That's right, I'm writing this post at lightning speed. What's the subject? I considered blogging about how to buy vitamin supplements. But after much deliberation I thought the better idea might be to go with those disgustingly tasty omega 3 vitamins as a source of blogginess.

But finally I decided on Dubai. Why Dubai? Well, I've been dickering around with the idea of middle eastern travel, and the recent tourism boom in a place that is otherwise defunct of interest. It has no natural or recent history. It's a fucking desert. And yet, because the country can pour so much goddamned money into that little city, it has a attracted the world super powers. Global media corporations, software techs, it seems everyone has got a little station out there in the oasis, and it gets prettier every day.

So, what's my goal? I want to live there. For two years. I want to spend a little time in this exotic location, get a sense of the business, have a little fun. Then it's right back to the states, to nasty, nasty L.A. to abuse my career and education. Hooah!

Do you take your vitamins before or after lunch?

I'm on a caveman diet, or paleo diet if you prefer, but I don't always stick to it, so I take a good multivitamin to fill in for the nutrients I'm taking. I also take some omega 3 capsules (have to make sure I'm getting enough orac value!). I keep switching the time when I take the vitamins. I used to take them at breakfast, but now I take them after my lunch.

The only problem is, occasionally I get fish burp when I take them after lunch. But I never have the fluid on hand before lunch (has to do with where I work, no easy access to cups and a drinking fountain) to take my vitamins beforehand. I thought about bringing my own bottle of water to work each morning , but that's a hastle and could also be expensive.

So, I'll stick to taking my vitamins after lunch. The only other option is before dinner, but I don't bring my vitamins home with, so I never have any on hand to take! What do you think of that!

Oh, by the way, I always buy my vitamins online.

Who's Bill Browski? Bill Browski is this amazing guy I met at the gym. He had a ripped set of washboard abs, and he knew how to use them. Browski would strut around the gym, talking on a cell phone, flexing his lats, his biceps, his abs. I don't think I ever saw him actually use a machine, he just showed up to show off.

Browski was always talking about omega 3 capsules. He loved those little fish oil caps.

"Jack!" he'd scream into his cellphone. "Jack! You got to try these little pills! You gotta pop 'em! They're great! Fish oil! Yeah! YEAH!!!! TAKE THEM!!!!" Browski could really get himself worked up.

One time I saw Browski take a nose dive into a rowing machine. He was jabbering on about some best antioxidant to his guy pal on the cell when he tripped and face planted right against the pull bar of the rowing machine.

Most people would laugh, shrug it off, say "Damn, that hurt!" and move on.

Not Browski.

Browski kneels on the ground holding his face for a moment, then climbs right onto the rowing machine and starts pumping away as fast as he can. Like he planned to mount the rowing machine via swan dive. The funny thing is Jack was still waiting on the cellphone, now discarded on the ground, screaming back "Bill! Browski! What about those Antioxidants, Browski! What's the orac value, Browski! Browski!!!"

It's about time I talk a bit about Chinese vitamins.

The supplementation industry is vast and, for the most part, unchecked. Whereas a typical prescription drug goes through roughly a decade of testing and 700 million dollars of research, a holistic medicine simply requires a bottle and a label. There are no standards and practices, thus there is a multitude of rip-offs, half baked ineffective supplements, and empty placebo vitamins online. There's so much vitamin information out there, and yet not enough to weed out the bad seeds (mixed metaphor).

The truth is, many ordinary vitamins come from contaminated Chinese sources. I won't argue that China has a reputation of contamination, but their vitamins aren't known to be the most pure.

So, if there is no way to tell if a vitamin is quality, how do you go about purchasing supplementation? The answer is in customer service. If you're thinking of buying vitamins from a company, give them a call. Find out if the salesmen know about the vitamins, where they come from, what the ingredients do. Good customer service is often representative of good product.

Also, I found a great post on a health website about abs on a high fat diet. Well worth reading.

I've been hearing a lot about this new eating disorder called Orthorexia nervosa. Basically, it means people are eating too healthy. And it doesn't surprise me at all that this is happening.

There's a whole industry built on scaring people into health. Rather than promoting positive health images, many products use the tactic of negativity to make the dollars. If you don't watch out for "stuff" in your meat, you're going to get E. Coli! or Mad Cow disease! Or some other random rare bacterial infection that almost never appears!!!! So eat organic, grassfed, non-homogenized, non cultured, all natural, pampered beef, or else you'll die!!

The same is true with any product that has been "processed." People seem to believe that if something has been processed it is some how bad, evil, disgusting and far too unhealthy for out children.

News flash, processed is just another term for "prepared." Everything is processed, and most of it is processed in a clean sterile environment according to FDA standards.

Finally, the "all natural" tag. Here's another news flash: everything is all natural. It's just what we do with it that deems it "unnatural." But there's no clear guideline as to when something goes from being natural to being unnatural. I guess too much processing, though I couldn't say why.

So, for those food purists, I say beware, you may be just as bad as the anorexics.

And if you want to find people now, check out the link I've provided!

I just thought of a great reason not to use colloidal vitamins. The airport!

I love to try new vitamins, and I'd recently been getting into liquid forms. Somebody suggested I try colloidal silver, but then I read an article about a man who had actually turned blue by taking colloidal silver. Regardless, I have read about the benefits of liquid forms of other supplements. Obviously fish oils and omega 3's can pretty much only be taken as liquids--those omega 3 benefits are endless-- but there are many healthy liquid forms of multivitamins. They even make a few as an oral spray.

The liquid vitamins are often either green or yellow, and have a pungent taste. Despite the awful taste, it's nice to know the vitamins are going right to my system rather than through it as was the case with some of the heat processed supplement pills I used to take.

