The Last Thing I Need, really...

Great. Really great.

Oh. Me again.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

Truth be told, I'm working on a script, and every time I sit down at the computer, I feel obligated to work on that instead of writing anything as self-indulgent as blog posts. Which usually just translates into me procrastinating like crazy by playing lots of Scrabble on Facebook.

But the script is nearly finished, and I'm hoping to knock the rest of it out this weekend while we're away at Starlight for the annual canoeing trip. I don't know if I'm planning on trudging the laptop into the canoe, but... I'm sure I can eek out an hour or two and wrap up the damned thing.

More details on that to come. Until then, don't forget your sunblock this weekend!

More Crazy Train

I've seen some real doozies while riding the subway. Yesterday, I got another one to add to the list.

I got on the F train at 42nd St and headed to Brooklyn around 3pm. There were four boys that looked around ten or twelve years old riding seemingly solo. They seemed sweet*, passing a portable video game back and forth. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Enter: homeless man in winter coat, asking for change. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He made one pass up and back down the subway car. Nothing. But nothing out of the ordinary.

He decided to take a second pass, this time goading us, the tight-fisted strangers who did not seem to be interested in donating to his cause:

Sh-eeeeeeet, if I was y'all, I'd have my hands in my pockets already. What is wrong with y'all?

This was a little out of the ordinary. Usually panhandlers plead their case in one pass, get what they can and head to the next car. This guy was hell bent on not leaving our car until someone forked over some loot.

On his next pass back down the car, he passed the young boys and as he reached a young man who was sitting near the door, he screamed:

DON'T YOU MOTHERF$@*ING TOUCH ME AGAIN! I HAVE TOLD YOU: I AM NOT GAY! F&@* $##*@! #&%@@*! ***##&@%@

This was bizarre, and everyone was staring, even though we all tried to do it subtly. The guy on the receiving end of this rage seemed entirely nonplussed, considering that attack just spat upon him.

And the young boys... well, let's just say that I have never seen four sets of eyes bulge that far out of such small faces before. They sat frozen for a moment, dumbfounded. One kid played the lookout and when the coast was clear, they all began re-enacting what had just gone down. They nailed it and were probably more interesting than the crazy guy himself!

*I say "sweet" because they were relatively quiet-- I always expect kids that age to be total loud screaming brats.

Use Your Words! An update of sorts.

Someone said to me the other day something about how I'm not writing very much on my blog these days. It's true-- I've been posting a photo a day which satisfies whatever bloggy cravings emerge.

I've also been pretty busy with so many things that are not yet at a stage where I can write about them, so I feel like there isn't much to report. Good things cooking, but nothing quite ready yet.

One thing that I'm loving these days, though, is Camera Bag on my iPhone. It's the reason some of the photos I've posted look so nicely photoshopped. I did not become a photoshop whiz. I spent three bucks and put the app on my phone. I highly recommend it.

I'm also still going to Boot Camp. Some friends and I actually have been going 5x/week since the first of the year (except for one week when I was sick). I put that one hold this week (though it might be back... might being the operative word there) and only went 4x. The guys seem to have upped the intensity after the holidays and they haven't let up. The end of January marked a year since I started (though I left the other place after the initial six-week run and started at WFBC in May). I can do a lot of things now that I could not do when I started:

• I can get all the way across the monkey bars now-- last year, I couldn't imagine getting simply from one rung to the next
• I can hurdle 4 of the 6 hurdles, as opposed to climbing over them-- which I still do to the last two-- they're high!
• I can climb the rope at the end of the obstacle course
• I can do 100 sit-ups in 2 minutes-- we did 2-minute drills during bi-weekly fitness testing

Overall, I'm faster, stronger and generally in much better shape than when I started. It's still hard as hell-- there are people there who run marathons and do triathlons and such things and it's still hard for them! But it's the first time I've actually joined a gym and felt like I've gotten my money's worth by actually going regularly. Part of that is the fact that it is a combo of a personal trainer (two, actually) and the set-up of a class-- basically group personal training. The group aspect is a big factor. When you sweat all over people, there's sort of nothing to do but become friends.

Talk is starting now about the Men's Health Urbanathlon. I don't know that I'll do it this year either, but it doesn't seem as crazy a thought as it did last June.

Really, Facebook? Really.

