I can't help but think my age is starting to catch up with me. For the past sixteen or seventeen years, I have worn pants whose waist measurement was 30". I still fit in these pants but I can't help but notice them feeling ever more snug. The thing, if you look at me, I don't look fat or even overweight. My arms, legs, and torso are skinny but I have a belly. I'm becoming what is known as "skinny fat".
I don't even think it's possible for me to become fat in the classical sense where everything gets puffier and more filled-out. It will always be in my gut resulting in me having the body of an in-shape pregnant woman. For years, I've fought increasing my pants size keeping in mind a quick story my Dad once told me. He warned of falling into the trap of buying more comfortable (read: larger waist size) pants. As his weight slowly increased over his life, he eventually went up a size and remarked how much more comfortable the pants were. But instead of getting back in shape, this new higher size become the new normal and then he would gain even more weight and so on and so forth.
I get some exercise everyday, but not as much as I used to. My friend at work drives me home every day he is there (which is most of them nowadays) so that two mile walk, five days a week has been lost. I work with people who actually help now so cleaning every register by myself (cardio?) has also been taken from me. But I generally don't overeat. I go hungry a lot and by that, I don't mean I skip meals. I simply mean that I will get hungry and will stay that way for a couple of hours (like at work). My weight has stabilized at about 150 lbs. but yet I still have this gut. It sucks...and I wonder if it's time to surrender and go up to a size 32" waist. Maybe I'm kidding myself. I don't know. All my work pants are wearing out: It's time to replace them.
When I have to go out to buy more, I am really hoping that the size 32" pants are too big. I don't want to believe I've hit this post in my life already.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
I remember the first time I ever saw the word "Nazi" in my life. I was still a young boy and my brother and me were playing outside by my aunt's apartment. We had climbed onto the roof of a parking garage and I saw spray-painted on a nearby building: "REAGAN IS A NAZI DOG".
I had never seen the word before so I read it aloud to my brother pronouncing it like it rhymed with "crazy."
I had never seen the word before so I read it aloud to my brother pronouncing it like it rhymed with "crazy."
Saturday, August 28, 2010
PLUTO IS NOT A PLANET
I've just encountered yet another article in the October 2010 issue of Astronomy magazine regarding the ongoing debate of whether Pluto is or is not a planet. Some states (most notably Illinois where Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto's discoverer back in 1930 was born) have even passed laws that state when Pluto is directly overhead in the skies of these states, that Pluto regains its planetary status. How ridiculous.
For the record, I like Pluto. I think like most people who have even a passing interest in astronomy, Pluto is a world near and dear to many a heart. Maybe it's its underdog status: this tiny speck of ice and rock occurring after a string of gigantic gas giants. It's practically ghetto in the bourgeoisie establishment of the outer Solar System. I look forward to the New Horizons probe encountering Pluto in the still far off year of 2015. It'll be a brief encounter, but it will finally show us what this world looks like and if the probe is fortunate, it may survive long enough to encounter other objects in what is now known as the Kuiper Belt. It is the fact that this belt of icy objects akin to the more familiar Asteroid Belt exists that I have come to accept Pluto's reduced status. A little history:
Back in 1801, a new object was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi between Mars and Jupiter. It was named Ceres and for almost a half-century, it was considered the eighth planet (Neptune would not be discovered until 1846). In fact; Pallas (1802), Juno (1804), and Vesta (1807) were also considered planets. That means, for a time, the Solar System had eleven planets. However, as more and more objects were discovered in that region of the Solar System, it became clear that Ceres was not a planet; but rather, the first of a new class of objects that we now know as asteroids. All these new planets were summarily demoted and the Solar System was now back to its familiar eight worlds (Neptune had since been discovered). I wonder if there was an outcry then to save those "planets" or if the reclassification in light of an increasing number of discoveries rendered the argument moot.
A key difference between the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt is the amount of sunlight. Sunlight is much denser per square inch in the Asteroid Belt than in the far reaches of the Solar System. This makes the detection of even small, dim objects easier than at the greater distances where Pluto can be found. Therefore, when Pluto was discovered, it seemed like it was alone -- the last object that would be found out there. The region was simply too dim (as well as enormous in area compared to the Asteroid Belt) to find even Pluto-sized objects let alone the many likely smaller objects out there. Long exposures times and limited time at the large telescopes to take such images makes such a search prohibitive. It wasn't until 1992 that new objects began turning up in that region. Technology had made searches for new objects easier and once the search began, objects began turning up relatively quickly. They have been given a mix of familiar-sounding and exotic names such as Eris, Sedna, Makemake, and Quaoar (asteroids bear a similar mix of names as the discoverer gets to name the object - subject to approval by the IAU). Simply put, Pluto was no longer alone but merely one of many. It is currently the largest Kuiper Belt Object discovered but that title may one day be stripped.
