Today I got in my workout. Yay for me, except that I had to laugh at myself once I was damn near through.

See, I had started doing my back exercises, and I felt really strong. So I upped the weight a little, then a little more… 20 pounds more than I would normally do. Like, 20 pounds more than I would have done the last time I did them. That’s quite an improvement! Trust me!

Well it seemed like quite an improvement. Until I was damn near done, and I realized that I had put on the 25lb plates instead of the 35lb plates I normally use. Whoops!

Anyway, I guess it goes to show that I know my limits rather well. (2x25+20=70; 2x35=70).



The Guffaw over LeBron & Vogue
I got a glimpse of the “provacative” Vogue Cover featuring LeBron James & Giselle Bundchen (she’s hot btw). But have you heard all the ruckus over the perceived “racial overtones” of the cover? You know, that it portrays black males in a “vicious manner,” with an angry face and “clutching” a helpless white woman…

I know it sounds absurd, but in reality I see where they’re coming from. It DOES look like a scene from King Kong (the good version, not the “Jack Black’s in it totally f*cking it up version.” I hate Jack Black, btw). What would have been so bad about him being dressed to the nines? He could have still held a ball or something. Why have him in such an “active” stance, with such a scowl on his face (yes I know he’s almost smiling, but still it’s not a “hi nice to see you” sort of appearance either)?

They may not have necessarily meant it in that way, but they should have nabbed that before it went to print. Voque’s been around awhile, their covers are usually pretty well-conceived; this might not have been intentional, but it probably wasn’t an accident, either.



Did you see this video yet?
If you know me personally, then I already emailed it to you. But if you don’t know me personally, then maybe you haven’t seen this video.

It’s a rather lengthy video by internet standards (upwards of 20 minutes), but also very important. It’s also very spot-on. I’ve been saying essentially the same thing for years, and I’ve seen how people tune out; it’s funny how quickly people will bury their heads in the sand and just claim ignorance, so they can continue being someone else’s pawn.

Anyway, I didn’t learn anything from the video. Which isn’t to say that I’m smarter than anyone, only saying that it’s not news, if you’ve listened to me you may recognize some of what the narrator says. But it’s put together well, and ties a lot of things together nicely.

Definitely worth checking out. What are you waiting for? Click already!

Peace.

Tags: earth conditions, hate, Gym

They keep on saying that we need to bail out the damn mortgage industry, some sort of “economic stimulus” plan, prop it all up with some $30 billion. I just don’t get it.

To me, it would seem that amounts to perpetuating the republican agenda. I mean, the dems didn’t create the housing boom, it serves the purpose of keeping most of the people (whom they’re supposed to be “for”) out of one of the biggest facets of the American Dream… yet they keep right on going for that. Election year politics? Man, f*ck.

Sorry, but propping up the housing market serves no one except the people looking to turn around and sell for profit sometime soon. The market’s overvalued, and if they prop it up and keep the prices artificially high, then they’re locking soooo many low-income families out of the possibility of ever owning the roof over their heads.

This is decidedly not a democratic ideal. I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking. I actually – GASP! – agree with McCain on this one.



Workout stories
I haven’t worked out much recently. I was hit by the flu bug, albeit not too hard. But then I just sort of never got much better for the better part of two weeks, and only recently got good enough to lift frequently. Like, 3 days ago.

One thing I noticed during my hiatus: lack of gas. Yeah, that gas. Almost as soon as I got back on the bandwagon though, the gas came back. And it hit me: I may not be as naturally gassy as I feared myself to be; it may be a byproduct of the whey protein supplement I take when I work out. Er, used to take. I have been off it for almost two weeks and haven’t had any issues, so I am going to try getting on it again, see if the gas reappears. If so? Then I’m screwed.

More specifically, my wallet’s screwed. Because it’s not like I’m going to not lift. Rather, I’m going to have to relegate myself to actually eating the protein I need, as opposed to drinking it on the cheap. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy the eating. It’s just a bit more expensive.

So if you’re a workout buff and you think gas is just a way of life for you? Maybe not. It may just be a “whey” of life. May be another point to the old adage, “you get what you pay for.” No way to cheap out on the weight gain either, apparently. At least for me.

Peace.

Tags: Politics, Gym

We ran out of things to do on Monday night, so we popped into the video store down the street and rented Atonement. It’s set in WWII-era England, involving a love story gone awry. Two lovers, torn apart by the vindictive accusations of a little girl, separated by time in jail and a horrific war, but most of all by the jealousy of a young girl.

