TastyKlair

I've got to admit, I'm not a beer drinker. Though I can drink quite a few glasses of wine a day - and make a point to do that! As for my husband... 1. 3+ (the number increases corresponding to how late he had to stay at work and how annoying his employees were that shift) 2. Buying at a store, not at a bar, less than $2 a bottle. 3. Labatts, Yuengling, Shiner, and Budweiser -- pretty much any lager. Though he is a sweetie and when I quit work to go back to school fulltime, he switched to Miller High Life to help the budget. Odds are if you posted in this thread you'll like BeerPal. I posted this link in another thread, but I just found it tonight and still think it's fun.

On the topic of adding stuff to beer...has anyone had Budweiser BE? The beer with caffeine? I don't even know if they still sell it. Though I did try looking it up and found a really interesting beer review site - BeerPal. When BE came out, I was on a big Red Bull & vodka kick, plus I inhaled coffee. It seemed like a great idea, but I just never had it. Now looking back, it seems so odd. Put caffeine in a drink people usually consume when they're relaxing? With a Red Bull, you know what you're in for, and usually it was to keep me from taking a post-dinner nap that inevitably lasts until morning and instead going out for a night of dancing. It's got a pretty low rating on BeerPal, but the official description - Spiced Ale... Beer with caffeine, ginseng and guarana extract and natural flavors - actually sounds pretty good...that might just be because it's fall and spiced drinks always seem appealing now. As for beer research guinea pigs...go to Charleston, SC. I was there for a conference the other week and could not believe the number of adds for research subjects relating to beer, cigarettes, marijuana, and more. Not only do you get to drink a lot for free, but you'll actually get paid as well!

When I saw the phrase "familiar hand" in the heading, I thought this was going to be a post about how the lack of government regulation is what brought about this current downturn, much like the laissez-faire anti-regulation periods of the early 1900's helped lead to the Depression and the subsequent almost overly regulating New Deal. This is at least an entertaining twist on it. I think I did hear one news report that at first Al Queda was excited to see America's "greed and excess" finally bit us where it hurt. That's understandable. Then I heard they tried to take credit for it. That's laughable. I haven't heard about the i-PROTECT Act, but then again from the government that brought us the Real ID Act, I'm not shocked. Some interesting websites: Electronic Privacy Interest Group EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. EPIC publishes an award-winning e-mail and online newsletter on civil liberties in the information age ? the EPIC Alert. We also publish reports and even books about privacy, open government, free speech, and other important topics related to civil liberties. We have no clients, no customers, and no shareholders. Mainly focused on US cases and legislation, but does have international reach, such as opposing UK mobile phone registration. The Privacy Coalition The Privacy Coalition is a nonpartisan coalition of consumer, civil liberties, educational, family, library, labor, and technology organizations that have agreed to the Privacy Pledge. Members of the coalition have been meeting since 1995, but formalized the organization in February 2001. View a list of member organizations. The Center for Democracy & Technology The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.

Affiliate Junktion? Junk? Really? As in junkie? That makes me think that all it's going to be a comprehensive listing of all of the different affiliate programs out there. So not only do you need to have a webpage full of ads (and isn't that one thing people try to avoid by developing their own website?) but to make said $600 you then have to get people to go through your link and likely buy something from the other site. If Mr. A is trying to get more traffic on his website, then I doubt his concerns would be focused on putting a link to Mr. B's webpage and then encouraging people to leave A's to go to B's. And to top it off, I bet a good many of those affiliate sites don't pay in cash, rather in points or discounts for purchases you make at their site. Even if they do pay in cash, there's probably a minimum about you have to reach to get it (say $20), but if they're only paying $.05 a link then it would take a long time to hit that $20.Good luck to anyone who tries it and please report back if I'm totally off base.

Wow, I can't believe a post about computer security programs only got 7 replies so for, and a week of silence! On most other boards I've been so, it seems like that's one topic that is feverishly debated - though must of the feverish debating is not whether to use programs like Norton, but rather just how horrible they are.I think most anti-Norton people I know use Clam-Win. Personally I use Norton 360. I'm not a fan of some of the quirks Norton builds that protect most simple computer users but hinder/annoy users who know what they're doing. The biggest irritations for me is 1) the issues (mainly with firewalls) when I try and network new computers and 2) the amount of memory it uses since it's such a huge program. I deal with those issues and I'm pretty happy otherwise. I'm generally a big fan of "all in one" anything, one-stop-shopping, set-it-and-forget, so having one program without having to monitor separate anti-virus, firewalls, backups, etc., is just too convenient. Also, my husband is not nearly as computer literate, so it's nice knowing that those same annoyances can help protect the computer from him!

So...does this mean that there's something wrong with drinking half a bottle of wine a day? If we're talking a 750ml bottle, that's about 3 glasses (at least how I pour) and definitely doable.

Two caveats about my post: 1. This is a gal jumping into a conversation about men's health and porn. I'm not a psychologist, so I can't tell you if there's a huge gender difference in beliefs. 2. I like porn -- not all, but definitely certain types. And since I like it, I'm already biased that there's nothing wrong with watching it. All that said, and totally avoiding the possible issues raised if you're watching excessive amounts of snuff porn or anything like that, I think that the basic issue is simply that excessively doing so much of something that it takes away from you life is likely to be bad. Now if you're just in a habit, rut, routine, whatever, of watching porn during a time you regularly watched something else, like a tv show, then I think that's fine. If you're skipping work to watch porn, that's probably not a good idea. Personally, I've found that I'll go in spurts with porn watching. I'll watch it quite a bit for a few days and then maybe not for a few months. I've heard somewhere that with sex in general, the more you have, the more often you desire it. That only explains that once I start I'll watch it pretty regularly. It doesn't explain why I can then stop and go without watching porn for months. I think that is simply that I move on to something else. I do the same things with spending time on a discussion board or into a new hobby. I'll get into it for awhile and then move on after awhile. Under this logic, as long as you're able to take a few weeks off from watching porn, then maybe watching it every day for a few weeks isn't that bad. I haven't read it yet, but I just picked up a book called "Getting Unstuck" by Pema Chodron. I'm not too sure if I'm going to be a fan of it, but the back page was interesting. "Have you ever had an itch - and not scratched it? In the Buddhist tradition, this points to a vast paradox: that by refraining from our urge to "scratch," great peace and happiness is available....An urge comes up, and we succomb to it, and it becomes stronger...We reinforce our cravings, habits, and addictions by giving in to them repeatedly." Basically it seems that the theory of just trying to have a "small bite" of something just ends up making you crave more. Not at all that I'm diagnosing you with an addiction or advocating that you never watch porn. I'm just saying that it seems as though you simply got into a pattern of watching it more often and now it's habitual enough for you to call it an addiction. Assuming you want to stop this "addiction" then I'd suggest any standard "recovery" program - 12 steps, cold turkey, finding a replacement activity - could work. While you probably won't find a medicated patch soley for porn addictions, you might be able to get a doc to proscribe Ortho Evra. A steady dose of estrogen into your system would probably put a damper on your sex drive a bit!