Goodbye Daylight Savings Time, Hello Favorite Sardines!

Posted on November 7, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Saturday night the time CHANGED.

Sounds like a sci-fi movie, right? The Time has changed into a huge hulking beast that is gonna tear up your hometown, but not really hurt anyone.

You may think I am going to bash Daylight Savings Time here, as people are wont to do out here in the far  reaches of the internet wasteland, but you would be mistaken.

Instead, I’m going to say that I like it.

For one thing, you never hear people bitch about Daylight Savings Time when it’s time to “Fall Back” and we all get an extra hour of sleep. Although being on a Saturday night, this doesn’t mean a whole lot to most of us, but to people who attend early Mass this is quite a boon. Also, for a lot of people, it means an extra hour of party time. For me, personally, it means an extra hour of sleep, because I work on the weekends while the rest of you are doing your weekend stuff, like late-night-that-turns-into-early-morning video game sessions.

Unfortunately, it also means that we get shorted an hour of sleep come “Spring Forward” time. This is when all the “We don’t need Daylight Savings Time anymore because farmers and blah blah blah yackity shmackity” people come out in full force, mostly because they are crybabies about being shorted an hour of sleep on a Saturday night.

To me, Daylight Savings is a great example of the inherent “give and take” nature of life. If you are on a midnight shift at work, for example, then on “Fall Back” night you hafta work an extra hour (but you get paid for it, at least where I work). But! When “Spring Forward” night comes around, you only hafta work 7 hours, instead of the 8 that you get paid for.

I also like Daylight Savings Time because I feel like we get “Bonus Night Time” and, as we all know, the night time is the right time. I realize that it is not the Time Change or the clock that gives us this night time, but that it is the inevitable conquering of the Forces of Good by the Forces of Evil and whatnot that happens every year around this time. So we celebrate the longer nights and shorter days as the forces of Darkness hold sway over all the Earth, at least for a little while. A fact that I have perfectly illustrated here, with the Debbil smashing that bad ol’ clock back into “Darkness Rules” time.

"Devil smash!!!!"

It’s fun to think that, anyway.

Rotation of the Earth, tilt on its axis, and shit.

One interesting side effect of the time change is that the crowd at the JFZ was different today.

Mondays are always the busiest day at the gym. I attribute this to two sociological/psychological causes:

1. People feel like Mondays suck a fat one anyway, so you may as well wake up at the crack of dawn and go to the gym.

2. Mondays are like mini-January 2nd’s. It’s the beginning of a new week, you spent the weekend being a total loser and watching teevee and munching leftover Halloween treats, so now a new week is like a fresh start, a time to get back on the horse and really do it this time.

Well, today the JFZ was not as crowded as it normally is on a Monday, which means that the parking situation was not a complete Charlie Foxtrot, as it normally is on Mondays (the parking at the JFZ is a whole ‘nother issue, which I plan to address eventually). As far as the whys of the JFZ not being as crowded, I do not have an answer, but I do have some theories. The most obvious one is that everyone simply forgot to change their clocks and alarm clocks, so they could have shown up after I left, thinking it was 6am instead of 7am.

Once inside the JFZ, none of the usual lions were there. None. Strange. It makes me even more sure that they travel in roving packs, so that when one is absent, they are all absent. It doesn’t really matter to me anyway, as lions do not show much interest in the workemout machines (like the ToT), preferring the more advanced shit like free weights and barbells and dumbbells and any other bells that may be littered about the savanna. The only explanation for their absence that I can come up with is that, given that they are wild beasts, they prefer to be home before the sun comes up, which would have been impossible if they didn’t get there before 5:30am, which is usually when I arrive. Perhaps they had already fitnessed by then, but since I have observed the lions at length, I don’t think so.

I think a more practical answer is that they are still at home grieving Bama’s loss to LSU over the weekend, as nearly every lion I’ve ever seen in the JFZ is also a Bammer. I know this because they’ve talked (loudly, I might add) about nothing else but this game for the past month. So maybe they are just at home in a state of mourning.

I will admit, it felt extremely strange to be leaving the JFZ in full daylight. Before Satan crushed the clock, when I left the JFZ it was still dark outside, which made me feel really productive. A friend of mine once said that when you get up really early in the morning, you feel productive all day, even if you don’t really do anything, and I agree with him. Coming out of the JFZ into a still-dark parking lot made me feel like, “Heh heh, everyone else is still asleep, but I’ve been working it out! So I am better than everyone else.” Coming out of the JFZ into the daylight makes me just reach for my sunglasses and feel like I’m already behind in what I want to get accomplished today (which isn’t much besides this blog and going to work and playing Warhammer Online).

