Twenty-Four

I just finished watching Season 1 of "24". I know most of you are probably way beyond discussing it at this point, but I have some comments.

- One of the things that drives me nuts about movies and TV shows is when there are plot inconsistencies and/or when they try to pass off impossible stuff as totally plausible. Surprisingly this show managed to keep them to a minimum. Sure there was a fair amount of magic bullet dodging, and surprisingly little traffic in LA at all hours of the day, and the way it was pretty sunny at the end of the 7:00 p.m. hour and pitch black at the beginning of the 8:00 p.m. hour. (you might not have noticed that unless you watched the two episodes back-back on the DVD). Overall, though, it was pretty good.

- I hated Palmer's wife from the very first scene, but frankly was pretty bored with that entire subplot.

- Dennis Hopper has the worst Eastern European accent I think I have ever heard.

- I really liked the ending (my wife did NOT). I hate shows that have fantastic cliff-hangers at the end of one season only to find out in the beginning of next season that it was relatively meaningless. This was an actual ending - even if it wasn't a happy one.

- Overall, very good and I can't wait until I start watching Season 2.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 3, Day 5

Right now in the United States, we have a culture of people who refuse to accept responsibility for their problems. If we are clumsy and spill our coffee we sue McDonalds, If our kids are too fat, we again sue McDonalds, and any company that makes a product out of sugar. I could go on and on - we all love to blame others for our own shortcomings. In keeping with this tradition, I have been looking for someone to pin the blame on for my own weight issues. Last night, it came to me - It is all my wife's fault. She has always been something of a temptress (come to think of it, that's why I married her...) which, when paired with a man who has absolutely no willpower whatsoever, is a dangerous thing. Two nights ago, as I'm sitting down to a bowl of soup, she makes this ENORMOUS plate of cheese fries. To make matters worse, she only ate a couple of them, so the whole time I was slurping my soup, those fries were sitting there mocking me. I'll admit that I ate 4 - but then was able to resist. Then, last night, she brings out this STRAWBERRY PIE. A man can only take so much temptation before he gives in. I always say that if you are going to cheat, you might as well make it worthwhile (note: this philosphy ONLY applies to dieting, and nothing else. Well, maybe playing cards, but that's really it). I have no idea how many calories were in it, but I had some headroom, so I had a piece and enjoyed every delicious bite. I did manage to muster the willpower to decline the second piece (which my temptress of a wife offered me), though.

Workout: same old, same old - Although I did discover that my treadmill goes crazy exactly 24 minutes into the workout. I had the idea today to stop my workout, "reboot" the treadmill and see if it would behave for another 24 minutes, but no luck. I watched last night's earl which was very funny as usual, and part of the office.

Weigh-in: X - 14. Still holding from yesterday. Must have been that strawberry pie. Ah, well - still worth it.

Breakfast: So I decided to try the mushroom soup in a coffee cup again this morning. I used the same coffe cup as yesterday so I decided I should probably wash it out. After that was done, I made my soup, got in the car and left. A mile down the road, I took a sip and almost vomited. Apparently I had not RINSED out the cup well enough, so I got a mouthful of soapy mushroom soup. NOT a good combination. ugh. I resigned myself to not having anything else to eat until lunch. About 30 miles further down the road (I'm REALLY hungry by this time), I thought to myself - "I wonder if it was just on the lid, and the soap is really all gone now" - so like the young child who staples his own finger or touches the hot iron just to see if it really hurts, I took another sip. UGH - this one was even worse than the first. I actually spit it back out, and had to chew a piece of gum and guzzle a diet pepsi just to get the taste out of my mouth. Calories: 5 (from the gum)

Lunch: had to run to Radio shack to buy some stuff for gagknee and since my taste buds were still reeling from the soap incident, I decided to treat myself to some Lobster Bisque from d'angelos: 540 Calories. Fearing that would not be enough, I also got a bowl of their Hearty Vegetable: 60 Calories

Dinner: I got home and my wife had made tacos. I briefly argued with myself about whether or not I could call it soup if I ate it out of a bowl. In the end, I behaved my self - for a little while. 1 can of Progresso 99% fat free New England Clam Chowder. 240 Calories.

Dessert: So I was at the end of my day and my wife trots out the strawberry pie again. Then she tells me she made it with fat free jello and a fat free graham cracker crust and "light" whipped cream. So really when you think about it, it's like Diet pie - at least that is the justification I used when I had 2 slices. Best guess is about 600 calories.

Total Calories today: 1445

I really have a craving for salt and vinegar chips for some reason. Right now I am basically just wasting time until my week is over at midnight so I can have a few before I go to bed.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 3, Day 4

Hi MOM
So apparently my Mom has started reading this blog. I found out when she dropped off a bucket of her special home-made low-calorie (0 points on the weight watcher system, not sure how it translates into calories, but I'm guessing not very many) soup. Unfortunately, I had been looking forward to Cream of Mushroom all day, so I decided to have that instead. So I will eat Mom's soup tonight.

Low Carb bread?
Last night, I decided that the Pita Bread sitting on the counter would be good dipped in Cream of Mushroom soup. And it WOULD have been, I think, if it was REAL Pita bread. Unfortunately, it was "LOW CARB" pita bread. Now, if you know anything about baking, you know that making bread without carbs is pretty much impossible. So you may be asking yourself (as I did) - through what miracle of science have they been able to make low-carb pitas? I quickly found out when I took one out of the bag. IT WAS PAPER THIN!. It was like they had scraped all of the bread out of the pita, leaving just the "crust". Ugh. It reminded me of a very funny article I read a while back about low-carb bagels. Anyway, it tasted like I was dipping bread crusts in my soup - but without the bread part.

New Business Idea
I think I have struck on a golden marketing idea: Drinkable breakfast soups. My cream of Mushroom soup really hit the spot on the drive to work this morning. My idea is that you can pull up to the drive-up window like you would get your morning coffee and you would be all set. It'll warm you up on a cold day. It's nutritious and filling - and way less calories than all those sickeningly sweet lattes. If I can figure out a way to put caffeine in it, we're all set. Coming soon to an abandoned Aroma Joe's or Java Hut near you: Big A's Soup Kitchen. (for some reason, "Aroma Big A" just doesn't have the same ring to it)

Workout: same old, same old. Just hoping that the treadmill can hold out until I no longer exceed the weight limit on it - and then it should magically fix itself.

Weigh-in: X - 14. ah, well - not every day can be a good day.

Breakfast: Leftover Mushroom soup poured into a 16 oz travel coffee cup for sipping while driving to work. Approx: 250 calories

Lunch: Campbells Chunky Chili. "About" 440 Calories

Dinner: Campbells Chunky Beef and Vegetable. "About" 300 Calories
two bowls of Mom's soup accompanied by 2 Grilled Cheese Sammiches. about 400 Calories. Strawberry Pie.

Total for the day: 1530 + whatever was in the pie.

Continued

Guess what I'm going to do this summer?

Sorry if it seems like I'm bragging, but I'm very excited.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 3, Day 3

I was driving home last night from work, and I was playing Radio Roulette in between innings while listening to Matt Clement get pummelled in his best outing of the spring(now I'm worried) and I stumbled across The John Tesh Radio Show.

Apparently Mr. Tesh is not happy supplying the world with crappy music, so he also offers tons of advice on how we should live our lives. Everything from having a happy marriage to taking care of your pets to managing your money and yes, of course - dieting.

Anyway, he was tackling the subject of weighing yourself every day - a practice that is widely condemned by most so-called diet "experts" as being too discouraging, etc... and one that I have been engaging it. Apparently, according to John Tesh, those who WEIGH every day lose on average TWICE as much weight in a given time period as those who weigh themselves only once a week. Furthermore, the daily weighers are also more likely to keep the weight off over a 3-year time period.

Another thing he mentioned is that those who keep a daily log of their weigh-ins are also more likely to be successful - another practice that I have been engaging in. Sooo.. it is gratifying to know that I have John Tesh's approval.

