Daniel Dessinger

Month: November 2006

  • Parasites and Colon Cleansing Ads

    So I just added Google Adsense to one of my blogs last night. Guess what the first ads contained! You guessed it! All of them were ads for human and pet parasites. How disturbingly cool is that? Yes, that was rhetorical.

    I actually visited one of the sites advertised on my own blog, just to see what it would show. I got more than I bargained for. Somebody started doing a colon cleanse and took their digital camera into the bathroom every time they had a bowl movement. They took pictures of some of the nastiest stuff I have ever seen. It looks like foot-long stringy rubber.

    Sorry, I know that I’m being unusually graphic and improper, but it was a powerful testimonial. You get to see pictures and read journal entries, following this timeline of the entire cleanse.

    Why do I even bring this up? Because from what I’ve been reading, as much as 1 out of every 2 people have parasites of some sort. These parasites are ingested through food and water, and they cause all kinds of problems including constipation, chronic fatigue, bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, severe gas and bloating, weight gain, acid reflux, stomach pain, diverticulitis, as well as skin and hair problems.

    To learn more about parasites, common ailments, and treatment options, visit DrNatura on the web at www.drnatura.com. Intensely grotesque pictures of parasites and parasite removal journal entries can be found here as well.

  • Texas Gets a Winter Blast

    We’re “enjoying” a brief winter blast today. Frozen rain and sleet have been falling intermittently throughout the day. My wife went to work anyway. I miss her. It would be so great if she were here with me right now. Of course, I have to work no matter what. Weather doesn’t play a factor here.

    What excuse would I have? It’s too icy to make it to my laptop in the living room? Not likely. A tree would have to fall through my roof and let the ice in for that to be the case, and that’s not going to happen (knock softly on wood).

    I’d never thought of it before. Still, I can get over the missing ice days. We get paid holidays at least as good as most companies, so no complaints there.

    The wintry weather puts me in the mood for Egg Nogg, Christmas shopping, and Taco Bueno’s party burritos. Okay, any weather puts me in the mood for party burritos. It’s the meat sauce that gets me. Something illegally addictive at work there.

    So Mr. Kitty disapproves of the weather. Three times this morning, he sat by the back door and cried to be let out until I opened the door. Then he stuck his face outside, felt a cold blast of air against his tiny cat nose, and ran back into the deep recesses of the warm house. No outside time for our kitty. He’s too smart. That’s my boy.

  • My Relationship with the Ever Changing Giant, AT&T

    I am not a big fan of the corporate giant. I do remember seeing an AT&T commercial in junior high for cordless phones, and thinking that if I had money, I would buy stock in AT&T. The company has taken quite a few turns in the past fifteen years.

    AT&T is now the name behind my DSL service, once called SBCYahoo. I never liked SBCYahoo, and I was kind of glad to see AT&T come in. I honestly have no idea who is actually at the helm, technically. Companies these days buy other companies, absorb the employees and the name, or fire the employees and retain the original name. You never know what these clowns are going to do. Corporate business is so complicated.

    But I’ve always liked AT&T. My first cell phone service was Sprint. I was underimpressed by the reception my phone got. I switched to AT&T. That service was turned off simply because I was in college and was poor. My next service contract came through T-Mobile, whom I now use. I have no real reason for not choosing AT&T except for their notoriously poor customer service. When I had one problem with my AT&T cell phone service, it me forever to get an actual human on the phone. Everything was so automated because they are too cheap to actually employ enough customer service reps.

    I won’t hold that against them, though. At the time, I never dropped a call. They had excellent coverage. I really chose T-Mobile for the minutes/price package. With an advertised special, I got 1500 any time minutes per month for $49. Of course there is tax and fees, but that’s not bad. Only in my two busiest months did I exceed 1500 minutes.

    I’ve developed a sort of trust in AT&T, though. A tech is coming out to my house tomorrow morning to check my Internet/phone line. Now, I may be singing a different tune if he/she tells me that the problem is the piece of crap modem SBCYahoo provided me when we signed up. I won’t be as happy then, since I learned tonight that a decent modem in the store can cost $200-300. I’m not into spending all that money on something I should already have received from my Internet Service Provider.

    That’s not the point of the story, though. The point is, I wish I had invested in AT&T when I was in junior high. I would have a nice chunk of change by now. Back then, I thought they were going to lead the technological revolution, which they may or may not. Still, AT&T has stood the test of time. It is a company worth respecting, even if it is just a name now run by Cingular.

