Sometimes I think it’s easier to eat nothing at all than only just a little.
A relatively new problem that’s sprouted up for me in the last couple of weeks as I’ve been doing better at getting my diet under control is that once I start eating, whether an actual meal or just a snack, I have a hard time stopping after I’ve finished with whatever I had sat down to eat. It doesn’t matter what it is – my body just starts going and wants more - and so more than I’m proud of, I’ve caught myself in a whirlwind of eating after a carefully planned dinner of 500 calories or a 150-calorie snack balloons into 400-500 calories more as I just scavenge to scarf down whatever I can possibly find!
And it makes for a tough juggling act because it almost feels like some days I’ve been doing too well with controlling my intake because I’ll get to the end of the day at 1,500 calories or less and fear that I’m going to trick my body into thinking that it’s starving, thus throwing my weight loss for a loop as it goes into rationing mode. Granted, I don’t really know enough details about how that works to know if I actually am getting close to those thresholds, or even how long one needs to be under the limits before such a reaction kicks in, but I convince myself that I should just eat something small to try and avoid that zone … and ironically end up going over as a result. 
I tend to over-analyze things, so of course sometimes I try to micromanage everything that I possibly can to avoid another weekly weigh-in where I see the numbers moving in the wrong direction. Hell, it actually took me a while to come to terms with simply not weighing in every day because I’m always curious about that kind of minutia, even though deep down I know that weighing in any more than once a week would just be horribly unproductive for me!
But I somehow managed to conjure up the will power to avoid the scale 6 days out of the week … I suppose now I just need to do the same for controlling my random eating, too.
It’s hard not to watch all of this crazy Presidential Campaign blundering without thinking that you could do it better. When I look at the GOP’s version of how they seem to think our government should work, frankly I think that a chimp hanging upside-down from the Lincoln Memorial could do a better job of trying to right our country once again, but since as far as I understand not many apes are active bloggers in this day and age, I suppose you’ll just have to settle for my opinion instead… 
In my mind, the core problems with the US government right this very second are two-fold:
- big money has too much influence on how/what/when things get done
- congress couldn’t balance a budget if they were monkeys hanging from the Lincoln Memorial
Everything else stems from these two issues, so instead of trying to patch all of the other leaks first, let’s fix the actual flood and over time we can then work on the details that end up becoming the talking points and ultimately why nothing ever gets done in the grand scheme of things as we flow from one administration to another. Sure, it’s going to ruffle a few feathers of the people who want gun control or abortion or military spending or TV/VCR repair to be the primary focus of anyone and everyone who holds any position above Chief Plumbing Engineer in our government, but at the end of the day, someone is always going to be disappointed, so we pick the blanket angles that will cascade down to everything else and eventually all of the important issues will get addressed accordingly.
The End of Lobbying & Campaign Fundraising
Scott’s Crazy Change #1 - politicians from local board members all the way up to the president can no longer accept money from anyone other than their actual employers (us taxpayers) for doing their jobs. Businesses and corporate giants should feel free to take the millions and billions that they spend buying our congressmen and instead reinvest in their own businesses because it’s time that our politicians actually started passing laws based on what’s best for the people instead of what’s best for the profits.
They’re going to have to work more because instead of just voting for whoever contributed the most to their bankrolls, congress is actually going to have to evaluate situations based on the evidence that they’ve been presented to determine what the best course of action for the American public is going to be. Anyone who violates this ban should be punished swiftly and severely – corporations will be banned from providing their input for future sessions, and politicians will be out of a job – no fucking around. It’s time that these people who’ve chosen careers to service the public actually start doing it, and since the vast majority of the public aren’t millionaires by any stretch of the imagination, neither should they…
Strict Term Limits When We’re Not Fiscally Responsible
Now Scott’s Crazy Change #2 is one that I’m actually adopting from Warren Buffett because I think it’s just brilliant even though it would certainly piss a lot of people off, but his two cents about how to balance our budget in 5 minutes – “Just pass a law that says anytime there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection.” I mean, as I write this today, we have a national debt of over $15 trillion which continues to grow at an astonishing rate of $4 billion/day and our GDP in 2010 was only $14.58 trillion – anyone who’s tried to pay off a credit card knows that you can’t make any kind of headway at actually paying off a debt that big without first stopping it from growing even bigger!
Our nation’s budget is an extreme problem and most definitely at the root at a lot of issues, so we need to get some people in office who will stop bickering over who’s pet projects are more important and instead find some compromises that will allow us to first balance our existing budget and then also create a surplus so we can start chipping that gigantic monster of a debt away.
I guess the key underlying philosophy behind both of these bullet points is that we need to attract an entirely different crowd of politicians than who we currently have in office because instead of profiteering and pandering to those with the biggest checkbooks, they need to be involved because they’re truly passionate about their civic duty and want to create a country that’s great for all of us to thrive and succeed in. It’s a huge shake up to rid us of all of the corruption and dead weight that has plagued American government for decades, but a necessary one if we truly want to consider ourselves the greatest nation on earth.
