Fifi's Rag

Conspiracy Corner...

2012-01-11T12:15:00.002-06:00

So, I’m just going to try all of the crazy things that I see on the internet & let you know how they work, okay? Nothing is too crackpot for me, nope. Now I’m trying Oil Pulling; it’s a time-honored tradition, I’m certain. I spent yesterday afternoon looking around for info on healing my teeth.

I have a tooth that needs a root canal & I’m not really sure I want to get one. My reasons are that it will be painful & expensive, but then I’ve been reading that root canals can be dangerous to your health & that you can fix your teeth yourself with your diet. Normally, I would be skeptical, but with all of the health benefits I’ve experienced with my diet so far, I’m willing to try it. Plus, the diet they recommend is the one I'm already on: no grains, veg oils or sugar & plenty of saturated animal fats.

I found info on Oil Pulling & tried it this morning. All the articles say that sesame oil is best & that works for me because I happen to have a bunch & I’m kind of addicted to it a little. The New Hong Kong douses their ChoCho Beef in it (yummy!). Also, it is the only seed oil that I will ingest, so that works out, too.

What you do is put a small amount of sesame oil in your mouth first thing in the morning before eating anything. Holding your chin up to get the back molars, you swish or pull the oil between your teeth for fifteen or twenty minutes. I did it while I was in the shower. After swishing, spit the oil out. If the oil is yellow, you didn’t do it long enough; it should be white & frothy. Do not swallow (supposedly the used oil contains toxins? They say to clean the sink after? Yikes!) & clean your mouth out thoroughly with water & your fingers or a toothbrush. This can be done more than once per day, but always on an empty stomach.

I did it this morning & then brushed with baking soda because I’m going to try using that instead of toothpaste. On these sites, they say that General Ripper is right that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face. Evidently the reason fluoride is put in our water is because some industry had a lot of it as waste product (warning, hideous website) & didn’t know what to do with it.

Okay, & this is hilarious & totally conspiracy theory & nutty & all, but who the hell knows? I mean, even as a kid I realized that fluoride might be good for your teeth, but why the hell are we drinking it? I thought that my Brita filtered it out but I was mistaken. Damn. I have a lot of other juicy conspiracy scenarios that I’m assembling in me braiiin, as well. I’m still a little bitter that our great central government tricked me into eating fat-free for so many years. Fuckers.

Anyway, I’m going to try the Oil Pulling method because really I have nothing to lose. Also, I got a hot plate to warm my broth at work & I’m sitting here right now sipping on some of it. I have completely stopped using the microwave at home; I will heat my coffee on defrost in the microwave at work, but I try not to. And yes, I am turning into a dirty, damn, carnivorous hippie.

Screw No Poo...

2012-01-09T08:21:00.002-06:00

Yeah, the no shampoo thing wasn't working out for me. I'm hereby going back to shampoo, but I will use a lot less, etc. My results were always very unpredictable & all I really wanted to do was try to do less damage to my hair & that wasn't happening. I'm sticking with coconut oil instead of lotion, though; my skin is pretty terrific. And I went ahead & shaved my legs, so I guess that I'm now a recovering dirty damned hippie.

Bone Broth & Microwaving…

2012-01-06T10:00:00.000-06:00

I’ve been making a lot of bone broth lately & taking it to work & microwaving it to heat it, but then I read (somewhere – I thought it was the Weston A Price site, but maybe not) that you should never microwave broth because it actually makes some of the amino acids toxic to your body. It kind of makes me wonder what else the microwave wrecks.

I’m not sure how it toxifies* broth, but it could be that heating rapidly is the problem, or maybe because there are so many minerals in bone broth (metal sparking thing microwaves do). It kind of makes me want to throw my microwave out. It’s like I’m becoming a goddamn hippie or something. First I start eating whole unprocessed foods, then I start thinking of giving up shampoo, & now I’m contemplating ditching the ‘crowave. Fuck, I just remembered that I haven’t shaved my legs in a couple of weeks, too. Shit.

At work I might have a small problem because the microwave is the least smelly way to heat stuff up, but I might get a small hotplate & a stainless steel mug & try those out. Broth is funny because it kind of substitutes as a meal (ish); when you drink a mug of it you are not hungry for hours. You can literally drink a mug every 3 or 4 hours & neglect food altogether for a day or more. The gelatin in broth is “protein sparing” meaning that if you drink broth while fasting, you do not cannibalize your own protein stores.

Since I have been boiling down bones, they have been increasingly difficult to find (haven’t been to a butcher yet, but meat with bones were scarce in the grocery store). Of course, it is the first of the month, so the meat aisle has been ravaged by the SNAP people; maybe I’ll try again in the middle of the month & stock up.

*yeah, I get it, it's not really a word. Well it can suck it.

A Different Kind of Poo…

2012-01-05T10:11:00.000-06:00

My hair is kind of awesome. I haven’t gone completely poo free, but I only use a dollop about the size of a dime, get my hair as wet as possible, spread shampoo thinly, rub in a tiny bit (there’s no foam), & rinse as quickly & thoroughly as possible, letting my hair get the minimum shampoo possible. Same with conditioner. I use no other product, but I do blow dry with a brush & use a flat iron on the front.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of hair in the shower drain. There is usually a ton of it, so much that I have to use a hair catcher/sieve thingy so I don’t stop up the drain constantly. Now there is only about 1/5th as much hair in that drain after showering. Weird. Were my hair products making my hair fall out or something? Who knows, but the amount of hair was consistent before & has been consistently less for about 3 weeks.

Eventually, I will try the teaspoon of baking soda per cup of filtered water & rinse with half vinegar & half water, but I’m not really up for that right now. My hair is really soft, though, & shiny. At first it was much, much less static-y, but now it might be about the same as before. I think that was just from weaning my hair off of a shit-ton of silicone-based products.

I’m also trying to not use as much soap as I was. I splurged & bought a bar of Neutrogena soap (holy hell, it was $3!!) because it doesn’t contain the nitrates (nitrites?) that other soap does (I’ve decided that the nitrates are what make soap feel slick after rinsing because Neutrogena is not slick after rinsing) & I’ve been trying to use it as sparingly as possible.

All About Poo…

2012-01-04T09:54:00.001-06:00

During the 3 weeks that I was mostly off work, I cooked almost every meal & we ate a pretty clean Paleo-style diet (I love everything about my diet except that stupid name – also see: caveman diet). Then we went to a party New Year’s Day & ate a bunch of crap.

I ate about 5 cookies (homemade & yummy!), a cup or 2 of hot artichoke dip* with a bunch of Tostitos, barbeque Lays, veggies with dip (seed oil city), pork loin (lean meat – no fat), & I’m sure there is more because I was cram-packed full of junk. It was all super high carb, low saturated fat – exactly the opposite of our usual diet. Anyway, we felt terrible the next day. My innards were making horrible noises & my poo was grossly fluffy & fart-filled. Like, it was fart, poo, poo, fart, fart, poo, etc. it was awful (offal).

I could feel the crap I ate the night before traveling through my intestines & my belly was totally bloated. Bill was experiencing the same thing, but he probably ate twice the crap I did. Tuesday I woke up extraordinarily stinky. I mean really, really offensively stinky. I bathed & I was still stinky. Then when I came home, Bill said something about how incredibly stinky he was that morning & I told him about my stench & he realized that our third kidney (skin) must be helping remove all of the toxins, too. Wow.

At least on Tuesday morning, while my poo started out farty & fluffy, it ended up nice & solid & clean (fluffy poo doesn’t wipe well), so at least I knew that the crap was mostly out of my system. Also, when we were recovering on Monday, everything hurt. All of my muscles were cramped up & tight. They are fine now. Also, I realized this morning that I really didn’t eat anything on Monday except breakfast (at 2pm), I didn’t have a proper meal at all Tuesday & I really haven’t eaten since. Maybe a little yogurt or some bone broth, but I just wasn’t hungry at all. I’m pretty hungry right now, though!

*I made a double batch & it was mostly harmless as long as you can handle dairy:
2 cans artichokes, drained & chopped
A bunch of garlic, minced
2 lg cans of green chilies
2 pkg cream cheese, softened
¼ cup heavy cream
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup mozzarella
Salt & pepper
Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes or until browned & bubbly

Sloth, Gluttony, & Lust...

2011-12-19T08:32:00.001-06:00

I really shouldn’t take time off without a destination or specific agenda; I turn into a grub worm. All I did this weekend is cook, eat & drink. I busted all three of the good Deadly Sins, so I accomplished something. I’m back at work today & tomorrow & then it’s back to Grubworm City for 6 days.

It’s like you get up & it’s dark & chilly, so you get your coffee, turn up the heat & cuddle up in your La-Z-Bastard with your blanket & laptop & mindlessly entertain yourself until the sun comes up. But it’s kinda dark & wet out, so you drink more coffee & snuggle deeper into your blanket until, before you know it, the 4-day-weekend is over. Yeah, it’s like that.

I decided to do something crazy & extreme with all of my time off: I’m going to try the whole No Poo thing. They say that shampoo has a really bad detergent effect on your hair & all of the products used make shampoo necessary. I haven’t actually gone no poo yet, I’m just using hardly any on really wet hair for a very short amount of time, kind of shampoo-light. I use a little conditioner, but I’ve quit using all of the silicone-based hair products that I have.

I also replaced my body lotion with coconut oil. I was worried about smelling coconutty all day, but the smell wears off after a few minutes. I was drying my hair, bored, a month or so ago & reading the ingredients on the lotion bottle & was kind of grossed out that I was slathering all of these chemicals on my skin. I had some coconut oil (really good for massages) & tried it & it seems to work just fine. I put it in a squeeze bottle & keep it by the heater.

All I’ve really been doing is being really boring. I’ve been staying in & hibernating & cooking most of our meals at home. I’ve been going through my books & culling what I can & storing others. I’m trying to get to a point where I can move the bookshelves into the main room, but not have them overloaded with books; I want to have some extra room to put some objet d’ art.

The only other plans I have is to rearrange some furniture, clean out my extra bedroom, & clean out the kitchen to replace the countertops & put down new flooring. Which of course entails not leaving the house, so extra grub worminess. It’s tough to get up the gumption to get cleaned up to leave the house & venture out into Xmas shopping traffic craziness. Bitches be cray-cray.

Occupy the Tea Party...

2011-11-16T10:26:00.003-06:00

Hahahaha, I just wrote a huge comment rant over at Street Carnage. It is awaiting moderation so I don't know if they will publish, so here it is:

The way I see it, the Tea Party pretty much created the perfect Occupy storm. First we have the Tea Party, I know these people, and they are all CPAs, attorneys & doctors. They all have vintage airplanes at my airport. They all take exotic golf vacations. They are the 10%. Largely, they are older and have grown children. They are Empty Nesters.

Their children grew up privileged and pampered. Gold stars for everyone! Their every need was provided & they received a car on their 16th birthday. Their fondest wish was to escape the torrential boredom of Toledo, Omaha, Dallas, Tulsa & the best way of doing this was to find a distant University to attend. Woe is for the child destined for the State University!

College is the perfect time for the kids because they are away from the parental units, living on their own, yet all of their needs are still met. Hunger never bothers their bellies; booze is plentiful; and their bongs are never in need of weed. They have four or five years of responsibility-free bliss in exchange for going to a couple of classes & making passing grades.

Of course it is a lot easier to get passing grades when the kids are working towards a degree that doesn’t require math. Sure, they started out in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, but hated staying in & studying while all their friends were out partying. Why were their friends able to get away with never studying while they had hours and hours of equations to do? Simple, the kids get a soft degree like Art History, Political Science, & Women’s Studies. They watch a few slide shows & take a test every once in a while. Easy peasy.

After a successful College career, and sometimes a Graduate program, the pampered child moves somewhere big & exciting! NYC! LA! San Francisco! Boston! Chicago! They have a bit of trouble finding a job with their liberal arts degree, but somehow manage to scare something up; besides, the parental units are still sending a thousand here & a thousand there for emergency expenses.

The “Trust Fund” kids are a myth. There are no formal trust funds set up, & if there are, the kids don’t get access until their parents kick it. Very few of the newly transplanted Big City kids have a set amount provided regularly; their parents are just helping them out cash-wise. The parents remember how it was when they were that age & just want to make their special little snowflake’s life a little easier.

Life is not easy in the big city! Their pitiful retail job doesn’t even come close to paying for their rent, much less their entertainment bill. They didn’t move to NYC to sit in their shoebox apartment, they moved here for all of the shows & fashion. Suddenly, for the first time ever, they are thrust out into the cold cruel world with nary a safety net. Their parents think that a couple of thousand a month should sustain them pretty well, and it would if their kids were living in flyover land, but in NYC a couple thousand is merely a drop in the Big City suck bucket. That will hardly even buy a decent pair of shoes.

Here comes an extended depression/recession. Oopsie! It happens to also arrive with the end of all publishing, so millions of creative Big City jobs are POOF! Gone. Magazine, newspaper, & book opportunities are all gone. Pretty much the kids’ only hope is to start a witty website that can then be published as a book that no one will purchase because, why? There it is on that website.

