I was starting my days with three Advil and falling asleep praying my headache would go away during my sleep. It never did.

According to the philosophy of the HCG diet, HCG would supposedly make my body burn fat, providing energy, and I would not therefore feel hungry. I finally decided to order an HCG test to see if my drops actually contained HCG, even though the bottle said it did. I ran the test five times and none of them turned up positive for HCG.

So I researched whether or not the test should actually turn positive. Of course when you search for anything HCG related you pretty much only get results for companies trying to sell you the drops — mostly the “homeopathic” HCG drops. All of these sites say, that their HCG drops were not designed to create a positive HCG pregnancy test. Some go so far to say that the drops contain very diluted amounts of HCG and then tell you that you don’t understand homeopathy if you expect their HHCG to create a positive HCG test.

Well how in hell do you expect HCG — a hormone — to do anything in your body if you’re drinking 30 drops a day of very diluted HCG? According to these HCG drop sellers it’s the buildup of HCG over time that starts making it work. Some even say that the formula is homeopathic because it “encourages” your body to start producing HCG on its own. Hello? Unless you’re a woman and pregnant, your body will NEVER produce HCG on its own. Sorry. A big problem with the HCG diet information is that the things you see are provided by sellers. Responses on message boards are either created by them or by people who have convinced themselves that their homeopathic HCG drops actually contain significant amounts of HCG. Or if they’re lucky, there is actually HCG in their drops (unlikely).

If you had a headache, would you ever dilute a very small amount of aspirin in drops and expect it to do anything to stop your headache? NO. Does your body ever produce aspirin on its own, spontaneously? No.

Why do you think trans-gender people have to take hormones the rest of their lives? Take Chaz Bono for example — he has to take male hormones forever because his body will not ever make them on its own. A body not programmed to regularly produce a hormone just won’t.

Have you ever watched Survivor? You know how those people end up getting really skinny after several weeks on the island? They’re starving because they don’t get enough food. They aren’t taking HCG drops and they’re clearly losing weight. I am convinced that this is what is happening to the majority of people who are taking these homeopathic HCG drops. They’re starving and believe that the HCG drops are actually working.

So if you suspect that your drops don’t have HCG in them, order an HCG test to test your drops and see if, in fact, you’ve been screwed. I don’t care what the homeopathic philosophy is, if you’re not getting significant amounts of HCG in your drops then the impact of HCG, as described by the doctor who originated the idea, won’t even be happening.

Get some cheap HCG test strips now.

I would be interested to see if the actual HCG injections work, however. You know — the injections that actually contain REAL HCG? Unfortunately, however, I feel as though I’ve already been screwed by the whole HCG diet idea that I’m really not willing to give it a try again.

I have not been hungry today at all, which is probably the result of all the stuff I ate over the weekend during days 1 and 2. I ate everything from Whoppers to brats to chocolate covered marshmallows to a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I ate ’til I was sick. It actually became really not fun to be eating so much.

I have high hopes for this plan. I hope that I can look at myself in a mirror and get the outside to match the inside. I hope that I can fit into smaller pants. I hope that I can forget about having to wear suspenders. I hope that I can maintain a reduced weight.

I am really focusing on the mental aspect of this too. I think the binge on the first two days made me realize that I don’t derive pleasure from over-eating, either in the moment or afterwards. I didn’t feel like any of the meals I ate — which were primarily all junk food — were particularly tasteful. It felt gross.

Then today when I actually spent time grilling my chicken and putting a salad together I was paying attention to what my brain was thinking. I was thinking that it was taking a while and seemed putzy. But it really was not. I stopped myself and said, “Okay, this might seem like a lot more work than popping something in the microwave…but it’s really not.” I also reminded myself that once I got into a routine it would be very easy to do. Because of this I pre-cooked a couple chicken breasts and have them ready to go. I also want to mix a bottle of “salad dressing” with the apple cider vinegar, lemon, and some spices — and some Stevia too. My lips are still tingling from the vinegar, but I love it. It tastes great.

I also forgot that I can have a serving of fruit. I have these nice small oranges and apples and they are just waiting for me. I love it!

In any case, since I use a wheelchair I can’t easily weigh myself but I will be paying attention to the measurement around my stomach at the belly button. Today that measurement was 51″. I can’t wait for it to go down.

It’s like if every time you upgraded a room in your house with new paint then suddenly all the fucking furniture breaks. USELESS!

It took weeks/months to get those apps fixed and I finally had everything working correctly. My ONLY gripe was still battery life but I had started managing that by turning on Airplane mode at night and plugging it in whenever I would remember.

I ignored the update THREE times. THREE times! Then one day I thought, “Well MAYBE this upgrade will fix battery life?” So I installed it.

I don’t know why the fuck I thought a SOFTWARE update would fix a BATTERY problem. Software doesn’t magically create energy. If it did I’d be able to power the universe with all the code I’ve written in the last year.

So I installed it like a fucking idiot and went to take a shower.

