Two books about Number Two

I recently read two books that have to do with poop. Strange as it may sound, I found them both informative and well written.
Brown Acres: An Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers – Anna Sklar
Brown Acres is a history of the sewer system in Los Angeles. That may not seem interesting at first glance, but following the story is much more adventurous than you might imagine. Nepotism, cronyism and just plain stinginess were responsible for a long series of bad decisions in Los Angeles leading to recurring problems of sewage flooding into the streets and backing up into toilets.
Ms. Sklar has done her research and goes into appropriate detail on the history. Understanding the technology used to move human waste around was enlightening. The idea that we used to dump raw sewage into the ocean is simply astounding. Also, I was surprised to see that voters of the past were as short sighted as today’s voters when it comes to investment in public health issues. Repeatedly, the public rejected spending money to solve the sewage problems. Not until the sewage literally flowed in the streets did the money get approved to put in better sewer systems.
Today, Los Angeles has a world class sanitation system in place, but I found the path to this point well worth the read.
My only criticism would be a request for more diagrams of the sewer system over time to help keep track of all the changes and sewer paths.
What’s Your Poo Telling You? – Anish Sheth and Josh Richman
I first heard about this book on an episode of Internet Superstar, where one of the authors spoke about it with Martin Sargent. It sounded interesting, but not interesting enough to search it out. Recently, I was out with my wife Michele for dinner when I saw the book.


It’s a small book, suitable for reading on the toliet, so I picked it up. Once I got home, I went to the obvious reading spot and began to read. Happily, it’s actually an informative book, explaining a lot about poo and why people encounter such a variety of poops. 95 small pages long, the book contains a ton of good, easily understandable info on poo.
After reading the book, I’m planning to make sure to eat a bit more fiber and drink a bit more water to be nice to my colon. If you see the book, pick it up, you won’t regret it.

Starbucks Doubleshot – Energy + Coffee

In the lobby of building I work in, there is a Starbucks Coffee. Earlier this week, I noticed a new item in the refrigerator.


Yes, it looks like a Doubleshot in a Monster sized can. With a bunch of ‘energy’ ingredients tossed in. Of course, I bought it and brought it home.

The drink is chock full of all kinds of stuff.
2000 mg maltodextrin – Maltodextrin is a type of sugar that digests slowly for a longer release into the bloodstream, meaning providing more energy over time
1800 mg taurine –
450mg of L-Carnitine – L-Carnitine hepls convert food into energy
180mg of Inositol – more commonly know as vitamin B8
325mg of Panax Ginseng – Ginseng is used widely in Asia as an energy booster
90mg of Guarana – the Brazilian seed packed with more caffeine than coffee beans
Also, vitamins B6 and B12 are thrown in as well to round out the B-complex.
The can is the equivalent of roughly 225 mg of caffiene.

I popped the can open and poured it out. The drink had the familiar mocha color. The can I picked up was Vanilla flavored. It was the only flavor they had.
After a big swig, I was happy to find that it didn’t have the bitterness I usually find in energy drinks. But it didn’t actually taste like coffee at all. It tasted like a melted vanilla shake. The sweetness wasn’t overpowering and you got the subtle mouthfeel of some milk, but overall it was fairly watery. It reminded me of the Java Monster I tried a while ago.
I hope the coffee flavor tastes more like coffee.
Realistically, even if I did like the coffee, I probably wouldn’t drink a can of this. There’s just too much caffeine for me. When I drink coffee, I rarely drink more than half a cup, meaning ~30 mg of caffeine. That’s enough to rev me up a bit. If I drank 225 mg of caffeine, I’d probably spend an hour in the bathroom and then not sleep for a couple days. I have friends that could probably drink one of these as a nightcap as they hopped into bed, but my tolerance is nowhere near theirs.

Cakester Followup

Due to interest, I looked deeper into the Cakesters from Nabisco.
I expected that nutritionally, both Nilla and Oreo flavors would be the same. When I took a look, I found a little difference.



I was surprised to see that the Oreo flavor had more calories than the Nilla flavor. 10 calories more per cake than the Nilla. After reviewing the ingredient, it must be the chocolate that’s in the Oreo Cakesters.

Someone mentioned about remixing the Nilla with the Oreo into a new Cakester. After sharpening my chef’s knife, I started to slice the Cakesters.

Due to my extreme cooking skills I was able to remix the Cakesters as you see. Unfortunately, it do not significantly improve the flavor. They were still soft and sweet, but nothing special.
The Cakesters are still selling 3 packages for $2 at Walgreens, making them exceeding cheap as experimental objects. Any other ideas?

Oreo & Nilla Cakesters

Cakester is not a new social community site for cupcake lovers.
Cakesters is a new kind junk food from Nabisco that tries to combine famous cookies with snack cakes.


Nilla Wafers and Oreo Cookies are some of the most iconic and classic cookies on the market. The Oreo Cookie has been around for almost one hundred years. Nilla Wafers are not quite as old, having originated in the 60s.

The cakesters look like little sandwiches. They are soft to the touch and about the size of a regular Oreo cookie.

