New Boots for Erin

One day, Erin woke up to find out that the weather had changed!
"Shit, it's fucking freezing!" she exclaimed, the forecast for the day reading at a brisk 48 degrees Fahrenheit.

So she put away her summer clothes, and all that would remind her of the season.
"Goodbye, v-neck teeshirt!" she lamented, knowing she'd have to avoid low cut tops for the winter.
"Farewell, open-toed five inch heels!" she cried, remembering all the looks she garnered as she walked down the thoroughfare.
"Until next year, denim mini-skirt!" she wept openly, sad that she had to retire something that drove her boyfriend absolutely mad.

She stowed away her seasonal revealing wardrobe, sad that her favorite time of year was over. But then she remembered!
"Fuck!" she ejaculated. "I have a completely bitchin' coat that my studly boyfriend Harrison bought me last winter!"
She was now excited, her emotions playing a complete turnaround as she recalled how delicious she looked in the completely bitchin' coat her studly boyfriend Harrison bought her, even whilst covered from chin to toe.

She dug through her closet, unearthing ancient tees, thongs lost to dying civilizations, and expansion packs of World Of Warcraft until she found it.
"Son of a bitch," she breathed, "This is a totally rad motherfucker."

She put on the coat, and soon she was fully buttoned and buckled, a knee length wool trench that screamed to the world in a deep violet hue, telling all who gazed that in this purple spy jacket was one SEXY BITCH.

She admired her bodacious figure in the mirror for a while, but then she realized!
Something was not right!
She fretted for a moment, but then suddenly knew what it was. She dialed her studly boyfriend Harrison on her cellular phone.
"Harrison! Listen, my muscular sex jockey!" she demanded his attention with a stern, commanding intonation. Harrison sat straight to attention, he knew what followed was to be of great importance. "I need new motherfucking boots!"

Harrison paused, puzzled for a moment. Then he recalled that Erin had destroyed her previous boots, two feet of black tubular sex appeal, from the constant strutting and extreme sexy paces that she demanded of any footwear. He immediately appeared by her side, keys to his SUV that was in no way a form of compensation in hand!
"Then let us go to the goddamn mall motherfucker!"

=====

The mall was an imposing place, filled with screaming toddlers and angry fatties having midlife crises, but Erin, in her infinite sexy wisdom, knew exactly where to go.
"To the Macy's Shoe Department, you cock-wobbling hooker!" she shouted to nobody in particular, kicking the door to the department store down in her reliable, but seasonably inappropriate flats.
They came upon boots, and boots aplenty there were! Tall, short, pointy toed, but none were to Erin's Goddamn liking!
"These are too big!" she sighed, "And there are too many that are too damn small that appear to have no stamina!"
"And these appear to be able to stretch all the way up mid thigh, but upon second inspection the zipper and fold is only decorational!" Harrison openly wept, not ready to dismiss his fantasy of Erin dressing as Uhura from the Classic Star Trek.

But then she saw them!
Tall, sleek, dark and equipped with four inch heels, Erin grabbed a hapless salesman and demanded a size 8, perhaps 8 and a half. When they arrived, she tore the tissue from the inner sole and quickly donned the store's thin pantyhose constructed foot condom, pulling her new knee-high love all the way on.
She stood, and gave an experimental walk around the department, checking out her lucious ass in every mirror, and making sure to show off for Harrison.
"Damn," Harrison thought. "Bitch know how to strut!"

Erin was excited, she knew now that these were what she wanted. But even after saving for a goddamned long time, and building a bank account from her payscale that would make HLN's financial advisers stand in awe, she was not sure if she should commit to these totally bitchin' rad boots!

Harrison, desperate to see Erin in such jaw-dropping everyday wear, had almost lost hope, when a salesman decreed that a twenty-percent off sale was still in effect! Erin bit her lower lip in quick contemplation, forcing Harrison to cross his legs for sake of public decency, when she made a snap judgement!

"I'll do it! Let me pay for these rad-ass motherfucking boots! And then I shall wear them out the door! And we'll celebrate with some goddamned titty-fucking pumpkin spiced lattes!"

And even though it was fall, the sun shone in goddamned celebrational happiness, for Erin had bought new fucking boots!




Harrison based this on true events, more or less, and is now pretty goddamned drunk.

Pass the Waffles.