Workout: About the same - treadmill is still acting up, but I powered through it. Had to get up a half-hour early AND cut my workout a couple of minutes short because I had to go to the Dentist with the family at 8:00 a.m.

Weigh-in: Actually Weighed myself twice today. Once before I got in the shower and once after I got out. Somehow I managed to lose a whole pound while I was in there. That's a lot of dead skin. Anyway, I'm going with the lower number. X - 14

Breakfast: None. I didn't have time before I left the house. On the way to work, I was going to get a Latte or something to tide me over, but then I blew it off figuring I could just get to work and make myself some soup. Of course, when I got here, I got really busy and didn't have time to eat until 1:00 p.m.

Lunch: Campbells Chunky Chili. It was pretty good, but it suffers from the same malady that most mass-produced chili's have - Because they must market it to a large group, they don't make it hot enough for me. Maybe tomorrow I will bring in some chili powder or at least red pepper flakes. Or some Frank's Red Hot sauce - That stuff is VERY good in Chilli. Calories: "ABOUT" 440.

First Dinner: Ok, so I am horrible at following simple rules - even if they are my own rules. Wednesdays are tough. I cheated again and went through McDonalds on my way home for a doublecheeseburger. Same excuse as cereal week. Calories: 480

Second Dinner: two bowls of cream of Mushroom soup - each with one fat free, low carb pita to dip it in. I had forgotten how much I love cream of Mushroom soup - my wife only uses it for casseroles and such. I could almost eat JUST this for a whole week. I saved 1/3 of it for tomorrow's breakfast though. mmmmmmm...... Calories "about" 600

Total Calories for the day: 1520

Continued

Diet Log: Week 3, Day 2

Alright - so yesterday's post was really brief, so let me explain. This week I will be eating soup - in it's loosest definition. Chowders, Chilis, and Stews also qualify. In addition, I am permitting myself along WITH the soup to eat whatever would normally go with that type of soup. For example, you can't have chowder without oyster crackers, Chicken-broth based soups require Saltines; everybody knows that Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sammiches go together like lamb and tuna fish; beef stew goes with rolls and butter, etc..... (a personal favorite of mine is chili poured on top of mashed potatoes). You may think that I am not following the original rules, but I submitted this proposal to the rules committee and was approved.

Workout: Same old crap on the treadmill. Pretty soon it will be warm enough to go outside, so if the treadmill breaks I can start doing that. The downside, of course, is the lack of TV outside. Watched last night's apprentice. It seems to me that this show has become a lot more about finding people that make good TV than about people with good business sense. I find that most of them are morons. I also bumped up my pushup and sit-up count to 30 this week.

Weigh-In: X - 13. Again - an all new low for me. I have decided I like tuesdays. Every tuesday I hit an all-new low. I didn't weigh myself yesterday, but I have a feeling it wouldn't have been good. I felt bloated for some reason all morning.

Breakfast: Leftover Creamy Tomato soup. Not cold, but warmed up just enough so that I could drink it straight out of the cottage cheese container while driving without spilling it on my lap and burning myself. By the way, the difference between "creamy" tomato soup and regular tomato is that you make it with milk instead of water. It does NOT mean that it is made out of creamy tomatoes. I woke up this morning with moderate to severe heartburn. Not sure if it is the acidic tomatoes from last night's dinner or the diet pepsi I drank right before bed. Just to be on the safe side I'll probably have cream of Mushroom soup tonight. Calories: 250

Lunch: I was shopping at Hannaford yesterday and I found these:

I looked at the back of the Clam Chowder and it said only 200 Calories. Perfect, I said - low calorie, easy to eat at work, so I bought a few (not all clam chowder - some were other flavors). Then as I was heating it up, I noticed that the bowl contains TWO-SERVINGS. Now, the bowls are clearly intented to be individual serving sizes - why on earth would they do such a thing. Oh yeah, and here's another thing. It actually says there are "about" 2 servings. This is weird, I thought - shouldn't they know exactly how much is in there? On closer inspection, I realized that they determine serving size for the purpose of nutritional information based on VOLUME, but the product is sold based on WEIGHT. The serving size is 1 cup, but it is a 15.25 oz can of chowder. There is no way of correlating the two unless I bother to pour it into a measuring cup, which of course defeats the purpose of the convenient "heat and eat" bowl. I have concluded that anybody inolved in product marketing is actually the spawn of Satan. So the bottom line is I don't KNOW how many calories I have consumed. I guess it is "ABOUT" 400.

1st Dinner: In order to stave off the drive-home hunger pangs, I had another bowl of Campbells Chunky - beef and vegetable this time. Pretty tasty and less calories. "About" 300

2nd Dinner: Got home and my wife had bought fresh clam chowder from the seafood market at Fiddleheads in dover. Wow! It was amazing. I figure one bowl was probably about 600 calories.

Total Calories for the Day: 1550

Continued

Diet Log: Week 3, Day 1

I have not had time to update the log today, and this will be very brief. Hopefully I will have time for my normal witty monologue tomorrow. My food for the week will be soup.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill. No more calorie counts because my treadmill is a piece of crap.

Weigh-in: In a rush, I forgot to weigh-in this morning. I will weigh-in twice tomorrow to make up for it.

Breakfast: No time for breakfast.

Lunch: 16 oz container of Chicken Pasta soup. Calories: 300

Dinner: 2 servings of creamy Tomato soup: 300 Calories. 2 Grilled cheese sammiches: 400 Calories.

Total Calories for the day: approx 1000

Continued

Top ten reasons why I love spring.

Now that spring is officially here, I would like to celebrate with a top 10 list. Here are the top 10 reasons why I love spring.

10. The end of High oil bills. My house costs a fortune to heat. And because my wife and kids are home all day long, there is never the opportunity to turn the heat down either. Once April gets here, I can just shut it off and tell them to wear sweatshirts.

9. The dog stays outside. I have never been much of an animal person, and I really hate sharing a living space with one. Ours is really annoying. He is impossible to keep clean, and he sheds like you wouldn't believe. We have to vaccuum giant clumps of hair several times a day. You can't have food anywhere near him. He will take it right out of the kids hands. He will climb up on the table and counter. Any attempts to break him of this are constantly counter-acted by our three-year old feeding him all the time. The only time this eat-everything-in-sight mentality ever worked out for me was when my wife was gone and the youngest one puked on the living room floor. I took my son into the other room to clean and change him, and then returned to clean the living room only to find that the Dog had eaten it all for me.

8. I no longer need to wear pants. I think this one is self-explanatory.

7. Baseball.

6. Baseball.

5. Baseball.

4. Baseball.

3. Baseball.

2. Baseball.

1. The leaves on the trees will once again obscure my view of the neighbor's house. gagknee thinks he has the market cornered on lousy neighbors, but I think I can give him some competition. While I was taking a walk in the woods with my kids the other day, I decided to take some pictures for your enjoyment.


Here you see the remains of a "camp" they had set up a few years ago. I think somebody was living there one summer, and I'm pretty sure at one time he was keeping a horse there too. Note the "tent" is actually a couple of tarps.


Here is a shack they have on the back of the property. Pretty sure I've seen people sleeping in there too. It could also be a weapons cache for getting rid of nosy neighbors who take pictures of the yard.


How many broken trucks can you count in this picture? There are at least three, not counting whatever is under the tarp. At one point, the engine compartment of the red one in the foreground actually served as a feeding trough for the aforementioned horse.


Note the old smokehouse behind the red truck. I don't really know what it is, but that's as good a guess as any. Could also be an outhouse for the camper right next to it. By the way, I KNOW that people are living in the camper. Also note random piles of garbage everywhere.

This is a new "garage" that they put up this year. It's one of those fabric ones that fit over the metal frames. Apparently they were worried about leaving their stuff out in the weather. (ed. Note: This is the NICEST "building" on the property)

This is a picture of the back of their house. Its hard to see in the picture, but the dark structure circled in green is part of their house. It sticks off the back and looks very strange. They never bothered to side it. Actually the white you see on the rest of the house isn't siding either - that is just house wrap.