Like Ceres, Pluto is merely the first of a new class of objects in the Solar System. Unlike Ceres though, these objects have been named after the former planet and are called Plutoids. So while I was at first a bit miffed at Pluto's demotion, through an understanding of an analogous history, I am at peace with the world no longer being the ninth planet of our Solar System...and so should you.
As a side note, a spacecraft called Dawn (NASA really comes up with some shitty names for spacecraft these days) will visit Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015 so we'll be able to see them up close as well for the first time in the near future.
For the record, I like Pluto. I think like most people who have even a passing interest in astronomy, Pluto is a world near and dear to many a heart. Maybe it's its underdog status: this tiny speck of ice and rock occurring after a string of gigantic gas giants. It's practically ghetto in the bourgeoisie establishment of the outer Solar System. I look forward to the New Horizons probe encountering Pluto in the still far off year of 2015. It'll be a brief encounter, but it will finally show us what this world looks like and if the probe is fortunate, it may survive long enough to encounter other objects in what is now known as the Kuiper Belt. It is the fact that this belt of icy objects akin to the more familiar Asteroid Belt exists that I have come to accept Pluto's reduced status. A little history:
Back in 1801, a new object was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi between Mars and Jupiter. It was named Ceres and for almost a half-century, it was considered the eighth planet (Neptune would not be discovered until 1846). In fact; Pallas (1802), Juno (1804), and Vesta (1807) were also considered planets. That means, for a time, the Solar System had eleven planets. However, as more and more objects were discovered in that region of the Solar System, it became clear that Ceres was not a planet; but rather, the first of a new class of objects that we now know as asteroids. All these new planets were summarily demoted and the Solar System was now back to its familiar eight worlds (Neptune had since been discovered). I wonder if there was an outcry then to save those "planets" or if the reclassification in light of an increasing number of discoveries rendered the argument moot.
A key difference between the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt is the amount of sunlight. Sunlight is much denser per square inch in the Asteroid Belt than in the far reaches of the Solar System. This makes the detection of even small, dim objects easier than at the greater distances where Pluto can be found. Therefore, when Pluto was discovered, it seemed like it was alone -- the last object that would be found out there. The region was simply too dim (as well as enormous in area compared to the Asteroid Belt) to find even Pluto-sized objects let alone the many likely smaller objects out there. Long exposures times and limited time at the large telescopes to take such images makes such a search prohibitive. It wasn't until 1992 that new objects began turning up in that region. Technology had made searches for new objects easier and once the search began, objects began turning up relatively quickly. They have been given a mix of familiar-sounding and exotic names such as Eris, Sedna, Makemake, and Quaoar (asteroids bear a similar mix of names as the discoverer gets to name the object - subject to approval by the IAU). Simply put, Pluto was no longer alone but merely one of many. It is currently the largest Kuiper Belt Object discovered but that title may one day be stripped.
Like Ceres, Pluto is merely the first of a new class of objects in the Solar System. Unlike Ceres though, these objects have been named after the former planet and are called Plutoids. So while I was at first a bit miffed at Pluto's demotion, through an understanding of an analogous history, I am at peace with the world no longer being the ninth planet of our Solar System...and so should you.
As a side note, a spacecraft called Dawn (NASA really comes up with some shitty names for spacecraft these days) will visit Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015 so we'll be able to see them up close as well for the first time in the near future.
Friday, August 27, 2010
MY ROOMMATE HAS SCORCHED POCKETS
My roommate has been unemployed since March of this year, happily sucking off New Jersey's ample unemployment insurance teat, and only as of this month actually (barely) seeking employment. It's been a really frustrating experience considering how brutally hot this Summer has been. Had he been working, I could've been enjoying the relative coolness of the living room but no, I've been confined to my fucking hot room with a fan blowing hot air on me.
In desperation, he has posted an ad on Craig's List as a "masseur"...we all know what that means. He's actually gotten responses and has been happy as fuck (so to speak) that he has been able to earn money in this manner. He ecstatically points out that he will now have no problem covering next month's rent...hooray! (what about the other eight months?)
