99 Bottles of Beer

Ok. This is the 99th post to this here blog. Wow. I figured I would get bored and just forget about it (like I do with all kinds of other semi-important things like mortgage payments, light bills, etc...).
But alas I am still here, albeit in a slightly less fattening version.
This whole workout, eat right, live healthy thing is starting to grow on me. I actually got upset because my gym was closed today because of recarpeting. Hmph. Color me health nazi. I was incensed that my little exercise regimen was interrupted by something as pedestrian as flooring.
What was wrong with the old flooring?
Nothing.
No tears, no runs, drips or errors.
Whatever. Fine. I don't care.
Just so they have the room up and running tomorrow.
(Wow. What a cry baby I am huh?)
I need to put myself on time out...
[begin timeout]
Loserwhineyninnyhead
[end timeout]
Ok.
Yeah.
Feel much better now.

Off to goof off now...



















The perfect way to end the day. Ralaxing
in a parking garage, inhaling second
hand smoke...

On the threshold of Greatness

Holy thin man, Batman! Someone we all know and well, to be perfectly honest, love, has suddenly appeared on the sunny side of 230 lbs.
Oh joy! Oh rapture!
Jiminy Crickets!
Crikey!
(I can use crikey, right?)
That’s right folks, you heard it here first. I have cracked the infamous 230 lbs barrier.
Farewell flabulence!
Hit the road man-boobs!
Like the ancient city of Jericho, the walls have come a tumblin down. Except without the whole Isrealite army and the dudes with the trumpets and those dudes with the drums and also without the whole marching non-stop around the city for seven days and nights. Oh yea, without the whole putting the inhabitants of the city under the sword, men, women, children, the male oxen and the female oxen alike.
Thus saith the...
Ok, so I might go to hell. But I gotta tell you, if I am in fact going, then there are better reasons to condemn me to everlasting damnation that the previous little paragraph.
Heh... I just thought of another one.
But I digress.
It only took 6 weeks of six-day-a-week episodes (and twice on saturday... stamina, it's whats for dinner baby!) on the elliptitread thingamijiggy. I suppose I might have cracked it sooner if I hadn’t slacked on the whole eating healthy part but I am getting better. That and I started to lift weights, which apparently everyone knows (because they all tell me like fifteen times a day) that lifting weights add muscle and muscle, apparently, weighs more that fat.
So I am watching what kind of crap I consume and I am getting better.
I can eat salads and not cry now, so I got that going for me.
But I have a confession to make.
I did have a donut.
Sweet and delicious, fresh and tender.
It was a hottie.
Seriously, I’m not making this up.
It was a Hottie Donut. They have those out here. Kinda like a cross between Dunkin’s and Krispy Kreme.
Crap. Stupid Microsoft.
I just had to add Krispy Kreme to my dictionary. You’d think that they would add some of the more recent additions to the English language like:

assclown (noun)

1. A person who, while under the influence, makes a complete fool of himself while attempting humor.

2. A person who, while making a serious attempt as something, fails to realize what a complete fool he has made of himself.

3. An untalented schmuck.

Examples:

1. That assclown thought he was being funny when he pretended to choke at the party, but everyone thought he was just being foolish.

2. The actor, while in character, made such an assclown of himself during the production that most of the audience started to talk during his monologues.

Ah, the beauty of the internet. I got the above definition from the Urban Dictionary (nee http://www.urbandictionary.com). Did you even realize that such a thing existed? I know, me neither. Well, that makes it official.

We learned something new today.

Cool.

