Disqus

Ok
Due to popular consensus, Disqus is now gone.
Finito.
No more bad formatting, no more annoying "insert whatever you didn't like about it right here."

I'm now back to a more standardized commenting system whether or not y'all like it.

To those who hated Disqus, you're all welcome.

Nothing to see here, move along!!

The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Josie does not like dogs.  Of all my years I have never understood while people don't like dogs.  Sure they might have some minor annoyances like barking because they heard the door rattle at 2 in the morning and they want to make sure that everyone is aware that evil might be lurking outside.  But, in reality, that is just our best friend trying to make sure that evil does not come inside and destroy his family.  Even a tiny three pound dog thinks that he's big and viscous and can help scare off incoming evil to keep his people safe.

It's not a tumor!

But with that minor annoyance aside dogs do a lot of things to show their undying love and affection.  The first thing I see when I get home is my Monster with his tail wagging wanting to greet me and show me how much he has missed me over the last 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days, whatever.  He f'n loves me.  His tail wags a mile a minute, there is no one in the house other than he and I, he jumps and pants and just wants to give me attention. It's unconditional love and it's the greatest thing in the world.

How can you not love this ball of fur?

There is another specie of household pet that I do not understand though, and that is the cat.

How can you like to have a pet around who's independent?  Why the hell are you having a pet if the thing is just going to ignore you and only come to you when he wants something?  If that's what you want just adopt a teenager, it's the same thing.

Cat's are snooty, vile, evil beings.  They also happen to suck the souls of their owners but most people don't know that.  They are Evil Soul Sucking beasts from the ninth ring of hell who have been put on earth to enslave humans to their whim.  It's disturbing how well they have integrated themselves into most of my friends houses and because I know their secret I'm pretty much foreboden from entering.  If I do somehow find myself in a house with a cat, within hours my eyes start to itch uncontrollably.  My lungs start to tighten up and breathing gets difficult.  These are just the beginning symptoms.  Cats are literally trying to kill me if I enter their house because they feel that I'll turn their humans against them (which is my ultimate goal).

The following are un-doctored pictures of cats in their true form - this is how I see them even though most humans can't look past the fake persona that they have adapted.

This is a cats True form in hell. Only on earth do they look "cute" and "sweet"

Emergency Vacation

I was not planning on taking a vacation for at least another month. It's not that I don't want to the time off but that I have more important things to do with my vacation time than sit at home, in pain, with way to much time on my hands.

My original plan was to take a day or two off after the 20th.  On Feb 20th I'm getting two of my wisdom teeth removed and having a crown placed on another tooth.  Or, that was the plan.  Things come up and wisdom teeth rot, or so the story goes.

Oh No! Unexpected Breakage on Tooth #32

Less than a week after my last dental appointment I randomly notice that I'm missing half of a wisdom tooth. It was one of the ones that I planned on having removed anyways.  But, now it's mocking me.  Oh, you thought you were going to wait until the twentieth to deal with me did you asshole?  Ha, I make the decisions here.  At first I ignored it because there was no pain, and if it's not bothering me then it can wait for the next two weeks. I'm not purposefully going to go to the dentist more times than absolutely need be after all.

Stop eating the chips fat ass!!!

The best laid plans of mice and men.  Today things took a turn for the worst.  Something happened that irritated my gum (and we'll even go so far as to assume probably a piece of food launching itself between the gum and the missing portion of the tooth) and I started having some pain.  As the day went on the swelling got worse, the pain got worse and a headache started to develop.  Once I have multiple points of pain I take it as a clue that my body is telling me I probably need to make an appointment to visit the dentist a little earlier than the 20th.

So, I call up and get an appointment for tomorrow.

I talked to the authority figures at work and inform them that I've got some serious ju-ju going on in my mouth and I need to leave early or be even less productive than normal, they shake their heads and comment that they totally understand and send me off with some well wishes.

I also tell them that I have the appointment for the next day in which they will be violently ripping things out of my mouth which will cause some good pain for a few days and I will need time to recover.

Unnecessary gore, 15 yard penalty, repeat 1st down

Once again they pretend to be perfectly fine with it while probably cursing me at the same time. That rat bastard using any excuse he can to take a vacation without any advanced notice.

So the good news is that I'll have a few days off from work in order to sit back and collect my thoughts. Maybe I'll relax and come Tuesday I'll be happy about going back into work and dealing with other peoples created problems.  The bad news is that I'm going to be really frigging hungry over the next couple of days without being able to consume actual food.  I don't consider drinking my food (this is NOT my idea of a liquid lunch) and being limited to water and Gatorade fun nutritional choices.  Hopefully 3 days of not eating will jump start my weight loss and when I start hitting the gym hard and heavy next week I'll have additional incentive.

I guess until then it's time to read a book or two and play some video games.

Splitter's Blog

I just wanted to take a moment to pimp out a friends blog.

Every Tuesday he is doing a segment called "Ask Crayder."

Tom Crayder is a character in his novels The Reluctant and The Willing and whatever this future novel that I'm being told is going to be out later this year, maybe The In Trouble with The Wife.

