It’s incorrect to say that I’m not physically fit. That would imply the lack of fitness. I’m anti-fit. Meaning, the opposite of fitness (see rule 5 in Words to Live By).

I did, though, join a fitness club because I like to swim and shoot basketball for fun, even though I suck at both (that’s me, Jack “Spuds” T, on the right). When I joined, they threw in five sessions with a personal trainer (I drove a hard bargain- the key to negotiating is to not care whether you get it or not, a feeling I surely projected after my initial tour of the facility when I said to the rep “Well, I really don’t care if I sign up or not.”).

Normally, I would not bother with such sessions. Working out is for good-looking people or people who are concerned about their health. I’m neither. I’m all about fun. I find hanging out at the gym working out to be about as fun as watching paint dry. But the only thing that supercedes my aversion to all things fitness-related is my cheapskate nature, so I relented.

My trainer’s name was Ray. Poor Ray.

First Session:
Ray: OK Jack. What are your goals for these sessions?
Jack: I dunno. They were free, and they expire soon. So here I am.
Ray: Well, do you want to get stronger? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to increase performance at sports?
Jack: I don’t feel any need to be more muscular, skinny or athletic. I’m here because the sessions are free, and they expire soon.
Ray: OK that’s fine. We need a goal though. That’s how the program works. How about we shoot for a little weight loss. That’s generally a common goal.
Jack: Sure. Whatever.
Ray: OK. Good. First, I need you to fill out this questionnaire about your eating habits.

Ray puts in front of me an SAT-like test with four pages of questions in 6-point font asking asinine questions like, “When you eat, do you mostly prefer red meat?” (yes. DUH.). I scan it and see at the bottom a check box saying “I waive the food and nutrition portion of the fitness training program.” I immediately grab the pen, check off the box, and sign it.

Ray: *sigh*. Jack, you know, the food component is very important to the weight loss goal. It’s like 60% diet / 40% exercise in terms of getting results.
Jack: [Thinking: Then why are you here then, Mr. Muscles? I don't see any degrees in nutrition management on your wall.] I don’t want to do the food thing. I like to eat good stuff. Also I hate vegetables. And I’m allergic to fruit. They make my inner ear and my right pinky toe itch. So I only eat meat and starch. Telling me to eat a lot of broccoli and no red meat is not an achievable goal. I’m all about achievable goals. I learned that while watching a Tony Robbins video. And while we’re at it, how come Tony has inhumanly big gums?
Ray: *sigh* Dude, what am I gonna do with you. OK, then just write down what you eat every day, and the time you eat it.

Second Session (1 week after First Session):
[Ray scans the list of things I ate for the week]
Ray: What time do you wake up every day?
Jack: 7am.
Ray: It looks here like you don’t eat breakfast, and your lunch is usually at 1pm.
Jack: Yes. I get carried away doing work in the morning.
Ray: OK. Well, be sure you eat a meal for breakfast. And eat smaller portions for each of your three meals. And eat a small snack, like a cup of yogurt or a health bar, in between each meal.
Jack: Like, the health bars you sell in that cabinet there?
[Thinking: The ones that look like dried feces squeezed out of someone's square anus hole? How convenient that they look the same going in as they do coming out. But when you find an unwrapped one lying around, how do you know whether to eat it or flush it? What do you call them, anyway? Mr. Shitbar? ShitKat? Shit Jerky? Shwitx? Three Shitkateers?]
Ray: Well, you can get other ones at the market, but yeah, we recommend our energy bars. So, I noticed you didn’t eat any vegetables all week.
Jack: Yes, I decided to forgo the vegetable portion of the food pyramid last week. And all prior weeks since my birth.

Third Session (1 week after Second Session):
Ray: Let’s go work on some weights. [Hooks me up to some machine with weights.] Now do twenty reps and then pause.
Jack: One…. *grunt*…. Two….. *grunt*….. Three….. *grunt* *grunt*….. Five…..
Ray: Hey! No cheating on the count!
Jack: Why *grunt* do you care! *grunt* I’m only *grunt* cheating on myself! *grunt* No harm no foul! OK I’m tired. *Rubs sore shoulder* Where’s my water.
Ray: Hey! You can’t stop now! Twenty reps, remember? You only did six!
Jack: Ten, by my count, Ray.