Now, if you were chronically broke because you've had difficulty holding down a job for whatever reason, what do you do once you are again employed? Do you vigorously save your cash because your next bout of unemployment may be merely months away or do you decide to celebrate by taking you and your not-quite boyfriend out to dinner? He's been living paycheck-to-paycheck (unemployment check-to-unemployment check) for a long time now not because he's been terribly unlucky in the job market but basically because he's terminally stupid when it comes to money matters. He had a decent job for an entire year earning slightly more than me. He has no savings from this job to draw on, even before he was fired. He pissed it all away fiddling away like some Aesopian grasshopper rather than taking on the role of the ant. I've even found out that he owes his best friend thousands of dollars -- for years now -- of which he has paid back exactly nothing...but he's got the money to take his fuckbuddy out to dinner, to buy expensive gifts for his now ex-boyfriend...what an asshole to treat his friend like that. Not even token repayments to show that he intends to do the right thing. It's like he's waiting for a windfall rather than be responsible about it.
I'm also getting wind that he is thinking of moving out in January like he can just walk away from a lease without consequences. I really don't want to sue one of my friends for money owed but he clearly has no idea how a legal contract works and seeing as how he has made no effort to repay his other friend over the years, trusting him to an oral contract would be an act of utter stupidity on my part. How retarded do you have to be to think you can renege on a contract like it's no big deal? Holy fuck... I really don't want to sue him but he really needs to grow the fuck up and if me doing that causes him to do so, then maybe that will make me a good friend to him after all.
In desperation, he has posted an ad on Craig's List as a "masseur"...we all know what that means. He's actually gotten responses and has been happy as fuck (so to speak) that he has been able to earn money in this manner. He ecstatically points out that he will now have no problem covering next month's rent...hooray! (what about the other eight months?)
Now, if you were chronically broke because you've had difficulty holding down a job for whatever reason, what do you do once you are again employed? Do you vigorously save your cash because your next bout of unemployment may be merely months away or do you decide to celebrate by taking you and your not-quite boyfriend out to dinner? He's been living paycheck-to-paycheck (unemployment check-to-unemployment check) for a long time now not because he's been terribly unlucky in the job market but basically because he's terminally stupid when it comes to money matters. He had a decent job for an entire year earning slightly more than me. He has no savings from this job to draw on, even before he was fired. He pissed it all away fiddling away like some Aesopian grasshopper rather than taking on the role of the ant. I've even found out that he owes his best friend thousands of dollars -- for years now -- of which he has paid back exactly nothing...but he's got the money to take his fuckbuddy out to dinner, to buy expensive gifts for his now ex-boyfriend...what an asshole to treat his friend like that. Not even token repayments to show that he intends to do the right thing. It's like he's waiting for a windfall rather than be responsible about it.
I'm also getting wind that he is thinking of moving out in January like he can just walk away from a lease without consequences. I really don't want to sue one of my friends for money owed but he clearly has no idea how a legal contract works and seeing as how he has made no effort to repay his other friend over the years, trusting him to an oral contract would be an act of utter stupidity on my part. How retarded do you have to be to think you can renege on a contract like it's no big deal? Holy fuck... I really don't want to sue him but he really needs to grow the fuck up and if me doing that causes him to do so, then maybe that will make me a good friend to him after all.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
THOUGHTS I NORMALLY KEEP IN MY HEAD, part II
Walking everywhere I go is tedious. I don't mind it for the most part, but sometimes I wish I could simply flow from point-to-point like I were made of liquid or vapors or shadows. I feel it especially when turning corners in hallways or just when I need to turn around. How wonderful it would be if I could simply flow, alter my shape to face the opposite direction instead of reorienting my body. I want to feel bigger than my body...like a presence either benign or sinister depending on my mood. I want to see around the corner before my real eyes do. I want to feel the movements of others around me; be immersed in their presence. I want to be able to touch things without actually having to touch them; extend my reach to grasp something; surround my environment in a ghostly embrace. And sometimes, I simply wish to be terrifying...to have my delicate, finger-like tendrils of inky shadow stiffen to penetrate or otherwise rend the objects of my cardinal sins...to swallow the world in shadows...to be a reminder that there is more to this world than what meets the eye...that there is a price to pay for my turning out this way.....