Yeah. So hurray for “Fall Back” time, right? Yes. Hurray for more nighttime and less piercing, burning suntime!

Change of subject

Last night I traveled to the local Super Target. I don’t know if Target is on that blog “Stuff that the White Folk Enjoy”, but it should be, because Target gives us low prices and, as a huge bonus, a feeling of superiority over the poor saps who shop at the Wal-Mart.

There is no denying that Super Target is a wondrous place.

I normally do my grocery tradin’ at the Winn-Dixie, but last night the wife wanted to go to Target so I thought I would go ahead and pick up a few of my grocery items.

In my shopping cart, there are a few staples that are always up in there (lately, anyway):

Triscuits, sardines, apples, yogurt, granola, coffee.

I went to the “canned meat” section (as a side note, this section is only moderately busy at Winn-Dixie, but was nearly abandoned at Target, as I assume the wanna-be yuppies who do their tradin’ there feel they are too good for any sort of “tinned” meat product).

There, amongst the usual assortment of sardines, sat numerous cans of my most favorite sardine in the whole entire universe!!!!!!11111!!!!!1

I thought that these cans of sardines were extinct, as I haven’t seen them at Winn-Dixie in a looong time, but it turns out that Winn-Dixie just stopped catering to my own particular taste in Sardinery.

King Oscar Brand Mediterranean Style Sardines!!!!

Expect a full-on lovefest review tomorrow.

I bought 4 cans last night, and ate one immediately upon arrival at the casa, with a side of these:

Famous Amos Spicy Pickle Chips!!!

Famous Dave’s is a BBQ joint that may, or may not, be out of business. All the ones that I knew about are all closed, but apparently Famous Dave is still cranking out his delicious spicily-sweet pickles. I can’t believe spellcheck didn’t just underline “spicily”. I guess it’s a real word. Shame.

I know I have a stomach like a goat, but these pickles are fucking awesome and I very nearly ate the whole damn jar before realizing that my stomach was pissed at having so much vinegar and weird spices thrown on it all of a sudden. Plus, these pickles were not cheap, so eating them all at once did not make much financial sense, and the fiscal consequences of my diet are something that I need to keep in mind during these times of more-expensive-than-skim-milk gasoline and economic uncertainty.

Anyway, a dinner of sardines, triscuits, and pickles is healthy, right?

At least it ain’t fried chickens.

Posted in About Fitness, General dorky shit | 2 Comments

JFZ Savanna Mating Rituals & Moustache Wax Reviews Part 1: Firehouse Wax

Posted on November 4, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Before we get to the Waxing of the Moustaches of Movember, I wanted to ask all you regular gym-goers out there a question:

(((It’s been awhile since I’ve talked, at length, about the gym ecosystem, so if you are unaware of my use of the African Savanna as a metaphor for the gym, it all started right here, and I encourage you to go check it out)))

Lately I’ve been noticing a weird ritual being performed by some of the younger members of the pride of lions that prowl around my particular JFZ savanna. I am convinced it is some sort of mating dance, intended to, of course, lure a mate into Coitus Uninterruptus. I am assuming this is necessary because the males of the species vastly outnumber the ladylions. I am unfamiliar with the mating habits of lions/gym rats, so I’m wondering if they mate for life or not. If they do mate for life, these young lions must be attempting to bait a lioness away from her spouse, for which I think these young lions deserve a proper thrashing by their superiors. Being as the older lions have yet to administer said thrashing and, further, continue to allow this mating habit to continue, leads this humble Wildlife Observer to presume that the JFZ species of lion does not mate for life, but instead are hedonists of the highest order.

Of course, there is always the possibility that what I am perceiving as a mating ritual could, in fact, be something else. My only hope is that it is not the dance they do before they begin the wanton slaughter of the trespassing wildebeests in their midst.

Ok, here’s what it is, gym rats. Help a wildebeest out:

Step 1 of African Anteater Ritual: the young lions form a line.

Step 2: Then, they all sling a weight over their shoulder. We’re talking at least 3 lions here, but most times it is 4 or 5.

Step 3: They all get in a line. Picture the elephants in the Jungle Book.

Step 4: This is the key step here. They all parade around the savanna, bending at the knee, in unison, in a line.

I promise to all things holy that I am not making this shit up. They literally form a parade, some sort of fitnessing conga line, and lunge their way around the workout floor in a line.