At first glance, this is another picture of the smokehouse, but if you look closely at the area circled in red, you will see a PILE of old motorcycles. I am guessing at least 6 of them.


A zoomed out version of most of the back yard.

The front of the house - taken from the street. Note the addition they are building. Judging by the condition of the rest of the house, my guess is they consider this "finished". It is crooked, because I took the picture on the sly while walking past it without looking through the viewfinder. I didn't want them to think I was spying on them.


Not pictured: The "foundation" for this addition is not really a foundation. It is 4x4's on top of concrete pilings - the way you would build a deck. He built this in January/February, which leads one to wonder if he dug them deep enough below the frost line. Judging by the effort that he puts into keeping his yard nice, I'm going to guess probably not.

Continued

Get off my Butt!

Note to the stupid lady that was tailgating me on the highway this morning:

- I am already going 80 MPH in the fast lane. I am not going to slow down to get in the slow lane just because you think 80 is not fast enough.

- You were probably flashing your lights at me, but I couldn't tell because you were SO CLOSE to me that I COULDN'T SEE YOUR HEADLIGHTS!!!!

- After you DID manage to pass me, tailgating that Semi-truck in the same fashion was retarded.

- You might think I am mad, but I'm not. I take comfort in the fact that the process of Natural Selection will soon remove you from the herd.

Continued

Karma will get you every time

During my morning workout I was watching last night's Earl and it reminded of something that happened this week.

I was driving home to take my wife to the Dr. on Wednesday. I was going through Dover on the Spaulding, and just as I got to exit 8, the car in front of me swerved suddenly. It took me a second to see why they were swerving - a big black box of some kind was in the middle of the lane. I tried to go around it, but apparently it was sliding in the direction I was going and I couldn't avoid it. As I hit it, it made a surprisingly solid thump and then went spinning off to the side of the road where it couldn't hurt anybody else. I got a closer look at it, and it was one of those big black padded cases that one would use to protect a large musical instrument maybe or some expensive sound equipment. When I got home, there was a piece of the plastic wedged in my headlight and my plastic bumper was cracked. It's not too bad, but would probably cost $1000 to replace.

I was really ticked off for a while, until I remembered something that I did years ago. I was trying to move from one apartment to another on the cheap, so I borrowed my Boss's pickup truck. I had a full load, but I wedged a playpen in the side anyway. I figured it was in tight enough to prevent it from getting bounced out - and I was right, but I neglected to think about something else. It was the old-style playpen which folded in half, so when it's folded, the top bar and a bunch of fabric would hang down to the side. I did NOT have this part wedged in. So I'm cruising down this 4-lane highway, and I hit a little bump. This caused the side to swing up a little bit, and that was all it took. That swung out, along with the fabric, and turned into a wing. The wind got a hold of that wing and ripped it out of the truck. The thing went sailing, narrowly missing the car behind me (being driven by a friend of mine). I'm ashamed to say it, but I got the heck out of there as fast as I could. The next day we drove by the same spot and saw the mangled playpen on the side of the road - it had clearly been hit by 1 or more cars. Again, I kept on driving.

So anyway, I guess I deserved this little incident this week. Like Earl says:
"Karma. You got to love it."

Continued

Diet Log: Week 1, Day 5

Well, here we are at the end of noodle week.It has been pretty successful - i.e. I have continued to lose weight nor have I died from a Sodium overdose. I did notice during this morning's workout a lot more muscle fatigue than normal. Not sure if I was just tired, or if my noodle diet has left me deficient in certain important nutrients.

I have not decided what to go with next week. My friends have all given me some excellent suggestions - although I question their motives. I'm not sure if they are supporting me, or trying to get me to try strange things for their own entertainment.

Also, I am having trouble keeping my pants up today. Either I'm losing weight or they are all stretched out from having worn them for three days in a row.

Workout: Starting to get worried about the treadmill. It really was behaving weird today. First of all the belt was slipping a little bit again, and then near the end of my workout, the computer went crazy. It stopped counting calories, and the speed indicator kept flashing strange numbers until it settled on zero - and it seemed like the belt kept speeding up a little bit. I tried slowing the speed down to 1 MPH (which should be practically crawling), but the belt kept moving at the same speed. Anyway, the calorie coutner stopped at 289, but I'm guessing it was around 310 or 320. Stupid ghosts.

Weigh-in: X - 12.5 Is it too early to call a publisher?

Breakfast: Leftover Pad Thai. There was a little bit left over from the previous two nights, so I had it for breakfast. I DID look up some nutritional information on the internet, and as near as I can figure the amount I had for breakfast was probably around 150 calories.

Lunch: Guido showed up and took me to Bertucci's on his company's dime. I had the Scallop and Shrimp Rossini - about 1000 calories. By the way, he confirmed that he will not be going on the ATV trip.

Dinner: pretty full from a good lunch, so I had a late dinner. Bowtie Pasta with Sun-dried Tomato Alredo sauce. About 600 calories.

Total Calories for the day: 1750

Continued

Diet Log: Week 2, Day 4

So last night my wife went to bed early and I stayed up to watch a little TV. I must have dozed off, because I was awakened by the very loud sound of heavy breathing coming from what seemed to be my stereo speakers. It sounded a little bit like Darth Vader breathing. This was disturbing because was so loud that it totally drowned out the sound of the show on TV, and also because my STEREO WAS OFF AT THE TIME. It kind of freaked me out, so I went to bed and hid under the covers. This morning when I got up and started my workout, it was quickly apparent that something was terribly wrong with my treadmill. Every time I took a step, the belt would stop momentarily and then start back up again. This was a little uncomfortable if I was holding on to the handles, but if I let go it was almost impossible to stand upright. A quick examination made me realize that the belt was very loose. This is curious because there were no such symptoms yesterday. So I spent 20 minutes tightening it. (actually, 30 seconds tightening it, and 19:30 looking for the right tool). As a result I had less time to work out this morning. Had I not found the right tool, I would not have been able to work out at all. Clearly my house is haunted by ghosts that hate skinny people. They must have scared me into going to bed so they would be free to wreak havoc with my treadmill. Who knows what else they sabatoged - for all I know they probably replaced all of the nutra-sweet in my Diet Pepsi with sugar. So not only am I battling my personal demons (laziness and gluttony), I must also battle these ghosts in my quest to lose weight.

Workout: Not too bad, despite the setbacks. 310 Calories.

Weigh-in: X-11. Same as yesterday. Not too bad considering what I ate yesterday and the ghosts.

Breakfast: My sister asked me last night - "So, do you really eat noodles for breakfast". Yes. well, except for the last two days. But today I am back on the right track. 1 cup of Maruchan nooldles - with Shrimp. Calories: 290

Lunch: Wasn't real hungry at lunch, so I skipped it, but around 3:00 I had another cup of the Maruchan noodles - spicy Lime shrimp. mmmmmm. Calories - 290

Dinner: More Pad Thai - but this time there no crab rangoons or beef teriyaki that accidentally made it in there. Again, no idea on the calories. But since I have nearly 2000 calories still available, I'm sure it's fine.

Total Calories for the day: 580 + Pad Thai

Continued

Oh, you have NO IDEA. (what you're in for)

My Friend Rob is on the verge of becoming a father. He recently wrote about his experience with the stupid things people say to pregnant people. He has no idea. So for Rob's benefit, and for the benefit of anybody else who might be going through the same thing, I have compiled this list of things you will now get to experience:


1. Everybody's an expert. Everybody who has kids, or has younger brothers or sisters, or has nieces or nephews, or has ever watched "Three Men and a Baby" is an expert on children. This is good news for you, because most likely you don't know anything but they will be happy to give you tons of unsolicited advice free of charge. They will tell you what kind of diapers to buy, what kind of car to buy, where to buy a house, what daycare to use, whether or not to breastfeed, etc..

