293 thoughts on “Questionable Unshow

  1. They’ll be so blue…well actually with our without you.

    Elvis vs. U2? Well that’s an interesting start to the morning.

  2. So after almost a year of doing tests the specialist has declared they have no medical explanation what happened last year,

    Hmmmm.

  3. Speaking of SXSW and gay day, the new and very anticipated Depeche Mode album comes out today. Who’s emo about it like I am?

    • This seems to be a giant trend suddenly. DOnt get me wrong Im glad its trending. Ive been trying to tell my peeps about the evils of diet soda for years now. Leave it to Hyman to break the news…

    • I won’t go into a full-blown rant on my soap box here, but this article takes a mish-mash of trendy new concepts and throws them all together claiming facts to everything it lists based on the results of one cited study (even though some of them are still fairly controversial in the medical field). The one thing I will specifically call out as bad science news reporting is claiming “Diet sodas raised the risk of diabetes more than sugar-sweetened sodas!”. The study in question was a correlational study, specifically meaning that they cannot claim causation. Let’s all say the statistics 101 mantra again because it cannot be said too often… correlation does not equal causation.

      That being said, I will say that the “sugar busters” diet plan in which you attempt to stabilize your body’s insulin spikes by sticking to lower sugar and more complex carbohydrates is at least a reasonable plan that preaches moderation and balance in the diet and is the one thing that has ever really worked for me on the one occasion that I was quite successful at losing weight. The big caveat is that you have to treat it as a permanent way to eat rather than a diet.

      • I have to say that I too found myself imediatly wondering about their methodology. Did they take a random sampling of people and put them on diet drinks and then find out who got type 2 diabetes?

        … or did they just go out and do a study on people who identified themselves as “diet soda drinkers”? Because I would hypothesize that people who ARE obese or have had problems with obesity tend to gravitate towards diet drinks more then their counterparts and that further, this group that is battling obesity would be more likely to get type 2 diabetes anyway.

        So as UH said, “correlation does not equal causation”.
        That being said, I wish they WOULD do a more controlled study because their other science seems sound.

        … and one more thing …

        PLEASE OH PLEASE!!! Can “Dr. Hyman’s UltraShake” be the name of our retro 60’s, psychedelic band?!?!!?!????

        • It’s an all-to-common problem with medical research. The only way to truly establish causation is to have specifically manipulate a variable. But it’s very difficult to do this ethically in medical experiments (for example, how do you take 200 individuals that did not previously smoke, randomly divide the group and tell 100 of them that they are now smokers and tell all 200 that they aren’t allowed to change their socioeconomic status, stress levels, diet, child bearing status, marital status, etc. for the next 20 years and then figure out who get’s cancer and who doesn’t). Thus, medical research runs correlational studies assuming that if they have enough people (why you see studies with 6800 participants) and statistically “eliminate” other variables, they can make the assumption that they have truly hit on the one variable that makes sense as the real cause of any change. It’s either that or throw their hands up and say that they simply can’t figure it out because they can’t run the right kind of study. Which option would you choose if you were looking for research funding?

  4. So…I DO love me some Tool, but fucking christ the 20th Anniversary CD of Opiate is 149.99!!! They HAD to squirt all this pretentious bullshit all over it. Limited to 1000 of 5 covers and signed by the band and neato schmeato packaging and squirt squirt here we come. Just give me a remastered 20$ CD and Ill be fine, guys. Lord.

  5. Temperamental technology:

    So my laptop and iPad started having problems connecting to my Airport Extreme router. The router seem to vanish randomly from the list of wifi hotspots visible on my laptop. Couldn’t connect to my NAS drive. Router worked fine for wired connections.

    Tried rebooting laptop, then router, then cable modem, tried various combinations of those. Problems still persisted.

    Went into router settings and turned automatic wifi detection off, voilà it started working again.

    Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

  6. Alice in Chains is offering a special pre-order bundle for the new album. You get the new CD, a T-Shirt, and a b and autographed litho all for only 4.99. Fuck you, Tool.

