

Posted by Viren at 05:24 PM | | Comments (0)

November 30, 2005

Starbucks and Fair Trade

This isn't a hot chocolate post, but after being alerted by green LA girl to Starbuck's mismatch between their policy and reality, I figured it's tangentially related. All you Fair Trade fans, go take the Starbuck's Challenge. I would, except for the fact that the last time I entered a Starbucks was months ago, and that was to indulge in the much ballyhooed Chantico.

Posted by Viren at 09:13 PM | | Comments (0)

November 12, 2005

Chocolate and the periodic table

I was playing around with my (useless but whimsical) Periodic Table Compliance script, and decided to try chocolate. I hit the jackpot -- apparently you can map the letters in chocolate to periodic table elements in 4 different ways. That's more than any other word that I've tried. Maybe I can start a whole new mystical pseudo-science around the study of periodic table compliance :-)

The given word can be mapped to element symbols as follows:

SymbolElement NameAtomic Weight
C Carbon 6
H Hydrogen 1
O Oxygen 8
C Carbon 6
O Oxygen 8
La Lanthanum 57
Te Tellurium 52
Average Atomic Weight:19.71
SymbolElement NameAtomic Weight
C Carbon 6
H Hydrogen 1
O Oxygen 8
Co Cobalt 27
La Lanthanum 57
Te Tellurium 52
Average Atomic Weight:25.17
SymbolElement NameAtomic Weight
C Carbon 6
Ho Holmium 67
C Carbon 6
O Oxygen 8
La Lanthanum 57
Te Tellurium 52
Average Atomic Weight:32.67
SymbolElement NameAtomic Weight
C Carbon 6
Ho Holmium 67
Co Cobalt 27
La Lanthanum 57
Te Tellurium 52
Average Atomic Weight:41.80

We found 4 way(s) to map the word to symbols.

Posted by Viren at 12:50 PM | | Comments (3)

November 07, 2005

Back in Business

After a prolonged hiatus from blogging, I get to enjoy the pleasures of writing again. Thecombined pressures of work and a move to a new server left me with a non-functional blog and no time to fix it. Suffice it to say that I'm never going to be trusting Berkely DB ever again -- the software is a mass of confusion and the writers have never heard of backward compatibility. Gah.

Posted by Viren at 10:41 PM | | Comments (0)

July 02, 2005

There was once a molinillo from India

So, when my parents were visiting this summer, I got them to bring me a "molinillo" from India. Well, Indians don't quite use it to make frothy hot cocoas since cocoa was unknown to that area of the world until relatively recently. However, they do use it to make frothy buttermilk and lassis. Same use, different drinks. The one shown here isn't quite as ornate as the ones I remember from my childhood, but it is very functional.

Posted by Viren at 08:58 PM | | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Chocolate fashion show in Beijing


Pictures from the Salon du Chocolat fashion show that took place in Beijing on June 10th:

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/en/061005chocofashion

Can't think of a better combination.

Posted by Viren at 07:19 PM | | Comments (0)