I know that these things sound radical and unimaginable based on expectations of how things run today, however I truly and sincerely believe that we do have politicians and would-be politicians out there in the woodwork who would gladly serve underneath these rules if simply given the chance to help get our country back on track. All we have to do is get the fat cats and their ulterior motives out of the way first…
And don’t forget to also check out part 2!
So I was actually very happy with my weigh-in this morning – happy and also a bit relieved because I really feel like I actually worked at it over the last 7 days and I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I hadn’t seen any progress to show for it. I was really starting to feel it from the walking – bleeding into the previous week, I actually did something like 21.5 miles over 5 days consecutively before it started getting too cold to walk at night, but a big part of me kept wanting to push through it because I knew that it was going to take some pain to see any success at this.
Now I suppose I just need to do it 19 more weeks in a row and I’ll be able to put all of this behind me… 
Today’s Weigh-in: -1.8 pounds from last week
Net Loss for 2012: 5.8 pounds
Last Week’s Exercise:
- 5 days of cardio (13.5 miles of walking & 2 elliptical days)
- 3 days of strength training (maxed out at 67 push-ups last night!)
Last Week’s Diet: good – a few days of snacking and eating out, but never over 2,000 calories by much
Last Week’s Sleep: better, but still room for improvement – average bedtime was around 2:30am instead of 4am
Goals for Next Week:
- Exercise - (same as last week) at least 5 days of cardio, preferably all 7; 3 days of strength training
- Diet – try to limit eating out, but more so focus on staying under 2,000 calories/day
- Sleep – (same as last week) trying to move bedtime up to 1-2am range, then eventually 12-1am
(note: this post is kind of a continuation of some rambling that I did a few days ago about internal conflicts that I’m currently working through with my D&D character…)
Sometimes I wonder exactly what perspective my character would have in looking in on another people’s civil war.
The thing is, I’m not sure if maybe I’m putting more insight into it than my character might be wont to, but I guess I’ve tried to err on the side of caution with the interpretation that just because a particular village happens to be in lands controlled by The Duke Who Went Crazy doesn’t necessarily mean that all of its villagers buy-in to that side of the war, and that ultimately they still owe their allegiance to the rightful king of the land.
It gets even another step more complicated when I add that although my instinctual rule of thumb would be that anyone in uniform who has taken up arms can safely be considered an enemy combatant, in that last post I gave a prime example of conflict in looking at the grumbling guards because maybe they just didn’t like guarding a seemingly empty keep, or maybe they were having conflictions themselves over which side they actually wanted to be on.
Now try to look at this from the perspective of a character who’s not really used to being around people’s who have anywhere near this range of political depth. If someone attacks you or tries to harm your land, they’re your enemy and you have every justification to retaliate with any force necessary. He’s just not from a world where people plot against each other like this and some may find themselves casualties of war both directly and indirectly without ever even choosing a side. For Adran, he wants to give people the benefit of the doubt right up until they wave a sword menacingly in his face, even if that delay may have cost him a strategic advantage in missing the first strike.
I don’t know – maybe it’s ok that he has that reservation when faced with something foreign because in a way I sort of think it speaks something about his character. Sure, it means that there’s a little added liability due to this personality nuance and it doesn’t really make him the most ideal soldier, but at the same time, nobody’s perfect and part of the fun of playing a long-term campaign is being able to play characters that have a little more depth to them and explore these kinds of backgrounds that make a PC who he is from session to session. Besides, I didn’t really create him with the intent of him being a militia-type soldier anyways, and it’s not like he doesn’t also have strengths that someone of an army nature might be lacking in place of a more disciplined fighting style, either.
I guess the takeaway here should be that while I maybe shouldn’t be so quick to second guess myself altogether, there’s still a great benefit to come from re-assessing past decisions from time to time, even if just to explore and reaffirm the reasonings behind why I made them in the first place so that hopefully I can do a better job of role playing them out at the table so that the rest of the party gets a better idea of where my character is coming from as well! 
Apparently in building up for the show’s 500th Episode airing next weekend (Feb. 19th), FOX is hosting a 500 Episode Marathon for its biggest of fans out in Hollywood that will pit 60 fans drawn at random against some 200 hours of television for a chance at $10 grand and of course, bragging rights that they’ve actually watched every single episode of The Simpsons back-to-back!
Just for comparison’s sake, the current Guinness World Record for continuous TV watched is 86 hours, and the longest science has measured someone going without sleep altogether is 264 hours. But that was back in 1965, and TV has gotten a lot better since then…
Best. Marathon. Ever.
I was driving home on the freeway with Sara – having an intriguing conversation about God, of all topics – and out of the blue, I almost hit somebody running across the three lane, 60-mph road.
I think it was a worker with the State – he ran over to one of those flashing signs that they use to move people over during lane closures, and I didn’t even see his truck until I was right up alongside it in the left-most lane. It was very dark – maybe around 9:30pm – and traffic was still pretty heavy.
