Now Presenting the Amazing Coconut Oil!

        Let's talk today about Coconut Oil!                   

Wait! Don't leave... seriously you're going to wanna hear this.

Coconut oil is a really useful thing to keep in your cabinet. You can find it at the grocery store (even Wal-mart) in the oil section. It comes in a plastic jar usually, more like Crisco. (I had a hard time finding it the first time, so now you know what to look for.)

Coconut oil is FANTASTIC! It is a) good for your health in a huge number of ways b) better for your diet than other oils and c) tasty! on top of which it gives you ENERGY!

So let's explore the benefits of Coconut Oil.

• Coconut oil is high in saturated fat. Wait what? That's right! But these are not bad saturated fats like the ones that cause heart problems. These are medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) whih are medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA). The saturated fats you want to avoid are LCFAs or long-chain fatty acids. 

• So why do you care about all these letters? Because MCFAs actually lower the risk of heart disease AND atherosclerosis and there's not many foods that contain significant amounts of MCFA! But one that does contain significant amounts of MCFAs is... Coconut oil! (Palm Kernel oils are another great source!)

• Additionally, Coconut oil is a good source of natural fiber, vitamines and nutrients. 

But why would the medical industry not TELL us this?

OMG! Realization time: The medical industry isn't here to help you. 

They are here for ONE reason: $$$

If you don't believe that... go read up on www.cancure.org and realize there is an active WORKING CURE for cancer that has been around for decades that the medical industry in this country PUSHED OUT and got banned because it was not an expensive enough procedure. In fact, the people who developed this cure with an 80% working cure rate, lost their lisences. They are now working from a facility just south of the border in Mexico. 

But back from that...

COCONUT OIL!

What can it do for you?

• It is great for your digestive system, aiding in absorption of fat soluble vitamins, minerals and amino acids (which means preventing various stomach and digestion related problems such as IBS.). It also reduces the symptoms of diabetes and can reduce your risk of developing diabetes. On top of that, it has antimicrobial power that helps dealing with bacteria, fungi and parasites that cause indigestion. Coconut oil is high in anti-oxidants which help protect the body from free radicals and prevent degenerative diseases and premature aging. It is GREAT for your heart, containing about 50% lauric acid which prevents various heart related problems such as high LDL cholesterol levels (the kind you want to avoid) and high blood pressure.

• Coconut oil is also anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial. It kills viruses that have a lipid (fatty) coating such as herpes, HIV, hepatitis C, influenza and mononucleosis. It's not a cure for these things, but helps prevent and fight against them. 

• On top of all of that Coconut oil BOOSTS YOUR ENERGY!                                                  Forget Monsters and Coffee! Coconut oil boosts your energy levels NATURALLY while increasing your endurance. This is because your body does not store the energy from coconut oil like other fats. Instead, it actually breaks down much quicker inside the liver and is used like a carbohydrate, burning up for energy quickly! It also increases your metabolism which helps with weight loss! 

Now that we've talked about the great ways you can ingest Coconut Oil, Let's also see how it feels on the outside. :3

• Coconut oil is GOOD FOR YOUR SKIN!                                                                                  Rub it on in place of a massage oil and enjoy the best moisturizing effect. Use it in place of a moisurizer or lotion. It is similar to mineral oil only it does not have any chance of having adverse side effects on your skin. Coconut oil can help treate psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema and other skin problems. (Ever seen coconut oil soap? Think about it!)

• Here's a neat tip you won't find on most blogs: Coconut oil is THE BEST when it comes to sexual lubricant. I kid you not! Don't freak out! It is SO good for your skin and it is the best feeling lubricant you'll ever try. It feels so much more natural than any store-bought lube and it works better and doesn't dry out quickly. (In fact, it takes a really long time for it to dry out!) It is totally safe to use down there and in fact, most women who use it report a decrease in yeast infections!                          I will be completely honest and say I normally have a lot of trouble with sex in that ever since I gave birth I have had like ZERO natural lubricant which really sucks when you want to get it on... Normal lubricants dry out pretty quick and really don't help that much. I started using coconut oil recently and it has been the BEST sexual lubricant ever! It stays comfy the whole time and I don't even have to reapply it between go's :3 That's how awesome it is. Seriously. 

• Coconut oil helps in removing stress! A forehead massage with your fingertips dipped in coconut oil will help remove mental fatigue!

• Because of its anti-inflammatory effect, coconut oil is great for sore muscles, strains and bruises! Rub some in to speed the healing effects!

