The 7 Facts Award

Wouldn't you know it? The great and wonderful me has gotten another award thrust upon myself and I want to thank the just as great and wonderful, if not better, LilPixi, from It's A Lollipop World.

LilPixi has got a kick ass, wild and humorous blog that features delightful topics ranging from popping penis balloons to pleasant experiences like having your heart abruptly stop pumping while slippery shit dumplings suddenly pop out of your ass like a Jack-In-The Box as you're attacked by crazed, jacket-eating giraffes. I'm might have added a bit of color to that last description but, basically, it's true. Check out her zany, original blog to see what I mean by all this insanity.

As usual, there are the rules. As usual, I will break one or more of them. Here are the rules:

*Copy and paste this award to your blog

* Thank and link to the person that tagged you with it.
* List 7 facts about yourself
* Give the award to 5 other bloggers and tell them they have it.

I shall list 7 facts of myself, once again, like I did at the beginning of this month, because I know how much everyone is just dying to know more about sweet lil' ol' me. I'll try my damnedest to tell something about myself I haven't before on this site but I can't guarantee you'll be oddly fascinated or even erotically stimulated by the answers.

#1- I can hear, just at this moment, at one o' clock in the morning, some asshole loudly rummaging around in the large garbage bin, down below one of my apartment windows, slightly off to the right side of the building. No shit! This numb nuts is hunting for I-don't-know-what at this time of night but it is unnerving. I'm wondering what kind of info he might be finding out. Damn, I hope he doesn't find the messed up Barbie Dolls I threw in the trash that have my name stamped on their plastic asses. That might be embarrassing.

#2- TV shows I watch on a semi-regular basis would include: House, Family Guy, Nova, Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern, 1000 Ways To Die, Tosh.O, National Geographic specials, Baggage, NCIS, The Daily Show, Minute To Win It, History Channel shows and more I can't think of at the moment because the douche bucket down below won't stop making a racket.

Perhaps he's collecting cans. I hear a lot of tink-tink-tinking going on. Perhaps I'll save him the trouble of making a few lousy bucks by collecting cans at one in the morning to drag to the recycle center later for money and throw a few dollars out the window at him so he'll go away. Fuck it! I'll just pull the window up and activate "my amazing sprinkler system" (also called My Bladder and Tubular Sex Organ) and give the guy a golden shower. Nah. Strike that! That freak might enjoy it.

Moving on...

#3- Is an omelet really an omelet without the cooked flesh of some dead animal and some cheese? I think not. I don't eat omelets without meat and if you try to force one, sans meat, upon me, I will be forced to declare war. It would be as bad as drinking decaffeinated coffee to me. What's the point?

#4- I was taught how to fish, set up a tent and camp, chop wood, enjoy a good strong cup of coffee, reap the benefits of what worlds books can open for you, draw, paint, cook and observe before you blindly jump into something all before the age of ten. Imagining and creating stories came naturally to me. So did the ability to be direct and honest. An ability some people in society annoyingly lack for the purposes of not wanting to "make waves" or be open.

#5- I like animals more than I like people. A real shock, isn't it? Hahaha..... Okay. I'll stop.

#6- I was once an elf for the Keebler Cookie Company. But instead of doing our work in a tree, we did it in a factory filled with huge hot ovens. I was driven further into the depths of madness with this fast paced, stressful job. It was my duty to watch, from 10 at night to 8 in the morning, literally millions of goddamn cookies go down the conveyor belt very, very quickly and check for minor imperfections of each friggin' cookie. If you found one or more unsightly cookies, you had to have the reflexes of Flash to grab it off the line before it got to the packagers' section. Chaos often ensued when there were more than a few at a time that were "bad".

In only seconds, I had to judge the quality of each cookie as they whizzed by. Does this one have enough chocolate chips? Is that one perfectly round? Does that one seem photogenically balanced and capable of pleasing a typical obese American? Gosh, I sure hoped so. My eyes watered and glazed over after a few hours of this relentless burden and my back was about to break. Eventually, the stress got to me with this job (slave labor) and I allowed a billion and one cookies to pile up on the factory floor one night. When blood comes out of your ears and drips on the perfectly shaped cookies, you know it's quitting time. Boy, you should have heard what those potty-mouthed elves had to say about that mess. Goodness gracious, I was appalled!

#7- I've met eight of the major players of The Big Red Machine. The Major League Baseball World Champions of 1975 and 1976 were gracious enough to give me and our small town's citizenry, free of charge, a signed autograph of themselves back then. It isn't too often that a big name professional athlete does anything like that- free of charge- these days. It's all about the money. That was an amazing day for a 12 year old boy or for anyone else, for that matter. Click the link above for the significance of these guys. They are legends.

As for any recipients to pass this award forward to, I'm going to give it to one blogger I've never mentioned before and whose blog has given me chuckles aplenty past and present. He may do whatever he wants with it. Let it be known, I have officially bestowed this award/survey upon him like a crown of golden dingleberries.