    That didn’t make much sense. That’s my cue. Time for all good little boys and girls and kitties to sleep in their beds.

  • My Thoughts on the Righteous Man

    For years, I worried about being a righteous man. I never measured up to the standards set by my church, my family, and my Bible. I constantly felt overwhelmed by all the ways a person should respond with kindness and love and selflessness. I failed miserably.

    For a time, I stopped caring. I surrendered. I accepted the fact that I didn’t measure up, and I quit trying to. These days, I see things a little differently. I don’t try to be a man who is perfect at everything. Now, I try to be a man who excels at one thing. One thing is easier to manage than hundreds.

    For me, that one thing is being a husband. I couldn’t have forseen it before marriage, but satisfying my wife is an fairly life-consuming task. I don’t mean to say that my wife is difficult to please. Far from it. Sometimes I think she is just grateful that I’m not a drunk or violent man. Sometimes I really think she must have set the bar fairly low to be so happy with me.

    Then I realize that for all my faults, I provide her with one of the things her heart needs most, which is. wait for it. loving attention (sorry – the old Doogie Howser dude is getting to me on How I Met Your Mother). That’s right. I give her my attention. I’m not always the best listener; in fact, I really like to hear the sound of my own logic. But I give her the best of my time always. We spend lunch times together. We spend weekends together. I go with her to the grocery store. We curl up on the sofa and watch television together (except when it’s the Dallas Cowboys or Mavericks).

    There are times when I have the opportunity to hang out with a friend or go out by myself. That’s fine. I enjoy it. But as we wrap up our third year of marriage, I am blessed to enjoy spending so much time with this incredible woman. The truth is that she is my best friend. I enjoy her company. It’s actually fun to hang out with her!

    My goal in all of this is to establish within her a deep revelation of my love and desire for her. I want her to be confident in my affection. She will not “think” that I love her or “hope” that I love her. She will know it. She will know it more than she will know anything else.

    That is my one thing. I may or may not be a righteous man in any other man’s eyes, but I believe that a loving, nurturing husband is a righteous man.

  • eHarmony and Christian Principle Part Two

    I realize that at times my writing is scatterbrained at best. I knew that the first post on this topic was just a quick dump, without form or attempt to structure. Sometimes it is necessary just to avoid forgetting the primary thoughts and/or feelings on a given subject. As I think of the subject of finding one’s Christian soulmate, I think primarily of the woman, simply because men seeking commitment and/or Christ seem to be in short supply.

    There is this mad rush to marry all the most popular girls at a young age, and then many of the quality people are still waiting for Mr. Right to come along. So what is a woman to do? In the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex alone, I know of ten charismatic churches with memberships of 1,000 or more. There are at least twice that in the area, but I’m being conservative. Out of those ten “megachurches,” there might be anywhere from 50-100 single, available, and relationship-seeking men between 30-40 years old. Slim pickens, I’d say.

    Maybe there are many more out there, but even if there were, a woman couldn’t visit all ten churches and meet all 100 men in less than a couple years. Think about one’s chances of showing up to visit a church and 15% of the available guys are not present that week. Even if they were there, how would you meet them all? And how would you weed through the ones who are married, dating, or simply too immature to consider? This is where a service like eHarmony comes into play. Sure, it’s not as popular as Yahoo’s dating service or Match.com, but millions of people do use it and find love. And it seems to be the number one place for Christians who are looking for marriage. If you’re going to fish, start with the right pond. Don’t waste time.

    A service like eHarmony allows a woman to enter her personal information. Then it checks men with similar personal information and provides her with a collection of matches. These are what we in the marketing world call qualified leads. They are men, they are Christian men, they are Christian men looking for a woman, and they are Christian men looking for a woman somewhat like you. You won’t run into anyone saying, “I just want to be friends.” No chance of misinterpreting the situation here. If you agree to meet, you both know it’s a date, even if you bring other people along. The men don’t have a chance to search through all the dating profiles online. That means that they can’t be a different person to each woman, simply manipulating their way into women’s lives. They have to enter one profile, and they will be matched with similar profiles.

    The woman call allow the matched men to make the first move if she wants. But it is definitely another way to let the right kind of people know that you are available. Set your criteria as strict or as loose as you want. You can change it over time if you are not receiving the results you desire. Look, I’m not promoting eHarmony; not really. All I’m saying is that a woman should have a fighting chance to find happiness in a healthy, godly relationship. And those of us who have found our wonderful mates already have no right to begrudge someone else that same privilege.