2. Everybody has a story - and it's better than yours. Since this is your first, the birth will probably not go 100% smoothly. You will most likely have a false alarm or two, or maybe the labor will take a really long time, or whatever.. In any case, you will probably have a story to tell, but if you bother to tell someone this, they will most likely reply (in a southern accent):

"That's Nothin'. My cousin Daisy Mae had her first delivered by the sherrif on the side of the road while he was takin' her to jail for robbin a liquor store. She was in a lot of pain, but he wouldn't give her no drugs or nuthin. Alls he did was take off his belt so she could have a piece of leather to bite down on. Her second went a little bit better, but I 'spect that's cuz it was 20 minutes later in the ambulance theys was twins)."

OR, if you are one of the lucky few who has everything go smoothly, that will also be remarkable, but if you try to share it with somebody they will respond with (in a hoity-toity Washingtonian Elite accent):

"That's nothing. My friend from the club Darlene had a baby just last month. Stopped by the Hospital, had a pain-free delivery, dropped the baby off with the Nanny and was back playing Tennis 3 hours later"

Any story you have will always be 1-upped.(Yes, I realize the Irony in the fact that I am essentially doing the exact same thing with this post)

3. Everybody knows somebody with the name you have chosen. Good for you in not telling anybody the name you have chosen. If you do, they will invariably respond with:

"I've always loved that name. I heard about a axe-murderer the other day by that name, though."

Or

"Never really cared for that name. My cousin was named so-and-so, and he's an axe-murderer"

(By the way, do NOT name your child WAYNE. You would be startled at the number of murderers by that name.)


4. Everybody knows more than the doctor. More words of wisdom before the birth:

"you are huge. Are you sure it's not twins? No? well, sometimes they are wrong"
"you're awfully small, are you sure you are due next week? Yes? well sometimes the doctors are wrong"

"Have you considered a home birth? My midwife is every bit as smart as any doctor."


5. After you have had the baby, everybody will have more advice:

"That baby is too fat"
"The baby is too skinny" (same baby)

"Your baby isn't walking yet? Have you had them tested for a disability?"
"Your baby is ALREADY walking? Aren't you afraid of pushing him too far?"

"Can't you hear that baby crying? Are you just going to let him lay there?"
"What are you doing? You can't pick up the baby every time he fusses"

"Glad to see you are Breastfeeding - Babies need that"
"Breastfeeding in public? Why can't you use a bottle like everybody else?"

(to your wife)
"if you don't get back into shape right away, it is because you are lazy" (maybe not in so many words, but it will be implied)
"you're too skinny - you shouldn't lose the baby weight that fast. It's not healthy"


6. If, after a while, you decide that you want to have more children, you will open up the floodgates to a whole new set of absurd comments (these are all actual quotes that have been directed at us):

"you're pregnant again? You know, they've discovered what causes that condition and it's preventable" (we heard this with our 3RD one, not to mention 4th and 5th)

"Are ALL THOSE kids YOURS? Do they all have the same father?" or sometimes they phrase it differently "How many have different fathers?"



That's probably enough for now. Enjoy.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 2, Day 3

Noodle week seems to be going pretty well. Except it's really hard to work noodles into breakfast. Last week having cereal for lunch and dinner was a little unusual, but not unheard of. But Noodles for breakfast?

Workout: Typical workout for this week - 45 minutes, 327 calories

Weigh-in: X-11. Woohoo! Once again an all new low for me.

Breakfast: I cheated. My 3 yr. old really wanted me to eat breakfast with him, so I had 2 slices of toast with butter. Well, not real butter, but it wasn't that low calorie crap that my mom buys which tastes like sand either. Just regular old store-brand butter-like spread. Calories 140.

The rest of the day was a total disaster. I had to leave work in a rush to take my wife to the Dr's, so I ran through McDonalds and had a doublecheeseburger (460 Calories) for lunch. Then I had to take her over to the hospital for a little while and it fell on me to make dinner. Went through McDonalds again for the kids and did Chinese takeout for myself. Had the Pad Thai (noodles, so it counts, although it's not MY fault if they didn't seal it up properly and a couple of crab rangoons and beef teriyaki fell in with it). Had a reasonable serving, but no idea what the calorie count is. After picking her up from the Hospital, I went through McDonalds AGAIN to get HER dinner, and while there decided to splurge on a small shamrock shake for myself since they are almost out of season and I will have to wait another year for one. That was 440 Calories.

Total Calories for the day: 1040 + whatever the chinese food was

Continued

Parental Controls

As I mentioned before, we had a free HBO weekend this past weekend, and actually as of this morning it was still on. As I was flipping through the channels, a PORNO came on. I can't tell you what the name of it was, because my PARENTAL CONTROLS were preventing me from viewing the title.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 2, Day 2

So I got home last night and my wife started lecturing me about all the sodium in the Maruchan noodles. So I looked it up when I got to work today and she was right. 1 cup has 1200mg of Sodium which is 50% of the USDA Recommended Daily Value. That is kind of a lot. I should point out that I'm not advocating doing this for a long term. I am doing this for 1 week. Next week I will pick something different. Some weeks are naturally going to be more or less healthy than other weeks in many respects. As I have pointed out before, I am simply trying out the scientific theory that you can eat anything and still lose weight. I am making no claims about cholesterol, blood pressure or anything else that health-freaks like to worry about. This is like donating your body to science -but before you die. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices and if eating too much sodium is the sacrifice I must make for the advancement of science, then so be it.

Workout: Had a free HBO preview weekend this past weekend, so I taped AVP. Started watching this and got so into it that My workout went a few minutes long, but I forgot to bump up the speed, so the end result was about the same as yesterday. So far, it's pretty cool - if you are into the Alien and/or Predator movies. I look forward to finishing it tomorrow. Calories burned: 327

Weigh - in: X-9. Excellent. This is a new low. This is shaping up to be a pretty good week, provided I don't have complications from a massive Sodium overdose.

Breakfast: I had to go to an NHACS Athletic Directors meeting in Concord, so I didn't have time to make myself anything. Knowing that I could not make it through the morning on Diet Pepsi, I grabbed a bottle of Cranberry-Grape juice out of the fridge. Calories: 140

Lunch: One cup of Maruchan noodles - regular shrimp flavor. I only have one container of the spicy lime left, and I am saving that for my afternoon snack. Calories: 290

Dinner: No more time to eat anything else today so I was starving by the time I got home. My wife made spaghetti pie. I had two reasonable servings. No idea what the calorie count was, but I'm Certain it was way less than the remaining 2000 I had to burn. My guess: 1000

Total Calories: 1430 (maybe)

Continued

Diet Log: Week 2, Day 1

Well, the weekend is over, and what a wonderful, glutonous weekend it was. Meals of French toast, Bacon, Lasagna, Tacos, Ham and Cheese Subs, Chili with cheese sprinkled in it, Roast Beef and Mashed Potatoes, Pizza, Ham and Mushroom Calzones, Birthday cake with Ice Cream, and Root Beer Floats. Anyway, it's back to the old grind. I asked for suggestions last week, and I appreciate them all, but I have chosen a different route - well, actually it chose me. I didn't eat anything before I left the house this morning, and was starving when I got to work. I opened the cover to my bookshelf and found:

1. Two cases of Maruchan Noodles which I had bought some time ago becuase they make a very cheap lunch.

2. More Cereal.

Since cereal was out of the question, Maruchan noodles it is. I think I will expand my choices in the evenings to include any dish made of noodles. However, while at work, these are really easy to prepare.


There are some pros and cons to this new diet.

Pro #1 - My coworkers will not look at me strange when I eat cereal every day for lunch.
Pro #2 - This is a meal that I can actually share with my families during the evening
Pro #3 - If I need to go "out" to lunch for business reasons, I will not need to cheat - most restaurants offer some sort of noodle dish.