Poor Ray, having to put up with me and my blase attitude towards fitness. I should send him a case of Mr. Shitbars. Or hire an Enron exec to teach him to count.

tags :: jokes : humor : exercise : fitness : diet

One day a long, long, time ago in a town not so far, far, away, I was hanging out with my friend Shont and his sister Arpi. (Aside: These are real names, people. My buddy’s name is Shont and his sister’s name is Arpi. They are full-blooded Americans, born and raised in Los Angeles. I’m not making this up. If I were to make up strange non-American sounding names, they’d be called Neetork and Clutox.) Arpi’s friend Azure was also present. (Aside part deux: Azure. yet another uncommon name, but at least it’s an English word…derived from French. O brother. I mean, mon Dieu.)

Arpi and Azure were going on and on about the movie “Pretty Woman”: Ohhhhh it’s the best movie ever. Ohhhhh Richard Gere is so handsome in it. Ohhhhh Julia Roberts is so perky! Ohhhhhh it’s so cute how they fall in love. Ohhhhh I really identify with that movie. Ohhhhh where’s the boom box- let’s all sway to a New Kids on the Block song, because that “Pretty Woman” movie is so romantic.

Shont starts to shake his head in his characteristic quirky, opinionated manner, and blurts out: “OK, you guys. Let’s take a step back. Think about it. This movie is about a mean rich guy. Who falls in love with a hooker. Plain and simple.”

Shont is right. It’s a movie about a guy who falls in love with a hooker. Yet we all fondly remember it through nostalgia-tinted lenses as one of the best romantic comedies ever. The movie that made Julia Roberts the top actress in Hollywood.

Let’s consider another one. One of my personal favorites (“Pretty Woman” was not one of my personal favorites).

Once there was this director from Modesto, California. He had recently made a movie about teenagers in a small whitebread American town, cruising around on a weekend night. Starring Opie. Also in the cast were Shirley (Laverne’s best friend) and The Fugitive. (Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in Reverse? Anyone?)

After the modest success of that movie, the director goes to the studio and tells them that, for his next movie, he wants to make a space opera. The studio execs show a puzzled look, and declare, “Why, that sounds intriguing, although we have no clue what a ‘space opera’ is, but we have to pretend we’re smart since we have corner offices. What is it about?”

“It’s an epic narrative set in outer space about a lost son who stumbles upon his destiny, a beautiful princess, and an old sage who guides them on their quest”, the filmmaker replies. “Oh! Why that sounds intriguing! As long as it comes within budget, of course,” say the execs.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, the director was George Lucas.

The movie, of course, was “Star Wars”.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, that one-sentence premise sounds great, doesn’t it? A classic myth with a science fiction backdrop. What’s not to like?

But just think about what happens next, after the money men begin digging into the script and the details. I can only imagine:

Encouraged by the positive initial reaction, the filmmaker continues: “Here’s my latest draft of the script. I’ll give you the highlights. It takes place in outer space. The main characters wear loose-fitting, flowing robes, as if a civilization with light-speed transport technology never bothered to invent a sewing machine. The princess wears a cinammon roll on each side of her head. She wanted to make a fashion statement but couldn’t find any white iPod earbuds. Everyone has a laser gun which shoots deadly energy-based projectiles thousands of feet, but the hero uses a laser sword, which shoots nothing and has a range of three feet. The hero and the princess are actually siblings by birth, but the pervey sage only reveals this to them after the princess slips her own brother the tongue.

“The villain wears a black samurai helmet on his head and has a 10-pound bionic lung strapped to his chest that looks like the Commodore 64′s great grandchild. He also dons a weird-looking mechanical facemask with big black Jackie O-style goggle lenses. When he talks, he sounds like a late-stage emphysema patient.

