It’s times like these that I wish that heaven and hell actually existed because I’m sure this asshole would be roasting about now.
This is not me.
In my seemingly hopeless quest to stop being a fat ass, I joined a gym yesterday. It’s an LA fitness close to where I work. I picked this particular gym for two main reasons: a friend of mine goes there and recommended it and it’s close to work. Having a friend to work out with is the main reason I decided to go there. It also doesn’t hurt that there aren’t scores of teenage kids meandering all over the place like the last gym I went to.(it was a community center). As an added bonus, the scenery is very nice. Unless you’re a gay man. Probably nice for lesbians though.
In any case, they offer a free session with a personal trainer. The purpose of this session is to give you an idea of what a personal trainer can do for you, and to convince you to start paying for said personal trainer. Well, I figured, it’s free, what the hell. So, even though I had no intention of spending $100-$200 a month on something I got in the army and high school football for free, I had a session with the personal trainer. He kicked my fat ass. Holy shit. It was probably 30 minutes total. 5 minutes on a treadmill to warm up and then it was all calisthenics. Of course I’m very much out of shape, but I didn’t expect to be crushed so easily with my own body weight. (I should have known better considering how much body weight I have). Here’s some advice for all you personal trainers out there: don’t make the first session so painful that your prospective client can’t walk up and down stairs for days afterward. That’s probably not a good idea.
After receiving my personal trainer ass kicking, I decided to spend 20 minutes or so on the elliptical machine. (my heart rate was at 150 after the calisthenics). The elliptical that I was on was close to the large room where they have aerobics classes. Through the glass walls, I could see everyone in there dancing to whatever music they have playing. Luckily I can’t hear the music. But, I do have my own music being played through my headphones. So all of those dancy people were unknowingly dancing to Machinehead’s Aesthetics of Hate. Which made me giggle. I’m sure my giggling made me look even dorkier than your standard fat man on an exercise machine - bonus dorky for all those around me.
Here’s another tip for everyone out there: When I mentioned that I just joined a gym, it is useless and annoying to start telling me about all the other gyms I could have joined for cheaper. Seriously. Stop it. Don’t make me kill you.
When I was in middle school and high school I read nothing but science fiction and fantasy novels – probably to the detriment of my grades. When I had a choice between The Grapes of Wrath and The Sword of Shanara, it was an easy decision. One of my favorite books from back then was The Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster. I read it twice in high school. I pretty much read everything Alan Dean Foster wrote back then.
A couple of weeks ago I was looking for something to read so I decided to re-visit this old high school favorite. Wow, is this book bad. My standards must have seriously changed in the past 25 years. It was hard for me to finish the book it was so bad. I’m starting to think I should try and read some of those books they forced on me in school. Maybe they weren’t so bad after all.
One interesting thing about reading the book is that nothing was familiar. I know it’s been 25 years but I thought something in the book would seem familiar. It was like reading a new book. I would start re-reading books from 25 years ago (since they’d seem new to me now), except I’d probably dislike them all. Who was the person reading these books in the 80s? That guy has more in common with the annoying kids I encounter playing Rock Band on xbox live than with me.
This just reinforces my belief that English classes in high school do more to stop people from reading than anything else. They make reading so un-enjoyable for a teenager. They should devote some of the reading to reading for fun. Instead they turn reading into such a joyless chore. There was only one book or short story that was required reading that I enjoyed in all of high school or college. Thank goodness I had friends who encouraged me to read SF/F. Otherwise I wouldn’t have read anything.
I read these two stories this morning. The first is about someone who basically lost his homework when Amazon decided to delete the book 1984 from his Kindle:
Justin Gawronski, has a compelling story about his experience with Amazon’s memory hole. Apparently, he was reading his copy of 1984 as a summer assignment for school, and had been using one of the Kindle’s selling points—the ability to attach notes to specific parts of the e-book text—to prepare for his return to school. Since he was actively reading the work when Amazon pulled the plug, he actually got to watch the work vanish from his screen. He’s left with a file of notes that are divorced from the text that they reference.
This story also has a different form of evil involved. Class action lawsuits – which seemed to be a way for lawyers to make a bag of money off of other people’s problems. (another form of Evil).
The second is about Apple trying to put a gag order on people who want refunds when their iPods explode:
Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child’s iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company.
The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.
When you do stupid shit like this to your customers you can expect people to start believing the nonsense about large corporations always being bad. I guess if companies do this enough they’re just proving that it’s true.