Meanwhile, back at home, their parents are out protesting! What the hell! And what are they protesting? Against Government stimulus & the welfare state it supports? Wait a minute, their kid has been living on that stimulus for the past year after being laid off from that fleeting job they had managed to obtain immediately before the economy went to shit. Well, that and the couple of thou their parents send.

There needs to be more Stimulus, the kids say. How will they live if the Government doesn’t give them unemployment & food stamps for another year? There needs to be more Stimulus so that maybe the government can create more jobs. Creative jobs though, the kids don’t want to be shoveling shit or working at a soul-killing 8 to 5 job like their parents. Ugh, they are special & unique just like all the others!

Imagine the poor kid’s plight; their unemployment just ran out (thanks Mom & Dad!), they are scared & hungry, and they have only had that one three-month-long job ever in their lives & it is now gone forever, never to return. They have no skills, nothing but a bright mind & a lot of energy. The prospect of moving back to flyover land & in with their parents is looming. Meanwhile, back at home, the parental units are not doing as well as they used to. One of them lost their job, their 401K is half what is was in 2008 & now the money from home seems to be drying up. The future is not bright.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this tremendous opportunity for them to Make A Difference appears! There is free food! There is a big, extended, free street party & they never have to leave! They can just pass out at the party when they get tired! This is awesome! This is even better than college because there aren’t even any pesky classes to attend! Take that Mom & Dad, you had your Tea Party & took away all of our benefits, & now I have my Occupy & will get those benefits back plus a portion of a billionaire’s fortune!

The parents are fighting against the exact same things that their children are demanding. The parents and their children are on different sides of the same exact coin. This is nothing more than a child’s rebellion against their parents. The parent is more conservative because they have responsibilities whereas the child is liberal because not only have they never had responsibilities, but it is really easy to be extremely liberal when someone else is footing the bill.

The kids want more pay and benefits for teachers, yet are unable to equate those expenses with the exploding cost of their own education. They want bigger & better unions yet wonder why all manufacturing has been moved overseas, out of the Unions’ way. They get all of their music, magazines, newspapers, books, movies, and television on the internet for free but don’t reconcile that with the fact that if they aren’t paying for stuff, then when they make it, nobody will be paying them for it. In order for anyone to make a living at something, someone somewhere will have to pay them to do that thing they do.

I know, I know, you know of one person that doesn’t fit this mold exactly, so the whole concept must be flawed. I get it.

Playing With My Food...

2011-10-19T13:48:00.002-06:00

I’ve been bored lately & playing with food. I’ve been making bone broth, sauerkraut, & homemade yogurt. Very interesting! I didn’t slice the sauerkraut thinly enough & I didn’t use enough salt to really brine it good, but it turned out fine anyway. I took it out & re-sliced it (cabbage is pretty tough to chew in large chunks) & put it back in & it was just fine.

The most awesome thing that I made recently is Blue & Gold sausage-crusted quiche. The first time that I made it the quiche was effortless & perfect. The second time that I made it, the time that I took pictures, I really learned a lot (I screwed that shit up big time!) What I learned: if you bake the crust for too long it shrinks & all the fat cooks out & the eggs expand a LOT so if you overfill it, it will overflow.

(doesn't have to be perfect obvs)
(oops, a bit of overflow)
(see where the crust shrunk & the egg filled in the space)

Sausage-crusted Quiche: Press sausage into a cast-iron skillet to form a crust. You can prebake this a little, but not too much. Sprinkle some mozzarella in the bottom to help the eggs adhere. Mix 6 eggs, a good dollop of heavy cream, a bunch of mozzarella & parmesan, some garlic & onion & maybe other veggies like broccoli, spinach or mushrooms – whatever you have on hand or none at all. Pour into the crust & bake for about an hour at 350F until browned.

Sauerkraut: Very, very thinly slice a cabbage. Add a couple of tablespoons of sea salt, mix, pound gently with a wine bottle to release the juices & pack it tightly in a crock or large wide-mouthed jar. Place some sort of weight on top (a large clean rock or a jar full of water or something) to keep the cabbage packed. If the cabbage isn’t covered in its own brine by the next evening, boil a small amount of water, dissolve salt in it, let it cool & pour it on top until cabbage is submerged. Wait a week or so & then refrigerate.

Bone broth: Put your bones (& fat, skin, etc.) in a crockpot, cover with water & add a splash of vinegar. Simmer on low for a few hours, cool & strain into a large bowl. Put the bowl of gelatinous broth in the fridge. Fill the crockpot of bones back up with water, add vinegar & simmer on low for a long time (12-24 hours for chicken & 12-72 hours for large beef bones). Strain, add to the original broth, & put in mason jars. I freeze some of the jars without the lids until frozen then replace the lids after. I’ve heard that cooking broth for a long time destroys the gelatin but gets more minerals out of the bones, which is why I do it in two stages.

Yogurt: Heat a half gallon of whole milk (next time I’m going to add some heavy cream, too) to 180F (to kill any bacteria) & let cool to 115F (good temp to “grow” stuff). Add in 6 to 8 ounces of plain yogurt & stir well. Line a cooler in heavy towels, put yogurt container (I use my crockpot) in ice chest & wrap with towels. Don’t open or jostle cooler for 8 to 12 hours. Put some cheesecloth, papertowels, or a dish-towel (non-fuzzy) in a colander that is inside a large lasagna pan & pour the yogurt in to drain. Make sure the towel is completely inside the lasagna pan or the whey will wick off outside the pan. Freeze a small part of the yogurt for your next batch.

Conspiracy Theory...

2011-10-10T10:03:00.003-06:00

So here’s how it works: The government subsidizes corn, soy & wheat. Then the government encourages us to eat more & more wheat, more vegetable oils (while discouraging animal fats), & puts corn in our gas tanks. The wheat, sweeteners & vegetable oils ruin people’s health so they go see a doctor. The doctor encourages them to eat more wheat to control their problems they are having with wheat (diabetes, heart disease, etc.). The doctor prescribes medication from the pharmaceutical company & the insurance company pays for it all. If we have side effects or complications from the drugs prescribed then there are other prescriptions to take care of those side effects.

So, here we have the agricultural industrial complex with the big seed companies (Monsanto, Bayer, etc) supplying the farmers with genetically modified seed & the government supplying the farmers with our tax dollars & their recommendations that we eat 8 to 10 serving per day of their grain. Think of all the things that go into the growing of mono-crops: equipment to plow, seed, water & harvest the crops, the seeds, water, fertilizer & pesticides to grow the crops, the trucks to distribute, the factories to convert the product into breads, syrups, crackers, oils, ethanol, etc., trucks to distribute the final product, & the markets to sell the product. I’m certain I missed quite a bit there, too.

Mono-crop farming employs a LOT of people: people to make the equipment, run the factories, work the supermarket, drive the truck, etc. If these people are employed then they are paying taxes & probably have insurance. If mono-crop farming was ended tomorrow, the nation would lose an incredible amount of jobs. But wait, that’s not all! Because these products ruin people’s health, they are now going to be supporting all of the people involved in the medical/pharmaceutical/insurance industrial complex.

You eat 8 to 10 servings of whole grains per day, just as your government advises. You gain weight, your blood pressure skyrockets, some develop type II diabetes, you feel depressed. You don’t feel well, so you go to your doctor (receptionist, nurses, office expenses, etc.) and he writes you a prescription (laboratories, scientists, research, pill factories, sales people, etc.) and your insurance (sales people, offices, etc.) pays for it. Sometimes you get so bad that you have to go to the hospital (countless people & equipment necessary). Your health problems are employing a LOT of people!

All of this isn’t even scratching the surface of the people who are employed to maintain this colossal self-feeding cycle! We also have countless people writing stories and maintaining websites to further the propaganda, there are lobbyists in DC begging for subsidies, & many more things that I have no clue about. I would say that probably half of all people in America work to further the farming/medical/pharmaceutical/insurance industrial complex. Crazy, huh?

[Oh, I forgot that if everyone is fat & sick & on medications, their life expectancy will decline & they will take less handouts from the government in the form of Social Security & Medicare. Keep them alive for as long as they work to sustain the employment of half the nation.]

Photo Dump...

2011-10-07T07:01:00.005-06:00

I'm still taking pictures, the pictures just aren't getting on here (all by themselves...)

Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds...

2011-09-28T11:52:00.000-06:00

All About Food...

2011-09-28T08:22:00.001-06:00

Sorry, it’s like I abandoned this thing! But, really you haven’t missed anything. We’ve looked at a couple of houses & a four-plex that was really cute but was shedding its brick exterior. I’m still eating meat & animal fat (almost exclusively at the moment) & drinking plenty of beer. See, this is why I’m not writing; I have nothing to say. We don’t really do anything. I guess that some would call it a writer’s block, but I’m not really even compelled to try.

I do seriously love my diet, though. It’s almost as if I found the meaning of life or something; I look & feel so great. My mood is incredibly better; eating fat is like taking a happy pill. The biggest thing I think is that I’m not constantly hungry; I’m not always thinking of food. I would be sitting here at my desk, hungry, thinking about what I was going to eat for lunch. Every. Day. Now I only think of food if I’ve brought something really awesome like an entire rotisserie chicken. Also, funny that I’m saying this (& it’s true) but this entire post is about food!

Recently I have been attempting to get into ketosis & have been relatively successful. Last week I was in it for about four days (I can taste it in my mouth – it’s a metallic kind of taste – like ketones, duh) but was knocked out of it by three glasses of merlot & a breaded, fried appetizer (oopsies!). Miller Lite doesn’t knock me out of ketosis even when I drink like a stupid, crazy person on Friday.

Then last weekend we went to meet some of Bill’s high school friends at a party at the river & pretty much all bets were off as far as food & drink go. It was hilarious though. We did our usual bumbling around vacation thing & finally decided to skip the float trip & just go up Saturday for the party. Most of the other people got there on Thursday & floated Friday & Saturday. That’s dedication!

We packed up our tent, some blankets, some chairs, a cooler & I made tapenade for the party. So, we were self sufficient & supplied ourselves with everything we needed for the night & maybe even a place to stay. We ended up sleeping out under the stars. We didn’t even blow up the air mattress; we started to & it was loud & we ended up just spreading it out for a ground cover & curling up in our blankets. Next time I will not forget the pillows, holy crap.

It was a hell of a lot of fun, but next time I’m totally bringing a Blue & Gold sausage & some eggs or something for breakfast because these people brought Krispy Kremes & cinnamon rolls & shit. Finally I found some quiche that someone made & it was yummy, but not exactly on my diet (the crust). Good enough! Anyway, I’m not too worried about abstaining from stuff when at parties, but I had been getting really skinny while in ketosis & I didn’t want to halt that progress, so I was eating as well as possible.

So, since coming back from the river (it was like a mini vacation – next time we’ll go an extra day, maybe) I have been trying to get back into ketosis, and I haven’t been successful so far, but I’ve almost lost the remainder of my muffin-top. The funny thing is that when I step on the scales, I haven’t lost any actual weight, but I am way thinner in the gut area, my upper arms are much thinner, & my face isn’t as puffy.

Anyway, I’m trying to do this right now & get as small as possible because next week is the Tulsa State Fair & we usually graze our way through it. I will probably get a turkey leg just to gross out Bill, but other than that I’m not sure how much grazing I will be doing at the fair this year. We will see! I’ll give it the old college try!

Also, lately I have really been getting into cooking large chunks of meat or eating a whole rotisserie chicken (not in one sitting - it usually feeds both of us twice). The chicken thing is awesome because if you get a cold one ($4!!!) you can rip the breast meat out (skin attached) & simmer it in half a stick of butter & chow down, then take the dark meat to work for lunch.

We have also been eating a ton of McDoubles, bun-less; I use the bun to hold the meat, & then rip off the bun where I’m going to take a bite. It works well. The only problem with the diet so far is that neither of us is ever hungry & when we are, we never have any cravings for anything, so it is hard to figure out where to eat. Hence the massive amounts of bun-less McDoubles (also see: cheap $$).

Bonjour, Girl...

2011-09-08T08:31:00.003-06:00

I swear this was done by the gay guy who grabbed my boobs Tuesday. He & his friend were being mean girls; the one that didn't grab my boobs told me that I had wrinkles (duh, I'm old!).

(via The Hairpin)

Cuteness...

2011-09-01T08:25:00.001-06:00

Craps Strategy...

2011-08-25T12:57:00.003-06:00

Here’s what I’m going to try the next time I play Craps:

On the come-out roll I will have $5 on Pass & $5 on the field. I will continue to bet the same until a point is established. Total bet = $10

If the point is 6 or 8 I will put $10 odds on the Pass & $5 on field. Total bet = $20 (might have to replace the field bet repeatedly)

If the point is 5 or 9 I will put $5 odds on the Pass & $6 on either 6 or 8. Total bet = $16

If the point is 4 or 10 I will put $6 on 6 & $6 on 8. Total bet = $17

If my middle sister is rolling, I will also put $5* on 5 because she rolls a shit-ton of them.

I'm using these games to practice.
[edited: my sister reminded me that you put $6 on 6 & 8 but you put $5 on 4,5,9 & 10]

Life On SloMo...

2011-08-24T09:28:00.005-06:00

(look, clouds!)

