• 30 days without wheat: the end, and looking back

    MrEricSir

    Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on my wheat-free diet, I thought I’d post the results.

    But first, let’s recall the ground rules:

    • No wheat. This means no wheat-based breads, tortillas, beer, etc. The food selection process would be based on a combination of common sense and reading labels.
    • Try to maintain my caloric intake. I didn’t want to skew the results by intentionally “dieting” here. I decided to throw away flour tortillas and buy corn tortillas, get sugary (but fresh and in season) fruit for snacks, drink wine instead of hefeweizen, etc.
    • Continue existing exercise routine. of light-moderate cardio for 30-45 min/day.
    • Allow myself a one meal exception for the entire 30 days (a pizza event I already had planned.)

    Based on those rules, I had a few potential results in mind to look out for:

    There were two main factors I was looking for in this experiment: weight and the more difficult to quantify general “feeling.” Theoretically lowering your blood sugar should cause both weight loss and lethargy. Giving up something as addictive as morphine shouldn’t be pleasant either. But there was also the possibility that I’d “feel” healthier if wheat is linked to inflammation and joint pain.

    Simple enough, right? Almost! One thing I neglected to account for was that I might eat wheat by accident. On two occasions I took a single bite of a desert before realizing it had wheat in it. I only mention this because sometimes these diets can be trickier than expected.

    I also did a terrible job weighing myself for the first 10 days, something that I don’t think skewed the results much (as you’ll see shortly) but I could have done a better job and keeping track in the beginning.

    So, how did I do with sticking to the rules? To put it simply: not bad.

    Avoiding wheat was never all that difficult. I take serious issue with the idea that wheat is “addictive” because I simply didn’t find this to be the case at all.

    Now on to the results.

    As for weight? Zero difference. I made up for the carbs in other ways, and I still weigh what I weighed a year ago.

    That said it does seem like wheat is “empty calories.” It’s easy to eat a bunch of bread, pizza, etc. compared to say a bunch of cheese or vegetables. You can keep eating bread without feeling full and that’s not a good thing. Thing is, you can do the same with chips and fries. Carbs are easy to snack on because they don’t make your stomach feel full, so eliminating wheat might be enough for some people to lose weight.

    At the 10 day mark I did feel “really lethargic,” which I thought might be a result of the promised lowered blood sugar. But that feeling quickly went away. Compared to my attempts at low carb diets in the past, I now suspect it was unrelated to diet.

    I can’t say the diet really made me feel any better or any worse. It was so easy to stick to that I considered going a few more days for the hell of it, but ultimately decided to return to wheat so I could sum up my experiment.

    But the diet was not a total loss! There was one positive result that I did not expect. As I wrote at the 20 day mark:

    There is one positive change that I didn’t anticipate. My skin has never looked better. I’m starting to think I might have been wrong about my acne. Could it be a simple wheat allergy? Or is there another variable at play here?

    Guess what? Now that I’m back to wheat the acne came back and my skin took on a reddish tint. Now again, this couldn’t have been due to a lack of carbs because I ate foods with corn and potatoes in them. So what caused this? Does my skin have a wheat gluten allergy?

    A few minutes of Googling suggests this is within the realm of possibility. Could our fetish for bread is the reason us European-blooded folks have such terrible skin?

    Soon I’ll embark on another “30 day” journey. Not sure what the theme will be yet: check back and find out soon.

  • Why SF Fire CU rocks

    MrEricSir

    Recently I decided it was time to switch to a local bank. Previously I’ve had ING Direct and Shitibank and decided I’d had enough with all corporate banking. Too big to fail? Well that’s an easy fix, I’ll just move my money and put a dent in that size of yours.

    There’s several local banking options though many of them seem kinda crappy. I opened an account at Mission National but barely use it because in-person visits are required for so many tasks. That doesn’t work for someone who, you know, has a job.

    SFist had a poll for the best local credit union and SF Fire CU won. Figured it was worth a shot.

    Now that I’m gradually settling in to my new bank, I’m finding myself more and more glad that I made the switch. Because the SF Fire CU rocks.

    Here’s why.

    1. Online banking.

    Many small or local banks advertise “online banking,” but what does that really mean? If you mean a web interface set up by a group of middle school students for a class project in 1997, then you’ll be happy with any small, local bank or credit union.

    But some of us want to do things like enroll for an account without leaving our chairs. Even many of the national banks fail at this.

