c o l l i s i o n b e n d . c o m

Spurred by a Twitter post by Dave Shea, I found out tonight that whole milk contains 98mg of sodium.

The serving size is listed at 245 grams, or little more than 8 ounces.

Also in that nutritional data: 146 calories (71 from fat), 24mg cholesterol, 13g carbohydrates, and 13g of sugar.

Non-fat milk, on the other hand, weighs in at 86 calories (only 4 from fat), 5mg cholesterol, 12g sugar, and a whopping 127mg of sodium — also for an 8-ounce serving.

WeightWatchers will tell you that non-fat milk is better for you — and from a fat and calorie standpoint it is. All else being equal, this is not a surprise.

But sodium? I know that 127mg of sodium is not going to give someone on a low-sodium diet (2,000mg/day) an instant blood pressure spike, and over the course of a day, that 127mg of sodium really won’t make that much of a difference — as long as you’re watching everything else: which means take it easy on those low-fat frozen foods, which are generally really high in sodium; I’ve seen some of these entrees come in at 1,300mg of sodium — or more.

And that much sodium per meal will spike your blood pressure — guaranteed.

I have to admit that I am just as surprised at the amount of sodium in milk as Mr. Shea is. My bet is that the increased sodium in the low-fat variety is to make it taste better — God knows it needs something. ;-)

All day Tuesday, April 22nd, the good folks over at TCP in Aurora, Ohio will be celebrating Earth Day with IllumiNation, a special Earth Day webcast about conservation, recycling, and ways you can help conserve our planet’s environment and natural resources.

Tune your browser to www.tcpi.com/earthday for more information.

While you’re at it, check out Help Our World to learn more ways to help the environment.

Ed Hammer, known as the “Father of Fluorescent Signature Analysis,” invented the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) for General Electric in 1976. Ed eventually won the IEEE Edison Medal for his pioneering work in the lighting industry.

Ed currently serves up podcasts about his experiences in the business, and (pardon the pun) sheds some light on the true nature of fluorescent lighting from the first days to recent developments in the industry — including advances that help eliminate the introduction of mercury into the environment.

You can check out his weekly podcasts at www.drop-the-hammer.com.

I can tell you that we here at the Bend have changed about 3/4 of our light bulbs over to nVision CFLs in the last year, and we’re seeing a significant savings in our electric bill.

Check it out — and save a few trees.

UPDATE — You can also digg this at:
http://digg.com/environment/illumiNation_An_Earth_Day_Event_Brought_To_You_By_TCP

…and it has been rough, let me tell you. I got a lot done, though, but if you look at the SPAM emails I received in the last 24 hours, you’d think I haven’t done enough.

To wit:

“Tracey Teague” thinks I am in search of a university diploma. I am not, thank you very much. I have more of a college education that she’ll ever have — and probably more than most people. Try me on this one…

“Monty Shaffer” says I can increase my… erm… you-know-what size by 3″ by using his patented technique. You really sure I’m that self-conscious about how big I am down there? In a day and age where people use plastic surgery, pills, and just about anything else to enhance their looks, you might think I might be interested. But I’m afraid not, pally: I’m fine just as I am, no more, no less. In fact, I’m probably better endowed than you are.

That’s not saying much, I know, as I’m not all that big (it’s pretty dinky, if you ask me — with the emphasis on “pretty”), but when you get into the territory that these guys are talking about, there’s only one way a guy goes, and I don’t go that route: uh uh, sorry Jack. Even a less-experienced woman knows that it ain’t the size of the gun, it’s the motion of the ocean. The only people who care about the size of that body part are guys that are… well… “a wee bit lavender,” (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) if you know what I mean…

“Euro Software” thinks I can speak German… ‘fraid not, pal, sorry.

“Stuart Page” wants to sell me a watch. Well, maybe not a real watch, but a “repl1ca w4tch.” I guess it’s a real replica of a replica watch. Something. I really don’t know, but I really don’t care, either; I no longer wear a watch: I can’t, as it prevents me from reaching all of the keys on my computer keyboard, which is essential to any Web-based job…

So, now, “Stuart” didn’t get the gist of my non-reply, so “Howie” thought he’d try as well. Sorry, still not biting…

Now here’s something I can really use: “Sylvester Walden” wants to sell me Viagra for US$1.41/pill, or Cialis for US$2.22/pill. Hmmm… that’s only slightly more expensive than my insurance company can get me those same pills, and I can get that prescription from my doctor with a simple phone call and have that prescription filled within an hour — let’s face it: at my “advanced” age, we’ve discussed it. I’m OK so far, so I think I’ll pass… for now…

“Hazel Dernovsek” wants to sell me bling. Not just any bling, mind you, but “fantastic bling of all sorts.” God knows I haven’t enough bling, so I gotta buy more, right? It’s really too bad I’m not into bling of any sort, let alone fantastic bling…

“Lori Hunter” just wants to say ‘Hi!’ I wonder what she wants… maybe I could take my accounts offline and open the email just to take a peek. It’s probably a call to another Web site that is going to either fill my screen with porn, or try to reset my Internet Explorer settings so that all I can ever see is their porn site.

It’s really too bad I use a Mac, isn’t it? Assholes.

Now “Lavern Guy” wants to sell me “waterproof replica watches,” as if I still hadn’t quite made up my mind. Hate to tell him (maybe it’s a “her”?) what I didn’t tell the other guy…

And then there are those idiots that send email in foreign languages, using Cyrillic or Asian typefaces. Sorry, but I am at a loss with this one. I’m an American. My family has been in this country for almost 400 years. REPEAT: 400 YEARS. English is my primary language, even though I have a German last name.

