The Monday Weigh In Reborn

Well folks as you may have seen I was considering bringing back the Monday Weigh In, but as it is I think we've come up with a better idea.  Several of us from the 20sb.net family have got it in our heads to go with a new experiment.

5 of us

• Mondays I'll be posting
• Tuesdays we'll have Lil from Is it too early for a martini?
• Wednesday will be Lorraine from Late to the Party
• Thursday we'll tolerate Bret from Slightly Disappointing
• Friday will be my dear beautiful wife Witless Exposition from Cerebral Lunchbox

I think the plan is to mock and ridicule each other into weight loss.  All in all it should be a remarkably interesting experiment.  Check it out at http://bloggingblobs.blogspot.com/

RE: The Glee Rocky Horror Show

The Translator and I watch Glee religiously.  That's right folks...I watch a show that is generally targeted toward a younger, hotter, female demographic.  As many of you have seen I'm not hot or female and I'm not particularly young either.

But still I really enjoy this show.  Mostly for Sue Sylvester, but some of the music is quite good too.

Last night Glee did a "tribute" to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  If you don't know what that is just stop reading now; go buy yourself a copy and educate yourself.

A rampant sadistic sex party, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is easily my favorite musical.  I mean how can you beat Meatloaf as a biker and Tim Curry as a transvestite scientist.

And really Tim's got a pair of legs that just don't quit.

The music is awesome and hilarious and raunchy all at the same time.  And if you have a theater in your area that does midnight showings then go expose yourself to the experience.  There's lots of interactivity that goes along with the movie.

Anyway...back to Glee.  WTF were they thinking?  The episode was more of a burned effigy then a tribute.  Let's start with a FEMALE Frankenfurter.  What kind of ridiculous bullshit is this?  How do you sing Sweet Transvestite when you're not even cross dressing?  And why is it we can say transvestite on TV, but we can't say transsexual?

I don't know how many of you caught Mercedes "modernized" version of the song, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing fucking sensational about Transylvania.  The whole thing sent a tremor of revulsion shoot up the back of my throat.

Now I know this may strike you all as a bit conservative of me, but who in their right mind would allow a group of high school kids to perform Rocky Horror.  I mean really...the whole damn thing is littered with sex and drug references.  It's not like children aren't exposed to these things already, but do we have to lead them to it?  Do we have to make it ok and more comfortable?  Certainly I feel like there's a vast gaping valley between allowing a child to watch a movie which is easily dismiss-able and actually emerging them to the point required to perform it.

A child's sense of propriety is fragile at best these days with the advent of sexting, internet porn (hell yeah I know I watch it too), and pop stars like Brittney Spearme and Christina Fuckmetherea, that we don't really need to push any further.

Wow...I'm kind of sounding like an old man.  Back in my day we only got porn in magazines...and we were happy to get it too.

I actually remember my first Playboy...Shannon Tweed was the playmate of the year that year.

Enough reminiscing...I'm not trying to say we should shelter our children from the realities of the world, I'm simply trying to say that there should be a balance.

Like Sue Sylvester says: "Children must know fear. Without it, they'll try Frenching grizzly bears or trying to live in Florida."


Now...as if to contradict everything I've just said I'm going to shamelessly plug the little competition I'm sponsoring this month.  Please check out the Inappropriate Remarks...in my pants! tab up at the top for information.  We're all sure to get some laughs out of the whole thing.  We've had a few really great submissions already and I'm hoping to get lots more.

A new plan

So I've been thinking about my general approach to this whole eat/live healthy thing.  As you've seen in a few pictures now I'm kind of a fat ass.  I'm pretty much comfortable with it now, as I've been that fat kid my whole life.  However, with the prospect of parenthood on the horizon, I'd much rather be in a healthier place so that I can be an example for my future children.

Plus if I get healthy before their born I can lie to them and tell them that I've always been this way.  (Don't sneer...everyone lies to children.)

So the new plan:

Exercise: I think I plan to keep my original routine with this one.  I enjoy the 3 day a week jog and I really want to get back to it.  Softball has been a big part of the weight I've already lost, so I'm certainly going to keep doing that.  Plus I'm finally starting to not suck terribly.

Food:  This is the big one for me.  I tend to want to starve myself because the logical bit of my brain says if I don't eat I'll lose weight.  However I've been reading a bit and it seems that several small "meals" over the course of the day is a much better way to go about this whole eating healthy business.  So my plan at the moment is to add some fruit and/or veggies into my schedule at the mid point between each of my regular meals.  