I rarely say this in real life, but: what the fuck is up wit’ dat????

Surely there is a logical explanation and I’m just missing it. If they are genuinely attempting the African Anteater Ritual then, for one, they’re going about it all wrong. But I swear it looks like these lions are attempting some form of ritualistic behavior, spurred on by their high levels of testosterone.

“Oh dear, her departure says it all…”

Moustache Wax Review #1: Dark & Wacky Tacky

At some point, and this point may be passed as far as I know, it became cool again to have a moustache. Not that I’m a trendsetter, far from it, but about 5 years ago I went as Ed Wood for Halloween. For my Ed Wood costume, I grew out a pencil-thin moustache… which was mercilessly ridiculed by all my too-cool-for-school friends (a moustache, even a pencil-thin one, does not grow in one day, so I had a moustache for a good few weeks before Halloween).

It wasn’t long before these same mothertruckers all grew out moustaches, because it was suddenly fashionable to do so, a fact that I could not let slide by. “You assholes all made fun of my moustache, but now you grow them out!” or something to that effect.

I’ve never been a moustache sort of chap, preferring the “all or nothing” theory towards facial hair. Meaning, a full beard or nothing at all.

Of course, when you have a “full” beard, you have a moustache also, though I don’t know if, by moustache etiquette rules and standards, you can properly call it a moustache if it covers your whole damn face. Although a full beard sans moustache would certainly not be “full” and would, in fact, look rather ridiculous, if you ask me. I don’t know if there is a term for such a facial hairdo, but the term “jackanape” pops immediately to mind.

Periodically, I have grown out the full beard. Now being one of those periods.

To me, I grow out a full beard, not as some sort of statement or anything, but really just to look more like a character out of Tolkien or a Viking. The periods when I grow out a full beard tend to, not coincidentally, coincide with the periods in my life when I experience a spike in my interest in Fantasy.

I’ve never liked the too-well-groomed facial hair either (though I think a properly waxed moustache can look very dapper). This is the type of facial ‘do preferred by athletes and other assorted douschbags everywhere. You know what I’m talking about: the facial hair that is extremely well-maintained and usually cut into angles and shit.

When I played WoW, one of my favorite characters was a dwarf hunter named Jobby. I was normally a Horde player, but the lure of the dwarven beardishness was just too good to resist. I don’t have any pictures of Jobby (may he rest in peace), but I did find a small picture of the exact beard that he had:

Jobby Beard

Jobby had crimson hair though, not this strawberry blond bullmess that this dwarf has. Point is, a full beard, complete with handlebar moustache.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the ultimate goal in my facial hair right now. Whether I reach these goals will depend on many things: how much of a pain in the ass it is to maintain, whether the wife drugs me and cuts it off in my sleep, how much I feel like a total social pariah, etc.

But that is the goal for now.

The means to this end are simple:

For the beard, all I need is time and a decent pair of hedge clippers to keep it from looking like an upside-down Buckwheat farm.

For the handlebars, I need a good wax, which is where Firehouse Brand Moustache Wax comes in.

The way I started buying wax for my facial hair actually has nothing to do with handlebar moustaches. I started looking into waxes as a way to keep my beard well-groomed and to tame it into submission, as my beard hair is incredibly curly and nappy.

I first tried to put pomade on it. The good ol’ Murray’s, that has never let me down in my hair-holding-in-place needs. Unfortunately, the thing about Murray’s is that it has the consistency of automotive grease, which means that my beard, while having a pleasant aroma, had the texture and consistency of 3-day-old roadkill. This was unacceptable, to say the least.

I needed something that was drier. Something that may go on wet, but would eventually harden and not leave me feeling like I had a greasy dead possum under my chin.

That is what led me to waxes and, eventually, to Firehouse Brand Moustache Wax.

I will say, up front, that so far this is the sturdiest and best wax for a moustache that I have yet to find. So if you’re looking for “cons” about Firehouse, you may want to look somewhere else.

First off, I ordered the wax straight from the Firehouse website, which you can go to HERE. Be forewarned that the site will attempt to bombard you with add-ons and other junk that could potentially make it a pain in the ass to load and will, if left to its own devices, play some music, which I did not personally care for.

The wax is also available via Amazon, which is where I usually do my internet tradin’, but you will get it cheaper by skipping the middle man and ordering it from the Firehouse website.

