Blegging for Crabs

A new awful word: bleg.

TO BLEG, v., intrans., to ask the reader of an online journal for something; to beg upon a blog. He's always blegging on his blog for interesting things to do around town.

Look, people of Internet, you don't always have to smush existing words together to form new words. Portmanteau words are usually reviled if they're ugly (see "blog" but especially "bleg") or used trendily until the trend passes (see "metrosexual"). There are other ways to make new words: by Anglosizing words from other languages (see about 70% of the English language), or by making them up completely (see "grawlix").

The two reasons people like making portmanteaus is that they require little effort and they are instantly understandable. When I first heard the term, I didn't know what "guyliner" was, but I quickly had an idea.

But now I have to bleg. Does anyone out there know where I can find good, fresh crabs by the bushel around Takoma Park and Silver Spring? I'm having a crab feast on August 16th, and I need a supplier.

(I guess it's more effective to bleg on a blog with a larger audience. Must work on that someday.)

Move-Out Freak-Out

A good friend is moving away to St. Louis. I got a call just now and I could hear the terror coming through the phone. He used the words "friend emergency," which are not words to be used or taken lightly. I'm on my way to help pack up.

Unfortunately this means I can't joust with Hatandcoat much tonight, but I will say this: this post's linkage was excessive. Nice touch with the Katrina photo at the end, though. Really, actually, it was really funny. We've come to the point where Katrina can be a punchline without too much problem.

Then again, my viewpoint's skewed. Some of my friends have been making jokes about September Eleventh since, like, 11/9.

P-Push it, Baby

Noble? Like, after you complete this program you'll see people robbing old ladies and be able to push them through store windows?

The jumping unnecessarily on something aak says may or may not last. It's just an old habit.

How much longer after 6 weeks before you can do this:

Blindness

I took the Metro to work today instead of biking. This was to insure that I'd get home before the potential new roommates come over.

I live 15 minutes (on foot) away from the station. The metro ride takes about 25-30 minutes. Add to that the incredible heat this morning and I was wishing I'd biked. If I'm going to get sweaty, let me at least get some exercise at the same time.

Across the street from the metro station, I saw a man with a blind person's cane (red and white striped rod with a plastic ball on the end). He was a tall, slightly-overweight, bald, middle-aged man. What's strange is that he seemed to be talking to someone while looking towards them and gesturing. He nodded his head to them, pointed his two fingers at his own eyes, and then pointed the same fingers at their eyes.

When I got to his side of the street, the person he was talking to had left and the (blind?) guy was starting to walk across the way I had come. He tapped on the ground ahead of him like a blind person, but it looked like he was squinting down at where he was tapping.

I puzzled over that until I pulled into the station near my office, when I saw girl get off the same train as me with the same kind of cane. She was clearly blind. Her cane tapped the back of my shoe twice. I heard someone behind me offer to help her, and she smiled and refused.

Here's the thing about her, though: she was fit, and kind of attractive. She looked like she was a runner or something. I couldn't help thinking, why would she bother?

Not that being fit is all about looking a certain way. I want to be in shape mainly for the health benefits. But there is a part of me that is very visual. I would not want to look like the homeless guy I saw the other day--huge beer belly, stained white T-shirt, bad skin, patchy hair, etc.--because I like looking good, or at least looking decent.

What's the motivation, then, for a blind woman to run on a treadmill? Health? Feeling physically fit? Or is it for the eyes of people around her?

If I were blind, I would not care as much about clothing, food, or fitness. And I probably wouldn't bike as much. But I would try to become a samurai master:

100 Pushups in 6 Weeks?

I read somewhere that the push-up is the basic measurement of strength (for non-bodybuilders like m'self). I consider myself fit enough and not an utter weakling, but I can't do more than 20 push-ups in one swoop.

This must be corrected.

I stumbled upon hundredpushups.com and thought the program a fine and noble thing to undertake. It basically puts forward a plan to build yourself up: 10 push-ups, rest 60 seconds, 10, rest, 8, rest, 6, rest, maximum push-ups. Then increase the amount of repetitions and the rest time two days later. Simple, right?

I could not get through the second set of 10. Lame. I had to drop to knee-style (in other words, pansy-style) push-ups, which the site recommends for beginners. I didn't have a mat, unfortunately, so I did the repetitions on a hardwood floor. This probably contributed to my knee problems, which I'll tell you about some other time.

So I have to dive back into the 100 push-up program, but this time at a much lower number. Or maybe I'll try to Slow Burn my way to musclinity?

Keeping an Unsustainable Pace

Blogging this much will not last, but it's a new toy and I'm in a slow period.

Where's aak? If his maintenance of this blog over the past 2 years is any indicator, I'm all alone here. I guess I could check his twitter to see what he's reading (something Japanese) or doing (eating Japanese food, socializing with Japanese, or perhaps watching anime).