• 6:30AM - Breakfast
• 9:30AM - Piece of Fruit
• 11:00AM - Lunch
• 2:30PM - Fruit or Carrots
• 5-6PM - Dinner
• 8PM - Small dessert.  (This will be the hard one.  I have an addiction to dessert)

Well...that's the plan.  I'll be doing updates on the Monday Weigh In again.  

Don't forget...the cake is a lie and the cube had to die for it.

Inappropriate Remarks...in my pants!!

Ok guys, lets have a throw down.  Who's got the funnier "...in my pants" joke?

The Basic Rules:

1. You've go to fit the format......in my pants.
2. The book/blog/magazine you use has got to be REAL.  I'm asking that you send a link/pic for each so that I can verify.
3. You can make 3 submissions and only 3 submission.
4. Don't worry about being crude or rude...that's kind of the point.
5. All submissions must be made by Tuesday November 30th.
6. Judging will be complete by the following Tuesday December 7th.
7. Submissions can be sent to tbm.nation@gmail.com

The Winner will receive a t-shirt via Cafe Press.  Their submission will also be available in my Cafe Press store for others to grab if they'd like.  I also plan on picking 2-3 runners up from the submissions creating shirts for them as well.  I'll also be featuring the winners blog on my blog via a shiny post.

The Judges will be Witless Exposition (my dear wife), InfoJunky (my best friend), and of course yours truly. As such none of us will be making submissions, cause that just wouldn't be fair.

This will have a permanent home as a page on the bar above.

The Return of the Monday Weigh In?

What do you guys think?  I kind of felt like the whole thing was a bit of a flop.  I didn't see many comments and only had 1 participant once and that was the Translator who I badgered into posting.

Anyone interested in the plight that is my huge ass?

Any suggestions for a more appealing format?

I'm asking all this because the Translator was kind of badgering me about it.  She seems to think that 6 weeks wasn't enough.  Truth be told she's probably right, but I figured I'd have at least one regularish buddy by then.

Let me know what you guys think.

Here's a link to a previous post if you don't know what the hell it is I'm talking about.  Interestingly enough...this post is where I was first contacted by our good buddy Sara Swears A Lot.

Don't forget...the cake is a lie and the cube had to die for it.

Apparently, I'm a "Jerkface"

Lately, the Translator and I have been talking about baby names.  No there's not a cub monk on the way...yet, but we like to be prepared and naming a kid seems like one of those important things that should be discussed.  I mean I don't want my kid getting their ass kicked through school.

So let's have a look at the names proposed by the Translator:

• Ruby
• Ivy
• Zoey
• Rosson

To be frank I basically hate all of these names for varying reasons.  I particularly don't like the name Ruby.  The Translator thinks it would be cute especially if our kid was born in the month of July (for those less informed souls the jewel that is representative of the month of July is a ruby).  She likes the idea because both of our birthdays are in July as is our anniversary.  Also, my sister's birthday falls in the month of July.  The day after mine to be exact.

Which makes July a pretty hectic month for us.  Also a pretty broke ass month too.

I kind of feel like Ivy is a little bit too close to a comic book name.  I mean there's Poison Ivy and then there's those skinamax movies with the same title.  Seems like kids live into their names and I don't want my kid to be a whore or a comic book villain or God forbid both.

Zoey is just lame...I don't like it.  I'm not really sure why.  No real strong feeling about it...I just think it's kind of a terrible name.

And finally Rosson...it's my understanding that this is a family name for my wife.  Though very few people apparently participate in the convention.  I just can't bring myself to name my kid something that isn't a damn name!  It is a surname yes...but it is NOT a first or middle name.

And for all the above reason I am a jerkface.  Yup...I don't like any names she's suggested.  Not a single one.  I guess maybe I am...who knows.

Either way, so far as the battle of the names is concerned I'm winning.  We've decided on some lovely names in my personal opinion.

For a girl: Virginia (my grandmother) Rachel (her mother).
For a boy: Matthew James Jr.  (I always wanted a namesake.  Not sure why...but I intend to call him Jimmy).

Anyway...this was all basically spawned because I veto'd the name she picked for one of her fictional characters.  Clara just seems like she'd be a boring character based on her name.  Maybe that's because the last Clara  I knew was a fucking idiot.

QOTD:  Planning on having children?  Have any ideas for names?  What did you think of our choices?

It's just too damn tempting (3WW)

So the Translator is/was a high school English teacher when this whole Twilight fad started.  As such she's read all of the books and we went and saw the first movie on opening weekend.  I felt like a soldier behind enemy lines.

The Twihards had me surrounded and if I made even the slightest derogatory remark about the terrible terrible (did I mention terrible?) dialog and/or the absurd story line, I knew we'd be finished.