    Thankfully, I was able to sign up for SF Fire CU online. In fact, I have never visited either of their branches but I was able to sign up and setup my banking all in about 30 minutes. They also let you order your banking cards online (see #4 for details.)

    Their website isn’t as slick as some banks, but my only real wishlist would be a username instead of using your account number.

    2. Customer service

    Most places I go I feel like I get good service because I try to be pleasant. I figure if you’re dealing with hundreds of customers every day, you’re not getting paid enough for them to be a dick to you.

    That said, the corporate banks tend to have really bad phone support. Some banks outsource it and it shows.

    SF Fire CU has both a phone number and a web chat. They were able to help solve my newbie questions really quickly on both, which I appreciate.

    And none of my calls went to India.

    3. All ATMs are free

    If the ATM owner charges you a fee, SF Fire CU reimburses you.

    Does your bank do that? If so, you probably have a major bank. Many smaller banks and credit unions pay you back for ATM fees.

    It might not sound like such a big deal, but imagine you’re at your favorite dive bar and want to order your buddies a round. Oops, no cash: and the bank is too far to walk. Do you use the bar’s ATM and pay $3? You know you HATE paying that fee. That’s a beer’s worth of money down the tubes.

    4. Visa credit/debit cards with photos

    SF Fire CU does both credit cards and debit cards. Best part is you can get whatever photo you want on the card, though someone does review it so don’t upload a photo of the Goatse man or whatever (you sick bastard.)

    My cards are inspired by two infamous San Francisco eccentrics:

    Photo cards

    Now if only I could find an ATM that dispensed Norton Dollars…

    5. Smartphone app (eventually)

    Many people who were born before 1960 like to use these pieces of paper called “checks.” It’s kind of like a prehistoric version of PayPal, only more obnoxious.

    In recent years bank ATMs added this slot where you slide a check in and it somehow magically knows how much the check is for and deposits it in your account. And yes, I know it’s magic because it can read my handwriting — something even I cannot do. That all seemed fine until banks started letting you deposit checks with their smartphone apps. Suddenly you didn’t have to go outside to deposit checks, you could simply snap a photo with your iPhone! Yes, it was like the future, except a future where something went horribly wrong because we were still using checks.

    Now the bad news: I’ve got you all hyped up for nothing, because SF Fire CU still hasn’t released their app. But they claim it’s coming soon. I have a check sitting on my desk from some jerk who still writes checks and wanted to give me money, so this can’t come soon enough.

    Conclusion

    Well there’s really nothing more to say, if you haven’t read this and just skipped to the conclusion you’re a cheater and cheaters get what they deserve: nothing.

    But here’s the deal: if you live in SF or the neighboring counties, you’re eligible for this credit union and it’s worth checking them out. Their website is here.

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  • Outdoor money transfers on Valencia

    MrEricSir

    Outdoor Western Union

    Next time you’re falling victim to a scam on Craigslist, you can transfer the earnings of your fraudulent check via Western Union without entering an enclosed space. Thanks to San Francisco’s love/hate relationship with the great outdoors, we now have a sidewalk kiosk for money transfers.

    We can only hope this evolves over time with the addition of a parklet, pop-up kiosk, and possibly a truck.

    Spotted at Valencia and 16th.

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  • Does SF Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub write enough about old movie theaters?

    MrEricSir

    Castro_Theatre_Historic_Movie_House_San_Francisco-799658
    (Original CC licensed photo by Thomanication)

    You may have noticed today’s SF Chronicle re-established the struggling paper’s dominance with not one, but two features about old movie theaters written by pop culture writer Peter Hartlaub.

    Yes, two articles about old-timey movie theaters in one day is a fair amount. Ideally the Chron should shoot for four, maybe five on a given day; but if time permits for a mere two pieces reminiscing about yesterday’s cinema houses, I would understand.

    Here’s the sad news: until today Mr. Hartlaub hadn’t written a word about old movie theaters for a whopping SIXTEEN DAYS! How did we survive this torrid dry spell? How were we able to sleep without nightmares of dusty velvet seats of yesteryear facing an magnificent but unlit screen?

    Prior to that dry spell, it had been a nearly unmanageable three days without coverage of pre-movie organ performances at the Castro, the once glamorous art deco facade of the Parkside, or the fight to preserve the building which once housed the Harding. Alas, the article was but a tease as it was a repeat of what he’d posted the day before.