It’s a good movie almost all the way around. We were actually warned by The Girl’s grandmother just before we sat to plop it in, that it a) wasn’t all that good, and b) there was some ‘raunchy’ sex scene in a kitchen. Now, we usually take movie recommendations from her with a grain of salt, if not a shaker-full. Good thing, too because she wasn’t quite right on either front. Firstly, the movie’s not that bad. It’s overall a fairly well-done flick, if a little rough at the end.

Secondly, the raunchy sex scene? In the Library, not the kitchen. And furthermore, it wasn’t even raunchy! Odd perhaps, but far from raunchy. I’ve seen raunchier on TV. This was not raunchy. It was actually kind of understated & intriguing.

For me, the worst part of the movie was the ending. You go along with the story, you hope they find each other, then it seems they did. But then you quickly learn that they never did, they died, and the part you just saw was the imagination of the vindictive little girl – now 143 years old – in her new novel, Atonement, an “autobiography” of her horrible act. She explains in an interview that those moments were in fact how she wrote it out of her imagination, to give them the time together they never had (because the died, victims of the war, a continent apart).

That sucks enough, but then she keeps talking, and it keeps sucking more. Oh now she tells us that she doesn’t think of it as a cheap ploy, a copout, she thinks its what they would have wanted. You know, for her to be a famous writer at the expense of their love & lives. Yeah, they wanted to die apart. So you could ‘imagine’ them together. Yeah.

Newsflash: It IS a cheap ploy. It WAS a copout. You ARE a raving bitch. And this catastrophic ending, in which you teased us with happiness – no, gave it to us and then ripped it from our grasp – was a complete disaster. We’d have rather have just received the bitter ending without the soft buildup.

But aside from the ending, it’s quite alright, cheerio! I’d give it a straight B.



F’ed up Celebrities we’re allowed to mention, part 2
So one star in this film is well-known for her good looks. Not so much known for her f*cked up eye, though. Yeah, Keira Knightley has a f*cked up eye I noticed, and again, it seems no one is allowed to mention it. It struck me – like, popped out of the screen and almost hit me – in a café scene where she meets her lover after a 3-year hiatus that he spent in prison. She’s standing there in her blue ‘thing’ that she’s wearing, and her face just fills up the screen with a “deer in the headlights” sort of look. And that’s when it almost hit me: her left eye is noticeably bigger and higher than her right. I mean, the camera was slightly off-center to her right, making that eye closer to the screen to begin with, yet still her left eye just dominated the screen. It was eerie. Or, well, eye-ie or something.

Not saying she’s not a beauty, no one’s perfect, but still, why can’t these things be mentioned?

I mean honestly, her eye doesn’t really bother me. But MAN, Joaquin’s f*cked up shoulders bug the living hell out of me.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment

Netflix sent this our direction and we partook of it. It’s not too bad. It’s a crime drama, there’s really not much more to say about it. It’s not breaking new ground. The Russian Mafia is sneaking in dope to New York, the cops are trying to stop it, war ensues. Nothing new.

There were a few irritating parts, though. It’s hard to explain without giving the whole movie as background, but if you were in a car behind two cars having a shootout, and one was your friends & the others were not? Would you merely speed up to see it? Or would you, say, try to spin the other car out? Well apparently we only get the option to watch here.

And the final act. You’d think that if cops had a place surrounded, this would mean they had the place surrounded. Apparently not. Nope, here, surrounded means “ok we’re at the front door, please don’t a) shoot at us or b) run out the back doors, thanks.” So yeah there’s a few little dumb things, but the one thing that bothered me most about it was Joaquin Phoenix trying to become a cop…

It's OK. It's not the best, not the worst, yet as much as it's viewable, it's also passable. I say C+. It's a fair assessment. I'm being fair on that.



F’ed up Celebrities we're not allowed to mention, Part 1
Why is it that no one talks about Joaquin’s fucked up shoulder? I was curious as to what it was, but there’s, like, nothing I could find about it. Like it’s a taboo subject or something. Or like everyone’s trying to pretend that no one notices.

Yeah right! C’mon, it’s plain as day! He has a f*cked up left shoulder, dammit! He can’t be a cop! He can’t pass the physical! What the hell!? Why does all of Hollywood ignore this fact?

