She looks gigantic on the iPad screen.

Raise your hand if you love the Mass Pike…

No one?

I really don’t have anything to say right now, at least not that anyone will care about.

I do, however, need to self motivate a little and think a little bit of self back patting is in order.

Slim Fast… Day Five:

Yesterday (day four) was messy.  I left the house without my breakfast and my lunch.  I could have just blown off the whole plan for the day, but instead I skipped breakfast, had lunch in the cafeteria, and then had a meal bar for supper.  That’s right, kids.  I had the meal replacement for dinner.  Take that!

Today I managed to remember to bring breakfast and lunch with me but when 1:00pm came around I strongly considered blowing off the plan and getting a burger or something for lunch.  Instead I took out a meal bar and ate it as slowly as I could stand.  That is making me feel like I’ve earned some serious self congratulations.

Of course, I’m still absolutely starving so there’s a chance I might not make it through the rest of the work day without hitting the candy machine.  I suddenly feel like Samuel L. Jackson at the end of Pulp Fiction.  I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd to stick to this diet.

Oh no.  Some one near me just came upstairs with their lunch.  It smells soooooooo good.  I don’t know what it is, but it smells sooooooooooo good.

Be strong, fat boy.  Be strong!

On a slightly related note:

Give this article a read.  I’ll wait for you to finish…  Liposuction A Boon For Your Health

Done?  Okay.

I KNEW IT!  I totally knew it.  My friend Larry and I have been talking about how liposuction HAD to be good for you for years.  It just had to be!  Mostly I believed that because I am fat and lazy and am always looking for an easy way out, but I still believed it.

How could it not be good for you?  They take a truck load of potentially harmful fat cells right out of your body.  How can there not be some positive side affects to that?

Well it’s happened.

It was inevitable, of course, but I still did not want to see it come.

Today is the first day of Autumn.  Fall has arrived and Summer has departed. 

Crud.

I said it before, I have nothing against Fall.  Fall is fine and dandy.  The colors, the holidays, the MLB playoffs and the start of the NHL season.  These are all things to be happy about.

But still it sucks.  I love Summer.  Everything is possible in Summer.  Everything is alive and vital in Summer.  In Fall everything is dying and ominously foreshadowing Winter.  Hell, one of the biggest Fall attractions here in New England is celebrating billions of dead leaves.  How depressing is that?

No offense, Autumn, but I wish you would stay away this year.  Let’s give Fall and Winter a miss and jump right back to Spring.

Crud.

The Mighty Spicket

Am I right in thinking that today is the last full day of summer? I am not ready for Fall. I don’t have any problem with it in general, I just don’t want it to be here yet.

Okay, it’s panic time for real.

The Red Sox just lost to Baltimore AGAIN. They blew a lead late in the game AGAIN. They are 5-16 in September and the wild card lead is down to 1.5 games.

Oh, and the next three games are against the Yankees in New York.

I am by no means off the wagon. That will never happen… But holy cripes do we suck ass right now.

R.E.M. has split up.  They’ve called it a career.

And the Rock and Roll world is worse off for it.

I saw them in ’89 at the old Boston Garden.  Mike and I sat behind the stage.  We could see maybe a third of the action.  It was a surprising set.  They skipped pretty much all of the hits and stuck mostly to the back catalog.  It was a great show.

As great as it was, though, a few months later at Great Woods was even better.  That time they spent more time with the A list songs.  We were right in the middle of the crowd and actually got to see the band.  They were off the wall fantastic that night.  I would like to think that they were pushed to a higher level by their opening act, Throwing Muses.  The Muses were spooky and frantic and wonderful and the perfect band to match up with R.E.M.  It was college radio rock bliss.  That show will always be on my short list of favorites.

For my money, R.E.M. in the recording studio had a streak from about 1982 through 1992 where they never missed the mark.  From Chronic Town through Automatic for the People I loved every second of just about every song.  They seemed to get a little unfocused with Monster, although it was still a great album.  After that they started losing me a little.

Still, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document may be two of the best rock and roll records ever made.  You can throw Green and Reckoning in their too.  Near perfect records. 

The music industry is falling apart all around us, and not having R.E.M. anymore just makes the future look that much bleaker. 

Thanks for the great music, guys.  Must appreciated.

R.E.M “call it a day” after 31 years, many hits

Have you ever taken a psychology course?  I took one at Middlesex Community College that was called Intro to Psychology.  I got an A and I learned a little bit about how the brain works.  Just enough, in fact, to be annoying in group conversations.

One thing I can’t remember though is the little factoid about how many days the human brain needs to repeat an action before it becomes a habit.  For instance, how many days do I have to faithfully follow the Slim Fast diet plan before it becomes a habit and I can do it without thinking about it.

The answer is probably more than three days, but after three days I am still doing okay.  Although I am SERIOUSLY HUNGRY RIGHT NOW I tells ya.  Seriously hungry.

Oh, and Coke Zero is good… but not that good.  Know what I mean?

Go Slim Fast!