Exercise DVD recommendations

I'd like to recommend the following exercise DVDs for you all:

* Star Trainers Ab Blast
* Gilad Elite Forces Fat Burning Workout
* The Works With Sharon Mann: Cardio
* Shape Up With Sharon Mann: Circuit Training
* Shape Up With Sharon Mann: Kickboxing
* 30 Day Shred (Jillian Michaels)
* Fat-Burning Workout for Dummies
* S.W.A.T. Workout: Extreme Weight Loss & Fat Burning

Biomed research

A few friends of mine are involved in biomedical research. I almost wish I had gone into that field. It's rather interesting and it requires a lot of cross-disciplinary education.

I do like my own field, though. Perhaps if I were to go into a related field, such as biomedical engineering? That'd be kewl.

There is so much more that I'd like to do.

Blogger freezing

Why the heck does Blogger keep freezing on me as I type? Good grief.

It's probably due in part to the tremendous inefficiency of Windows Vista, one of the most hated operating systems of all time. This is positively maddening.

Divorce is sad

It's so sad. I just learned that former teen star Willie Aames has hit rock bottom. He attempted suicide, was divorced last year from his wife Maylo McCaslin, and his pretty much broke.

I've read about how Aames and McCaslin were a bad boy and a bad girl in their youth, how they turned to Christ, how they cleaned up their acts, and how their lives were turned around. Now things have become much worse for them both.

Some would therefore scoff and their turnaround. Some sneering individuals would even blame religion or cast aspersions on its worth. I would not judge these two too harshly, though. Even the best of us can be driven to the depths of despair, especially when it looks like everything has been taken from us.

They deserve our compassion, not our derision.

DD lost a sale

Dunkin Donuts lost a sale from me.

I was trying to buy breakfast at their drive-thru. Their cashier kept asking for my order, and I kept saying, "I'm still deciding." After doing this three times, he said, "I can't hear you," at which point I chose to go to McDonald's instead.

It might not have been his fault, I hasten to say. For all I know, the drive-thru's microphone might not have been very good. I do know that the cashier at McDonald's had no problem hearing me when I chose to grab a sausage biscuit there instead.

Still, I was disappointed that this person kept asking me for my order. Usually, drive-thru cashiers will say something like "Please order when you're ready." That would have been a better thing to say.

I'd hate to have their job

Almost everyday for the past few weeks, I've been driving past this one tax preparation office. On most days, they had a guy standing outside in a Statue of Liberty office, waving as passers-by in an obvious attempt to drum up business. On occasion, they'd have another fella wearing an Uncle Sam costume.

What an unfortunate job. Oh, there are worse occupations, but still... to be standing outside, tediously waving at people, must be an awfully mind-numbing job. These people must really need the money, and I doubt that they're making anything more than minimum wage for it.

What a stinker. I really feel bad for those folks.

AIM mail

What the heck is going on with AIM mail? It has been obnoxiously slow as of late... so much so that I find myself yelling at the computer in frustration. It's not just that it's slow; it's that it's so slow that the web browser practically hangs, and sometimes stops working altogether.

Heck, I can't even access it on my PDA. Its slow response times cause my Blackberry's browser to freeze up, forcing a restart and preventing me from accessing any other web pages. (Thankfully, I found a way around that.)

This is what happens when kewlness-happy web designers embed too much cutesy stuff into their webpages. Ugh.

People who are lazy when it comes to potlucks

I hate it when you organize a potluck dinner and people are lazy about what to bring.

I've received a few potluck invitations lately wherein the organizers had to announce "No chips!" The problem is that so many people put minimal effort into what they bring. They'll just grab a box of chips -- or maybe cookies -- and bring those instead of preparing something more substantial.

I attended a social recently wherein everyone with last names from A to M had to bring an appetizer, and everyone else had to bring a dessert. Virtually everyone brought a dessert though. Why? Because it's easier, that's why.

