The Weeklies #143
(Friday, July 30, 2010)

The Weekly Condition. Busyness. Extreme busyness.

The Weekly iPad App. Flipboard.

The Weekly Read. I really, really wanted to like David Wong's John Dies At The End. Sincerely, I did. The author's sense of humor early on - and throughout - grabbed me and made me laugh. The back of the book and reviews I read told me that it was a horror novel that would make me laugh but also be genuinely scary. Clearly I was reading a different book. It wasn't scary in the least. Instead it was, well, a mess. Characters die then suddenly reappear, people jump in and out of time, ancient evil creatures come to life and talk about nothing but sex. It's like the author said here are my 500 ideas that I don't have time to sort out so you try. By the last 50 pages or so, I found myself skimming, reading nothing that had any impact on the story. I'd recommend that you skip it entirely.

The Weekly Time Waster. FlyGuy. I'll warn you now, it's pointless but it's also very charming.

The Weekly Schadenfreude. In perhaps the best example of unintended humor I stumbled across a hilarious and somewhat sad article written by one Stephenson Billings for something called Christwire. It's all about how the TV show Glee is evil and popularizing homosexuality and may or may not be lip-synced (seriously, the man seems to be surprised that the whole show isn't recorded live). Here's a little snippet:

Recently, I wrote about studies that revealed the dangerous influence that the 1980s tv show “The Golden Girls” had on American men now in their 30s, 40s and 50s (see “The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals”). The link between watching the Girls and increased risks of homosexual behavior was made abundantly meaningful. In a nutshell, the Golden Girls turned a generation away from procreation. It made our American boys into the most raunchy, campy, carnal people on the planet. If, as a society, we could have returned to the 80s with what we know now and stop that show, American culture might be drastically different today.

Yes, that's the problem with the world - The Golden Girls. Perhaps now that most of them are dead, the world will return to normal.

The Weekly Other Time Waster. iNudge

The Weekly Song Stuck In My Head. I'm a Hex Girl by The Hex Girls. Yes, its a song from a Scooby Doo movie. My children are obsessed with the You Tube clip (don't watch it - nothing good could come of it). And I've had the damn song going through my damn head all damn week.

The Weekly Question. What's the first thing you'd do if someone handed you a million dollars?

High School U.S.A.
(Thursday, July 29, 2010)

How much do you remember about high school?

I was bored the other night so I decided to Facebook-stalk people from my past. I found a group dedicated to my high school and narrowed the search down to the year I graduated and started looking at names and faces I haven't thought of in years. Now, my class was pretty big - 417 people to be exact, not counting Tommy Carter who was not allowed to walk with the class since they discovered during rehearsal that he wasn't wearing anything under his graduation robe - so it's not surprising that I didn't know everyone. But it still felt strange realizing that I only vaguely recognized the vast majority of the people I'd gone to high school with. Many were just complete strangers.

During the search I made an interesting discovery. I found out that the first girl I ever dated in high school now works for the same company I do, about a three minute walk from my very own office. She turned out to be not all that nice. For example, I never got past first base and I discovered that I was just a temporary replacement for a long-term boyfriend who was living abroad for a year. But I should totally find her office and ask her to the prom today, right?

Anyway, I'm quite sure this is indicative of a large issue, mainly that I'm losing my mind. I think I should remember more about it and about the people I spent four years of my life with. Am I the only one who can't remember much of high school? What's your most vivid memory of high school? And should I walk over and surprise my mean and prude ex-girlfriend?

______________________

P.S., based on your feedback yesterday, it was clear I need to search my site stats and make sure I had the right set of demographics. I think you'll find these more satisfactory.

Update: It has been brought to my attention that I probably already mentioned that high-school girlfriend discovery. Um, yeah. This merely confirms that I am losing my mind.

Fat Kids Revisited
(Wednesday, July 28, 2010)

I got some interesting feedback on yesterday's post. I want to call a time-out and explain a few things.

My job is not to write insightful or original posts.
My job is not to be an investigative journalist reporting on the ills of society.
My job is not to identify and/or solve the world's problems.
My job is not to post socially redeeming nuggets of information.
My job is not to form or dictate your opinions.
My job is not to be fair.
My job is not even to have a point.

No, my job is to write whatever the hell I want.