I want to see a parody of his Johnny Cash Performance in Walk the line. You know how they replayed over & over that “hello, I’m Johnny Cash” line? Yeah well I want to see a skit where someone comes out being him being Cash, and says, “Hello, I have a f*cked up shoulder.”

Can we at least admit it’s there? We can all see the elephant, right?



Archives updated
OK so I did finish my updating of the Archive. However, I did get a little lazy about it. Well, not really lazy, just all historical and stuff.

See, there were some entries I came across that the links were simply too good to get rid of, and there were too many to worry about reformatting everything. Blogs like this one, about Michael Jackson’s 50-foot tall robot with lasers for eyes. So I compromised. I did reformat the spacing to match, but I left the text as it was. So some entries will be a slightly different size & font.

And for the record, I’m never going to do this again. They’re stayin the way they are. That was too damn boring, and I’ll be damned if I ever do that again.

Peace.

Tags: Technology

As of right now, I am nearing completion of the old blog updates. It was actually made easier with the realization that not all would need so much work. I knew I wanted to add an introductory pic for each entry, and a lot were missing, but that’s relatively easy, it’s the text that is the labor.

I have been using this basic “format” since about August of last year, and even before that, I used only a slightly modified version of what I’m currently using. So theoretically, once I get to about June 2007, I’m all but through. I say theoretically because had I gone straight through chronologically, that would be true. However once I skipped ahead to see where I’d have to go to, I started just fixing those small issues to break the monotony of the full-fix entries…

So right now, I have about 2 months of full-fixers, and say one month of slight-fixers.



Seen 2 movies, no reviews
I have seen both Atonement & We Own the Night, and not blogged about either. Those are forthcoming, don’t worry. But I think they will wait until I’m done with the archival updates.



On a sadder note
Miles had been looking a little injured a few days ago. Wasn’t sure, couldn’t figure it out, but he seemed to get suddenly better, I figured maybe he was constipated, who knows. Anyway, off to the beach yesterday, and now he really is injured. Threw the ball along the sand, and I guess he twisted his front right ankle in a funky motion to grab the ball off the ground as re ran passed it.

He’s doing better this morning already, but still….

I was talking with The Girl about how I react differently when Zoey & Miles get injured. I do tend to act more “concerned” when Miles is involved. And it’s not that I don’t care about Zoey, it’s that I know Zoey is young and it’s “just” and injury. Miles is 11-½ years old; is this “just” and injury, or the beginning of the end, you know? So yeah, I am always very concerned with his health, because the older he gets, the less likely he is to bounce back. I know this. I don’t want to admit it, but I know it.

I mean, a week sidelined? No problem for a young dog. For him? He’s really active, but if he has to go a week just sitting around, then it takes a bigger toll on him. The next time out he may injure something else.

I may need to get him on a stretching regimen. Maybe enroll him in Yoga classes or something.

Peace.

Tags: Technology, Animals

I did start reformatting my older blog posts to match the current renditions. Normally something like this would be way too mundane for me, but they were so bad I just couldn’t stand linking back to them. I mean, these have a bit of style & substance to them, but the old ones? Well you could tell I copied them out quick fast and in a hurry, not taking the time to pretty the text up any when I made the move to this new software.

They’re still not right. They haven’t been since day one. A lot of the links were lost, and there’s not much I can do about that except rebuild them, and to be honest? There’s no way I’m going to do that. Sorry Charlie. So if you’re reading along and it seems like I’m probably referencing something and you can’t find it? Yeah that’s probably why. A link gone with the wind or some sh!t like that.



Still some to go though
I’m takling my time on this, I decided. I originally was going to just go without blogging for a few days so I could put that time to fixing the old. But it occurs to me now that my archives will take longer than anticipated, so I’m doing it in waves. Right now, I’m through October 2006. Maybe by later I’ll have gone up to 2007. Who knows how long it’ll take.

But it’s not like you were going to read them anyway, so it’s all the same to you, huh?

Peace.

Tags: Technology

Well, uh, unless you’re not Christian. Or Catholic.

In which case, Happy Sunday!



A slight Lull perhaps?
There may be some time delay for the next update. I wanted to go back and reformat some of my old blog posts (from before I switched software; the formatting stinks!). Doing so, however, requires time. Time not spent writing new blogs. So everyone that doesn’t read my blog anyway? Yeah, you guys will not have a new entry to not read for a little bit. Oh so sorry for the inconvenience.

Peace.