Like I need any more reasons to procrastinate from doing what I should be doing.

Mars vs. Venus

Just hilarious.

Via Will

Lines Must Be Drawn

Madness.

Sheer Madness.

I'll admit don't love going to a gym (although I have, over time, come to love my gym). I probably wouldn't go if I didn't have to. But. THIS IS RIDICULOUS (just look at the video!).

Eat less. Move more. It's really just that simple. When you're working, work. When you're eating, eat. When you're working out, work out. And then be done with it.

Don't buy the stupid treaddesk.

via Popgadget

If You'd Like to Throw a Party for Me...

... please book the Human Slinky as the entertainment. (click on the photo for a link to video)

I hope you've enjoyed this, my 400th post (!!)

Practical Joke?

I just found a copy of Working Mother magazine in my mailbox. Addressed to me. Is someone playing games here?

Why Couldn't I Have Been There on THIS Day?

There is a reason that Sesame Street has been on the air now going on 40 seasons!! They're Just. Plain. Cool.

via Will

Purple Drank / Nevermind

Purple drank is a slang term for a recreational drug popular in the hip-hop community of the southern United States. Its main ingredient is prescription-strength cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine.

I believe I have now, officially, seen everything.

via Gothamist

Also along the lines of having seen everything, I heard a little story the other day on NPR. It was about the kid on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, an album that my mother and her eardrums probably wish I never bought. You know, the naked baby floating in the pool with the dollar bill in front of him.

His name is Spencer Elden and he's seventeen now. I was slightly younger when filled with the angst to which that album spoke. And he longs for something more

Life in general isn't quite as "cool" as it was when he jumped naked in the pool in the early '90s, though, he says. These days, his peers are too stuck on the Internet and video games. Ironically, he yearns for the era that gave Kurt Cobain, the lead singer for Nirvana, so much angst.

These days, Elden says, his peers concentrate on "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays; kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band!"

Wow. Leave it to the Nevermind Baby to drop the logic that makes me feel old. Ok. I think I may need to drown my sorrows in some Tussin & Sprite.

Meep Meep Morning!

I'm not much of a scientist, but for my money, Beaker is just the Best Muppet Ever. Statler and Waldorf are up there, but meep meep meep Beaker has always made me smile. Don't agree? Watch this and see if you don't change your mind:

via Will

Accept No Imitations!

The BBC reports on a new search engine, Cuil.com. It was created by three former Google employees and they say they rival their former boss in search-able pages alone (they claim they search over 121 Billion pages).

Though I often heartily resist change, I thought I'd check it out. I Cuil-ed myself and determined on my first search that Google has NOTHING to worry about.

First off, the "magazine-style" layout is unfamiliar to me and not as clear and easy to navigate as a search on Google.

Second. Well, look at this clip from my search:
Now the search results are for me, but who is Eff is that blazer-clad woman? Certainly those are not her Promo and Commercial demos linked to that posting! No, that Robin Reed is the General Code's new representative in the State of Michigan, as well as Indiana and Ohio. I have a sneaking suspicion she does not do voiceovers. And, might I add, thank the Internet Overlords for Google, for without it, I would have no idea who this impostor was!

Another blip I don't understand is the "Search by Category" section on the page:

What on earth does "Robin Reed" have to do with Oregon, Beavers and/or Sports? And notice the measley 45,449 search results; Google came back with over 300,000:


Maybe Cuil is still working out some kinks, but I don't see myself switching over any time soon. Google is as much of a household name as BAND-AID, Kleenex or Xerox.

After all, you can't be a chump product and a verb!

via Popgadget

Bootcamp: Progress!

I had a late start this morning (read: ignored the alarm at 6:30a) and decided to go to the class at noon. I completely forgot it was Fitness Test Monday!

When I saw Alex walking around with his clipboard, a pit of dread gurgled in my belly. But today, I proved that gurgle pit wrong!

You may remember on the day of the last fitness test, I only managed to "hang" for 1 second. (can you even really call that "a hang"?)

Today? I'm up to 4 seconds! That's right, friends. 300% progress!

And even though there were only two of us in the noon class, it didn't seem to kill me as much as usual. Don't get me wrong, I could barely breathe and/or walk when we were done, but much less so than usual.

Maybe I really am making progress...

