This is good news. According to the April issue of Health magazine (sadly, not available online), pizza is health food:

Italian researchers recently found evidence that people who regularly eat pizza have healthier hearts than those who don’t. … In a study of nearly 1,000 people, those who regularly ate the equivalent of 4 to 5 American slices a week were 56 percent less likely to have a heart attack than people who never ate pizza; those who had eaten half that amount lowered their risk by 36 percent. The researchers’ earlier work showed that pizza eaters get fewer digestive tract cancers.

The article goes on to mention something about not ordering “fatty extras like sausage or extra cheese.” Yeah, right. And I believe Dottore Silvano Gallus of the Istitute di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri in Milan would go all Roberto Benigni on the suggestion from the editors that you “order veggie toppings and insist on just a sprinkle of mozzarella.” That is simply not a pizza.

Slice of cold pepperoni and mushroom for breakfast, anyone?

I’m working on a script that I plan to post at the end of this week. Its purpose is to make your computer safer by disabling Internet Explorer’s ability to download ActiveX controls while still allowing you to run “good” ActiveX controls that you’ve already approved.

I need a couple people to test the script for me. The test should take no more than a few minutes. If you’re interested, send me a note: edbott (at) gmail.com.

OK, I think I have enough testers. If you got an e-mail from me, be sure to send me your results.

So, what’s on your mind?

(Via American Street, with graphics from Elizabeth)

Thomas Hawk points to the announcement that the TiVo guys have come up with Bloglines On Your TiVo.

I’ve never understood this one. Why would I want to read normal RSS feeds using my TV? I can’t imagine trying to read this site on a TV – or, for that matter, any site with posts more than a sentence in length, which describes about 90% of the feeds I subscribe to. Trying to read even a tiny subset of the 240 feeds on my Bloglines list would result in a terrible experience, regardless of whether I subscribed using TiVo or Media Center.

Now, I can totally understand why I might want to subscribe to media-specific feeds with a specialized RSS reader that can play video and audio enclosures on my TV. The ability to capture video blogs and podcasts and random multimedia content delivered through RSS feeds would be a cool addition to any TiVo or Media Center. But Bloglines isn’t optimized for those types of content, and I have a hard time imagining how it would work, except to think it would be kind of a mess. In fact, that’s exactly what the sample screens look like.

Props to the developers for taking a stab at this. But really, someone needs to think about an intelligent marriage of the two media. Simply forcing them into a shotgun wedding is a mistake.

Light posting this weekend – and all next week, for that matter, as I’ll be on the road again.

I learned yesterday that Alex Nichol passed away earlier this week. Alex was a Windows MVP and a prolific contributor to the Aumha.org site. Although Alex and I never met, I feel like I knew him through his writing, which was consistently well researched and easy to read. Just last week, in fact, I included a link to his article on Windows Product Activation in my post here, and every edition of Windows XP Inside Out includes a reference to his excellent explanation.of virtual memory in Windows XP.

The good folks at the Aumha forums have begun a thread in Alex’s memory. If you knew his work, stop by and add your thoughts.

Thank you, Alex, and farewell.

I’m up in Redmond this week, meeting with publishers, fellow authors, and a fair number of folks from Microsoft. Under the terms of the NDA I signed yesterday, if I say anything more I have to kill myself…

Sean Alexander says:

…it looks like another Seattle MCE Geek Dinner is being planned. Details to come shortly.

Friday night, March 11, works best for me. Who else is going to be in the Seattle area and wants to go out and speak geek?

Yes, yes, of course I plan to watch the Oscars tonight. (And will I get in trouble because I used the word without putting TM after it?) I hope Chris Rock can pull it off on a network where his comedic range (not to mention his vocabulary) has to be seriously constrained.

But this – this is the award show I wish I would have seen instead.

George Bush, Halle Berry Share Worst Film Honors

George W. Bush won the “Razzie” worst actor of the year award on Saturday for his performance as president in “Fahrenheit 9/11” but his moment in Hollywood’s dubious spotlight was eclipsed by Halle Berry, who actually turned up to receive her embarrassing accolade.

Berry was named worst actress of 2004 by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation for her performance in “Catwoman” and she showed up to accept her “Razzie” carrying the Oscar she won in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball.”

“They can’t take this away from me, it’s got my name on it!” she quipped. A raucous crowd cheered her on as she gave a stirring recreation of her Academy Award acceptance speech, including tears.

She thanked everyone involved in “Catwoman,” a film she said took her from the top of her profession to the bottom.

“I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of s—,” she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him “next time read the script first.”

It is rare for a Razzie winner to show up at the spoof awards held on the night before Oscars (news – web sites) — but Berry did, saying her mother taught her that to be “a good winner you had to be a good loser first.” She received a standing ovation.

Heh. There was more honesty in that two-minute speech than you’ll hear in tonight’s four-hour extravaganza.

Britney Spears won an award as well, but didn’t show up to accept it.

…was at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, in 1970, when I was 15 years old. So imagine my surprise when I saw this poster on the Internet.

We went to see Boz Scaggs, but the two acts at the bottom of the bill were better. At least that’s the way I recall it today, 35 years later. Most of the details of that night are, let’s say, somewhat hazy today.

Imagine my even greater surprise when I saw that the opening act, Mason Proffit, has reunited. I became huge fans of this band, which was one of the very first groups to authentically fuse American roots music (country, folk, bluegrass) with rock. They were only around for about five years, but they made some great music before breaking up in 1973. It’s odd to see that both of the Talbot brothers, who originally founded the band, turned to religion in the early 1970s. One is now a Franciscan monk, the other has made a name on some Christian music labels. The new band has some genuine talent in Al Perkins and Bruce Kurnow.

I’m definitely going to order their compilation CD.