Mark's blog
Sporadic blog posts on a wide variety of topics, by Racine, Wisconsin web designer Mark Czerniec.(Also check out my weekly entries in Another Week.)
Alton Brown diet plan: Weight loss through ‘Good Eats’
Here's something we watched while my blog was getting redesigned. It's the Alton Brown diet plan — the January 4 episode of Good Eats, titled "Live and Let Diet." We had noticed, going back to a recent season of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, that the guy had...
Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred workout DVD
For the past year I have been pretty good about working out daily, and recently pushed it to 6 days a week. I have various DVDs that I use down in the basement. I used to walk 4 to 5 miles outside, but when the weather changes to ice and cold I find it hard to feel...
Website redesign, domain change
Testing, 1, 2, 3. Is this thing on? We've just gone through a domain change. And a website redesign. Between designing other people's websites to help them make more money, and working on this site to make it more effective, I feel like I've been living underground...
Mark Bittman’s gumbo recipe for Super Bowl Sunday
I will be making gumbo for our Super Bowl festivities today. We almost always watch the Super Bowl and usually like to base our menu around a theme. Of course, this year New Orleans plays a big part. That's all good for us, because New Orleans is one of our favorite...
Weight loss website: SparkPeople.com
Most everyone who knows me knows that I have been a Weight Watchers member for the past 7 years. One of the 8 healthy guidelines of Weight Watchers is to keep track of everything that you put into your mouth. Studies have shown that people who have lost weight and...
Start a blog? Here I go!
I have been meaning to start a blog for some time, so here I go. My hope in keeping this blog is to help motivate and inspire others. I will be writing about various topics from time to time, but will focus especially on health and fitness. [includeme...
Firefox spell check: Help for Wisconsin’s poor spellers
Perhaps there is poor spelling everywhere, and I'm just more conscious of it in my fellow Wisconsinites. Whatever the reason, it sometimes seems like you can't read a single comment at the Journal Times or the Racine Post or JT...
Turkey brining, how to carve a turkey: Alton Brown
The thought of Thanksgiving dinner coming up and people having to figure out how to carve the bird reminds me of two extremely helpful things: The baseline cutting trick, as demonstrated by Alton Brown in the video above from his Food Network show Good Eats. This...
Halloween costumes: Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein
Happy Halloween to you and yours from Frankenstein's monster and the lovely Bride of Frankenstein! Our Halloween costumes feature the classic Universal Studios Boris Karloff Frankenstein Mask, plus the Monster's Bride Wig, scars and makeup. In assembling the Bride of...
Pomplamoose: Music duo going viral via social media
Early yesterday morning, I heard an interesting On The Media special about the future of the music industry. Long story short, it's floundering. Back then, I had never heard of Pomplamoose. Update: Pomplamoose show Beginning January 18, 2011, a live webcast show --Hey...
Halloween songs: Scary music playlist, spooky tunes
If you're looking to add some Halloween songs to your personal music library, here are a few suggestions. You can download these songs via Amazon.com and enjoy it at an upcoming costume party or hayride, use these scary songs as...
Lungs in transplants came from smokers
At first, I thought this was a Monty Python sketch when I heard this story about lung transplants this morning on the BBC's World Update: BBC News: Smokers' lungs given to patients Of course, as it turns out, it's not funny at all. There's a shortage of organ donors,...
‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ (Woody Allen movie, 2008)
For a long time, I was a huge fan of Woody Allen's movies. Sleeper cracked me up as a young teen. Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories were masterpieces. So were Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors a little later on. Other films, like Broadway...
Staffordshire, England: Metal detector finds gold treasure
(Photo courtesy of The Staffordshire Hoard website.) When the school year started a few weeks ago, I began hearing a strange beeping sound in the late afternoon. After a couple of days, I finally realized it was coming from some guy over at the school. He has been...
Heart-shaped potato: President Barack Obama with David Letterman
Last night, Amy and I watched President Obama on The Late Show with David Letterman, where he was given a heart-shaped potato by audience member Mary Apple of Independence, Missouri, who brought the same potato to Letterman's show two years ago. Today, upon opening a...