It’s weird how life sometimes slows down & there’s really nothing happening for a period of time. I mean, my sister visited & it was fun to see her & we went to Tunica & had an alcohol-fueled couple of days there gambling & that was fun. It was triple digits for a couple of months & then rained like a bastard for a week. Not soon enough though, the heat & lack of rain killed a lot of the few trees that had survived the big ice storm a couple of years ago.

We are still looking at houses & even have an offer in on a short sale, but have very little chance of actually ending up with it. Work is kinda scary without a lot of jobs going on right now, but hopefully that will change soon, I hear there are new prospects on the horizon. The only big thing that has happened lately is that there are a hell of a lot of people moving into Tulsa. I wish I could see some numbers on that…

Other than all of that excitement, I have been experimenting with magnesium as a sleep aid. The magnesium should end in an “ate” not an “ite”. It has been working out pretty well for me except for the “Milk of Magnesia” effect. Trying a lower dose. Also I’ve been reading some interesting things about Metabolic Flexibility & his articles on Why We Are Hungry.

Neglect...

2011-08-02T10:13:00.003-06:00

I am the worst blogger ever. I think that it is this incredible unrelenting heat that has become the “new normal” around these parts. Today it is supposed to get up to eleventy-one. It has been in the triple digits since early June. I can’t do anything; it’s even punishing to go on walks. The only thing I’ve doing in the heat is that I’ve been looking at houses.

Today I have two houses to look at, at wildly different ends of the housing spectrum. One is huge and over-exposed (not nestled into a neighborhood) the other is small & nestled in-between two larger, nicer houses. Oh yeah, & $105K less. Shit, I could do a lot with $105K.

Anyway, that’s about it. I’ve been visiting bars a little too much lately out of sheer & indescribable boredom. I’m working on being able to wear a bikini in September to a float trip & can almost do so without blinding anyone. I’m going to start exposing my lily-white belly to the sun, but will be cautious to not blind the sun itself.

I had started to eat more carbs & less supplementing of fat, but that really didn’t agree with me, so now I’m back on the mostly fat, meat, & beer diet & I’m skinnying up quite nicely. I still have sushi once or twice a week (might try a new place, The Sushi Place, tonight & my sister came into town & had sushi with us last week, fun!) with white rice & my lunch this week is roast leftovers with potatoes & carrots, so carbs aren’t totally off the table.

The only other thing I’ve been doing lately is reading a bunch of rock & roll biographies, autobiographies, & memoirs (found at Goodwill). Damn, I think that the key to musical success lies in a person’s ability to withstand lots of needles full of various drugs & the ability to be the biggest asshole on the planet with absolutely no regard for anyone else, ever. I guess the ability to play an instrument & write music might be marginally useful, as well.

Hilarious...

2011-07-27T10:24:00.000-06:00

It says it's explicit, but I didn't see any little naughties hanging out...

Skittles - Newlyweds - Dir. Cousins [Not affiliated with Wrigley or Skittles. Contains explicit content not suitable for minors] from Cousins on Vimeo.

How To Peel A Hardboiled Egg...

2011-07-21T11:16:00.000-06:00

...Without Peeling...

Lana Del Rey - Video Games...

2011-07-19T10:48:00.003-06:00

I guess that this is the newest thing right now & is pretty hypnotic. Lana is really pretty, but it kinda looks like she botoxed the fuck out of her entire face the same day she got her lips plumped to the bursting point. The only facial muscles that move are those lips! I can hardly look away… Via The Awl

She's also cute when her face moves! Also, this song is hilar!

Sweltering...

2011-07-14T12:45:00.001-06:00

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks around these parts. My brother has been in the hospital, and whereas this hasn’t actually taken up much time, it has taken up a lot of (hell, what do you call it – psychic energy? Not to be confused with psychotic & I can rarely read minds) my brain function for the past week.

As usual, I am rushing to get caught up at work after goofing hard for the last few weeks. The cats were away, so the mouse didn’t do a damn thing. No problem, if I can just concentrate, I can get it all done in no time. Of course, here I am doing this instead, but whateves.

We have done a bunch of drivebys on interesting houses, but haven’t seen any so compelling as to call the realtor or anything. We mainly look for distressed houses, but every once in awhile we look at nice houses in nice neighborhoods, and frankly the only difference we have seen is that they cost more.

Everything on the housing market is distressed. Everything. And it is all more expensive than before the housing market collapsed. We aren’t just looking at foreclosures; we are looking at houses for sale by real living, breathing people.

These people didn’t take care of their home, slapped a coat of paint on the rotting hulk, and hiked the price up far above its worth. [Note: just because you waaaaay over mortgaged it doesn’t mean that it is worth that amount.] But when you look at the overpriced heap, you slowly notice all of the other houses on the same street with their for-sale signs out front, and you realize that this nice, shady neighborhood is half empty.

Tulsa has also had triple digit temperatures here for a few weeks, so doing anything outside that doesn’t include large containers of water is prohibited. The hottest I have seen is 107F or 108F, but really anything above 100F is stay inside time for me. So, nothing is getting done on anything around the yard, which is now brown & crunchy.

This Weekend...

2011-07-05T07:16:00.002-06:00

Had a blast this weekend out in Locust Grove (& yeah, there were a lot of cicadas; they are pretty locusty to me) canoeing, drinking, watching & shooting fireworks on Saturday & then relaxing at the pool all day Sunday. The canoe trip beat me up but good; I'm bruised & battered but it was so fun!

Below is an extreme version of a sucker hole. A sucker hole is a hole in the clouds that a bold pilot could pop through to get above the weather. Problem is that the pilot is not assured of a similar hole through which to un-pop, to land. The old saying is: There are old pilots & bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.

The Tortoise & the Hare…

2011-06-30T06:54:00.003-06:00

Look, my parking lot bunny found a little friend! (click to enlarge)

Related...

Disappointing Gay Best Friend...

2011-06-28T11:17:00.003-06:00

OMG, these are hilarious! Go to Mikala's YouTube Channel & check 'em all out.

Picture & Story Aren't Related...

2011-06-27T07:57:00.003-06:00

(parking lot bunny)
I’ve been a little fascinated by gut flora lately. If that’s not enough to scare you away from reading this, then just be warned that the germ-o-phobe or whatever might be a bit grossed with the following. I mean it is gross that there are billions of billions of microscopic critters infesting every aspect of your body, but not only do we need them to survive, most of them actually make us healthy.

There are a lot of things that fascinate me about gut flora, but the most interesting thing was that recently I read* that you share gut flora with people in your life. Through the very process of sharing space with other people you exchange bacteria with them.

The article went on to explain how, much like spreading the flu virus, with sneezing, kissing, etc. you also exchange beneficial microbes. Back in the day, when families were less spread out, you would be sharing this with your family, but now in these days, you share it with your co-workers & the people physically closest to you (other barflies for me!).

I’m not going into all the technical stuff because it is boring and I’m a lazy person. I just thought of those reports that people who socialize more live healthier and longer than people who don’t, and maybe that’s because of this bacterial exchange between people. So, if you are having internal health issues, go kiss the healthiest people you know!

*I only have about 10 to 15 bookmarks for health websites & can’t find this in any of them. What the hell, I vividly remember reading this last week.

Also, if this you are interested in gut flora, please go to some of these sites:
Cooling Inflammation
Whole Health Source
& if you are REALLY into gross gut stuff, read the ongoing saga here:
Health Matters To Me
& here's a guy who has videos about fermenting veggies

Sunset...

2011-06-25T09:14:00.000-06:00

Crustless Pizza Bites...

2011-06-24T08:52:00.002-06:00

I made these puppies last night (& the night before :) and they were incredible. The ingredients to make them are all now back on my shopping list. We wanted crustless pizza, but were unsure how to go about it when we remembered these huge pepperonis. The night before, I set the pepperonis right on a cookie sheet, put a nice big blob of tomato paste in the center & put a quarter of a mozzarella slice on top, then sprinkled with Italian seasoning.

Put them under the broiler (I can completely close off my kitchen from the rest of the house) on low broil for about a minute or two (watch closely!). They were swimming in pepperoni grease (yummers but messy), so last night I put them on a rack over the cookie sheet & look how cute they curl up into cups!

Next time I make them (tonight) I’m going to let them cook about 15 seconds longer to really crisp up the pepperoni cup. And, unlike my usual “supplement the fat & practically drink the stuff” approach to eating, this time I’m good with the excess grease collecting on the cookie sheet below. After going out of my way to eat as much fat as possible, I’m slowing down on the high fat & introducing a few more carbs recently.

I think that after over a year of getting as much saturated animal fat into my system as humanly possible, I’m good on the fat front & can start eating a medium fat diet. I’ve been eating a lot more fruit & peeled potatoes & white rice (sushi!) lately. Still just avoiding putting in my mouth anything the Gubmint subsidizes: wheat, corn & soy products like breads, syrups, & oils.

Also, that cookie sheet looks really gruesome, but I got it from my mom about 30 years ago (it looked the same then) & she probably had it 30 years before that. This is how it cleans up!

Latest Failed Attempt…

2011-06-22T08:25:00.004-06:00

We have once again signed and extended an offer to purchase a house, and once again have failed to actually purchase that house. I don’t even know how many times this has happened, but this is how it happened this time. We made the offer, and it either was too low and offended someone (a bank? a realtor?) or someone (?) is just an incredible asshole. The counter offer didn’t lower the price, but did raise the earnest money to $4,000 and stated that we had 5 days from the date of the counter offer to perform inspections. Inspections themselves are merely a courtesy with no bearing on the offer (basically saying that the $4,000 earnest money is theirs whether we buy the house or not, no matter what).

Oh yeah, & we had until 5pm that day to accept or refuse their ridiculous offer. As if we were going to accept [insert raspberry noise here]. The problem is that we get attached. My heart is now hardened; I refuse to get attached again (yeah, right). This house did have problems; the front porch was really messed up yet really cool masonry that we would have been compelled to save, and the matching fireplace was leaking water and had rusted out the support inside. Anyway, now we are looking at a 4-plex that we will not actually be purchasing because of some sort of insanity that has yet to unfold.

Sunset...

2011-06-21T07:28:00.000-06:00

Totally Tubular Jacket...

2011-06-20T15:08:00.005-06:00

Look at this rad early Eighties motorcycle jacket I got from my sister. It looks all shiny but if you see it in person you can tell that someone wore the shit outta this jacket & looks like they had a couple minor get-offs in it judging by the scrapes. I really want to put buttons all over the lapels, but I also kinda hate to poke holes in it. What do you think I should do?

What Should I Do With This Jacket?customer surveys

Oh wait, this is a better representation of the jacket. Think this jacket but brighter like the picture above.

Awesome People Hanging...

2011-06-14T07:31:00.001-06:00

This picture made me laugh, so I'm passing it on. Via Awesome People Hanging Out Together

Ancient Celts in Oklahoma...

2011-06-13T12:24:00.003-06:00

I’m reading this incredibly interesting book, America B.C., that explains how the Celts, Phoenicians, Iberians, & Libyans all explored the Americas around 800 B.C. until about 31 B.C. when the Romans conquered Spain & then having no competition, didn’t have a navy & therefore the Americas were lost until Columbus.

The Americas were on the trade route in 500 B.C. & colonies were established to mine silver & copper & obtain furs to export. The historians don’t know how far back the Celts started coming here, but by the language, it was at least 2500 to 3000 years ago. Also, the book says that the whole “Native Americans came from Asia across the Bering Strait land bridge” thing was started by a Pope in 1512 according to things in the Bible, so yeah.

Reading this book I found that there were Ancient petroglyphs of Celtic Ogam script at Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa. Although these claims of antiquity have been claimed a hoax by others, the book is a very interesting, if somewhat dry, read. From what I read explorers came up through the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi, through the Arkansas River and then the Cimarron River. There are other petroglyphs in Oklahoma also. If you want to see the petroglyphs yourself, this will show you where to go.

Also, as the book was published in 1975 or so, almost all of the pictures of males in the book are shirtless. Hot!

Parking Lot Fluff...

2011-06-10T07:34:00.003-06:00

(I think this one was taken by Bill. Maybe the next, also.)

(parking lot fluff that I picked up from behind my car at work - they are sending out a minion to sweep the lot with a magnet)

Odds & Ends…

2011-06-09T07:22:00.001-06:00

There for a while we were thinking about buying a building downtown, but decided against it because it would have put us on the ragged edge of financial disaster. We had a business idea & a business plan, but the economy is too messed up. I know that we could have gotten an SBA loan for the whole mess, but what if I lost my job? I would have been hiring about four people.

And that is what is wrong with the economy, things are so unsure that people are scared to risk. And if people are scared to risk, it makes it more difficult for other people contemplating risk. If all of the potential risk-takers would all go out there and take their risks & hire their people, then the economy would right itself pretty quickly. But as it is, why should I be the one putting it out there to jumpstart the economy? Why should I risk it all? Anyway, I’m hanging onto the plan & maybe next year…

I forget how many years we have been looking for another house to fix up: maybe three or four? Most of the houses in the area for sale are in distressed condition & the asking price is what a person would pay for a nice house in a nice neighborhood & they mostly sell. Some are inexpensive but beyond our repair & they mostly sell. About twice a year a house goes on the market & is inexpensive & not beyond our repair. We are looking at one of those now.

