antonywilliams.com

I will try to answer the question without directly giving a yes or no.
Just in case though, I'll answer it at the end of my post.

So, we had a ward activity on Monday at Deer Creek.
There were 4 boats there, and we were all going to take it in turns wake-boarding and doing other typical boat/water things.

Those of you who know me well, know I don't have much body fat, and shiver when in cold water.

So, while walking towards the boat, this one guy (who's going to Iraq soon) sees that I'm shivering, and kicks water in my face. I warn him that if he does it again, I'll face plant him in the sand. He laughs it off saying he's a marine, and done boot-camp blah blah blah.
Eager to make him look like a fool, I tell him again. Sure enough, he kicks more water in my face. 3 seconds later his face was in the sand, while I got on to the boat. He didn't really say anything after that.

yes.

I've always praised Nalgene for having amazing water bottles.
The water doesn't taste of plastic when you drink from it, they're nearly indestructible, relatively cheap, and last forever.
Perfect right?
Maybe to the typical ignorant consumer.....

Made from a thermoplastic polymer consisting of long chains of the monomer ethylene, studies have shown that Polyethylene (commonly referred to as "lexan"), leaches bisphenol A.
Bisphenol A is known for its hormone disrupting effects.

I know what a lot of you are thinking. This is ridiculous. If there was a problem, the substance would be banned.
Unfortunately, this isn't the case.
Aspartame (it annoys me to hear this word, as everyone always pronounces it stressing the first syllable, when you're supposed to stress the second) is one of these substances.
I'll post about Aspartame some other time in greater depth, but as with so many things the FDA does, they approve things before thorough testing has taken place. Then when it is known to be dangerous, rather than admit it, they instead try to cause a gradual shift to a newer (and even LESS tested) replacement. In comes splenda!

Anyway, back to Polyethylene... lets concentrate on the facts.
It is proven to leach biphesnol A.
Biphesnol A is proven to be extremely harmful.
The only real uncertainty is whether the quantities of leached biphesnol A are dangerous.
So, the reason the product isn't banned (aside from FDA bribes from General Electric, inventor of Lexan) is because it's not yet known if small quantities of biphesnol A are dangerous.

Wouldn't it make sense that it certainly can't be good?
When reading up on this topic, I came across an interesting quote.

"As an aside, I think we’ve come to fear way too much in the US. I still want to die, some day, of something related to old age. I will not spend my days (however many are left) worrying about whether my water bottle is going to kill me."

This brings up an interesting point. Of course, it does seem a little silly and over the top, but this isn't something difficult.
We all know that holding a mobile phone to our ears for hours on end isn't good, but we do it anyway, as it's what many could consider necessary. Changing my water bottle, however, is simple.

In fact, Nalgene sells water bottles made of High-density polyethylene made entirely of petroleum. HDPE doesn't contain any of the chemicals found in regular polyethylene, and thus doesn't leach anything into your water.
Even better is that these water bottles are cheaper than the lexan ones.
Unfortunately, being made entirely of petroleum, you can't pick different colours.
Better still is that you can buy them directly from nalgene's website with free shipping.
Be sure to put the coupon code "BC2" for 25% off.

I'm throwing out my old lexan bottles, and I already bought both a 16oz (for $3.97) and a 32oz (for $4.95)

The famous doctor Joseph Mercola recommends the following:

'Plastics that are safer to use for storing food and beverages, none of which are known to leach harmful substances include:

* Polypropylene, designated "#5 PP"
* High-density polyethylene, designated "#2HDPE"
* Low-density polyethylene, designated "#4 LDPE"

So pay attention to the container you store your water in. If you can’t use glass, only use one of the above "safe" plastic jars.'

I've sold a bunch of things on CraigsList.
It's better than eBay for a bunch of reasons, mostly importantly because it's free.
It's intended for local buyers, so there's never any shipping. You meet in person, you check out the product and you pay in cash.
It's like an online noticeboard that's organized by City/State.
The problem is, what if I don't want to give out my real phone number.
In comes Numr (formerly craigsnumber.com) a website that lets you temporarily create a phone number that will (for a specified amount of time) forward to your real number.
Perfect for those of us who use craigslist to offload our barely functional stuff, and don't want anyone with buyer's remorse calling for a refund :)