Then I had to go on a plane trip to Philadelphia. I went through the normal process of being all but raped by airport security at which point they told me I had to throw away all my liquids. Including my $80 bottle of liquid vitamins. I was not happy. I could have called up my roommate to drive all the way out to the airport to grab my vitamins for me, but unfortunately I only had 20 minutes until the flight, so the vitamins were confiscated.

I know it's a silly reason not to use colloidal supplements, and by all means, keep using them if you never fly. But if you are a traveler, I warn you.

And always remember to buy vitamin supplements from the best sources, whether colloidal or not!

I was in a car accident about a week ago. At the time, I was extremely stressed. My car had broken down the night before, the tow took two long hours, and the hotel double charged me. Then I get my car fixed the next day, and just as I'm driving out of the Pep Boys, I hit a truck and ruin the front fender. It was not a good day, lots of money down the drain, wasted time, and a load of a headache, but hey, life keeps going.

Then today at work, and old friend stopped by. He had to quit his job because of a car accident. He went through eight hour surgery and had 14 screws placed in his spine. He's still wearing a neck brace, but overall he's okay. Accidents like these remind you of how lucky you are sometimes. The accident was unfortunate, but the kid's okay, and he has a positive attitude.

Anyway, sorry this doesn't have much to do with health, but I just had to get that off my mind. I promise next month I'll be back in style with some truly shiny health tips, but right now I'll just do a health blog run down. Check out the best multivitamins or primal nutrition for a few good health tips to keep you going for the rest of the day. And for God's sake, drive safe!

Medicine is anything but simple. Anibiotics, antidepressants, anti-inflammatories, antioxidants. Then flip that over and you have probiotics, depressants, oxidation techniques, and pretty much everything else under the sun. It seems there are a hundred different ways to cure every ailment, and none of them work. I've heard good cases for going all natural, but when push comes to shove, I'll toss anything down my throat to fix my body. Unfortunately, tossing anything down my throat is what causes some of the major problems I have with my body. The cycle never ends.

Anyway, sorry for the short post. I'm mainly here just for the new health websites that have been popping up in the blogosphere. When you buy vitamin products, you have to look for the best multivitamins and those two weblogs will help with both.

My friend is hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. His girlfriend is vegetarian, so as a way of being progressive and rubbing up against tradition, they've decided to make a Tofurkey. A tofurkey is a fake turkey made out of tofu. If there's one way to ensure your new boyfriend's friends won't like you, take away their meat on the most important meat-eating day of the year. It's like having everyone over to your house on Monday night, and then subbing in the Raiders/Chiefs game with a rerun of The View.

"But, it's healthy!" you say.

No. It's not. Tofu is not necessarily healthy. It's only quality is that it isn't meat. Furthermore, TURKEY is one of the healthiest meats available to man, it's lean, full of protein, and it frickin' tastes good. Switching to tofurkey is actually downgrading health for the sake of vegetarianism.

So, what exactly does a tofurkey look like? It looks like a ball. It's not even shaped like a turkey. It's sort of like the shape of an overgrown little debbie snack cake, but it's supposed to have turkey flavoring (artificial, of course). My friend baked a practice one. They should rename it tofuckingawful.

But, the worst part of this situation is the size of the tofurkey. It could maybe feed a family of four, if that family includes two mealy mouthed children who wont ask for seconds. My friend and his girlfriend have ten guests coming over. That's twelve people. And they bought two tofurkeys. This gives approximately 2/3 of a serving per person. It's Thanksgiving, and that's just wrong. Then again, knowing the taste, maybe they bought too much.

Okay, time to forget about tofu for a minute and head on over to orac value or omega 3 benefits for a dose of healthy blogging and healthy living.

I'm staying home for Halloween. I'm on a diet, which pretty much makes Halloween the worst day of the month for me. I can't do any tricker treating. Not that I would because I'm 37 and a 37 year old man tricker treating is just a bit creepy. But if I go to a party I know I'm going to end up drinking the sugar loaded alcoholic dry ice brew that is served at every Halloween party, which would just kill the whole week for me as far as calories goes.

So, instead, I'm watching scary movies. In the DARK!! Ooooohhh. Yeah. First I'll be watching the original Halloween. Then I'll be watching the first resident evil movie, which I honestly thing is a great modern horror movie (forget the sequels). And finally I'll be watching a classic, probably the best horror movie ever made in my opinion. It's called Night of the Hunter, and that movie still scares me today just as much as it did the first time I saw it when I was seven. How can you beat a priest with Love and Hate tattooed to his knuckled riding a horse across country, hunting down children. Horror at it's best.

And the only thing that beats a scary movie, is a scary awesome health link, so I've whipped up two for you this week, since I didn't post last week (fire issues). This first is Damage Control and the second is Master Formula. Put those together and you've got Damage Control Master Formula which is actually the name of the product both sites are unnofficially promoting. Anyway, you don't have to check them out, but it's Halloween, which means you really should.

If you are going to buy vitamin supplements, you've probably read a little bit about natural health. You know the basic vitamin information. Omega 3's are the brain vitamins, A is just plain great, get plenty of B's for your red blood cells, especially if you're a vegetarian.

Then someone comes along and tells you to take vitamin O. What is vitamin O? It's oxygen. There's a company out there packaging oxidizing tablets as a new form of vitamin. This is clearly a stretch of the semantics of the word vitamin. I guess technically you could declare any micronutrient we inject into our system as vitamin. But, if this is the case, I guess laxatives, sun tan lotion, and heroin are all vitamins as well.

Vitamin O? No thanks, I'll stick with the essentials.