Part of the reason I was curious about this wax is that it appealed to my nostalgic nature by alluding to a bygone era when I like to imagine that all firemen had badass handlebar moustaches to repel the roaring inferno from infiltrating their mouth. I was picturing a fireman from the inside of Blazing Fury, and I like that look of vintage fireman memorabilia.

I am also under the impression that someone, somewhere, is making this stuff in their house, which makes me like it even more that it’s not getting cranked out of an assembly line in some grey factory somewhere.

The wax also arrived swiftly, which is something I was moderately concerned about since I have been spoiled rotten by my Amazon Prime membership.

I opened my small package and found two tins of the stuff.

a tin of the stuff!

Now, I don’t know what it is, or why it is, but I frackin love shit that comes in tins. Even tiny ones like this! I buy all my pipe tobacco in tins solely because of the tins and tins tins tins tins tins tins tins. Tins.

I purchased two ummm… containers of it, both “Dark” and “Wacky Tacky”. The only way to distinguish between the two is a small sticker on the bottom:

Wacky Tacky

This picture is blurry because my camera sucks, but it says right there: “Tacky”.

Dark

 

When you open it up, it rather resembles shoe polish:

opened up

 

As you can deduce from this photo, I used the “thumbnail” method of wax application. This means that you run your thumbnail over it, piling up a bit of the wax on it, then take the wax and rub it between your fingers until it is soft enough to work into your moustache without ripping it out. We’re waxing the moustache, not waxing it.

Today I actually used a lighter and melted a bit of it, then applied. This seemed to work a bit better because, let me tell you, this stuff is some sho’ nuff wax, and if you don’t get it a bit soft before trying to apply it, it will make you cry like a guy getting his moustache waxed.

For my handlebar purposes, this stuff curled my moustache and made me look like a fireman better than any other wax I have tried yet. For my beard-tamer purposes, this stuff is just too stiff and hard to apply to my beard without taking a good twelve hours to do it properly, but that is more than ok because it is, after all, Firehouse Moustache Wax, not Firehouse Moustache Wax and Beard Tamer.

To be honest, I couldn’t tell a whole helluva lot of difference between the Dark and the Wacky Tacky. I think the Tacky is supposed to be stiffer, but they both seemed to be quite stiff in my experiments with them.

As far as odor goes, which is a big part of the facial hair wax experience, it has a pleasant odor of, well, wax. It doesn’t really smell like anything in particular other than some fine waxing wax. Maybe a hint of something manly like a campfire or something, but nothing overpowering.

All in all, if I were solely a moustache man, I would also solely be a Firehouse Moustache Wax man, and I will gladly purchase this product again when these tins run out… which should be around the year 2037 or so, providing the Mayans don’t murder us all first and whoever is making this stuff didn’t take his/her secret recipe to the grave with them.

No posts on the weekend, remember, so I’ll see you all back here Monday with, possibly, more Moustache Wax reviews (though I may have had my fill of typing “moustache” or “wax” by then).

Posted in About Fitness, General dorky shit, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Fitocracy

Posted on November 3, 2011 by bayoubabylon

301 Days Until Dragon*Con 2012…

Before we go any further, you need to read THIS ARTICLE about Fitocracy.

Not only do I like Fitocracy, but I’m also a member. In fact, here’s a link to my profile on there. You’ll notice that I am only a level 6 Fitocrat, barely a scrub in the world of Online Fitnessing Adventure. This is because I haven’t been doing Fitocracy for very long, and also because half the time I forget to log my workouts, and you can only go back a few days to log past workouts (I completely forgot to log anything last week).

I am also a member of the group “Dragon*Con”. A group on fitocracy could be compared to a Guild or Kinship in an MMO game.

I received an invitation from someone on the FFDC facebook page, and immediately joined when I realized that it put fitness into terms I could understand (“quests”, “leveling up”, etc.). Until I read this article on CNN.com, I had no clue that it was actually started by two gamer types, such as myself.

I knew that I wasn’t the first “fitness for geeks” blog out there, I figured with the absolute media blitzkrieg of “geek mania” lately, that someone had to have done it already. But I didn’t figure on Fitocracy which, to me, is pure internet genius.

The Stereotype

Check out this guy (pic stolen shamelessly from the internet, who stole it from the South Park episode, “Make Love, Not Warcraft” which is about WoW and is a brilliant episode, imo). This is your average, stereotypical gamer.

This stereotype exists for a reason. It gets into it a bit in the article, but the reason this stereotype exists is because, believe it or not, it is more fun to play video games than go to the JFZ. The article gets into some stuff that, generally, I don’t agree with (the typical “videogames are like a drug” bullshit), but it does key in on one point: that the gaming personality is actually well-suited for setting fitness goals and then working towards achieving them, it just has to be on the gamer’s terms and presented to him/her in a way that they can dissect and figure out.

