It Begins Tomorrow...

My buddy is getting married in September of next year.  I'm going.  Nice.  Weddings kick ass.  And it's not only over a long weekend, it's a destination wedding in beautiful Pentwater, Michigan.  Don't let the website, probably designed as a school project by a Councilman's son (or Councilwoman's daughter blah blah blah gender equity), fool you.  This is going to be a kickass wedding.  It also happens to happen on my 27th birthday. While this has a number of "meh" qualities, I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday than with an open bar.  Can you?

Apropos of that, at least a bit, I woke up today and got ready for work and noticed my pants put up more than a bit of a fight to button this morning.  I got it to work, sure, but these were, not a few months ago, my "relaxing work pants".  Now they're my "these are slightly uncomfortable work pants".  Not nice.  Not nice at all.  I've been a fat guy since college, the result of beer, dining hall food and a rec center that was juuuuuuust a bit too far away to walk to.  And there was no free parking, so I couldn't even drive there if I wanted to.  As a result, it was 12oz curls and 12-slice lifts throughout college.  This added up to a lot, particularly in the donations bin of my local charities because none of my clothes fit anymore.  It has also added up to more buying clothes with that second "X" on the size.  And they charge you another fucking $2 for that at some places.  Assholes!

Anyway now it's time to change all of that.

The wedding is in about 280 days.  That's a long time from now.  Plenty of time to lose a shit load of weight.  At least I hope it is.  How am I going to do it?  Fair question.  I don't have all the strategies in line but they will, for the most part, consist of adding a few things to my life and subtracting a few more.

Adds:

• Some kind of fitness routine!  
• This will mean I'll have to pony up the cash to join a gym.  The cheapest, lowest rent, no free sweat rags, likely filfthiest gym I can find.  But if they have a treadmill, some free weights and a TV (the last is not a deal breaker) then I'm good.

• Portion control!  
• This may be the thing that got me to where I am.  Fuck, I love food.  I love good food, bad food, Indian food...food is fucking great.  So I eat a lot of it.  And now I look like I do.  So it's time to enjoy food with a little less frequency and a little less gross tonnage.  

• Goals!  
• I'm running the Cleveland Half Marathon with another friend in May.  I want to be able to finish without walking too much.  Well, fuck that, I want to finish before the sun goes down.  That's a goal, is what that is.

• Public Humiliation Diet!  
• Hey, it worked for Drew Magary.  Wow, do I look too much like the pic on the left.

Subtracts:

• Fast Food! 
• I noted that I love food.  Boy, do I.  And I really love fast, cheap food.  Time to limit this as much as possible.  Sure, if time's are tough and if the muse strikes me, maybe I get a JBC from Wendy's.  But not every day, and not a JBC, fries, a 5 piece and a drink.  

• Chipotle! 
• I love Chipotle, too.  Surprising.  The meal of choice there is a Fajita bowl with a lot of crap that adds up to 855 Calories, 2100 mg of Sodium and37 Grams of fat.  Jesus.  That adds a stretch mark for everyone one of those I have.  Au revoir, Chipotle.  I will miss you.

• Being really fucking lazy on the weekends! 
• It's winter and sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching football is damn appealing.  But so is fitting into clothes.  I do aproxamately 7 minutes of physical labor on the weekends and about 2738 minutes of watching TV and sleeping.  That needs to change.

There will be more and I'll be updating this shit on this here blog from time to time and on my twitter feed each day with a weight check-in, beginning tomorrow.

Time to be less fat.  Here we go.

UPDATE - Apropos of nothing else

I am not a Cavs fan.  I don't even like pro basketball that much.  But I can't, for the life of me, after the sports life I've lived through, see LeBron James going through with tonight's event ("The Decision" is a rather stupid name - ed.) and not stay in Cleveland.

I have no sources, I have no reason to believe he hasn't been signed, sealed and delivered to any of the other suitors.  But I can't see him leaving for anywhere else and completely curb-stomping the City of Cleveland.  It's 5:38pm on Thursday July 8th.

LeBron James is staying in Cleveland.  Mark it down.

UPDATE: um, uhh, or not.

Shut up, Simmons.

I was putzing around on ESPN.com earlier today and happened upon The Sport's Guy's 4,500 WORD 20-question column on soccer.  I read through it but stopped after reading his question and answer below:

Question No. 7: You haven't handled Boston's Game 7 loss to the Lakers very well. What was the snarkiest e-mail or text you sent to a Boston friend after hearing that Kobe was attending the USA-Ghana game?

It was a tie between "Since Kobe is attending this game, does this mean we're gonna get all the calls?" and "Kobe watched only six of the first 24 minutes but was still named MVP of his luxury suite."