Either way.  Today's blog involves Man-Speak and gives a lot of information into the male mind that women should really pay attention to and try to understand.

Now, if only there were some woman who would want to share what their convoluted Woman-Speak means, though I'm pretty sure that we, as men, would not have the attention span to read the entire 20 page article dedicated to "You should know what you did wrong" let alone anything more serious.


So, Everyone, please check out Splitter's Blog and I'm sure you'll really enjoy it.
I also highly recommend checking out both of his books. The Reluctant is currently Free, and The Willing is only $2.99.
For those of you who would rather have actual covers and pages and whatnot, BOTH books are going to be released for sale as an actual book on Amazon.com come Valentines Day.


Thank You.

Dear Poker

Dear Poker,

I get it.  You hate me.  I do not know what I have done that has pissed you off so greatly but I really wish you would just tell me.
See, I'm a simple male who goes along with every day life and doesn't understand some of the more complex things.  For instance, when someone is mad at me because I didn't take out the trash but they refuse to tell me why they are mad, I honestly don't know.  I also will most likely never guess.
I'm what they call a simpleton.

So, it's with much sympathy that I come to you, on all fours, begging for forgiveness of what evil deed I may have done in my past to anger you.  I will shower you with love and affection.  I will call your hotter younger sister an ugly bitch.  I will beat up your ex boyfriend.  I'll even let you use those anal love beads on me.
Just please stop hating me so much.

I paid you a visit today and you pretty much just teased me and then shat on me.

Kd Td vs 77 on a Qd Jd 7 flop is NOT FUCKING FUNNY.
Turn 2 diamond and river Queen. Ugh.

JJ vs TT vs 55 all in pre-flop and 55 has everyone covered - I felt like you were smiling on me.
Then the board ran out 92463.  Really? You despise me that much?

Then my last hand.  Ks Js vs Kc Td vs AsAc on a Kh Qs 2s board?
Really? You truly honestly hate me?

The least funny part of all of it was that the guy with 77, the guy with 55 and the guy with AA were all the same asshole, son of a bitch sperm burper.

Yeah.  I get it, you hate me and love others more.

I'll be sacrificing hookers and strippers until you start to love me a bit more.

signed - the jaded man who still loves you too much to let go!

Super Sunday

(had to delete the 4th pic because it was so awesome that it wouldn't link up for some reason)

Cu.....cakes

Ladies, if you want to give your man the perfect VD gift, look no further than 3 dozen freshly baked cuntcakes.  Yes, if any lady were to offer me up a baking tray of exquisite delicacies such as those above I would be totally in love and offer to marry her on the spot.  Well, maybe not on the spot.

I'd, at first, ask her to point to the one which best represents what she will be presenting me with later in the evening.  There are a few there that one would consider unsavory, and a few others that are perfecto.

There is a veritable cornucopia of vagina in that pciture. Wide ones, loose ones, tight ones, white ones and black (chocolate) ones.  Some have decorations, some have hair, some have herpes and some are bare and one's time has come and won't be receiving any action for about 5-7 business days if you know what I'm saying.

All the time I see my friends on twatter post and hashtag their pick #foodporn but never have they actually been accurate.  So, I just twatted it to my twitter universe and I hope they all like it.

Tomorrow is the SuperBowl and unfortunately I do not have a plateful of the goodies above to pass out to my friends and loved ones at the party.  However, no one will notice because I'm not having a party either. I'm surprised that they are still allowing the SuperBowl to happen even though the Steelers didn't make it, but I guess fans of the other teams need to feel special now and then as well.

My current plan is to end up at the Mirage for a while - win a few giveaways and then retire to the comfort of my floor and blanket a rich(er) man than when I entered.

However, if my plans run amiss then I do have an open invitation to 2-3 different SB Parties that I will be willing to attend and drink myself into oblivion.  So, I feel that things will work out in my favor either way.

I will be meeting up with Lighting36 at The Mirage, and this will be our first formal introduction even though I know that we have run into each other on other occasions at Bally's since we both love playing there often.

The only thing left is to figure out what I am to do with the rest of my evening.

I can head out and play poker and put tomorrow at risk.

I can drink heavily and cry myself to sleep.

I can finish reading The Hunger Games.

I can play some Video Games.

Man, I lead a charmed fucking life!

Crap

Oh no, this is not about the fun game that everyone loves to hate.
There are no Yo-Elevens here, no hard sixes or hopping the sevens, no placing and no coming (well - uh, no, just not).  You are not lucky enough for any of that today.

Diet and Exercise - words everyone loves to hate.  Truth be told if you diet you are never going to achieve your goals, at least not long term.  You are going to drop a few pounds and feel better about yourself and then when you go back to binge eating bags of chips and Taco Bell you gain the weight right back again (if you're lucky that is, if you're not lucky then you gain more back you fat bastard) and feel miserable and wonder why nothing works for you.  I want to be a skinny bitch too, they have all the fun.

When you are in the process of Diet and Exercise there are some great things that happen to you.  You start to lose weight and have more energy.  You feel better about yourself and your surroundings and you build up confidence at the new you that you see in the mirror.

