While searching for a webcam of St. Peter’s Square, I found this so I took a screencap.
Warning: May be unsafe for work, and it’s also a pretty big image (about 130 kb)
Archive for April 4th, 2005
I don’t frequently endorse particular products, and you can often find me searching for the generic version of a brand name item, but goddamn is Sprite Zero delicious! It tastes less like a diet soda than Diet Dr. Pepper does, and Diet Dr. Pepper is pretty good.
Sprite Zero is freakin’ delicious!
So what’s this all about?
I’m on a diet. My sister-in-law and brother decided that they wanted to lose some weight, so ACWF and I recommended The South Beach Diet (and I recommend it for anybody else who wants to seriously eat healthy and lose some weight).* ACWF said she would participate for moral support, and I thought, “Why the hell not?” so I started it too.
Kmart and I had a fairly healthy diet already, but alcohol was my downfall, even though my drinking had been cut back to weekends, and my level of intoxication didn’t get above buzzed.** So even though I had been going to the gym regularly, I couldn’t seem to lose any significant weight. I figured a diet wouldn’t hurt me.
So, in one week I’ve lost almost 10 pounds (187 after dinner the night of Easter, 177 this morning) and it wasn’t that hard. I’m hitting the gym at least 3 times a week, usually 4, 5 if I’m lucky, and it feels good.
After an initial weight loss of about 20 pounds the last time we tried this diet, I gained about 7 back over the months. This past holiday season put me 5 pounds shy of what I weighed initially. So I started hitting the gym in earnest again, and I slightly changed my diet. I dropped down to a total net loss of 10 pounds. Not bad. So far, the diet puts me at a total net loss of 20 pounds again, and it’s only the first week.
I think it’s easier for guys to lose weight than it is for women to, but I have to say, it’s really not been that hard.
Not sure what the point of this post is. I guess I’m just happy that I’ve lost some weight, started better habits at the gym, and continue to eat right. That and to tell people that there is no reason to drink 28 grams of sugar in a soda when the diet soda tastes just fine.
*The thing about South Beach is that when you look at it, you don’t say, “What the hell? That doesn’t make sense.” Because it does make sense. It doesn’t take stupid Atkins ideas like injecting butter into your veins to lose weight. It also takes into account how what you eat needs to be balanced, and that you need to get some excercise. In the end, the only thing they recommend against eating is stuff like ice cream and fried foods. Surprise surprise, you shouldn’t eat pure sugar, pure fat, or combinations of just sugar and fat. You’ll eat more veggies, eat leaner protein, learn how to read nutrition facts, and learn the value of lots of different foods.
**The levels are as follows:
Sober (0-1 beers)
Tipsy (2-4 beers)
Buzzed (5 beers)
Drunk (+5 beers)
Wasted (+8 beers)
Blackout (+10 beers)
His dad leaned down to speak into the microphone/speaker combination that was embedded in the window. As he asked for tickets to the latest CGI blockbuster extravaganza, his son stood by his side, barely able to get his eyes above the counter to see what was going on.
Unable to get a good look, he reclined from the tips of his toes, and pulled the ballcap off of his head, and stared swinging it around. He was oblivious now to his father, though he was only a few inches away.
The father took the news about the requested movie being sold out quite well. He stood up, extended to a full, and lanky six and a half feet. He squinted his eyes to survey the glowing red marquee.
I was shocked at what he said next, especially considering how young his son looked.
“How about two for Sin City then?”
It may surprise you that I found a problem with this. I’m typically all for us living in a society that is not hampered by censors. I think it’s ridiculous that an organization like the FCC has any say whatsoever about what can or cannot be shown in movies. If somebody wants to make a 4 hour movie about vaginas, I say go for it. There’s no reason people shouldn’t be able to decide if they want to see it or not. If somebody wants to make a movie that’s sympathetic to the Nazi’s, they should be able to. I’m not saying I’d watch it, or even like the idea, but people should be able to express themselves freely.
However, Sin City was an excessively violent, overtly sexualized movie for mature audiences. Many kids are not mentally prepared to see a movie like that.
Granted, I watched lots of horror movies as a kid, but it was on TV when all the parts that I now consider “good” were cut out. They still terrified me, but I wasn’t subject to overt gore, or sex.
I’m not sure how to figure this issue in my head. The age system doesn’t work because there are plenty of 16 year olds who are more mature and mentally prepared to see Sin City than a few 25 year olds I know. So how do we create a system that allows people with the mental capacity to determine reality from fiction the ability to see whatever they would like without allowing for overt censorship?
I don’t think the system we have in place works very well, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a new one. Clearly letting parents or older guardians act as a determinative filter fails on frequent occasion. A system based on age alone is similarly flawed in that one can never account for early maturity, or in the case of many, never maturing at all.
So what are we to do? Do we create a system to evaluate the maturity of the citizenry and then issue them identification accordingly? Do we open the floodgates to every type of material and let the free market sort which are appropriate, and which are not based upon their sales? Honestly, I don’t think either approach would work very well.