See, exercise and fitness are not things that the gamer normally can understand. If you were to break down nerd/geek culture into stereotypes, in many ways it would be the Gamer class that I most identify with. Ever since Atari came out and I got my first Nintendo (my folks got me an 8-bit NES set with the gun and with Mike Tyson’s Punchout and Contra. One of the best Christmases ever), I have thoroughly enjoyed video games. But not just video games, I also have always enjoyed all types of games, from D&D, to Warhammer, to board games, I’ve played them all and enjoyed every minute of it.

Anyway, gamers like me have always had a hard time understanding the lions/gym rats out there in the world. My dad once said, “The first time I see a jogger smiling, that’s when I’ll take it up”, and this kinda sums up the gamer’s attitude (by the way, while never taking up jogging, my dad now walks several miles a day). Playing Contra is fun, and physical labor is definitely not fun. Plus, it takes a lot of dedication to be good at a MMO, which leaves precious little time for anything else (like boring things like family, work, school, fitnessing, etc.).

And there’s just not a lot of motivation for the gamer to get fit. A hardcore gamer, like the fella shown in the picture above, is not interested in getting laid, not when there’s epic gear to be had! The hardcore gamer doesn’t give a crap about eating right, who’s got time to prepare a balanced meal during a raid???

The point of all this rambling is that geeks/nerds/gamers/whatthefuckever need motivation. For the most part, other gamers are all with them online, and a good raiding guild can be very demanding of a person’s time (I would explain what a “raiding guild” is, but I honestly can’t wait to log on to Warhammer Online, hahahaha. Irony.).

The point of Fitocracy is the same point of FFDC: to get us all out from behind our computers and up on our feet, with celery in our mouth instead of lying cake. The stereotype exists, but that does not mean that we hafta live up to it (I know I harp on this subject all the time, but my bad). There’s a lot of pressure in the world for us to live up to stereotypes. Not just nerds/geeks (though nowadays there is more pressure than ever to do just that), but everyone. I live in the South, the absolute Deepest part of it as a matter of fact, and you would not believe the pressure down here to live up to the stereotype of the typical Southern Man (picture Joe the Cable Guy, or whatever that poser motherfucker’s name is). But why would I want to pretend that I give a shit about something that I couldn’t care less about, when on Fitocracy (and hopefully, here too) I can meet up with other people who are not ashamed that they like Fantasy more than Football, or BSG more than working on cars? There’s no point in that, whatsoever. Plus, I can admit that I like video games, but have also developed and cultivated a keen interest in getting fit as shit so that I can wear a badass costume for Dragon*Con 2012.

I promise that, out of the lions who prowl the savanna of the JFZ daily, there are some who would rather be discussing Tolkien than discussing whether Alabama is going to beat LSU this weekend (and believe me, these dumbass lions have been growling about nothing else for the past month).

I know this post was very rambly, but I haven’t had much sleep and I really wanted to sing the praises of Fitocracy, a website who is part of our brethren and who is doing more for my cause than I can ever hope to.

Before we go, I also wanted to say that I don’t know if you need an invite to join Fitocracy or not anymore. I know you used to. So if you need an invite, and want to join the Dragon*Con group over there, just holler at me and I’ll get you one asap.

Tomorrow: I review beard/moustache waxes. Movember and shit.

Posted in About Fitness, About Media, General dorky shit | 10 Comments

Back in the JFZ

Posted on November 1, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Yesterday I was brimming with confidence about getting back into the gym this morning. When the alarm went off at 5am however, I was wondering where that fitness exuberance had gone because my body protested getting out of bed and very nearly went into full-blown rebellion.

It just goes to show that even a few days off, spent doing whatever is most comfortable, can derail your fitness plans in a heartbeat.

Disregarding my flabby body’s disgruntlement at having been awoken and forced to move about way before it was ready, I got up and headed out to the JFZ, but first it was time to put the trash out by the road.

5am is a very peaceful time in my neighborhood. The only sounds are from the nearby “main road” and the occasional barking and yowling of people’s domesticated beasts. I needed to make sure I got the trash out to the road this morning because we currently have party-garbage coming out of our ears. If you have never dealt with party-garbage before, then I envy you because it is an entirely different monster on its own.