“There are two characters written in for comic relief. They are robots with human personalities. One is a neurotic, uptight nervous nelly. But male. The other robot is not in human form. He looks more like a white and blue suppository on wheels. He doesn’t speak English. He just utters a series of beeps and chirps, yet everyone in that universe can understand everything he says.

“One of the hero’s friends is a roguish character who is a space-faring pirate. He wears a white long-sleeved shirt underneath a black vest with a gun and holster strapped low on his thigh, as if he were the long lost seventh member of the Village People.

“And the space pirate’s sidekick is an 8-foot-tall dog that walks upright on two feet and shoots a laser crossbow. He wears no clothing, so the costumers will have to figure it out since I don’t want him hangin’ brain during a gunfight. Even though the walking dog speaks by uttering the exact same series of high-pitched grunts and growls, the space pirate can still carry on long, involved conversations with him. Because nnggghhhooooo nnggghhhooooo nngghoo ngghhooo means ‘Imperial Stormtroopers are on our ass’ as well as ‘I have shit on my fur’.”

Er, so far this thing sounds like the absurd result of a really bad LSD trip.

I once watched an interview with George Lucas. They asked him how he came up with the Chewbacca character. He said that he used to have a dog named Indiana (yes, he named Indiana Jones after his dog). Indiana (the dog, not Harrison Ford) used to sit upright in the front seat of his car while they drove around town, and Lucas thought it was funny that she sat there like a person, as if a dog were co-piloting the vehicle. So he worked it into the “Star Wars” script.

Thank goodness a movie studio gave Lucas the money to make Star Wars, preposterous as the premise and details may have sounded to many a movie exec.

If it hadn’t happened, I never would have known what a lightsaber is, let alone sign up for lightsaber fighting lessons. It’s important for a fully-grown man to know how to properly wield a functioning lightsaber. Otherwise he may accidentally slice his Star Wars action figure display case in half while pretending to be Darth Maul. In the privacy of his bedroom. Wearing nothing but tighty whiteys.

tags :: humor : Pretty Woman : Star Wars : George Lucas : Unexpected Success

Some wise, experienced blogger who actually has readers said that posts should end with a question as a way of soliciting comments. Or, if you still don’t get comments, as a way of proving to yourself that you have no readers. Or friends. Just kidding. Or not.

So I thought: Why don’t I take it to the extreme? Why don’t I just write a whole ton of questions? If people are commenting more because you insert a question, shouldn’t they comment even more if if the whole thing were just a bunch of questions?

Are you sick of reading all these inane questions yet? Should I stop now? Or should I go on longer? How many sentences do you think I can continue to write in interrogative form? Am I spelling “interrogative” correctly? Hey, isn’t it funny that I posed the idea and implemented it all in the same paragraph, at the same time? And isn’t it even more clever that the post title itself is also a question? I planned in advance, get it? That’s awesome, isn’t it? No? You don’t think so? More like boring?

Well, I guess everyone’s got their opinion, don’t they? How about you let me opine on my blog, and you opine on your blog? O wait, I don’t want that, do I? Wasn’t the whole point for you to opine in my comments section?

Do I sound like an airhead yet? Or an insecure 20-something girl at an interview? You know the kind I’m talking about? The ones who end even a declarative sentence like it was a question?

Do you think I’m still on track with this? Or am I so far off topic that it’s just ridiculous? You think it’s ridiculous? Really? You shouldn’t call a guy ridiculous in his own blog, should you? Wouldn’t your mommy wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you say that?

You think I’m out of steam already on this? You don’t think I could go on for another 200 sentences? Will you stop reading if I actually do? How many people do you think managed to read this far? Nobody? Really? Not one person? But if you’re reading this sentence, that means you’ve read this far, doesn’t it? I should stop then, shouldn’t I? Wow, this is easier than I thought it’d be, thinking up so many questions.

