Tuesday, April 14, 2009

7 Habits For Longer Life

In the United States, life expectancy was about 48 years for women and 46 years for men born in 1900. Just 50 years later, it climbed to 71 for women and 66 for men. And recent numbers put life expectancy at roughly 80 for women and 75 for men.

There’s still considerable debate about the achievable upper limit of human lifespan, but France’s Jeanne Calment lived to be 122. American Gertrude Baines, believed to be the world’s oldest living person, is 114.

Most experts agree that increases in lifespan are due to better nutrition, health care, and disease prevention and treatment. But research is also identifying various traits and habits that aid healthy aging.

-- Parade 3/15/09

Monday, April 13, 2009

Tip Jar

Google is harnessing the collective wisdom of its users to find tips on how to save money. Yesterday, the Internet search giant set up a site dubbed “Tip Jar” (www.google.com/tipjar), which allows users to submit money-saving tips across a variety of categories, ranging from finance and travel to food and shopping. Users can vote on the tips they like; over time, the most popular and useful ones float to the top of the list.

Looking to cut your food bills? One user recommends drinking water instead of sodas, coffee and alcohol to save money and calories. One of the top tips in the finance categories: Pay your bills online to save on postage. If you’re looking for a specific topic, the search engine will scour all the categories and bring back any tips related to your topic.

Other online personal-finance Web sites, such as Wesabe and Geezeo, also leverage their social networks by allowing users to share tips and goals with other users. By applying a “wisdom of the crowds” theory, Google is essentially betting that the collective wisdom of its users will yield better results than could have been made by any single person.

-- from Star Bulletin, 3/15/09

Thursday, April 09, 2009

My Favorite Restaurants

(and places I eat at)

Bangkok Chef. We usually order the yellow chicken curry and/or cashew nut chicken

Mr. Eggroll. We used go here all the time when we had the clubhouse on Ward. Fried rice, orange chicken, and eggplant.

Bob's Big Boy. I used to go there after Tuesday volleyball. Not so much now. Fried Noodles or Chicken Cutlet. [4/29/09 - unfortunately they had a fire]

Liliha Bakery. Fumio takes me here. I like the mahi and the county style omellette is pretty tasty (though it really doesn't fill me up).

And don't forget Costco Food Court. $1.50 for hotdog and drink. $10 for a whole pizza. Hard to beat.

Mama's BBQ. I probably wouldn't go here if it wasn't so close by. The food is OK, but I don't like the fact that their BBQ chicken has bones in it. Last time, I got around the problem by ordering chicken katsu instead. [4/29/09]

Chinese Kitchen (Nuuanu Plaza). Since Mr. Eggroll is kind of out the way now for me, we usually go to Chinese Kitchen. The food is OK, but nothing to go out of the way for. Other options are Hoy Tin and New Mui Kwai. New Mui Kwai has the advantage of having a little handier parking. [4/29/09]

One Plus One. This is a place we sometimes to go to get food when we go to volleyball games. I think we just saw it and decided to try something other than L&L. I liked it anyway. The shoyu pork roast (or whatever it's called) is tender. The spaghetti is tasty. They make it chinese style. [5/23/09]

Royal Kitchen - my favorite place for manapua. I like their char siu bao in particular. But their gok jai and siu mai is pretty good too.

Nice Day - got dim sum from here a few times. More variety than the Royal Kitchen half moon, okole, char siu bao offerings. The reviews aren't so good, but I thought the food was pretty good. Last time was the first time I ordered myself. They have a table from where you can choose your dim sum for take out. They come in these little covered baskets. Didn't know you have to take the whole basket. Can't break up the food inside. Well maybe for the big char siu bao you can but not the small baskets. So wound up buying more than intended.