Fat People Gots to Drink, too!

I've recently had a change of heart, which doesn't happen very often. Just like every hack comedian out there I used to take shots at obese people that would go to McDs and order a double BigMac with cheese and extra mayo, a super-size fries, but then get a tub of diet coke. I mean, do you really need to get diet at that point?!
But after thinking about it, every little bit counts. And I personally do the same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale. I eat extremely healthy 5 days out of the week so I can let loose guilt-free all weekend. I eat mostly natural foods, tons of fruit and veggies, proper portions, the works. But once I leave work on Friday all bets are off. Maybe there is a 12-pack of Bud that needs to be drank. And that large pizza sure ain't gonna eat itself! Nor will that bag of chips and jar of salsa. But but Sunday night when it's all tallied up, it all works out. I actually lost about 20lbs in a year doing that. Granted I kept my weekend binging to a minimum as well, but that's not the point.
I was talking to someone about how even the smallest change can make a big deal. Drinking iced tea (unsweetened) instead of 1 can of coke every week will shave 2lbs off your weight every year. Not much weight, but also a pretty minimal effort. Bumping that up to 3 cans per week and you've lost 6lbs. Or at least, that's 6 less pounds than you'd have gained otherwise. So by swapping out for the super-sized diet coke, our obese person just cut out about a 1/2 pound of fat they otherwise would have put on. That's a 1/2 pound per super-size coke. Non trivial when you think about how often they're doing it every year.
So there you have it. An official change of opinion. I'm now fully supporting anyone and everyone who's doing at least something to be healthier. It'd be nice if you didn't swap out high fructose corn syrup for potential carcinogens, but I guess we'll all have to settle for baby steps.

I also got to thinking about how far I'd go for a friend while watching House tonight. In short, he's making his friends and co-workers choose b/t lying to the cops and putting themselves at risk or telling the truth and putting him in jail. So I started thinking about who I'd lie to the cops for and how big of a lie I'd tell. I didn't really like what I found out. In short, I ain't going to ruin my life to cover for someone else's screw up. I might tell little lies and make some 'inaccurate' statements, but I'm not getting myself in any serious trouble to protect you from reaping what you sowed.
I'd more readily sacrifice my life for someone than screw it up. If I do actually sacrifice it, I'm not around to regret anything. And I essentially die a hero. If I come real close to sacrificing it but live, I still know that I did something good. But if you screwed yourself and I take the rap to protect you, I'll have the rest of my life to think about how you're out free and clear while I'm paying for what you did. Uh uh, ain't gonna happen.
So if anyone out there is thinking about using me as an alibi or including me in some felony-type activity, think about that. I'll help, but not at the expense of my own safety. If you kill someone, don't tell me about it. I can't lie about something I don't know about. Stole a new car? Just don't tell me where it came from. You have it now, that's all I need to know. Cause if I'm facing possible jail time and/or a felony charge, I'm singing like a birdie. And to hell with what people might think. I'll be too busy living up my life to care about them.
Don't get me wrong, I'll happily help you cover up little stuff. I just draw the line at things I have to write down on job applications.

Done and done.

Random Baseball-Related Goodness

I finally feel like a whole person again. Yesterday I was able to successfully play in an entire baseball game pain-free. I can’t pitch yet, or really throw for that matter, but I can hit and catch like always. Playing hockey was a great first step, but playing baseball really seals it up. So with that spirit in mind, let me pound out some random baseball-related thoughts today.

I actually found a silver lining to not being medically cleared to pitch for at least a few more months. I’m no longer comically sore after throwing 5+ innings every Sunday morning. So my Sunday afternoon and evenings won’t be spent in pain on the couch, and I can move freely on Mondays. I loved pitching every week last year, it just put a physical beating on me. Of course, if my shoulder wasn’t messed up, there’s always the chance that it wouldn’t have hurt so badly on Monday. But my back, legs, and obliques would have still been shot, meaning the end result was the same.