Oh, darn. Broke my train of thought and stopped asking questions. You can stop reading now. Feel free to comment. Or ask a question.

tags :: jokes : humor : blogging : comments : questions

When I was in college, a friend ran the cable tv feed from outside the building through his window. We plugged it into a signal booster and piped it to our friends’ rooms through the foreign language tv network cabling, and ran cable above the ceiling tiles (so nobody would notice) to connect to our rooms. We enjoyed cable tv for a few years from that little endeavor. Nothing as scandalous as an illegitimate child, but a dirty little secret nonetheless.

There are, of course, much bigger dirty little secrets out there. They’re everywhere. Some are actually spelled out in footnotes somewhere. Others are discoverable if we’d only look hard enough. Many, I’m sure, are very carefully guarded and will never be known to anybody who is not connected to them in some way. Here are a few I can think of:

1. The brand new Korean grocery store down my street offers super fresh produce at ludicrously low prices. Migrant farmers are California grocers’ dirty little secret.
2. Southwest Airlines is the airline industry’s stock market darling. Their financial performance seems to do consistently well while other airlines are toppling like dominos. Are they so much more efficient at operations that they can make money while others lose it hand over fist? Southwest Airlines’ dirty little secret: They locked up fuel prices via long-term contracts a while back. In hindsight, this was a brilliant move that has contributed the most to sustaining their profitability of late, and will really impact them when the contracts expire.
3. Remember Intel’s 386 chip? (yes, back before the Internet). They sold a less expensive version that did not feature a math coprocessor, called the 386SX (back then they tried to make their products SeXy. They’ve since given up). The dirty little secret: 386 and 386SX chips were actually the same- they were all manufactured with the math coprocessor function. Intel simply disabled the coprocessor on the ones they sold under the 386SX name so that they could have two pricing tiers.
4. What do you picture when you think of San Diego, California? Blue skies and ocean breezes with sandy beaches warmed by the sun? Well, San Diego is frequently subject to a gloomy marine layer, which is a blanket of fog-drenched air that is several hundred feet thick and blots out the sun, leaving the area chilly and overcast.
5. Ashlee Simpson is a bad singer. This was a well-known dirty little secret, and she was ultimately outed during an equipment malfunction while performing on Saturday Night Live. She joins Milli Vanili in the Lip-Synch Hall of Fame for Most Embarrassing Career-Ending Performance. Gee, between all the bad singers and fake backup bands that are there for looks and don’t really play the instruments, I guess most of pop music packaging is one big dirty secret.
6. Buy a computer from Dell, then call them asking to return it for a refund. Chances are the operator will look at her computer screen and then offer you some sort of discount if you would be willing to keep the computer. Some MBA or McKinsey consultant told them that it would be cheaper to offer these rebates than to process the returns. My friend who told me about this likes to call this little secret the Dell Special Discount.
7. A majority of people who have ski racks installed on their cars don’t actually use them. They are just there for show. I saw that in a survey somewhere. I guess that’s a lot of people’s dirty little secret.

That’s about all the dirty little secrets I can think of for now. Oh, and I don’t eat vegetables. Don’t tell that to anybody I know. Or to any migrant farmers.
tags :: jokes : humor : rants : secrets

I was watching some daytime TV (not a frequent occurrence haha) and caught Erik Estrada of “CHiPs” fame pitching $50,000 plots of land in the middle of nowhere in Washington State. He was touting the community’s waterfront location and resort-like amenities, but it looked like the place had zero infrastructure. Just a bunch of overgrown weeds surrounding some mucky body of water. He also conveniently forgot to mention the 300 days a year of rain. The commercial was very poorly produced. And I’m no expert, but judging from the TV spot, his golf swing sucks.

Saw Ernest Borgnine pitching some Internet software or service a while back on some crappy cable channel (what the hell is the target audience? 90 year-old bloggers?). Lots of cheapo special effects, touting some ridiculous service I hadn’t heard of since. Dude, Ernest is a real actor. He was Dominic in “Airwolf”! He won an Oscar, was in The Dirty Dozen, and lots of other notable movies and shows that I’ve never heard of (I know almost nothing about pre-70s movies. I just remember once, when I was a kid, my dad walked by while I was watching Airwolf and exclaimed, “That’s Ernest Borgnine!” He certainly never walked by and said “Hey! That’s Scott Baio!”).

