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Latest Humorous T-shirt Slogan:
"You Wish!"
This one has to be taken in context to be appreciated. The girl wearing this belly shirt was maybe 5'0" tall, with a muffin top going on, despite the fact that she was clearly in her third trimester of pregnancy. In addition she was wearing a thong that came up past her low-rise jeans and pushed her muffin top down over the edge to really emphasize the roll. I'm not in perfect shape so I don't expect that others should be, but when you are wearing that shirt, along with the rest of the outfit, you open yourself to scrutiny (and perhaps random looks of horror).

It's fun to hate:
The Soccer Moms who insist that they drive gas-guzzling SUV's for the safety of their children despite the fact that they are 6 times more likely to be in a rollover accident than any other vehicle. It's like beating your child unconscious with the butt of your gun so that he will remain on the floor, thus making him less likely to be hit by a random bullet coming through the front window.

When Shadowtwin reigns supreme:
There will be mandatory, passive birth control required to participate in any form of government assistance. If you can't afford to raise your child on your own we are here to help you, but we must first make sure that your reproductive organs are adequately contained. If you don't like that policy all you have to do is support your kids your damn self!
Vote Shadowtwin!


Wildly inaccurate, yet shockingly precise, predictions based completely on happenstance and arbitrary universal fluctuations.
Your Horoscope:


Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
A typographical error in your Church's newsletter will lead to you performing sex acts on dozens of anonymous strangers in your pursuit of "oral highground."

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars did recently tell your wife to "listen to her heart" regarding whether or not she should leave you. The stars did not intend for you to listen to her heart. But once you used that bonesaw on her sternum (not trusting the stethoscope which just responded with a cryptic thumping sound), we're pretty sure she made up her mind anyway.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
The stars would like to apologize for stating in their last prophecy, "Be wary of the stranger you meet at beach this weekend. The stars aren't sure why, but they don't trust him." Through a cosmic hiccup, that information was supposed to be released this month. The August prophecy should have read, "A dark and handsome stranger will approach you on the beach, profess his love for you, and sweep you away for a jetset marriage. After which you will lead a long, happy, prosperous, healthy life as the Queen of a small island nation." We apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Your new stopwatch will allow you to time how long you can hold your breath underwater down to the thousandth of a second. Unfortunately, poor planning will mean that you are not able to actually share the information with anyone.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
Your innovative new device for beauticians to use while giving pedicures can be wildly successful and make you quite wealthy IF you change the name. Trust us, no one is going to buy a "Ped-O-File".

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Your Mother always told you to wear clean underwear just in case there was an accident and paramadics had to see them. But as you board that plane today, the stars want you to know that you needn't worry about it. The debris field will be more than 8 square miles, making it impossible to find most human remains. Not to mention that the ensuing fire burned so hot that it disintegrated not only all fabric, but most of the thin metals aboard as well.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
You just had to get that genital piercing, didn't you? The stars tried to warn you not to, but you went ahead and did it anyway... Now all your worst fears will come to bear when, at a campground this weekend, you run afoul of this guy:


Cancer: 6/22-7/22
The less traveled by areas of the Grand Canyon's north rim offer some of the most breathtaking views of this natural wonder. You will soon find out they also include some of the worst footings and none of the handrails. They do, however, provide equally awe-inspiring, terminal velocity impacts.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
The stars heard your pleas, begging for someone who you could share your love with and embrace for the rest of your life. If you are still single, throw your arms around the closest person to you at 3:44pm GMT on Dcember 9th -That'll be the one. Trust us, you won't have time to be picky...

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
The stars have piled up most of your things on the front porch. You can stay at a friend's house, but you aren't coming back home until you admit what you did and apologize. The stars' Mother was right about you... (you must have really pissed them off; the stars were in tears while they told me this)

Libra: 9/23-10/22
The stars have been doing a little thinking and a lot of math. The population of planet earth is roughly 6,796,590,704. That means that roughly 566,382,558 people share each astrological sign. About 18,620,796 have the same birthday. Based on average life expectancy as many as 248,277 people were born on the same day, in the same year, for every zodiac sign. How can one statement possibly predict the future of all of them? Ehh, fuck it. "A full moon while Venus is rising is an omen of good things to come."

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
They say you never know how you are going to react to a crisis. After a home invasion this weekend you will: You will scream, "Do whatever you want to my wife, but leave me alone!" You will then create a distraction by throwing your newborn at the assailant as you dive through the window to safety. Now you know.

Music lost to history:

Aerosmith - Dream On When I started doing these, I could never have imagined that I would be putting an Aerosmith song here. Since I was born in 1974, this song is well before my generation. It was recorded in 1972 and released in 1983 on Aerosmith's Self-Titled Album, but to read the information on it at Wikipedia most of us would become familiar with it from a re-release in 1976.

Like most of the music being released in the late 60's/early 70's that was pushing the rock-n-roll envelope, Dream On relies heavily on solid composition and and melody. Before the era of the modern effects processor, these bands had no distortion to hide behind (or very little), and synthesized instruments hadn't yet made their way into music. In that way the music always sounds more raw to us today because, quite simply, it was. While it seems laughable to think about today, music like this was so far removed from the bubble-gum pop of the 50's that it still wasn't accepted into the mainstream. As the baby-boomers became the target demographic, the rock-n-roll movement really started to pick up speed, with bands like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith clearing the path for the much darker and heavier bands like Black Sabbath.