Con #1 - My coworkers WILL see me eating Maruchan noodles at 9 a.m.
Con #2 - A lot of noodles can be high in fat and carbs. although this will actually help me prove the theory that the only thing that matters is quantity.
Con #3 - I still have a lot fricken cereal sitting around the house that nobody will eat.
Con #4 - I have not yet used the other Reese's Peanut Butter cup from last week. Since there is no way I will be crumbling THAT into my noodles, it will sit there unused for a week mocking me.

Before I go on, let me say something - a lot of people think that I am not taking this seriously, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that I am trying to have a little fun, but so what? Maybe having a little fun is the key to sticking to a diet. Not everyone learns to love whole grains, brown rice and skim milk. Sure, anybody can lose a ton of weight quickly, but then they fall off the wagon, eat a slice of pizza and blow the whole thing. My goal is to show that normal people who like to enjoy a good meal now and then can still lose weight without wanting to shoot themselves. Sure, they are never going to be Olympic Athletes or enter any body-building contests, but so what?

Workout: Pretty good workout today. I wasn't sure how my body would respond after taking two days off, but I picked up right where I left off last friday and improved on it. According to the treadmill computer, I burned 332 calories in 40 minutes. Judging by the amount of sweat that was pouring off me, it was a more intense workout than any of last week's. Last week just for kicks I was doing 10 pushups along with the treadmill work. Today I bumped it up to 20, and feeling inspired also did 20 situps.

Weigh - in: X - 7.5. Hmm, still higher than my best point last week. Maybe that root beer float my wife forced on me last night wasn't such a good idea. Ah well, it's still 4 lbs lower than the start of last week, which makes last week a pretty good week. Actually, if you look at any dieting websites they will tell you that losing more than 1-2 lbs a week is unrealistic and dangerous. I have already drafted a letter to General Mills offering to let me be the spokesman for their new ad campaign - "Lose 4 lbs a week with Lucky Charms". We'll see how that goes.

Another thing to add in my list of things that I have learned: Leaving the used bowl from last week's cereal on my desk all weekend is pretty gross.

Breakfast: 1 cup of the aferorementioned Maruchan noodles. As shown in the picture I had the shrimp flavor. Total Calories: 290

Lunch: Another cup of the noodles. This time I went with the Lime chili flavor with shrimp. Very good and very spicy. After all the noodles are gone, I do not recommend drinking the sludge that remains in the bottom of the cup. Total Calories: 290

Afternoon: Didn't want to be tempted when I drove past 6 or 7 McDonalds on the way home, so I had another cup around 4:00 p.m. Calories: 290

Dinner: My wife whipped up some noodles with Alfredo Sauce - estimated calories per serving is also 290. Unfortunately, the pasta nutritional information is listed by weight in oz DRY, and we did not try to measure them until after they were cooked, so I had to estimate the serving size - but even if I accidentally ate DOUBLE (whcih I don't think I did) servings, I am still ok. Total (estimated) Calories: 580 - 1160(double)


Total Calories today: 1450 - 2030

Continued

Diet Log: Week 1, Day 5

Ok, so blogger sucks. I have not been able to post all day. I couldn't even read the comments to my previous post until about 2 minutes ago. As I'm typing this, I have no confidence that I am going to be able to post this.

I have some pretty good friends who are being very supportive
. I am sure that if I were an Alcoholic, they would help me celebrate 6 weeks of being sober with a bottle of Jack Daniels. At any rate, the 1500 calorie Monster Thickburger sounds delicious. If there were a Hardees around here, I would go get one right now, even if it meant I had to eat grass for the rest of the day.

So I am nearing the end of my Cereal week, and I'm pretty much limping to the finish line. Today is not going so well as far as the all-cereal plan, but I still plan to be under my Calorie limit. And I started out with an extra good workout, so everything should be ok.

I started this thing using Cereal which was my wife's suggestion. This turned out to work pretty well. Unfortunately, I didn't plan very far ahead, because I don't know what to do for next week. Any suggestions would be welcome. If I can't think of anything, I'll do cereal again - but I REALLY don't want to. I don't think my wife wants me to either - she says she is tired of eating alone. Of course, the last couple of nights she had cereal for dinner as well. :)

Workout: My workout was pretty good today. Stayed at a higher speed for longer. Calories burned: 327

Weigh - in: X - 9. I have recovered from Yesterday's setback, and am back on the road to slim living. I KNOW that my weight fluctuates a lot every day, and in fact my scale probably will give me a different number every time I step on it - depending on whether or not my feet are EXACTLY in the right spot or not. (Why don't they make bathroom scales so that people with Normal sized feet can stand on them?) And I know that a .5lb gain is no more a setback than a .5lb loss, but I don't care. I'm celebrating anyways.

Breakfast: 1 bowl of Marshmallow cereal. I poured myself another cup to eat dry on the way to work, but I left it on the counter. I was pretty drowsy all the way to work - that extra jolt of sugar should would have been helpful. Total Calories: 175.

Lunch: Things started to go downhill at lunch. A guy reminded me that he owed me lunch, and wanted to go to D'angelos. Now, I have a couple of rules by which I live my life, and one of them is "if it's free, it's for me". And since life rules must supersede diet rules, I agreed to go. They do NOT serve cereal at D'angelos, but they DO serve large STEAK BOMBS. However, I was able to restrain myself with a medium Ham and Cheese with no Mayo. A medium sandwich WITH mayo is 565 calories, so I'm going to lop off a few for the no Mayo. Total Calories: 500

My parent's are coming over for dinner tonight, and since they don't want to be served cereal, I'll have something non-cereal then as well.

Total for the Day: 675

Continued

Diet Log: Week 1, Day 4

People ask me how I can possibly have enough time to do all this blogging. The answer is simple - this really doesn't take that much time, plus I can multi-task. Also, since I spend a lot less time eating these days, I have more time on my hands.


Weigh - in: X - 8. Dangit. I have gained a half-pound. Of course, I forgot to weigh myself until AFTER I got out of the shower, so I'm blaming the .5 lb on the water that was absorbed by all of my body hair.

Breakfast: My 3-year-old (actually, 2 years and 364 days) woke up this morning and really wanted to eat breakfast with me. He must have really enjoyed tuesday's breakfast. Sadly, I had to drive to Marboro, MA this morning and I did not have time. I promised to make it up to him tomorrow, though. As it was, I didn't have time for breakfast myself so I had to make do with 2 cups of dry marshmallow cereal. Total Calories: 240

Lunch: 2 bowls of cinnamon toasties again - one of which had a reese's peanut butter cup crumbled up in it - not so good. You know - I may never eat a peanut butter cup again. just one single cup has 115 calories. you could eat 20 of them in one sitting and blow your whole budget for the day. I don't even like them that much. Total Calories: 461.66

Drive Home: 1 1/4 cup of cinnamon Toasties dry for the ride home. Total Calories: 173.33

Dinner: Having tired of the cereal varieties I have stocked up, I decided to get some new flavors. Inspired by an article by my friend ROB I decided to get some "LIFE". A bowl of this reminded me why I haven't eaten in years. The only thing more boring was the bowl of hannaford brand Raisin Bran that I had next. Ugh. a whole cup of cereal yeilded three raisins. The rest was just bran. The kicker was that both of these cereals had more calories than the sweet kinds, AND they required more milk to choke them down. I chased them down with another bowl of old faithful - Marshmallow cereal. Total Calories: 710

Snack: I debated the Merits of having a root beer float for a snack. It would, after all, fit within my scientifically crafted parameters. However, in the end I decided against it - mostly because I would have had to make it myself. If my wife would have made one for me I would have probably had one, but it was a lot easier to sit on the couch.

Total Calories today: 1584.99

Continued

I don't understand Catholics

I found this article today about how Bishops in the Catholic Church are lifting the Lent Rules for St.Patrick's day - Specifically the rule about eating Meat on Fridays. Now Irish Catholics can eat their traditional Corned Beef without fear of sinning.

My first problem is calling a violation of man-made rules a "sin". I don't specifically have a problem with rules and traditions - lots of churches have those, - and if you truly want to honor Christ's Sacrifce by sacrificing something yourself, then more power to you - but to have something be a sin only because some MAN says it is a sin, is truly disturbing.