  7. Vote for IG-88!
    Starwars.com is running a tournament where we get to vote for our favorite Star Wars characters. Most of the pairings make some sort of sense (like R2D2 vs. C3PO). However, they have put poor IG-88 (who does nothing but stand in the background) up against the Emperor. This is a blatant attempt to push the Emperor forward at the expense of a lesser character. Let’s show them that they can’t get away with this. Pass the word on and vote for IG-88. In fact, let’s make him win the whole darn tournament!

    http://starwars.com/this-is-madness/

    • Way back at Christmastime, I listened to several of the Christmas Deadpan episodes back-to-back. Then I decided, “Hey, I lost track of where I was with Deadpan at some point in the last year, I’m not sure when – I’m just going to do a massive archive binge.” I started in January with #153, which was Bunny and Jack talking about the very first Deadpan MMMMMeetup and other things. As of today, I am caught up with everything except this Unshow. Granted, I don’t commute or drive very far on a regular basis, and I mostly listened in the car. My point is, if you stick to it, you can catch up. 🙂

  8. Your crap joke for this oh so grey day:

    A man goes to confession & says, “Forgive me Father, last night I made love to 21yr old twin sisters in positions that I think are illegal over & over again”.

    The priest thinks for a few minutes & replies, “Buy 7 lemons, squeeze the juice into a glass & then drink it”.

    “Will this cleanse me of my sin ?” asks the man.

    “No” says the priest, “But it will wipe that fucking smile off your face you jammy bastard !

  9. It’s my first day back at work after 2 weeks off.
    Its been a good morning, so far. The drug seekers are pacified for the time being and no dementia peeps are loose in the halls.

  10. I’m CP: yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments. Some of the Justices come off as petulant babies. Aside from that, compelling stuff, and really tough questions.

  11. Cool link, Rhettro!

    Is anyone else participating in International TableTop day Saturday? We are thinking of going to an event at our local game shop and taking Elder Sign. Wish more of you guys lived here then we’d just have it at our house!

  12. Here’s a fun fact: The combined of the four teams on here that Deadpanites pull for (Avs, Yotes, Flames, Wings…forgive me if I forgot someone)is 56-58-18 and THAT’S WITH THE WINGS BEING 17-11-5!

    Sad times. Sad times.

  13. In reply to Lo Pan’s earlier query

    I don’t know how it works in other states, but Texas is rather quirky when it comes to alcohol distribution. For whatever reason, the middleman of “distributors” seems to have a very strong lobby.

    I don’t know all the ins and outs, though I believe it is correct that such beer sales are tightly controlled.

    As a personal anecdote, our KC Hall has a bar that we sell beer from during rentals. We also sell soda, snacks, popcorn, etc. Everything but the beer we usually buy in bulk from Sams. The beer we can only buy from the two authorized distributors for our region. We have to go to those two because each is authorized to carry certain beers, but not others.

    The real kicker is, it would be much cheaper for us to buy that same beer buy the pallet at Sams when we make our run for sodas and popcorn, but we’re legally restricted from doing so. It is indeed a bizarre thing.

    • Well SOME of that rings true here. We cant buy liquor or beer (unless its 3.2%) at ANY supermarket, which makes the ma and pa liquor stores here a pretty powerful entity. And I think that’s a good thing. I just found that story odd, like I wasnt reading it right. “I can brew my own beer but cant open a brew pub and sell my own beer in it” just seemed odd. Thanks, Ed. State by state liquor laws fascinate moi.

    • I’m waiting for Emma to die a tragic death. Teresa and I will most likely watch the rest of the season, but I doubt we’ll continue. I like the idea of “The Following” being a mini-series, but if they are going to keep the bad guys from getting caught by a sequence of more and more improbable happenstances, then I’ll have to give it its coat.

  14. Even if you’re not a fan of his comedy, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the documentary “American: The Bill Hicks Story”. I’ve loved his standup… but to see his life thru the eyes of his family and friends is amazing/heartbreaking.

  15. Finished watching Nova’s take on the Russian meteor. Pretty good, even if the sound effects got silly. I laughed that they included the cow tipping part. 😉

  16. Hey Pan

    Got brave and bought a web cam yesterday. Today I set it up and tested a Google Hangout with hubby. In a couple of weeks I get to do one for real with some of our authors. As most of you know, I hate having my picture taken so I consider this a big step… I’m just not sure if it’s forward or backwards.

  17. Taking advantage of an HBO freeview weekend to get caught up on Season 2 of Game of Thrones. Apparently procrastination really does pay off right now.

  18. We played Elder Sign yesterday! A good time was had by all!

    We also got the 25th anniversary bluray of Willow yesterday and watched that last night.

    Today, ham, Slovak Easter cheese, and broccoli casserole. Just Sly B and I today.

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