It Needs More Cow Bell

I slack therefore I am. Long weekend. Barking Spiders defeated the Poinciana Supernerds 10-1 in wiffle ball action and a few other things involving alcohol and “when puppy’s attack”.
There.
That’s it. That’s the blog for today. Look, I don’t know if I really feel like going into detail today.
Oh, I finally saw the whole “Need more cowbell” skit with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken on SNL. Good stuff. I think I need more cowbell in the mornings, you know, to help start the day right. I sure as hell could have used more “cowbell” this morning.
I woke up late and had to skip my morning workout.
Bollocks.
I got up on time but I was just not feeling it. I wanted to go. Really, I did. But the bed was extra comfortable and honestly, one day isn’t going to kill me right? It’s not going to undo all of that hard work is it?
I ended up bringing my stationary bike out of retirement for 30 minutes to get something in this morning. I think I am going to get my happy ass out of bed on time tomorrow. This whole slacking thing is not me anymore.
The weekend was okay. Felt a little long for some reason. Maybe I just covered a lot of things, baseball, soccer, drinking, lawn maintenance and a host of other suburban distractions.
Best part of the weekend was getting in a wiffleball game. It’s been a long time since I played. My brother-in-law has a backyard roughly the size of Fenway park, sans the asylum inmates. You could play little league games in there, except for the playground right smack dab in the middle of the outfield.
Did I mention that we won? We being my buddy Sal and I. In all honesty we should have split up the teams a little better. Both Sal and I are vets and well, our opponents weren’t.
Maybe next time.
We did manage to squeeze a few beers in between innings. We had fun, going to have to do that again sometime. My youngest daughter was attacked by my Brother-in-law’s puppy.
I know it didn’t mean to do it.
And while I am no animal lover, I am not cruel to animals. But we are talking my baby here people. My little monkey, my puddin’.
The dog made a mess of her face. Scratching her badly and nipping her hand. She was sufficiently traumatized. This is not the first time that Scrappy Doo has done something stupid like this. The last victim was my niece.
And naturally, I lost it.
For the record, we are not talking about a small tiny puppy. This little mongrel brute is well over thirty pounds and getting larger every minute.
My first reaction was a left hook to Scrappy Doo noggin. He was snapping at me and getting a little too frisky for his own good while my wailing six year old daughter was being attended to by her mom.
At the last second I realized: “Puppy” and instead of punching the dog I bopped it on the head.
I know, I know, evil human, picking on a poor defenseless puppy like that.
Well screw that. My daughter was screaming hysterically and Barky the wonder mutt was the cause.
He got off easy if you ask me.
I think the scratches will heal. They had better.
Man, was I pissed.
Look. I could have kicked the dog and I was mad enough to kill it. Seriously. I’m a nice guy until my kids are threatened.
Then it becomes clobbering time.
I’m a dad. What did you expect?
Someone give me more cow bell…