We might get it just because we don’t want to wait another six months until the next one comes up. This one’s main problem is that the driveway slopes down to the garage, which is the basement. Water collects. Oh yeah, and bums have been living in it for the past year & it smells like shit. And they kicked holes in the walls. And it needs a roof, wiring, plumbing & floor repair. You know: same old. It’s the water that’s the problem.

I’m going to schedule another look at it this weekend when we can take some time & really go through it. The last look through got rescheduled from 5pm until 7pm, so we might have had a beer or two to pass the time… This time I’m going to have my house hunting checklist & bag and really look it over. The neighborhood, which borders on a bad part of the hood, is kinda cute in a barrio sort of way. I’ll have to make sure that I could get out of the neighborhood in the ice. Because you know there will be ice.

Sunset...

2011-06-08T11:11:00.001-06:00

Convenience Stores: The New Brothels...

2011-06-07T11:06:00.005-06:00

So the other night we were at the QT on Gilcrease Museum Drive in the far southeast gas pump & I noticed this chick at the far southwest pump (right in front of me) who was really working the pump (if you know what I mean). I was kinda amazed at how she was gyrating & dancing around while filling the Caddy.

Then a car pulls up to the pump next to her & the driver gets out & goes to talk to her. My thought was that her boyfriend, who was in the store, was gonna be piiiiiiiiissssssed! But it turns out that the girl talks to the new fellow, then talks to her boyfriend & gets into the new fellow’s car. The Ho & her John take off & her Pimp follows in the Caddy. Not angry at all… Hmmm…

Hangar Fire...

2011-06-03T07:01:00.009-06:00

Yesterday I got quite the scare, there was a hangar fire at the airport. I looked at the videos (without volume, or I would have known it wasn’t my hangar) & couldn’t figure out where the fire was except that it was on my side of the airport. I got to the airport as quickly as possible, and it was a friend of mine’s hangar. Sucks.

Of course the immediate feeling was relief that it wasn’t mine, but then that whole survivor’s guilt thing kicked in. This guy lost everything. Almost. I was a mess; I started crying (thank goodness for enormous face-eating sunglasses) & pretty much cried all the way back to work.

The big thing about this fire to the media was that there was a large cache of large caliber ammo stored in the hangar & now the media wants to know why. None of their fucking business. Screw the media. Here’s the thing, the media has never gotten a single story correct. When I know intimate details of an event & the media reports on it, the story is always wrong. Always. And they are always so alarmist.

Of course, the media didn’t realize that there is a big event coming up in Oklahoma in a couple of weeks called the Okie Full Auto, where machine gun enthusiasts go and shoot their guns and stuff. I haven’t actually been there, but maybe I’ll go this year. Anyway, this fellow is a machine (& every other) gun enthusiast. He had machines in the hangar to load the .50 cal ammo into the machine gun belts.

The media is all acting like he was some survivalist militia type about to take over city hall or something. No, he just has an extremely expensive, loud hobby. Now, I don’t know firsthand if he was taking this ammo to the Okie Full Auto, but I do know that he goes there every year, so I think that we can safely assume that was the case.

The media also says that there wasn’t an airplane in the hangar, but I know that there was at least one, a Stearman. The wings were off, but it was still an airplane. Not anymore. Look at this picture; every hole you see cost $5. There was also a lot of machinery, a couple of motorcycles, a riding lawnmower, an engine hoist, etc. The saddest part about the whole thing is that this hangar was a large part of his life; there was always a crowd there hanging out. The airport lost a huge, vital part of its social scene.

When you watch the video, leave the volume up and you can hear the ammo going off. WARNING: loud commercial before actual footage!

Videos via News On 6
Read the post linked above & then read the comments. Hilarious.

Kreayshawn - Gucci Gucci...

2011-05-28T10:22:00.002-06:00

This is awesome. Via BleachBlack

Make a Plan...

2011-05-25T07:32:00.003-06:00

Since getting back from vacation, I have been working on a business plan. We thought of a business that we wanted to do, found a building in which to do said business, and are now formulating a business plan to get the necessary funding for the business. We didn’t know it until last week, but evidently this is how you start a business.

It is a lot of hard work, and you really have to take stock of yourself. How much money do you have squirreled in how many different banks? Do you have an IRA or 401K? Even unused credit card limits are considered an asset. What experience do you have? You have to include resumes for all of the principals.

Then, you have to outline your business, make lists of equipment needed and costs, and provide a projected cash flow analysis for the first year and then a long-term one. You have to list all licenses needed and all startup costs. You need to convince the bank that you can be successful enough to repay the loan.

Luckily I’m an accountant, so I at least know how to do a cash flow and stuff, but still it is difficult to get everything down on paper. Also, to get licenses you have to deal with government entities, and that is a whole lot like banging your head on a brick wall. We have been quizzing the city and county, but everything is a big secret.

They will give you what you need, but first you have to ask the correct questions. They will tell you the first step to take, but not outline all subsequent steps. None of the government entities work together on anything; in fact, it is almost as if they are competing against each other and your licenses are the playing field.

So, to gain business occupancy, you have to deal with INCOG, the State of Oklahoma, the Federal gov’t, the Fire Marshall, the Health Department, and about ten other entities, all of which can deny your right to open a business. Fortunately, the city/county/etc. likes businesses, and once you fight your way through all of their hoops, most businesses are allowed to open. We will see!

Anyway, making a business plan really helps because it takes all the mystery out of opening that business. If you are wondering where to even start, you start with the plan.

Back To Reality...

2011-05-19T08:17:00.003-06:00

The vacation was nice and low key. Refreshing. It is weird how when you are away from the same old same old every day internet surfing out of boredom thing for about a week, you kinda lose all interest in it when you get back to your routine. Of course, my work routine is all messed up because I have a lot of catching up to do from goofing off so intensely the week before.

When we arrived in Dallas, we discovered that our favorite little dive bar, The Winedale, had closed and a new little dive bar, Single Wide, had opened in its place. Fine with me! The Winedale opened at 7am & had some crusty old drunks as regulars, but now they all go to another bar that opens at 7am because Single Wide doesn’t open until 4pm. It was as entertaining as it ever was.

We ran around to a bunch of thrift stores & resale shops during the morning. My favorite was Lula B’s in Deep Ellum. Seriously great stuff with excellent prices. There was another shop that we happened across that was pretty amazing, too, but it isn’t on the internet & I’m not sure that we could even find it again. It was a small shop with a huge warehouse full of furniture. We may have to go back to Dallas with a van next time!

We made a run down to Austin, and really, I wasn’t very into it. Very crowded, tons of traffic, no parking ANYWHERE, yet there was no one in any of the establishments. Every place we went was deserted yet the few available parking spaces were all full. We went to a dive called Pete’s Place & it was pretty entertaining; they were all watching & commenting loudly to Judge Judy. Hilarious.

We stayed the night & ran down to San Antonio the next morning to see the Alamo. It was driving rain with hail all morning, so we weren’t sure if we would actually be able to see it, but it cleared up on the way. I had been looking for a small charcoal Dickies work shirt, and was unable to find one, so I found an outlet store on the way to the Alamo & found one there. Yay! Then I sewed patches on it.

We toured the Alamo (how the hell did 200 guys hold the fort?) & then headed on back to Dallas. We just hung out, visiting thrift stores in the morning & Single Wide in the afternoon until we came back to Tulsa Saturday morning. We still haven’t gotten out of vacation mode, but I’m sure that will happen soon enough.

EMA - California...

2011-05-17T07:49:00.003-06:00

Just checking out my music sites & this was everywhere. What do you think? Maybe a little too very very? Kinda mesmerizing...

EMA - California (Official Video) from Souterrain Transmissions on Vimeo.

Sunset Bridge...

2011-05-09T08:28:00.000-06:00

Sick, Sick I Tell Ya...

2011-04-29T09:01:00.005-06:00

We have been out sick all week; Bill bedbound with a nasty virus, which I got at the evil Leprechaun doctor’s office & then passed on to him (I think – he might have something different). I never got over whatever the hell god-awful disease I caught lo those many weeks ago. My throat is still sore & my lungs feel heavy. Or maybe it is allergies, but I’ve never had allergies before, so I dunno.

Anyway we have been out of commission this week & have been out of the bars (I hope they don’t go broke!) & way too sober. We won’t go steaming this afternoon as we have been doing every Friday. No need to infect a bunch of peeps. Bill wasn’t eating unless I was stuffing food into his gullet. Monday night I made him a baked potato with tons of butter & it helped, but Tuesday he ate one & it did not agree with him at all. I think that he didn’t eat anything at all Wednesday (I’ll kill off some weak cells, he says), so last night when he said he was hungry for broccoli cheddar soup, I made him a reasonable facsimile.

I cooked up some chicken breasts in bacon grease & finely chopped about a cup of them for the soup. In a pot I slowly cooked a large, peeled, thinly sliced carrot & a finely chopped yellow onion in about half a stick of Kerrygold butter. Don’t stir too much; let them caramelize a little. Add the chicken. Add about a cup or so of chicken broth, about a half cup of salsa, & slowly start stirring in small cubes of Velveeta, 8 ounces in all. I poured in about half a cup of heavy whipping cream & let the soup warm up again, but not boil. A nice dusting of freshly ground pepper & some sea salt & it was so incredibly great.

Then, after we were safely ensconced in our pajamas, he announces that vanilla ice cream sounded good, & there just happens to be a Braums close by, so we jumped in the car & got some. Tasty! This will probably be a sad little sober Friday at home, so all you folks out enjoying yourselves have fun without us.

Look how cute the monkey twins (Olsen Twins) were (um, I have no clue what happenned at the 2:00 mark...and this picture showing is frightening):

Also, my life just got a lot more Pop Punk. This site, Can You See The Sunset, has an impressive pop punk lineup & it is a continuing series. Awesome.

Another Anon Poll...

2011-04-27T10:03:00.001-06:00

I know which one Bill is going to choose...

Last Post about Food*…

2011-04-27T09:29:00.002-06:00

The last few posts have been about food, and I apologize. I am fascinated, but you are probably not, so this will be the last post about food for a while (until the next time!). It is right at a year since I started eating a full fat diet & I have made some decisions about food in my life (until I change those decisions again). In the last year this is what I have learned:

I am not afraid of saturated fat. This is the biggie. Of course, now the entire world is firmly entrenched on the anti-saturated-fat bandwagon, so I have to supplement the fat. I’m still mostly doing that with heavy cream in my coffee & Kerrygold butter on lunch, but I’m going to try to incorporate some more coconut oil in my diet. I’ve been eating a lot of uncured bacon grease, but it is higher in omega-6. Whatever. Not really going to sweat it. Eating a ton of fat is yummy; I’m going with that.

I am not afraid of red meat. Evidently both white meats (pork & fowl) are higher in omega-6 than beef. Beef is the healthiest meat you can eat (also maybe lamb? Any ruminant?). It is also the most ostracized meat because of all the lovely saturated fat it contains. Anyway, I’m going to eat the hell out of my steak & I am going to try getting more liver in my diet & maybe making a nice gelatin-rich bone broth some day. How the hell I’m going to get a bone for said broth is another question for another day.

I’m avoiding PUFAs, wheat, & sugar. Avoiding. That means that I’m trying not to eat them. Trying. I’m not avoiding other foods, but not seeking them out either like I used to, like other grains, legumes, & GMOs like corn, soy & etc. Back when I thought that fiber was healthy, I tried my hardest to incorporate those foods in my diet, but not anymore. I never really liked eating them, and I don’t miss them now. Again, I’m not going to stress out about it. If it is easy to avoid, I will, but if it is a pain in the ass or if I just want to eat it, then I’m going to eat it and enjoy it. Sometimes I do crave things like ice cream, & if I want it, I’m going to eat it. Luckily, I rarely want ice cream :)

My diet is not particularly low carb. I still eat fresh veggies, & peeled potatoes & carrots. We still buy onions by the bag & toss garlic in everything. White rice is fine to eat. When I think of it, I buy jalapenos & other peppers. Also, I like beer. I like booze, too, but when I go to bars, I drink beer. This keeps my carbs up (& is fun!). What I have found is that I don’t buy things in cans anymore. I didn’t do this intentionally, & in fact I just realized it in the last week or so. We had bought this huge metal cabinet to use as a pantry to hold our canned items, & it is now empty. Weird.

I’m not going to stress about the way I eat. I’m going to take the 80/20 rule** to heart. I read these blogs & these people (yes, THOSE people) in the comment sections get so obsessive over every little detail. Chill the fuck out, people! So what if a tiny amount of whatever gets in your system? In some of their defense, I do have to admit that they may have damaged their systems (born with weak systems?) so intensely that they have to now be obsessive or suffer, but I don’t. I might have damaged my system with whole grains and excessive fiber, but I think that any damage has mostly been repaired.

What the scales say is not important. It’ll drive you nuts, chasing the scale. Anyway, I’m only down around 5 pounds from my all-time-high weight after quitting smoking, but I am incredibly smaller. I had lost about fifteen pounds the old fashioned way (starvation) in 2007, but had gradually put most those pounds back on. Since going full fat, I really weigh pretty much the same as when I started (5 to 8 pound fluctuations over the months), but my fat disappeared. My spare tire disappeared. My jeans are falling off. My scales say the same thing they always did.