Best for last: California’s one-time gubernatorial candidate himself, Gary Coleman, of “Diff’rent Strokes” fame. Currently (or was about 6 months ago when I last checked) pitching Cash Call, which makes unsecured loans to people whose credit scores are lower than their shoe sizes.

I’m the first to say that work is work, no matter where, how or what. I don’t care if I sell pork bellies or Lamborghinis- if I can make a decent living at it and it’s legal, chances are it’s not beneath me.

But to go from being worshiped by fans worldwide a few decades back to pitching utter crap in late-night cable spots today has got to be one of the worst things that can happen to a person’s self-esteem. That’s not even considering the miserable financial condition they must be in today to have to do this kind of work.

Maybe we should start a Save the Starving Actors Fund. Wait, that’d cover like half the population of Los Angeles. That is, if you pronounce “actor”, “waiter”. Let’s change it to the Save the Starving Once-Famous Actors With Negative Investing Acumen Fund. I’ll donate my collection of Airwolf action figures. The ones I blew up with firecrackers back in the 80s.

Actually, I don’t pity Erik, Ernest and Gary and their legions of career-zombie cohorts. They had it good at one point and lost it, while many people go through life without having seen much true success at all (I don’t always pity them much, either, but that’s for another post).

But it does make me wonder. Happiness and success I think are often defined in relative terms: How we are doing compared to our past circumstances, relatives, friends and neighbors is often more important to us than how we are doing in absolute terms. Considering that, is it preferable to:

1. Go from having everyone in the Western world (remember the Cold War?!) mimic you saying “wadjutokkinboutWillis!” two, three decades ago, only to wind up pitching $5,000 loans to drunks who think a freshly laundered wife-beater is “dressy casual”; or
2. Have not had that career former life in the first place. At least that way you’d spare your grandkids all the boring stories about the glory days, back when TV shows were all in 2-D.

tags :: humor : washed up : actors : Happiness : Success

Cylons are the bane of the human race, constantly watching us through their roving red eye, plotting to bring about our extinction and the end of our civilization.

After a bathroom trip at the Portland Airport, I now know the truth.

They are already here. Armageddon is nigh.

Step step step. Good, no janitor sign
Sink. Soap. Paper towels. Check
Open stall. Gross. Bastard didn’t flush. Next
Open stall. No TP. Crap. Next
Open stall. Clean seat. TP. Seat covers. Check
Sweet
Enter. Shut door. Lock
Take off jacket. Hang on hook
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Wipe wipe wipe seat.
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turn around. drop trow
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Lean in to sit
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Seat cover swirls down. Mother f****r!!!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Please please please no no no flush
SIT. slowly. carefully
No flush. *YES*
Poop
Roll roll roll
Wipe wipe
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Shit. This sucks
Roll roll roll
Wipe
Stand up. Dress. Turn around
No flush
Wave hand over sensor
No flush
Cover sensor with palm. Uncover
No flush
*sigh*. Push button on Cylon head
Wait. Wait
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***

Damn Cylon terrorists. So this is how you plan to drive the human race insane, to render us defenseless when you finally launch the nukes.

tags :: jokes : humor : toilet : flush : Cylon : Battlestar Galactica

A person’s approach to life, work and play can sometimes be summed up in a simple expression or two. In considering the phrases that I live by, I realized that they are rather simplistic. But I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing. These are the rules I try to live by:

1. Keep it simple
2. Giving is more rewarding that receiving
3. Don’t mistake luck for skill
4. Good judgment is key to success
5. When in doubt, deep fry

There are a whole lot of values missing from the list: spirituality, work ethic, civic responsibility, just to name a few. And my interpretation of each phrase may be much different from the obvious. Especially rules 1 (for me it also relates to materialism, in addition to work and other things) and 2 (pertains to family and friends, not to charitable organizations). But in the end these are the phrases that resonate most with me.