While your normal, everyday, garbage probably consists of old newspapers, coffee grounds, banana peels, or junk mail, about the worst thing you will encounter in your everyday garbage is a rotten egg, or stinky shrimp heads (a common garbage component here).

Party-garbage, on the other hand, consists of some of the worst shit you will ever have the displeasure of smelling in your life. I contribute this to many things: rotten, old beer (TONS of that), dried-up, discarded cups of my trademark Zombie Punch (what smells like a delicious tropical alcoholic beverage tonight, smells like Harry Belafonte’s breath after he’s been on a 3-week bender tomorrow, and gets progressively worse), and, of course, miscellaneous weird-o party smells that could be a mix of any number of utterly vile and disgusting things (vomitus, random “sexual” odors, etc.). Plus, while dealing with party-garbage there is always a distinct chance that you may encounter the most repugnant substance in the world: party-garbage juice. If this stuff runs out of some crevice somewhere and gets on you, you must throw away whatever article of clothing it got on. But if it gets on your skin, I hate to be the bearer of bad gnus, but you’re gonna hafta chop it off, whether it be your hand or leg or whatever, because you will never get that body part clean enough for you to feel comfortable eating. So you must choose: lop off the hand, or starve to death. Do not fret, perhaps you will get a Darth Vader hand! Then you can eat and chokeslam bitchass insubordinate officers at the same time!

If you ever had a friend in college who lived in the “Party House”, or if you yourself lived in that house, then you know the types of odors and textures that I’m talking about here.

So with that said, I had to get the garbage out to the street asap this morning, which meant rolling that big noisy fucker out to the street while my neighbors are all asleep. No problem, since my neighbors all suck anyway.

See, there’s this guy who is always out walking when I’m leaving for the JFZ. We’re pretty much on the same schedule, most of the time. As I’m pulling out of the driveway, he comes trucking by, “powerwalking” I think it is called, his little arms just a-chugging away like he was milking a cow. And he looks a bit like Steve Bartman, whom I both hate and feel incredibly sorry for at the same time.

Well, this morning I didn’t even think about Walker, and when I got the garbage can out to the street, narrowly avoiding cascading party-garbage water that came out from under the lid from some dark black hole into another dimension somewhere under there, we startled each other. I didn’t hear him coming because my garbage can sounds like a Sherman tank rolling down the driveway, and I guess he didn’t notice me because he was so concentrated on his fitnessing and not freezing to death (it was cold as a mug this morning, for the Deep South and my tropical blood anyway).

We both had a good startle-y jump, and I smiled and said “Good morning!”

He did not respond.

I checked for earphones or buds. Nothing. He heard me. He just chose not to acknowledge me or my Good Morning.

That kind of shit pisses me off. Who is this turd? Up at 5am doing his stupid powerwalking around the neighborhood, frightening innocent JFZ-goers. Go to the mall, dickhead! That’s where all you ben-gay snorters go for your buttcrack-o-dawn cardio, isn’t it???

Now, you may be thinking, “Perhaps he was so startled by you being there that he was at a loss for words.”

No. I refuse to believe that. I was startled also, and I seriously doubt he didn’t see me before I saw him, he just chose to be a jackass.

So here’s what I’m thinking of doing…

AMBUSH.

That’s right. Tomorrow, when my alarm goes off at 5am, I might get up, skip my yogurt and granola, and go hide in the bushes. I think you can put together the rest of the story…

Yes. I jump out of the bushes when he comes by and yell “GOOD MORNING ASSHOLE!!!!” or something to that effect. Hopefully it will be enough to send him straight-away into cardiac arrest. Karma is a motherfucker, Walker.

Ok, so I probably won’t do that, but I’ll think about it. I will think long and hard and rub my beard on it. And tomorrow when my alarm goes off, I will consider it very carefully, finally deciding that it is too cold for such things, and what if Walker has a damn taser or pepper spray? Then I would have to kill him with my bare hands, and going to jail sucks.

But I will laugh every time I see Walker from now on, imagining him scared out of his sweatbritches and scurrying away like the rat that he is, as I chase behind him, flapping my arms and bellowing about Good Mornings. It’d probably be enough to cure him of his penchant for early-morning powerwalking outside of the mall, and enough to possibly net me a lovely visit with the local police department. “Coffee, gentlemen?”

Anyway. The JFZ was fine today, and while I felt good about myself getting “back on the horse”, there was no point in my workout when my body relented trying to get me to go home and get back in bed. I kept thinking that, eventually, it would realize it had lost and give up, but no, it fought me tooth and nail from the ToT up to the Whirly Bird. In fact, I had to remind the Whirly Bird that, even if I didn’t make it the full 35 minutes, it was because my body was on strike and not because he had beaten me.