Gimmicks suck. The ‘stuffing ourselves full to kick-start the metabolism’ thing was a miserable failure. Bill came down with a horrible virus immediately afterwards & is still sick in bed & my system just isn’t the same. I think that overeating, while fun at the time, is too much of a stress on the system. I think that it could shock a person into weight loss, but so can a death of a person close to you. Neither is particularly healthy. Slow & steady is fine.

I think that it is the people who obsess over their diets that are the least healthy. I mean, isn’t that the definition of an eating disorder? I had a crazy uncle who ate nothing but oatmeal Little Debbie snack cakes & pickles. He died pretty young & saved his urine in the pickle jars. I kinda lump all food fanatics (vegetarians, vegans, fruitarians, raw-foodists, zero-carbers, etc) into that same crazy nutshell. Reading their blogs & comments, they all go from one extreme to another extreme (herbivore to carnivore skipping omnivore, etc.). Frankly, I’m just too lazy for that shit. Don’t get me wrong, I find all of this fascinating, & I’m willing to try new things, but if it is not easy or really tasty, I’m not gonna do it. Smacks of effort.

*until the next one…

**eat correctly 80% of the time & eat whatever the hell you want the other 20%

Shiba Inu Puppy Cam...

2011-04-25T09:40:00.000-06:00

New puppies on the Shiba Inu puppy cam!

Stream videos at Ustream

Do Not Cyclical-Carb Load...

2011-04-25T07:06:00.002-06:00

[Ugh, don’t do this. We decided yesterday, Easter, to go ahead & have a high-calorie, high carb, low fat day, which was easy to do since it was Easter & there were all manner of good eats everywhere. I pigged on veggies dipped in various dips & Fritos scoops dipped in the tapenade I made. There was plenty of low fat grilled chicken tenders & pork tenderloin, so the lean protein thing was easy. The only problem was the industrial seed oils in the dips & the Fritos. Whatever.

When I woke at 3am with acid reflux I noticed that my entire face, especially my eyelids, was extremely puffy. Still is. I tried on my rings this morning & my fingers were puffy, too. During the course of the night, I drank about half a gallon of water. I’ve already pooped large twice this morning & that is not the end of that by any stretch. I can feel each & every organ in my body, and they do not feel good. Maybe I’ll try a short fast or something some day, but I’m not going the other way on this; I’m not going to stuff myself purposely again. Blech.]

Fasting & Cyclical-Carb Diets...

2011-04-22T08:38:00.007-06:00

I was reading about this guy, Jimmy Moore, who went on a week-long fast (worry not; this is probably something that I will not do!). Yet, it is a fascinating read. I keep reading of all of the primal/paleo practicing Intermittent Fasting (IF), which is a fancy name for skipping meals. IF can mean as little as me leaving the cream out of my coffee in the morning to skipping everything but water (maybe lemon juice? probably not beer :( ) for an entire day.

In the comments of Jimmy’s blog, there are testimonials from people who have fasted for as long as 40 days. Yikes! Yet, there is a very compelling quote in the post from a Boston College brain cancer researcher named Dr. Thomas Seyfried about a cancer-preventing fast using only distilled water:

Damage to mitochondrial respiration is the origin of all cancers […] Fasting will induce cellular autophagy thus allowing the cells of the body to consume damaged or defective mitochondria. Metabolism of ketone bodies will reduce damaging oxygen radicals while enhancing the metabolic efficiency of the mitochondria. Fasting prevents cancer by enhancing the metabolic efficiency of mitochondria and by eliminating damaged mitochondria.

Which, if I am correct in reading this, means that if you don’t give your body any food to consume as energy, it will consume the weak & damaged cells (precancerous?) in your body. Keep in mind that I am only guessing about some of this stuff because, frankly, I would have to not only Google each & every word of every blog I read, but then I would have to remember those words, as well. I’m kinda hoping to absorb it all by osmosis or something magical like that.

For instance check out this blog, Hyperlipid, which I can’t make sense of at all. I know that he is saying funny things at times between all of his technical jargon, but he is from a different country & his slang isn’t on my radar. I still read his blog because I do understand parts of it & I’m really hoping that someday I will suddenly know what the hell he is talking about (like Bart Simpson in France).

I was reading another blog, Whole Health Source, in which Stephan leaves a little cliff-hanger of a statement:

[…] My goal is to develop a method [of weight loss*] that goes beyond symptomatic treatment and allows the body to naturally return to a lower fat mass. I've been doing a lot of reading and I have a simple new idea that I feel confident in. It also neatly explains the results of a variety of weight loss diets. I've dropped a few hints here and there, but I'll be formally unveiling it in the next couple of months. Stay tuned.

And in the comments this fellow, CelticPhoenix, guesses about Stephan’s new idea and his speculation is that it involves a “cyclical carb” diet. Here is the basic idea:

The solution that I’ve found is to keep carbs low to moderate (think low but not ketogenic) most of the time. And then, on hard workout days, double or triple the carb intake and lower the fat intake. So, non-workout days are low carb, moderate protein, moderate fat. Workout days are moderate to high carb, low fat, low to moderate protein. The fat should be kept low when carbs are high since, again, your body will fine-tune carb oxidation in response to intake, but extra fat consumed concomitantly will then be stored. […]

For those who don’t workout [hahaha, me!], just have one high carb day per week. You can think of it as a “cheat” day if you like, but the food should still be paleo (so think potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, etc.).[…]

But you don’t have to count things: low carb days should be dark meat, lots of fat and veggies, and high carb days should be light meat, light fat and starches. It’s that simple. This is a paleo cyclical-carb diet

Then there is this that I found at PaleoHacks:

Carb re-feeds are a useful and necessary component to a cyclic carb diet. I am sure you understand that while eating low carb < 30g day, your body will eventually deplete its glycogen stores creating a less than optimal situation for many athletes. The carb re-feed allows those individuals to fill their glycogen stores over the course of the refeed and then return back to their normal diet after the refeed closes.

It is also understood that the cyclic refeed will also be a high calorie experience which promotes a boost in metabolism after a long period of reduced calories.

And finally, from MuscleNet:

The carbohydrate loading may last anywhere between 12-36 hours although I feel it is best to minimize it to 12-18 hours. It consists of basically a full day of cheating (but there are rules). You need to consume carbohydrates in each meal ranging from 40-120, depending upon the person. The protein stays high but fats must be limited or the total calories will be too high and new fat will be stored. The idea is refill muscle glycogen so that workouts may be performed with some amount of intensity the following week. Fruits are to be avoided as fructose will only refill liver glycogen which will prevent ketosis from being reestablished until later in the week. After the carb load is complete, the depletion phase begins again until the next weekend. During the carb load period, any carbs may be eaten so long as the fat is kept moderately low and there is no fructose (fruit sugar) consumed.

Anyway, fascinating concepts. I can’t wait to see the Whole Health Source post on Stephan’s new weight loss idea, and the idea that skipping meals makes your body consume your damaged cells is intriguing. I also like the concept of low carb all week with one carb-loading day. It fits in with Stephan’s “fat-mass set-point”, which (again, if I have read his stuff correctly) is basically that whatever weight you have settled into, your body will defend that weight & you basically have to shock your body into changing the weight. You can shock it several ways: intermittent fasting, carb loading, etc. Once I went to Tunica & pigged out massively on fish (breaded, fried, baked, with sauces, etc.) at all of the buffets the entire time (except breakfast where there was none) & came home inexplicably five pounds lighter.

[* in brackets are my "peanut gallery" remarks]

Boring Stuff About Different Fats...

2011-04-20T09:27:00.003-06:00

Other than the high omega-6 content of polyunsaturated fatty acids (soybean oil, safflower oil, corn oil, etc.), a good reason to avoid them is the highly oxidative properties. There was an article that I saw last year that had the molecular makeup of different kinds of fats that really made sense to me, and I was trying to find that article to show you. While searching, I found this article about how Vitamin C detoxifies oxidized (rancid) fat. Which, yeah now that I think about it, an antioxidant would be the cure for an oxidant (duh).

When you go out to eat, it is impossible to avoid PUFAs. Just last night we ate at Mexicali & had their fajita special. Everything was perfectly on my diet (lower in sat-fat than usual) except that the meat & veggies were fried in oil. I generally take a fish oil supplement to offset the omega-6, but wasn’t sure what to do about the oxidation. Now, before eating fried stuff, I’ll take fish oil & vitamin C.

The graphs I am looking for on the molecular structures of fats showed the saturated fat structure with no loose ends (technical term!) for an oxygen molecule to attach, the monounsaturated fatty acids (olive oil, etc.) have one loose end, and polyunsaturated fatty acids have many, many places for an oxygen molecule to attach. Now, if a restaurant is frying (which oxidizes the oil) stuff in PUFAs & hasn’t changed out the oil, you are ingesting highly oxidized fat which easily cleaves into free radicals.

If I remember the Fat Head video correctly, the LDL cholesterol is used to transport fat to your cells, & if the fat is oxidized, it makes the LDL small instead of the preferred fluffy LDL. (maybe that was what was said? Can’t sit through an hour and forty-five minutes right now)

Of course, the thing to do is to cook every meal at home with optimum ingredients, but that is not really going to happen. We eat a lot of meals at home, but we also eat out a lot. Sometimes it is easy to eat healthy out, but sometimes some wheat (usually in breading for me since I toss hamburger buns & pizza crust) and PUFAs (anything fried) get past. I don’t know about sugar, probably some, but not as big a problem, I think.

Questions, I Have 'Em...

2011-04-20T07:31:00.002-06:00

I have an incredible thirst for information & this was always one of my most burning questions (actually, I just found this poll website that has polls that are nice and anonymous & this is the first question that popped to mind, but still, I'm curious!):

Otter Goes On Rampage...

2011-04-19T10:15:00.001-06:00

The Sun via The Awl

Shooting 04-10-11...

2011-04-18T08:23:00.002-06:00

Finally edited (somewhat – not gonna spend a lot of time & the camera angle & video quality are sometimes somewhat lacking) our shooting video from last weekend. It was really fun & the weather was perfect. Really a good time. Then we went to Cage the Elephant & that was fun, but after that we went to Caz’s & drank until the wee hours. I barely survived the next morning. The next concert I go to I will take a half day vacation to have time in the morning to recover.

This weekend we just did the same old thing we always do, we ran around to a bunch of thrift stores & resale shops & then wet our collective whistle. I bought this insane 1940s wool gabardine jacket from Cheap Thrills; it has an extremely nipped in waist, huge hips, & huge boob areas. Very curvy & it almost makes me look like I might have a curve or two! I also bought the Tommy Lee autobiography, Tommy Land & it is pretty fascinating. Damn, seriously, dude.

Also, mini rant on heavy cream: I tried to open one of those little milk cartons of heavy cream (from Braum’s) & let’s just say that I have never been able to open the damn things; even as a kid I was always the one with the floppy, soggy drink spout while everyone else had nice pointy cartons. Bastards. Anyway, I was struggling with it (& basically had to cut the damn thing out) & noticed that Braums’ heavy cream ingredients are: cream, skim milk, & less than 2% of some other stuff.

Wait, skim milk in my cream? Why? It also only had about 75% of the fat of my usual brand (Organic Valley) & Organic Valley’s ingredients contain only cream & carrageenan & they have a nice spout, so I don’t have to cut my way into the cardboard carton.

There are just certain things that I am going to have to buy at Whole Foods and cream, Kerrygold butter, & tinned fish are some of them. The rest of the stuff can be purchased at the usual places that we shop. The aversion to Whole Foods? The other customers; they always look like they are dying of some extremely contagious exotic disease. Everyone has terrible skin rashes. It is frightening.

I tried to find a place for local dairy, but have been unsuccessful. I found one natural farm with a store in town, but everything is labeled lean & I’m not really into that. I’m sure that if I contacted them they could provide more fat & maybe a marrow bone or something crazy like that. Plus little boutique shops always intimidate the hell outta me (but that is my problem).

I am going to have to update my Daily Addictions (right side, scroll down) because I realized this weekend that I never go to most of those places & a lot of them don't even exist anymore. So, later today check them out!

HHHHhhhot...

2011-04-16T10:03:00.000-06:00

DI$COUNT Boots!

Another Simian Stencil from the Merc...

2011-04-14T09:15:00.000-06:00

Sunset X 3 & Sunrise...

2011-04-14T09:10:00.001-06:00

Nylon Magazine...

2011-04-12T12:34:00.003-06:00

Check it out, I made Nylon Magazine with my picture of the stencil behind the Mercury Lounge!

Also, coming soon, shooting video from Sunday's epic shooting extravaganza!

Sunset Graffiti...

2011-04-08T07:27:00.000-06:00

(stencil behind Mercury Lounge)

Chem Trails...

2011-04-07T07:18:00.001-06:00

Yes, I am a Fucking Idiot...

2011-04-06T13:08:00.002-06:00

Okay, this is funny/sad, but I have this stat-counter thingy* on my site & haven’t looked at it in about a year or two (forgot). I was checking it out the other day & saw that all week 0 people saw my site. I checked for the month & still 0. Well, hell! Nobody is watching me make an ass of myself? Really?