  • BMI: Bodyweight Mass Index

    Models in a recent fashion show were actually turned away for being too thin. Women were accepted or denied based upon their BMI, or bodyweight mass index. BMI is found using two measurements: a person’s height and a weight. While not always a uniformly accurate or fair form of mesaurement, it seems to be a workable method for scenarios such as fashion shows. 0-18 dangerously underweight 19-25 normal 26+ overweight Women scoring 18 or below were turned away. It has caused some controversy.

    Skinny, nearly dead women everywhere are up in arms, though it looks more like a toothpick revolution. Women on the opposite end of the BMI scale seem to feel somewhat justified that the skinny girls are finally being told that they are unhealthy, not voluptuous. This is a tricky subject. Far too many women have been encouraged to starve themselves to look good. We cannot condone this obsessive lifestyle.

    Women have intrinsic value regardless of size, color, or shape. Each person is unique and valuable. We need to back up statements like these by practicing what we preach. On the flip side, however, there are women who can eat whatever the heck they want as often as they want, and they still stay thinner than most of us can ever dream of becoming. Why should a woman have to endure snide looks and vicious remarks from overweight women simply because she was born with a predisposition to be thin? It’s no more fair than treating an overweight woman as though she is repulsive.

    This subject is near to my heart because my wife is regularly misjudged. She literally cannot help the fact that she is gorgeous and thin. She does not shy away from food, trust me on that! The girl can melt a whole stick of butter for one meal! As a matter of fact, we have made it our mission to eat more fats and proteins than most people. My wife would like to gain a little more weight, but is finding it difficult. It is my hope that women will begin choosing to heal rather than hold all of their hurts inside and lashing out at each other. Every person who needs to lose or gain weight should empathize with the plight of others and wish them the best in their endeavors.

    Just remember before you judge that large or small person that sometimes genetics is involved, and give the person the benefit of the doubt.

  • The Golden Child: Tony Romo

    It’s a pleasure to see a Dallas Cowboys quarterback receive the attention and nationwide admiration that Tony Romo has recently received. After only five games at the helm, Romo has played uncannily well, utilizing both foot speed, throwing accuracy, and good judgment. In his television interview with Bob Costas tonight during the Colts-Eagles halftime show, you could see and hear the confidence oozing out of him.

    This phenom is sure to disappoint us at some point, right? Of course, we want to start lowering our expectations so the realization of Romo’s mortality won’t break our hearts. That interview was the first time I had heard anything about Romo allegedly dating Jessica Simpson. Romo neither admitted or denied the allegation. He simply played it smooth and confident, as though he has been doing this and doing it well for years. Let’s all make the decision to stop being so surprised that Tony Romo is this good. The boy can play football. He’s got the skills, the mind, and the attitude. He is the total package.

    Time will tell whether he’s considered a great quarterback. For now, it’s enough to know that the Dallas Cowboys are legitimate NFC Championship contenders. The only teams standing in the way of a SuperBowl birth are the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints. With the Bears losing today, there is no reason to think that Dallas doesn’t have a legitimate shot. Armed with offensive weapons like Terry Glenn, Terrell Owens, Jason Witten, Patrick Crayton, Sam Hurd, Julius Jones, Marion Barber, and Tyson Thompson, there’s no reason why Tony Romo shouldn’t shine like a star.

    Go Cowboys.

  • eHarmony and Christian Principle

    What does a dating service have to do with a Christian? I know a good majority would argue that Christian faith and dating services have absolutely no common ground. Not two years ago, I was one of those people. Today, I must admit to having some serious doubts as to the lack of faith those Christians claim a person displays when utilizing a dating service. Is it proof of a lack of faith? Or is it actually a step of faith? There are people I know, respectable Christians, who have chosen to use eHarmony as a tool for finding a mate.

    There are dozens of services, both brick-and-mortar and online establishments. There are scientists and mathematicians who have dedicated their lives to one purpose: to calculate the best formula for deciding an excellent romantic match. eHarmony is one such enterprise. The people I know who have chosen to join eHarmony will remain nameless simply because I think too many people are foolishly judgmental and I do not wish to give the ignorant any ammunition to slander wonderful people. My concern is mainly for the many wonderful women out there who have had little to no luck finding a quality Christian man among their peers.

