Author Archives: jon

Veganism And The Art Of Iron Levels During Pregnancy

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Since Freya’s conception I’ve been aware of the importance of iron-levels during pregnancy, making sure Jo not only got an increased amount of iron-rich vegan foods, but which foodstuffs to combine/avoid in order to effect a higher intake of the much-needed mineral; however, it wasn’t until last week I actually bothered to find out why, and what the test results actually mean.

Hemoglobin is an iron-rich protein found in red blood-cells. Its function, amongst others, is to carry oxygen to other cells, like a pizza delivery guy. About 1/3 of a woman’s iron reserves are given to the child, which makes it reasonably vital that a decent iron level is maintained.

Before Jo got pregnant with version 2, her “blodvärde” was around 130. This number represents the number of grams of hemoglobin per litre of blood, and should be between 120 – 150 g/l for women. During her first checkup mid-January her level sank to 111, which was low, but not quite sufficiently so to start taking iron supplements; when Jo was tested a second time, last week, her level had risen to 127. The midwife was, apparently, impressed.

I was going to end this entry with an aside that spinach is not, as everyone believes it to be, a fantastic source of iron, due to it also including a fair amount of oxalates, which inhibit iron absorption. Without doubt, that would have been a perfectly good and informative finishing sentence to an otherwise quite mundane blog, but then I chanced upon MakeupTalk’s forum, that had a question about low hemoglobin:

Just got my blood results back and my midwife said I have low hemoglobin in my blood but its nothing to worry about. Apparantely its caused by lack of iron. Is it safe to take iron/vitamin supplements through pregnancy?

asks ForeverPink, to which one of the forum moderators, Lia, replies:

Every pregnant woman HAS to take iron to supplement the body, because the income by food isn’t enough – to women who doesn’t have anemia, it’s 300mg per day, and for those who have, more. You should take it every day, and it’s at least 600mg if i’m not mistaken.

Check with an ob-gyn about it, because he/she will be able to treat you correctly.

Obviously Lia is talking shite; even capitalising will not make it any truer, Lia. In none of the articles I’ve read has it ever once stated that one HAS to take iron tablets (maybe the law is different in Brazil, which wouldn’t surprise me), with a certain site informing me that one should never take iron tablets if one’s level is not low.

What I found more worthwhile than that nugget of bollocks as an end to this entry, though, was Lia’s forum signature, which comes from the lips of Lia, herself:

Learn everything you can, you never know when you might need it.

Brilliant, Lia.

Foraging For Finery

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The recycling room is in a bit of an over-run state at the moment, and people are apparently sill unable to have the civil courtesy to sort correctly. Another problem/annoyance is people’s willing to throw perfectly good pizza clothes in the “burnable” container, particularly when there is a huge charity shop 3 minutes’ tram ride away.

I was so displeased with this situation that I went down this evening to save a bundle of clothes from incineration, with the intention of taking them to the charity shop myself. I would have probably come away with more than one bin-bag if:

a) there would not have been the disorder that prevented me from effective rummaging;

b) I hadn’t been scared away by the potential of someone coming in on my act of environmental goodness, thinking, instead, I was simply taking for my own requirements (which we sometimes do, and I shouldn’t even be ashamed at the idea, bit it is a bit embarrassing being caught routing through rubbish).

There are often things left in the recycling room, whether it be clothes, furniture or electrical goods. I’m sure a fair amount of furniture gets claimed be fellow residents, less so about the TV’s, CD players etc. It would be very useful if the previous owners could attach a post-it to the their discarded goods, letting others know if something is in working order, or (if not) what the fault is. Within the last few months I’ve seen four TVs, and even the environmental impact of one of them being reclaimed is considerable.

On a positive note, Lotten, our neighbour below us, seems to have got the wheels of motion turning for a communal compost to be installed in the recycling/rubbish room. Details are scarce just now, but the very fact that the idea is being discussed is a step in the right direction. Well done, Lotten.

A Short Thought About This Morning

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This morning I awoke with the now familiar stomach and lower back pains that have been recurrent these last two weeks. A feeling of panic was simultaneously bubbling in the pit of my tummy, and I was lying there for half an hour or more, trying to relax away the anxiety, with limited results.

This, I think, is an important place to begin concentrating my efforts for an eventual return to abnormality. Starting the day with mentally draining negativity undoubtedly affects the rest of my day, and despite having a restful night’s sleep I start this Sunday with an uncomfortable, jarring feeling, even after taking my medicine.