So there I was, kinda pissed, but I mean, I’m boring the shit outta myself, you can imagine how fucking bored someone who doesn’t even know me is by my lack of shenanigans. Also I was a little let down & this whole Mercury in Retrograde business isn’t helping even one little bit. Deflated. Not that I’m an exceptionally inflated person, but it knocked the wind outta my sails, you know?

I looked at it again today & still 0. Seriously considered hitting the DELETE BLOG button because what is the use? Then I looked back & saw that January had almost 700 views & February had almost that much. One day, at the end of Feb, the counter went to 0 & stayed that way. Duh, when I changed the column width & background color it somehow lost my stat-counter code.

I try to never take anything personally (VERY HARD TO DO!!!!) because I know that sometimes when someone is mean or blows you off they probably have a bunch of shit going on in their lives & probably didn’t mean to do whatever. But of course I took it personally, which of course software doesn’t ever really get vindictive (although it seems like it does sometimes). So now I feel like an ass even though it was only me involved in my little hurt feelings fest.

So, now I am going to try to be even more careful to not let software (or people) hurt my feelings. It sounds stupid, but I know that people can be awful or dismissive, but it is me that decides how I’m going to feel about things. This really hit home today.

Also, if you notice new posts further on down, it is because I am consolidating all of my online stuff into this blog because the rest of my stuff pretty much fizzled out (or just plain sucked ballz).

*just found out today that there is a correct way to spell thingy – I always spelled it “thingie”, but then you already knew that because I use that word A LOT!

Thills a Minute...

2011-04-04T07:54:00.004-06:00

This weekend was fun; we tried to go to the gun show Saturday, but got there too late and couldn’t park. We went back home to regroup and then went on a whirlwind tour of Tulsa pawn shops. It was very entertaining. My favorite is Second Hand Rose on 3rd street; it is full of really amusing old bored dudes. It is nice and junky, so there is a hint of hidden treasure, and it has nothing that I want to buy (thank goodness).

There were two thrift stores that I wanted to go to (Bargains A Lot and Animal Aid - both by Harvard on 11th and 15th), but both of them closed at 2pm and weren’t open Sunday. Well hell, no wonder I can’t ever get in. I may venture out some Saturday, early. I’ve used up most of the other thrift stores; they just don’t change inventory very often, except for Goodwill, which is different every few days. I think that they ship items from other stores around the nation.

We did get to go to the gun show on Sunday because we got there before church let out. When we walked in, there was a group of friends at the front door, so we hung with them for awhile before taking off on our own. Didn’t find anything to purchase, which is fine, we were really only there for the spectacle and out of sheer boredom. Also, I looked HOT! Bill said that guys were walking into poles and everything. I wore my teeny shorts, my tiny red Dickies jacket with aviation patches, and my 3” platform flip-flops. I was a monster!

My “drink lots of beer but hardly eat anything” diet is still working out for me. I have stalled on the weight loss but have kept the eight pounds off. I am so good with that. My weight now is just fine, almost perfect. There is a tiny bit of a belly protruding, but nothing bothersome. I have also been relying heavily on the 80/20 concept of eat healthy 80% of the time and then eat whatever the other 20%. Whatever consists of a ton of Mexican food!

Bill went to the Reasor’s meat sale and bought this enormous brisket, so I slammed about half of it in a Dutch oven with a Guinness last night. Bill took it out of the oven way after my bedtime, and I inspected it this morning. The considerable amount of fat rendered out, and there is a ton of it. This will supplement my diet well! When we remove the solid fat (haven’t been able to force that down yet – only the liquid fats) I will put it in my stock baggie (contains onion ends, carrot ends, celery ends, etc) in the freezer to boil down more at a later date.

Now, the only thing going on except the Cage the Elephant show, is we are planning a nice little trip down through Dallas and Austin to San Antonio. There is an historic hotel right across from the Alamo, so we plan on staying there. There is an historic hotel in Austin that is close to downtown, and I think we will stay there one night, but Austin is really expensive. The first and last night of the trip will be in Dallas. I have mapped out all of the thrift stores and pawn shops around the hotels where we will stay. It was the least that I could do!

Baby Eagle Cam...

2011-04-02T08:14:00.002-06:00

Warning: if you have it on mute a commercial will come on with volume!

Live Videos by Ustream
Live baby eagle webcam! Via Decorah Eagles.

Last Night/This Morning...

2011-04-01T09:01:00.000-06:00

Eat Your Fat...

2011-03-30T07:48:00.004-06:00

This is uncured bacon grease (a main staple of my diet) from two different batches of bacon (put aluminum foil on a cookie sheet, lay the bacon out on the sheet, bake at 400F for 20 to 30 minutes, remove bacon, form foil into a funnel, and pour into a container to save). Look how different they are – weird, huh? Like one is more saturated or something. Nature is funny like that.

I tried cutting heavy cream in my coffee out of my diet, and started frying and eating an egg before work, and that is pretty yummy. It goes a little like this: heat the pan up, put a tablespoon of bacon grease in pan, crack the egg and start cooking, get a bowl, put a pat of butter and some black pepper in it, scoop the cooked egg in, pour the extra grease on top, and eat with a spoon. Then I reintroduced the heavy cream this morning. I had really missed it.

If all the fat sounds gross, it is amazing how quickly you develop a taste for it. Not a few months ago, Bill was complaining because I wasn’t putting paper towels between the layers of bacon to soak up the grease, and last night he was practically drooling over the idea of not even putting a paper towel between the bacon and the plate. Once your body changes over from burning carbs to burning fat you can’t hardly get enough fat. I’ve even read about people eating butter right off the stick, but I haven’t gotten there yet!

We have also started steaming again. Yay! When I was wrongly diagnosed with rosacea (it was keratosis pilaris instead) I quit steaming because the only treatment for rosacea other than harsh ointments and perpetual antibiotics was stay to away from all heat, eat only cold, bland mush, and don’t over-moisturize or exfoliate.

The treatment for Keratosis is lots of moist heat, tons of heavy moisturizers, vitamin A, hydrocortisone cream, and plenty of exfoliating. Right, the complete opposite of rosacea. My face is so much better! And now I can go steaming again! We weren’t really prepared last week, but this week I have a Buf-Puf to scrub off all the nasty dead skin that sweating loosens.

If you do steam, watch out because it will release all the toxins in your body into your bloodstream. Last week, I was pretty wiped out, but I think that this week will be better. Also, your heart rate will get pretty high, so every once in awhile you will need to cool down and let you heart rate slow down. Steaming is an aerobic activity, but all that you do is sit there and sweat. Perfect for me!

Weekend DIY...

2011-03-29T07:54:00.000-06:00

I bought this crazy belt at a recent gun show (you find the most amazing things there!) & it is taller than me, so maybe 6’ long? Well, thankfully I don’t need the extra 2’ & there was only 1 hole at about the 4’ mark (yikes), so I decided to do a little DIY on it.

I'm using the cool buckle as a pattern to cut the end off
Look at this crazy X-acto set!
about to make the cut
look how thick this sucka is
using the hole punch
all the holes so far
need more holes so I can cinch it up as per Zana Bayne's new belt:
I didn't even see her new belt until this morning & now I want! [note: the new belt wasn't on her site yet, but I assume this is where it'll be when updated. Also, I still want a harness of hers. Totally & completely obsessed]

Screaming Females: Wild...

2011-03-28T07:53:00.000-06:00

Via geometricsleep

New Shoes...

2011-03-28T07:51:00.001-06:00

(my awesome new shoes, Nine West - Jaxson, that I won't be able to wear for a week since it's like 30F outside)

Want, Want, Want...

2011-03-27T07:51:00.001-06:00

Mary Katrantzou boots via SHOELUST

Illness, Insult, and Injury...

2011-03-25T07:49:00.000-06:00

After busting my ass last week at the Scissor Sister’s concert, I’ve been kinda laying low on the fashion front. Yes, even lower than usual. Yes, I realize that my usual is pretty anemic compared to Big City Girl’s usual, but people will look at me funny :( Anyway, since I was unable to bend to tie my shoes, I’ve been wearing my giant platform flipflops & they have been fab.

Needless to say, walking the next morning was difficult & stepping into the shower was out of the question, so when I went to the doctor, I was a smidgen bar-smoky, but I at least flossed & brushed my teeth, so hopefully the stale beer smell was less. Still, he didn’t have to treat me like something he stepped in (in which he stepped? Don’t want to sound like a snob :) or give me a little lecture about walking in off the street & begging for drugs.

I guess that I never really go to doctors because when I called to schedule an appt, I was told that my doctor had quit practicing a few years ago. They scheduled me with another doctor. Never ever ever go to a doctor that is available for last minute appts. They have no patients & there is a very good reason for that: it is because they are HATEFUL LITTLE LEPRECHAUNS!!! Oh, did I mention that it was St Patty’s? Did I mention that his hair was like a pot of (evangelic ginger bouffant!) gold at the end of a short, stubby, beige rainbow? IT WAS!!

So, he scowled at me, sneered at me, gave me a nice little lecture on not being a horrible junkie & somehow, without even looking at my injury or ex-raying my injury (& I told him I called the ins co & they said it was covered!) he informed me that I was just fine & sent me on my way. Oh right, he asked me if I had taken anything for it & I said “an Aleve” & he said “take 2” & then wrote it down for me so that I wouldn’t forget his wisdom & insight. Exhibit A:

To add illness to insult & injury, I woke up the next morning with a very nasty virus. So here I am, broken & feverish, bed-bound & in screaming pain (okay, not really, I had some really old pain pills from the last time I got them, about 5 or 6 years ago – but I wanted fresh ones, damn it!) for the entire weekend. It’s a lot better now, but stairs are still pretty painful. I should be fine just in time to do it all over again at the next concert! Already planning my outfit!

Also, if you were wondering, MY OUTFIT SURVIVED THE FALL JUST FINE!

I checked.

Trudging Through Life...

2011-03-23T07:52:00.003-06:00

So, my life. How do I even begin? It’s like this: plod plod plod. Maybe there’s a thunk in there too. Work is annual reports, financial statements, lots of music, fixed assets, workers’ comp audit, internet, bubbletown, business personal property tax rendition, huge amounts of paper shuffling around, tedium.

After work is what’s for dinner (split the fajita special at Mexicali last night), looking at a house tonight, Mercury (like high school – everyone is very serious, cliquish and on display) or Caz’s (like skipping out of high school – no one is ever serious there, almost to a fault), teevee, reading, early to bed.

I mean, dull is good, right? Better boredom than trudging through a shit storm or something, but holy hell it gets monotonous sometimes. All in all everything is pleasantly mundane. God, I need a hobby. Anyway, I’m looking at a house tonight, but even that holds no surprises; I can see the future and it goes a little like this: not a bad house, smaller and more expensive than we would like, but still, not bad. Oh, there is no electricity/plumbing/something major. Damn, I’ll have to think about it. Hey could we look at that again? Oh, it’s under contract? Damn. At least that’s what happened last time.

Even though my diet got side railed last week by my drunken Scissor Sister exploits and injuries and the subsequent nasty virus I contracted at the doctor’s office, I have jumped back on the bandwagon and my jeans are bagging off of me today. The diet is ½ saturated animal fat, ¼ protein, and ¼ beer. I am currently using heavy cream in my coffee for breakfast, but I might get up ten minutes earlier and start frying up a couple of eggs in the morning. Morning is the only time I ever experience real hunger (probably from the beer). I am also going to eat more salads (and use bacon fat as the dressing!!!) because they sound good again.

Then there is one burning question. Bill and I both need new phones, but we use T-Mobile, and in a year they will be AT&T. T-Mobile is ultra inexpensive, and I want to take advantage of the year we have left, but for the phone deals you sign a two-year contract. Then we will have a year of AT&T, which is very expensive and extremely restrictive. There is a chance that we will be grandfathered in for the second year, but there is also a chance that our new phones will not be allowed under AT&T. Hell, I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s my life. Not bad (actually I'm damn lucky to be able to plod through; I do realize that :), but not really moving forward either. At least it is spring and nice and sunshiny. If we are ever home in the evening, I am going to try to remember to go on walkies, and this Friday we are going to go steaming. Haven’t done that in years.

Scissor Sisters...

2011-03-17T07:47:00.000-06:00

(Scissor Sisters ROCKED!!!!)
(her dress was super sparkly)
(there was even a dancing bunny!)

The Secret of My Success...

2011-03-15T08:02:00.005-06:00

I love my new diet. Seriously love it. See, the crazy thing is that even though I started eating high saturated fat amounts a year ago, I hadn’t lost any weight like so many others have. I was kind of disappointed, but not really because my body was rearranging itself. I lost weird little fat deposits, and my fat looked so much smoother and less dimpled; not that there was a whole lot of fat, just a nice round 20 pound tire around my belly.

Then, for the month of February I tried not drinking, thinking that might shock my body into weight loss, but that didn’t do anything except bore the crap outta me. Around the beginning of March I decided to drink heavily and limit food calories, and it is really working out well for me! I have lost eight pounds and Bill has lost five! So, to be really servicey, I’ll share the secrets of my success.

Breakfast: 2 cups coffee with 3 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream each. 300 calories, 36 grams fat, 0 carb, 0 protein.

