(no subject)

Yesterday, two of my co-workers invited me out for lunch. After going around and around about which restaurant, we finally decided on Bennigan's. It's just a few parking lots over from ours, so I think proximity played into the decision.

Our server, after taking our orders, told us of this program of theirs called "Lunch Time Crunch". There was a stopwatch on our table, and he started it after explaining that if we didn't have our food in the time allotted (which was 15 minutes), it was free.

I was keeping a pretty close eye on the time during that last minute. When our server returned with our food, he said, "Let's see how we did."

"You were so close!" I said as he picked up the stopwatch. "You missed it by 30 seconds."

"Yes. Well, that means your food is on us. I'll get the manager to come out here and verify with you that your meal is free." He didn't seem terribly excited that we were getting a free lunch, but at least he tried to keep a straight face about it. (I wouldn't be surprised if he's somehow penalized for every deadline missed.)

We left him a nice tip, as he still made a good effort to check in with us. (My co-worker left him a generous tip primarily because he was "cute".)

A nice break in an otherwise long workday.

Livin' in a pill-poppin', push-button age

Pill May Reduce Hearing Loss From Noise

[...] Scientists have pursued a variety of approaches toward an ear-fortifying pill. In 1994, for example, Israeli researchers reported that magnesium supplements helped military recruits avoid hearing loss over two months of noisy basic training. These days, much of the work focuses on antioxidants, the chemical class that most famously includes vitamins C and E.

That's because loud noise doesn't always damage the delicate inner ear immediately just by brute force. Rather, in most cases it provokes the inner ear into making harmful oxygen molecules called free radicals. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals, and the ear naturally has such defenses. But with enough noise, the ear's antioxidants are overwhelmed.

In that case, damage from the free radicals leads to death of the ear's sound receptors — hair cells, which convert the mechanical energy of incoming sound waves into nerve messages to the brain. As hair cells die off, hearing erodes permanently. So it makes sense to try to build up the ear's antioxidant defenses as a preventive step, and as a fast treatment after noise exposure.

Animal experiments in prevention look promising, and "people are getting very excited about applying this to protection against noise exposure in humans," [Sharon] Kujawa [director of audiology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary] said.

remind me not to live anywhere where there's smog.

Strokes Go Up as Air Quality Drops