Most of the feedback yesterday was pretty awesome and supportive (so, thanks!). But some wasn't. And that's cool. Everyone has his or her own opinions and far be it from me to tell you what those should be. (Because that's kinda like telling a blogger what he should and shouldn't write.) I write what I want to write about, whatever gets stuck in my brain that I want to get out on paper. If something here strikes you as unoriginal, offensive, insipid or just plain dumb, well, skip it. Come back the next day. I'm sure whatever I write will be radically different. And I can't be brilliant or insightful everyday. I can just be myself. As an alternative I will direct you to the internetwebosphere where there is a vast amount of content - from novels to music to movies to midget porn - for your consumption and amusement. But like I said, that's not an issue since I have solid proof that 99% of you are awesome peeps.

In the spirit of self-defense, I'd like to add that I passed no judgment yesterday. There were no hidden motives or messages, no secret contempt for overweight individuals. I made simple observations as I saw them, that are in my world absolutely and unequivocally true. Look at what I said - kids are more sedentary, families are less physically secure, the cost of healthy food is out of reach of many, and the complexity of our lifestyles makes that unhealthy food the most readily available and convenient. I fail to see how these are anything other than factual.

I don't take issue with people who disagree with me. If we all agreed, the world would be so boring. What I take issue with, however, are the people who drop by and complain about what I write when they've been reading and complaining for - literally - years. I have a couple readers who invariably violently disagree with me, people who have pledged over and over again never to return (yet do), people who I have banned who then changed their email addresses so they could once again comment then complain about how awful I am. Let's say everyday I go buy lunch at the same place. And everyday as I'm on my way in to said lunch place, the manager comes over and kicks me square in the balls. Now, I don't like getting kicked in the balls. It hurts. So why would I go to the same place everyday knowing that I'm just going to get kicked in the balls?

I'm a pretty consistent guy. I've been blogging for seven years. If you've been reading more than a week or two, you've got a pretty good idea what you're going to get when you stop by. It's really easy to drop judgmental emails and comments and hide behind the vastness of the Internet. But when you do that, you're bringing it to my house, to the place I've carved out for myself here. I respect opinions even and especially when they differ from my own. I do not respect asshats.

Fat Kids
(Tuesday, July 27, 2010)

I'm going to use the F-word a lot. No, not that one. Fat. I promise that I don't mean to be insensitive or in any way offensive. Really. I don't want one email claiming otherwise.

We were at the pool the other day - because, let's face it, that's where we always are - and Beth and I noticed something. Or, rather, a lot of somethings. Fat people. This was not at all surprising because for the last decade we've all been told ad nauseum that the population is becoming increasingly heavy over time. But what caught my eye was the number of overweight kids.

I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, growing up in Texas where everything lives up to the expected reputation is bigger. Including portion size. Now, I'm pretty sure in the late sixties, Texas banned hippies from living in the state making small exceptions for college towns like Austin. But my mom broke the mold. She didn't wear long tie-dyed skirts or burn patchouli in the kitchen but she did make every effort to avoid crappy foods and eat naturally before eating organic was trendy. This is why I was, like, eight before I had a piece of candy and my Easter eggs were always filled with raisins and Cheerios. (My dad eventually could no longer take it, considering this something that bordered on child abuse and forced my mother into purchasing candy.)

These decent eating habits (though I will admit to the occasional candy-binge) combined with damn good genetics have allowed me to stay about the same weight for the last twenty years. (I realize I am the exception, not the rule.)

All of this is a very long way of saying that, despite the bigger is better attitude of my home state, I knew virtually no fat kids when I was growing up. In fact, I remember only one overweight kid through elementary school and junior high and thinking back, I'm not sure he'd really even fit today's standards of fat.

1. We're all too busy. It's so much easier to eat crap when you're in a hurry. This summer has really opened my eyes to that. With two kids needing to be different places, everyone in a hurry, events to attend, the easiest way to make sure they get something to eat has been jetting through a drive-through or calling for pizza delivery.

2. Good food is more expensive. It's just that simple. Vegetables cost more than burgers.

3. Kids aren't as active. There's more to do sitting down than I ever had available to me. Video games (okay, I did have an Atari 2600), computers and the internet all keep kids tied down to one place.

4. Security. When I was a kid, I'd take off on my bike in the morning and be back in time for dinner. Society has changed in the last thirty years. We're a little more concerned about the world being mean to our kids because it's been proven that we have to be. We let them roam a little less.

Your thoughts? Am I right, wrong, or just devilishly handsome?