My second problem is related - If something truly IS a sin, then how can it NOT be a sin just because some MAN declares it a special day? What the Heck does the day have to do with anything?

Furthermore, what does it matter? It's not a MORTAL sin, so why not just do what you want, and then go to confession and have the same MAN forgive you?

And finally, what is so special about St. Patricks day? Around here, a few years ago a game during the Red Sox home opener week happened to fall on good friday. The church was petitioned to allow a special dispensation for eating Hot dogs during the game that day, but they refused. Why? That's a special event too. Some would argue that opening day at Fenway is in fact sacred.

I think I'll stick with a religion where God decides what is a sin, and he is the one that does the forgiving.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 1, Day 3

A couple more things to add to my list of things I have learned:


1. Letting your three-year-old son see you eat Marshmallow cereal with Diet Pepsi on it is a good way to make your wife very unhappy. Apparently, my son saw my wife putting milk in her cereal yesterday morning and informed her that she was doing it WRONG. He told her that she needed to pour diet pepsi in there because that is how Daddy does it.

2. A corrolary to #1, Things that are amusing to men, are often not nearly as amusing to their wives. (Actually, I already knew this, but it was recently reinforced.)

Workout: Hit the treadmill for 42 minutes again. Started out a little faster and sustained the faster rate for a little longer. Watched the second episode of "Conviction". So far, I am not impressed - some of the acting is horrendous. I have concluded that I would never waste perfectly good TV watching time strictly to watch this show, but at 6 a.m. when nothing else good is on, I can watch it. Also watched the first half of Sunday's "Family Guy" episode. I really enjoyed the part where the maid was pulling stuff out of Peter's belly-button. Fat-Guy-belly-button-storage jokes are always funny, but when she pulled out the ColecoVision game console, it made me nostalgic for the one I bought at a yardsale for $5 when I was a kid. 276 Calories burned

Weigh - in: X - 8.5. Wow. My fears of becoming a MANOREXIC are coming true. Maybe I should eat more.

Breakfast: Two more bowls of last night's frosted flakes - marshmallo combo. Total Calories: 390

Lunch: Taking from what I learned yesterday, I took the other half of the reese's pieces bag, dumped them into a cup of milk and let them dissolve for about 10 minutes. Then I poured the concoction on top of my Cinnamon toasties for a very delicious treat. I think this practice would make it on to my wife's list of "Things NOT to let your kids see you doing", so I will limit my candy-cereal experiments to workplace meals. Total Calories: 383.33

Dinner: Ok, I cheated. I was busy all day and didn't get a chance to eat 2nd Lunch or any snacks, and I had to rush out the door and forgot to bring any snacks with me. I was going straight to AWANA. Knowing that I could not go all the way until nearly 10 p.m. without eating anything, I swung by McDonalds and had 2 double cheeseburgers for Dinner (at $1 ea, this is the best deal going). So I guess now I'm on the Cereal/cheeseburger diet. ah, well. Total Calories: 920

Second Dinner: Even with the double cheeseburgers, I haven't really had enough to eat today, so I had another bowl (2 servings) of Frosted Flakes. Total Calories: 350

Total Calories today: 2043.33

Continued

Diet Log: Week 1, Day 2

A few flaws in my diet plan have surfaced...


1. Cereal is a very low calorie food - even the sugary ones that my mother never let me have as a child which I now consume as often as I can. You would think this is a good thing, but I think it is TOO low calorie. At an average of 175 calories per bowl (including 1% milk), in order to maintain a 2500 calorie diet I must eat nearly 15 bowls of Cereal per day. Have you ever tried to eat that much Cereal in one day? It's not possible. Therefore, in an effort not to dip too far below my 2500 calorie goal and risk becoming dangerously underweight, I need to make up some of the calories with drinks. Last night it was a MCDonalds Milkshake. Some would say a glass (or 6) of juice would be better, but since the goal is to prove that I can consume whatever I want and still lose weight - I wanted a milkshake, so I had one.

2. How much Dairy is too much? 15 bowls of cereal would mean 7 1/2 cups of milk. That is nearly a half gallon. Yesterday I had 3 cups of milk and a Milkshake. One can only wonder what so much dairy will do to my system.

3. Sloshing - Cereal (w/ milk) is not a very solid food. Although it fills you up, it is not that "satisfied, I can't move" feeling you get from eating 6 double cheeseburgers. Its more like the queasy feeling you get when you have nothing but liquids in you and it sloshes around while you walk.

4. I have also discovered that I don't really care for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It's a little too sweet, I think - at least when it's mixed with milk. Eaten dry as a snack, it's actually pretty good. Unfortunately for me, I only brought one flavor of cereal to work, so that will be my lunch again today.

Workout: Got up and hit the treadmill for 42 minutes this morning. According to the Calorie Counter included on the treadmill I burned 267 calories. No idea how accurate that is, but that's what I'm going with. I watched the NBC show "conviction" that we taped on March 3 but never got around to watching. Not bad - probably won't make my nightly rotation for sitting around watching TV, but it's acceptable treadmill fodder.

Weigh - in: X - 5. 1 day in, and I have lost 1.5 pounds. WooHoo! this is going to be easy. I should be done in a couple of weeks. I accidentally put on my "skinny" jeans this morning. They were just as hard to put on as they were last week, which is disappointing. Ah, well - it will give me a chance to test one of my other dieting theories: In addition to making you look sexier, tight clothes make you want to eat less because of the intense belly pain.

Breakfast: Given my concerns about too much dairy, AND the fact that we were out of milk in the Kitchen refrigerator and I didn't feel like going all the way down to the basement, I poured Diet Pepsi on my bowl of Marshmallow Toasties. This was quite the feat because I was eating breakfast with my 3-year-old son, and I didn't want him getting any ideas. I managed to distract him with something shiny while I poured, and it took him a good ten minutes to notice. He thought it looked like chocolate milk, and asked for some - so I was forced to tell him the truth (sort of) that Daddy had "spilled" his Diet Pepsi in his cereal. Anyway, it wasn't actually too bad. I won't say it was good either, but I was able to eat it without too much difficulty, and it was still better than walking all the way down to the basement. I passed on the second bowl, though. Total Calories: 120

Morning Drive Snack: I have a pretty long drive to work and I often like to eat while I'm driving - mostly just to keep me awake. So I grabbed an old 2 cup cottage cheese container, filled it with dry marshmallow cereal and ate it while I was driving to work. Total Calories: 240

Lunch: In response to the low-calorie problem I decided to spice up my lunchtime bowl of cinnamon toasties with half of a 1.53 oz bag of Reese's pieces. At first it didn't taste like much - just like you were eating reese's and cereal at the same time. But as I worked my way through the bowl, the candy started disolving into the milk, giving me a very tasty peanute-butter-chocolate-cinnamon flavor in every bite. Next time, I will dump the Reese's pieces into the bowl of milk for a few minutes and THEN add the cereal. Total Calories: 383.33

Driving Home: Another cup of Cinnamon toasties (1 1/3 servings) Calories: 173.33

Dinner: I made my own cereal that is half marshmallow toasties and half frosted flakes. The combination of the two is surprisingly delicious. It is way MORE delicious than the two cereals on their own. I had three bowls which ended up being almost 4 servings. Calorie intake: 585.

Total Calories today: 1501.66 Hmm... that seems pretty low. I'll have to try harder to eat more tomorrow. I am in grave danger of becoming a MANOREXIC

Continued

Lazy Sack of Crap

It has come to my attention that there are people who are reading this blog, and they WANT to comment, but they don't have time to register. To this I say: "You are a lazy sack of crap." If you are a slow typer (is that a word?), It will take you almost 30 seconds to register.

Continued

It's time for me to Diet.

So, I stepped on a scale last week and was pleasantly surprised.....