Disco Inferno

Ah, Monday! Where is thy sting?
I have to tell you that this whole exercise thing is working out.
Working out!
Get it?
HA! I kill me…
Anyway, a few hiccups here and there ( Ok, I admit it, I had a few conversations with some ice cream cake over the weekend) but for the most part I have been a good boy when it comes to the food war. Even better, I have started to over come the urge to sleep in during the week when the alarm goes off and I just want to roll over…
(Five more minutes mom…)
… and I am up and out the door before I am fully awake (almost always wearing pants, thank you very much) trudging dutifully towards the call of my hamsteresque elliptical machine.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
Thirty minutes a day, every day.
In the five weeks I have been exercising (three at the local gym after the ass numbing stationary bike adventure…) I have lost a grand total of:
(drum roll please…)
Seven pounds.
Wow. All that sweat, all the grunting and huffing and puffing and I’ll blow your house down!
Little pig, little pig, let me in.
The Big Bad Donut is a-knocking and I ain’t letting him in.
I realized, with no small amount of amazement, that the man boobs have been defeated. Sure, in their wake they left a feeble chest with no muscle tone and devoid of definition, but the rebuilding process, you’ll be happy to know (since I know that your every waking moment is spent on wondering whether or not I will ever regain my sculpted man form – you can at least PRETEND to care, okay?) is well under way.
Thus ended my man boobs.
As for the battle of the bulge, well, to be perfectly honest heavy fighting continues in and around my waistline, with insurgent fat cells waging a constant battle to hold the gains they have made over the last ten years or so. It’s going to be a long fight but already I can see that I am winning. Size 38’s are getting to be too big to be my britches, so I am happily utilizing my 36’s more and more.
Onward to victory friends…
And so I carry on with nothing but the splendiferous ache of muscles worked for the shedding of a mere seven pounds. All those skipped cheeseburgers and soda scratched off the shopping list and all that damned salad!
Oh Lawd! The greens, the greens, all I see is the greens!
Just kidding, it hasn’t been all that hard. A little discipline goes a long way. I still have my moments. I still eat pretty much what I want (except for the soda. I really did cut that out…) I just try to eat smaller portions and I really try hard to not eat late.
You know what? That has been the hardest thing to do. To not eat late. It seems that it is the only time that I am starving.
Weird.
I tried on some crap that had been hanging in my closet for ages without me wearing it. You know what I mean, the stuff that the wife has been nagging me to get rid of or donate or whatever.
Letterman Jacket, old sports jerseys, Leisure suits, banana hammock, etc.
“Why don’t you go through your closet and give away all the stuff that doesn’t fit you or that you don’t wear?”
“But I am going to exercise and lose some weight and I will be able to wear those polyester Saturday Night Fever Disco pants again…”
Right.
And where that was just an excuse to not get up from watching the ball game a few months ago, I am actually shedding the fatness and wouldn’t you just know it?
I can almost fit into those polyester Saturday Night Fever Disco pants again.
Sweet. Now I can plan that awesome seventies disco party I have been wanting to do for years.
Burn baby burn.

Aquaman Rides Again!

So I went to Sea World with the family yesterday and took in the whole Shamu thing. Lots of shows, short on rides but not a bad place to spend the day at all. My kids were just plain flummoxed what with the whole Dolphin pool thing.
Seriously, where else can you touch Dolphins AND get a lemon smoothie?


















I am Aquaman, Lord of the fishy's!

The Otter and walrus show thing was funny and the mime that warmed up the crowd was pretty funny, they had a Disneyesque show called the Blue Horizons or something like that. All the little princesses loved it and the mom's in the audience oohed and ahhhed at all the dudes in the wet suits making like cliff divers with Flipper in the pool.
I focused on the dolphins myself.
And Aquaman getting chucked through the air like a baby seal by Shamu.





















I can see my house from up here!

Beautiful animals. Poweful, agile, and sleek.
Natures living torpedoes.
I didn't bother with either of the two rides at Sea World, though not because they are cheesy or anything, just the opposite, I heard they rock thusly. I just didn't feel like waiting in line for three hours to ride them.
I figured I could tackle those another day.
We did, however, do the Shamu show thing instead.
Twice.
Not because the show was particularly awesome (though it was, in fact, very cool...). No, we sat through two performances because their heavy hitter, a Killer Whale, who shall remain nameless, (*cough shamu! *cough...) some 22 feet long and weighing in the neighborhood of 12,ooo lbs, decided that he would rather sit on his uh, bottom, rather than play.
So he did.















What, like you don't slack off at work none?

He popped up on the little slide out they use for those moments of cool when Shamu and company want fish from the nice trainer lady and he just stayed there. For at least fifteen minutes.
Much to the chagrin of the training staff.
They blathered on about how you can't really tell a 12,000 pound Killer Whale what to do, all you can do is ask nicely and hand out heaping helpings of fish when they oblige.
'Tis true.
He didn't really participate in either show. He sort of swam around abit and basically splashed the crap out of the folks in the first fourteen rows of the bleachers. The second show went a little more smoothly as they were able to finish out the show instead of cancel it out like the first one.
We got to see Aquaman (or whatever the training dude's name was) ride Shamu like a surfboard.















Sweet.

That would be a cool job, except for the ice cold salt water and the 12,000 pound Killer Whale with an attitude problem. Trainer for a day? I don't think so. Too close to being a late afternoon snack if you ask me.
No thanks.
I'll watch from here.