In the end, I still think it was poor judgment for a father to take his son to see Sin City, but, at the very least, the father didn’t simply rent a video for his son and walk away. I hope that, as a society, we can mature to a point where escapist dramas, action movies, horrors, and even romances can be viewed with a critical, though censor-free lens, and we can be there for those who wish to take part in the experience, but are not currently mature enough to do so on their own.
La Chat Noir. She managed to get 7 of the 11 questions correct.
So here are the answers:
1)How tall am I?
d)6′1″-6′4″
I’m 6′2″, which I believe puts me slightly taller than average. It does me no good, because I bump my head on stuff frequently, and people are always asking me to reach things for them. Little do they know (no pun intended) that I am laughing at their gnome-like features when I get things for them.
2)Hair- how much I got?
d)Plenty of hair, kept medium (messy, mini-mohawkable)
I’ve had it pretty long, almost shoulder length, and then much shorter, but still long for a guy. It was easily braidable, and a friend of mine had no trouble putting it in corn rows once. Recently I’ve kept it shorter, but there is plenty of it, and I do keep it messy. Not, “I got out of the shower and dried my hair straight, then brushed it, then added gel to make it look messy,” but I got out of the shower and dried it. Sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s not. I don’t really like to spend more time than is utterly necessary on my hair.
3)Hair- color?
d)Blond
I was a real toehead when I was a kid. My hair was almost white. It still gets pretty light in the summer, but it’s not blond as it used to get. At this point, I guess you could call it dirty blond. It does have slight tinges of red, but that’s more apparent in my facial hair, which we’ll get to in a bit.
4)Eyes- various?
a)Blue
Blond hair, blue eyes. It’s a good match. An eyepatch would be cool, but it doesn’t exactly negate the fact that there would still be one good, blue, eye underneath it.
5)Build- gym?
d)slim, toned
I thought that I was slim and toned, given that I’m 6′2″, weigh 177, and have some definition in my arms, legs, and chest. I’m certainly not rippling with muscles, but if I pick up something heavy, you can absolutely see where my muscles begin and end.
However, ACWF said I was medium build with no tone. I guess she just thinks I’m a fatass.
6)Hands?
b)righty
Like some enormous percentage of the population, I am right handed. Though, I seem to know an inordinate amount of people who are left handed. Off the top of my head, The Mal, Fool, my buddy Justin, and some other folks whom I probably shouldn’t name.
7)Face?
f)soul patch
This may have been one of the toughest questions on the quiz, even for people who do know me. Since I was old enough to shave, I’ve goofed with my facial hair. I rocked the chin only goatee for a long time, then moved to the mustache plus chin goatee. I’ve had the full beard, which is where you can really see my hair growing in red. I’ve never been able to pull off the mustaches or sideburns/mutton chops very well. The hair grows in so thin, and so light that it just looks goofy. For the past few weeks, however, I’ve been growing in the soul patch. It’s pretty blond too, but I think it’s cool. My little brother thinks it looks stupid, but he can suck a peener because he’s a giant douche.
8)Skin color?
b)pale
Just plain pale. I’ve got a few freckles, but I’m not exactly freckled, and though I sit in an office all day, I do have a huge window, which gets lots of sun, so I don’t really get to the pasty stage, or to the point where I’m developing rickets. By the way, those of you who do sit in an office all day away from the windows should make it your business to get some sun (with sunscreen) when you can. Vitamin D.
9)Underwear?
e)boxers in cold weather, commando in the summer
I don’t have to explain myself. It’s just more comfortable that way.
10)I is how many fingers old?
c)22-24
I’m 24. It’s shocking, still, even to me, but it’s true. Maybe one day, when I grow up, I’ll know what I want to do for a living.
11)Essay- variable length?
Each person had the potential to score 3 points on the essay. 3 points would have been awarded for a correct answer, which was, “Clothes”. That’s right, it was as easy as saying clothes. I’m not exactly concerned about what I wear, so I don’t view my wardrobe as a potential for different “outfits”. On weekdays I hold up a pair of pants, see if it matches a shirt, and if they match, I wear them to work. On weekends, I dig through my tshirts, figure out if it’s a Superman/I Eat Your Skin/Old Lifeguarding Shirt day, and then I decide if it’s cold enough to need a hoodie, or to do the longsleeves under tshirt thing.
2 points would have been awarded to anyone who said, “Whatever you were already wearing,” because, though I may be interested, or even excited to meet you, I don’t really dress for people.
1 point would be awarded for the shortest answer possible. In this case, some 1 point answers I remember included “shorts” and “flip flops”. Both those answers got 1 point.
Finally, 1/2 point was awarded for anyone describing something that I would potentially wear. Nobody was far off base with this, so if you did describe something, you got at least 1/2 point.
And let me just say now, to be forever on the record, thank you all for not imagining I would walk in to the bar with my collar in any position but down. When I see people with their collars up, I want to walk over to them and say, “Hey, mental midget! Yes you, with the collar up. What the hell is wrong with you? Have you heard of the 80’s? Do you know how frequently the 80’s are used to describe the lowest point in the history of fashion? Well, do you, idiot? I didn’t think so. Now, either put your collar down, and get the hell out of my sight, or actually do the outfit to the letter, and buy yourself some rayon hotpants, and knee high socks.”
