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October 2007
October 31, 2007
October 29, 2007
The Anti-Gym--No "Chubbies" Allowed
So...where do you stand on this? The reason I ask: When I first heard about The Anti-Gym, with two facilities located in the Denver area, I thought it was funny. A trainer at our local gym told us about this gym catering to what he thought was a very small cadre of fanatics. In order to get in, you have to fill out a fairly extensive form and...I think...be interviewed. You are initially weighed in. If you deviate too significantly from your weight, you can face haranguing from a group of peers, which might include having donuts thrown at you. 50 minutes of group exercise 3x/week is the main drill. They say you can't do any more. And if you really deviate from your target weight, they can kick you out of the club. Sounds very interesting. But...but:
1) I think this TV spot is horrendous. Sure I'm a bit of a size-ist, but come on...this is brutal.
2) Go to the AntiGym site. Do we really need all the misogynistic photos?
3) Why are these folks in the business of selling food, helping concoct cocktails, advocating that hey, it's OK if you smoke a bit of pot. What??!
And by the way, are they really catering to a small cadre of fanatics? Apparently they regularly run TV ads on the local Denver stations. And the club owner has been featured on national TV numerous times. I'm all for political incorrectness, but IMHO, this is a bit over the top.
October 26, 2007
Pssst...Don't Tell Anyone!
You see, it's like this. We're having friends over for dinner tomorrow night, and I'm making a lasagna. Get this---I'm using a recipe right off the lasagna box. Now I know that's beyond tacky, but I've been checking around, and there are about a gazillion variations of lasagna, all gyrating around a few central themes:
1) Tomato sauce-based
2) Bechamel-based
3) Meat
4) Vegetarian
I'm opting for options #1 and #3. Now, why am I following the recipe on the box? Because it's easy to follow, I have yet to find a single killer recipe (unlike "the killer app"), and I've got an attention span of about...ummm...what was I writing about here?
Don't worry, folks. Although the recipe calls for bottled sauce, I'm making my own tomato sauce. So, which recipe do I follow for my tomato sauce? Is there any other than this simple ditty from a proven power house I'll never have the privilege of eating at because I'm not Tony Soprano or the actor who played him on TV? Ambondanza!
October 24, 2007
Who Is This Guy?
Come on...you don't recognize him?! His name is Jonathan Clements, and he's a personal finance columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Clements writes for that paper every Wednesday and also contributes an article for the Sunday edition that runs in many newspapers across the country, plus you can snag it if you subscribe to www.wsj.com. He is somewhat boring (although I like his dry sense of humor), and his advice is beyond middle-of-the-road conservative. Also, if you read his columns every week--as I do--and have read his books--the most recent of which I did, you'll notice he is fairly repetitive. Keep investment costs down, most people can't beat the market so don't bother and buy index funds, consistent adherence to an asset allocation strategy is more important than anything else. Yadda yadda yadda. And this is why I love this guy. He sticks to his guns year in and year out, and if you followed his advice, you'd probably be meeting the market...that's right, meeting the market. And what the hell is wrong with that when most investors, and most portfolio managers DON'T consistently beat or even meet the market over the long haul. I can't imagine the folks trying to sell WSJ advertising into the financial services sector care for Mr. Clements very much, but I sure like him. I've told my family to read his articles, my friends to read his articles, and now I'm telling you, the three readers of my blog, to read Jonathan Clements' articles. Buy his books. Send him a Starbucks card. Send John Bogle of Vanguard Investments a Starbucks card. OK...let's not get carried away. Whew!
October 23, 2007
Gulp!
You know, when I was a kid, we swallowed and ate any manner of toxic substances. Play-Doh? I must have digested a few pounds of that stuff every day. We also liberally stuck our fingers in electric sockets, snorted gasoline fumes at the local Esso whenever possible, and ate many pounds of Nestle's Quik chocolate powder...completely dry using a soup spoon, which trust me, could kill you on the spot. Fast forward to 2007, and it's a big wah wah whine fest on behalf of today's kids. "We don't want our Johnny to swallow a freakin' magnet. Boo hoo hoo!" Come on! It will make the little kids stronger and more hardy. "Hey you, eat yer magnets or you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer magnets?"
October 21, 2007
The Song That's Been Sweeping the Nation!
I woke up to this song on the TV very very early this Sunday morning. Amazing--a group of middle aged men singing this, intensely and earnestly, before zipping off on their Harleys to get some o' dat. Shoot me now!
October 19, 2007
Man o' Manischewitz...
We sure has come a long way from the 80s...or has we?
October 18, 2007
Quote of the Day
...As loudly delivered by Pacific Athletic Club spin instructor "John J." during a particular intense moment in his 6 a.m. class this morning:
"Hey, if you feel like crap, don't let anyone else know. Just cover it up. And remember...it doesn't matter how you feel, it's how you look...And you look marvelous!"
October 17, 2007
Bow Wow Wow Yippie Yo Yippie Yay
Message to Ellen DeGeneres, and more importantly the media that have so prominently covered this non-story: we care about the millions of Iraquis that have been displaced, we care about thousands of U.S. soldiers having unnecesssarily died in Iraq, we care about the genocide in Darfur. But we don't give a rat's ass about your stupid adopted puppy dog or your hairdresser or whatever yadda yadda you were blubbering about on your TV show.
On another note....I just love alpacas. Ellen, you really should buy an alpaca farm. Sniff sniff boo hoo hoo!!!!!!
October 16, 2007
An Unofficial Response from the San Diego Area
Among the four people reading this blog is a very friendly and service-oriented Slacker.com staffer who, after seeing my last post, informed me that the Slacker Portable is real, and it is coming. While he wouldn't share a planned availability date, she/he/it (I want to protect identities here...) pointed me to this CNN segment that aired last week. Stated availability timing in the video is "later this Fall." Warning: you have to suffer through a 30 second spot before you get to the video featuring company CEO Dennis Mudd. Message to CNN: 30 seconds...on the Web? Oh, that's right...this is from the same company that at one point colorized classic movies...never mind.
In any event, unless it is totally slammed by Walt Mossberg and CNET, I'm buying the Slacker Portable whenever the heck it comes out.