I had been avoiding it because I was sure I would not like what I saw, but fortunately it was not as high as I was afraid it was going to be. That being said, it was still higher than it needs to be, sooo.. I have decided to go on a diet. I have been thinking about this for a while, but I have been resistant. The two favorite parts of my day are when I am eating and when I am sitting around doing nothing. A good weight-loss program threatens to kill both of them in one fell swoop, so I will try to have a "new" favorite part of my day - namely amusing myself by trying experimental diets and writing about the results in my blog.

So I am going to invent my own diet. I will post my daily progress reports here for the sake of accountability. My diet will consist of 5 simple rules:

1. Pick a food you like, and eat only that for a week. For example, week 1 starts today, with ONLY CEREAL. That's right, I will only eat cereal for every meal this week. Next week I will choose to stay with Cereal or switch to something else - like Ramen Noodles. The goal here is to prove that I can pretty much eat anything I want and lose weight. It is also possible that I will make myself so sick of eating stuff that I will lose my appetite. Either way is good for weight loss. (Any creative suggestions are welcome)

2. Max Calorie rule. I will set a maximum calorie limit, and will not exceed that. I will not count any other stuff - fat, carbs, etc.. Initial Limit is 2500 calories. We will see how that works for a while. If I get lightheaded and start fainting a lot, I will bump it up a lot. If it's not working, then I will drop it down. Seeing as I have no idea what my daily intake is, I'm pretty much taking a stab in the dark here.

3. 10% rule. Every good diet requires exercise to work. My workout for each day must be designed to work off 10% of my daily caloric intake.

4. 5-day rule. The 5-day work week works well for a lot of things, so why not my diet? Plus dieting on the weekends sucks - your kids want to go to McDonalds, or get some pizza, or your wife makes a big giant plan of lasagna... so I will adhere to my diet strictly Monday-Friday and take Saturdays and Sundays off.

5. Drinks. I can drink whatever I want, provided I include the calories in my daily calorie count. I will mostly be drinking diet pepsi and water.

Week 1 Day 1:

Workout:
Got up an hour early this morning and hopped on the treadmill. While I was working out I watched the new Fox show "free ride" which I had recorded last night. It was kind of funny. After that, I watched the show "War at Home". This is not really one of my favorite shows, but it served as decent treadmill fodder (treadmill fodder - something you do while on a treadmill to prevent yourself from dying of boredom).

Weigh - in:
I will not be posting my weight because I don't want anybody to know the truth. What I will do is to represent my weight at the BEGINNING of the diet as X. Any weight loss will be represented as X - such and such.
Today, I got on the scale and it was 3.5 pounds less than last week. Woohoo, just THINKING about losing weight has caused me to lose 3.5 pounds. Excellent. This is going to be easy.

Breakfast: Two bowls of Frosted flakes. Not Kellogs, but the Malt-O-Meal off-brand variety from Walmart. I say two bowls, but it was actually 2 servings. Each 3/4 cup serving looked pitifully small in the bowl. I've got to get smaller bowls. I also had 1/2 cup of 1% milk with each serving. To Drink, I added an ice-cold glass of diet pepsi. Total Calorie intake: 350

Morning (Drive-time) snack:
1 can of Diet pepsi. Total Calorie intake: 0.

Lunch: Two bowls of Cinnamon Flavor Toasters (Malt-O-Meal's rip off of cinnamon toast crunch). Having learned my lesson from Breakfast, I had two full bowls, which actually turned into 2 1/2 servings of the cereal. Again, each bowl was accompanied by a 1/2 cup of 1% milk. Also drank a can of diet pepsi. Total Calorie intake: 435
Afternoon Snack: 1 cupo of Cinnamon Flavor Toasters. No milk. I ate it dry like you would a bag of chips. I actually prefer to eat them this way. Total Calorie intake: 150
Evening Snack: Medium Shamrock shake from McDonalds. You may say, AH HA! not even one day in and Big A is cheating. But that is not really true. This is My diet and I make the rules. First of all, I really like Shamrock shakes and they are only available for a limited time, plus my Wife loves them and being pregnant made me drive into rochester tonight to get her one. I really had no choice. Secondly, a milkshake is a drink so it is within the rules. I have another reason, but I'm too tired to get into it tonight. Total Calories. Not sure - is a medium at McDonalds 15 oz or 21 oz? Either way it was either 560 or 740 calories.

Dinner: Two bowls of Marshmallow Toasties. (generic lucky charms). Total Calories: 350
Total Calories so far today: 1865 or 2025

Continued

Luck of the...... Germans?

I was at the Somersworth Walmart yesterday and just as you come the door where they usually have the big Holiday display, there was a big St. Patricks Day Display. It consisted of:

1. Green cupcakes - alright, pretty cheasy, but acceptable.

2. Boxes of Lucky Charms - a little stupid. An American cereal that really has nothing to do with ireland, except it likes to play off some fairy tales... But I like Lucky Charms and all their marshmallowey goodness, so I'll let it slide.

3. Cases of Heineken. Ok, come on - That is absurd. For St. Patricks day, they are encouraging you to drink german beer because it comes in a GREEN box? Why not Rolling Rock? that comes in a green box too! oops, I spoke too soon. A few steps further and there was the Rolling Rock.

Continued

Twenty-Four

Ok. This may come as a shock to some of you, but up until yesterday, I have never watched a single episode of 24. When they first started advertising for Season 1, I said to myself - "that looks like a cool show - I should watch it" But when the day came, I was busy and not able to watch the first episode. Due to my solemn vow to never purchase another VCR, I did not have one, and so I couldn't even tape it (this is was before Metrocast started providing us with the miracle of the DVR). I knew the premise of the show, and figured that once I missed the first episode I was screwed. I might have watched it anyway, but as it turns out I was busy the next 3 or 4 times it was on as well, and so then I really gave up. However, for years now, I have promised myself that I would start watching it. In keeping with that promise, I have studiously avoided learning anything about the various plotlines and/or characters so I wouldn't spoil it for myself when I eventually got around to watching it.

So anyway, to make a long story short, I am a champion procastinator. I finally rented Season 1, episode 1-4 this weekend. Actually I rented it a few weeks ago, but in true champion procrastinator form, I didn't actually watch it. This time I actually watched it - all 4 episodes in one sitting. And even better, My wife watched it too. It is hard to commit that much time to a show without buy-in from the wife.

After only 4 episodes, I am not ready to declare it the greatest show ever, but I did like it enough to go rent the next 4 episodes.

Continued

A trip down memory lane

So my wife was going through some old boxes in the basement, and she came across a box with some old letters in it. Enclosed in some of these letters were old copies of a the "Akerberg Info" - a small newspaper that my brothers and sisters started as a school project. I thought you guys might enjoy exceprts from one of the articles - written shortly after they had turned my old bedroom into a library:

Where, Oh Where shall my little boy go?
Now that the Akerberg household is enjoying the Raccoon Readig Room (the library) the question is raised as to where a certain male college student will sak out during his too short jaunts home.

The choices suggested by various members of the household are: Living room sofa bed. This option has been nixed by mother who refuses to have his mess all over the living room.

The upstairs playroom is another inviting option, (mainly because the room houses the pool table. The disadvantage here is that the room has no doors.

Last but not least is the tiny room at the back of the house. The disadvantage is that this is a closet. The advantage is that this is the closest room to the kitchen This is more important to some people than others.

**********
editor's note - It's always nice to know what your family REALLY thinks of you

Continued

BUMPAH STICKAH

"I would rather go hunting with Dick Cheney, than go for a drive with Ted Kennedy"

Continued

Do I have OCD?

I'm starting to think I might have some form of OCD.......

No, I'm not particularly neat (in fact, I am downright messy - I am the only person I know that can get messy when OTHER people are eating. Conversely, other people often get messy when I eat). And no, I don't have to have things done "just so" (in fact, I often don't have to have things done at all - I really prefer to blow stuff off as long as possible). No, my particular obsession (and compulsion) is with being right. I'm not one of those people who alway has to be right - even when they are wrong. I am one of those who always is right. My brother even gave me a T-shirt for Christmas that said "Those of you who think you know everything annoy those of us that do" which I think sums it up pretty well.