The other thing that makes Big Corporations look evil (and stupid) is when they provide extremely poor customer service unless the problem is brought the the media’s attention. Like this story about United breaking this fellas guitar and the run-around he got when he tried to get them to accept responsibility for it. He wrote a song (and plans 2 more) about the experience.
These companies give capitalism a bad name.
There’s a traffic light where the W&OD crosses Catoctin Circle just for the bike trail. In the last week, I’ve seen 3 cars run straight through that light on red. I don’t know if they don’t realize that there’s a light there (since there’s no cross street – just the bike trail) or they just don’t give a shit. Either way, eventually someone else is going to get nailed on that crosswalk. I have my head on a swivel whenever I cross there.
I’ve also developed a rule about other bicyclists on the trail. The possibility that a particular bicyclist is an asshole is directly proportional to the expense of their bike and the similarity of their clothing to someone riding in the Tour de France. The possibility of this person being an asshole increases if they’re riding in a group of others with similar bicycles and attire. The possibility increases even further if all the members of this group are wearing the same ‘uniform’.
When I say asshole, i don’t mean that they just look like an asshole. (although that’s usually true). I mean that they are more likely to pass too close, ride side-by-side into your lane, or run into you. They’re also more likely to make stupid close passes so they can stay in their pace line.
I’m not saying that anyone that looks like this and has a $6000 bike is an asshole. I’m just saying they are more likely to be one than the guy riding a hybrid bike wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap.
I noticed that some crazy zig-zag lines have been painted on Belmont Ridge where it crosses the bike trail. This intersection has always been a pain to cross. The cars are usually doing at least 45 mph and, in the morning, the traffic on that road is heavy. This is great candidate for a tunnel, bridge or traffic light. So instead, they’ve painted lines on the road. My first instinct is that is pretty useless. After a couple of months people are going to get used to these lines and just ignore them. I haven’t driven down Belmont Ridge in a car so I haven’t experienced these lines from that perspective. Maybe they’re useful. I’m glad they’re trying something, but this just seems dumb.
UPDATE: I was reading the comments for the link I posted above concerning those zig-zags. One person made a very good point. When wet those zig-zags are going to be hell for a motorcycle. Those painted lines are slippery as fuck when wet. I can see a motorcycle losing control trying to stop in the rain for someone crossing the bike path.
I’ve been uploading numerous old army and high school photos to Facebook lately. (Facebook has a lot of faults but it’s starting to grow on me. shh. don’t tell anyone). While doing this it occurred to me that I don’t have nearly as many pictures from high school as I would like. I have friends on Facebook from high school that I have no pictures of except for the high school yearbook. These are people that I saw 5 days a week for at least a whole school year, if not all four years.
Of course most of us did not even care about pictures. Nostalgia is not something you feel when you’re sixteen years old. I personally went out of my way to avoid pictures. I’m pretty sure one of the four yearbooks from my high school days is missing a photo of me.
I have a bit more from the time I spent in the Army in Panama – mainly because it was a new place which motivated everyone to take pictures. I actually went through three cameras in three years in Panama. On two occasions one of my friends borrowed my camera only to lose it somewhere in Panama City. Both times he bought me a new one.
Even with the motivation of living overseas, there are still people I was stationed with that I have no photos of. People I saw everyday. People that I got drunk with on a regular basis.
When I was in high school, for the most part, people weren’t carrying cameras around with them. Most of us didn’t even own cameras. Today that’s all changed. Everyone has a cell phone and in the last couple of years that means that everyone has a camera. Does this mean that in 20 years kids today will have many more pictures?
Well, the capability is there. They certainly have the technology to take pictures everyday and not have to worry about developing costs or running out of film.Is the motivation there? I wouldn’t have cared about pictures in high school even if I had a camera phone and unlimited storage space. Actually, I would probably had a camera full of candid shots of any girl I though was hot. (which actually leads to another question. Do schools even allow camera/cell phones to be used in school? – I’m not sure it matters, it wouldn’t have stopped me when I was a teenager).
So kids today have the capability to take many more pictures than could have been taken in the past. How many times do these kids just press the ‘delete all’ key to erase last week’s photos to make room for this week’s. In other words, are these photos going to last more a couple of weeks. If they do, will these kids carry around a flash card full of photos for the next 20 years? Will they back these photos up? I’m guessing probably not.
In reality though, this doesn’t matter. I’m looking at it from my old bald headed outdated point of view.
Embarrassing your friends with pictures from twenty years ago is so now. These kids will have had their facebook page, its variants and its decendants since high school. Losing touch with someone for twenty years will be a rarity. Anyone they care about will be connected to them. Most of them will have their entire lives updated online.
Hmmmm.