Today, as is often the case, I made an ass out of myself. I don’t know about you, but a lot of times I forget where I am while on the Whirly Bird. I haven’t decided if this is a good thing or not because I figure it means I’m either in fitness nirvana or I’m about to have a stroke. I also forget that I have on headphones and that any noise I make with my mouth is going to be infinitely louder in real life than it sounds to me.

Today on one of the tv’s they were showing footage from that speech where Howard Dean made that “Byahhhh!” noise and pumped his fist. The one that Dave Chappelle skewered so brilliantly on his ill-fated television programme.

Here’s footage of that poor bastard, immediately followed by the Chappelle version, which will forever make me think the Howard Dean “Byaaaah!” is funny as all hell…

Unfortunately for me, I think it is so funny that I simply must imitate it every time I see it. So that’s what I did before I even thought about how stupid I would look, whirly-birdying away on the elliptical and going “Byahhh!”

This probably added to my growing list of “titles” in other JFZ-ers COC roster. Now I’m not only “that guy who did a victory dance on the elliptical” but I’m also, “that crazy bearded guy who Byahhh-ed really loud for no reason”. No big deal, at least I’m not “Lumpy” or “Bird Shit Hair”.

The employee guy whose job it is to mop up the treadmills and birds and bulls, I am convinced, already thinks I’m a weirdo. He comes all around the Whirly B that I am on, wiping down all the machines and giving me a stinkeye like I’m gonna attempt to steal the Star Trac Whirly Bird that I use every day.

And yes, it is called a “Star Trac” and I have no doubt that this is an allusion to “Star Trek”. Does this make me love this particular Whirly Bird more than others? No. So why do I use this same one every day? Because it has a fan on it, and because the console looks like this:

Star Trac Voyager

See that deal at the top? The vent thing? That is a fan! Your own personal fan that has 3 settings (if you count “off” as a setting, which you probably shouldn’t)!

Plus, does not this futuristic fitnessing device look like a frackin Cylon toaster? This may explain why I feel the Whirly Bird is responsible for so much evil in the world.

Another good thing about the Star Trac is that it is big, way bigger than the other Whirly Birds, with footpedals that are more than adequate for my gargantuan paws, and the “handles” (or “horns” as I like to call them. What kind of bird has horns, you ask? A Whirly Bird, straight from the bowels of Hell) are really big and high also, which accommodates my excessive height. The other Whirly Birds all have small pedals and short handles, which make me feel like I’m bent over the whole time, and make me think I look awkward, which I probably do, no matter which elliptical device I use, like a crane who is trying to take off from the ground but finds out he is tethered to a rock.

So there it is, we’re back in the gym after a brief hiatus for celebrating the spirit of Samhain, and the future is so bright I gotta wear shades…

Posted in About Fitness, About Me, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Haunted Mansion Records Part 3

Posted on October 31, 2011 by bayoubabylon

304 Days until Dragon*Con 2012….

Also, in other D*C news, out of the five host hotels, only the Westin Peachtree Plaza still has rooms left for the 2012 con. So if you want to stay in a host hotel, get on it!!! Their phone number is 404-659-1400.

And before we get on to finishing up our look at Haunted Mansion records, I need to do more confessing…

I haven’t been to the JFZ since Wednesday of last week. Today is Monday, in case you’re like me and have been in a drunken stupor the last 4 days. Here’s the excuses…

1. Thursday I slept most of the day after being up all night Wednesday night. Thursday night was a Shonen Knife show that I attended and, while I didn’t get completely smashed out of my pumpkin, I was up till 4am…

2. Which leads to Friday and sleeping all day and feeling like crap.

3. Saturday I had to work and then spent the rest of the day decorating and getting ready for the party. Then I had our annual Halloween party and got completely blind stinking drunk.

4. Yesterday was spent sleeping and feeling like crap.

5. Today is Halloween and I’m still feeling the effects of Saturday night. Plus I hafta spend today cleaning up from Saturday night and watching movies and playing video games.

Tomorrow will see a return to form as I plan to wake up at 5am and get back to the JFZ and the smiley girl at the desk, who probably will wonder why I’ve been such a slacker. So I really only skipped two days, because I never go to the JFZ on Thursdays or the weekend anyway. No big deal, but we can’t have it turn into a big deal, which will mean whoopin that Whirly Bird’s ass tomorrow, lest he get too comfortable and smug.