Now I like to use my EVO to listen to music while in the shower. It’s great to have the external speaker, crank up a playlist and suds up. But this time all Rhapsody did was cycle through my songs — not playing a single note.

Pandora crapped out too. It started playing then hung, then got screwed itself. As I was closing Pandora, Rhapsody crashed completely and had the pop-up screen of death.

No music for me. I was stuck singing a capella and left to discover just how truly awful my voice was.

So I dried off and searched about the problem, naturally finding a few hundred posts about it only AFTER I added “2011″ to my search. If you don’t specify the year you’re likely to see the previous year’s issues which were more/less the same. Luckily I found this handy trick. It worked right away! (I actually am typing this in advance of installing the fix just for the sake of hope.)

FIRST — CALL SPRINT AND GET YOUR MSL CODE. IT’S NOTHING SPECIAL JUST ASK A REP.

1) Dial ##3282#
2) Choose Edit Mode
3) Enter MSL Code (Had to call Sprint to get this)
4) Choose Advanced
5) Change HTTP PD Proxy Port to: 0    (orig was 8085)
6) Change HTTP PD Proxy Address to: 0.0.0.0     (orig was pd.vog.sprintpcs.com)

Done! AND IT WORKED.

Now that my most pressing issue is solved I can go on to discover what else is broken. I already saw a sneaky Blockbuster app installed on there but I’ll be damned if I am going to spend $17.99 to download a movie to watch on a fucking 4 inch screen!

From the articles the researchers seemed to have no idea why this was happening and thought that perhaps the hormones that handle cell growth were at fault.

It’s likely they concluded this because cancer is a disease that usually occurs after a cell replicates with errors that then catch hold and continue replicating until the cancerous cells overtakes the organ or other part of the body that is infected by cancer.

Now I am no expert at cancer, but I do know a thing or two about math. That’s why when I first heard about increased cancer in taller people my first thought was, “Well, okay, that makes sense because taller people have more cells, right? So if each cell has the same probability of turning cancerous then there are more chances of cancer.”

If you’re taller you likely have larger organs. Larger organs are not made with larger cells, they’re made with more cells.

So if you have more cells in your body and each cell has a certain likelihood of turning cancerous, then wouldn’t it follow that you have a greater chance of getting cancer?

Think about it from a lottery standpoint. If you only buy one ticket then your odds are 1 in 1 million of winning and if you buy two tickets then your odds go to 2 in 1 million. Increase in tickets = increase in overall odds of winning. So if each cell was a lottery ticket why wouldn’t an increase in cells = increase in overall odds of cancer?

Seems logical to me.

The rule of thumb is even if you like a song that pops up on a Pandora station DO NOT give it a thumbs up unless it fits into the mood or genre of the station you are listening to!

For example, I have a station I seeded with a couple different Aretha Franklin tunes. For a while it was great then for some reason it played Queen “You’re my Best Friend” which I gave a thumbs up because I like. But then I started getting random 70s and 80s mild rock tunes popping up in what I really wanted to be an Aretha-based soul station. I didn’t put two and two together until the Queen song came back on and I saw I’d marked it with a thumbs up.

Here’s what to do if a song comes up in Pandora that you like but is out of context:

1. Listen to it.

2. Skip it.

3. Give it a thumbs down (at your own risk).

I usually listen to a song if I like it, even if it’s not inside the context of my Pandora station. But if I am just not in the mood I will skip it. I don’t know the ramifications of giving a song I like a thumbs down just because it doesn’t fit my station. I would hate for the song not to pop up in another station, when appropriate, so I tend not to do #3.

Happy listening!

After thinking about it, I discovered that drinking more water impacted at least three of the goals I could have set for myself:

1. Drink less coffee
2. Lose weight
3. Eat better

Although I am not entirely focusing on any of the above three items, drinking water will assist with all three of them. If I drink water instead of coffee, I am accomplishing #1. They say that it helps to drink lots of water if you want to lose weight. Therefore #2 is also impacted. Lastly if I drink water instead of drinks high in sugar I am eating better by not loading myself up with sugar.

So look at your list of resolutions and see if there’s any overlap and diagram them out if necessary. Good luck in 2011.

Ingredient 1: Have lots of good food on hand

If you’re not a cook, hit the freezer section of your local grocery store and get anything from mini pizza bagels to jalapeno poppers. I like to pull a nice expensive cheese and some quality crackers or small loaf of fresh bread from the deli area. But nothing is better than bacon wrapped water chestnuts with a sweet dipping sauce. Get a can of drained whole water chestnuts, a package of bacon, some toothpicks, and a pre-made dipping sauce. Wrap a water chestnut with bacon and skewer it with a toothpick. Throw them in the microwave until the bacon is cooked to your liking and have your way with the dip.

Ingredient 2: Alcohol

Even if you’re by yourself, you’re not drinking alone. There are millions of people popping champagne around the world. Buy the ingredients for your favorite mixed drink, make sure you have lots of ice on hand, and chill a nice glass or two. This year I’m going with Pear Vodka Tonics. The pear infused Grey Goose not only smells wonderful but it goes down nicely with a bubbly tonic. It’s expensive, but you’re worth it.

