The ketosis that occurs from a low carb diet is referred to by Dr. Atkins as BDK (Benign Dietary Ketosis). When you remove carbohydrates from your diet (not 100% removal, but removal so you're only intaking 20-40 grams per day as opposed to the government, hear that?, government, what?, government "required" carb intake of 300 grams) your body uses its own fat stores for energy, and yes, the breakdown of your lipids does produce ketones which are eliminated in your breath and urine.

Now, this ketosis is not bad. It STOPS once you have no more weight to lose. I'm still on a low carb diet after 2.5 years now, and I don't think I've lost weight in 1.5 years of that time (after I average out all the tiny weight gains and weight losses I've had since then). So you're probably under the assumption that ketosis will break down muscle and organs an all that other good stuff. It won't. If it did, I believe I'd be dead after two years on this diet.

Now enough of that. Lio, consult with your own personal physician, or do your own medical reasearch and then work up a diet that works best for you. Don't listen to what the government tells you that you "should" eat, don't listen to medically uneducated people like myself (although my experience was positive, I have a computer degree on my wall, not a medical degree), or even less medically educated people like Spo. That's all. You looking better and feeling better is for you and you alone, and you should do it the way that's best for you. If that's a low carb diet, great. If that's a low fat diet, great. If that's no diet and working out at a gym like a maniac or running 10 miles every day, that's great too. Do what's best for you, and fuck everyone else.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

But 10 or 15 pounds, that's not a lot. For that much weight, you shouldn't have to eliminate ALL carbs, just BAD carbs. Avoid cookies and ice cream and pizza and anything with processed flour and shit. Talk to me later if you need any more advice, or go buy Dr. Atkins' book (I don't know if you already did before). Enjoy.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

I made the switch to wife beaters (scientifically called "A" shirts, due to their shape) and boxer briefs many years ago, and I'm quite pleased with them in general. As far as sleeping goes, I avoid all the confusion altogether by not wearing anything to bed, screw that. There aren't enough opportunities to be naked, so I'll take those 8 hours.

And yes, ponies are girly. A man might want a horse, but little girls want ponies. Tell him to get a real midget if he wants one so bad.

I believe the president of the class is supposed to contact everyone about reunions. And yeah, I'm also pretty sure they do them every five years. Or they might only do it the 5th year, the 10th year, and then every 10 years after that. I don't remember who our class president was senior year, nor do I really care. But it'll still be fun.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

The past four years since high school have indeed gone by quickly, but at the same time, it also does seem like four years have gone by. Just looking back at all I've done, and all that everything's changed lets me know that time has passed. My last exam was last Wednesday, I've been home since Friday night, and I'm graduating this Saturday. It's exciting and scary (or maybe that's all the same thing) all at once.

Honestly, I don't think I have any regrets about my college years. It took me a good year and a half to enjoy it at first, but I was having a lot of personal issues of my own back then, enjoying myself really wasn't a priority. And sure, all of us probably could say, "If only I studied a little harder..." but really, how many of us did THAT bad, eh? :)

And if you think these past four years being toast is scary, just think of this: We're going to have a high school reunion next year. Now THAT'S scary.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

Eh, there's more important things to talk about than cloning, like the Lord of The Rings. I know I'm a dork, I've seen the damn movie 6 times, and I'll probably see it 6 more before it's finally out of all the theaters. But the last time I went to see it (a few weeks ago), they added about 5 minutes of footage from The Two Towers (the second movie) to the end of Fellowship. Of course, doing that is a good way to make more people pay to see the movie, and torment us all until December. Gandalf's coming back, baby. And they made him take a shower this time.

Hmm, I don't know who to agree with on this one. Lio makes some excellent points, and so does Calliander. It's interesting to debate cloning. It's not necessarily important in any of our lives, but it's an issue nonetheless. Calliander, it seems, doesn't want to discuss it because he's already developed his old solid opinion on it, and that's fine.

But the issue DOES still remain, whether anyone feels it should be debated or not. Whether cloning is "good" or "bad" is not for me to decide, and I will not get into a debate about the "moral" implications of it. But there ARE implications of it, and serious issues could arise from the abuse of that kind of technology. The majority of us being Star Wars fans, should realize that. I can see where cloning is absolutely acceptable. Allowing someone to have a child of their own blood is definitely an acceptable situation. But then again, people would argue (and I might be one of them depending on the day) that there are plenty of innocent children already alive who could use the love of good parents (of which there are so few). There's nothing wrong with adopting a child. Whether the child is your blood or not makes no difference. Being a "mommy" or "daddy" goes FAR beyond blood relation. You adopt a baby boy or girl, and raise it as your own, that child is YOURS. YOU'RE the one he or she will call mommy or daddy for the rest of his or her life, even if he or she does decide to one day search for his or her "blood" parents.