The proud recipient is Rico Swaff of the spectacular blog, The Chronicles of Rico. Hey dude, follow the rules above as much as you want. Take care, folks.

What You Can See At The Gym

I go to the community center in town. I'm trying to shed pounds to get my blood sugar count down and look halfway decent in a pair of swim trunks when I go on a cruise this summer. The center has a quiet workout gym, featuring treadmills, stationary cycles, weight lifting equipment, rowing machines and so forth. Best of all, it's free. The equipment is top notch. Clean towels. Those are the positives. And going down there four days a week does help me lose the weight.

So far, I've worked out next to several old flabby guys and gals who look like they could keel over from overexertion at any moment. Their faces get red. Some turn pale. Most are breathing hard and I think one of them exhaled deeply and relieved himself. I smelled something.

Precious moments.

Then you have the overachievers. The Type A go-getter personality group who run 60 mph on a treadmill for thirty or more minutes. Some of them even live long enough to take a towel and wipe the oceans worth of sweat off their brow. Are they showing off? What's the deal with that. Can I hook you up to some kind of machine or a giant, electrified hamster wheel at my place that will help keep my utility bill down? You run. I'll zap ya with a cattle prod. You know, for kicks.

Another group that amuses me and annoys me a bit are the 18 to 24 year olds with stick legs, running their asses off on the treadmills. I guess being anorexic isn't enough for them. They're shooting for being skeletal. Yeah, that's attractive. Bony, over tanned legs with the flat chest that usually accompanies them.

I'm usually watching one or both of the wide screen televisions above me. One will usually have Fox News on. If I'm lucky, and I usually am, in this respect, the sound will be off so I won't hear the biased, conservative, ridiculous comments being made . The other tv will feature a sports game. So I guess the gym staff figure you're either a jock or a jerk when you sign up. Anyway, it's free, quiet and clean. And there are big mirrors, below the tv, in front of you, so you can see who's huffing and puffing and about to hit the floor. Entertainment!

There's also a guy, part of the staff, who's a little on the slow side who asks if you need anything while you're exercising. He also limps. While I make a few un-politically correct jokes about such people in some of my posts, I don't think they're any less human than anyone else. But I do wonder about this guy, at times. Well, just one time. My wife went down today, for her second time since signing up and walked on the treadmill next to the stick leg girls. While just casually walking and doing her own thing, the slow guy mumbles and says, "Can I get you anything?" She said he was staring at her breasts for a long time.

I replied, "Well, maybe he was DUMBfounded by their size." Ha ha. Get it? I'm sorry. I'm bad. Hell has a special room for me, waiting. I feel bad. Maybe if I look at some nice big jiggly breasts, I will feel better.

Gratefully, the slow guy moved on to another woman carrying an oxygen tank with one hand and riding a stationary bike. He's a nice guy. He helps her to her car when she's ready to leave.

It can be an amusing and motivational time at the gym. And it's free. Did I mention that a few times already?

Big Deal About Michael Phelps Pot Smoking

The media is getting all worked up about the trivial pot smoke break Mike took during a college party. He has apologized profusely for his "indiscretion" since the picture came out. The uptights call Michaels's bong hit inappropriate behaviour for the kids or anyone else looking at him as a hero. I say, "Fuck 'em." And, by the way, don't teach your kids to look at anybody as a hero. That's inappropriate behaviour for a parent. In reality, there are no heroes. There are only normal every day people trying to do the best they can.

Furthermore....

Tell me which is the more appropriate behaviour for a 23-year-old male: taking a bong hit at a party or swimming an average of 50 miles a week? There's no need to take too long thinking about that.

Kellogg's has dropped him, as a sponsor, so I guess he won't be on any of their cereal box covers. To them, I say, "Fuck you." To his other sponsors, that have still have common sense, I say, "Bravo" for honoring and respecting Phelps by not allowing a trivial matter cloud your judgement. Phelps doesn't need Kellogg's, anyway. He's got 16 gold Olympic medals for his magnificent achievements, the respect of his team mates and more important things going for him than some cereal company can ever hope to compete with.

Face Stomping

Hee Ho.

What delightful fun, Mr. Coleman is having. Ooops. It was an accident. Giggle` Giggle. High fives to everyone around him.

Ukranian Boxer Uses Baby Pee

Not sure whether to label this guy a kook or what. Ukranian boxer Vitali Klitschko proudly admits he uses his baby son's piss-filled diapers to help keep the swelling of his fists down. The World Heavyweight Champion explained that baby pee is good because it is pure and doesn't smell.

"I wrap nappies filled with my three-year-old son Max's wee around my fists," he said, adding he got the idea from his grandmother. "The nappies hold the liquid and the swelling stays down."

My question is this:

Isn't there something better in the world of sports medicine than baby piss to keep swelling down? Ice or a heat pad comes to mind. I wonder what he uses when he gets cuts on his face during matches. Baby poo?

Oh well. Whatever works for him.