However, there is a dark side to this new lifestyle as well.  A very shady, annoying, dark side that nobody really tells you about. Something you never think about until it's too late.  As you eat better and exercise more you shit more. A lot more.  I wish there was a warning on the fucking elliptical about this, or on the head of lettuce.  Somewhere.

I've always been a "once a day" type of guy.  And, usually, it was around the same time every day.  It was great. I saved money because I didn't go through much toilet paper and all was happy in the world. I have only been working out for two weeks at this point (eating better for about a month and a half) and already I'm seeing a dramatic change in my toilet habits.  I am shitting AT LEAST twice a day.  I usually drop the kids off in the pool before I head out to work and I generally drop their cousins off before I come home from work.  Sometimes at night, before the workout, there is a 3rd family gathering.   This is annoying for me.
My asshole is not used to this much wiping.  In fact, I'm just going to be frank about it and admit that it's more sore than it needs to be and I'm going to have to invest in picking up some wet-wipes.

Wet-Wipes.
I'm glad I was re-introduced to them because they are just amazing.  You feeeelllll sooooo gooood when using them.  I don't understand why it takes a sore asshole to rediscover this goodness.  I don't know if we are just too cheap as a nation that we ignore wet-wipes and choose to punish our assholes by dry wiping for year after year.
When you first come into this world as a newborn you get a wet wipe treatment all the time.  It's great, you giggle, and your ass is clean and smells like a forest after the rain.  Why do we ever stop this process?
Once you start wiping your own ass after you learn to use the toilet yourself you are given a roll of dry toilet paper and told to try and make sure your thumb doesn't poke through.  That's it, no more wet-wipes until after you graduate college and pay off all your bills and one day wake up with a hemorrhoid (and who the fuck came up with the spelling of that word?) because you mistreated your bum-hole so bad that it hurts just to sit down (who knew that light bulb would break, it seemed like a good idea at the time).
I think our parents are trying to punish us for something and I'm not sure what it is.  If they were truly good to us they could skip that whole Satan Clause thing and just jump right to the wet-wipes.
"These will make your bum feel better and when you become a teenager they make quick clean up as well."

To sum everything up.
Diet and Exercise is bad for you because you'll shit more which leads to a sore butt-hole.
Be smart, (show S-mart) and invest in some wet-wipes and let the good times roll.

Doctors

I'm going to just say up front that the following will most likely be vulgar.

I doubt this will turn any of my readers away, but I just wanted to point out that I PLAN on using a few profanities.

So, it's that time again.  Every year I go through this and every year it appears to take me by surprise.  I have to make a doctors appointment to get my prescriptions renewed.

This, right here, is one of the reasons why I hate the medical system in Las fucking Vegas.  Everything in this town is built around fucking you, the consumer, over.  I'm cool with that.  Those big ass buildings down on the strip need to be paid for somehow and it sure as shit isn't coming out of the pockets of those rich enough to build the fuckers.  No, it comes from the ordinary people like you and I.  So, it is with that knowledge that I moved to this great city (and would not rather live anywhere else on this planet with the exception of some Asian countries for different reasons though).

When I moved to Vegas I pretty much just expected to get fucked going to the casino's - and if I paid enough extra at the massage parlors.  I did not expect to get fucked by the greedy medical system.

Everywhere I turn it appears that doctors think that I'm just a retard who then can bend over, not even bother to give me a slap on the ass and fuck me hard and (not) good while raiding my wallet.

So - I have asthma and rely on two different inhalers in order to keep breathing on a regular basis. The one inhaler is Advair which is pretty much gods gift to asthmatics as it has let me breathe better than I ever have at any time in my entire life before using it.  Through a quick trick on my former doctor in PA I managed to get the good version (read: higher dosage) prescribed to me.  

Advair comes in two doses - 250 mg and 500 mg.  I was using the 250 mg twice a day and one random visit to the doc he asked me which strength he had given me before and I immediately just said 500mg.  So, since then that is what I have been getting.  There is no difference in price between the two - however with the 500mg I now only take it once a day (when I remember) and it lasts twice as long.  Thus, i become a cheap ass and don't get it refilled as often as I should and I have a bunch of extras at the house so I can go a year if I wanted without a refill and without seeing my doc.

Hmmm, where was I.  Oh yes, getting raped.

So, my prescription has run out and I ask the pharmacy to order my refill, but the fucking doctor refuses.  I cannot get a refill of my LIVE SAVING MEDICATION until he see's me so that he can collect my co-pay and whatever the insurance picks up.

I have been seeing the same doctor since I moved to Vegas in 2006.  My last visit, in 2011, he walked into the room and asked me if he had ever seen me before as a patient.

He has my fucking medical record in his hand.  He has been my fucking doctor since 2006.

He is the one getting paid a FUCK TON of money to just write a fucking prescription and he has the nerve to ask me if he's ever fucking seen me before?  Don't you look at your fucking file before coming into the room you waste of sperm and eggs?  

Then, after checking my breathing, my lungs, my blood pressure and whatever else he does (and most of the time the nurse does all that shit anyways, not the fucking doctor) he writes me my prescription.