I had another “Jack” moment while watching SportsCenter last week. (If you don’t know who Jack is or why this is mentionable, read here: http://criminaleyes.blogspot.com/2006/07/tribute-to-jack.html) Any time the Sox played the Indians we’d constantly refer to Travis Hafner as ‘Ogre’ and make random ogre-like comments. Me hit ball! Ball go far! Ogre not like ump when ump call Ogre out! Things like that. While we had nick-names and little things for many guys (ZAAAAHHHHHNNNN!!!), that was one of our favorites. So imagine my surprise when the anchor, while calling a highlight featuring a Hafner home run, used the line “…and in the morning, I’m making waffles!” Yeah, I almost missed that too so don’t feel bad. That was an obscure quote from the movie Shrek. Shrek was…drum roll please…an ogre. Now I don’t know for sure that the anchor was using that intentionally because of his own ogre connection, or just because it’s a funny line that involves waffles. Either way, I promptly gave props to Jack even though I don’t actually think he had anything to do with it. Hayley, however, is not purely kidding when she says that it’s Jack speaking to me from beyond. I got a good chuckle out of it and that’s all I care about.

I know a lot of people have been made fun of for this practice, but I don’t understand why more people don’t bring a baseball mitt to a baseball game. Even if you’re in the way back sections, you never know when I ball is going to come your way. And to me there is no shame in using a mitt to snare it. Those balls f’n hurt if they hit a bone! Maybe it’s just because I grew up sitting in the bleachers in Wrigley Field and always showed up early enough to watch BP. Trust me, you don’t want to be out there trying to catch home runs with your bare hands. If a ball just traveled 400ft on the fly, it’s moving pretty quickly when it arrives to your hand. And missing a sweet memento because you wanted to ‘man up’ and not use a mitt is just silly. Besides, when you’re not using it to catch balls, it makes a great bowl for peanuts.

I’m not sure where this trend started, but I first noticed it out here during baseball season a couple years ago. They make these window stickers that make it look like a baseball hit your windshield is and lodged in the glass. It’s just a ½ of a baseball complete with a circle of faux-shattered glass around it. It was kinda clever. Baseballs often do hit cars and could get stuck there. But then people started making them for other sports. Is it possible for the same thing to happen with a hockey puck? Maybe if you parked your car too close to a pond, but the odds are pretty low. But it was still possible and this is a fairly big hockey area. Understandable. But yesterday I saw one on a station wagon that was a mini football. 1) No one over the age of 4 is playing football with a ball that small. 2) No one under the age of 4 could throw that ball hard enough to have it bust a windshield. 3) It’s a football and wouldn’t come through a windshield even if thrown by John Elway himself. You can break a windshield with a non-hard object, but you’re not penetrating (he he he, I said penetrate) a windshield with it. I declare that those stickers have officially jumped the shark. Just like putting fake bullet holes on your Grand Caravan. You’re not fooling anyone and it doesn’t give your ride more street cred. You just look stupid.

Done and done.

Oldie but Goodie

I just found this while cleaning up one of my flash drives. Not sure if I posted this before and didn't move it off the drive like normal, or just didn't post it. So I"ll do it now. Besides, no one that reads now was reading then, so it's all good! Enjoy.

I was in Queens for a wedding last night and didn’t get home til 2am, so this is going to be rather short and crappy. I’m just not fully functional upstairs, but still feel the need to write about stuff. Why? Because I still have a couple hours of day to kill off here at work and have 1 topic that I’ve been meaning to rant about for a couple weeks now. As I can’t put together anything better today, here it is:

I’m not sure if everyone else has this same pet peeve, but I cannot stand cell phone conversations when either person is having reception problems. If I have to repeat myself more than once, you can be pretty sure I’m just going to hang up. If it’s a vital conversation that can’t happen later, then I’ll hang around. But if it’s just a social call with someone I’m going to talk to/see later I’m just not having it. It’s like nails on a chalk board to me. It usually goes something like this:

“Dude, I had some awesome waffles for breakfast today. I said I had some great waffles. Can you hear me now? Wait, what? Waffles!! I had fucking waffles today! Alright, I’m hanging up. Call me when you have decent reception.”

Puts me in an instant bad mood and it takes me a good 15 minutes to shake it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate cell phones. I just refuse to turn my phone into the centerpiece of my life. If someone calls and I’m doing something else, I’ll often just miss the call and check my messages later. I’m notoriously hard to get a hold of at times because of it. I’m just not going to drop everything else in my life because my phone is ringing. Especially if the person on the other end has bad reception. If you really want to talk to me, at least call me from somewhere where we can talk. Calling from a bar is equally as annoying, as the conversations are very similar. The other person trying to shout over the noise at the bar and then not being able to hear a single word you’re saying. How about next time you go outside before you call me?

