Wearing a jacket during cardio boot camp class

There's this woman who joined our cardio bootcamp class. She was heavily dressed; that is, she had a thick jacket on. The rest of us were doing jumping jacks, high knee raises, lunges, and other high-intensity activities. She tried to join in, but could barely even throw a punch.

Now, I don't mind that she couldn't keep up; after all, everyone has to start somewhere. I have to wonder, though... if she had such a hard time performing these movies, then why didn't she at least take her jacket off? You'd think that would have been the common sense thing to do.

Ya just have to wonder about some people.

SuperFriends -- what a dumb bunch of cartoons!

I'm watching some old episodes of the SuperFriends on DVD. What a stupid, stupid show! Or more accurately, what a stupid show this was in its various incarnations. The dialog was stilted, the plots were usually paper-thin, the villians were cartoonish, and the way that these heroes used their powers was usually laughable.

I especially hated the way Robin was frequently portrayed as a victim, and how the Bat-duo would invariably have some sort of outlandish gadgets in their boots or utility belts. Ugh.

The very first series was much better, mind you. In the original SuperFriends series, the heroes used their abilities wisely. They were portrayed as having brains (especially Wonder Woman and Aquaman). What's more, Batman and Robin didn't have to rely on an excess of Bat-paraphernalia. (I remember one episode in which they had to slide down some ski lift cables. Did they pull out some Bat-puller or Bat-cable car? No, they just used their batarangs. Sadly, such simplicity was abandoned in favor of increasingly ridiculous gadgetry.)

He was at it again

Remember that guy I mentioned from the gym? The one who keeps bringing up idiotic topics of conversation in the locker room? He was at it again. Once again, he was spouting nonsense about how foreigners don't have to pay income tax for seven years if they come to the USA to work.

Where do people get this sort of nonsense? That's what happens when they rely on gossip and water cooler conversations to educate themselves on the nuances of taxation and immigration law.

I've met some very nice people at the gym. I've also encountered some incredible yahoos. He is one of the latter.

Disgusting gym talk

There's this very talkative guy in my gym who says the most idiotic things. I remember when he was chatting up one of the hispanic cleaning crew guys, asking about how strong the fella's penis was. Good grief. That kind of talk just reinforces the notion that gym rats are jocks with no brains.

BTW, I'm not saying that he's an athlete, mind you. He always seems to be meandering casually on the track, or perhaps pedalling gently on the exercise bikes. Once, I think I might have seen him using some heavy weight on one of the machines, but I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, he was going on and on about how terrible it is that foreigners can come to the USA and work here for seven years without paying income tax. Where did he get that notion? Sure, it's possible that some of them get away without paying taxes, but that's not because the law allows it. He is doubtlessly spouting some sort of inanities without bothering to check the facts.

Sadly, he's not alone. Many people think that H-1B visa holders don't need to pay taxes, for example. That's simply wrong; however, due to a few articles written by a few rabid individuals, such myths get spread and blown out of proportion. Sigh.

Gym rant: That whooping, howling bozo

He was at it again. Remember those guys in my cardio bootcamp class who keep whooping and hollering, acting as though they're having the time of their lives? The ones who keep cheating on their moves?

I've mentioned the worst offender in their group. Tonight, he was hollering, "Hey, Donna!" trying to get the attention of one of the class attendees, even as the instructor was talking. If I were her, I would have asked him to keep it down.

He was also moving from one spot to another, talking to various ladies. And while he was whooping it up, he was barely moving around. In other words, all his enthusiasm was in his mouth, not in his arms or feet. The guy was all talk!

At one point, we were supposed to be jumping around, turning in 180 degree arcs as we jumped. He was yelling out, "I love this!" -- but he wasn't jumping. What, did he think that we'd be impressed because he said that he was really enjoying the exercise?

Then there's the time when he turned around and kept talking to this lady in his little troupe. Instead of facing the instructor, he was facing backwards so that he could keep talking to the woman. After a while, she grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around, obviously thinking that he needed to concentrate on the class exercise.

What a bozo. I wish that the gym would give him a stern talking to, and maybe ban him from these classes if he didn't shape up.

SolidWorks and Leonardo da Vinci

Here is a message that I once sent to SolidWorks. This was in response to their "Da Vinci campaign."

--------------------------------------

I was very impressed with your flash presentation of Leonardo da Vinci's work. However, I was disappointed to find that your scriptwriters repeatedly referred to him as "Da Vinci."

As any Renaissance art historian can tell you, his proper name was "Leonardo." "Da Vinci" was not a surname; rather, it was merely a suffix that meant "from Vinci." Calling him "Da Vinci" would be like referring to a certain Catholic saint as "Of Assisi."

Moreover, people were customarily denoted by their first names -- in part because the adoption of surnames was not yet a universal practice. This is why Dante Alighieri is commonly known as "Dante," and why Michelangelo Buonarroti is best known simply as "Michelangelo."

Given your tremendously impressive demo (and it was indeed impressive!), I was surprised and disappointed that nobody involved in this ad campaign caught that error.

Mike Rowe... soft?

Usually, there is no problem with claiming website domains, certainly here in the USA. In the USA, you can claim a variety of domains, even .com domains, and there is generally no problem as long as nobody else challenges their use.

The only problem occurs if somebody legitimately has a stronger claim to them due to trademarks or other mitigating circumstances. For example, claiming "MikeRoweSoft.com" was famously challenged by Microsoft, but only because there was potential for brand name confusion. Even then though, the case was decided out of court, since its owner, Mike Rowe, also had a strong basis for his claim. (I don't know if Mike could have similarly sued Microsoft. I doubt that he could have done so non-frivolously, especially since he's surely not the only Michael Rowe in the world.)

Techno-what?

Okay, I cannot get over this site. Technosaurus? Really?

Actually, it's rather amusing and quite a bit clever. It also provides a strong contrast -- technology vs. primeval times. Hah.

It is interesting indeed. Unfortunately, I can't read Japanese very well. I can make out the English words ("Software" and "Analyzer," for example). I can also make out a few of the simpler Japanese characters (e.g. "リーダ"), but that's just about it.

Heh. Most amusing.

Almond cookies?

Okay, I just have to ask about this site: Almond cookies? Really?

My idea of almond cookies involves something like this:

1 cup blanched almond halves
1/2 cup ground almonds
2 1/2 cups flour
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure almond extract or Amaretto
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar

For someone else though, it's apparently a blog with too many e's in the name. Wonder what prompted that. Huh.

What to do this April 1st

Okay, I should have something witty to say on this April 1st. I've got nothing, though.

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.