As a habitual coffee drinker, I not only drink coffee because of the delicious comforting taste, but also because of the energizing zing it provides during a morning commute. Personally, the worst side effect of coffee dependency is the routine headache by noon the next day if I skipped a morning coffee. Yes, you could call it coffee withdrawal, because you could also call me a coffee addict.

In fact, I am not alone and about 54% of adults in the United States are also habitual coffee drinkers/coffee addicts consuming approximately 146 billion cups of coffee annually. That is about three times more than tea drinkers. However, through the years of research, coffee was deemed bad for you. Because of its habit forming traits, coffee was analogous with smoking, associated with insomnia, and renamed the “devil’s brew.”

Well, now times are a changing. New research demonstrates coffee is in fact good for you, as coffee consumers could be lower at risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, as well as liver and colon cancer. For men, a 2009 study showed coffee drinking are lower at risk for lethal prostate cancer. Moderate coffee addicts consuming 3 to 5 cups a day are proven to have lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease later in life in comparison to less or more frequent coffee drinkers.

Women who regularly drink coffee were found to be less likely to die from various causes in relation to their counterparts. Also, the consumption of decaffeinated coffee drew similar results, therefore researchers do not believe caffeine is at work in the recent developments for coffee consumption. A University of Scranton professor of chemistry, Joe A. Vinson, Ph. D., found, “Most people drink it [coffee] for the caffeine. But it’s the Number 1 source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet.” Antioxidants are nutritious compounds found in berries, beans, and vegetables, but those foods are consumed much less than coffee. So have a cup o’ Joe, and have a good day (or life).

Obama’s new wheels are hot. Check out the first pictures of the new armored limousine which will be used to drive Barack Obama around. Called “Cadillac One” the car will first be seen on January 20th as part of the inaugural parade. It is traditional to show presidential cars off for the first time in this way. (click image to enlarge).

For your disgust and enjoyment we give you the 1st annual PD Best and Worst For 2008. This is my opinion and is completely based on what I like, or in many cases dislike.
PLEASE NOTE that this article will be a work in progress until midnight on December 31. I will be adding to it each day. Please check back daily for more updates!

POLITICS:

The Best:

1. Obama, Obama, Obama. The country stepped up, proved it was only partially prejudice, and elected the best person for the job based on qualifications and charisma, and NOT color. No other story dominated the political landscape like this one and deservedly so.
2. Saturday Night Live: Any Sarah Palin or Keith Olbermann parody. Ben Affleck’s Olbermann was (more…)
   

Trying out a new feature on my phone that will allow me to write more regular blog posts from my new WM smartphone.

This is only a test and your regular program will resume shortly.

Anyone who knows me has seen over the past 3 weeks that I am completely obsessed with my new cell phone - the htc FUZE. I posted a long review about the phone here. And while this site is still about politics and the world around me that many times pisses me off, it ALSO is sometimes about things I find really cool.

The htc FUZE is an advanced Windows Mobile phone and that means you can program it however you want, tweak it endlessly, and do things to it that most other phones will never be able to do. Well today Google made it even better then it already was with the release of Google Maps Street Views for phones like mine. Basic Google Maps was already available and was fantastic with satellite views, maps for directions, and a variety of other info features.

Now they added the very cool street views you can get on your PC for your phone as well. You can see a video about it here.  The picture to the right is from my phone and of a house a few miles away from where I live. As you can see you can literally see the house, yard, road, cars, and more. Pretty amazing. And you can take it a step further with walking directions with similar pictures, addresses, and phone numbers. It is really incredible and I am continually amazed these days. Such fun!

I consider myself a super power user. Close to 4-6000 minutes a month in phone calls, thousands of emails and text messages, internet use, full use of web applications, etc. I literally always have the phone in hand, or very close by. I have had the phone for about 2 weeks and was a long long LONG time Blackberry user before getting the FUZE. I just felt it was time to upgrade to a WM phone.

Here is my review and thoughts after spending the past 2 weeks reading EVERY website, installing MANY applications, programs, plug ins, etc, and then taking some out if I did not like them. I have installed all the advanced config. tools and tweaked and tweaked for performance, etc etc etc…..etc.

1) The battery life is a joke for power users. So far the phone never ever makes it through the entire day without having to be charged up a little or again somewhere along the way. Now this is not that big of a deal because I can (more…)

I just had to post my excitement at seeing gas BELOW $2 in Florida and Alabama this week. I am here for business and can only HOPE that this can only be the start of gas prices dropping all over the country and hopefully continuing to drop right through the holidays. How great would it be if we see $1.50 or $1.25! that would be fantastic and really help out with having extra money for Christmas gifts and other expenses.

There is NO REASON that gas should go back up again in my opinion other then the gas companies raping us for profits and end of the year bonuses. In my opinion they have made enough at this point to stick it to us again during the holidays.

And hopefully if we can really start moving towards cars that don’t rely only on gas we could really move away from the coast associated with paying at the pump. Either way, it is going down currently and that is a positive for me. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for even lower prices

We probably grill out 3-5 days a week and just love the way food tastes when cooked on the grill. Want to see one of the coolest things I saw online today. Check out these outdoor kitchens. I WANT ONE BAD.

BUT our backyard does not look like the these in any way. Our grill is just sitting outside by our back door. I would love to have an amazing outdoor kitchen like one of these. The best thing in my opinion would be all of the cabinets and just having all the cooking tools right there. Right now I have to bring everything outside every time we grill. Since we grill so much that is a lot of walking back and forth from the house to the grill with all the utensils and grill tools. If we had an outdoor kitchen like this everything could be stored right by the grill. That would be heaven.

Finally, look at the COOL swim up bar found here. That would be taking my outdoor dream yard to a whole new level. A pool and an outdoor kitchen … a dream, oh what a dream!