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. Or maybe I just feel a need to have other people respect my time if they want to get some of it. I hate to break it to people, but I’m not so in need of your attention that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to talk to you. I know other people are fine with these conversations. I over-hear them all the time and laugh. I find it so sad that people are so in need of outside entertainment that they’re willing to go through all that to talk to someone they’ll likely see in a few hours. How about they open up a book or a magazine? Or maybe just look around at the world around them. It’s a wonderful place we live in at times. Just take some time to soak in the people and places around you. One of the first things I noticed when I moved out here to Boston was that people on the streets just seemed so unhappy and focused on their little world. They just couldn’t slow down even a bit to take in the scenes around them. And Boston really is a great city in places. The architecture, the historical landmarks, old neighborhoods, it’s all quite nice. When I’m downtown I love to just walk around instead of taking the T for that very reason. Do a little people-watching and gather my own thoughts. I don’t need other people to entertain me; I’ve got plenty going on in my own head to keep me busy. And it’s just so much fun to observe other people going about their days. I really do think it’s sad that people can no longer find enjoyment in the simple things in life. And I really don’t envy them and their vast social network. Some people would (and have) call me easily amused. I prefer to think of it as being content and comfortable with my own life.

Dragons vs. FoxNews. Who is the bigger joke?

A guy called into Opie & Anthony (heretofore known only as O&A) this morning and politely asked them to stop using the Lord’s name in vain. Now, anyone that’s listened to their show, or has any knowledge about them, can probably guess where this went. They proceeded to goad him into a lengthy argument over science vs. religion. (I believe it started when Anthony referred to Jesus as ‘the zombie god’.)

The caller was a very rare Catholic extremist. They don’t recognize the ‘new church’, any pope after Pius XII (died in 1958), or believe in science. In fact, he constantly referred to scientists as ‘scientist priests’; an obvious attempt to bring science to the same faith-based level of religion. The entire basis of his argument against science was “have you ever personally seen someone do that?” He believes the Earth is only 6000 years old, because that’s as far back as written records go. His counter-argument to carbon dating of rocks in the millions of years was “have you done the carbon dating yourself?” Even better was his answer to the presence of dinosaur bones. Clearly dinosaurs weren’t in the bible. If the Earth is really only 6000 years old, how does one explain all those bones we’re digging up?! Dragons. Those bones are nothing more than dragon bones from as recent as the middle ages. Never mind the fact that dragons are nowhere to be found in the bible, nowhere to be found now, and really were only mentioned in Medieval times. And even then they were really only in stories that were loosely based on actual history. Nothing gets a morning started better than someone claiming that the prehistoric bones we find are really dragon bones. Simply awesome. And really, how can you listen to someone and even attempt to believe what they have to say after they claimed dragons were not only real, but were the true source of what we call “dinosaur bones”? I want dragons to be real as much as the next guy, but come on.

Regardless, the entire thing got me thinking about the faith we do put in scientist. Science isn’t a religion, but we are trusting people we don’t know that are doing experiments and research we can’t understand. Kind of like going to the doctor. I can’t actually interpret the results from my blood work. I don’t know what a healthy heart sounds like. I’m just semi-blindly trusting the person that’s telling me what it all means. A stretch to say it, but not that dissimilar from religion. The main difference is that at the very core, someone can prove the basis of the scientific facts. I can find a scientist who can show me the equipment and how it works and let me prove these things myself.

No one can definitely prove the existence of God or any of the miracles that are written in the bible. It all needs to be taken by faith and faith alone. I choose to make that leap of faith, but I recognize that for what it is. I can never go to a church and tell a priest to prove any of it to me. All they have is a collection of writings that were chosen by some people hundreds of years ago to be the best representation of the religion.