With all that said…

Happy Flippin Halloweeeeeeennn!!!!!!

I wish you all nothing but the best on this scariest day of the year, when the veil between light and dark is at its thinnest, and the dead are closer than ever!

A friend of mine shared this with me one year, so now I’ll share it with you:

How could anyone not love the Onion?

I can’t believe that Halloween is already here! I had so much that I wanted to get to, but never did! I guess those things will hafta be saved for next year. Which is good, in a way, because I can kinda have a tendency to blow my wad.

Today’s post is going to deal with, obviously, the last two Haunted Mansion records that I own. The first one being this:

I honestly don’t know much about this record, other than that it was released as a “sequel” to the original “Chilling, Thrilling, Sounds of the Haunted House”. Unlike the original (the white cover one we talked about a couple posts ago), this one doesn’t have a story with it. It is just sound effects. And to be honest, not very good ones at that. I think all critics would agree with me that this one doesn’t really hold a candle to the original, although I have heard many say that this one is actually scarier than the original. I also don’t like the cover art for this one as much as the original, so that makes this one all-around a sub-par release in the Disney “Haunted Mansion”-related records. Recommended only for doofuses like me who want to “collect em all!”

The next one is this one:

The A Side of this record contains the audio from the “Trick or Treat” short that we watched a few posts back. You can probably guess that from the cover. It also included 2 masks, which I don’t have and they didn’t come with the record when I got it offa the ebay. I actually got this record for extremely cheap because I bought it in a lot with the Mary Poppins record and Winnie the Pooh. Normally, this record will go for around $10 on ebay by itself, but I think it slid under Haunted Mansion collectors’ noses because it was just grouped in with the other records. I think I got them all for under $5.

The B Side is an abbreviated version of the Haunted Mansion record we looked at in the last post, the one with the book attached. It includes a short version of the story, followed by “Grim Grinning Ghosts”.

This next record, and the last in my collection, is my 3rd favorite in my collection and is one of those “read along” records that everyone had when they were a kid.

I like this one only slightly less than the book one we looked at yesterday, only because these .45rpm read-along book and record sets were so common, yet you almost never see a .33rpm read-along LP like the one we looked at yesterday.

Once again, we get the raven on the cover, who is, of course, the narrator of this story.

“Have you ever been in a Haunted Mansion?”

You may notice that the look of this Haunted Mansion is more like from the cover of the original “Chilling Thrilling Sounds” record than like the actual Haunted Mansion ride. This record was released in 1970 (41 years ago! lawd.), after the ride had been opened in 1969 in Disneyland, so I have no clue as to why they didn’t make the Mansion in this book resemble either of the Haunted Mansions that were in operation in the parks. But, therein could be the reason: perhaps they didn’t want to alienate anyone by making either the East Coast Mansion or the West Coast Mansion appear as though it were the “official” Haunted Mansion of Disney. It also could have been that they just wanted to keep the Mansion looking the same to preserve the records’ continuity and theme.

Either way, I like the look of this Mansion here. And the smiling ghosts let you know that this story may be a bit spooky, but it wont be just downright pants-wetting scary.

a good look at the Mansion, some grinning ghosts, and the Raven

the stretching room

I really love this artist’s rendering of the Stretching Room. I love the original paintings by Marc Davis. In fact, I love them so much that I have reproductions framed and hanging in my living room year-round! I know, I am stupid.

MINOR SPOILER: I like that the top of this Stretching Room is left open to the sky, so that it preserves the surprise that waits in the top of the Stretching Room in the ride

the Bride and the Hatbox Ghost

Here are two items that are no longer in the Mansion ride: the original “beating heart” bride, and the Hatbox Ghost we mentioned before. And also the Raven narrator! One of the reasons all this early Mansion collectible stuff is so valuable is because it all features characters like the Hatbox Ghost who no longer even exist! So it gives HM fans a kind of window into the past of what the Mansion was like originally, and how it was originally presented to the public, as designed by Walt, Rolly Crump, Marc Davis, Harper Goff, and a host of other Disney legends, artists, and assorted geniuses.

So, I hope you all have a great Halloween! Watch something scary, allow yourself to be scared by it, then hide under the covers and eat a piece of candy! but not too much, this is still FITfordragoncon, after all!

Tomorrow we’ll meet back here at the rendezvous point and move towards the holiday season and, as always, one day closer to Dragon*Con and our fitness goals.

Happy Halloween!!!

Posted in About Fitness, About Media, General dorky shit | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments