The Iron Man movie, which exceeded everyone’s expectations both in terms of quality and revenue, was apparently created without a script. What does that say about all of the movies that are so much worse that actually had a script? Should we just remove scriptwriters from the process altogether?

All of this is interesting, I guess. But the part of attraction and desire that I find interesting is not the universality but rather the particularism. Why do I find some actresses in Hollywood with perfect waist-hip ratios and symmetrical faces extremely attractive while finding others with perfect waist-hip ratios and symmetrical faces considerably less so?

The notion that exercise is the way to weight loss has taken a lot of hits lately. And no, saying “it doesn’t count if you eat it all back” isn’t a sufficient counterargument because exercising makes you want to eat more. For all of the talk of the role of what our sedentary lifestyles have played in our obesity problem, it seems to me that much more of the problem comes back to our intake.

I collect pictures of people in superhero costumes for my screensaver slideshow. It became pretty obvious early on that a good portion of the pics I was collecting were from homosexual quarters.

In a shocking development, it turns out that not all marriages are equally good for your health and that stressful marriages are bad for it. In other news, most or all of the “happiness deficit” among those with kids can be attributed to those that were ambivalent or conflicted (one wanting kids, the other not) about having kids. Oh wait, that part doesn’t tend to make it into the news…

Loneliness can be as bad for us as smoking and obesity. That’s why we need to stigmatize the obese. It will make them thinner, which in turn will make them more popular. Which in turn will make them healthier.

Is there no such thing as a hot streak in sports? Even though I’m not particularly superstitious, I find that surprising. Not because I believe that the gods watch over us when we’re hot, but because there is so much psychological in athletics that being hot tends to produce more confidence which produces better results. Huh.

I am of the school of thought that almost all of our political, moral, and theological views come from our innate personalities and our experiences rather than any genuine evaluation of the issues involved. So what do I make of the evolution of morals? Good question.

That we have far too many humanities majors for the job market to bear is no surprise. What is a surprise is that people were raising fears that the opposite may be true as recently as 1989.

When I was a kid they used to say “you are what you eat.” Some people never outgrew that, apparently.