He tells me that I'm too fucking fat and I need to loose weight.

He tells me I should get blood work to check blah blah fucking blah and I like every other year I throw the paperwork away as soon as I leave the office.

Then, he as the fucking gull to write my prescription and only give 1 refill.  My prescription runs out in one year but I run out of god damned refills in 6 months. Seriously?  And when I try to get a new script he tells me he won't write one until he sees me again for a check up.

Bullshit.  What happened to docs listening to their patience and doing what was best for them instead of what is best for the wallet?

So, yeah.  I gotta go visit the fucker again.

I'm the fattest I have ever been in my life - and I have to go listen to him tell me that being overweight is bad for my asthma and my sex life and my continued trips to see him.  I can't see him if I'm dead and that means he loses out on some good money over the course of the years.  We would't want that to happen.

I have so much more to bitch about but I've typed up too much as it is.

In the future I'll tell you about the doctor who tried to get me to have surgery on my broken foot when it was not needed at all.  I actually had another doctor tell me that he probably was late on his boat payment.

Fucking bottom feeding ass hats.  If it wasn't for my asthma I would never fucking see any of them and just let my health degrade the old fashioned way.

The Thursday Diatribe

Yesterday I clicked on the button that said "update Blogger dashboard" or something akin to that.
Being a use of multiple Google products I know that eventually they will force the update and remove the old format, so I figure'd I might as well get used to it now so that I don't have to bitch about being forced later.
Also, much like the other updates that I have applied (gmail, googledocs, etc) I really don't like it much.
Maybe I'll get used to it over time, but as of right now it's just kind of blah to me.
Also, the "compose" page is laid out odd which will make me forget to do things like add my mostly worthless labels to my page.  Before that option was right at the bottom of the composition page, and now it's on the side and I have to click on something to bring the box up to enter the crap.  I have a feeling that I'll be labeling things a lot less in the future.

You know life has reached a new level of boring when this is what I have to talk about currently.

Work was rather lame yesterday. I did sell a small install for SOS carpet for under $500 - and I really wish that I could find a way to pull one more out of my ass before the end of tomorrow.  Tomorrow ends the quarter and the fiscal year, and while I have no budgets myself (I'm just the keeper of the budgets) I still like to at least hit the smallest budgets and keep ahead of some of our Specialists in the store.

I have yet to decide where I'll be watching the Super Bowl or what I'll be doing.  I don't feel like having a party myself being stuck in the apartment and I do have a couple of offers of places to go where there will be much eating and drinking but that would force me to socialize.
I've been debating going down to the Mirage and playing there as they will be giving away a lot of extra money during the game. I believe last year they gave away around $10,000 - and this year will be more of the same.

And finally, I started reading another book a day or two ago before picking up Insomnia.
Main reason why is because my hardback version of Insomnia is stuck in storage and I really don't want to drive across town to find it. I don't want to search through all the crap to find one book.  I would rather just download it on my Kindle Fire and go that way.  The issue was, when I was ready to dive into another book, it was not yet payday and I didn't have the extra scratch to buy the book.  I know it's cheep but I am on a tight budget here!  So, I started reading The Hunger Games as recommended to me by someone else (which I previously downloaded for I think 99 cents).
I've read the 1st two chapters and so far it's all back story. I have not gotten into any of the fun or violence yet.

WTF Moments

File this in the category of unusual shit that happens to me.

I have this irritated skin-tag on my shoulder/neck area.  I think it's a skin-tag, it could just be an irritated pimple for all I know.  Either way, it's annoying and it rubs on my shirt the wrong way.
So yesterday I decide to be smart and throw a band-aid over it to cut out the irritation.

I wear it all day, it definitely helps.  I leave it on for my workout at the gym because I wear those super cool spandex type dealie-o's that don't let your sweat break through your clothes - and I really didn't want that tight on my skin and rubbing at the irritated area.

No annoyance so I'm good.
Fast forward to me waking up at 5:30 this morning and going to scratch my shoulder and coming in contact with the band-aid that I had forgotten to remove at any point last night.
I feel a bit of soreness, but I dig in and rip the band-aid off and then I start to feel some minor pain.
I reach up and touch where the issue is coming from and it feels all goopy.

Yes, somehow, during my workout, the sweat forced the band-aid to cauterize to my fucking skin and when I ripped it off I ripped off some goopy flesh with it.
So, now instead of having just this one little spot of irritation I have a much larger issue haha.
At least it wasn't the whole band-aid that gave me the issue and just around the edges - but still.
I've gone this many years without ever having a similar issue or even hearing that this shit is possible.
WTF man, seriously?

Monday's gonna suck

Tonight I have sat in my room for multiple hours doing nothing.

I have no will or desire to do anything.

I've stared at my computer monitor, I've stared at my ceiling, I've accomplished nothing.

Earlier today was better.  I woke up and immediately ate some Lucky Charms, I was satiated.

I then shaved most of the hair off of my head and hit the showers.

Later in the day I watched 20 minutes of the Pro Bowl and then headed over to a buddy's house to watch the Royal Rumble.

