One of my favorite podcasts, Stuff You Should Know, covered a very interesting topic this week: Epigenetics.

Did you know that stuff that your grandparents did can effect your development? Apparently, your body can adjust to environmental changes. Those tagged changes may be passed down through your descendants, even though the egg and sperm are supposed to be wiped clean of them. 

How interesting (and scary) is it that things such as abuse can pass through to the fetus. So apparently you are what you eat, drink, and smoke. Beware because what you do can have ramifications well into future generations.

With that thought, I'm thinking about becoming a vegetarian.... You know, just in case.

Two of my really good friends just had kids in the past two months. I'm so happy for them. Both of the kids are girls and both are super adorable!

And once the babies get plump enough, I can bite them!

Wait, what?

I have a confession. I love to kind of gum on babies. Their fat, tender arms are perfectly tender.

Newborn babies are great to hold, but it's the 3 month plus time that babies are great to nibble on.

Congratulations, my friends. You and your spouses have done good.

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Click on the widget and you can get in on some amazing art on the ground floor.Fawn Lau is one of the fabulous artists and she's amazing, talented, and one of my favorite people!

Time is running out and they really need to get funding. That's where you guys come in. Please pledge some money!

The new series of Doctor Who starts in April. Matt Smith takes the reins from David Tennant as the new Doctor. Joining him in the new, swanky, steampunkish TARDIS is a new redhead, Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan).

If she's as fun as the last ginger, it's going to be a great season! I'm looking forward to a nice romp through time and space.

I've been to or worked at San Diego Comic-Con for over 15 years. That's a super long time, though there are lots of multi-generational geek families who have gone for even longer.

But honestly this year I don't think I'll be attending. At least not for fun. I'm always up to give a hand to friends or for work, but running around as a Fan? I just can't take it.

Comic-Con has been growing every year. It's great! Exciting! But also tiring. Especially since I really, really don't like crowds. Spending hours pressed against people in line is just not my cuppa.

I spent hours in line last year trying to go to two panels: True Blood and Doctor Who. Now, getting in line 3 hours before my target panel is just NOT my idea of a good time.

So I found a discrepancy on my pending transactions. I contacted Chase Bank like a good, suspicious netizen. They canceled my card and told me a new one was on the way within 4 days. The lady on the other line never said anything about 10 days. 

I called today asking about my card only to find out about the 10 day thing. They then said that if I wanted a new card, it would cost another $5 to send me it.

I explained about the initial conversation and how I was told it would be this week. I was then transfered to another individual (Jim?) who listened to my rant and then said it would still be $5 to cancel the card and expedite a new one.

Now, here's the rub. 

1. If they had told me about the 10 days initially, I would not have been upset. I would know what was going on with my card.
2. If they offered to send me a new card and waive the $5 fee, they would have kept a customer who pays attention.

People may think I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. But I am also a really good customer. Looks like I'll be going to a new bank.

Any suggestions? 

Where have you gone, 2009? Don't you know that 2010, we're really in The Future? I know 2010 is going to be a bang up year. I can't wait to meet it.

My predictions for 2010? Aside from autopilot technology for cars, hence removing the human factor and a large amount of accidents?

I hope that the health care bill will pass. *sigh*

I can't believe how fast time has gone. I've been a bit neglectful of my blog. It's been a bit crazy the last few months.

First of all, I have a new job.

Second of all, I'm in Los Angeles.

Third of all, I'm still driving back to Murrieta on the weekends to check in with my parents and hang out and eat some yummy foods.

Honestly, I missed a lot of things about LA, but traffic wasn't one of them. I forgot how horrible the drive can be. Living in Torrance isn't bad when my office is in Culver City, so I'm just trying to force myself to wake up early and head to the gym before work.

Sometimes that even works!

Ok, now I better hit the sack. Tomorrow, I have some work to do. After work, I'll drive down to San Diego for my extended family's big Christmas party. Can't wait to see everyone there.

Well, it looks like I won't be making it again this time. As much as I'd like to participate in the competition, I just started a new job AND I have a freelance editing work that I need to complete.

I'm just about to crawl into bed as I write this. It's been a very long while since I've worked in LA and had to deal with the traffic and the crazy driving.

I decided to use Tumblr's private blog feature to take pictures of all the food I'm eating. What's the use of an iPhone if not to guide me to better eating choices. Wait? What do you mean it's a phone? TALK to people?! What's that?

Anyway, I better get to bed. Tomorrow, I plan to strike out early. Hopefully I'll have an hour in the morning after the gym to work on more edits.

Basic health care saves lives. The way health care is handled cannot continue.

Without health care, people die. Reform is needed. Please spread the word to Congress. They cannot ignore the voices that demand reform.

My mac-mini has been in the family for years. I purchased it soon after they were launched and I was thinking the poor old thing was getting on in the years.

It's the main computer my parents use since macs are simpler to use. My parents are more email/skype sort of people, so it doesn't have to run a billion apps.

But the past few weeks, I've noticed that it was taking a while to start up applications. Then one day, the APPLE loading screen (gray screen with apple plus whirly loading icon thing) was just hanging around on the screen.

Uh-oh....

I inserted the MAC OS X disc and did a repair. That helped for a few days.

Then. It died.

The hard drive was kaput.

So I toddled over to Fry's and picked up a 160 gb (P)ATA HD. I'm gonna do some surgery! Cross your fingers for me, mkay?

They had a 300 gb one, but my parents were using a 60 gb without filling it up, so over 2x the hd space seems like plenty of elbow room. Especially since they probably need to upgrade to a faster computer eventually.

I mean, the specs on a common netbook is not much of an improvement on my mac-mini. The big plus would be the portability. So I'm going to operate this afternoon. *cracks knuckles*

I found this video online:
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini_g4_mem_hd_opt_h/

Now I just have to get some philips screwdrivers, and a putty knife.