At one point, Alex jokingly asked me when I was headed over to the Marine Recruitment Office. I breathlessly muttered something to the effect of "I don't believe in war" and kept on with my squat thrusts. But it made me laugh, as it reminded me of the time Will and Sang and I were in a debate over strip clubs and why I should or should not go to one. My argument was if they wanted to go, why couldn't I come along*?

Sang's reply:

"Because you'd be asking them if they had health insurance and whether or not they were in a union."

That Sang. What a jokester!

*Besides the fact that I wouldn't be caught dead in a strip club unless it was to make sure the strippers had health insurance and union protection.

Monday. Another Monday.

Slow start this morning. Will and I had a good laugh at this over breakfast.

From xkcd.

Disconcerting

I use Site Meter to track traffic on this blog (yes, I'm watching you. Bwah-hahahahahah hah!).

I found that someone visited my website, probably to the post on the Urbanathlon, from this Google search:

how is mens health going to climb 7 world trade if it fell?

I know this person from Scarsdale NY using Optimum Online's fine internet service probably thinks that World Trade 7 was part of September 11th, but either way, I find this search a little creepy.

Café Fire!

I'm starting a new writing regimen. On the advice of a few friends, I'm working this week on timed writing exercises-- writing about anything in any style as long as I sit with a notebook for 45 (or more) straight minutes.

I figured a great way to start something new would be to start in a new place. There's this bakery/coffee shop in Red Hook that is quite tasty, well-designed, not super-crowded and they play good music.

So after Boot Camp, breakfast and a quick re-charging nap, I biked over and got to writing. It worked out well, things were flowing, I'm feeling good, and all of a sudden this one customer who had been chatty chatty from the moment he walked in starts getting louder and louder, screaming "TELL THEM NOT TO PUT ANY MORE LIQUID ON IT!"

Not wanting to distract myself from my writing, I paid him no mind. Until he kept on yelling. Then I turned around. Sure enough, there was bright orange light flickering from behind the plexiglass windows into the kitchen.

FIRE!

Cause for alarm? Nah. The three of us that were "working on stuff" just sort of looked around, but generally stayed put. The alarm went off, smoke slowly filled the room, an older couple quickly threw away the last of their cupcakes and hightailed it out the door. But the rest of us just sort of paused.

I overheard one of the kitchen gals telling a customer that by some odd New York State law, they're not required to keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen (because their cupcakes are so cute, perhaps?), which explains why one guy went running out the front door only to return about 45 seconds later with a fire extinguisher from, I'm guessing, next door.

Anyway, all was fine. I've lived to tell the tale. I am, however, concerned that I actually waited to see if it was going to get so bad that I should leave.

I think this writing regimen is going to work out for me.

Drop that Popcorn, Tubby!

I have plans with some lady friends to embrace cliché tomorrow night and go see the Sex and the City movie (no comment).

We'll probably have some pre-show cocktails, but what we won't have is any popcorn!

an average large tub of movie theater popcorn – without any added butter – contains 1,283 calories and 78 grams of fat.

I remember back in the 90s when it came out that movie popcorn was as chock full of fat and calories as a Big Mac. For some reason, I believed it even though I'd never seen the actual numbers.

And now that I have... well. I'll have the Twizzlers.

via Gothamist

I Think I Broke Twitter

If you don't know what Twitter is yet, then you probably do things during the day like spending time out doors, reading or generally being away from your computer.

I, on the other hand, can find myself whiling away hours in what seems like mere seconds.

Part of this is due to things like Twitter. If you take a look over there in the left hand column, you'll see my recent "Tweets". These are postings you can put on Twitter-- minute to minute, nay, second to second updates of ANYTHING. In turn, you can read the minutia of those you choose to follow, and your "followers" can keep up to date on what you're doing. Every second of every minute of every hour and so on.


Well, I just went to bestow upon my 12 followers another random thought I had when I got this picture. Cute, but how the hell are those twelve people going to know what I thought of 3.2 minutes ago?! Fix it, Twitter! FIX IT!

So I had to kick it old school and post here on my blog.

Where Have All the Ad Men Gone?

Will and I bought plane tickets this morning for an upcoming wedding, and this is what we got in our confirmation email:

Really? That's what they're calling it? The airlines desperately need some better Ad Men.