I was a waitress at the New England regional chain Newport Creamery for seven years in Jr. High, High School, and College. In college, I needed money for school supplies, so in addition to slinging ice cream cones and "Awful Awfuls" at the Creamery, I picked up a few more jobs: working the dinner shift at a family restaurant, heaving trays of cocktails at a bar until 3AM, and cleaning houses. Needless to say, I was a wreck, and a big time abuser of coffee and cigarettes. One day just before my shift at the Creamery began, I slung back a huge coffee and hauled on a Newport cigarette in the kitchen (this was when you could do things like smoke in a restaurant kitchen.) I then went out to the dining floor and approached my first table, who had been given menus and was waiting for me to take their order. "Hi, How are you today?", I cheerfully asked the mother and her three daughters, all looking under 12. "What may I get you?.." Then, fade to black as a huge swooshing sound took over my head. Next thing I know, I'm on the floor, covered in blood, the girls are screaming blue murder, and my manager is shaking like a leaf as he coddles me. Apparently, I passed out right onto the table of the nice family I was waiting on, then fell back and whacked my head on the corner of a wall. I remember noticing that my kelly green polyester dress was an awful shade of bloodied brown. My main concern was that I had a hot date that night, and now I had to go to the emergency room! The ER doctor was able to sew my head up, and sent me home with a diagnosis of "syncope, unknown origin". After a few hours, I still felt spacey, but insisted on going on the date. I remember we went to a nice Italian place on Federal Hill! Here's the Garden City location, where I worked. What did the waitress drink in the kitchen? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - Whiskey. - Coffee. - Water. - not enough information
Coffee.

Dietary supplements are big business, with around half of the Australian population using at least one type per year; most commonly a multivitamin and mineral pill. Many people take supplements as a form of dietary insurance in case they are not meeting their nutrient needs from foods alone. Others take them as a form of health insurance to protect against certain diseases. Some just take them out of habit. Supplements do have a role to play in some situations. People with a diagnosed deficiency, those with malabsorption conditions, women planning pregnancy, and people with very poor diets all can benefit from specific nutrient supplementation. But what about the benefit of supplements across the broad population? The mantra of most health professionals, which is even etched on the label of many supplements, is that supplements may only be of assistance if dietary sources are lacking. To see if this is supported by solid evidence, a systematic review of 63 clinical trials involving some form of supplementation in non-pregnant adults was carried out by a team of medical researchers. The clinical trials were broad in their nature with many nutrients studied including vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D and E; folic acid; calcium; selenium, omega-3 fatty acids; ginkgo biloba; glucosamine; saw palmetto; and milk thistle. All of the studies were randomised controlled trials and evaluated a range of health outcomes including risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, bone fractures, cognitive function and all-cause mortality. From the 63 studies, no benefit was seen in 45 studies with 10 of these showing a trend towards harm and just two showing a trend towards a benefit. Of the remaining studies, four showed harm with a greater risk of cancer with beta-carotene and a higher risk of fractures with a once-yearly dose of vitamin D. One study showed a lower risk of cancer with selenium supplementation, but this was not validated in much larger trials. Twelve studies showed a benefit and these mostly involved vitamin D... What effects did the scientists study? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - Positive effects - not enough information - Dietary effects - Negative effects
Positive effects

In this confessional age, TV, radio and print rely for much of their content on the sad stories of those 'victims' of life. The story goes something like this: There is the future 'victim' getting on with their quotidian activities and whoosh, they are whisked into a life of gambling, drugs, sex or junk food addiction. After years of struggle, they finally find redemption and become good people again. As in any good tale of redemption, there has to be a 'reason' for why our 'victim' fell off the rails. Take your pick: they were molested, their parents ran away from home, they were denied desserts except on Sundays. Just thinking about it brings a tear to my stony face. How can you not be moved by tales such as these. What is the precipitating cause of the misery in my life? Well, my mother was French and my father was English. And to make things worse, I was brought up Catholic! Yes folks, in today's shorthand of grievance, I'm a half-breed straddling Canada's great language divide and a religious bigot. My hometown was a mixture of French and English-speaking people and the results of their miscenagation. You could never tell by someone's last name who spoke your language (For instance, my good friend P. Arsenault spoke the Queen's English and my cousin Sean Doyle wouldn't have recognized an Oxford Dictionary if you shoved up his nose). As children, we were segregated by language; all the French-speaking kids went to one side of the school where they spoke French all the time. I was fortunate enough to be sent to the English side of the school and got to speak my native tongue. My parents decided my brother and sister wouldn't be quite so lucky. In an effort to bridge the great language divide, they both spent six years learning everything in French and mingling with the French people (My parents did this because it was the firm belief of all forward-thinking families that whatever road you took would be much smoother if you could speak both of Canada's official languages. As it turns out for my siblings and... why was the author in misery Pick the correct answer from the following options: - his parents gave him a horrible upbringing - they had no money - not enough information - he was thrown in a life of crime
his parents gave him a horrible upbringing