How Dare You Take Away My Obesity!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080427/ap_on_fe_st/odd_jail_diet

I am truly baffled. And I can't figure out the worst part of this story; there are so many options:

-Slothful Murderer (SM) gets the opportunity to eat 3,000 calories per day while millions worldwide starve to death

-SM complains about only getting 3,000 calories per day while millions worldwide starve to death

-SM gets down to 300 pounds and complains about "starving to death."

-SM is allowed to file a frivolous lawsuit, and even wants to force hot meals at the resort, I mean jail.

Which one is your favorite?

Carly Got Robbed.

I'm not a hardcore American Idol fan (for reasons like this post) but I certainly watch it and enjoy the best parts of it with assistance from my friend, Tivo. I happened to miss the show last night because we had our third bout of tornadic weather here in the last couple weeks, and my crappy satellite TV cuts out once the rain moves past the "sprinkle" phase. But I digress.

It seems as though for the first time in a few seasons viewers have made up their mind on what they want the pecking order to be, and the performances week-to-week have little influence on when people will get the boot. When you think about it conceptually, this was a logical week for Carly to get kicked off, and Syesha to be number two, based on the entire arc of the season and general sentiment about the two contestants. But anyone who watched the show on Tuesday night - seeing Brooke stop her entire performance and start over, coupled with her incessant characteristic of looking like she's about to spontaneously combust in a tidal wave of emotional self-destruction - clearly knows that she had by far the worst performance, only slightly rivaled by that of Jason Castro, who was also craptacular. Yet it was the weekly least favorites that wound up there, regardless of their solid performances on Tuesday.

The good news, though, is that the remaining weeks should be pretty transparent. The contestants to be voted off for the remainder of the competition will be Syesha, Brooke, and Jason, leaving the two Davids in the final. Something tells me Archuleta will win, not only because he'll get more teeny-bopper votes, but also because I don't think David Cook wants to win. I think he'd rather pull a Daughtry, and that doing so somehow gives him more credibility as a rocker. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Misc.

-The wind has been blowing at 20+ mph in DFW for the last two months. This condition reminds me of what I perceive Seattle to be like, with the gloomy skies and frequent rain over the majority of the year – it wouldn’t bother me at first, but after a while it would start to grate on me. In DFW it’s often windy for a day or three, but lately it’s just been ridiculous.

-Yard work is a pain. This year my lawn has been a personal breeding ground for weeds of the world. I’ve hammered it with some spray-weed killer and last night I laid down some Weed n’ Feed. Hopefully the grass will start to look half-decent soon.

-The mood at work has been less than stellar lately. It is publicly released information that my employer has been going through reductions in force, but the actual experience is even worse than the concept. My wife was asking me the other day what I say to those that are leaving – the answer is “not much.” Usually someone comes by and says they’re heading out, and we say it was nice working with you, good luck, etc. I think in general though, this is a working environment, and no one wants to dwell on this stuff, so it’s more like ripping the band-aid off. People generally have a few words then get out as soon as possible.

-I’ve been pondering a lot lately what the impact is of being required to show up every day to slave away for “The Man” as opposed to having a personal business. The great benefit of my job is that it’s literally 40 hours, then I’m out. I have friends who are working on their own businesses on the side, putting in who-knows-how-many hours on the side, and they’ll probably have financial freedom from The Man within a few years. But at what cost? For about 5 years they will have been working almost every waking hour on their business, hours that I spend enjoying life with my wife and generally relaxing. It’s a fascinating trade-off – time now for time later.

-I played a league tennis match on Saturday and wound up facing my mirror-image – essentially another player that hit hard, solid groundstrokes off both sides in any direction, who was also extremely fast and hit great passing shots and lobs. The net result of all this was more groundstrokes than I’d ever hit in a match. I got a blister on my left hand (yes, left, and I’m right-handed) from hitting so many backhands. I wound up losing in a third-set tiebreaker and was simply out of gas. Yesterday, my wife and I did a tough workout at the gym. Today I feel massively sore and can barely move. And I love it!