The filling is creamy, quite a bit different than the traditional Oreo filling. The filling doesn’t taste bad, it just doesn’t taste like Oreo ‘stuff’.
The cakesters are chocolaty and vanillay and pretty good. But they don’t make the cookies they are based on. They taste like generic cupcakes in a new form. Oreos have a specific slightly sweet flavor instead of the cloyingly sweet flavor of the cakesters. Nilla Wafers have that thin, crisp layer of flavor on the top of the cookie which is completely missing in the cakester.
Overall, the cakesters are pretty good as junk food. They are soft and moist, and you get three good sized cakesters in a package. But if you are a cookie purist, stay away.

My review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Saturday with my daughter Mira. We went to the Cineramadome at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood for the best possible viewing.
Normally I’d give my review of the movie, but something very strange happened during the showing.
After about 2/3 of the movie, there must have been a mix-up in the projection booth. For some reason instead of playing the final 1/3 of the movie, inexplicably what appeared to be some sort of Scientology video appeared on screen. There were glass space aliens sitting in chairs, hidden spaceships, and suggestions that human development was guided by aliens (thetans?). It was all quite bizarre with lots needless special effects and a complete lack of a comprehensive storyline.
I need to go see it again, to see the real ending of the movie in which Lucas and Spielberg wrap up the story lines regarding father & son development, the FBI involvement, and many other ideas brought up in the first 2/3rds of the movie. I mean there’s no way Spielberg and Lucas would resort to a Deux ex Machina ending without any sort of moral message or triumph of good people over evil.
If anyone else saw that strange Scientology video, I think we should complain as a group.

How to make beef jerky

Recently I went on a four day rafting trip. Before I went, I made some beef jerky. Here’s how I did it.
My method is based on my father’s method, as I was taught as a boy.
We start with a few pounds of flank steak.


Flank steak is a long cut. I cut with the grain as thin as I can, a little less than 1/4 inch thick. I cut about 3 pounds of beef.

I gathered up all the ingredients.
1 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
I actually smoke the jerky, but if you aren’t going to smoke it, you can add 2 teaspoons of liquid smoke.

Once the marinade is mixed up and the beef is cut, you’ll need a container to soak it in.

I soak the beef at least overnight. The salt in the sauces will cure the meat to help preserve it as well as let the flavor get deep into the meat.

The next day, I set up my smoker and laid out the strips.

After about 6 hours, the jerky was ready. It depends how dry you like your jerky. I tend to like is a little dryer.

When you fully dry out the meat, you have basically preserved for a good long time. It’s interesting to think that preserving meat like this was an essential task our ancestors used before the invention of refrigeration.

Mint Crisp M&Ms

Wandering through the aisles at the supermarket, I spotted a bag of Mint Crisp M&Ms candies. Obviously, I had to give them a try.


The bag has some nonsense about Indiana Jones on it. I can’t seem to understand what Indiana Jones and Mint Crisp M&Ms have to do with each other. I mean I understood why Shrek junk food is green (Cheetos, Snickers). But I can’t seem to figure out this marketing tie-in.

The Mint Crisp M&Ms come in three colors, dark green, light green, and white. The are different icons on the candy, some sort of reference to the movie. Maybe there is some sort of party game I just understand where the masks and skulls matter.

The candies themselves taste great. They taste like a mini Thin Mint cookie! The colors all taste the same though.
Inside the candy is a little core center of cookie of some type. From the ingredients list, it looks like the center is made of rice, like the crispy cereal. There is just a tiny crunch when you bite them.
These are well worth the effort to track them down. Grab them before the movie promotion is over and they disappear.

Testing a tuner for digital off-air television

I’m a professional TV engineer. For the last 15 years or so, those of us in the profession have been talking about the end of analog television. Next year, on February 17th, television stations will turn off their analog broadcasts and switch to digital only.
For TVs that use rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna, they will need a digital TV tuner. We engineers refer to it as an ATSC tuner, but most will simply call it a HDTV or DTV tuner. If you have cable or satellite TV, you won’t need this.
For a while, I’ve wondered what these inexpensive tuners would be like. When I saw my first tuner years ago, it was around $500 and had terrible performance. This weekend, I stopped by radio Shack this weekend and picked up a Digital Stream DTX9900 DTV tuner. The box cost $60. BTW, the government is offering $40 off coupons to people to help defer the cost.


The tuner itself is fairly small and light.

The tuner takes the input from your antenna and converts to either video and audio on RCA jacks or a channel 3/4 RF signal. Very straightforward and simple. For me, I used the RF signal since it was the simplest cabling.

We have a very cute TV in the kitchen that Michele that uses rabbit ears. She doesn’t want a new digital TV, she wants me to simply make it better. So, it gets the DTV tuner.
I hooked things up in about 5 minutes and got good signals right away. The picture looked good. We are in a class A contour so we get great reception. The key is a good antenna. I use a traditional UHF loop antenna and it seems to pick things up well. If you are a distance away, you are probably going to need a yagi style antenna.

I was pleased to see a fairly good user interface. The Info button brought up data about the channel, show, and even reception strength.
The picture was good, but on some channels with poor reception, the picture broke up. With analog channels, the picture would get snowy and the audio start to fuzz with poor reception. With digital channels, you get the cliff effect, where the picture pixelates and in some cases freezes or drops altogether.

One of the benefits of digital television is that broadcasters are sending data along with the picture, such as seeing what’s coming up next on the channel.

Here’s a short video of using the tuner.
Overall, the tuner is impressive. I think the average person will be able to use it and get better pictures than they have now. Some people will have problems if they are in areas with poor UHF reception, but that’s an antenna problem.