Unlike their ideal Edward, I knew they'd rip us to shreds, because Twihards are not vegetarian vampires.

Lets just talk about that idiotic turn of phrase.  Vegetarian Vampire...based solely on this term, I know without the shadow of a doubt, that Stephanie Meyer is fucking moron.

Where was I?  Right.  Behind enemy lines...they had us surrounded.  And then Edward calls Bella a "spider monkey" and I almost lose my shit.  I'm not sure what effect they were going for with a pet name like "spider monkey".  Do you know any person of the female persuasion that wants to be referred to as any sort of monkey?  Yeah...me either.

With my quiet snickers I've drawn the scowls of several of the enemy soldiers in the seats near us...there's more tension in the 10 feet around me then the whole of the movie that we're watching.  Fortunately, Edward comes back on the screen...or maybe Jacob took his shirt off again...and drew their attention away from me.

We were safe....for now.

On the story stumbles.  Plot holes abound, but the Twihards are not deterred.  If anything, they're more enthralled by the whole thing than a starving man looking at a free meal.  This immense pile of shit has caught the attention of the youth in the theatre and it's not letting go.

So now we come to the scene where Edward finally steps into the light and fries like the dirty stinking blood sucking villain he is....sadly that last bit is not exactly how it goes.  Instead, Edward steps out into the light and rips of his shirt to REVEAL....his shimmering bird chest.  He dramatically delivers the line "This is the skin of a killer."  and I finally lose my shit.

I start giggling uncontrollably.  The Translator is hitting me out of self preservation...some of the Twihards are starting to stair.  The gravity of the situation hits me....and I continue laughing.  If I must die it will be with a smile on my face, mocking that which I have come to loath the most.

QOTD:  Anyone else go to the opening of Twilight?  Any fans of the books?  If so, what the fuck is wrong with your brain?

WTF Does that name mean anyway?

So...for those of you that have perhaps wondered how the hell I came to be known as "The Bear Monk", here's how the story goes.

Let me start by saying that I love love love, live music.  I fucking love it.  The press of the crowd.  The adrenaline rush of throwing crowd surfers at the security guards (yeah I'm a big guy).  And of course the music.  When a band is good live I will buy their albums and I will go to see them again.

The Translator and I have traveled 7 hours to see concerts before and I'm sure we'll do it again.

So every year, my favorite band, Flogging Molly, does a tour called the Green 17 Tour.  They always end it on St. Paddy's day and the shows are always amazing.  We've seen them like 5 or 6 times now and we have every intention of going again this February/March.

I guess it was 2 years ago, we saw the show in New Orleans at the House of Blues.

Side note:  I think the House of Blues in New Orleans, LA is my favorite venue.  It's pretty small and so even super loud shows can still be really intimate and you get to be really close to the band.  All in all I've always had a great time at HoB.

Anyway...we get to shows super early.  Like hours early, so that we can get right on that guard rail to see the band.  You see...the Translator is approximately 5 foot nothing, so it's important for us to get a good spot so that she can have a chance to see the show at all.

As part of the show, Flogging Molly will kind of do the whole "How many Irishmen do we have in the audience tonight?"  In my mind I know that in their mind everyone is "Irish" at one of their shows, but with my logical brain I didn't join in the cheering.  Technically speaking I am of a mostly German heritage.  So the lead singer, David King, notices that I'm not cheering.  And he says to me:

"If you're not Irish I don't know what the fuck you are.  Maybe some kind of Bear Monk or something?  And that can't be all bad!"

The crowd cheered and honestly...I kind of loved the idea anyway.

After all, I looked like this:

Don't we look super fuckin' happy?

So the following year, last February actually, we went to see Flogging Molly in Houston (we've recently moved to Texas), and low and behold there were a couple of guys I recognized and by God they remembered me too.  And of course they remembered me as the "Bear Monk" and told me how they'd told stories about me in the intervening time.

Me, David King, and my buddy Casey

Not long after that, I decided to start this blog and that just seemed like the name to go by.

QOTD:  How'd you come up with your blog handle?  Anyone else into live music?

New Experiences and Old Experiences (3WW)

So last week as you all know I was in Washington D.C. on a business trip.  As much as I loath to travel, for business, I do love the opportunity I get when it comes to trying new kinds of food.  The team I work with is rather diverse and as such while we were talking about going to lunch one day someone suggested we try an Ethiopian place.  To which I responded:

Ethiopians have food?  Shouldn't we give it back?

To which I received the expected hiss of disapproval.  That's right...yet another moment in which I become the awkward individual.  How course I tried to back peddle with:

I figured Ethiopians were like Canadians and didn't really have a cultural cuisine.