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How Not To Wake Up

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I woke up early this morning (6 o’clock-ish), remaining in bed, dozing and listening to Jo and Freya getting ready. Just before they were set to go I heard Freya crying (probably an over-reaction to hurting herself, or possibly an unwillingness to do something). I don’t know how long this little outburst lasted, but after just a couple of wails of disapproval I found my heart-rate rise and my temper shorten. In the past I have stumbled naked into the hall and blurt out some angry comment, making my way back to bed, leaving everyone in a worse mood.

Today I did my best to ignore the noise, trying instead to focus on how unimportant it all was, and that within five minutes of it being over I’d forget about the whole incident. It wasn’t easy; I still got slightly uptight, but I refrained from taking it out on the girls, who left shortly after.

It was very pleasant to lie there alone and in silence, with only my thoughts to disturb me. And then it happened. I’m certain it is something that has only come in recent years, but I do not know when my morning thoughts started getting interrupted by making a mental to-do list. I was actually aware of becoming stressed at the notion of planning, not just today, but the whole weekend.

“I’d like to go for an early morning walk today and maybe be able to vacuum clean before lunch instead of tomorrow because tomorrow Jo and Freya are going to make chocolate balls for Freya to take to Emilie’s birthday party so I’ll get up early tomorrow and see if Freya wants to come for a walk with me before Jo gets up which means she can have a bit of a lie in and then when we drop off Freya at Emilie’s maybe we can…”, is pretty much how my lazy morning in bed turned out, without a mental breath or punctuation to assuage the increasing agitation building up in my head.

Once again I managed to see what was happening, and put a stop to it, forcing myself to calm down and concentrate on where I was just then. And this is where this entry came from, a result of focusing . It is extremely interesting to realise how a normal day in my head begins, and is definitely something I must work on forthwith.

The Future Of Rock Band

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There was an interesting interview on gamesindustry.biz a couple of days ago with Harmonix’ (Guitar Hero, Rock Band) Greg LoPiccolo, talking about the future of the rhythm-based music games they produce. What I found most interesting was that a lot of what the interview postulates is exactly the kind of thing anyone who has come over to our flat to play Guitar Hero has discussed.

Obviously, you have spent a lot of time taking existing songs and fitting them into your technology. In the future, do you think the music industry may look towards releasing new CDs that have tracks on the disc “pre-formatted” to work with Guitar Hero or Rock Band?

Due to physical format issues…Having it on the same disc, I’m not sure if that would ever happen. But I can certainly imagine a future of coordinated releases, where some given band may release their content into Rock Band at the same. I think that would make a lot of sense.

Such a method, albeit homebrew, has been implemented in the PC Guitar Hero clone, Frets on Fire, where, with a fair amount of hard graft, individuals can take any song, convert it to a midi file, mess around with the guitar tracks using Fruity Loops (or, I presume, any kind of semi-professional tracker/sequencer), and, with a great deal of admiration on my part, mix it all together in a wok to create a playable version.

Another game that has taken a simplified version of this idea is Wipeout/Guitar Hero/Rez inspired Audio Surf, which “converts” any audio track into blocks which must be collected in a certain pattern over a course. Hmm, I don’t really have the brain capacity to do this game justice in words, so I’ll let the official site explain:

Audiosurf is a music-adapting puzzle racer where you use your own music to create your own experience. The shape, the speed, and the mood of each ride is determined by the song you choose. You earn points for clustering together blocks of the same color on the highway, and compete with others on the internet for the high score on your favorite songs.

Actually, I reckon I did a better job with my game-summary, and with fewer words, but I suppose they were loath to use any Wipeout or Guitar Hero comparison.

Anyway, one further expansion/diversion I’ve been thinking about, especially with the type of music I’ve been brought up with:

Any chance of expanding into other instruments? Perhaps a keyboard?

We get a lot of requests for the keyboard. Who knows? It may happen one day. It is actually conceptually pretty difficult to build in. Most consoles are set up for four peripherals, not five, which means you have to drop something. Which means that the song offering is more complicated.

You know, it is a big commitment. And then the question is, are there enough rock songs with compelling keyboard parts to make it worthwhile? And maybe the answer is yes, but we’ve been pretty busy [laughs] and we haven’t really gotten there yet.

Except I wasn’t actually imagining rock songs with keyboard parts. I remember having a Roland SH-101, which was a monophonic 32-key synth which could be hung around the neck like a guitar, or “keytar” (awful word). No, my proposal is a more keyboard orientated version. Easy songs could include early Depeche Mode stuff, with more advanced Lemonjelly tracks upping the ante a little. And then the Easy mode could be renamed “Andy Fletcher mode”, for the tone deaf or people with complete lack of rhythm (like 2 year-olds).