Lunch: 1/3 lb of meat, some sort of veggie, big chunk (tbsp?) of butter or uncured bacon grease. 600 calories, 47 grams fat, 7 carb, 34 protein.

Dinner: Same as lunch, but usually slightly more carbs. 600 calories, 47 grams fat, 20 carb, 34 protein.

Then, go straight to a bar and drink 5 Miller Lites. 480 calories, 0 fat, 16 carb, 4.5 protein.

Come home and sip a shot of Wild Turkey. 69 calories, 0 fat, 0 carb, 0 protein.

Total: 2049 calories, 130 grams fat, 43 grams carb, 72.5 gram protein.

It looks like a lot of calories, but I don’t think that the beer calories respond in your system like the food calories do. Also, with all the fat, I don’t get hungry or have hangovers. We also don’t go to the bar every night; don’t get me wrong, we are there plenty, but not every night. Then if we stay home, we don’t have beer there, so my day’s nutrition looks like this: 1570 calories, 130 grams fat, 27 grams carb, 68 grams protein. [Note: those fat grams seem high - I might need to refigure them. It might be about 20 grams each for lunch & dinner]

No wheat or grains (except in my beer), legumes, vegetable oils, or sugar and NO SNACKS! (well, maybe a slice of uncured bacon). I’m going to keep up with this for a while and see how it works out. Oh yeah, how much fiber does the above have in it? Like 0 grams? I poo just fine, what little there is of it.

Weekend Treasure...

2011-03-14T07:46:00.000-06:00

I found this Lori Zoni treasure at one of my favorite Goodwills. This picture is a pretty good representation of the color (screamingly bright!) but doesn't show the hauntingly purple/blue sheen in the shadows of the velvet. I'm totally wearing this mutha to Scissor Sisters - I'll wear the fun-fur vest to Cage the Elephant...

Bassnectar...

2011-03-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

I was looking to see what shows were going to be where soon & saw a SOLD OUT! show. I had never heard of Bassnectar, but I found this video. Trippy!

Fashion in the Sticks...

2011-03-11T07:43:00.000-06:00

We don’t wear giant cherries on our heads here ‘round these parts. If a person were to wear something exotic here, it will be talked about for weeks, maybe months. (& people will make fun of you. A lot.)

There is a lot more leeway here in the Great Plains because there are no strict fashion rules. In NYC you can wear tiny strappy stilettos with your toes hanging out all day long, but if you wear flip flops everyone grosses out because your bare toes are so close to the filthy sidewalks. Your toes can get close to the muck as long as you spend $700 to do so.

Me, I haven’t seen a gross sidewalk since the last time I was in Vegas. I can wear flip flops for months without getting anywhere near filth. Still, my flip flops are 3” platforms & are fabulous. Also I can shop at Sears because nobody ever told me that I couldn’t & because everyone I know does. We are good with the cheap, disposable clothes here; I probably own $400 worth of Target wifebeaters.

Here, in the freezing cold snowy & icy winter, Uggs are not only very practical, but damn cute. Here, we were never told that Uggs are over & should be outlawed. Here, Uggs flourish in obscurity. Crocs, on the other hand, died out long ago (thank goodness). I guess that people are a bit more fickle about warm weather gear, & bright plastic footwear has a short shelf life. Even in the sticks.

In the murky midlands of Middle America people tend a bit more towards subtle. You wear a huge ring or some crazy heels but people tend to only do one of these at a time for normal daily wear. If you are going to an EVENT then you can go crazy. The Scissor Sisters are coming to town, & I’m going to wear my JC Wreckers, maybe my fun-fur vest, & I’m contemplating false eyelashes. That is BOLD.

If you live somewhere fashionable, you can wear an “Elaine” dress & call it vintage & it’s the latest thing. If you live in the Great North American Outback & wear an “Elaine” dress, everyone thinks you are one of those sad holdovers from the 90s. Because PEOPLE STILL WEAR “ELAINE” DRESSES HERE FOR REALZ!!! On the other hand, no one looks in askance if you do actually wear an “Elaine” dress to work. No one bats an eye. There’s a certain freedom in that.

Also, with all of the crazy snake-handling sects in the heartland and their fondness for ~~woman hating~~ modesty clothing, don't let your 11 year-olds wear "Elaine" dresses or you might accidentally enter them into an arranged marriage pact.

This is evidently the only picture of an "Elaine" dress on the whole interwebs. I know because I SEARCHED & SEARCHED!

One of my greatest fears in life is to be viewed as one of those sad throwbacks to yester year, like those ladies in their kitten sweatshirts from the 80s. Like the poor skinny old woman wearing the same clothes she wore in her heyday, the 70s, & bemoaning the fact that you just can’t get those polyester Wranglers anymore. Like the woman with the exploding bangs. It is just all too sad… I can’t go on…

Fat Head...

2011-03-10T14:06:00.002-06:00

This video, Fat Head by Tom Naughton, explains much better than I could about the science behind my high saturated fat diet. If you could please humor me and give an hour and 45 minutes to watch this, I would really appreciate it.

Sunrise Yesterday...

2011-03-08T08:35:00.000-06:00

Moving Stuff Around...

2011-03-07T15:04:00.000-06:00

I moved all of my posts from Fifi’s Fromage and Fifi’s Full Fat Experiment to this blog because I wasn’t posting on them and it didn’t make sense to be so fragmented. I will probably delete them soon, and I have already deleted Unknown Dork. Just trying to simplify my life a little.

I am still eating a full saturated animal fat diet, but what is there really to write about it anyway? There are only so many types of meat and animal fats. I am still eating dairy, so I’m not doing the Paleo or Primal diet, but I may cut the dairy quite a bit soon.

I tried an experiment for the month of February and tried to stay out of bars Sunday through Thursday (and was mostly successful!) and stay sober the nights I stayed in. I was trying to lose a few pounds, but I didn’t lose anything at all. I have determined that liquid calories don’t act the same way as solid ones, so now I’m cutting down on all food and it is working.

I’ve found that I’m really rarely hungry even when my calorie intake is extremely low. I’m assuming that is due to all of the fat I’m ingesting. Anyway, that is what I’m working on. Also, I’m planning on going to a few concerts soon, Scissor Sisters, Cage the Elephant, The National, and Sleigh Bells are all coming to town soon, and I wanna go! Then I’m planning a trip down south before the weather gets too hot.

Wish List...

2011-03-07T07:42:00.000-06:00

These are the things that I am currently lusting after, but restraining myself really well! Also, may I add that making one of these is really labor intensive! I have incredible respect for people who do this all the time; I had no idea.

From top left: Fur Beanie from Nasty Gal
Leopard Creepers from Spooky Boutique
Dolce Vita Suede Espadrilles from ShopBop
.223 Bullet Belt from Studs & Spikes
Claw Ring from Pixie Market
Jeffrey Campbell FlatForms from Pixie Market

Sunset Yesterday...

2011-03-04T10:42:00.000-06:00

Neon Indian: Mind, Drips...

2011-03-04T07:40:00.000-06:00

Sleigh Bells is (are?) coming through town (TOTALLY GOING!!!!) & opening for Neon Indian. I've heard of Neon Indian, but I'm not familiar. This is a really cool video, but I'm not sure about listening to the music for hours on end well after my bedtime. I haven't heard them live yet, so I'm hoping that, much like Arcade Fire, their live show will captivate.

My Life Just Got Easier...

2011-03-02T09:31:00.001-06:00

The IDL by my house is finally open again, so I don’t have to drive all the way through downtown to get to the highway. Driving through downtown is rough because everyone else is fighting to get into downtown, and I’m the only damn fool struggling to leave. It was nice getting back to my old routine.

I still remembered the idiosyncrasies: enter the highway and get to the far left lane as quickly as possible, speed past everyone in the two right lanes, change to the right lane when past the Hwy 51 exit, put the car in fourth gear as I merge onto the IDL, go to the far right lane to avoid the Hwy 75 exit people, take a picture when I get to sunrise hill, zoom off to work. Awesome.

Brave Little Buckaroo...

2011-03-02T07:39:00.000-06:00

(maybe I'll get better at photography some day)
Today I was a brave little buckaroo & decided to wear my Jeffrey Campbell Wreckers. Brave in that I'm not exactly in the biggest, most fashionable town in the first place & I work in the office of a machine shop, so not exactly fashion-central there either. & quite frankly, they will make fun of me here. True story.

It was all fine & dandy whilst (sorry, I'm reading the Lord of The Rings for the millionth time & it always makes me want to fancy up my language) I walked around my house & posed for self-inflicted pictures, but the minute I stepped out of my back door I twisted my ankles 3 times, rapidly. Then I tried to get into my teeny little 5-speed & there just wasn’t any way that those boots were going to fit into that small space with all of my legs. Much less ever being able to work the clutch. No. Way.

I put on my good, old, dependable, ancient Westies & decided to try the Wreckers later when my ankles have recovered. It’s like ice skating, you have to strengthen your ankles to properly wear really tall shoes. Then I realized after I got to work that I wouldn’t even be able to fit my legs under my desk wearing the Wreckers.

Never mind trying to cross my legs…

I mean, I could angle my legs & feet just so & maybe I could do some work…

Or I could stretch them out in front…

Maybe they will have to be party shoes. When I wore them that Friday* I was drinking like a crazy person for 6 hours, running from bar to restaurant to bar, in the Wreckers & never got close to twisting an ankle. I think that alcohol might be necessary for the proper wearing of the Wrecker. The Scissor Sisters ARE coming to town soon…

*Before the 2 week long snow storm & before the last week of rain. What the hell is it about buying awesome shoes & the weather not letting you wear them for forever? It always happens! & what about it being all nice & sunny long enough for me to scrub all the dead crap from my winter feet & put some nice polish on my piggies, only to have the weather turn to hell again? Stupid weather.

Sunset Yesterday...

2011-02-23T15:21:00.000-06:00

Bill took this with my camera.

The Saga of the Boots...

2011-02-23T07:38:00.000-06:00

I’ve been trying for a couple of years to be able to wear these boots. I could probably take them in to a shoe shop somewhere & have them reworked to fit me, but that would probably ruin any value to them. It would also ruin the line of them. I would need the sides slimmed down & the instep stretched up. What happens is that they are too wide (if you look inside, you can see 9D handwritten on each panel of the boot – handmade!) so my foot slides up towards the toe of the boot & my high instep is then slammed against the low instep of the boot & I am handily hobbled.

I tried the Dr Scholls For Her Hidden Arch Supports, but they were too aggressive. I tried these heel guards to keep my heel from slipping forward, but they didn’t feel right the way they were. Finally, I used the heel guard as an arch support & voila! Now I can wear the boots & I’ve been wearing them all day.

These are cool boots. I’m not sure how old they are, but I would be willing to bet that they were either made in the 1950s or they were made by a pattern designed in the 50s. They were made by hand by Bill Price Western & are fully lined in leather. Bill Price Western opened in the early 1950s, so that seems true. Who knows, if you have a 50s pattern & make the same boot in the 1980s it would be indistinguishable from the ones made 30 years earlier.

Treasures...

2011-02-22T07:37:00.000-06:00

I went to the gun show last weekend & found a treasure: a raccoon tail (sorry little 'coon!). Then I went to one of our local Goodwills & found an awesome fun fur suit from Harold's (a now-defunct luxury clothing store). The vest is great, but the skirt is size 4 (?!!!?) & kinda worn to hell. Don't know what I'll do with it.

File This Under Hypochondria...

2011-02-17T14:41:00.003-06:00

I’m doing this crazy thing, I’m monitoring my blood glucose levels. I was reading The Healthy Skeptic a while back, and he was writing about how everyone should try monitoring their blood sugar levels every once in a while, so I went and blew a couple of sawbucks on a meter. I played with it a little, but by and large forgot about it until I read this in Heart Scan Blog reminding me to monitor my glucose. One of those blogs referred to Blood Sugar 101 in the comments and there was a ton more info. Click on What Is Normal Blood Sugar and scroll down a third of the way and you will come to this:

Professor J.S. Christiansen, presented at the Annual Meeting of the EASD[...]: in normal people the fasting blood glucose stays flat in the low 80 mg/dl (4.4 mmol/L) range throughout the night. After a high carb meal, normal people's blood sugar rises to about 125 mg/dl for a brief period, with the peak blood sugar being measured at 45 minutes after eating and then drops back under 100 mg/dl.

This study also found that the same amount of carbohydrate eaten at a meal other than breakfast does not raise blood sugar anywhere near as high as it does at breakfast.

I have been testing when I got to work in the morning and then every hour past then (you should see my poor baby fingertips/pincushions!) and the last test was right before I left work at 4:45. I was initially alarmed at my fasting blood sugar (115, 103, 114 yikes!) until I read that I was supposed to measure it first thing in the morning and I’ve been doing it about two hours after I got up. The Healthy Skeptic says:

1. Test your blood sugar first thing in the morning after fasting for at least 12 hours. Drink a little bit of water just after rising, but don’t eat anything or exercise before the test. This is your fasting blood sugar level.
2. Test your blood sugar again just before lunch.
3. Eat your typical lunch. Do not eat anything for the next three hours.Test your blood sugar one hour after lunch.
4. Test your blood sugar two hours after lunch.
5. Test your blood sugar three hours after lunch.