FoxNews in Boston is trying to get me to freak out. Not only do they practice rampant shock journalism in order to get viewers, not only do they use scare tactics to get viewers, but now they are putting on segments that aren’t even news. When you start discussing and recapping American Idol during your “news” broadcast, you’ve officially crossed a line. The term ‘newsertainment’ has never been more accurate. It sickens me to think that people are still using these same broadcasters as their main source of information on world events! But why wouldn’t I believe the 5 minute reporting on the Iraq conflict when it’s presented immediately after a 15 minute piece on the favorite foods of each Idol contestant?! I’m sure there aren’t any biases and the reporting must be top-notch. It’s disgusting.

Good Bigots vs Bad Bigots

Hayley and I had pre-cana (marriage prep for Catholic weddings) on Saturday and I heard a story that made me realize something; there are 2 kinds out there and one is better than the other.
The story was told by a Philippino woman and was about having to tell her mother that she was marrying a Jewish guy. Her mom's reply: "You know they don't eat meat, right?" And that's what got me thinking. Her mom obviously didn't think very highly of Jews, but it was based on misconceptions and untruths. So you would think that if you educated her about some things, that she would be able to change her view. Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but you stand a much better chance of changing the bigotry of someone like that than someone who just hates a group for no good reason.
Think of your average southern racist. While they also have their little problem with black people based on misconceptions, it's a much different story. It's not based on some strange rumor they heard from someone they knew. They were raised to believe certain things; things that you can't just tell them otherwise to disprove. You can't just sit down with them and say "No, blacks are actually exactly the same as you and me, they just have more melatonin in their skin," and expect them to accept that and change.
Of course, sometimes you can use racist to your advantage. Being white, I should be slow. Slower than a black guy, at least. Back in college we had a co-rec flag football team from our dorm. We had a game against a team from the all-black frat on campus. Knowing this little racist quirk about white speed, and knowing that it wasn't true in my case, I decided to use it to our advantage. Whoever was covering me was not planning on being out-raced so I told the QB that I was going deep on the first play. Ball is snapped and I just take off up the field; no move, no juke, just a simple go route and an easy touchdown pass. This kid wasn't anywhere near me. Naturally he then had to take shit from everyone else on his team for getting torched deep by a white kid. But now for the rest of the game I was open for short passes because he was playing off of me to avoid getting beat deep again. If he did play tight, they had to put someone over to top for when I did beat him deep, meaning that someone else should be open. All-in-all, a good time.
PEACE!

Your house is ruining my economy!

Let’s get a show of hands here real quick. Who thinks it is right for the government to step in and bail out people that got into a car loan they couldn’t really support and now face the bank taking back their Porsche? How about if Best Buy comes to foreclose on that 60” plasma TV someone bought and now can’t pay for? Anyone? Anyone at all? So why do so many people feel the federal government has a duty to step in and protect anyone and everyone that’s having trouble with their mortgage?! I’m not saying that we should all turn a blind eye to the problem. But saying that we need to bail out everyone so that no one loses their house is ridiculous!

Where in the constitution does it say that as Americans we are granted to right to own a house? Nowhere. It’s a dream that most people have and something that almost everyone wants, but it’s clearly not a right. While you do have the right to pursue your dream, you don’t have a right to achieve it. Therefore, not everyone gets to own a house. More importantly, not everyone gets to own the house they dream of in the small area of the country that they’d like it to be in. The reality of making such a large purchase is that the house you want may not be affordable in the place you want it. If your dream is to own your own home, one of the sacrifices you may need to make is location. We would have loved to be living closer to downtown Boston, but the reality was that it would have involved too many sacrifices. We couldn’t find the condo we wanted with some of the required features we wanted in our price range. We could have gotten into a questionable mortgage that we weren’t sure we could support. But we instead did the responsible thing and only signed our names to something we knew was reasonable. Yes, a bank would have floated us an interest-only mortgage with very little down that would have allowed us to buy something better and more convenient for us. But guess what, we wouldn’t have been able to pay that thing off once we had to start paying the principle! That is exactly the situation a lot of people find themselves in right now. They got themselves into a mortgage with very high risks and no plan on how to deal with them. They got so caught up in the excitement of being able to actually achieve their dream that they completely ignored the realities of whether or not they should achieve that dream.