I feel lied to.
A week ago, what I wanted to do was sit down, watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and eat an enormous stack of Belgian Waffles, extra syrup. I mean, like, EXTRA, bitch, drown my sadness in sugared tree sap.
I had a killer job offer, sales for a tech support firm in Hamilton, NJ, with pay above my current grade plus commission when I begin to actually make sales. After three interviews with the VP of the company, a lot of research, and several intensive talks with my former super-salesman uncle about how to interview, how to sell, how to whatever, the VP brings me in, sits me down. He can't offer me the job anymore, unless I want to become a freelancer, with no hourly wage, and no compensation for gas, etc, just the possibility of commissions down the line.
Hurt and angry, I proceeded to get into a depressive funk, punctuated by the insanity of going through and processing applications for a new wireless sales kiosk at work. Ever have to find people with open availability, call them, schedule an interview, hope they show up (half of them didn't) then try to interview them with corporate bullshit? It fucking blows.
Anyway. It doesn't help that I've been in a bit of a depressive funk since my 102 degree fever and an improv performance which I think I bombed in. However, Erin turns to me one day after finally getting interviews set up at a few local banks, asking me have I ever thought about becoming a personal trainer?
I admit I have not. It's a great idea though, It's a passion of mine, I'd lost the weight, I'm working to get bigger and stronger at least four times a week at the gym....and chocolate protein shakes (with 60g of protein) have become my drink of choice. All I'd need to do...
Is actually not as much as I'd expected. There's certification tests, which I'm still looking into, but before that, I'm going to be signing up for a preparation class at Bucks this fall, by the end of it I'll be ready to take the exam and be free to train whoever, whenever.
First things first, I'd like to look like a trainer. Henceforth, I'm on a more extreme version of my diet than before. Clementines and bananas and pineapples are now my bitch, and carbs are the immortal enemy (I'm still eating them, but maybe at 1/8th the level I have been). I've cranked up the weight and the number of exercises at the gym, and I've added several 3.5 mile bike rides into my week, followed by 50 crunches, leg lifts and push ups (I want to double that by the end of the year). I need bigger biceps, a bulkier chest, and I need to find my abs. They're in there somewhere.
Hopefully I'll feel ready by the fall, I'll be doing more research as I go into the test, the class, and myself as to how I can market myself. I started working out because I no longer wanted to be Fat Gandalf, and from the pictures and experience I've seen at comic-cons, there are way too many people that don't dress their body type. Maybe that's my niche.

Too fat to be Batman? Don't worry, Master Wayne, I can help.

After all, this was me.
Down a total of 55 pounds, up to lifting 500+ pounds with my legs, rocking solid biceps and a single chin that's been called "Chiseled," I'm finally getting there.

Let's rock this bastard.

Diet.

Screw it, if I have to turn this into a diet blog to keep updating regularly, so be it.

I've been kinda stagnating at the gym for the past year or so, only very incrementally increasing the weight I'm able to lift while only slowly decreasing the amount of fat on my body. Luckily, Erin and I followed around Wade (Of Wade's Comic Madness) on one of his very intense workouts, and it's taking off again. I'm down to 210 from 220, and hopefully I'll burn fat the same rate as gaining muscle. I've also started a new protien, Dark Matter (such a dumb name) so let's give that a month to see how that fares.

When I say very intense, I mean it. With the exception of the Bench/Incline Bench pressing, it's largely one set of 15-20 reps of each exercise, doing a full-body weightlifting workout twice a week, interspersed with cardio. I don't have my measuring tape, but here's the last time I measured, which was...January 18th. Yeesh. I gotta find my tape.
Right Bicep- 16”

Left Bicep- 15 11/16ths”

Right Quadracep- 25 1/8th”

Left Quadracep- 25 ½”

Chest- 47 3/16ths”

My chest was actually down two inches at this point, which is awesome, as I still have plenty of moob, but conversely I'm trying to build up muscle mass, so that number's going to be having some fluxes to it. Thanks to the new Incline Press, I've noticeably put on a lot of mass at the top of my chest, so let's hope that's a good thing.
Now if I can lay off the damn pizza at work....

The Phantom Menace

So yeah.
I know this is a little late, but let me explain.
I was thirteen when it came out in theaters, and fourteen nine months later when it finally came out on VHS, and of course I had to buy the Special Edition (this was very very shortly before DVD became the thing, or at least before Hollywood Video started carrying mostly DVDs). I'm referring to Star Wars Episode One.
'Special Edition' in this case means it came with a snippet of four frames of actual film (it was all random, I got a shot or two of the final Gungan Battle) and, before the film started, a twenty minute documentary, which was essentially about how they animated Jar-Jar's ears.
I was in heaven.

FLASH cut to
Harrison's New Years' Party!
It's an annual thing, every year in costumes (last year in togas, this year 'literal interpretations of Beatles songs [best not to ask]), and always with insanity and good old nerdy fun. As we are nerds. Remember this, this is important.
Side note: All Female Drunk Twister? Awesome.
All Male Drunk Twister? HILARIOUS.
Anyway, this year, people voted, and they wanted to watch some movie with RiffTrax, because, as we are nerds, we love, love, LOVE Mystery Science Theater 3000. And we selected Star Wars Episode One, The Phantom Menace. Our logic was flawless, we want to watch RiffTrax, but we love the original trilogy too much to see them tear into it. We figure Episode One is the perfect mash of awful and exciting so as to keep us in but let us laugh. After all, it's fashionable to hate the prequels.
We didn't realize, however, that when viewed after the bulk of the celebrations, that is to say, around two a.m., this would lead us to hate ourselves.
The Rifftrax crew were amazing, they really were, but they only served to highlight what an awful, awful movie this is. Sean, Ben and I all were in agreement: There was no plot, only events linked by circumstance. But what really hurt was the sad realization that we were IDIOTS as kids.
"I saw this movie five times in the theater!"
"Me too! How was I so stupid!"
"Were we supposed to be afraid of Darth Maul? I think we only thought he was cool because of they hype."
"I hate my thirteen year old self!"
And so on.
The party was awesome, 99 Apples Liquor is delicious, and as always, Crystal Head Vodka is a trip to the Smooth Unknown.
But, given the introduction of the alcohol and slightly sexy (and very funny) twister games into our lives, I don't think it's possible to reclaim a level of childhood where the Star Wars prequels are good.
At least we'll have The Empire Strikes Back.
Because...well, Boba Fett...
...was a well defined character?




...Right?








...Guys?