i know, first kicks, now this stuff. you’d think i should just re-activate bold swaths. in fact, i’m going to double post today’s stuff there and we’ll see how it goes. so watch that site for new goodness. if BS can’t be revived, i’m going to import those posts here so they can live on. anyhow…

i have decided to grow my hair out. after almost 20 years of shaving my head, i decided it couldn’t hurt to try if i had a goal in mind. all previous attempts at growing my hair failed because i didn’t have a goal set to reach, and so i was never that concerned about doing it right or not getting it cut. but now i have a goal. i want to look like hugh jackman did when he played wolverine. seriously. i know it’s crazy and it might not work, but i’m gonna put some serious effort into it.

so in order to do it right, i went shopping for some shampoo. hair ain’t gonna stay healthy when you wash it with the cheap stuff. so i checked out details for men and a bunch of other sites and every was talking about john allen stuff, but when i went to buy shampoo the place didn’t have any. so i looked at all the choices and what do you know but baxter, one of my favorites companies has a shampoo for men. the bottle says it has all these twigs and herbs in it to make your hair strong and keep it from falling out, and i have to say, it does what it says. every time i’ve tried growing my hair out before, i get a bunch of hairs in my hand every time i shower. not so, after i started using this stuff. now if only someone could recommend a conditioner to keep my hair healthy. dudes, my hair is brittle like straw. i use some shit from giovanni that at least keeps it soft.

on less frou frou note, jesse and i were in flight 001 the other day and happened upon a new brand of bags and stuff called property of… we were so struck by their stuff that jesse got a bag from them (the p.t. cycle) and i got a wallet (the cj). property of uses just the right combo of materials - a little leather for class, a little synthetic canvas for durability and clasps that do just the right job. the cj uses an elastic band to keep it closed. everything is simple, well shaped, and has just enough flourish that it won’t be mistaken for some generic shit. i wish there was a place nearby that carried everything they make, because some of it looks even hotter than the shit flight 001 had.

the third annual battlecry rally took place in SF. If you haven’t heard, battlecry is this christian youth movement created by this guy who wants to raise “soldiers for god” to fight against the gays, the jews, the media and all the big money industries that set the trends (hollywood, silicon valley, etc.) i’ve known about these guys for a while, every gay worth his weight in salt (yes, i used that metaphor intentionally. it’s double entendre riffic!) does. but then niall sent me this rolling stone article about them and i started to get scared. i know that people, me included, toss around references to nazis a bit too often these days. so pardon me. but this battlecry organization is just a little too much like the nazi youth movement. get a bunch of young, impressionable suburban teens together. tell them that the gays, the jews, the money making industries are the cause of all their woes. offer a way out. and as the movement gains momentum, use these kids as literal soldiers. first get them to gather data. then get them to fight a war.

are they raising an army to go fight in the mid-east assuming we keep up our invasion, or is this for a war at home. either way i’m a bit freaked out. and now more than ever i want to raise an army of my own.

i’ve got 100 things to say and i don’t feel like writing a post for each of ‘em, so if you don’t like what i’m talkin about, just skip to the next paragraph.

i was sick last week and went into a bit of a tv coma when i couldn’t do anything else. i packed about 3 months worth of bravo reality tv shows into 24 hours and found myself hopelessly addicted to workout. and then hopeless in love with brian (aka peeler). a southern drawl, a little temper, a sensitive side, great athletic body, and a shaved head. i think i’ve found my new tv boyfriend. (and once again, he’s straight. GEEZ.)

speaking of athletic bodies, i think i got over whatever stupidity that was last week about me and the steroid look. i’m back to being really happy with what i’m doing workout wise. a weekend of good talks and good reading about muscle for purpose versus muscle for show really helped. the weirdest thing - i’ve put on about 6 or 7 pounds and everyone tells me i look smaller. people are asking if i lost weight. i guess that’s good news (density = power) but geez *a little* size wouldn’t hurt. isn’t there a nice compromise hiding somewhere. mikey and i checked our body fat on one of those crazy scales that zaps you. i was pretty happy with my results - just wanna drop a couple more percent (literally like 2-3, that’s it.)