Since that point in time I have done nothing.

I have not read, I have not played any games, I have just wasted my entire evening staring off into different directions of space.  Ugh.

I'm mostly not looking forward to tomorrow.

It's going to start with a trip to the dentist around 11 am.  Depending on how that goes and what gets done will determine if I hit up the gym later in the evening or not.

Obviously if a tooth gets pulled (wisdom) then I will not be able to hit up the gym.

But, before gym time comes play time and I'll be heading out with a friend to take in a movie.

A re-release.

In 3d.

Have I ranted about how I don't particularly like 3d?  If not I'll probably get to it eventually.

Yesterday was Poker Tourney day and I spent the majority of my time auctioning off my chips to the better hand.

It was seriously a pretty damned crappy tourney even though I had played very well (I thought) during my time at the table.

I started early by raising TT in early position and betting down on a Jack high board.  The river I was suddenly bet into fairly large but the way the hand played out he told me that he was drawing to something and missed.  I called and he mucked.

Later I did the same with J8 on a J high 4 straight board, but I was the only one doing the betting.  

Those two hands were the hi-light of the tourney for me.

After that (all in the 1st level of the tourney) I got AQ, AJ and AT each once and no other hands worth while.

I raised those 3 hands and missed everything and got lots of action (4 -5 callers pre-flop and being bet into and called post flop).

Meanwhile the rest of my table was busy getting lots of AA and KK, rivering gut-shots after calling half their stack away on the turn and of course getting all in and rivering flushes.

My table saw the 1st 4 people eliminated from the tourney, 3 people had pretty large chip stacks by the time I made my final move and watched my opponent out flop me, out turn me and then out river me - just to get me every single way possible during my fair-well hand.

I will play it again at the end of Feb, it was worth while and there was a lot of bad play involved.

However, until that point I will have to suffer through another month of life.

At work I put in for two positions that popped open and I suspect that I will not receive interviews for either of them, however you get no where in life if you do not at least try.

I also have a meeting with my store manager on Thursday as she is going to tell me what it is that she wants me to do and I suspect that it is somewhere along the lines of 1-on-1 training with essentially everyone else in the store over the course of a couple month time period.

M.Prosk is my 20th follower - yet another roll over from Josie and TBC blogs of doom.

Also, TBC's latest blog post is full of racism and extremist views - also a very bad belief system and it seems to me (and others) that he really doesn't understand the difference between Dems and Repubs.

However, from what he said you have to be mentally ill to vote for the Democrats because they support black pimps mistreating white whores (paraphrased of course).

Last night I drank and had a great time, good night followers. I've bounced around enough for one evening.

My attempt at healthier - boring - feel free to skip

Today at the gym I decided to do things a little differently.
When I jumped on the Elliptical I hit the button that says "weight loss" and i'm 100% sure that button didn't do it's job.  However, I continued.
The weight loss program runs for 28 minutes and then 4 minutes of cool down, and the entire time that I was going through the program I tried my hardest to keep my heart rate in the "fat burn" target range which is evidently much less than cardio.  I don't know enough about all this and that to understand why-the-fuck it's that way, I just kinda play along and hope the results show up.
Other than going over the heart-rate threshold twice (but getting it back down quickly) i stayed where I was trying to stay for the entire 32 minutes and I was happy with myself.  Broke a decent sweat in the process and felt good.
It was then that I decided that I'd see how long I could go balls out and slowing down to make sure I got to 13 minutes (so that I could hit 45 total) if need be.
I'm happy to report that I did the 13 minutes without much of an issue at all and I kept my heart-rate in the target cardio area the entire time.  I kept trying to control my breathing so that I could control my heart rate better and I think the more fit I become the better I'll become at this as well.
Either way - 45 minutes is more than I had planned to hit by the end of my 1st week in the gym.
Makes my 1 hour mark seem much more reasonable at this point.

Over the course of this week I have also increased my water intake dramatically (and by water intake I mean just pure water - not all that other stuff that I dream where the 1st ingredient is water).  I am up to 80 ounces per day min (mind you I have gone entire months in my past where I have not drank a single ounce of water - so this is pretty dramatic for me.
I have also cut down my soda intake since I am drinking more water - which leads me into this.

I was reading on our works social networking forum today and some guy posted how he went about making changes in his life in order to lose weight and get healthier after his heart attack (it's fucking weird how I'm now starting to see people everywhere writing about how they had a heart attack between 35-40 and then proceed to describe me almost to a T lol).
He says one of the things that he did was cut out soda's complete - not even drinking diet sodas.  Switching up to almost all water with whatever else.
Then, in parenthesis like it's some big amount he states that he used to drink up to 5 cans of soda every single day.  I actually laughed out loud because in my prime I think I was downing over 3 two-liters of Mt Dew every single day, and probably a couple of cans/bottles as well.  This was high-school.
In college I think I lived off of Mt Dew daily and when the weekends hit I lived off of Vodka.
It's truly disturbing how much Mt Dew that I used to consume daily now that I look back at it.  So, his claim of up to 5 cans of soda every day made me laugh and I wanted to write back "Shit, that was what I called breakfast when i was younger."