I wonder if a root beer float would taste good if I replace the root beer with Diet Pepsi and the vanilla ice cream with some sort of Hagen Dazs toffee caramel mixture.

I have never been in a life and death situation. I have no idea what percentage of the population has, so it's probably no biggie, but it bugs me that there are things that I don't know about myself as a result. The other night, girlfriend and I were walking around to see the DC monuments at night. I especially like the WWII one, but I like it during the day too. At one point we walked by a trash can and a rat or a squirrel or something started freaking out inside it. It scared the bejesus out of me. Not a proud, manly moment. If that's any indicator, I wouldn't make it to Everest in 2-3 years.

Here's what's frustrating: I enjoy a particular sport and have nobody to share it with. I watch mixed martial arts, read some websites, daydream about potential fighter matchups while on the subway, and occasionally try to put a submission move on friends. Well, I tried once to put aak in a Kimura and was surprised at how well he fought it. I think of arguments and questions about a particular issues. It then becomes downright weird when someone gives me a window, like "so, who's this guy [on TV]," or "What are you watching," or "I'm tired. I don't feel like chatting right now." In such cases I kind of go off on a rant and watch their stare become a glazed over look of utter boredom. I can't help it, though. I have all kinds of pent up ideas at that point. When it comes to football or baseball, there's a TON of people who are junkies for that stuff, but my obsession is still up-and-coming (though I think very trendy). Plus, my friends are not generally of the "Yeah, look at them bleed!" variety.

This is my Sunday

It's easy to forget just how good Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough is. It's been a while, and I'm enjoying this a lot.

I'm doing laundry today, and I always forget to do my bathroom towel. I always think of it about halfway through the process. I don't really mind the smell that those things generate over time, but I don't want to gross the girlfriend out too much. Same goes for a pile of dishes in the sink with a pile of mold on top of it. Well, actually I've grown out of that and the roommate probably wouldn't like it. For some reason I'm reminded of once when I was over a friend from high school's house. His mom was gathering up the laundry he had lying around on the floor. She would ask him if a pair of pants or shors were dirty, and his test was to smell the inside of the ass. She said "That's gross!" and he responded "what? That's how you tell."

I'm going to try Slow Burn. I skipped the first 80 or so pages of the book, which I am told are like one long, annoying infomercial. Each chapter is supposedly in the format of "how can you fix _______________ issue in your life? Answer: Slow Burn, and here's why: _______________." I did Body for Life a while ago (god, try reading that epic rambler), and lifting 3x/week combined with cardio 3 more made me ski-nny. Strong, but skinny. It taught me a lot about having a plan going into a workout and sticking to it. No dawdling. This was invaluable. Slow Burn seems ridiculously hard. Your goal is to push your muscles to failure every exercise every time. I don't belong to a gym so I have to do home workouts, which are pretty weak in comparison so far. But I have gotten a taste of the pain. Yuck. I'm interested to see if I'll learn something about the mindset that pushes yourself to the actual physical limit. Right now I can't do that. I feel a bunch of pain and think "well, this sucks. Do I really have to do this? Not really." I figure that's the mental limit as it currently stands. Aak, tell about how your 100 pushups progress is rolling along.

Then Nine More Days

Man, this blog is as if shot from a cannon.

I am a dueling blogger with your host. He joined my blog, and I joined his. We'll write stuff.

I never even pay attention to the weather. I figure you're either gonna go outside or not. You can always adapt later. I got caught in the rain with a friend about a week ago and we hung out under a storm awning and played the celebrity name game to kill time.

Last weekend, Districted man and I saw The Dark Knight twice (along with a total of 19 others between the two shows. 0% disappointment). Holy s#$%, that movie was SICK.

I picked up the word sick because way back when, Jim Breuer used to have a comedy show where he would just chat and occasionally have sketches. I think that dude is hilarious. Once I saw a clip of him playing peekaboo with his daughter and he hid behind the bed and jumped out at her like some sort of giant demon monster. It's the physical delivery that sells his jokes. Anyway, he had a sketch called the "Sick Show," because he and all his friends growing up in NJ used to call everything "sick." Jim Breuer...Where's that guy?

Anyway, the only negative review I have thus far seen about The Dark Knight (or as I call it, Batman Continues) has been some retardidiotmoron lady on salon.com. It's too bad that Heath Ledger was survivally challenged.

I'm sticking with the clean language because I had a blog once before for about two weeks. Districted man had a blog, so I started a blog about his blog. 100% mockery included. Who has a blog anyway? It was fun. Well, I realize that a whole bunch of people probably read it, family members included, and I probably came across as a potty mouth.

2.25 Years Later...

I am righteously Districted.

And I found the answer to the question I posed, so long ago. The best place to look for local weather WAS capitalweather.com. The "Capitalweather Gang" has since moved in at the Washington Post. Subscribe, if you know what's good for you, to their blog here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/