But of course I am not meant to be absolved of my auditory indiscretions.  You know what though...screw those hissers and those head shakers.  That was some quality comic material.  We can laugh out loud at Starvin' Marvin on South Park, but a little one liner is frowned upon because if makes a bit of a joke about the famine in Ethiopia?

It's not like I was trying ridicule Ethiopians in any significant way.  I don't think they're lesser as a people because they're suffering from or have suffered from a famine.  I make fun of my own Irish/German heritage quite frequently.

I guess I can understand the concept of an inappropriate joke.  A joke which mocks or feeds into stereotypes that are both harmful and demeaning to a subset of people.  I get that, but the Ethiopians did have a famine.  It's not a stereotype.

Than again, maybe that's my short coming?  Maybe its too soon?

I sure wish we'd come up for a standard timeline so that I can know when it's ok to make jokes about a particular event.  I'm basically aware that 9/11 is completely off limits forever.  Than again....I can't really see any humorous angle there.  Maybe down the line something ironic will happen and I'll feel the insatiable urge to point it out and get hissed at again.

Just as an FYI...I really enjoyed the Ethiopian food.  We actually went with an Ethiopian woman from the team and she helped us order, so that I didn't blow my mouth up with spicy food.  The only thing I didn't love about it was this spongey bread/wrap stuff that comes with the food.  It kind of had a weird flavor to it...kind of sour.  Interesting texture though.

Question of the Day:  Did you know there was Ethiopian cuisine?  Have you tried it?  What did you think?

Small Packages: Scary Movies

So as a fat white nerd, I watch a lot of TV.  I mean a lot...sometimes I feel like Fry or Bender from Futurama.  And as such I really didn't think I'd have an issue with coming up with my favorite Halloween episode.  I mean I just say the Boy Meets World Halloween episode just a couple weeks ago.

And we all know and love those Treehouse of Horrors episodes of the Simpsons.

But I couldn't for the life of me point my finger on just one episode of one show from all those years of TV watching.  So, I'm going to talk about my favorite horror movie...

OMG...TWILIGHT!!!

No really...I love zombies.  And most of all I love Romero zombies.  I think it all started with the Romero remake of Dawn of the Dead.  It's such a thoroughly complete movie that had me on the edge of my seat inside the first ten minutes.

There's something to be said for the for the power of a zombie child coming after you as you get out of bed.  I  think that first scene really hits home for me because that's the lifestyle I live.  The Translator and I are professionals, living in your generic suburban subdivision.  And in all this I can definitely see the Translator being the one to get away.

She'd abandon me in a second...even if she wouldn't admit it.

After the very tense bedroom scene...hehehe...we move on to the meat of the movie.  The shopping mall...this is where Romero's message becomes a lot more clear.  The zombies like cattle are drawn to the mall by "instinct".

Isn't it sad to think that when all your other faculties are gone, your urge to go the mall and consume will still not be sated?

Now admittedly, a mall is probably one of the best places you could hold up during the zombie revolution.

Yes...there THE zombie revolution.  Check the Bible people, it's gonna happen.

I mean lets think about it for a second, there's food in the food court, reinforced doors at all exits, surveillance, and then of course there's the entertainment.  So long as the power stays on you could play video games till to the food runs out and the zombies die of starvation.

When the Translator and I first saw this movie I was scared shitless.  I'm not even going to try to lie to you.  I had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

This one time...after Katrina hit....the wife and I were walking through the campus of the college we attended with a friend of ours.  As you might guess there was a pretty significant amount of damage on campus and the only lights around were the flash lights we had.

We'd checked out most of the campus and were heading back to our dorm (we lived in the married dorms...the 9th ring of Hell) via the path between the liberal arts building and theater building.  We get about halfway through the courtyard area and we start to hear creaking and chains rattling.

So my good friend and I...ONLY because we're both tall and have naturally longer strides...start walking faster.  Not a lot faster, just walking at what we would consider a normal gait.  The Translator...coward that she is...starts yelling at us for "abandoning" her to the zombies.

I still don't know what she's talking about...we were just walking.

Wow...this post kind of went down the rabbit hole didn't it?  What can I say...I like zombies and they've kind of permeated most aspects of my like.  Fortunately, one of them isn't my commute...yet.

To check out the other posts from the blogfest, check out the Translator's blog here.

Since When is Tolerance a Four Letter Word

With a recent bullying induced teen suicide fresh in our minds, I ask...Since when is tolerance a four letter word? Since when is privacy something you have to work at?  Since when do we have to protect our privacy from out friends?

I guess whole thing stirs two emotional buckets for me.  The tolerance and privacy buckets...while they're both really important to me, they don't generally coalesce in such a singular terrible event.