I've also cut out most of the junk food that I normally ate and replaced it with a steady stream of fruit.
My daily eat list is not really that impressive - there are still some flaws with it, but it will slowly change over time to something more healthy.  I cannot cut out every single vice from day one and actually still enjoy my life.
Currently I eat a banana and a cheese stick for breakfast with a bottle of water and if I have one a small bottle of Sunny D (probably an 8 oz one I think, it's pretty tiny).
My first break at work I generally eat either left overs from the night before or a lunch meat sandwich consisting of chicken or turkey, some cheese and some mayo and mustard.
My second break at work I eat another banana and another cheese stick.
Also note that i bring a baggie full of grapes to work as well, and a sliced kiwi or a cutie (mini orange looking thing).
And, in there somewhere (or during my longer lunch break) I have a real snack brought from home.  In a small baggie I have either a couple of cookies, or some Doritos or if my mom has been in a cooking mood a brownie or something equally as delicious.
I know that I should cut out the real junk food and only do that once a week - but I can live with myself this way for right now.  We'll talk about cutting out more after i've dropped 25 pounds or so.
And other than my traditional banana after my workout, I have not been eating anything after 8pm.
No snacking, nothing.

I am very happy with the way this first week went.  I got 4 good days of exercise in and I have made at least one healthy change in my diet (more water, less soda).
Next week is going to be a challenge - Monday is a trip to the dentist.
The big issue with that is that there is a possibility of having 2 wisdom teeth removed on Monday which means no gym for a couple days afterwards.
So, we'll play next week by ear and hope for the best.

Too many words and I need to get some reading in before falling asleep.
Hope you all have great weekends and hope I have some good shit to write about after tomorrow nights tournament!

The wee morning hours

I'm not a morning person, though over the last year or so I have had to force myself into the routine of being up early because of my job.  It's not that bad but every morning I look at that clock and think to myself or out loud to my dog that I'd rather be sleeping.
Also, the alarm has another annoying side effect and that is waking the dog up so that I have to take him outside and wait for him to do his business.
Not really cool. 5:30 in the morning outside in my boxers and a T-shirt is starting to get a little bit chilly out here in Las Vegas.  I guess at least it's not snowing ha :)

Yesterday I came home from work to find that 3 new people have started following me.  I've got LVPokerplayer who is a carry over from TBC's blog I do believe and Summer Smith who I knew WAY BACK in high school.  The 3rd I am less than 100% sure about but I think is thlf.  I am just going to assume that stands for "Totally hawsome, loves fucking."  but I could be wrong.

So thank you all for coming along on my little adventure - sadly this is no Big Top Adventure and Paul Reuben will not be coming to play with us.

Yesterday I hit up the gym for the 3rd time this week and pushed myself to 35 minutes before caving and calling it a day.  I'll probably do the same tonight and by the end of next week I'm hoping to be able to push 45 minutes.  My overall goal is that when I'm doing just the elliptical to be able to do 1 hour per day.
I was going to weigh myself but when I went into the locker room there was a naked guy hogging the "how fat are you" machine.  In fact, he was on there entirely too long and trying to stand perfectly still until the metal arm of weight positioning stopped moving 100% and told him how fat he was down to the ounce.
It was kind of annoying.  Get on, move the scales and when it starts to normalize BINGO, that's about what you weight.  If you need more exact readings then buy a fucking scale and use it at home lardo.

Two more days until my weekend begins and that means two more days until the Aliante tourney. $100 buy in (technically $90 buy-in and $10 dealer add-on, but if you don't take the add-on you're an idiot) and 100% of the $90 buy-in goes to the prize pool.
I want to work on my tournament game (read: develop one) so there is no reason why I shouldn't start playing.   Also, if you show up early and play you get an extra $500 in chips for every half hour you play up to a max of an extra $2000.  If I can weasel my way out of work just a little early and get seated fairly quickly I should be able to get the full $2000 extra chips.

For the Ladies

Yesterday I posted the picture of your typical "hot" chick in a swim suit.
I suggested that it was eye candy for the guys, to convince them to keep reading my boring diatribes that contain no info about poker but things about working out, and my job and other such things no one finds fun to read about.

Another reader asked if I would be posting some pics for the ladies who read my blog (and even though they are greatly out numbered I do have to remind myself that they control all of the vagina's and thus I should probably listen if I ever want to see one again).

So, with that in mind - This blog is for the ladies.

It's long been rumored that the ladies love the chocolate.  Cake, cookies, candy bars and ice cream. It doesn't matter the source as long as it's flavored with that brown delicious stuff.
Speaking of chocolate

This man has 4 kids and can't afford his child support since he somehow managed to squander the 80 (that's fucking right kids) 80 million he made over the course of his NFL career.
So, he had to take a "job" playing for an arena team for a measly $500,000 so that he could keep making his payments and keep his ass out of jail.
I felt less gay putting this picture up because he is a football player and not just some random muscular fuck-tard from a Google search.