I’ve already discussed a bit of rule 1 in a previous post about my friend Jason A. At some point in the future I will elaborate on the rest of them here on SuckyBlog. For now, you can contemplate them as standalone expressions, totally unspoiled by my verbosity and open to your personal interpretation.

These are the words I live by. What are yours?

tags :: friendship : values : simplicity : generosity : success : deep fry

Jack’s Sucky Blog has moved from Blogger to this site.

Please visit this site from now on. All of the posts and comments from the old blog have also been ported over.

I pay money to host this new site. And stayed up all night configuring it. It’s much better and worth all the trouble. Really. Seriously. I mean it! No, no, no, I shouldn’t have just stayed on Blogger. And now I can’t because I just dropped a hundred non-refundable bucks to host it here. That’s like 100 orders of 6-piece Chicken McNuggets (if you buy them all on Thursdays).

Ok enough of this complaining to myself (what is the sound of one man complaining and nobody listening? If nobody heard it, did he complain at all?).

***Please also note that the RSS Feed has changed. You can find the new RSS link on the right sidebar of this new site.

***If you have me added to your blogroll, please change the link to point to this new web address.

Much thanks in advance.

Jack.

I am much too timid in real life to insult stupid people. Thank goodness for the blogosphere, where I can do it using [square brackets]. Especially if it’s to teach geography or promote world peace. Because it just feels so rewarding.

This was from several years ago. I’m back in California now.

Moving Co Sales Lady: So, you’re moving to Singapore?

Jack: Yes, and I need you to tell me how much it’ll cost to send all my stuff there. [And what's with the mustache on your face. I thought they sell something that melts that stuff. Please consider using it so your upper lip doesn't look like a bright red broom after you eat a Popsicle.]

Moving Co Sales Lady: Singapore…is that, in, like, Africa?

Jack: No. It’s an island-nation towards the bottom of Southeast Asia, right on the equator. [That would be the north/south midpoint on the globe. We'll skip the lesson on lattitude and longitude for now, and stick to one- and two-syllable words.]
Not near Africa. [Please buy a globe and study it. And please seriously consider not having children.]

Moving Co Sales Lady: Oh, yes. I should have figured, since you’re Asian.

Jack: (trying hard to ignore last comment because, again, I’m timid). Since you’re asking, [Even though you didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway in the hope of furthering world peace.] Singapore has the highest standard of living in Southeast Asia and a very advanced mass transit system. Everybody there speaks 3 or more languages, because learning English and Mandarin in addition to their native Hokkien or Malay is mandatory in their schools. They operate the world’s busiest shipping port. [This is a sincere attempt to reach out and tell you about an interesting place you may want to visit someday. I hope you paid attention instead of getting bored with your eyes glazed over.]

Moving Co Sales Lady: (eyes glazed over, returning to attention) Tell me which items you are going to send, so I can write up an estimate for you.

Jack: Well, pretty much everything here in my apartment. Except for the electrical items, of course. [And please don't touch anything I own. I know that your touching my stuff is unlikely to cause my future children to flunk geography, but I'm not taking any chances.]

Moving Co Sales Lady: (lower jaw touching floor, expression of horror on face) They don’t have electricity in Singapore?!

Jack: They do have electricity there. [See my short intro to Singapore from 2 seconds ago. They have a subway. It runs on electricity, not hamster wheel power. I guess my hopes for world peace are shot until natural selection phases out people like you.]
They just use a different voltage, so my alarm clock and toaster won’t work there. [You dumb pud. Here's ten bucks for the peach fuzz remover.]

tags :: jokes : humor : sarcasm : Singapore : geography : ignorance

I was just thinking about that band Live. You know, the one with the hit single Lightning Crashes.

So I was thinking about starting up a new band, called Live. Not like the Live I mentioned earlier, which is pronounced like “Live at Budokan”. No, this name is completely different. It’s pronounced Live, as in “I live to blog”.

And their first hit single would be called Thunder Strikes.

tags :: jokes : humor : band