A company that I worked for used to organize these monthly cookouts to boost morale. When it came to volunteering to bring stuff, one guy always piped up, "I'll bring the pop!" Every. Single. Time. He took the lazy way out.

It's so disappointing.

Good gym news, bad gym news

I have good news and bad news about tonight's cardio bootcamp class at the gym. The good news is that the noisy, obnoxious guys -- the ones who keep barking and howling continuously -- were not there. If they were to quit the gym altogether, I would be positively thrilled.

The bad news: Our regular instructor was not there. Instead, a woman named Donna was filling in, and she wasn't very popular. In fact, only about 2/3 of the class bothered to attend, and several of them petered out before the class was over. It wasn't because she was overly demanding; in fact, our regular instructor gives us a much more thorough workout. Rather, it's because she was boring. She did the same exercises over and over again -- plenty of jumping jacks, for example, with just minor variations. She also had no energy in her voice, and when you're leading a demanding cardio class, that's extremely important.

I wish they'd find someone else to fill in as necessary. Ugh.

Farley

I don't trust Farley. Back in our college days, he habitually stole stuff, cheated during sports, and blatantly copied off people during exams -- even the easiest ones. He'd borrow things, and then when you tried to claim them back, he'd pretend that he had no idea what you were talking about.

He was a crook, plain and simple. I guess it never occurred to him that people might not trust him after they graduated and had to interact in the real world.

A lady with dementia

An elderly lady sat down at my restaurant table a few days ago. She was obviously suffering from some sort o fdementia -- probably Alzheimer's disease. Her family had to explain to her that that wasn't her table, and pointed to the table they were occupying. At that point, she started to gather up my stuff and move. This one woman (her daughter, perhaps) gently took the things out of her hands and said "That's not ours," and placed them back on my table.

She also had a few embarassing emotional outbursts in the restaurant. Hoo boy.

I felt so bad for the family. They were obviously trying to be patient, as they should. After all, it wasn't that old lady's fault that her mind wasn't working the way that it should. I really, really felt for all of them.

Still saddened that Cheryl is gone

I am still saddened at the death of Cheryl Holdridge, one of the early Mouseketeers. She had a successful life in her post-Mouseketeer days, and she even married into a wealthy family. I do wish that Disney had made better use of her in as a Mouseketeer, though.

She seldom performed any solo acts, due to her lack of singing ability. Still, I think it would have been nice to see her do a few comedic routines or some solo dance numbers.

Supposedly, she was elevated to the prestigious red team due to her winsome smile and all of her fan mail. Doreen Tracy, one of her friends, reported that Disney did this in order to capitalize on her popularity. I can't help but wonder if some people felt that she was skating by on her looks, the way some performing artists and female athletes are popular nowadays largely due to their beauty and/or sex appeal. Who knows?

I thought she seemed quite charming, and she seemed to have a lot of fun in the MMC dance numbers. I would have liked to see her strut her stuff more.

Dempster

I've been watching cardio exercise videos by a whole lot of different instructors lately -- Janis Saffell, Kimberly Spreen, Kathy Smith, Kendall Hogan, Gilad, Keli Roberts, Gay Gasper, Jillian Michaels, Kim Lyons, and more.

I wish that Jennifer Dempster would produce such a video. She's really fit, or at least, she was while she was on TV. I don't know what she's like know, but I bet that she's in awesome shape. She was also fun and engaging, and she had a girl-next-door kind of appeal.

BTW, I highly recommend the S.W.A.T. workout DVDs. This guy knows what he's doing.

I can't believe I agreed with this guy

I was shocked to find myself agreeing with this very difficult and unlikable individual on another message board. In a rare moment of lucidity, he said the following:

I see plenty of foolish men going for looks above everything, and foolish women preferring scum over decent men. The difference IMHO being that men as a group are more willing to admit that they have an obsession with looks, while women as a group want to blame the common female attraction to thuggery on some supposed massive character flaws of any man who refers to himself as nice and on the alleged "confidence" of the thugs in question.