--- Feel my shoggoth eyes upon you and Black Hole Sun video smile ---
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
BEING FRUGAL AND BEING CHEAP ARE DIFFERENT THINGS...
I was reading this article in the New York Times the other day regarding the unsexy word "frugal" in the world of online dating. It was suggested to mask the term with "bargain hunter". I could do another rant entirely on deception, but that's not the point of this piece.
Somehow the word "frugal" has become synonymous with "cheap". I don't see how this is necessarily so. Not being a spendthrift is not the same as being cheap; but then, I'll admit my own interpretation of this word may be clouding the debate.
While I don't believe in being wasteful with my money, that doesn't make me cheap and my basic defense of this point is that I am not particularly concerned with how I spend my discretionary cash. I figure as long as my income exceeds my outgo, I'm fine. If you can find a way to trim a cost without it being a bother, that's frugality. That's good know-how. If my monthly income minus expenses and contributions toward savings leaves me with an extra $200, then I have $200 to spend or not spend as I wish. I don't like eating out but I will not object to spending any of that available $200 should my friends wish to eat out one night. That's the point of discretionary cash.
The people whom I think are "cheap" are the "bargain hunters." Articles on frugality inevitably bring up the coupon queens and other people who will only buy things if they are on sale and have a coupon for it to boot. How annoying are those people? Did you ever have the misfortune of knowing or dealing with one of them? Those ones who are never satisfied at a store looking for any defect on the product so they can haggle out another few bucks? The ones who pester the sales clerks about any additional "secret sales"? Those ones who not only have a backpack full of coupons but have them organized to an extent that makes you wary? The ones who mark their calendars for upcoming sales events and whatnot? The ones who can't part with a dollar for ANYTHING unless it's been marked down. That's what cheap is.
Frugality is more like this. I like Product 19 cereal. I really do. But it comes in these small 12 oz. boxes that never ever go on sale so it's pricey (like $4.49 a box). I don't pay that much for cereal in my regular shopping but I will buy it with my discretionary cash when the mood strikes me. There's no way a bargain-hunter could do that...ever.
Somehow the word "frugal" has become synonymous with "cheap". I don't see how this is necessarily so. Not being a spendthrift is not the same as being cheap; but then, I'll admit my own interpretation of this word may be clouding the debate.
While I don't believe in being wasteful with my money, that doesn't make me cheap and my basic defense of this point is that I am not particularly concerned with how I spend my discretionary cash. I figure as long as my income exceeds my outgo, I'm fine. If you can find a way to trim a cost without it being a bother, that's frugality. That's good know-how. If my monthly income minus expenses and contributions toward savings leaves me with an extra $200, then I have $200 to spend or not spend as I wish. I don't like eating out but I will not object to spending any of that available $200 should my friends wish to eat out one night. That's the point of discretionary cash.
The people whom I think are "cheap" are the "bargain hunters." Articles on frugality inevitably bring up the coupon queens and other people who will only buy things if they are on sale and have a coupon for it to boot. How annoying are those people? Did you ever have the misfortune of knowing or dealing with one of them? Those ones who are never satisfied at a store looking for any defect on the product so they can haggle out another few bucks? The ones who pester the sales clerks about any additional "secret sales"? Those ones who not only have a backpack full of coupons but have them organized to an extent that makes you wary? The ones who mark their calendars for upcoming sales events and whatnot? The ones who can't part with a dollar for ANYTHING unless it's been marked down. That's what cheap is.
Frugality is more like this. I like Product 19 cereal. I really do. But it comes in these small 12 oz. boxes that never ever go on sale so it's pricey (like $4.49 a box). I don't pay that much for cereal in my regular shopping but I will buy it with my discretionary cash when the mood strikes me. There's no way a bargain-hunter could do that...ever.
Monday, August 23, 2010
IT'S LIKE THEY WANT ME TO STEAL MUSIC...
I'm finally doing well enough financially in this apartment to afford myself some luxuries. In addition to funding an old hobby, I've also begun purchasing music online. My first purchase was the song "Greeting Committee" by The Pillbugs. I had heard this psychedelic rock song over my store's MUZAK station (FM1 for the win!) for a while and was not able to find it in any online searches despite having nearly all the lyrics to the song. Eventually after going back to the MUZAK site and checking their now-playing list throughout the day, I found it (score another victory for the brute-force method). With the title and artist in hand, I did another Google search and it yielded fruit. Without hesitation I signed up for LaLa.com and bought the song. No hassles. Just gave them my business e-mail address and my credit card information and 99¢ later, the song was mine.