enough about workouts and bodies, are these not the hottest kicks ever? i’m hoping solebox will sell them online. the plain uppers and that bright midsole remind me of my i heart new york superstars. only it’s suede and orange. that is just so suave.

the 25 hottest pictures of cars from last year as judged by winding road. most are available as wallpapers for widescreen displays. it’s like porn without people.

roseanne barr has been on real time with bill maher alot recently, and honestly she’s impressed me. in fact, bill has a number of guests on who i normally wouldn’t respect but wind up impressing the hell out me. like ben affleck. seriously. judging by his acting, i thought he was a dope, but it turns out he’s pretty smart. anyhows it turns out roseanne is pretty smart too. she really understands how political action affects (or doesn’t) the average american worker, and even though i’m not in the same income bracket, i can still relate and appreciate her efforts. so today roseanne calls out the gays, not all gays, the politically active gays and says they only care about themselves and gay issues. and you know what? i totally agree. in fact, jocko and i were just talking about this yesterday. gay issues are important to me, and yes i care about instances where it seems our rights are being revoked. but GEEZ, i care alot more about our economy, our international relations, our soldiers, our environment than i do about getting married. and i know the gays i know feel the same way. and surprise, none of us are active in gay politics.

phew. one final thought. i think a country’s pop music says alot about the spirit of that country. thai music is sweet and sappy. brazilian music is silly with a pounding rhythm. what is american pop?

shoney, shoney we practiced this all day shoney. and look what happened. george st. pierre slips, matt serra sees his chance. 3 hard rights and a left later he’s on top pounding the back of gsp’s head into the mat and what do you know. the nicest guy in the ufc is now welterweight champion. good goin matt!

and thank you josh koscheck, for working on your strikes and using them to control diego. it’s so nice to see that guy lose. i know tomorrow diego’s gonna be all “i didn’t really lose, he barely hurt me, and i coulda taken him.” but you know diego? you didn’t. you didn’t try a single take down. you didn’t try to change your game the entire three rounds. you played a game of attrition thinking josh would slip up. but he didn’t. and many mma fans out there have breathed a collective sigh of relief. maybe now that gsp is a top contender again you’ll fight him next, and lose a second time.

and to kendall grove, thank you for teaching us what a darce choke was, i never would have known about it if it wasn’t for you.

all in all, a night of satisfying victories.

ok. i admit it, i can be a pig-headed chauvinist sometimes. i don’t think women are inferior or that calling chicks cunts is funny. i just don’t have any easy time understanding why terms or ideas that don’t offend me are offensive, or one might substitute the word difficult for offensive. but lately i’ve been understanding a little bit more about women and the the body image issues they experience from mass media.

Unlike the role models who drive women crazy, the cause of my issues is not male models or hollywood stars. they may be in great shape, but it’s a level of fitness and body type that is easily in my grasp (except for some waif skinny male models who i have no desire to look like anyhow). no my body image issues stems from the big boys. WWE wrestlers and gay porn stars who have been perfectly willing to make their bodies a living chemistry experiment in a quest for a show of size.

now normally i can be rational about this. i see some dude who’s had some chemical help and i know alot of times i may not look it but i’m just as strong as he is. i can tell myself that i haven’t risked my long term health for stupid short term gains. but then two things make me reconsider -

1. the animal attraction. dudes who are big and buff, not just buff, are attractive to most guys (and women) on a purely animal level. and for a guy who doesn’t have much luck in this field, it doesn’t sound so bad. the show off physique goes a long way here, even though i’d personally prefer matt hughes over john cena, my tastes are pretty unique.
2. the mutant olympics. if by some miracle, you haven’t heard my diatribe about this, i believe that since the olympics have become big money entertainment (like uhhh pro sports) that there should be a second set of games (well actually a third, there’s the para-lympics too) for people who are using performance enhancing drugs, or hell, even performance enhancing surgery for all i care. go all out. rip off a useless limb if you’re will to do that. replace your “intelligent design” feet with ones actually designed by intelligent people. do whatever it takes to set records. my only rule would be have a minimum age. people under 23 wouldn’t be able to compete, and will have had to compete in the regular olympics previously, so that they would have to wait til they’re free-thinking adults before choosing to possibly destroy themselves.