Blackberry photos

I was at a dance party recently, taking photos with my new Blackberry's built-in camera. This requires a lot of precision timing and concentration, as people are whirling around. You've got to time things right if you want to get a good shot.

This guy comes up to me and asks, "Say, what kind of camera is that?" I politely explain that it's a Blackberry. Then he asks all sorts of other questions like "So how many megapixels does it have? How many photos can it store?" and so forth. He must really have been bored to make such idle chitchat.

He meant well, but I found it kinda annoying. After all, the questions were really nothing more than idle chatter, and I was trying very hard to snap some photos of people at just the right angles. Sigh.

At least they're trying this time

Okay, I've said a lot about these loud, obnoxious attention whores who attend my cardio bootcamp classes. They were at tonight's class, and their loud attention-grabbing hooting and hollering started up almost immediately. On more than one occasion, I muttered, "Shut up. Just shut up."

I have to give them credit tonight, though. Tonight, they were actually trying to do the work. I could see them lifting their legs higher than usual and squatting deeper than usual. They were still kind of annoying, but at least their efforts were starting to match their displays of boundless enthusiasm.

Still, I'd be happier if they would just leave. Either that or shut the heck up.

I don't want to do my taxes

I don't want to do my taxes. I don't want to do my taxes. I don't want to do them. I don't.

I know that I'd get my refund a lot sooner if I would just buckle down; however, this is such an unpleasant task, and it requires so much research and double-checking just to ensure that I get everything right. Argh.

I hate this. And I know that I'm not the only one.

A pleasant treat at the gym

I received a pleasant treat at the gym today. Those obnoxiously loud guys who show up to my cardio classes -- the one who keep whooping, barking, howling, and hollering in a blatant attempt to call attention to themselves? They weren't there. Thank goodness for that! They are so incredibly annoying. I wish they'd funnel all of that energy from their mouths and redirect it into their feet.

The drawback is that they hang out with this one cute short-haired gal, and she wasn't there either. I don't know if they're friends outside the gym or not, so I don't know if their absences were related. Oh, well.

Why I don't like the Atlanta airport

I’ve already mentioned the crowding and the noise at the Atlanta, Georgia airport, right? I also mentioned its inconvenient location. Here’s another thing I don’t like: They impose a surcharge if you choose to use their Wi-Fi access.

Mind you, I’m not talking about the normal fees that go into having T-Mobile access, for example. Rather, I’m talking about the fact that the airport charges extra for using their network -- $4.95 for a day’s usage, if I recall correctly. I was tempted to use this, but in the end, I decided againt it.

Why I don’t like to fly Delta

I don’t like to use Delta Airlines for my flights. One reason is that choosing Delta typically forces me to take an out-of-the-way detour to Atlanta, home of a big Delta hub. Not only does this huge detour add a lot of travel time, it also forces me to stop over in a very unpleasant airport.

Don’t get me wrong; the Atlanta airport is clean and orderly. It’s also very noisy though, and even as I type, I see all the throngs of people. Ugh.

This time, I found yet another reason to avoid Delta. When my flight was cancelled, I had to approach some Delta personnel for alternative bookings. Well, guess what? Over and over again, they pointed me to the wrong place, bouncing me from one office to another. I finally found someone who knew what she was doing, and that really helped… but I had lost valuable time. I’ll be arriving at my destination very late, and if I had received more immediate and competent help, I might have been able to avoid this.

Stuck in Atlanta

I’m stuck in Atlanta right now. I’ve been stuck here for hours, due to flight cancellations. I’m trying to get to New England, and the weather has not been cooperating.

Staying at an airport for hours has serious drawbacks. For one thing, there’s not much to do. It’s also hard to get any work done in an environment like this. For example, I should be editing and updating some manuals, but I can’t focus on that very well with all the background hubbub. Being forced to sit on an airport floor, without a convenient table onto which I can spread my materials, certainly does not help.

This is one reason why I don’t like flying. Delays like this are a huge inconvenience, and I stress over things like whether my luggage will get there along with me. Rats.