Ingredient 3: The proper NYE countdown show

Several of the shows you see on NYE are pre-taped and likely lip synched. Make sure you find a live countdown show to get you through that last hour or you will feel utterly disconnected from the universe. Although I’m not a huge Ryan Seacrest fan, you can see the ball drop in real time on his Dick Clark show. Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper are fairly entertaining on CNN as well.

Ingredient 4: Someone to call at midnight

I have lots of family members that enjoy staying home on NYE as well. I usually get calls from them whenever it hits midnight in their time zone. But since I am currently in Hawaii, this means I would have to wake them up at 4AM if I wanted to talk to them at midnight my time. I’m not that mean. However, I do have some married friends on Oahu that I can call or at least text at midnight. If they’re still awake, they’ll answer the phone. It helps to talk to a live human being as the clock strikes midnight.

Ingredient 5: The internet

The real-time aspect of Twitter is a great way to feel connected even if you’re by yourself on NYE. Facebook is okay too, but it’s likely not lots of your friends are going to be online unless they’re alone like you. I like Twitter for NYE because you can read immediate posts on a live stream and comment right along with people. Sometimes you even get a shout back from people who reply to your tweets or retweet your witty quip.

So if you stuff your face, drink enough, and somehow stay connected to the rest of the world you can easily get through a comfortable NYE by yourself. There’s nothing wrong with being alone. It’s just like any other night. Happy New Year!

Since I am quite passive aggressive, I have been playing with several ideas to try and calm the annoying storm outside my door. I’ve thought about sliding a note under the door when they’re gone. I’ve thought about giving stink eye every time I leave my unit. Hell, I’ve even  thought about getting a neon sign that says “Shut the fuck up!” and hang it from the window I have between my space and the hallway. Until yesterday the only thing I’ve done is tried to scream “Shut up!” or “Shhhh” or “Be quiet!” like someone with Tourette’s and hope they’d hear me and get the hint. This has not worked.

But today I hopefully figured it out. At first I loaded up that “mosquito” sound that businesses would play to annoy teenagers. Aside from being quite loudly pitched and even though my speakers were facing right out the window, nobody seemed to notice. It wasn’t until I broke out the classical music that things made a turn for the better.

I love classical music so playing it loudly is somewhat thrilling. Add in the fact that it would likely annoy the shit out of the type of people that are in the hallways and it’s a passive agressive’s dream come true. Within seconds of cranking up Chabrier’s Espana, someone shook my door as if to tell me to turn it down. Within three minutes, there was no more speaking. As of this writing it has been an hour and nobody has even passed by my door.

Let’s hope the hint has been gotten. But the good news is that I have hours and hours of lovely classical music at my finger tips through my Rhapsody account. And the best part is that can people in the hallway really complain that someone inside their own unit is making too much noise and bothering THEM? No. If it’s bothering you, get the fuck inside your own unit. If you still hear it, then complain.

As they, and I, discovered, the brochure price on health plans really means nothing. Your final price is based on your current and past health. But since a decision deadline loomed, my friends gambled on the new plan before getting a final quote and passed on the company-sponsored plan. This meant they would have to wait until next year’s enrollment period to get back on the company plan if they changed their minds.

The quote for the new plan came back and was almost double what the brochure “starting” price had stated. They were furious. I would have been furious too. However all the furor was placed on the insurance company that misrepresented their pricing. True, the pricing scheme seems like a scammy bait-and-switch.

However if my friends had gotten this quote prior to the decision-making deadline they might not have been so infuriated. In fact they might have brushed it off with a simple “Forget them!” and decided to stay with their company plan. It might have been a non-issue.

I like to call the anger they experienced “deadline-induced.” Basically it’s the anger that comes from a deadline affecting a decision that goes awry.

When you make a decision you try to have as much information as possible. Sometimes you have to estimate relevant information. If you’ve done your research, you probably have a good idea of the possible outcomes and a feel for what will actually happen. But if you haven’t spent enough time researching you might get caught with your pants down because your information or your best guess is wrong. When the timeline is not in your control, it’s easy to place the blame somewhere besides yourself.

But when a decision has no deadline, you have all the time in the world to gather information and make a decision. Then if your decision goes wrong, it’s much easier to blame yourself. The decision and the timeline were both in your control. Taking the blame for your mistake is more palpable.

Whenever a decision timeline is not in your control, I suggest trying to get as much control as possible. By this I mean start your decision making process as early as possible. My friends probably knew they had until a certain date to make a decision, but they ignored it until absolutely necessary. Then it became a “Honey, why don’t we see if we can get this cheaper somewhere else just in case.” If they had gathered other insurance quotes earlier, their decision would have been without gamble, and more in their control.

Think about the times that you have had deadline-induced anger. Would you have benefited from starting your decision making process earlier? Did you blame someone else for your poor decision?

The thing to learn from all this is that time runs out whether we like it or not, so give yourself as much time as possible and start immediately.