    How are we to live out each day without this breaking coverage of a time when movies cost less than 50 cents? And who else but Hartlaub would be willing to painstakingly illustrate these articles by looking through his employer’s photo archive?

    Peter Hartlaub, I implore you: we need more coverage of yesterday’s cinema houses. And we need it on an hourly basis.

    Thank you.

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  • Do you get canker sores? Read this.

    MrEricSir

    Time for another gross health-related post!

    It used to be I’d get canker sores once a month, often more. They come with a subtle pain that never quite goes away in your mouth. Nobody should have to endure this, and if you get canker sores I might have the solution for you.

    The problem started when I was a teenager and all the conventional “cures” didn’t help much. Topical ointments taste bad and can’t reach the back of your throat. Peroxide mouthwash stings like crazy and takes a few days of use to work.

    When I was in college I got frustrated and started searching for a better solution. Turns out, there was a ridiculously simple answer: switch toothpaste.

    The theory is this: most toothpaste contains sodium-sulfate based cleansers, also known as “SLS.” These naturally derived cleansers are really powerful — so powerful they may irritate your mouth.

    Fortunately there’s a few toothpastes out there containing other formulas. The cheapest and easiest to find is the Biotene toothpaste, which you can buy at Safeway and Target. My favorite is Squiggle, which you can find at Rainbow and other health food stores. To me, Squiggle has a better taste and texture, but they both work equally well. Both Biotene and Squiggle contain fluoride and a second natural cavity fighter, xylitol.

    So if you get canker sores, find a toothpaste without SLS and try it for a while. (If you use mouthwash, make sure you get one that doesn’t contain SLS either.) It doesn’t cost much to try this for a while and see if it works for you.

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  • Dopefish Ex: Human Revolution

    MrEricSir

    Dopefish screenshot from Deus Ex: Human Revolution

    The image above is from the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

    Recognize it? Remember the Dopefish? The big, dumb fish that appeared in the water level of Keen 4? If not, you missed out on the golden age of PC gaming. (Go buy a 386 and we’ll talk.)

    Images of the Dopefish have been snuck into video games for nearly two decades. It’s like the “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” poster of gaming.

    Incidentally, Deus Ex: Human Revolution contains a number of other subtle Easter Eggs.

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  • Setting up Ubuntu as an iTunes music server

    MrEricSir

    If you’re like me, you’ve got a home network with a couple computers and a buttload of music in MP3, OGG, and FLAC format sitting on your Ubuntu server. You want to be able to keep all your music on that server, but play it from any computer.

    What to do?

    There’s a few solutions to this. If you want your music to play anywhere in the world, you can use Ampache. Ampache works great with Winamp and many other players. But on the downside, it requires some tricky setup and doesn’t work nicely with iTunes.

    Another option is Forked-daapd, a strangely named piece of software that allows sharing your music with iTunes on a local network. It also works with iTunes compatible software such as Rhythmbox. Best of all, it’s super easy to setup.

    This is all you have to do:

    1. Install the forked-daapd package. From the command line, you can do this:
      sudo apt-get install forked-daapd
    2. Edit /etc/forked-daapd.conf as root. Directions are in the file, but you’ll want to edit the directory to point to the path(s) of your music folders (it will recursively scan subfolders for mp3s, etc.) You may want to enable transcoding if you have OGG, FLAC or other formats that iTunes doesn’t like. Oh, and don’t forget to change the name of the share to something more fun.
    3. Restart forked-daapd with sudo /etc/init.d/forked-daapd restart

    Now open iTunes and see if your server appears. It should show up on the sidebar. If you click on it, there will be a handful of songs almost immediately. It may take a while for Forked-daapd to index all your music, so be patient.

    That’s it! Now you’re ready to party!

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  • 30 days without wheat: the first 20 days

    MrEricSir

    What a difference ten days makes.

    Ten days ago (more or less) I told you about my 30 days without wheat diet self-experiment. I decided to try going for a month without eating any wheat at all. No breads, crackers, pizza, wheat beers, etc. for a full 30 days.

    It’s now been 20 days since I started the diet, and 10 days since the previous post.

    The diet so far hasn’t been terribly difficult to stick with. As much as I love getting sandwiches at local favorites The Sandwich Place and/or Clare’s Deli, I stopped thinking about these dining options entirely. Substituting corn tacos for wheat burritos was a refreshing change, and you can’t go wrong with corn arepas (they’re delicious.) Plenty of Asian and Indian food is wheat-free. Honestly I wouldn’t have a problem eating nothing but sushi for the rest of my life.