Jesus Christ.  You've gotta be kidding me.  This is why I can't stand Bill Fucking Simmons.  I'm fine with homerism, don't get me wrong.  And I re-live bad beats like a bankrupt poker player (see: 2007 BCSNCG; the last two Georgetown Hoyas NCAA tournament games).  But this is getting ridiculous.  The Celtics lost.  In 7 games.  It was a helluva run for team that shouldn't have gotten out of the conference semis.  But they lost to the better team, hands down.  And Simmons has, for the last month, let everyone know that the Celtics got screwed or that Kobe didnt' deserve his MVP (which is true, Gasol should have gotten it, but I digress).  He's let everyone know in his BS Report podcast.  In his column.  On his Twitter feed.  Its incredibly annoying.

So I have this message for Billy Boy:

GET OVER IT! 

Do what the rest of us do and get your put it behind you.  And its not like you've been overwhelmingly victimized by bad beats in your lifetime, pal.  Your teams have won 6 championships in the last 10 years alone:

• 2004, 2007 Red Sox
• 2001, 2003, 2004 New England Patriots
• 2008 Celtics

Its not like you're rooting for the Indians and the Cavs in Cleveland or the Bills and the Sabres in Buffalo, Bill-o.  You've been there for the good quite often.  You even double dipped in 2004.

I know the easy solution is to just not read the column, stop following him on Twitter (I did) and put him out my mind, and I'm going to do that.  But not before I say this.

Shut the fuck up, Simmons.  Go peddle your beantown wares in Quincy Market, asshole. 

So about that Not-So-Perfect-Game...

I know it has been awhile since I last wrote something.  I have something in the pipeline about Miami University, my wonderful Alma Mater, but it isn't ready yet.  So here's my take on Armando Galarrga, Jim Joyce, and The Commissioner's decision.

By now, I'm last to the party, as per usual, to tackle a subject.  But there is benefit to this.  I have seen the reaction of Major League Baseball, of all the pundits, of all the players of all the bloggers and everyone else I haven't yet mentioned.  Having weighed everything, all the opinions, all the "coulda woulda shoulda" of the situation, I would not have changed a thing.

Baseball is a game played and officiated by humans.  Errors occur in baseball (they keep track of them in the box score!) and from time to time the occur by people not wearing a team's uniform.

Such was the case with Jim Joyce's call in the ninth two nights ago.  He blew it.  He said he blew it. He was destroyed in every forum, from a very public boo'ing at the hands of the Detroit faithful in Comerica Park, from bloggers, tweeters and columnists the next day, even his Wikipedia page was edited, re-edited, re-re-edited and now locked because of his call. 

Meanwhile, Armando Galarraga, someone you probably thought retired many years ago, is left with a masterful night that should have, admittedly, been much different.  The kid went out and pitched the 21st Perfect Game in MLB history.  But he didn't.  He's left with a 1-hit, complete game shutout.

And that's exactly what should have happened.

What's the alternative?  What happens if Bud Selig comes out and overturns Jim Joyce's call (yeah, he didn't)?  My informal survey of Tigers' fans would applaud it.  And some (shining example: Olbermann) have pointed to a precedent to change perfect games and no hitters. 

That's all well and good, but those occurrences changed the way we look at statistics.  Change this ruling and then every umpire in the big leagues tightens up their own "strike zones" before every close play.  Would you want to be the umpire with the most league overturns?  Or maybe they start calling the games a little looser because, hey, if they screw up then the league can come in and make it alllllll better!

The argument brought to the forefront in all of this is that for instant replay.  The calls on twitter following the play were very much in favor of it.  Curt Schilling wants it.  The aforementioned Olbermann wants it.  ESPN.com's Senior baseball writer Jayson Stark wants it.  But as a friend of mine posited just hours after the Joyce Call, the likelihood that a call of this magnitude has the chance to occur ever again is minute at the very best.  The knee-jerk reaction is common in the world of the 24-hour news cycle and that's probably why we see opinions like this.

But baseball has never been like this and it shouldn't change because of one freakishly missed call.

Pardon me for tapping my inner George Will but purely from the competitive side of this story, nothing is different from "out 27" to "out 28" two nights ago.  The Tigers still won, Galarraga got said win and Fausto Carmona got the Loss.  Those facts would not change if there were a perfect game.  This is undeniable. 

Joyce got the call wrong.  But baseball got the call, unfortunate though it may be, right.