• Your hair would love you for trying coconut oil in place of your conditioner! Coconut oil has some of the best natural nutrients your hair needs. It promotes healthy hair providing a shiney complexion. Regularly massaging your head with coconut oil will help relieve dandruf, lice, and lice eggs, even if your scalp is dry. It acts as an excellent shampoo and conditioner and helps regrowth of damaged hair. It also provides the essential proteins required for nourishing damaged hair. Through out those V05 Hot Oil treatments and just rub some coconut oil through your hair and toss it up in a towel. 

• If all that wasn't good enough, coconut oil can bring relief to some bug bites due to its anti-inflamatory qualities and healing factors. 

• It even works as a mosquito repellant! Just eating it or using it as a shampoo or face cream will ward off annoying insects!

So considering that half your body likes the idea of coconut oil... why are you still reading this? Go get yourself a jar of it and try some of this out! You will LOVE the taste in place of butter on toast (just scrape a tiny amount over your toast instead of butter before putting it in the toaster or afterward if you like your toast crispier) or especially if you like fried eggs. (Just put a little coconut oil in the skillet and melt it then pour your eggs in like you would with melted butter. Its SO good for fried eggs.)

My favorite recipe with coconut oil is cheesey egg toast. :3

Just make toast, cook egg whites in coconut oil (fry them) and then put the eggs on top of the toast, top it with a slice of cheese and set the toast back in the skillet for a moment to melt the cheese and let the toast absorb some of the remaining coconut oil. (You don't want enough left in the pan to make the bread soggy, just a fine coating.) It's SO GOOD and gives you TONS of energy for breakfast! :3

I have found that coconut oil works as a natural laxative (fast acting! Seriously!). If you REALLY need to go, down a tabelspoon of coconut oil. Wait a few minutes. c_c

I hope you give it a try! You'll love it on your skin and in your food. :3

Arsh

The Mitsumata Game Project: Come One, Come All!

I find this interesting. Now that I'm heading down the path to being a game artist, finding people actually working in the industry has been fascinating to me. I just happened to stumble upon this group at Deviant Art and won a sketch commission from them. They seem really fantastic and their story sounds interesting. I just thought I would share them with the rest of you. :3

The Mitsumata Game Project: Come One, Come All!: "Welcome to the Kin-Ou Games development blog! Kin-Ou Games is a budding visual novel company sort of bugger that is full steam ahead on it..."

The plot is different from anything I've heard before. I'm honestly interested in the game now. I hope they get this whole thing together and manage to create their project!

Cardboard Box Bed for the Homeless

THIS is the coolest anything ever.

That is all.
I will post a real blog tomorrow.
But I wanted to share that. Because YEAH! OMG isn't that so cool?
I think it's a great idea and what the creator of it said... if the governments would distribute these to the homeless it'd be cheap and so much better for them. That'd be so nice...

But yeah. Just had to share. ;3 See you guys tomorrow!

Stupid Me

Solved two birds with one screwdriver. 

Wait, what? Yes you heard me.

I was looking for my camera's battery charger. I have a Kodak camera so it's one of these wall chargers that you put the rechargeable battery pack into. A few weeks back I decided to move a bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. In doing so, I covered the outlet I usually use to charge my camera battery. It's also where I plug my living room AC in. It's not what you think! I didn't forget the camera charger behind the bookshelf! In fact, I moved it when I moved the bookshelf and stuck it in a much better location. 

The problem is that.. since that day, I apparently forgot where that better location was. I thought maybe I had stuck it in my electronics drawer in the utility room where I keep spare electronics, computer parts and spare adapters for my devices. I checked... nope not there. Well there's this drawer I keep on the side of my desk that I had started putting small things in like cables I connect my camera to my pc with, miniature lan cables for quick hookups, charger for my cell phone... stuff I use more often. Well I had previously kept those things in a little glass jewel container on a small bookshelf near my desk but I moved them to the drawer recently when I broke that container. 

So I ended up checking the jewel container, the drawer on my desk, the drawer in the utility room... nothing. I was so confused. Where did I put that blasted charger? I looked all over my desk then all over the living room, the bookshelves, the kitchen counter, the utility room, my bedroom (where I've probably never taken this charger at all) and many other places. I was so baffled. I sat down at the table and stared at my camera, having a chat with my mother in law meanwhile. Staring at my camera, I looked at the top where the case was popped open. I remembered how that happened...