    It’s not that godly men do not exist… of course not. But I would dare say that the statistics do not lie when they tell us that there are more women in the Church than men. Statistically, women are at a disadvantage. Then you also have issues like a woman’s belief that she should trust in God to deliver a godly man to her doorstep. This belief system has been taught for several generations at least, resulting in the distorted teaching that for a woman to take even the slightest advancing step or display of interest toward a man is to prove distrust in God’s power, goodness, and purposes. While it is true that it is unhealthy for either a man or a woman to obsess about finding a mate, there is a significant difference between obsessive fear and concern.

    A man who finds a wife finds a good thing. That is scriptural. To find a good thing means most often to first desire a good thing. And a man who finds is most often a man who searches. After all, he who seeks shall find, right? Now let’s consider woman. In the church above all other places, she faces a question of her identity. It is debated how involved a woman can be in this or that ministry, public service, etc. How is the husband to be head of the home if his wife is his boss, after all? Good question, and one worth much consideration… only not here. Just because we may find ourselves struggling to balance the delicate nature of male/female relationships does not mean that we must project these concerns onto the woman and refuse to allow her the opportunity to seek a husband.

    In most cases, a woman proposing to a man would seem awkward to me, though I have heard of instances where this is even appropriate. Given even the objection that a forward woman is too controlling or powerful, it doesn’t explain why a woman should suffer to leave her fate up to men who may or may not even know she is interested or willing. Then there is the issue of availability. How many decent single men are available at your church? Five? Ten? Fifty? Perhaps so, though I would assume that the number is greatest within the ages of 21-26 and significantly drop off steadily afterwards. So you get your choice of many immature young men and very little else.

    What if you are 30 years old and the closest you can get to a godly man is an eternal child? What if you are 40? 50? 60? Life throws so many curve balls at us that it is not uncommon to meet a woman who, for one reason or another, finds herself near or past her child bearing years and yet still without any marital prospects. Some women are fine with this. Hey, marriage isn’t for everyone. Some women prefer to dedicate their lives to service, ministry, work, or their families. These can be very honorable decisions. Some women ardently desire a husband, however, and we dare not force upon them the title of “spinster” simply because they did not find their spouses quickly or easily. Some women are shy and do not give much evidence of romantic interest ever. To these I feel sorry, for their own unintentional lack of public expression has contributed to their loneliness.

    What is the answer? How is a woman older than 27 to find a decent man with whom she is compatible? eHarmony is a possible solution. In the period of one year, more than 33,000 eHarmony members were married. That is impressive. Of course, many of that number have or will divorce, sadly. That is a statistic which is true of any segment of the married population. Statistically, the majority do not honor their covenant committments forever. People choose the easy way out. It is more convenient to divorce than to resolve differences, insults, injuries, and betrayals. That is no excuse for not using a service like eHarmony…. (More to come)

  • Internet Replaces TiVo

    From ABC’s video player to CBS’ Innertube, the major networks have done away with most people’s need for TiVo. Go to abc.com or any of the other television network websites and you will find a media player allowing you to watch this season’s episodes of your favorite shows. Miss an episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Catch up on back episodes online. Don’t mess with programming a digital recorder or VCR.

    Why worry about it when the network provides the shows for free? I never get to watch NCIS any more. NCIS comes on at the same time as Standoff on FOX. I watch Standoff because my wife prefers it. Now I don’t have to miss my shows again. I can catch up on NCIS on lazy weekends. I might even start watching back episodes of Jericho, though it doesn’t interest me enough to watch during the week. I like the convenience of it. There are times when the Library is closed and I want to watch a movie or show.

    The library has become a valuable Blockbuster-esque resource. You’d be amazed at how many recent DVDs I can get ahold of for free. Still, as I said, the library has business hours that don’t always fit my schedule. Now it doesn’t have to matter. I can go online and catch up on my shows or start watching a new show from the first episode of the season. Pathetic, I know, to care so much about television. It’s all rot in the end, I suppose. But it is entertaining.

  • Black Friday 2006

    The holiday shopping season is on. Black Friday was a productive day for retailers this year. The day after Thanksgiving is dubbed Black Friday because it is traditionally known as the day of the year that most businesses make it into the black (profit). How ridiculous is that? Store owners actually work for 46 weeks of the year before ever getting out of the red. If that’s not a reason to find a different vocation, I don’t know what is. This year’s Cyber Monday is expected to be the most significant ever.

    Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving when internet retailers do their best to woo businessmen and women into purchasing big ticket items with special discounts and sales. Cyber Monday has been a disappointment to Internet retailers until now. The online shopping industry has matured to the degree that a good portion of Americans are now comfortable buying most anything online. It took years to build this sense of stability in the general public, but repetition has finally paid off.