Last night I was told as I took shift that we could probably expect a visit from our Corporate Internal Theft/ Loss Prevention division. Well this makes the night a little harder than usual, because now we have to dot all our I’s and cross all our T’s, but then we also have to go and initial that we did that & get verification that we did indeed dot & cross and initial those I’s and T’s.

And it struck me: the business model is flawed. We don’t do on a daily basis what the Loss Prevention department would have us do. We can’t. If we followed all those directives, we’d not get anything done that is needed to get done to move product out and get the store shoppable. We just can’t, it takes too much time to be so tight-fisted on every front. Obviously the simple answer to all of that is “schedule more people,” and I agree, except that we’re also on hour budgets, so we can’t. If we schedule more people, we go over-budget on man-hours, and we get raked over the coals for that. And that’s when I realized that there’s this disconnect between the people designing the directives and the ones carrying them out. They’re not carried out is the trick, because it’s simply not possible to complete the overall mission and actually follow all the conflicting directions. No one ever tells the higher-ups how it really works, because they don’t want to be hung out to dry. Because honestly, if one store steps out when no others complain? Then it seems they’re mismanaged, because no one else complained, so they get reprimanded, which stands as a good testament to the other stores as to why they shouldn’t mention it.

So the Loss Prevention Department works to restrict sales and efficiency. And the Sales and Marketing department works to grow sales and efficiency. They collide. Fun ensues.



Pomp & Circumstance
I also thought, however, that it might be a necessity. As in, perhaps they do indeed know that their directives step all over one another. In a perfect world, maybe it would all be possible to do. However, I thought that perhaps the district personnel know that it’s an utter impossibility to toe the line and still meet sales objectives. Perhaps they know it’s all a show when they’re in town….

What I was thinking was that, even though we can’t follow the rules as strictly as they’re set, maybe it’s like aiming for the moon. Sure you’ll never get it, but by setting the goal at that level, you are more likely to stay in a “middle ground” that is acceptable. I mean, I thought to myself, why don’t they relax the rules and let us do our jobs? But then I thought, if they did relax the rules, probably a great many stores would not be as close to the standard as they now are; lowering the standards typically lowers performance, even if you’re simply lowering the standard to the current, sustainable level of performance. See “No Child Left Behind” for the point.

Maybe? Maybe that’s what it is? Maybe it is all show & go… They show up, we do the little dance so they know how important they are, and then they go…. And we get back to doing our jobs.

I think that may be it.

Today’s movies are in large part not up to this task. It’s hard to remember the last movie I saw that I thought was good. The Departed? It was a good movie. What the hell do I recall since then? Well there was The Prestige that came out, but that was the same damn month in 2006 so that doesn’t count.

A SAMPLE MOVIES I DEARLY LIKE

• The Departed

• LA Confidential

• There’s something About Mary

• Snatch

• Cast Away

• 300

• Shrek (Original only)

• Batman Begins

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

• The Prestige

• Wedding Crashers

• The Matrix

• When Harry Met Sally

• Shawshank Redemption

• Way of the Gun

• Apocalypto

• The Labyrinth

• Number 23

• Michael Clayton (sorta)

• I Am Legend

• 3:10 to Yuma

• The Fountain

• 40 Year Old Virgin

• Sunshine

• Babel

• Syriana

• No Country for Old Men

Tags: Entertainment, hate

Clayton? Not so much on all those points. The characters are never fleshed out, you have no real view into what makes them who they are; what makes them tick? Erin covers more time, gives you more background and a better connection to the characters, whilst Clayton spans about 4 days and you feel like you still don’t know these people.

It’s kind of funny how they run the same span of time (about 2-hours), yet Erin pulls it off while Clayton feels half-assed by comparison, despite the stretch of time each deals with in-film.

That’s not to say that Michael Clayton is not a good movie. The acting’s good, the cinematography is good, but there’s no “wow” factor. That and you’re constantly in the middle of a befuddled mess, and don’t understand everyone. Why is Michael Clayton a “fixer,” again? Because I never saw him fix anything, seems his title is merely granted for the role. How about some character development? Show him “fixing” something, perhaps? Make us believe he’s as good as you’re telling us, because we’re not seeing it, Mr. Directors & Writers.

I don’t know why rotten tomatoes would have Erin rated @ 84%, and Clayton rated @ 91%. Myself I’d reverse those. And maybe still knock a few points off of Clooney’s interpretation. B-.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment

I said earlier that I wasn’t going to get to play with my new weed wacker until tomorrow. But I lied.

