I’m not sure when that magical day will come, but you can bet your ass I won’t be having a cake eating contest at my wedding reception, like Hall Hunt, a competitive eater, and his wife. Shall I count the reasons why?
1. I really don’t need to be bursting out of my dress. I’m sure I’ll be strapped in pretty tight as it is.
2. All of the extra cake I’ll have shoved down my throat is just taking up valuable booze room in my stomach.
3. If my husband were a competitive eater, there is no way I would win. So why get frosting all over my dress?
4. The last time I checked, wedding cakes aren’t cheap. And I don’t think I’ll be able to savor the flavors by forcing it down my gullet as fast as possible.
5. My wedding reception is going to be a classy soirée, not a booth at the county fair. I’ll save my competitive eating for when I’m wearing my jorts and flip flops.
via The Daily What
Post from: BlissTree
Things We Won't Do on Our Wedding Day: Cake Eating Contest
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or some of us, the daytime drama As The World Turns has been around longer than we have, but CBS announced earlier this year that it would come to an end after this season. We can’t say that we’ve been dying to know what would replace it (mid-afternoon soaps don’t really fit into our schedules unless we’re deathly ill and home from work), but we’re pretty entertained by the announcement that CBS will be filling the time slot with a daytime talk show hosted by Julie Chen, wife of CBS Chief Executive Officer Les Moonves.
The show will feature Sara Gilbert, Leah Remini, Sharon Osbourne, and Holly Robinson Peete in addition to Chen, who’s giving up her co-hosting day job on CBS’s “The Early Show.” We can’t wait to see what drama they bring to the daytime TV world, but we doubt it will stand up to our grandma’s “stories” of yore.
via New York Magazine
Post from: BlissTree
As The World Stops Turning, It Gets Replaced By a New "The View"
What is really worth reading here are the comments under the area of “culture shock” with Microsoft talking about how long a project stays in the works, no more than2 to 2/2 years and this was a shock to government workers as they have had long slow drag outs for implementing new 
applications and software, not to mention hardware too.
What was mentioned was the cancellation of the VA project from the Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, which was mentioned here last week. Projects that are not working are being cancelled. This flows over too into what I have said even from the commercial side of healthcare in the fact that the business feeds itself and we have a glut of over produced software that charges and makes millions on transactions that could be more efficiently used with a ton less vendors and combined technologies. This is a huge cost of healthcare we all pay for.
In short what Microsoft can do here is emphasize use of the cloud and bring the implementation methods down to a much shorter time. BD
WASHINGTON -- As federal agencies put their budgets under the microscope looking for items to trim, under-producing IT projects could land on the chopping block.
Federal CIOs are under pressure from the White House tech team to eliminate inefficient tech deployments, and either overhaul or abandon projects that are running over budget or behind schedule. 
That means that IT firms looking to do business with the federal government are going to have to prove their case, according to Teresa Carlson, vice president of Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) federal government division.
One of Ballmer's messages to the CIOs was to shorten the development and procurement cycle, Carlson said. Within Microsoft, projects that drag on for more than a year are closely scrutinized, while none is generally allowed to languish for more than two and a half years. But in government IT, historically, it has not been uncommon for projects to crawl along for several years.
"They were blown away by this," Carlson said. "One of the things the CIOs brought up that they're struggling with is the culture shift."
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has been leading an effort to evaluate under-performing or over-budget IT projects across the agencies, while also trying to bring more transparency into how much money the government is spending on various projects.
"They really are paying close attention to these large projects that aren't working," Carlson said. "They've already canceled one with the VA. There's going to be more of these."
Microsoft Sees Opportunity in Shrinking Federal Budgets — Datamation.com
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photo via CNN
A new fusion of religion and exercise is taking the healthy living market by storm. Jesus is popping up in nutrition programs, exercise DVDs, and workout classes. Donna Richardson Joyner, founder of the Body Gospel workout DVDs, says that adding religion to exercise makes being healthy more purposeful than just losing weight to look good.
Frankly, we find this weird. It’s like the people behind the DVDs are exploiting overweight people who happen to be religious — as in: Oh, aerobics didn’t work for you? Well, this aerobics class will because Jesus takes it, too!
What do you think?
via CNN
Post from: BlissTree
Are God and Exercise a Good Mix?
Quick word association: Milk and honey.
Probably didn’t bring to mind “smuggling,” “illegal,” or “contraband,” did it? But in New York state, selling raw milk is illegal (and up until recently, making your own honey was illegal, too). Raw, unpasteurized milk is a health threat, according to the Food and Drug Administration, but according to many consumers, the stuff is actually a health boon.
NPR reports on the argument between consumers, who say that raw milk is far more nutritious (they say it can clear allergies and milk intolerances), and authorities, who say that it’s a food-borne illness outbreak waiting to happen. The pasteurization of milk (raising it to a high temperature to kill illness-causing bacteria) definitely removes certain nutrients, but the argument is really about the relative importance of those nutrients and the risk of spreading illness.
Raw milk-lovers say that the risk is negligible, especially when you can freely buy alcohol, cigarettes, and fast food – all health-compromising items available for mass consumption. What do you think, is raw milk worth the risk? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Want to learn more about milk? Check out Blisstree contributor Hailey Eber’s A Good Milk Is Hard To Find.
Post from: BlissTree
Milk Smuggling: Is Raw Dairy Really Safe?