So sit back and enjoy a few sips of the nice delicious red wine that I am providing for you and relax.
Take off your shoes and I'll give you a nice foot massage.
Let me throw another log in the fireplace for you.

Are you relaxed?
Good.
Because I've been single for far too long and I put a few roofies in your drink.
Daddy's going to score tonight

Wednesday's hodge podge - Evening Edition

So, I thought that I'd start adding more eye candy for my mostly male reading audience.
The chick above, Katrina Law, is going to be in the new Spartacus show that is coming out soon.  If you haven't seen the previous seasons it's basically Soft Core Porn with blood and violence added in.

Tonight I am taking the night off from the gym.  I have gone the past two in a row which is good, and after today I will also go on Thursday and Friday.  Four days for my first week back in the sweat factory is a good accomplishment.
I'll still find some sort of exercise to do from home, maybe some fat-boy sit-ups and push-ups will do me good. If I can count to ten I think I'm pretty damned golden right now.

I started reading a book today, Alice in Deadland, which I picked up for my Kindle Fire of course. I'm not 100% where I saw this book advertised or anything, I just remember that it was/is a 99 cent book and from my brief glance at the cover and the name I assumed it would be a bizarre twist on the Alice in Wonderland story.
That part I got right, but I think that was easy to decipher.
The part that I got wrong was I saw the name Deadland and my mind immediately went to Deadlands which is essentially part of the whole D&D universe of tabletop RPG games.  I love the Deadlands universe from what little I have played of it - so with those two thoughts I spend the 99 cents and off I went to the download page.

Now that I have officially got a few pages into it (briefly read a bit during lunch) it is more of an Alice in Wonderland meets Zombies type of book - which I still have no problem with and if I were to have known that (you know, if I would have done research and read reviews or anything) I would have bought it all the same.
I am not far enough into the book to give any good information about it just yet, I am still just starting to get a feel for it myself.  What I can say is that it looks like it's going to be a different take on zombies than the mindless killing machines that they typically are.

The fattie that I am is telling my superego to get a beer and something to snack on, the skinny(er) person that I want to be is telling the fattie to shut his pie-hole and drink a bottle of water instead.

My (angry) customer will be coming into the store tomorrow to take care of his issue.  When I called him today I told him that if he came into the store and spoke to a manager and let them know the situation that I'm sure they'd have no issue throwing 10% his way.  So, of course the first thing he asks is when I work tomorrow to make sure that he comes in when I'm there.
So, I guess I should probably prime the management team in advance of the situation and the solution that I have already offered so that when he arrives it's as quick and painless as possible.
Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am!
I love my solutions like I like my women.

Angry Customer

Today I have to find a solution for an angry customer.
It'll be fun - I'll pretend I'm a manager and I'll throw money at the problem and hope it goes away.  :)

Next week is a week of work that I'm really not looking forward to.  The other person who shares my office is supposed to be covering another department because of a vacation, so I get the full week to myself.
That's not the bad part, I've done it before and it's honestly not that hard.  The bad part is that this time they threw me in a horrible morning shift.
5:30 - 2:30 every day.  Well, not every day.  For some reason they gave me off Saturday - Monday.
I think that they were trying to give me the weekend off and somehow just forgot to schedule me on Monday (since I never work that day) but failed.  Which really is good news because I have a dentist appointment on Monday.  While I am not looking forward to that appointment I am also not really wanting to work the day just to get out of it.
I've got to do some soul searching (study my debt, my bills, my financial situation, etc) and see if I can afford to have the 3rd day off that week or if I should just come in and work on Saturday like I normally do.

Dentist - Oh - the thing that makes me hate January more than anything else.
I have to get a permanent cap for one of my teeth.  I also have to lose two smart-tooths.
One I have to lose because it's next to the tooth with the cap.  If they try to remove it later there is a chance it will break/crack the cap and I'd have to get a new one all over again.
The other one I believe has cracked and chipped over the past couple of months, was causing me bad headaches for about 2 weeks and just needs to go away.
I'm going to be old and toothless, the perfect picture of the typical dirty old man grabbing nurses asses and making bad jokes. Regaling in stories of my youth like that one time..... and that other time..... telling the same stories over and over and over again.

Gym - Day #2

I'm not sure whether I should put all of my updates for everything here or whether I should separate stuff like my boring gym blogs into their own separate space.

What does everyone else think?

I'd be curious to know this answer because I don't want to alienate people from checking me out regularly because I'm posting too often and detailing the whole weight loss thing here.

Either way - I'll do it for a time or two more and if you all hate it I'll move it to it's own separate space and be done with it.

Because the gym kicked my ass so bad today I'm too tired to actually type about anything else.

so, without further ado.....

Today was the day that I weighed myself for the first time in nearly 6 months.
Wow - that was not a happy moment in life, though truth be told I was kind of expecting the results that I saw.
I have eaten horrible over over the past 6 months, I have gotten no exercise and as a result I have gained weight and am at my highest total ever.