Case in point: A friend posted a link to a pretty cool live spoof to the opening sequence of one of my favorite TV shows - the simpsons. I immediately noticed something that bothered me - that Homer's car appears to have it's steering wheel on the left side, but Marge's car appears to have it on the RIGHT side. "Are they living in different countries?" I asked. Then I started to wonder - "Is that really a discrepancy, or is it something that I have just never noticed?" I started to worry that I had criticized something incorrectly. So, at 1 a.m. as I am getting ready for bed, I had to go downstairs, pop in my Simpsons Season 3 DVD and check. I was right, by the way - in the REAL simpsons, both Homer's and Marge's cars have their steering wheels on the correct side (left - also known as the American side). I think I might have a problem.

p.s. Season Three has two episodes that I consider to be two of the best all-time episodes. (well, they are two of my all-time favorites, and since we have already established that I am always right, they must logically be two of the all-time best)

Radio Bart: Bart pranks the town into thinking that Timmy o'Toole fell down a well

Homer at the Bat:Mr. Burns hires a bunch of ringers to play on the company softball team - Jose Conseco, Roger Clemens, Darryl Strawberry, Mike Sciosa, Don Mattingly and many others.

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Answer to the Pirate Riddle

Well, I was disappointed that nobody was commenting on my blogs, so I added a hit counter. I was gratified to see my hit counts going up pretty quickly (Even after I modified it so that it wouldn't count my OWN hits - which were also going up pretty quickly because I kept refreshing the page to see if my hit counter was going up). Unfortunately for me, I got one of those FANCY hit counters that keeps track of unique hits, and discovered that for the most part, I still only have two readers. And since those two readers have been kind enough to give me a pity response to my pirate riddle, I figure it's time to give out the answer.


For the sake of making the explanation easiest to understand, we will call number the pirates 1-5 with the shortest being #1, etc...

There are two keys to the problem

Key #1: You have to work this problem backwards -
Key #2: Remember that because a majority vote is the only ACCEPTABLE vote, then a TIE vote is UNACCEPTABLE

- First think about what Pirate #5 will do if it gets down to just himself and Pirate #4. Since a tie vote is unacceptable, he can veto any proposal that Pirate #4 puts forth. Therefore, being a greedy pirate, he will accept nothing less than 100 coins. Therefore, one can assume for the time being that Pirate#5 will strive to get down to 2 pirates and will vote against ANY proposal put porth by any other pirates.

- Pirate #4 recognizes what would happen if it got down to 2, and desperately does not want this to happen. So one can assume that he will vote IN FAVOR of any proposal that gives him at least 1 coin.

- Pirate #3 also recognizes #4's predicament. He understands that if he can get it down to just 3 pirates, he can give himself 99 coins and still secure the vote of #4 with a single coin. #3 desperately wants to be in this situation - Therefore, we can assume for the time being that Pirate #3 will vote against any proposal by #1 and #2.

- Like Pirate #4, Pirate #2 recognizes how much it sucks to be an even number. He knows that the only way to secure approval would be to give #3 his 99 coins and #4 his 1 coin. Since that doesn't really do him any good, he doesn't want to be in this position. Therefore, he will vote for ANY proposal by #1 that also nets him at least 1 coin.

- The logical conclusion therefore is that Pirate #1 can keep 98 coins for himself, and secure the votes of #2 and #4 with 1 coin each. In reality, #3 and #5 (being extremely logical pirates) recognize that this is how it will play out, so they lower their price to 1 coin each. So #1 can keep 98 coins himself and give 1 coin each to any two pirates of his choosing.

The moral of the story
You are probably thinking to yourself right now, "The moral of this story is that Big A likes to spend a lot of time thinking about useless crap" or " that Big A thinks he's soooooo smart" and while you would be right on both counts, you would be missing the real point.

Because that is not the end of the story. First of all, thanks to a ridiculous scheme, Pirate #5 had ALL of the power - except that his power hinges on the fact that the rest of the pirates recognize his power. If the other pirates are stupid, then they immediately get offended, feed him to the fishes and worry about the consequences later. They will continue fighting amongst themselves until the last pirate is left with all the MONEY, but too weak to defend himself from other more resourceful pirates or vengeful villagers hoping to reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

Even if the Pirates are not stupid, and they do hold to their agreement, they will be resentful of Pirate #1 - Eventually, they will try to take it again. Although he CAN take 98 coins, he would be wise not to do so.

There are a lot of parallels in the real world, but the one that really got me thinking was the current "labor" dispute between the NFL and the players association. ( I put the word "labor" in quotes, because it is after all - just a game) Now generally, if I ever take sides in a labor dispute, it is usually with the employer. In a free market society, if an employee does not like his job, he should find another one. If he does not have the skills necessary for a better job, then he should do what he needs to acquire the skills. He is certainly free to quit his job, but should not be free to indimidate others into doing so, or to try to prevent others who are perfectly willing to do his job from taking over. However in the dispute between the NFL and the players association, I recognize that it is unique. I have also come to the realization that I don't care. I don't watch a football game because I think the owners are successful business men, nor do I watch the game because I think the players are treated fairly. I watch the game because I think it is entertaining. The owners technically hold all the power here, and have the right to pay the players whatever they are willing to take - however, if the product on the field is not as good, then I won't watch it - and I certainly won't support it with my money. And if there is a stoppage of play, I may never watch it again. There are many other demands on my time and my entertainment dollar that will simply take it's place. The owners and players are soo busy fighting over a couple of percentage points that they are both seriously risking losing it all.

Continued

Is anybody out there?

There have not been many comments lately, so I began to fear that maybe nobody was reading this. So I added a hit counter - it's pretty easy to do if you are interested. Just go here:Free Hit Counter

I was especially disappointed that nobody seemed interested in my Pirate Riddle
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If you ever wonder why I choose to Home-school my kids....

Listen to THIS lecture by a Colorado 10th grade geography teacher.


I know it's hard to believe that a guy who looks like this is a radical left-wing hippie intent on indoctrinating children with his own philosophy.

If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, here are some interesting quotes (taken out of context of course, to promote my OWN radical right-wing fascist agend) . I won't bother to refute any of them. The sheer ridiculousness of most of them should be obvious......



"Do we really want to kill Innocent People? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I know that there are some Americans who DO ...... Sometimes you DO want to kill people just for the sake of killing them"


"Capitalism... is at odds with Humanity - at odds with caring and compassion. It's at odds with Human Rights."

"Who is probably the single most violent Nation on Planet Earth? The United States"

(on George Bush's state of the Union Address) "He's THREATENING the whole Planet... sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say"

"The modern state of Isreal was MADE through violence and Terrorism"

At the end he says:

"I'm not in anyway implying that you should agree with me, I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think about these issues more in depth and not to just take things from the surface."

Oh, well that makes it ok then. How silly of me to think that you were trying to force your opinions on 15 year old kids. By the way, what does any of this have to do with Geography?

Continued

Pirate Riddle

Here's a fun little brain teaser courtesy of Espn's Page 2. (don't bother following the link - they don't tell you the answer - you have to figure it out on your own).

There are five pirates in a boat, with 100 pieces of gold to divide among them. They decide to divide the gold by the following methodology:

The smallest pirate will distribute the gold, and then each pirate will vote on the distribution. If the smallest pirate gets a clear majority (including himself) to agree on his distribution, then that is the way the gold will be divided. If not, he is thrown overboard and the next smallest pirate will re-divide the gold among the three remaining pirates. They all then vote again with the exact same conditions (acceptance requires a majority, lack of acceptance implies the pirate who divided the gold is thrown overboard and the next smallest pirate takes his place as gold distributor). Each pirate will only accept that outcome that guarantees him the most gold he will get under any scenario. No other consideration can trump that.

The question is this: How many pieces of gold can the smallest pirate keep and remain in the boat?
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Continued