Nearly 3 years ago, I was at Brangus in Jasper eating dinner. I had taken Rune (then, a newborn) to the bathroom to change her diaper. I had laid her on the diaper changing table and was cleaning her when she started smiling. I had my digital camera in her diaper bag because I took pics of her ALL THE TIME. So I grabbed for the camera to catch that smile... and... it slipped out of my hand. Just completely randomly, it did a backflip out of my fingers and took a magnificent swan dive onto the tiled floor. It popped the case open at the top where the two halves met and a little plastic clip had slid up from between the crack. I was so upset until I realized the camera still worked just fine... only the sound didn't work anymore. Oh well! I can take pictures without the shutter sound. No big deal! So I never worried about it. I couldn't fix it... so I just didn't care.

Recently however, I have been doing more and more handy things. I tried to fix my Xbox when it overheated. I managed to get it apart, put Arctic Silver on it (after proper cleaning) and get it back together. No problem! I felt so handy. It still didn't work. I had probably let it go too long honestly. But oh well. I learned some things along the way.

Thinking about that while sitting at the table with my mother in law, I suddenly jumped up and grabbed a screwdriver from the utility room, then sat back down at the table and started unscrewing the tiny screws around the case on my camera. I could see how the top was messed up and how it needed to go back together. So I pulled those screws and then pushed the plastic clip back down, prying the top apart a little with the screwdriver and pressing the piece in with my fingers. The problem was that the battery that ran the sound on the camera was not connecting with the contact and thus not powering the sound part of the camera (as best as I could tell). So finally it snapped into place and the case that had been weirdly open at the top for nearly 3 years closed. I replaced the screws, felt very proud of my now completely fine digital camera, and wondered why in 3 years I had never tried this before.

So at this point, I got up and walked over to my kitchen sink to wash a little grease off my fingers that had been on the handle of the screwdriver... and looked up and there was my battery charger... in the outlet behind the sink, waiting for a battery to charge. I laughed out loud. 

The moral of the story is... don't put your battery charger in some clever place like an outlet because you will forget it is there, and it just so happens that battery chargers don't stand out if they are somewhere sensible like an outlet. 

Alternative moral: I'm an idiot sometimes. But at least I fixed my camera. 

Hope you guys can get a laugh out of my antics. I know I did. 

Arsh out.

Reflections on Society and Brainwashing

A post from my archives, Originally posted in September, 2008.

Reflections on Society and Brainwashing...

I was thinking today about the words that we use to describe ourselves... the labels that make up our quick-and-easy understanding of ourselves, our faiths, our ways, our lives. I am thoroughly appalled by such things. We try to say that we are this or that, but do we really think about what we are calling ourselves? The problem with parents today (well, not to suggest there's only one of them... but...) is that they teach their children what they want their children to be. They don't simply show their children a path to life and help guide them along their own way. Therefore, today, I came to the realization that I have always heard the word "heathen" as a derogatory term, and I grew rather irritated.

In my grandmother's vocabulary, "heathen" was a word best used to describe an unruly child, a little brat that ran around screaming and making a fool of himself, who could not be controlled or contained. I was often berated "sit down and stop acting like a little heathen!". As a student of linguistics, it is something I often find myself doing... stopping and thinking about the meaning of a word as I understand it, and asking myself why I think that word means what I think it means. In many years of doing this, I have come to realize that my parents gave me a very incorrect idea of what many words mean. Their usage of a word as a common adage, or as slang, completely deteriorated my understanding of the word's true meaning. I never understood etymology at all until many years after I had departed my parent's home and come to realize that most other people didn't use many words in the same way as I had been taught to use them. I came to be very familiar with etymology.com as it was a resource which I constantly used to improve my comprehension of REAL language, slowly replacing the backwards, bigoted language choices of my family, my now very disconnected family.

I realize that this is not, however, merely an isolated crime of one "good Christian" family, who were truly unfit for raising children, but rather an epidemic of society, in many ways. The problem comes from first, a lack of understanding of the manner in which language is formed, and secondly, the fact that people seem to consistently forget the manner in which language is learned best: immersion. No matter how many vocabulary drills we do, books we read, or tests we take, we learn language, first, best and most retentively by simply being immersed in conversations. We hear a word. We understand it's meaning via context, and we absorb that word into our psyche as a label for a certain feeling, item, or phenomenon and then we reciprocate that cycle by repeating that word in order to express our own ideals when the situation arrives. Therefore, if the word was used incorrectly when we first encountered it, we are likely to continue the cycle of incorrect speech. But let's look at a deeper level of this issue... What happens when, instead of using a word incorrectly, we apply an esoteric value to a word that already embodies a concrete meaning?