    It also seems I’ve inexplicably begun eating smaller meals. Somehow fruit and cheese started becoming my default breakfast recently. For reasons I can’t explain, everything else seemed disgusting all of a sudden. I started craving more rice and potatoes at lunch and dinner.

    The scales, however, don’t show a lot of meaningful change. I’m starting to think carbohydrates are more addictive than wheat, since if I remove one with my diet I just add more of another.

    There is one positive change that I didn’t anticipate. My skin has never looked better. I’m starting to think I might have been wrong about my acne. Could it be a simple wheat allergy? Or is there another variable at play here?

    My “cheat meal” is coming up, and I feel somewhat bad about doing it. I want to push myself further and see what happens after a completely uninterrupted 30 days. On the other hand, it might answer whether there’s a link between acne and wheat, at least for me. Also, I never say no to a pizza making party. NEVER.

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  • Why does the SF.gov iPhone app suck?

    MrEricSir

    SF.gov iOS app

    UPDATE: As @hryx pointed out on Twitter, the app is called SF.gov but the website is actually sfgov.org. SF.gov isn’t a website. Even the name of the app is an exercise in failure!
     
     

    Why does the SF.gov iPhone app suck? We live in a city filled with iOS software developers. Any of them could do a better job than this.

    Look, I’m not that picky when it comes to software. But I’m not going to put up with your app if it’s slower than anything I’ve ever seen, buggy as hell, and haphazardly organized.

    Let me explain.

    Let’s start with those tab buttons at the bottom of the screen. Check the screenshot above.

    When you press one of those, you probably think it will switch to the corresponding screen. That’s because you’re not the alcoholic middle school drop out who wrote this app.

    No, instead one of the following happens when you press a tab button:

    • It will switch to the screen you pressed.
    • It will switch to the screen you pressed, but there will be a “loading” screen that has a few extra buttons at the top of the screen for a fraction of a second (I couldn’t read fast enough to see what they said.)
    • It won’t switch and will stay at the same screen.
    • Several screens will flash by rapidly, and eventually the screen will turn white and lock up. You’ll have to force quit the app.

    You have to hand it to this application, it’s original — no other app has those bugs.

    SF.gov iOS app: Services

    The most useless tab is “services.” There’s only two options: calling 311, or a search box. The first option is self-explanatory. Strangely they don’t let you fill out a 311 report in the app; that requires a separate app that has completely different bugs.

    The little search box gives no indication as to what it does. As you start typing into the box, titles appear below in a list. But you can only see two of them when the keyboard is open. You have to click the Done button to make the keyboard go away. If you skip that step and try to scroll the page, it will take you to the first page in the list. It’s not like you’re kind of busy when you’re using your phone to look up information. No, you have all the time in the world to tinker with UI glitches.

    Whatever you click, it takes you to a mobile version of the SF.gov website. The browser is Safari, but for some reason it’s agonizingly slow. Fortunately there’s an unlabelled button which — as I discovered through trial and error — sends the page to Safari.

    SF.gov iOS app: Connect

    On the connect tab you can find Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links for SF.gov and other city services. Each of these opens in the agonizingly slow version of Safari included in this app. None of this will help you get your car back after it got towed for too many street sweeping tickets, so don’t bother with this section. It’s largely links to irrelevant city press releases.

    What’s more interesting is the photo at the top of this section. It seems to depict the last thing someone saw as their eyes closed and they died while waiting in line at City Hall. (Click the image above to see for yourself.)

    In case you were wondering, the Updates, Media, and More sections are also just lists of links to websites. Why most/all of these links didn’t belong in “Services” or “Connect” is anyone’s guess. Like all the lists of things in this app, they don’t scroll smoothly but instead jerk around slowly.

    Everything in this app suffers from the same basic problem: you shouldn’t get pregnant with your pet ape, give birth to the ape-man-baby out of your ass, buy it a Mac and then teach it programming so it can make an SF.gov app. That’s just not humane.

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  • The alphabet is garbage

    MrEricSir

    The alphabet is garbage

    Sesame Street will need new sponsors.

    Spotted at Folsom and 17th.

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About Eric

Travel, movies, comedy, tech, and whatever I find on the streets of San Francisco.

Contact: mrericsir “at” gmail.com

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