So, now I’m going to take it home & test first thing in the morning.
Blood Sugar 101 says:

Normal Fasting Blood Sugar
A normal fasting blood sugar (which is also the blood sugar a normal person will see right before a meal) is:

83 mg/dl (4.6 mmol/L) or less.

Many normal people have fasting blood sugars in the mid and high 70 mg/dl (3.9 mmol/L) range.

Though most doctors will tell you any fasting blood sugar under 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L) is "normal", there are several studies that suggest that testing with a fasting blood sugar in the mid 90 mg/dl (5 mmol/L) range often predicts diabetes that is diagnosed a decade later.
Post-Meal Blood Sugar (Postprandial)
Independent of what they eat, the blood sugar of a truly normal person is:

Under 120 mg/dl (6.6 mmol/L) one or two hours after a meal.

Most normal people are under 100 mg/dl (5.5 mmol/L) two hours after eating

The Healthy Skeptic says:

healthy targets for blood sugar according to the scientific literature are as follows:
Marker Ideal*
Fasting blood glucose (mg/dL) <86
OGGT / post-meal (mg/dL after 1 hour) <140
OGGT / post-meal (mg/dL after 2 hours) <120
OGGT / post-meal (mg/dL after 3 hours) Back to baseline
Hemoglobin A1c (%) <5.3

Anyway, I’m going to try and do what The Healthy Skeptic says to do and see what my meals are doing to me. If I’m anywhere within the parameters set by any of the three sources above that’s fine. I’m really only doing this to see how I react to things like white rice & peeled potato. Also, I wonder what dairy does to my blood sugar because I eat a ton of it. And then there's the beer...

Drunken Baby Video...

2011-02-16T11:23:00.002-06:00

I found this on The Awl and it is hilarious! It is a trailer for the short movie Las Palmas.

Not The House For Me...

2011-02-16T09:19:00.005-06:00

(looks good from the front)
We went to look at a house yesterday, but it wasn’t right for us. I made a video walking through the house, but then my camera battery died and I only got a couple of useless pictures, so these are from Zillow. It was kind of a neat old house in that it had a nice big living room with what might be referred to as a sort of Grand Staircase except that it is a little less grand and more garish at the moment. The gas fireplace in the living room is big and decorative, but missing a lot of mortar. It has really nice (distressed, but originally nice) large, decorative windows in the front with a similar glass-paned door and side windows.

(de colores!)
(in our hood this color of blue is usually used on the outside trim to make the house inaccessible to evil spirits, but using it on the inside would probably trap the evil spirits inside (voodoo!))
There are two tiny bedrooms downstairs that are around 9’x9’ or 10’x10’, and a huge kitchen that was the victim of an unsuccessful major wall removal project.

(lovely palette!)
(where the hell do you get this color of green?)
(oopsies!!! the ceiling above this is literally the floorboards of the second floor)
Someone, in all their infinite wisdom decided to rip out a few load-bearing walls, so there are some 4x4s holding up the ceiling, and the wiring was half completed a while ago with the old type of wire, not the new stuff that would now be code. There are also a couple of questionably built decks added on with unsupported support beams. All in all, nothing we couldn’t fix, but the deal-breaker was the second floor.

You go up the stair, open a door, and you are on sort of a wide platform or landing. There is about nine feet from this to a 1-1/2 foot drop off to a sunken floor. After stepping down, you are in front of the windows that start at your shins and end just at the chest. The ceiling of this part is low overhead. When you walk to the east of the stairs, you go into a wide, unfinished hallway that leads to another hallway that ends up at an unfinished closet.

The crazy thing is that when the house was built, the builders put in this nice showcase of a stairway that lead to what is basically the attic, not a second floor. The second floor rooms, and I’m using the term “rooms” very lightly here, are completely unusable for anything except storage. So that would leave us with pretty much the same size house that we have now, and it’s too small. Bummer.

I really liked the garage, though. It is cinderblock and a couple hundred square feet. I (meaning Bill) would turn it into a man-cave, make it really secure, and stow Bill’s tools, etc there. Would, but of course won"t because we won't be buying this particular house.

(kind of a crazy little neighborhood)

Keratosis pilaris rubra faceii...

2011-02-10T14:11:00.009-06:00

(not my face, but areas affected are the same)
Holy fucking crap! For years, I have been battling Rosacea when I think that I just found out that I have keratosis pilaris rubra faceii. As a kid I had keratosis pilaris (chicken skin) on the back of my arms, and I still have a little on my upper thighs when I don't moisturize, but I had no idea that it was the redness on my face as well. Treating rosacea means no exfoliation, but when treating keratosis exfoliation is recommended, etc. That's all I've read about it so far. I googled it after reading about "chicken skin" in the comments on Free The Animal.

I've even been to see two different (obviously quacks) dermatologists about my rosacea, and they both gave me the standard rosacea treatments that did absolutely no good whatsoever. Bitches! Seriously, if you don't know how to correctly identify skin problems, then get the hell out of dermatology. If either had correctly identified it I could have gone on a better treatment plan. I hear that it is an indicator of a vitamin A deficiency. I didn't think that it was possible, but I trust doctors less today than I did yesterday, and I didn't trust them at all yesterday.

Edit: The more I read about this the more pissed off I become. Seriously, fucking asshole doctors! The treatment for Keratosis is the exact OPPOSITE of the treatment for Rosacea. No wonder it was just getting worse and worse, I was actively making it worse. After reading about 30 articles on it, I'm going with high doses of vitamin A, hydrocortisone cream, ~~high doses of MSM~~, exfoliating scrub (don't know which kind) using a Buf-Puf, ~~and maybe some benzoyl peroxide~~. I'll let you know what happens!

[Update: My face seems to like the hydrocortisone cream, and I've been taking double the vitamin A as usual. I'm using Oil of Olay Total Effects Fragrance Free Daily Moisturizer and my face is much less sand-papery. Haven't noticed much of a difference in redness though. Will keep trying...]

[Update 01/05/12: Now I use coconut oil as moisturizer & have continued with buf-puf & vit-A. My face seems to like it just fine!]

Ukraine's Nikita...

2011-02-09T07:35:00.000-06:00

via

Tulsa Street Cams...

2011-02-02T08:44:00.005-06:00

If you want to see what traffic is out after our little 14" dump of snow yesterday, here are a few street cams for your viewing pleasure:

This may or may not work: KRMG Live Jeep Cam

News On 6 SkyCam Network

2 Works For You Weather Live

More 2 Works For You

Satellite View

WeatherBug InstaCam (includes some cameras from above links)

There used to be more working but some of them are down* during the blizzard including:

KTUL Tulsa's Channel 8

ODOT's Oklahoma Pathfinder

*Coincidence? I don't THINK so!

Cuter'n a Crosseyed Coyote...

2011-02-02T07:34:00.000-06:00

There is always questionable fashion on the old shows on RTV, such as this beauty from The A Team (always referred to as the gay team by absolutely EVERYONE back in the day). She was supposed to represent the female punk, but was probably more on mark as New Wave (??!!?? Was there for it & don't know what it was). Really awesome mullet. I mean that.

Snowed In...

2011-02-02T07:32:00.000-06:00

GOT MY NEW WRECKERS!!!!!!1! Love them! I wore them for six hours from one bar to a restuarant to another bar & my feet are just fine. When I first tried them on they kinda pressed on my instep, but I loosened the buckles there & tightened the ones around the ankles & everything was fine. I have abnormally high arches that make my life difficult, but I used those Dr Scholls For Her Hidden Arch Supports & that problem was also rectified! Okay, seriously? I was really afraid that these shoes wouldn't fit or I couldn't wear them or something; that would have crushed me :(

I moved a shelf from the front room to my bedroom for better shoe display (Note: need to paint shelves a light color). It's the one productive thing I did while snowed in except try, try & try to dig myself out, unsuccessfully.

I've been snowed in for a couple of days now & it's not as fun as it sounds. Don't get me wrong, I love lolling slothfully around & between not being able to leave the house & the spectacle of so much blowing snow for so many hours there was plenty of sloth to go around. Pretty much I read a book, obsessed over lookbook.nu, rearranged my shoe space, shoveled ~~shit~~ snow, Cooked & ate constantly (plz see nice round belly below) & kept adding layers (2 layers leggings, tops, socks, etc) Evidence A:

I'm afraid to remove any of these clothes for fear what I may find below them.

Testing My Boredom Factor...

2011-01-31T12:29:00.003-06:00

Today Bill and I are embarking on our annual-ish bore the crap outta ourselves and stay out of the bars regimen, so hopefully this will more successful than last year’s, which lasted all of a week or so. This time we are attempting to make it through all of February (we are counting today as Feb).

The deal is that we will stay out of the bars Sunday through Thursday, cook at home, and stay sober. This is to hopefully lose a bit of my beer belly. Also, I would like to start doing more stuff around the house, which optimistically might happen if we actually spend some time there. The main thing around the house that I want to accomplish is to go through a bunch of stuff, sort it all out, and then either get rid of it or haul it on up to the attic.

This goal is probably going to be helped out a lot by the weather, since tonight there is supposed to be freezing rain followed by anywhere from three to thirteen inches of snow/sleet through Tuesday. I’m getting all of my work done today in anticipation of having a snow day tomorrow and maybe Wednesday.

We got out yesterday and bought provisions so that we wouldn’t have to wade through all of the people who shop on the 1st of the month and all the little old ladies who write checks for their snow provisions. Since we are planning on eating home-cooked meals for the rest of the month (maybe a cheat on the weekend), we bought a bunch of food.

Since we aren’t going to be drinking, we haven’t stocked up on booze at all and will have to rely on the dregs of whatever we have in the cabinet if the tedium of sobriety gets to be too much. We can go out on Friday and Saturday, but I want to keep our beer intake to a minimum to lose as much weight as quickly as possible. I’m certain that the extra 500 to 1500 calories I ingest in beer are what I see wrapped around my gut. I’m using FitDay to keep track of my nutrients and calories, and I’m going to try for a few intermittent fasts.

Our diet? Half of the diet is super high saturated fat with equal portions of protein and carbs for the other half. It will be gluten free, no grains except white rice, with no industrial seed oils, legumes, or sugar. We will eat plenty of peeled potatoes, peeled carrots, onions, garlic, jalapenos, mushrooms, and other veggies and safe starches with our ground beef, filets wrapped in bacon, roast, chicken, sausage and other meats, which will be slathered heavily with butter, uncured bacon grease, ghee, cheese and/or heavy cream. Diet Food!

Have Achieved Camera...

2011-01-27T08:51:00.004-06:00

I bought these toothbrushes, but they are huge and when I brush it feels like I'm brushing with a creeper (shown below).

Creeper

(all three of these pictures are of the same sunset taken at different times and places)
(mammatus clouds)
(Bill took this on on my camera)
(trrrrippppyyy!!!)

Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill...

2011-01-27T07:31:00.000-06:00

I have a new style icon! Super awesome video & I need a bullet belt! When's the next gunshow?

Sleigh Bells - New Music - More Music Videos

My Favorite Bears...

2011-01-19T09:35:00.001-06:00

This is a hilarious song about bears by Rowan & Hastings (language NSFW):

New Computer Blues...

2011-01-19T09:30:00.001-06:00

Ugh, new computer at work. Nothing works properly yet. It is super fast, and I think that I’m going to probably like Windows 7 whenever the hell I figure out how to work everything. I got Microsoft Office 2007, which is a far cry from Word & Excel ’97, and I’m trying to figure some of that out, too. It took me about ten minutes to figure out how to open a file in Word. Word.

It is very frustrating, though. When the IT guy left me with the new computer I didn’t have email or anything, so it has been a long, rough haul trying to get everything in proper working order. It’s not there yet. Only half of my documents made it over to their proper place; luckily I had him first move the entire contents of My Documents in a single file “from old computer” before he tried to actually put all of my documents into My Documents.

I am currently copying my music from the “old” file to My Music because only about a fourth of it was transferred during the old computer switcharoo. Seriously, how difficult is it really? Maybe he was just in a hurry. At least I had a good backup on my external hard drive in case everything didn’t make it into the “old” file.

Also, what a really bad time for my old computer to crap on me: end of the year, 1099s, W-2s, payroll taxes, etc. I’m also having to reinstall all of my 2010 & 2011 tax updates for my accounting program & still don’t have any of my other programs working yet. SO FRUSTRATING!!!!

WTF...

2011-01-07T09:33:00.002-06:00

I totally forgot about this picture. I'm pretty sure he was wearing this ironically, but he isn't exactly a hipster, and he has worn it a ton judging by the looks of that rat-tail. Bewilderment...

Sunrise This Morning...

2011-01-07T08:29:00.002-06:00

I'm frantically trying to sort & classify my music collection to back it up before getting my new computer. Getting a new computer at work is great with all of the new programs, updated RAM, more speed, etc., but that doesn't mean that it won't be a major pain in the ass. There is no telling what the IT guy will deem necessary for my new computer, so I will have find all of my programs (PhotoShop, etc.) and load them myself. I need to scrub my computer, but I need to get my external hard drive and upload all of my data to it first. I hope the IT guy gives me an hour or two before taking this computer on Monday.