Cloning existing people, however, this will cause issues. I don't want two of me. I can't think of ANYONE who would want two of me or two of anyone else, for that matter. First, there's me. Gatekeeper of The Dark Side, with 21 years of my own life and experiences. Now pretend I have a clone of me. What the hell do I DO with it? It's highly doubtful that physically cloning me will also clone my personality, experiences, by entire non-physical being. Right now, from what I've heard and read, cloning can only recreate exact genetic duplicates, not exact physical duplicates. They cloned a cat, but the clone is a kitten, or something like that. Having a baby me would cause hardly any problems at all. It'll be a new form of life who can grow up and have his own life and experiences and all that. But imaging what would happen if the technology gets to a level where we can EXACTLY clone people, physically and mentally. I'm left with someone EXACTLY the same with me up until the point the cloning took place. You all have to admit, that would be kind of fucked up. Kind of neat, but kind of fucked up.

God has no place in this discussion. A serious discussion can't be based on something that may or may not exist, and I don't want to get into that right now. Whether God would "want" something or not is irrelevant. Human beings being able to do something is what's relevant. Certain types of cloning definitely can upset a balance that nature is usually in control of. It's okay, grandma. If you die, we'll just clone you, and then we can keep doing that forever. I think that'd be bad. B A D. Bad. There's enough people on this tiny little rock of a planet already. People need to be born and people need to die without interference, or there quite possibly could be serious repercussions. Someone loses an arm, clone them a new one of their own, sure, that's fine. I need a kidney. Beautiful, take some of the cells from my good kidney and make me one. I think this kind of cloning is excellent and beneficial. Anything further than that might be a little TOO much. Then again, I could be wrong.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

So I remembered that when I fist did the diet nearly 2 years ago, I lived on pork rinds for a while. Since the things are literally fried animal skin, they have no carbohydrates yet are very similar to most other salty snack foods. So all week, I've been searching with no avail for the delicious little fried skins. I've tried several supermarkets, several 7-11 stores, and a few Cumberland Farms too, but I can't find the damn things. If anyone can let me know what stores still carry these damn things, then I'd appreciate it.

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!

Since we're talking about stupid people, I figure I'd throw in a couple little tidbits of my own. Anyone that's known me for longer than a few months knows that I've had a nice little cushy job at Bentley's library since I started here as a freshman way back in 1998 (damn, that was a long time ago). I started out as "Circulation Assistant" and after my first year, got promoted to the elite title of "Senior Circulation Assistant", which is a glorious title bestowed upon only the very best student workers of the library. Ah, hell. All it means is that I get work a "Close The Library" shift (8pm to midnight) once a week and I get to tell non-senior assistants what to do.

Stupid people at the library generally come in disguise at first. A typical patron will look up a book or periodical or something on our electronic card catalog (we use the paper card catalog for scrap paper now), print out the information and bring it to the circulation counter. "Can you tell me where I can find this book, please?" is something that a usual patron will ask myself or one of my co-workers. "Sure, that book is upstairs/downstairs." is the usual reply from myself or one of my co-workers. Usually, this will make the person go away to find their book that they need to finish their term paper at the last minute. Occasionally, though, after telling someone where their book/periodical/etc. is, I'll get this: "How do I get there?" Um, excuse me? You want me to tell you how to get downstairs, is that right? How silly of me, I forgot. We don't use stairs and elevators in this building to get between floors. We have magic teleporters in the bathrooms that let you warp between floors. IDIOTS! There's big blue signs marking the 4 or 5 staircases/elevators EVERYWHERE! I wonder how people like that survive past 3 years of age. This post is starting to be kind of long, so I'll just make quick summaries of some of the other stupids.

"Where can I find this textbook?" I'm sorry, in an ideal world, I'd also like to get my textbooks for free, but if we kept them all here, then the bookstore would go out of business (which would be fine with me, but still). You may find an old edition (circa 1965) downstairs or something, but I can't promise you. "How do I get downstairs?" See above.

"I left a disk here last night. It's black." *Drops the lost-and-found box FULL of black diskettes on the desk* Here you go. Take as many as you want.

We have 6 laptops that patrons may check out for 3 hour use in the library only. "Can I check out a laptop?" Sure. *Brings a laptop* "No, all my work is on laptop #(insert number here), I want that one." I'm sorry, where does it say in this "Usage Agreement Form" that these turn into your personal computers?Start saving your work on a disk. "I lost my disk." See above.

We also have a "webnet consortium" with 3 other libraries in the area. If we don't have a book, we can order it for a patron from one of the other three. "I'd like to request this book from Babson/Regis/Pine Manor, please." Sure thing. *Examines the printout from web catalog* Okay, see over here where it says this book is missing/lost/damaged/checked out to someone already? You can only get it if it says "Stacks", meaning the book is in, you got it, the stacks. "But I have a paper due tomorrow, and I need the book!" Oh, heavens! Even if the book WAS available, it takes 2 to 3 days to get it from another school. Good luck on that paper, though.

Finally, there's the joys of trying to close the library at midnight. This time is extended until 1am during finals weeks to allow people to study a little more. I always get a few people, though, especially during finals. "What time do you close?" Even though they don't see the big board behind them with the hours, I'm nice and tell them anyway. "Oh, really? Okay." And these are the people that me or my minions (students who work with me on my night shift who aren't senior assistants) have to personally chase out of the library at closing time. You know, since me TELLING them the closing time AND the LOUD "we're about to close" bells aren't enough to clue them in to the fact that they're supposed to leave. I'm sorry, even though I know your studies are important, we have lives too and can't keep this damn place open all night just for you. Good night. Bah, I love my job. :)

So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!