10 Cent TV Critic - "The Good Guys"

When I was in college, I took a course called Audience Analysis and now I think of myself as a television expert.  Having said that, I watch a lot of television.  Too much.  Waaaaay too much.  But it won't stop me from telling the world (!!) what I think in this, the 10 Cent TV Critic.  Today, Fox's newly premiered "The Good Guys"

My favorite television show of all time was "The West Wing".  I loved everything about that show, from the pilot to the finale and everything, including the incredibly "meh" 5th season, in between.  I'm a huge Sorkin fan (apologist?) and will consider anything he touches gold.  Even his appearance on Entourage last year.

Bradley Whitford's Josh Lyman was one of my favorite characters on "The West Wing" and I have been a fan since his immortal turn in "Billy Madison".  Naturally I had an interest in what he was up to these days.  That would be our topic du jour, "The Good Guys" on Fox.  I'll let the always comical Warming Glow bring us up to speed:

"Okay, there’s two cops, right? One of them’s a young guy, and his partner — GET THIS — an old, washed-up cop. *kisses fingers* Groundbreaking stuff. It stars a now-hefty Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman from “The West Wing”) and Colin Hanks."

No, it isn't too groundbreaking.  But here are some things it had going for it, before watching frame 1:

• Good lead actors, including Whitford and Tom Hanks' son Colin Hanks.  
• Matt Nix producing, which wouldn't have meant a thing a few years ago, but since USA's "Burn Notice" is burning it up on cable (see what I did there????), there's some considerable clout.
• Tim Matheson directed the pilot.  He's done the same with several good episodes of "Burn Notice" and  "The West Wing"
• The Fox Preview Effect.  Here are two shows that Fox ran as previews, gave some summer love to and then built an image around: "The O.C." and "Glee".

But then there is the actual pilot.  To be honest, it was well North of decent.  The writing was surprisingly crisp for a pilot and the show's pace was impressive to say the least.  Colin Hanks did his part but the show was stolen by Whitford, whose 70s tough guy cop was hysterical and entertaining throughout.  And that mustache.  My goodness.  You could clean a floor with it.

There are fixes that need to be made.  The show operates as, basically, a 4-character show, which works fine for Nix in "Burn Notice", but shouldn't hold water on Fox ("Glee" is the prime example, with about 12 leads and 25 other characters) so that needs to be addressed.  Also how many crimes, exactly, go from routine investigation to ZOMG MURDER?1!!! even on a television show?  (Aside: I know, I know, point out your plot-holes elsewhere, dickbag.  But still: there better be more to the show than this, because that arc is only good for four or five episodes.  Having said that, every episode of Law and Order was like that for 20 years. This is why I got a C+ in the aforementioned Audience Analysis class).

Bottom line: if Nix and Whitford (also an EP) want to stay on TV in the fall (Fox has it slated on Fridays to begin, which is terrible) they have a great foundation to build on.  They just need to do the requisite architecting and contracting to make it work.

Prediction: Summer to half-season on Friday is a tough place to start, especially on Fox.  The show needs to build a strong base this summer or else it may not get through the 20-episode order.  I hope it does, I'd guess it will, unfortunately, not.

Let's see if blogging via e-mail works.

"Bookkeeping" is one of my favorite words in the English language.  Look at it.  Three consecutive double letters.  Yes, these are the idiot things that keep me going on a daily basis.  That's miserably sad.  Jesus, when did I become Andy Rooney?

Anyway, I want to take care of some bookkeeping work for this whole blog thing.  For one, I'll be doing a majority of posting via E-mail because blogger doesn't have a BlackBerry client of which I'm aware, and the site itself is blocked by my work's firewall.  This is annoying, but so is government work.  And because of the aforementioned horseshit lack of availability of Google Image results, I'm not sure about images working from the e-mails.  Will they? Let's try one:

If that didn't work, you missed out on some good Arrested Development referencing.  If it did, then woot.

Hey, that kinda worked only after I fixed it when I got home.  Good to know.

I'm in a pretty shitty mood at work today because I was asked to stop using Google Talk (GChat) at work by one of my supervisors so that I "wouldn't get in trouble" with the much, much more powerful managers in my office.  10 minutes later, I got shat on by one of the more powerful managers.  So someone opened their fucking mouth, which is awfully upsetting. 

Generally speaking, I'm content at work, but certainly not fulfilled.  This is an easy job that a lot of people make look a lot more difficult by being morons.  People fall asleep on the clock here and get wrist-slapped.  I use gchat and get bitched at by two different supervisors.  I've grown tired of and used to it by now. 

At some point I'll get out of here.  Maybe get some more education and get a better job.  Or I'll rot here with the rest of the lifers.

I swear there's not that much angst but I need a place to publicly bitch about things, so this will have to suffice.

But, hey, how about some big ups to these guys:

Here's a "Tex message" for you and the rest of your team: cram it with walnuts, assholes.

I hate the Yankees.