New Running Buddy.

Now when Miles and I go running together, I can track how outrageously slow he runs, with this (the one on the left):

It's generically known as the best G-Shock for running since it has a stopwatch that tracks time to the thousands and can keep track of multiple split times, best times, etc. When you absolutely, positively, must know whether you ran a mile in 9:02:338 or 9:02:337. Or when you want to try to stop the watch on a certain time so you can chuckle about how the human brain can't even send a signal to your hand fast enough to measure even hundredths of seconds. Ah, the wonders of technology.

More Subprime Fun.

Earlier while perusing the 'net I stumbled upon an incredibly outrageous thread on an exotic car message board. It's actually far more complicated than just this part, but what I want to focus on is the fact that "a kid" purchased his "wet dream" car, a Lamborghini Gallardo, from a dealer who let him purchase the car using 9 (that's N-I-N-E, nueve, or however else you want to put it) credit cards. NINE CREDIT CARDS. It gets even better, since this kid wanted to flip the Gallardo for cash, which he wanted to use to get a Murcielago (an even more expensive Lamborghini), but I digress.

What the hell is wrong with society? From the tender age of about ten, I've fawned over Lamborghinis, had models, posters, and drew them ad nauseum, and have imagined what it would be like to own one one day. And yes, you can count on it - I WILL own one some day. It might be well-used and I might be well past my retirement age, but when i get it, I'll be able to afford it and I'll consider myself a legitimate owner. What the hell is up with a dealer letting some douchebag kid buy a Lamboghini on NINE freaking credit cards? Many posters in aforementioned thread say it's none of our business what the kid's personal finances are; perhaps he wasn't extending himself at all and he just happened to want to arrange the purchase that way. I don't buy it. Reading the kid's approximately 10-year-old-level writing tells me this isn't a wunderkind exploiting the benefits of interest rate arbitrage. It's just some dumbass maxing himself out so that he can get his dream ride. It'll eventually be repossessed, so no harm, no foul, right? Wrong. WE pay for it. Somehow, through the repo process, through interest rates, through dealer markups, we end up absorbing the costs of morons who buy Lamborghinis on nine credit cards, just like we are paying for the actions of the irresponsible buyers and lenders in the mortgage crisis.

I always thought that guys who owned Lamborghinis were richer than stink, with so much cash that when they had to pay for a $20,000 routine maintenance they would have no reaction other than "it better be fast." I'm still sure that the vast majority of owners are that way, however, I'm still surprised by the number of stories I run into where someone with seemingly no means is driving a car waaaaay beyond their reach. They aren't ruining our party, but I guarantee you that their actions are somehow screwing every one of your bottom lines in less-than-transparent ways. So by all means, if you run into someone that's fully-leveraged on a Lamborghini through diversified credit card schemes, kick them in the nuts for me.

Yes, I DO Still Have an iPod.

My wife calls me at work today and says "you have your iPod with you, right?"

Well, no, I didn't. I last used it on Monday, when I mowed the lawn. When I finished mowing, there was a cul-de-sac party of sorts going on (i.e. all the neighbors were out in their lawns as well) so I remember hurriedly taking off the iPod and placing it down somewhere.

Apparently that "somewhere" was the rear bumper of a Toyota 4Runner.

My wife got an e-mail at work today from a coworker explaining that they saw "something valuable" fall off her 4Runner, and inquired whether she could think of anything she was missing, perhaps something that may have been in a gym bag. She responded no, she has her iPod, and her pedometer, so what else could it be...

Well, it could be my iPod that I apparently left on the 4Runner. My black iPod video is encased with a translucent silicon bump protector (thank God) so when the silicon meets rubber (on the top of the bumper), it sticks. Well, it stuck for the freeway miles to work, but not as my wife sped away from work afterward.

Kudos to our honest coworker that saw my iPod fall off in the enormous Lockheed parking lot and figuring out who owns it. Plus, imagine my frustration if my iPod had simply disappeared into the void? It boggles the mind.