I have a dream of being a stay-at-home dad. That sure as hell doesn’t mean I’m swapping out Hayley’s pills for placebos and getting ready to quit my job. I could do that, but it’d be a very stupid thing to do right now. Instead I choose to act like a responsible adult {waits for the laughing to cease} and wait until the time is right and we can support that dream before I choose to go for it.

The real reason this is a problem is that housing prices sharply pulled back from their peaks. That means that if the banks foreclose on your house, they can’t turn around and sell it for anything close to what you owe them. Cause see, people aren’t the only ones that can act in a very irresponsible way. Suddenly all those interest-only and low-down payment mortgages to risky people are coming around to bite them in the ass. That’s the reason the government needs to step in to save the economy. People losing their houses puts a big squeeze on the economy. Combine that with the lending sector losing billions of dollars, and you get a recession. That’s bad for everyone, including the rest of us that acting responsibly when we bought our homes.

The best way out of this is not a bail-out. We don’t give people money and we don’t give the banks money. The government pays a more modest sum to help people refinance their current mortgages into something they can better afford. This keeps money flowing into the banks as people make payments and lets people keep their houses. Will this save everyone? No, but it doesn’t need to. People are still going to lose their homes. If you got in WAY over your head, you’re still screwed. But if you stretched yourself just a bit too far, or had some unforeseen circumstance come up that you’re recovering from, then you should be okay. The punishment should fit the crime.

Still, it kills me that the responsible people out there get punished for doing the right thing, same as always. We either lose a ton of tax money or have to suffer through a recession. Shouldn’t we be rewarded? Hell, I’d take a simple ‘thanks for not being a jerk and ruining things for everyone else’. Maybe our lender should buy me a cup of coffee or a dinner or something. Something! But alas, no good deed goes unpunished.

God Bless the Coyote

For some reason I had the song “God Bless the USA” stuck in my head the other night. Okay, it was because I saw some commercial about a CD of gospel music done by country bands, but that’s not the point. The point is that the song was stuck in my head and I couldn’t get it out. And after the 50^th time I sang the lines “And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.” I started thinking about those men and women and when the last time we actually had to fight for our freedom was.

Don’t get me wrong; I fully support our troops all over the world and respect them for what they’re doing. I have several friends and coworkers that have spent time/are currently/will be spending more time in Iraq. And I’m not about to start another debate over the merits, or lack thereof, of the current conflicts. My point is that when Lee Greenwood released that song in 1984 we were pretty much done fighting for our freedom. WWII would be the last time I figure we fought for any form of freedom. The Nazis were actively taking over Europe and committing genocide. There’s no guarantee that they would have tried to cross the pond and invade us, but it’s best to not wait for that to happen.

Vietnam and Korea? We were fighting for other peoples’ freedom, not ours. As much as the government wanted you to think so, communism was not a virus that would spread across the globe unchecked. You may have a few countries go communist, but who’s to say that’s bad for them? It’s not like our republic (constitutional federal republic to be exact) government over here created a paradise for all US citizens.

And once again we’re involved in wars to protect other countries’ freedoms. Iraq had no credible involvement in the terrorism of 9/11, had no credible weapons of mass destruction, and no plans to come over here and take our freedoms. Nor did any of the terrorist that attacked us on 9/11. They could give 2 shits if we’re free; they just got sick of our constant meddling in their affairs and our funding of their enemy’s army.

I think we can all admit that the Middle East conflict is about securing a steady supply of oil and settling a family grudge against Saddam Hussein. We did go after some terrorist cells in Afghanistan early on, but those days are long gone. Now we’re stuck in a ‘You break it; you buy it’ situation in Iraq. But whatever.

The good news in all of this is that American soldiers haven’t had any reason to fight for our freedom in 50 years. That’s awesome. It’s a nice feeling to know that no one has the means and/or desire to take that away from you. And an even better feeling to be able to ignore your manipulative government and sensationalist media when they try to convince you otherwise.

And now for some cheery miscellany:

I think I saw a woman walking a pet coyote the other morning on the way to work. I’m not 100% sure it was, as I was driving past at ~45mph, but it sure looked like a coyote. Skinny, right height, same coat coloration, long narrow snout. I’m sure it was just a mutt of some kind, but it sure looked like it had some coyote in it. She’d be wise to keep it away from road runners and large wig-based rockets.