295.
Ugh
Pretty disgusted with myself at the moment, but I'm working on doing something about it.

So, with that motivation I walked my fat-ass up the stairs and hit the elliptical.
Dear Elliptical,
I heart you
Love serge

Today my only goal was to get my 30 minutes in and to make sure that I got even just a slightly better distance than yesterday.
I have no clue how distance transposes itself into the real world but it's a unit of measurement and I might as well make some use of it.
Yesterday I did 2.01 of this magical distance unit.

Nearing the end of my workout I noticed that I was getting close to 400 calories burned so I decided I was going to keep going until I hit 400.
That's the little game I play with myself once I get into the routine of actually going consistently.
I look at all the little unit measurements and I tell myself that I'm going to go until I hit unit x - then when I hit that I notice that I'm close to something else so I say that I'll keep going until I hit that.
I keep that up as long as I can until I'm exhausted and then I quit mostly satisfied.

So, today it was 400 calories and that is what I did.
Ended up being 31minutes 30 seconds - 402 calories - 2.12 magical distance units.
I'm happy.
I'm exhausted.
I'm worn out.

I will probably take tomorrow off to recover then do back to back days Thursday and Friday and give myself the weekend off.
4 days a week will be good for a month or so.
There is a possibility that it will veer back to 3 days a week for the first few weeks depending on if I can keep it up come Friday or not.  Only time will tell.

Gym - Day 1

I don't care if I post too much - y'all can ignore most of it and hopefully just pick through the good stuff.

Either way - today I finally found motivation to start going to back to the gym.
Hopefully.
We will see.
I'm going to need lots of encouragement for this - I'm not asking y'all to post stupid shit and telling me what a good job I'm doing - I'm just saying I'm a fat lazy slob and it's hard to break that cycle.

Today was the 1st step and hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I can take step 2 and go back.
Next time I will search for the "how fat are you" machine so that I can actually track my progress.

Right now everything I do will be on the elliptical.

Session 1 - 30 minutes - 2.01 distance - 358 theoretical calories destroyed.

The Dark Tower

I don't recall when I started reading the series but I know it was not from the beginning (for I was too young then really).  I have faithfully bought ever book that came out after I started, 1st print and in hard back even though I have put them off for far longer than I should have.

Book 7 was released in 2006 if I am to believe the information on Amazon.com (or that could be that the paperback portion was released then) and here I sit in January of 2012 just finally finishing it, nearly 6 years later.

I had known that I wanted to read the last three books in succession after sai Kings accident and as such I kept picking them up but waiting on reading them.  When they were finally released I started the journey and enjoyed pretty much every page on the way to the final destination.
Wolves of the Calla went by very quickly for me and I had visions of running through the last 3 books within a month.  However, about 200 pages into Songs of Susanna I put the book down and walked away from it for a couple of years.
Once I started it over I made quick work of it and then started book 7, The Dark Tower, and once again I stopped just a couple of hundred pages into it. I did not realize it at the time, but the reason I kept stopping was not because I had lost interest but because I did not want it to end.  If I did not know what was written on the pages ahead then the journey was still continuing.  However, as all things must, I knew that I had to eventually finish the series so that I could see the end of the journey for the ka-tet.

Another reason why I decided to finally finish with the series (as it exists at this moment) was because The Wind Through The Key Hole is coming out this year and I did not want to go into that book without having finished the other books in order.  Now that my journey has ended (until Keyhole comes out) I wish that I would have ended it sooner.  I wish that I would, instead, be looking to begin anew much like Roland and start back over with The Gunslinger so that I can read the new book in it's proper timeline of the series.
Unless a random lightning strike of motivation hits me this will most likely not be happening.  I need to turn my attention to something of a lighter nature and a quicker read for that last book was definitely a heavy hitter on my mind.

I don't know if I'll ever sit down and give this book a good full review because I just don't think that's my style. I'm not one to delve into the inner workings and come up with good words and sentences to do anything justice - I don't believe that I have that kind of talent - at least not enough to make other people say that it was worth their time to read.  However (I rely on using that to start sentences too much) I do know that I have two fine folks waiting to palaver with me on the subject of The Dark Tower, Tricia and Josie.

Also, I did want to say that I had no long internal debate on whether or not I wanted to read the "ending" or stop when sai King warned me to stop.  I had come this far and I was not going to leave the last few pages sitting there, unfound, without me having knowledge of his artificial ending.

Truth be told I got to the point where I almost expected that ending.  It had played in my head over the last couple of weeks in a "wouldn't it be funny if..." kind of way.  So in that sense I was not disappointed by the way those last few pages played out.  I will state that I do feel that the other ending, before we get to see the inner workings of the Dark Tower, is the true ending and I would have been much happier if the book would have just quit right there.  I'm sure it would have pissed many a person off but I feel like that would have been satisfactory.

I loved this book, I loved the series and I will re-read them from start to finish (which is very very rare for me as I almost never re do anything - books, games, whatever).  I'm sure as I go through them a 2nd time that I will pick up on things that I didn't before, the language will be quicker to read and easier to comprehend and I will also take the time to go back over sai Kings vast catalog of books and read the other books that come into play in the Dark Tower story line.  I've got a lot of words ahead of me but I'm up to the challenge.