Small-Market TV News Hilarity

How do small-market TV news staff avoid death by embarrassment during each newscast? They must be heavily medicated, because a story last night on one of Lincoln, Nebraska's two TV stations was a real howler.

A report on research into Vitamin D's preventative effects for women prone to multiple sclerosis began with the anchorperson stating, "Multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects ... (slight pause) ... the tissues." Which tissues might those be? The Charmin? Would squeezing them help?

The accompanying video was the best. Remember, the story's about women taking Vitamin D to lower their chances of developing multiple sclerosis. So who do they show happily tossing back some pills? A man.

Certain Dri: Sweaty Pits Salvation

John: Hi, my name's John, and I have axillary hyperhidrosis.
Support Group: Hi, John!

Today, loyal readers, I'm performing the classic act of self-sacrifice in today's culture: revealing an embarassing fact about myself, in order to help others.

I have, or should I say had, sweaty pits. Frightfully sweaty pits. Not just a light dampness -- a steady drip, drip, drip of cold, clammy nastiness. You can feel beads of sweat forming before they slide, ever so slowly, all the way down your side to your hips.

The condition's called axillary hyperhidrosis, and apparently it afflicts quite a few people (enough, anyway, to justify the purchase of the domain name www.sweaty-armpit.com by a doctor who treats hyperhidrosis).

Any shirt I put on would be soaked through in the underarms in five minutes flat. Wearing undershirts didn't help, whether they were made of cotton or high-tech wicking material; the sweat would just gather in an ever-expanding white-ringed splotch on the outer shirt.
All that's changed thanks to a fairly inexpensive medicated antiperspirant, Certain Dri.

It cost me about $5.50 at Walgreen's. It contains aluminum chloride instead of the aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex found in your standard antiperspirants. You put it on before bedtime and, after some initial fierce but bearable itching, forget about it. It shuts down your armpit sweat glands for days at a time; you don't even have to use it that often. Don't worry, you won't overheat. There's plenty more sweat glands all over the rest of your body.

Believe it or not, you can buy it at Amazon.com, where its sales rank is 93 in the Health & Personal Care category. #5 in the antiperspirants category. Gift wrapping, you'll be sorry to hear, is still not available for this item.

Be sure to catch the glowing and hilarious review from "chatchi," who refers to himself in both the third person and the first person while relating that he (somehow) measured seven quarts of personal sweat output and decided to get help "[a]fter failing numerous job interviews, and scaring away an immeasurable amount of potential romantic companions because of my mind-boggling sweat production ... ." He concludes: "Thanks to Certain Dri, chatchi had the last laugh."

Scirus: Google for Science Sites

I've just discovered Scirus, a search engine that indexes only science-related content, especially that contained in peer-reviewed publications.

The front page and basic-search are Google-like in their simplicity, but the advanced search is where the engine shines, giving you pulldown menu-powered Boolean operators and search narrowing by information type, file format, content source and subject area.

But why should we really use it? Because, "if you search on Dolly, Google finds Dolly Parton, Scirus finds the cloned sheep."

Using Electronic Journal Indices on the Macintosh

Some of the electronic academic journal indices I use for grad school, like EBSCOhost, don't seem especially Macintosh-friendly. Clicking on the link to download the PDF full text of an article doesn't generate a PDF, it gives you "ContentServer.asp," which launches Apple System Profiler. I noticed the file downloaded invariably matched the size of the PDF file EBSCOhost claimed to be delivering, so I just renamed "ContentServer.asp" with a PDF extension and POOF! -- a usable PDF.

Sex Sells ... Popcorn

"Honey, thanks for the Colby Ridge Popcorn. I'll be upstairs."

-- Actual Lincoln, Neb., Valentine's-week radio commercial
I can't make this stuff up, folks.

Can a Blogging Client Overcome My Busyness?

My loyal readers must be groaning in agony waiting for the next pearlescent issuance of wisdom from this, their favorite blog when there's nothing else to read. To satisfy them I've downloaded Ecto, an OSX blogging client I hope will make blogging a bit easier. I'm one of those heathen scum who love Movable Type but don't like the Web interface, at least as it appears in Safari.

Notable in Ecto is a spell-checker whose dictionary contains neither "blog" nor "blogging." "Pearlescent" isn't in there either, but that was to be expected. :-) The first suggestion for blog is "log," for blogging it's "blooding," and for "pearlescent" you get -- nothing. And just in case you think I'm making up that word, here's the definition.

Here are some coming attractions:

• The Stats Cookbook, a collection of step-by-step recipes for statistics equations intended to help those of us who like words more than numbers, and like both better than any equation containing sigma.


• Photos of me climbing at the UNL Climbing Wall. I'm now climbing 5.8+, working on 5.9 before taking the lead-rope class. I have now lost 20, count 'em, 20 pounds climbing. It doesn't feel like exercise and, contrary to popular misconception, upper-body strength is not a prerequisite. You climb mostly with your leg muscles, which are strong in just about any person who's learned to walk.


• An update on my master's degree studies. One of my professors has a great sense of humor, so I'll be posting a few of his gems for posterity.

I should be studying right now. You could kill a reasonably sturdy large mammal with my reading list.

Aiee! Statistics!

Homer Simpson: "Aiee! Cobras!"
Edna Krabappel: "What's the matter with him now?"
Bart Simpson: "Night terrors, ma'am."

Taking POLS836: Public Policy Analysis Methods and Models has me screaming, "Aiee! Statistics!" Unfortunately for me, these terrors come by day.