I remember about a year ago, there was a story in the paper about a road worker getting killed in the middle of the night when he was trying to move one of those kinds of signs and got hit by a drunk driver at 3:00am. For the longest time I thought the story was deplorable and couldn’t imagine what it’d be like for this guy’s family – he was young and I think just had a baby, it said – to deal with such a loss when the guy was just doing his job.
After tonight’s incident, though, now I can’t help but wonder … what if the road worker was being an idiot when he got hit???
I’m certainly not excusing the drunk driving by any stretch of the imagination, but comparing the unknown to my situation – some guy decided to run across three lanes of heavy traffic traveling at 60mph. If I would’ve hit him, would it have been deemed an accident or would I have gone to jail over it? Sure, it was a construction zone, hence the reduced speeds, but doesn’t that also still elicit a little common sense from the guy doing the work? I mean, we teach look both ways before you cross the street to kindergartners…
As our conversation continued, all I could think about was how my life could’ve been potentially ruined by some other guy’s poor judgement, and sure, technically we’re subject to that on varying levels all of the time throughout the day, but still … if I had been driving just a little faster or he had slipped or something, I probably would’ve taken his life with my car.
If there is a God, he’s sure got a sick sense of humor towards us non-believers…
Ever since the Occupy Wall Street movement started gaining momentum last fall, I’ve found myself a lot more scorned when I look at most media outlets because a lot of times I don’t think that they realize just how many people they have on the line when they string unsubstantiated journalism out on the line without properly vetting it.
This article, in particular, grabbed my attention and then almost immediately pissed me off after I started reading past the headline and into the actual body of the article. Its subject is pretty clear and simple – this guy has a 102% tax rate – and yet another eight paragraphs down in the article, this comes out…
“That doesn’t mean Mr. Ross pays more in taxes than he earns. His total tax as a percentage of his adjusted gross income was 20 percent, which is much lower than mine.”
What the fuck do you think people are going to think when you run the headline “AT 102%, HIS TAX RATE TAKES THE CAKE”?!?!?!?!?!
I mean, our tax code is confusing enough as it is, but to run this article with the implication that this rich guy is getting overtaxed is just irresponsible journalism, especially when you even go so far as to spell it out later in the article that his actual tax rate is about 20%, or right in line with the capital gains taxes that we’re trying to convince people aren’t fair compared to 35% employment taxes! Ok, so the guy has a lot of deductions. He only gave 11% to charity, so where’d the rest go? Into his business??? Good for him for reinvesting his capital in his business, but you know what – businessmen excessively write-off expenses as a way to avoid paying more in taxes all the time, so I’m not exactly going to feel any sympathy for this guy unless he actually spills the beans about exactly what all of those deductions were actually for…
But then again, that wouldn’t make nearly as intriguing of an article, and the majority of people wouldn’t make it all the way to page 2 or 3 where all of the actual substance would be buried anyways. Most people base their entire frame of mind on the headline or the sound bite without actually thinking about the context, and then they walk around telling us that FOX News is the most credible news source around because they just never got enough information to know any better.
It’s really both sides’ fault – the American people need to think more and get the actual facts before forming their opinions, but journalists who crank out sensationalist crap like this to rile up the masses aren’t helping any.
Use your heads, people – any businessman who paid more in taxes than he actually earned wouldn’t be in business very long.
So apparently there was some big football game over the weekend, and somebody beat somebody else and won a big trophy or something. I didn’t really follow, but fortunately thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I can still catch up on all of the commercials afterwards without having to sit through even a minute of actual game time!
These are the ones that I ended up liking the best…
Some Runners Up…
And an Honorable Mention for Nostalgia…
P.S. Was anyone other than me actually feeling a little put off by the Ferris Bueller remake for the Honda CRV? Instead of feeling all fun and nostalgic, for some reason it just screamed “Wow, Matthew Broderick is getting old!” and “Ferris Bueller wouldn’t have sold out like this…”
I figured after my last couple of less than positive posts, I’d better take just a quick moment to check-in after this morning’s weigh-in simply to summarize how last week went and how I want to improve in the next…
Today’s Weigh-in: -0.2 pounds from last week
Last Week’s Exercise: 3 days of cardio, 1 day of strength training
Last Week’s Diet: so-so – a few days within 2,000 calories, and also a few days of splurging and snacking (plus one carton of Ben & Jerry’s that probably didn’t help…)
Last Week’s Sleep: terrible – several nights of not going to bed before 4am… 
New Goals for Next Week:
- Exercise – at least 5 days of cardio, preferably all 7; 3 days of strength training
- Diet – considerably less overeating and snacking, especially considering that next Tuesday we’re going to The Melting Pot for Valentine’s Day and I’ll likely consume enough calories for three days in that single meal alone!
- Sleep – trying to move bedtime up to 1-2am range, then eventually 12-1am