and so, while i don’t want to destroy myself with steroids, the same way i hope women don’t destroy themselves with anorexia or bulimia, there are plenty of other options for dudes having completely irrational body crises. and older i get, the more i investigate them, i am embarrassed to admit.

i have been trying to do as much as i can naturally, and i feel like i’ve been making headway over the course of the past few years. that’s a good start for a dude who still sees himself as an awkward 15 year old like me. but good is never good enough. i keep doing things in hopes of meeting goals. but then of course as i come close to meeting some goal, i set one further away. will patience take me all the way to something i like at the end? i don’t know if i’m willing to wait to find out. i try to. boy do i try not to think about all the shortcuts. but damn sometimes a shortcut sounds awfully nice.

wondering why i haven’t been updating this blog? well it’s because i’ve pretty much switched from this blog to twitter. twitter is like bite-sized blogging. posts are limited to 140 characters each, but you can post them from anywhere - the web, your cellphone using sms, your IM account, or the most awesome application on earth: twitterific. it’s perfect for ADD types like me because we don’t have to concentrate too hard on writing a cohesive long post, and we can say that thing we want to say immediately, without having to wait until we get back to a computer, by which time it’s long forgotten.

i’m sorry that by micro-blogging there, i’m forcing you to go to a second site to keep up with me, so i’m working on a solution to integrate my twitter posts and blog posts into a single page. yes, i do plan on blogging here still. sometimes i have things to say that require more than two sentence to express.

oh this is even better - a sorta music video with the ultimate kicking the crap out of phil collins while collins is wearing some adult baby costume. starring gilbert goddfried as the mastermind behind this whole thing. courtesy of the warped mind of jocko. who loves ya baby?

this post has almost fallen off the front page of its creator, and before it does, i would like to pay honor and respect to greg of airbag industries for succinctly summarizing what all net nerds know to be true in their hearts.

khoi vin’s dog has a website and twitter stream and both are better looking and more interesting than mine

we, the nerd collective, went to go see 300 tonight. i will not discuss whether or not it is an allegory for the current war in iraq. it was a friggin comic book people. the movie looked like a comic because just like sin city, it was captured from the book pretty much frame by frame. and i loved that, more than i loved sin city, even.

no, i wasn’t interested in politics or photography. what i was more interested in was the bodies. big surprise, right? we went to see 300 on the imax, no point in seeing it any smaller than massive right? this meant that we still had to wait in an hour long line for good seats despite the fact the movie’s been out for a week already. waiting in line we got to see everyone else waiting. i noticed a few big boys in the crowd. dudes who looked like they worked out a little too much and didn’t do much else. not juicers, but the types who are still pretty damn big, have the big arms, and have that i lift too look good and take some creatine to help me along look. i was feelin puny. i been feelin puny lately cuz i’m not goin to the gun show if you know what i mean.

and then the movie starts. and there’s all these dudes on the screen, larger than life. dudes who we all know worked out like crazy. and yes they have 6 packs and big shoulders and meaty chests. but they aren’t narrow waisted pretty boys. (well except for the full body wax jobs.) they have thick strong core muscles that make them look heavy when they sit down. they have arms that are smaller than their legs, and what good strong legs they have. in short they have the body i’m close to. and they were worshipped on the screen.

and so i wonder. can i find a happy medium between the athletic body i’m using (and rather enjoying now that i’m really getting there, might i add) and the big armed show off everyone looks at? i’m hoping so. another round of the endurance plan, which i haven’t touched in 2 years could prove to be interesting, so i’m thinking of trying it again. i think i’ve re-worked it in my head so that i can use what i’ve learned and the gains i’ve made from the 5×5 delunatic and i finish up next week. that routine has been amazing, but is now getting old. uhhhh, routine even. quite honestly lifting just to keep lifting heavier isn’t really all that engaging. but with the endurance plan you make strength and conditioning gains. which is way more rewarding on the mats. and getting back to the mats is really what it’s all about. there’s not much time or energy for that during the 5×5s.

leave it to me to turn a perfectly entertaining movie into a discussion about body image, its portrayal in popular media and workouts. friggin killjoy.