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I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast: The mind shall banquet, though the body pine: Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

Rainy days are days of thought. The air in my geography is thick with pollen from the onset of spring and the rain beats it upon the roadways... paving destruction for careless traffic. It is a day to be home following the droplets as the trail down the pane of your favorite window. My head aches... again. I feel like a patchwork man. Dinner last night was one of my original home-cooked recipes and an All-American favorite: 3 oz. of your favorite and available cheese, a Vicodin, and a few deep tumblers of straight Crown Royal Special Reserve. Henry woke me several times through the night wanting to investigate the property and mark the Liriope. It was enough to slow the clock today in the office in the midst of an already dreary afternoon. My office building is (apparently) testing the new central cooling system recently installed. I borrowed a small space heater from my boss attempting to thaw the icicles displayed around the ceiling.

Gentlemen, eat your chili peppers. Habanero, jalapeno (pictured), Scotch bonnet -- those hot but tasty varieties of the capsicum frutescens have multiple health benefits -- including the ability to drive prostate cancer cells to kill themselves, researchers announced yesterday. According to a team from the University of California at Los Angeles and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the hot stuff in peppers -- capsaicin -- caused 80 percent of active prostate cancer cells growing in mice to "follow the molecular pathways leading to apoptosis," or cell death. The cancer cells literally committed suicide. What's more, the cancer tumors of the mice treated with a hot pepper extract were one-fifth the size of untreated mice. "Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture," said Dr. Soren Lehmann. "It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models." What does this mean in the kitchen? Tex-Mex or curry fans are in luck: the hotter the pepper, the more the benefit. According to Dr. Lehmann, the mice were fed a dose of pepper extract equivalent to what a normal man might consume -- 400 milligrams of extract three times a week. That amount translates to three to eight fresh habanero peppers. Medically speaking, capsaicin inhibited the action of NF-kappa Beta, a substance found in cells that causes them to grow out of control. Capsaicin also regulates certain proteins that effect the growth of the cells. "Increased concentrations of capsaicin caused more prostate cancer cells to freeze in a non-proliferative state," according to the study. American men develop prostate cancer more than any other type of malignancy -- 232,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United States annually; 30,000 men die of prostate cancer in the United States each year. Hot peppers have received accolades from researchers in recent years for their antioxidant, or cancer-fighting, effects. Anti-inflammatory properties in peppers have been tapped for treatment of migraines, arthritis and muscle pain. Hot peppers also have been found to suppress appetites and clear a stuffy head; they can aggravate existing heartburn but not cause it. They are a good source of vitamins A, C and E, folic acid and potassium. Peppers are low in calories and sodium and contain no carbohydrates. Their taste has spawned numerous appreciation societies around the world, not to mention global competitions to determine the hottest variety on the planet. Still, the chili pepper came under fire in a 2002 Yale University report that established a link between the hot pods and stomach cancer in Mexican workers who ate from 9 to 25 jalapenos a day. The claim has been disputed by other researchers who found that rates of stomach cancer declined in the United States -- though consumption of salsa, chili and other hot foods actually had increased.

By Jennifer Harper

Step to face I'll break your ass in two, bastard you
Rather swim in some fuckin' hot tar
Before you fuck wit Willie D cause what I got for
Your ass will make ya shit your meal
Cause it's die muthafuckas, die muthafuckas still

Circa 1996, the boys from Houston's 5th Ward found their way onto my truck radio in a fit of explicit and violent lyrics just as I was passing a non-profit billboard advertising God and I thought to myself, "I'm hungry for a Smoothie". That's pretty much how my Friday afternoon played out after making an equipment delivery around lunchtime. My weekend thusfar has been non-eventful. I watch Lord of Ward yesterday afternoon and was generally underwhelmed. I have had about as much caffeine as any normal massed human being should attempt to consume in a 48 hour period. I went to bed at 4:00 this morning... not really because I was tired, but more because I was bored. I sold my motorcycle this afternoon. It was a sad day. My little 1997 V-Max has a new home and hopefully it will be cherished and appreciated. I bought my wife a new car and a laptop that should be in sometime this week. Other than that, things have been business as usual. I think I'll take a nap and dream-ride that Wraith.

Beer and lots of it... it's not just for breakfast anymore. EQ2-Daily (a.k.a. the three amigos that like to drink copious quanities of alchohol and talk about geek stuff) posted a new podcast with a LoTM spot in it. That's pretty cool. I am in an online shopping mood today. Bank accounts beware!

So Patty's Day is right around the fucking corner and I had no idea. Where does the time hide when I look to the sky for just a smidgypoo? I've been here and there but probably not where I need to be recently. Between new work projects, juggling transportation with EL until we re-car her, and leading my guild toward new raid content in lah-lah land, I've seemingly lost track of calendar days relative to the rest of the world. The weather is changing. It's getting hot. I need to find that list I misplaced somewhere a few months ago. You know... shit like that... "He is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass."

I won't stop following you now help me pray for the death of everything new then we'll fly farther cause you're my girl and that's alright if you sting me I won't mind we'll stop to rest on the moon and we'll make a fire I'll steal a carcass for you then feed off the virus cause you're my girl and that's alright if you sting me I won't mind now look at em look at em now look at em sting I see a red light in June and I hear crying you turn newborn baby blue now we're all the virus -Deftones