Gandolfini Was Not "OK" Before Heart Attack

When I heard that Gandolfini had died I was not surprised. I know that sounds morbid but it's true. When I heard the rumor it was a heart attack I was not surprised either.

at 51, his death was at a relatively young age. When you're that age and you don't die of an accident, there is usually an underlying medical condition. Gandolfini's condition was not unknown to anyone who saw him for it literally right in front of him.

The news commentators were trying to be kind, but I knew that the gut that Gandolfini was carrying was the most likely "cause" of his death. Many men are carrying a lot of weight around their waists. It is known that for men, having such a large omentum is a sure sign of impending heart disease and diabetes.

We men need to take this issue seriously. That "big teddy bear" look may have some cultural cache in many communities but it is not healthy at all. Gandolfini wasn't always that big. He grew. I see this a lot among men and women. I see their high school photos and a vast majority of them, while not slim by any means were not as large as they let themselves get. And let me be clear, most of them let themselves get to whatever size they got to. They ate whenever and whatever they wanted. They avoided exercise. They made excuses and rationalizations for their increasing size. They did not take it seriously when they could not climb stairs without gasping for air.

These people are currently having their lives and health risked by so called "fat acceptance" movements by people who actually could not give a fuck about their physical health. Many have bought into the binary that says that either your huge or your anorexic. Few of them look at those pictures I mentioned earlier and see that there is a wide middle ground that they should be in.

Gandolfini did not have to die just now and if you are carrying a large gut you don't have to die prematurely because of it either.

Has Technology Killed Cursive Handwriting?

From Mashable

But in recent years, the nation's Common Core State Standards — which at least 45 states and the District of Columbia, have voluntarily adopted — took out the requirement for cursive instruction in K through 12 schools...Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of e-mails, texts and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing.

Agreed.

I never had good handwriting and I was alarmed one day when I realized I had forgotten certain cursive letters. Now I take time out daily to write the alphabet in cursive both as individual letter forms as well as a continuous string. I also pick a paragraph or two off of a website, usually a news site and rewrite it in cursive.

I definitely notice the difference. While I'm no expert on brain development I can certainly say that my fine motor skills in my fingers has improved.

Rent A Tire?

Are these people fucking nuts?

When the tires on their Dodge Caravan had worn so thin that the steel belts were showing through, Don and Florence Cherry couldn't afford to buy a new set...

The Rich Square, N.C., couple last September agreed to pay Rent-N-Roll $54.60 a month for 18 months in exchange for four basic Hankook tires. Over the life of the deal, that works out to $982, almost triple what the radials would have cost at Wal-Mart.

Just how stupid do you have to be to do some dumb shit like this?

Look, if you can't afford new tires then you buy second hand tires from a tire shop. They won't last anywhere near as long as new tires, but you aint' payin' 1k for tires that cost $300.

Secondly, if you cannot afford to purchase at least second hand tires, then you cannot afford a car. LA Times