Sean Lynch over at Catallarchy likes PriceGrabber much more than, say, Froogle.

On hard drives, for example, you can filter by size range, cache size, speed, and manufacturer. The couple times I’ve found errors in either the condition an item was listed in (the vendor had a refurb listed as new) or the availability (the vendor was out of stock but it showed as in stock on PriceGrabber) they’ve always responded within one business day. I have yet to find an incorrect price. Occasionally some of the listings will say “see site” but I generally just skip those. Rebates, which I hate, are also listed right in the comparison list, so you don’t have to visit the price to find out you need to mail in a rebate form and then wait for your money if you’re lucky enough to have the rebate actually fulfilled. They also list stuff that’s available from Amazon, so no more searching Amazon and not knowing whether the item in the list is actually available to buy or if it’s from an Amazon partner and not Amazon themselves!

Since 1) Snookums and I met using one of these online dating websites, and 2) the story features a fellow South Dakota State grad, and 3) it's dateline is from India for Heaven's sake . . . here's an excerpt:

Neu looked at eHarmony.com as well as Yahoo! dating before selecting match.com for her initial foray into Web dating.

"I was just dinking around on there, and I saw his picture," Neu says, referring to Cory Ims, now her fiance. "When I saw him, it led me to sign up and give it a try."

She signed up on Match.com and sent a message to Ims, wondering if he had gone to South Dakota State University when she did.

"He responded and told me he was living in Willmar (Minn.), and as it turned out, I had to go there for work," Neu says. "So we went on our first date while I was in Minnesota on business."

Conversations continued after that first date, both by phone and via e-mail. In time, the couple made plans for marriage. Neu says the experience taught her a bit about online dating.

"You get a lot of e-mails, and if you don't have time to read them and respond, it can be a bother," she says. "But after that first date with Cory, well, I wasn't really looking any more."

Update: OK the original source article is from the good ol' Sioux Falls Argus Leader. That explains it.

Coffee is the top source for antioxidants in the American diet:

"Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close," Vinson said in a statement.

Presenting his findings to a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, Vinson said this did not mean that coffee was necessarily the best source of antioxidants.

Eat your veggies, they're good for you.

The Great Low-Carb Bust continues. Atkins Nutritionals becomes the latest low-carb food company which tried to profit from the low-carb boom of the early 2000's to file bankruptcy.

"Mainstream companies such as Unilever, Kraft, and General Mills broke into the controlled-carbohydrate market in 2004 with well-funded, aggressive product launches," Rebecca Roof, Atkins' chief restructuring officer, said in court papers. As a result, Roof said, sales in 2004 were "dramatically less than forecast."

I'm not so sure that low-carb dieters wouldn't be better off if all of these low-carb "fake-food" products disappeared from the shelves and we went back to more natural fare of salads, fresh vegetables, meat, cream, and butter.

Specifically, fructose (as in "high-fructose corn syrup") appears to cause more weight gain (in mice) than other sugar sweeteners like glucose, and that weight gain is not explained by calories alone.

All the mice began the study at an average weight of 39 grams. Those consuming the fructose-sweetened water showed significant weight gain over the course of the study, with an average final weight of 48 grams--compared with averages below 44 grams for the other groups--and had about 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only.

Total caloric intake was lower in the mice that consumed the fructose-sweetened water than in the other groups, except for the control animals provided with water only.

"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories," said Dr. Tschöp. "Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks."

I'm always astonished that it seems to come as a surprise to most dieticians and physicians that not all calories are the same. There's this little thing called biochemistry. This is the intricate system of chemical reactions which determines how the body processes food. It's driven by enzymes created by the body, and each person's body creates and processes enzymes at slightly different rates (just like everybody has a unique fingerprint). This means that everybody's biochemistry is a bit different. This is why one diet does not fit all. Some diets (i.e. controlled carbohydrate diets) directly address manipulating the body's biochemistry. Others ("portion control" starvation diets and "low-fat" diets) don't.

I don't know why someone would want to do this. Perhaps being in St. Louis has something to do with it. From the appropriately named blog The Smoking Tongue.

Oh, the comedy lines you could write . . .

Yahoo News (AP) reports that the FDA is looking into a possible link between Viagra (yes, that Viagra) and blindness.

The FDA has 42 reports of the blindness, 38 among users of Viagra and four among users of Cialis. There were no cases reported among users of Levitra, the third impotence drug.

Yes, I know it's not really that funny to guys who have actually gone blind (no, that's not funny at all), but sheesh, c'mon, you really can't make up stuff this, well, funny. Maybe you have to be a guy to understand . . .

The American Psychiatric Association and the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, for:

Caffeinated Cola May Make Kids Hyperactive.

I'm not exactly sure why this is in "Diet & Lifestyle" but it's gotta go somewhere.

It's garage sale time? Our little subdivision has its community garage sale this Saturday, so it's time to go through the garage and basement and drag out all the stuff that we don't want any more but is too good to actually throw out.

Snookums came across this site, which caters to the diner who (in part):

Passes by the familiar, bland comfort of the Red Lobsters, Olive Gardens and Golden Arches that have taken over suburbia, insisting on driving a few minutes or hours further - knowing that somewhere down the road is a barbecue pit, a truck stop, a diner, a drive-in. a greasy spoon that may well become the highlight of the journey.

Well worth the time to browse around on the site. It could be a bit better organized, but all in all a good-natured (if somewhat filling) homage to The Greasy Spoon.