Netflix recommendation prize overlooks established star ratings
The New York Times has news this morning of a winner in the famous movie recommendations race: Netflix Awards $1 Million Prize and Starts a New Contest: The company's challenge, begun in October 2006, was both geeky and formidable: come up with a recommendation...
Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart: Out-crazying Glenn Beck
Keith Olbermann's segments on Glenn Beck's Rockefeller Center lunacy the past two nights have been hysterical. Do not miss these: The clip above is from Thursday night's installment of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. In it, Keith analyzes Glenn Beck's...
Apollo 11: NASA video of first moon walk resurfaces
When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon 40 years ago this Monday (that's Buzz Aldrin pictured above), I was nine years old and absolutely transfixed by the entire mission. I had several plastic Revell models of the various spacecraft — the...
How to blog: ‘The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging’
Recently, I read and reviewed ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. Now, here's another book about how to blog. If that work is an introductory handbook to blogging as a potential home-based business — analogous to the way someone might...
Birdwatching: Cedar Waxwing circus at Kenosha’s Kemper Center
The Cedar Waxwing makes for some striking birdwatching, as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology notes: ... the Cedar Waxwing is a silky, shiny collection of brown, gray, and lemon-yellow, accented with a subdued crest, rakish black mask, and brilliant-red wax droplets on...
Drive-By Truckers: Austin City Limits CD/DVD combo
I love Drive-By Truckers, and I love this song, "The Righteous Path." The clip above is from their just-released CD/DVD combo Live from Austin, TX, recorded live at that legendary Texas PBS showcase, Austin City Limits. The package...
4th of July parade video: Racine, Wisconsin 4th Fest Parade
The 4th of July parade video above was shot entirely on a Flip Ultra HD and edited with iMovie HD 6. For best viewing, click the full-screen button and set the quality to 720p HD. There was something about this year's Fourth Fest Parade that was absolutely...
Amy Czerniec and the dog that broke her heart
(Above: Amy, circled, at launch event for Y-LinK: Young Leaders in Kenosha.) Amy called me around 12:30 on Monday afternoon. I wasn't surprised that she was crying, but I did not anticipate exactly what triggered it. "That damn dog," she sobbed. "How do they know?"...
Michael Jackson, ‘Billie Jean’: How to create an icon
It has been one day since the world learned that Michael Jackson is dead. First there was a brief report on MSNBC that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital, then I glanced at Facebook and saw that Tim Cuprisin had posted the big TMZ.com scoop, and eventually the...
Regina Spektor on Letterman, NPR with new album ‘Far’
I wrote about getting turned on to Regina Spektor back in January, 2007. This morning, she was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition: "Regina Spektor Hears Magic In The Inexplicable." It's interesting to hear how the Beatles...
Electric fan: Good day for the Vornado table fan
I was sitting here browsing the Web when a tweet scrolled by on TweetGrid. It was Jacqui Cheng writing: @Suntimes I'm working inside of my office with no AC and no air circulation! Wait... That's when I remembered that I do own an...
Beach volleyball: Racine’s North Beach hosts EVP Tour Saturday
Note: This post pertains to a June, 2009 beach volleyball event at Racine's North Beach. For listings of current and upcoming Racine-area events, please see our Calendar of Events & Festivals. We were standing near a couple of the...
‘ProBlogger’ book: How to make money blogging
Twenty months ago, I read a USA Today story headlined "'Gray Googlers' strike gold." It described how a number of mature adults had succeeded in creating an income through blogging and participating in Google's AdSense advertising program. One of the success stories...
Positive thinking can make you depressed
Curmudgeons rejoice! At long last, science suggests that the forced sunniness imposed by religious evangelists, sales motivators, and self-help books from The Power of Positive Thinking to The Secret can actually make you feel worse. Today's "Science Digest" at...
Justine Henin singing, acting, cooking on reality show
The YouTube video clip above comes via Straight Sets, the NYTimes.com tennis blog. It's former tennis superstar Justine Henin singing a duet with Belgian balladeer Salvatore Adamo. There was no explanation there, but a little Googling reveals that back in May, Henin —...