A little background for those who have no idea what I'm talking about...Basically a friend asks another friend if they can have the dorm room to themselves.  Friend2 says of course and goes to hang with his girlfriend.  Friend1 goes about his evening, without knowing that Friend2 has setup a camera in the dorm room and is streaming an intimate moment Friend1 is having across the internet.

Agreed, generally speaking this sounds like a harmless prank...an invasion of privacy yes, but for the most part harmless.  Now, what I haven't said is that Friend1 is gay and still hasn't come out.  Now of course I can't possibly fathom what it's like to keep a secret of that magnitude, but certainly this is a life altering revelation meant to be shared with family and friends in a very personal way.

Hint: When I say "in a very personal way", what I mean to say is...NOT ON THE FUCKING INTERNET.

And so, long story short, Friend1 killed themselves because he found out that Friend2 Asshole2 had been broadcasting his personal life to anyone and everyone willing to join the appropriate channel.

I won't say that Asshole2 should be charged with murder, even if he was the catalyst for the suicide I believe that we make our OWN choices and as such we should be held personally responsible for those choices.  While Asshole1 may have metaphorically put Friend1 on that ledge he certainly didn't do it physically.

While I've never felt lust for another man, I can only imagine it's an extremely confusing feeling.  With society bombarding us with two very opposing ideas, on one side people say that it's unnatural to have these feeling, while another part of society tells us that it's okay.  As a young person, at least when I was young, I know it can be difficult to come to terms with the fact that not everything society says is true.

A number of times I've heard the word tolerance spoken by individuals in the Christian community with a great deal of disdain and I have to admit I find it confusing.  According to the Bible we're to love our neighbors as ourselves.  It doesn't make a special exception for gay people.

The Bible does not say "Love your neighbors, so long as they are just like you and believe everything you do."  It just doesn't.

Sorry guys...I know that's a bitch and all.

If fact, the Bible does say, that in the eyes of God all sins are equal.

So with that in mind, why is that some people in the Christian community choose to put homosexuality on some kind of pedestal of hate.  They treat it as if its the the Superbowl or the World Series of sin.

Welcome to the inappropriate section of the post.

I don't not believe that all homosexual people are born homosexual.  I do believe that there are some people that, for whatever reason, choose homosexuality.

While I DO NOT believe that those born with the predisposition to homosexuality are sinning (I say predisposition, because I don't feel like it's a defect or a retardation, but simply a slightly different ordering of chromosomes.  Like mutants...and mutants are fuckin' cool right?).  I do believe that those choosing it are.

I don't think God would hold a genetic occurrence against one or any of His children.

And so with this endorsement for tolerance, directly from Jesus Christ himself, I pray we can all go forth and except each other for who we are and what we bring to life and not exclude those that live a different lifestyle from our own.

I promise, there are homosexual Christians out there and I'm sure they don't appreciate being made to look like ignorant bigots.

And with the sheen of sweat upon my brow, I will step down from my digital soapbox and go forth and tolerate.  And I'm gonna try real hard to not peek in windows and stuff.

I Hate Flying

I never...I mean fucking never....have good luck when it comes to flying.  I'm always that guy that's got the delay or has to go to another gate or whatever the hell else you can think of.

I mean one time I had a delayed connection because the flight attendants that were supposed to be servicing the flight were late.  I mean seriously...the don't have some flight attendants on call?  I'm honestly not really sure what goes into setting up the complex schedule of a flight attendants and flights in general, but I realize that logically there should be a backup plan when shit goes wrong.

BTW...Waiting, is not a fucking back up plan.

So today I find myself with an hour and a half delay which will of course cause me to miss my connecting flight and so I have to wait in the line.  The line which is quickly beginning to resemble a lynch mob heading toward Frankenstein Castle.

But not me...I'm keeping my cool.  These ladies can't control the what's going on with the airline and so I keep the diatribe I have prepared, to myself.  

Side note: Just heard "...just sunk a clutch birdie." concerning the golf game on TV right now.  There is nothing fucking clutch about golf.  I mean maybe it was important for his game but the word "clutch" to me denotes some urgency and so far as I can tell golf is basically the least urgent game there is, with the possible exception of Battleship.

Anyway...enough of my golf hate.  Back to the airport...the abysmal airport.  So here I sit...stewing.  Knowing that I could have slept that much longer.  Knowing that I could have played with my dog that much longer.  Instead I'm stuck here alone with my laptop and a half decent, grease ball, cheese burger, listening to the rednecks next to me go on about some bimbo that lives across the street from them.

If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times I hate flying...and damn the government for forcing me to do it as frequently as I have to.