I sport the “Standard Midwestern American English Accent” so treasured by US broadcasters that in college I was trained in public speaking without my consent (I have a good speaking voice, so they made it an educational requirement by decree — they could do those things back in the 70s), so that I might have a future as a broadcaster one day. Little did they (or I) know at the time… ;-)

But, I digress.

So why send me a sales message in a language I can neither understand nor comprehend, let alone read? Cheap broadcast is one thing, but Common Sense is another.

But… wait a minute… we’re talking about spammers here… Common Sense is certainly NOT one of a spammer’s essential core qualities…

Silly me.

By now, I can assume that you have been able to dig yourselves out of the snow and actually get around our fair city.

For some of us, that process took longer than others.

I got home Friday night around 7:30, and it was just in time: I took my lunch leftovers and the daily mail inside, dropped it on the kitchen counter, then slid into the bathroom to do something… well, if you can imagine that it took me almost 90 minutes to drive home, you can imagine what I had to do in there.

Afterward, I went outside to have a cigarette, and I saw the first of what was to become a long list of cars to get stuck in front of my home over the weekend. I lost count around 18 or 20, most of which were 4-wheel drive trucks with snow plows, or Jeeps, but there were a couple of cars and minivans — and one of the latter got stuck right at the end of my driveway sometime late Saturday morning.

By that time, we had at least 16 inches of snow in the street, and it was still coming down — hard. (When all was said and done, we ended up with 28 - 30 inches of snow in the street, drifting to 4 or 5 feet in some places just off-road.)

The lady who owned the minivan abandoned her vehicle with the intent of returning to get it out. She tried later, only to get her Jeep stuck before she arrived at her minivan.

What really got to me was what happened Sunday morning: a city snow plow, trying to get around Ms. Had-no-business-being-out-in-the-worst-snowstorm-in-Cleveland-history’s minivan, got stuck in the very same place many other vehicles found them selves in the hours earlier.

I woke up just in time to take these videos (I apologize for the sharpness — I woke up just seconds before, grabbed the camera, and began shooting; the fuzziness is the window screen):

Turn the volume up and you can hear my bride and I talking about what a good job these guys were (and have been) doing — and they have.

I mean, let’s face it: the heavy snow wasn’t hardly their fault. Nor was the fact that their jobs were made infinitely more difficult by the bozos who felt that they were such good drivers, and their cars were so great in the snow, that they could get through anything.

For that, the proof is in the pudding, as they say:

In this second video, you can hear me say, “oh, please hit that minivan — please hit that minivan!” I was saying this because the person that left their minivan there had absolutely no business being on the road on Saturday — for whatever reason. And their lack of consideration for themselves or others resulted in many more individuals getting stuck in the same place — and to preventing the plows from cleaning our street when all of the others in the neighborhood had been cleared at least twice.

We were stuck in our house until 5:00 p.m. Sunday, unable to go for groceries or other goods when others had been out for hours — thanks to this person’s stupidity.

I took the video because you never see snow plows getting stuck — or pulled out of such a situation; I posted the videos because people need to see what a lack of thought and consideration can do to inconvenience others (and I’m not just talking about me).

Next time they say to stay off the roads unless it’s an absolute emergency — stay off the roads.

UPDATE — My video has been picked up by The News-Herald.

Here’s a second interesting piece of trivia: what do all of the following actors and actresses have in common (hint: read the title of this post):

• Martin Landau
• Ida Lupino
• Martin Balsam
• Gig Young
• Joe Flynn
• Jack Warden
• Ted Knight
• Jean Marsh
• Burgess Meredith
• James Franciscus
• Ross Martin
• Inger Stevens
• Dick York
• Jeff Morrow
• Vera Miles
• Martin Milner
• Roddy McDowell
• Ivan Dixon
• Sebastian Cabot
• Jack Klugman
• Orson Bean
• Anne Francis
• Keenan Wynn
• Donna Douglas
• William Shatner
• Patricia Breslin
• Art Carney
• Arte Johnson
• Agnes Moorehead
• Jonathan Harris
• Don Rickles
• Buddy Ebsen
• Bill Mumy
• Cliff Robertson
• Dennis Weaver
• Charles Bronson
• Elizabeth Montgomery
• Jonathan Winters
• Peter Falk
• Lee Marvin
• Lee Van Cleef
• Cloris Leachman
• Buster Keaton
• William Windom
• Dean Stockwell
• Leonard Nimoy
• Robert Redford
• Frank Sutton
• Carol Burnett
• Donald Pleasence
• Bill Bixby
• James Doohan
• Ann Jillian
• Robert Duvall
• William Sargent
• Julie Newmar
• James Broderick
• Joyce Van Patten
• Burt Reynolds
• Mickey Rooney
• Telly Savalas
• James Coburn
• Sir Cedric Hardwicke
• Richard Basehart
• Greg Morris
• Robert Lansing
• Mariette Hartley
• Wally Cox
• William Demarest
• Alan Sues
• Jackie Cooper
• George Takei

All of the actors and actresses listed above starred in the original run of the TV series The Twilight Zone in the early-1960s.

While writing about the Outer Limits TV show, and after Joel Libava’s comment, I thought I’d do the other show.

Remember this?

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space… and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition… and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call… The Twilight Zone.”

You couldn’t make a TV show today with all of those people in it — there’s too many of them.