Saturday, January 19, 2008

Snow Storm 2008

I am so glad we prepared for this HUGE snowstorm! If you look hard enough at my picture, you'll actually see some snowflakes!
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We were feeling adventurous today and went and registered Alex for Tuckahoe Little League Softball! I am so excited for her! I've been wanting her to play softball so bad, but I didn't want to push her. She decided to do this all on her own! The best part is, all of the practices and games are right behind our house!

On a more random note, some friends of mine at work were going to take that diet pill, Alli. I'm sure you've heard of it. Well, I saw this HILARIOUS blog about the drug and I forwarded it to them and after reading it, they couldn't bring themselves to buy it. I promise I'm not trying to sabatoge the company, but this little article is one of the funniest things I've ever read! Before you click on the link to read it, I must warn you it has some BAD curse words in it. Honestly, the content was just so funny, I didn't even notice them! Actually, I just went back and looked at it again and it is really, really full of curse words! If you want to see the more conservative version of it, I "doctored" it up below......
You'll never look at greasy pizza the same again!
Here is the link: http://angryaussie.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/miracle-diet-pill-with-teeny-tiny-side-effect/
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I found this news on Salon.com and felt compelled to throw my 2c in. There’s a “new” over-the-counter drug available in the US that’s apparently flying off the shelves. It’s called alli (note the way trendy lower case!) and I use the term “new” loosely because it’s apparently a lower strength version of a prescription-only drug (Xenical) that’s been around for a while.

So what does this incredibly popular wonder drug do? Well, not to go all Bill Clinton on you, but it depends on what your definition of “do” is. You see, there’s (1)what the drug company markets it as, (2)the medical description of what it does and (3)the biggest effect you’re actually going to notice.

The drug company markets it as a weight loss pill. They say it will give “safe, effective weight loss”. Because it’s FDA approved it must be good. What could possibly go wrong?

A simplified medical description of the drug is that it’s a fat blocker. It stops your body from absorbing some of the fat in your diet. It doesn’t burn calories. But fat that would have otherwise been absorbed by your body… isn’t. Because fat contains calories less calories will go into your body.

But here’s the most important thing the drug does: it makes you poop oil. Worse, it makes you poop your pants. With oil. This is not the ravings of some fringe conspiracy group, this is what the company tells you itself on its website. Buy our drug if you want to lose weight. Oh, by the way, you’ll end up pooping your pants.

Neat, huh? No wonder it’s selling so well. That large sector of the public that enjoy having their pants filled with liquefied poop has been seriously under-catered to up until now.

The drug company indulges in classic marketing bs that really pisses me off but they still fail to obscure the horror of what’s going to happen to you if you take their drug. The first bit of marketing bs they spin that makes me want to smack them in the freaking head is the old “eat healthier and exercise more to get the full benefits”.

Hello?!?!?! If you eat less fat and exercise you don’t need their stupid pills. I’m sick of these sleazy companies pretending that they’re promoting health. They’re promoting bad habits and laziness. The subtext to the whole thing is “this drug lets you lose weight with NO exercise and NO change to your eating patterns”. People who can eat healthier and exercise more aren’t interested in this crap. But the company doesn’t think it’ll get away with an advertising slogan along the lines of “Screw diet and exercise! Take these pills and poop your weight away!”

The second thing they do that ticks me off is deliberately using language designed to obscure the full horror of the effects of their drug. They can’t even come clean and call them “side-effects”, instead going with “treatment effects”. Heck, maybe they’re right, these aren’t side effects. Side effects are incidental to the main effects. Pooping your pants is the main effect of this drug. It literally is the treatment effect.

Try as they might, their weasel words can’t hide how horrible their drug actually is. Following are actual quotes from their website followed by Mr Angry’s no BS translation.

Website BS (WSBS): You may get:

gas with oily spotting,
loose stools
more frequent stools that may be hard to control
No BS: The following things will happen to you:

You will spray oil when you fart
You will have diarrhoea
You will be pooping constantly and you will lose control of your bowels to the point where you poop your pants
WSBS: The excess fat that passes out of your body is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza.

No BS: Oh dear god. Pizza is one of my favorite foods and these evil jerks have done their best to turn me off it for life. It will be very hard to look at a pizza again without wondering if someone on this drug has taken a dump on it.

WSBS: Eating a low-fat diet lowers the chance of these bowel changes. (my emphasis)

No BS: Even if you do cut back on fat, you’re still going to poop oil.

WSBS: …pick a day to begin taking alli, such as a weekend day so you can stay close to home if you experience a treatment effect.

No BS: Do not go out in public after taking this drug. You are going to poop yourself. Stay close to a toilet.

WSBS: If you’re getting ready to travel or attend a social event, hold off on starting with alli until the event is over.

No BS: Don’t say you weren’t warned. You are seriously going to poop yourself.

WSBS: You may not usually get gassy, but it’s a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens.

No BS: You’re old life is over. Forget what you think you know about your body. You are going to fart uncontrollably. And there will be follow-through. This is not going to be something you want to share.

And my absolute favorite (which is to say, the part of the website that horrifies me most):

“You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.”

Oh. My. God. They are so sure you are going to poop your pants they are saying you should accept the inevitable. There is no way to avoid this. So wear dark pants to hide the liquid poop stains. And bring a change of clothes. Because your first set are going to get impregnated with liquid poop.

To me, this is the ultimate evidence that western society is utterly messed up. You can tell people that taking a pill will make them poop their pants uncontrollably. And your pill will be an utterly out of control success.

There was also a link to a video where you could “watch alli in action”. I assume this is a video showing people pooping their pants. I couldn’t bring myself to look. Try a video you might be able to stomach - I’ve done a video version of this post for your viewing pleasure.

1 comment:

Donna said...

Wow, I have to say that I like your version better! I had heard that about alli. I don't think I'd want to take that drug:)

We were supposed to get a snow storn here on Sat. too with acuumulation. Well, it snowed for about 4 hours straight but didn't stick! It was very depressing.