Around 3pm or so the rain cleared and never came back. So I changed my schedule around to accommodate a workout that was unplanned (did chest & back yesterday; usually too sore to do shoulders the following day), and in between sets I managed to get in some wacking of weeds. Yes, now the back and front yards are completely edged, and everything’s looking just that much better! Yay.



Organic Chicken: it haz a flavur
You know those jokes, everything tastes like chicken, chicken tastes like everything, everything tastes like nothing…? Well if you’d never eaten fresh, organic, free-range chicken, you might agree with this. God knows we (me and The Girl) did. She so much as disliked chicken before.

But now? Now it’s a staple. We don’t even marinate it. Just throw it on the grill, baste it, and serve. It’s that good. Its has an actual taste, so once you get below the top layer that actually absorbed the baste, it still tastes wonderful.

Really. You should try it. Remember, though: Organic, free-range. Those are important. They will make all the difference. Trust me. Trust the ‘bob.

Peace.


PostScript: The “it haz a flavur" is slang from “teh intarwebs,” in reference to “lolcats.” just in case you were wondering. You weren’t but I thought I’d share.

Tags: Gym

Problem was, it was hard/difficult/impossible to edge any area that (a)the grass was lower than the sidewalk, so nothing “laid over” it to cut, or (b)there was no sidewalk to walk it along. I did the scissors/shears thing for a while, but as I recently hoed the back to give it a break betwixt grass & fence, I had much, much more area that fell into category (b).

I haven’t tried to yet. It’s raining. But I’m so happy already. I play tomorrow.



Movie for the night: Michael Clayton
I keep getting lucky with my Netflix Queue. Last week I got pushed ahead to see No Country for Old Men, which was a ‘Long Wait.’ This week, I get Michael Clayton, another well-received flick that was listed as a ‘Wait’ title.

Well at least I hope I’m getting lucky. I mean, I didn’t particularly care for No Country, so I’m trying to lower my expectations for Clooney’s outing here.



Edit:
Actually I should say that I did not break down and buy a week wacker; rather, I sent The Girl out to to get me one. So I caved and she bought. That’s more correct.



Edit:
Someone on the web pointed out to me a typo on my Miles Bio page yesterday. I was missing a period (oh no I’m late!) at the end of the first paragraph. I thanked this person, and they requested that I give them proper credit. So here it goes:

The random bob, a.r.c. Miles Bio Page Proofread & edited by Action Jaxan, WEE (Web Editor Extraordinaire). Real name redacted to protect the innocent.

Personally I just like having made up the 'WEE.' Makes me laugh every time. I imagine a wee little tyke going down a slide. WEE… How fun.

Oh and I also took the time to add some more pics, since I was there fixing typos. Added some to the Family Album, as well!

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Technology

George Lucas doing Star Wars: The Clone Wars as an animated special. Not. A. Bad. Idea! I mean, now you don’t have to worry about Hayden Christensen sucking up all the quality of the movie with his “acting,” as he calls it, and you can do all the special effects you want without it looking like it doesn’t belong! What a freaking great idea!

Now if we could only get someone else to read his scripts, modify them, and take a decent idea and hone it into a decent movie experience. Sort of act as a liaison between George’s crazy skull and the viewing public, making sure that we aren’t subjected to crap-for-movies. Obviously George Lucas cannot do this, see exhibit’s A, and B, and also C. And just for the record, let me get this off my chest: F*ck Jar-Jar Binks. F*ck that thing in the ear. F*ck it in the nose. Make a new hole in its head and f*ck it there, too. F*ck it until it bleeds and dies. Then pick it up and slap George Lucas across the face with its bleeding ass for having “created” such a poor excuse for a character.



Speaking of Star Wars
Know what? Despite the Lucas-bashing (totally deserved, btw), I like the concept of the Star Wars saga. I’d love to see it redone someday, with actual quality acting, and actual quality special effects, all tied together nicely. I imagine a more noir style, a little more serious tone perhaps, but humor notwithstanding. I mean, a laugh here and there is good, but I’d totally get rid of the “kiddie” aspects of it. Think something along the lines of Star Wars done in the style of LOTR, or the original Matrix (but without the techno soundtrack). Dark, stylistic, with a point and most importantly, no gaping plot holes. It’d be a gas to behold, methinks.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, hate