A few months goes by and I decide that I want to start purchasing songs. It turns out that LaLa had gone out of business since then but I was recommended iLike.com on the out-of-business page. I signed up for them and promptly bought ten songs that day. Again, no muss, no fuss. Just 99¢ a song and that was it. However, iLike doesn't have every song I'm looking for but it will direct me to iTunes since they have it. I didn't want to sign up for another site but I wanted the song so I decided iTunes could be my alternate.
And that's when I ran into trouble...
For some reason, it is not enough to simply sign up for iTunes. I must also download some program first. WHY?! Neither LaLa nor iLike requires that I download a program to get their music. It's a simple transfer of data after my purchase is completed. But no, iTunes has to be fucking difficult. Now I'm sure there's no problem with the thing they want to download, but it's the principle of it all. I don't want to download it and it's already been shown that it is entirely unnecessary to have such a program on my computer in the first place. I want to buy the music I want legally. I really do. I'm one of those guys who believes in paying for the music I own. I don't like giving it away either. At best, I'm like a drug dealer who will give you a sample, but you'll have to buy the rest on your own if you really like it. :-)
In the end, I opted out. I refused to download the service and now I'm wanting for certain songs. It turns out that I lost most of my Paul McCartney singles. I was gonna make a better version (in my opinion) of his All The Best compilation. I put songs I ripped from CDs that I then discarded into that folder. Later, my computer became so unstable that I had to reset it to factory settings. I ditched that folder in my frenzied back-up thinking it was just the songs from the All The Best album. Oops!
I first tried getting them illegally (I once owned the albums, that was my justification) but it seems I can't even do that right. I got the .rar for his Flaming Pie album but I couldn't unRAR it, because I didn't have the password. What the fuck?! So I ended up paying for the two songs I wanted off that album. The songs I couldn't get off of iLike are available on iTunes which just sucks... Anyone who has "Too Many People", "My Brave Face", and "Put It There"...I'd be much obliged.
iTunes, seriously, the trick to making it so that people don't steal the product you're offering is to both offer a consistently high-quality sound file and to do so WITHOUT UNNECESSARY HURDLES, but no...you've decided to go the asshole route...
A few months goes by and I decide that I want to start purchasing songs. It turns out that LaLa had gone out of business since then but I was recommended iLike.com on the out-of-business page. I signed up for them and promptly bought ten songs that day. Again, no muss, no fuss. Just 99¢ a song and that was it. However, iLike doesn't have every song I'm looking for but it will direct me to iTunes since they have it. I didn't want to sign up for another site but I wanted the song so I decided iTunes could be my alternate.
And that's when I ran into trouble...
For some reason, it is not enough to simply sign up for iTunes. I must also download some program first. WHY?! Neither LaLa nor iLike requires that I download a program to get their music. It's a simple transfer of data after my purchase is completed. But no, iTunes has to be fucking difficult. Now I'm sure there's no problem with the thing they want to download, but it's the principle of it all. I don't want to download it and it's already been shown that it is entirely unnecessary to have such a program on my computer in the first place. I want to buy the music I want legally. I really do. I'm one of those guys who believes in paying for the music I own. I don't like giving it away either. At best, I'm like a drug dealer who will give you a sample, but you'll have to buy the rest on your own if you really like it. :-)
In the end, I opted out. I refused to download the service and now I'm wanting for certain songs. It turns out that I lost most of my Paul McCartney singles. I was gonna make a better version (in my opinion) of his All The Best compilation. I put songs I ripped from CDs that I then discarded into that folder. Later, my computer became so unstable that I had to reset it to factory settings. I ditched that folder in my frenzied back-up thinking it was just the songs from the All The Best album. Oops!
I first tried getting them illegally (I once owned the albums, that was my justification) but it seems I can't even do that right. I got the .rar for his Flaming Pie album but I couldn't unRAR it, because I didn't have the password. What the fuck?! So I ended up paying for the two songs I wanted off that album. The songs I couldn't get off of iLike are available on iTunes which just sucks... Anyone who has "Too Many People", "My Brave Face", and "Put It There"...I'd be much obliged.
iTunes, seriously, the trick to making it so that people don't steal the product you're offering is to both offer a consistently high-quality sound file and to do so WITHOUT UNNECESSARY HURDLES, but no...you've decided to go the asshole route...