A little searching found that Google recently purchased a start-up that had created something similar, only with Google's typical last forever mentality: GrandCentral.
The idea being that you create one number (area codes for almost any U.S. city available) that can forward to any and all of your phones. If you get a new mobile phone, rather than tell everyone the new number, you just add it on the website, and your old number will forward to it.
Great in theory, but in practice, less useful than it sounds.
I can't really hand it out, as people would assume it's my mobile, and send me text messages. When I call people, my callerID will show, and not my GrandCentral number.
There are numerous other benefits however. It records voicemail, You can record phonecalls, you can create an addressbook (or import from gmail/csv) and have different things happen depending on who's calling (straight to voicemail, number disconnected, different call tones, different greeting, forward to different phones etc...)
You can even see your call history and listen to your voicemail through the website.

All in all, it's a great idea, with some major drawbacks.
However, Google only bought them out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm sure they're planning on properly integrating it with other google products (gmail), and adding lots more features.
When has google screwed us over before?
Remember people, if it wasn't for google, we'd all still have a 2mb inbox.

It's also a way of giving your number out online. After clicking the button, it asks you for your name and phone number. It will then call you. When you answer, it will connect you to me. It will then tell me the name you typed in and ask me to accept/reject the call.

oh, and currently, GrandCentral is invite only, so, if you're interested, click the button above, and hope you're one of the first 10 (that's how many invites I have).

So, last Sunday, we had a very different sacrament meeting.
Instead of the usual talks, it was like a testimony meeting where members would mention their favourite hymn and why they liked it, and then we'd sing it.
It was fairly uneventful for the most part, except at the end.
A guy got up, and said "My favourite hymn is a Christmas hymn. The words don't mean anything, and it doesn't have much importance, but I like it anyway."
His chosen hymn was Silent Night.........
As my friend Pete would have said "Where are you from?"

So, I've played a few times now, and am starting to like it.
The strings on my racquet were made of nylon (which are cheapy and junky).
Instead of getting it restrung for $25, wouldn't it be better to buy a racquet that's a bit more expensive that already has better strings?
That's what I did.

I bought a Head LiquidMetal 170.
It came out a few years ago, but originally retailed for $200.
I got it (after coupon, of course) for about $80.
It has head Megablast 16g strings. It's a multi-core filament made mostly from synthetic gut.
It doesn't seem overly different from my last racquet.
It's head-light instead of head-heavy, which makes the slightly heavier weight (170 vs 145 unstrung) seem negligible.
It's hard switching from a sport that's similar, where you know all about the different equipment, to another where you don't.
In tennis, I know what makes a good racquet, head size, good strings, string tension, string pattern, grip size, weight, beam width, balance etc..
I'm sure a lot of it is similar in racquetball, but having only ever played with two racquets makes it hard to really know.
Again, if anyone wants to play, shoot me a call/email.

I decided that since there aren't really that many people in the USA who take either badminton, tennis or table tennis seriously, I should take up something they take seriously.
To start out with, I had to buy a racquet.
I got a semi-decent Wilson XT 145 for $50

It should last me for a while. It's lightest racquet that's available for purchase (although it's discontinued, thus the cheap price) at only 145g unstrung.
Of course, I couldn't stop there.
I bought a HEAD glove (this minimizes on needing to re-grip racquets)



I also needed some racquetballs, so I got some decent Penn HD (owned by the tennis company head) purple balls.



and, since I don't want to go blind, I bought some eyewear.
It was pretty difficult to get a pair that didn't make me look like a fag, but in the end, I found some.



I'm set to become a pro now, right?
If anyone in the Provo area wants to play, shoot me an email

For the same reasons that Europeans will never win hot dog eating competitions, Americans will never be good at football (soccer).
It's just not in their blood!

My brother got free tickets to watch Real Salt Lake play against Toronto F.C.
Was it a coincidence that RLS were playing both the only non-American team in the MLS (Major League Soccer) and the only team yet to win a single match on the 4th of July.


Beating a foreign team on your independence day sounds like the perfect way to show off you national pride and superiority over other nations, right?
well, not when you lose.....

Being European, I feel qualified to say that both teams were rubbish.
I'm pretty sure my high school team in England would have beaten them.

The refs didn't seem to really know all the rules, incorrectly calling off-side twice.
It was shocking to think that those amateurish players were actually being paid. It genuinely seemed as though this was the first time they'd ever played.

Still, it was worth doing once, and I really didn't have anything else to be doing for the 4th.