Well, TomCruise.com wasn’t really squashed by scientology, moreso by a judge and a whiny Tom Cruise.  Read the story here.  If this doesn’t make you take a morning dump, I don’t know what will.

Sure, you know fiber’s good for you. But in the wake of carb-bashing diets that discourage grains, brown rice just doesn’t have the same appeal. And even if you are still a starch fan, you can only eat so many bulky bran muffins. The good news: Light and colorful fruits, vegetables and legumes are higher in fiber than most grains, with fewer calories and more phytochemicals–substances found in plants that can help boost the immune system and perform other healthful functions. So if you’ve had your fill of bland and brown high-fiber cereal, why not try these alternatives–and the recipes that follow–to boost your fiber intake?

1. Kidney beans. At nearly 10 grams per half-cup serving and only 94 calories, kidney beans are a serious source of fiber–plus, they’re packed with protein. Garbanzos, black beans, great northern beans and split peas have similar stats. Quick tip: Serve cooked kidney beans with diced green peppers and yellow tomatoes tossed with a light vinaigrette on a bed of romaine lettuce.

2. Broccoli. A cup of broccoli has 9 grams of fiber at a meager 40 calories. Other super high-fiber veggies include lima beans, peas, corn, carrots and green beans. Quick tip: Toss steamed broccoli florets and tomatoes with whole grain pasta, crushed garlic and olive oil.

3. Dried figs. Three little figs have nearly 11 grams of fiber and only 120 calories. Apricots, dates and prunes have a similar nutritional makeup. Quick tip: Stuff dried figs with almonds and a bit of goat cheese.

4. Raspberries. A cup of fresh, juicy raspberries has more than 9 grams of fiber and only 40 calories. Strawberries and blackberries are equally good sources of fiber. Quick tip: Toss raspberries and avocados into mesclun mix for a simple, elegant salad.

5. Sweet potatoes. A medium baked sweet potato has a hefty 7 grams of fiber and only 150 calories. Yams and russet potatoes are also high in fiber, especially when you eat the skins. Quick tip: Puree sweet potatoes cooked in low-fat chicken broth with rosemary and a little white wine for a creamy soup.

The other day, in through my email came an interesting forward on the orgins of the word shit.  It seemed like a plausible explanation that I so badly wanted to be true:

“Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was back then) by ship … well in dry form it weighs a lot less, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, and one of the by products is methane gas . . . and as the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen, methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern . . . BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was discovered what was happening. After that the bundles of manure where always stamped with the term S.H.I.T on them which meant to the sailors to “Ship High In Transit”. In other words high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.”

I thought this sounded brilliant.  But low and behold, a few minutes of Googling later turned up that this just isn’t the case.  Wordorigins.org had this to say,

“Shit is a very old word, with an Old English root. *Scítan is the Old English word. It has cognates in most of the other Germanic languages and shares a common Germanic root with modern equivalents like the German scheissen.

*Scítan, however, doesn’t appear in extant Old English texts and is only assumed to have existed in Old English. The verb to shit dates the Middle English period (c. 1308), and the noun form is from the 16th century. The interjection is of quite recent vintage, not found until the 1920s.

In 2002, an alleged acronymic origin for shit appeared on the Internet. According to this tale, the word is from an acronym for Ship High In Transit, referring to barges carrying manure. This is a complete fabrication and absurd on its face. All it takes to disprove it is to look up the word in any decent dictionary. Remember, anytime someone posits an acronymic word origin, chances are that it is utterly false.”

I wasn’t overly impressed with this shootdown of the Ship High In Transit theory, so further digging at Snopes found this explanation which I guess I’m going to have to accept,

“This sorry piece of codswallop about exploding ships appears to have begun its Internet life in February 2002. Its cousin, the “bad smelling steamship fuel” tale (second example quoted above), began its online life as an April 1999 post to the USENET discussion list rec.humor. Akin to the faux etymology of the word ‘fuck’ a specious acronym has once again been claimed as the origin of yet another term beloved of potty-mouths everywhere.

We could launch into a long, involved discussion of ancient shipping practices, methane production and properties, and Internet leg-pulls, but we’ll spare you all that, as the fanciful stories listed can easily be debunked as the product of someone’s wild imaginings through linguistic means.

The word shit entered modern English language derived from the Old English nouns scite and the Middle Low German schite, both meaning “dung,” and the Old English noun scitte, meaning “diarrhea.” Our most treasured cuss word has been with us a long time, showing up in written works both as a noun and as a verb as far back as the 14th century.

Scite can trace its roots back to the proto-Germanic root skit-, which brought us the German scheisse, Dutch schijten, Swedish skita, and Danish skide. Skit- comes from the Indo-European root skheid- for “split, divide, separate,” thus shit is distantly related to schism and schist. (If you’re wondering what a verb root for the act of separating one thing from another would have to do with excrement, it was in the sense of the body’s eliminating its waste — “separating” from it, so to speak. Sort of the opposite of today’s “getting one’s shit together.”)”

So that’s it.  The Ship High In Transit theorum apparently doesn’t hold up.  Too bad I already told the 6 people I know that the word shit come froms Ship High In Transit before doing my debunking research.  I can’t admit I’m wrong now!!!

I’ve been seeing the new Maxim at every gas station I walk into.  Jessica with Red hair.  She pulls it off well. It totally freaks me out that it’s actually a wig, but I’m thinking I’ll get over it.  Head over to Maxim for these pics.  Or, if you want to spend hours today checking out Jessica, head to SweetKisses.net. They have literally thousands of pics of Jessica in their vault.  Caution: Boners at the workplace are not cool.

I know what you’re thinking, why name a website Better Than Bran?  That’s an easy one.  Doctors/TV/The Department of They all say you should eat a lot of bran.  It keeps your system clean as a whistle and prevents colo-rectal cancer.  And it seems these days the “typical” way for men (and women) to get their dose of bran is by eating a tasty (yeah right) bowl of All Bran for breakfast.  OR….if you’re clever, you mix All Bran and Mini Wheats together to try and mask the overwhelmingly gross taste and even worse texture.

So why BetterThanBran.com? Skip the Bran for breakfast. Instead, head to the computer and logon to this site.  Each day I will bring you the best of the web - videos/games/factoids/what’s new and all that jazz.  My aim?  At least one piece of content a day that makes you laugh until you almost have to sh!t your pants.

I’m lucky enough to have a job where I spend the majority of my day surfing Digg, YouTube, FunnyMovies.net, and all of the other sites out there.  I admit it, I’m a web slut. I get around. 

This will be fun.  Don’t worry, I won’t pass any venereals on to you - just virals.

 Stay Tuned..this will be FUN.