Tumbleweed

The cyber-tumbleweed here won't last forever, but it's going to be a quiet two weeks as I gallivant across the continent visiting family and such. I kind of don't want to leave my boring, but settled routine at home, and am particularly concerned about the lack of diet control I'll have over the coming days (and there better be more than Burger Kings and $2.75 Pepsi in NYC for the ASAs anyways!). I've made really good progress this summer, to the point that a colleague told me that I "looked great" the other day (although, in fairness, she's one of those kind, complimentary souls who usually goes out of her way to say those sorts of things) . Further, this trip is a potential time-bomb for familial conflicts, so I hope I manage to step very gingerly and not detonate anything.

Anyways, as long as I do better than "ambivalent" in regards to how I feel about the time and expense of this trip afterwards, I'll be satisfied..

More Curious Market Signals

When I was at the GNC two days ago, investing an absolutely ludicrous amount of money in protein the other day, I was helped by a very nice man who gave me price discounts and gave me the good side of the deal when it was realized that the price of my super-expensive isolate blend was mislabeled. However, it was bizarre to get health advice from a guy working at a GNC that was at least seventy pounds overweight (nor was he muscular at all). Just like I'm sure Hooters screens their employees based on superficial characteristics, shouldn't GNC sort of be doing the same?

So, figuring I was done with ironic people in the health industry, I had an appointment with a personal trainer yesterday. Sure enough, the guy was friendly, but he had a definite gut too, nor was he all that muscular.

In both cases, the men in question seemed knowledgeable, and everything they said was in accordance with my own research, yet I still felt weird that these were the professionals in the field I ended up interacting with.

The whole thing reminds me of a chronically unemployed acquaintance of mine who responds "I'm a career counselor" whenever she's asked what she does, with an apparent obliviousness to the irony. Of course, I was oblivious to "ironic bodies" before these past two days...

Ironically Fitting

I don't really see the point of celebrating one's nation's birthday by setting off loud and crappy fireworks. Since the city in which I live already sprang for a spectacular public fireworks display, I can't see what's all that novel or smart about trying to do it on your own. Of course, it's not as though more serious things and people are getting blown up just as loudly and pointlessly under the name of America for the rest of the year...

21st Century Cyber-etiquette?

What do you do when an acquaintance that you can't stand sends you a Facebook friend request? (A real quote from this douche: "This guy I know who was exactly like me got into Bowdoin, because he was a skier, while I had to go to Colby, which is still an elite college." [obviously still jealous and bitter about it six years later -- Even Carlton Banks' dream school was Princeton; and even he wasn't nerdy and bourgeois enough to get all worked up over a place like Bowdoin.])

I'm not sure I'll be able to live with myself after announcing to all of my friends on Facebook that I'm actually "friends" with this dork. Yet, I suppose it's not a big deal, the guy hasn't done anything blatantly evil to me and it would be rude not to...*sigh*

Liberals are non-fun sometimes!

I had a lovely night having dinner with some friends tonight, when a nice roommate of my friend entered and mentioned that he just saw Knocked Up. I of course immediately rave about what a fantastically clever and hilarious movie it was, and he then acted all blase, and said "you know, I found it really offensive the way they treated men in the story as over-sexed slobs, the whole thing was so stereotypically gendered." Needless to say, this guy (friendly as he was) is some billionth-year English Ph.D. student, and another academic leftie that gets under my skin. Now, I'm quite left-wing myself, but have grown to despise much of the academic left, particularly in the humanities. Regardless, leave it up to one of those people to throw a damper on an edgy, but nonetheless clever movie. Just because all men are not like the oafs in the movie does not necessarily render them bad or unrealistic characters. News flash: lots of men are exactly like the characters in the movie to some degree, and that's what makes so many of the jokes resonant.

Granted, despite being a pretty left-wing, politically correct guy, I still find movies like Knocked Up (and tangentially related, racist jokes) funny because there's usually a kernel of truth to them, yet often such humor is more about mocking the stereotype (which may still be accurate in a demographic sense) than it is about exalting it. And there's no way the academic left is going to take the sense of humor away from this philistine.