March 18, 2004

• The post is all garbled on the outside, and fine on the inside. Weird.
• When in the hell is the FDA going to grow some stones and start banning this snake oil?
• caffeine, ginseng and vitamins....*big yawn* anything to get people to pay for the magic pills that replace common sense.
• I have to admit that pretending to be under FDA jurisdiction to increase credibility is absolute marketing genius. It's the logical descendent of "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."
• from Altovis' website : Altovis was developed to safely give your body back the energy it needs. The proprietary blend in Altovis combines a natural methylxanthine blend... ha, ha! Methylxanthine is a class of chemical that's found in teas and chocolate as theobromine and caffiene! ha, ha! I'd be willing to buy a pack of 30 for around $1.50, provided they were also minty. Wait, Holy Crap!
• also, somebody burp that kid.
• "Life takes energy"??? Are these pills for people who don't eat?
• certainsome1 -- Let's face it : if you have time to eat, or sleep, or enjoy social time beyond federally mandated minimums, you're probably unemployed.
• Altovis™. Because Life Takes Energy. Mmmmm... carbohydrate.
• Low Carb Energy, or the Atkins zombies won't be interested.
• Okay, let me try again, then. Mmmmm... glucose.
• i prefer get my methylxanthine the old fashioned way - by taking fruit from a small tropical bush, drying it in the hot sun, roasting it to release the goodness inside, then grinding it up small and mixing it with hot water. you know, natural, like god intended. anyway the thing that bothers me most about this kind of crap is that as far as we know, the healthy benefits of any chemical found in a plant have very often never been clinically proven to be beneficial if taken without the rest of said plant. even the vitamin industry... "now with lycopene!" on the side of the centrum bottle. "found in healthy foods like tomatoes!" hey, you want that shit? then eat a friggin tomato, fer god's sake. plus the irony that quite a few of those who buy into this stuff (artificially, chemically processed plant extracts) are the same people who buy organic 'cause all that processing and chemicals is bad for you. i for one believe that the ginseng was happier when it was still living unmolested in siberia.
• I can't look at the word "Neutraceutical" without thinking of the word "Neuticle."
• ah, but a thought's occurred to me. A few years back, I had severe back problems. This was eventually diagnosed as a ruptured disk (once the HMO decided to pony up for an MRI, the cheap jerks). They initally suggested that it was just a strained muscle, and some excercise and chiropracty was in order. Leaving aside the agony of excercising under this condition, the chiropractor said, "you know, maybe some bromaline would help your pain while you strengthen up". After she told me it was made from pineapples, I asked her if I couldn't just eat pineapple for a while. She replied that it'd take several whole pineapples to make up for each caplet. And while the pain never fully subsided, I was able to get off some of the narcotic drugs that I'd been taking because the bromaline was much more effective at reducing the pain I was experiencing. It was just an amazing turnaround. So while this Altovis is probably bogus yuppie hippie smack substitute, there are legitimate reasons for some natural/ homepathic remedies.
• frogs: It's part of the whole "science is eeeevil/doctors are eeeevil" line of what I will charitably describe as thinking that has become more and more popular. No doubt many of the customers would refuse to have their children vaccinated (eeevil!) and will happily stuff unregulated homebrew pharmacueticals down their gullet because they're natural. You know what the reaction in some quarters to the revelation that the largest Australasian peddler of herbal supplements/medicines had such lousy quality control they were shipping known-harmful compunds in their little bottles was? That's right, it was (apparently) all a conspiracy buy the (eeevil!) doctors and gummit. That's what the screeds in the window of the "natural health" shop on Cuba Street maintained, anyway.
• So when is my clear steel coming? Isn't everything in Star Trek suposed to come true? But, seriously, as someone who has grown up in buildings based on concrete blocks - this could be a god send. Imagine a house in which entire walls glowed gently. The translucency means you still have privacy, but more natural light. No replacement for windows of course, but certainly could brighten up your basement.
• Oops! I finally did it - posted in the wrong thread. That was about concrete, not drugs.
• That was about concrete, not drugs. It couldn't have been about both, could it?