Take the word "heathen" for example. The word literally refers to those who were never converted from the Old Ways into the Christian, Jewish or Muslim religions. Then, since Christians especially disliked those people who refused to convert to their faith, the word was slung around in a derogatory meaning by people who were speaking badly of heathens. They would talk about how horrible those barbaric, uncivilized heathens were. This spiraled on and on for generations. Now, centuries of this sort of talk later... the word carries a negative connotation, and many children, having NEVER heard the word "heathen" used correctly, understand only that a "heathen" is a bad thing. Now... consider what happens when they enter the real world on their own and encounter good heathen folk. Their first instinct is to be wary or dislike this person because they proclaim to be "heathen". Imagine that they wish to befriend this person, or even come to know of, accept, or adopt their ways... They have a mental barrier to break through. They have to undo years of programming enforced by their family, society, and the very language that they speak, in order to move on and grow past the beliefs of a past generation.

This is, to me, inherently very wrong.

Heathen, is, of course, not the only word with which I have noticed this phenomenon. I never even heard the word "pagan" until I first encountered the pagan community. By that time, I had encountered, of course, only Wiccans. Thus, when Wiccans told me that they were "pagan", I came to understand the words to be interchangeable, and did not know at all that there were pagans who were not Wiccans. It was a few years before, even while studying with members of the pagan community, I realized that pagan and Wiccan did not always go hand in hand. I met pagans who claimed to not be Wiccan... then I was confused for some time before I finally got the notion to look the word up and then, only then, did I find out what "pagan" meant. I was horrified, of course, to realize that a pagan was, originally, merely "country folk". The word carried the connotation of a "witch" or practicioner of the old ways, because the country folk were too far removed from the big city concentrations of large populations for the Christian ministries to massively force-convert them, and so they remained witches, heathens, and practioners of old faiths. Thus, pagan came to be equated directly to those who were not Christian, and THEN, with further Christian hatred applied to those not of their faith, pagans became "bad" folks to hang around. If I told my parents I was hanging out with Pagans, I was immediately branded as "going bad" and definitely worshipping the devil.

But am I really surprised? Can any of us be surprised while living in a world where words become taboo, lose all meaning, and remain taboo when no one even remembers what they mean? "Hell" is a curse word, though it refers to the underworld in many religions. "Ass" is a curse word though it refers to an animal. "Damn" is a curse word, though it refers to a condemnation. Yet "dork" is perfectly alright for grade-school children to say, even though it refers to the penis of a whale. Well by my book, that ought be quite alright to say, but no more alright to call someone in meanness than to call them an ass. What is the difference?

If I hate you and express it with known taboo words, is it really any worse than expressing it with clever substitutions for these words? In my heart, the taboo words are preferable. At least then, we're being honest. The intentions, and not the expressions, are what we should guide our children to handle carefully.

Arsh

Bloggity

Alright... thanks to the encouragement I received on Facebook over the idea of me starting to blog again...
I have decided to start over on this blog and talk about stuff relevant to me in the now.
I backed up my old posts but put them away... because a lot of that isn't really me anymore...
So rather than having to explain myself over the places where so much has changed... I am instead going to just start over here and write about the now.


So I'm going to post a few select posts here and there that are things I have written in the past on other blogs in order to bring them to this one location, but for the most part I'll just be adding new thoughts here.

What can you expect from this blog?

My thoughts on politics, religion, spirituality, beliefs, recipes, parenting, issues, ranting, video gaming, homeschooling, homeschool activities, roleplaying, MY ART, school, pseudo-intellectual crazy talk, promotion of my friends' blogs, funny shit I find around the web, occasional penis jokes, hot issues, honest, bluntness and a peculiar lack of concern for the norms of society, magical talk, disdain for stupidity, cynicism, optimism, rune-ology, lore, philosophy, silly energetic happiness, retarded writing styles (such as seeing ... after every other sentence), some considerable amount of hatred for the current state of affairs in America and other things I hate, love to those things worthy of my love, music I like, movies I like and dislike, anger at Kesha for having catchy lyrics but being such a... omfg... there isn't a word for her..., jokes repeated from when I made a clever at my Facebook or Deviantart, probably some pretty art I find around and want to share, unrestrained original thoughts regarding random things I find interesting, hot girls, pizza and free stuff that I find, offers and good ideas, tips tricks and everything you ever wanted to know about how much I love John Su, Penny Arcade strip links when it makes me lol, weird shit I find on the web, anger at the cancellation of the series Firefly, this emoticon that only I ever really use: c_c, and retarded fanlove for the ridiculously small number of actors that actually impress me.  And more!

So if any of this interests you, please stick around and love on my blog. c_c I'll love you for it.

More to come.

Arsh