While I (and most of my generation) are probably far more familiar with the Aerosmith of the late 80's and early 90's, the reason this song makes it onto my MLtH page comes down to one thing: Age. Not necessarily the age of the song; In fact, as I sat down to do the research for this today, I had no idea when it was released, but would have guessed (closely) the mid 70's. Tyler was born March 26, 1948, meaning that this song was written when he was only 24 years old. I'm not sure why, but I have always thought this song was pretty amazing given his age at composition. I suppose it is human nature to wax poetic about the days of yore and the imminent passage of time, but the melody sets a mood that makes you feel it right along with him. As the song nears the end and his lyrics become more more frenzied, you can almost feel the pain (longing?) in his voice. Listen to it with headphones and no distraction sometime, you'll see what I mean.

I wrote a short bit some time ago about Kelly Sweet's cover of this song (see the video on Youtube). While I have since gotten over the initial hatred I felt towards the cover of the song, I still just can't like it. The words are there; she hits the notes; but I just can't hear it in her voice. As if there is somthing very personal about the song and Tyler's deliverance of the lyrics that just can't be duplicated. At least to me.

That said, I have heard Aerosmith doing the song with an orchestra, and it also seems to lack the passion of the original. So perhaps the thing that I like so much about it is the under-produced, raw sound of it, or it may be that I am still hearing it through the ears of that impressionable youth that heard if for the first time in a dusty old Van with my Uncle Art. Either way, it seems it is Lost to History.

Music Lost to History Archive


I Can't Believe it's Not Porn!
WhorePresents.comYep, it's not porn. It's not a site with gifts for sale either, which is probably a good thing since I can't imagine that any woman would be at all flattered to get a gift -no matter how nice- in a box that says "Whore Presents.com" on it.

Daily Reading:
BlackChampagne
Magazine Man
Shane Nickerson
Wil Wheaton
Boners
Hoyazo's Poker Blog

My reading list changes from time to time, and there are many sites that I visit that are not on the list. They are listed in the order that I visit them, enjoy!



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Shadowtwin.com: January 2006



Friday, January 27, 2006
 

The ultimate weight loss program?


It has been three full weeks since I have drank a beer. I have found that even the smell of it is a bit repulsive, but I guess it always has been, I know that I hated the taste of it the first time I tried it. It took a lot of drinking it to get to the point where I found it drinkable, even longer to get to the point where I became a bit of a snob about the taste of it, longer still to get to the point where I didn't give a damn about the taste so long as it was beer. What a horrible existence that was.

The type of beer that I drank had 100 calories and 5 carbs per twelve ounce serving. I drank between twelve and eighteen of them a day. That means that if I ate nothing at all I was consuming between 1,200 and 1,800 calories a day, with between 60 and 90 carbs (I have never put much stock into carb counting as a factor in weight gain or loss though, I am merely putting it her for facts sake). Of course I did eat though, a stick of jerky when I got home for 360 calories, then usually chimichangas, usually three, for a total of 1,050 calories, plus I always topped them with a generous portion of grated cheese, I don't know how many calories that added but I am sure it was a couple hundred at least. So I was on a 2,800 to 3,300 calorie a day diet. That is a lot of calories.

My diet for the last three weeks has been nearly exactly the same. I still have a beef jerky snack and still eat chimichangas. I no longer top the chimichangas with cheese, or maybe once a week I do. Also sometimes I have two of them and sometimes I have three, depending on how hungry I feel. Even at that my caloric intake has gone from the 2,800-3,300 range all the way down to the 1,000-1350 range. Yes, I have been taking in about one-third the calories I did previously for the last three weeks. It certainly shows.

I have lost 25 pounds in the past 21 days. When I quit drinking I weighed 195 pounds, now I am just under 170. This is the least I have weighed since I was 19 years old. My slimmest in twelve full years. That is pretty amazing. My pants and belt are far too big for me now, forcing me to punch additional holes in the belt to keep the pants up. The pants also bunch up when I tighten the belt, as they are at least two or three inches larger than my waistline. The ultimate weight loss plan indeed.

Unfortunately I don't think that it is necessarily healthy for me to be losing weight so quickly. I can't put my finger on why it would be bad for me, per se, but I do often begin to get quite light-headed towards the end of a long shift at work. I nearly passed out today, likely would have at least fallen down were it not for a handy bench to grab onto. I think I need to start eating a second meal. Not having breakfast or lunch sure leaves me feeling pretty drained by the time I have a jerky snack after work.

I hope I can get something worked out where I can continue to shed pounds without feeling so physically exhausted all the time. Perhaps a granola bar or a piece of fruit in the morning would do the trick.

Completely as an afterthought, I never liked to weigh myself when I was drinking. I know that it was because I knew that the number was just going up. I weighed myself once a month at best. Now I am weighing myself on a daily basis, mostly because I was waiting for/anticipating the day when the little dial stopped short of 170. Hell, if I was to wipe the dust off of the scale I might lose an additional pound.



Thursday, January 19, 2006
 

Just for fun


A friend sent me a link to this little video. It should be safe for work unless your boss has absolutely no sense of humor. It made me laugh, so I thought I would share it with you. I hope you don't identify with it nearly as much as I do.



Friday, January 13, 2006
 

Shedding Demons


I quit drinking recently. Something that I had tried and failed to do many times before. During the first couple of days of this attempt I wrote down some of my thoughts. Here they are.

Saturday Jan. 07

While I am sure that I have mentioned that I like to drink beer, I am pretty sure that I failed to mention to what extent that goes. I drink beer every day, and I am not capable of drinking only one or two; I continue drinking until the beer is gone or I pass out, whichever comes first. Most would probably say that this puts me into the category of being a serious alcoholic, which isn't exactly true since I never go to the meetings with anonymous people. I do have quite a serious drinking problem though, and as is always the case I continually deny that fact.

I am sure there are checklist type quizzes I could take to tell me whether or not I am an alcoholic but I don't need to. The fact that I try to justify my drinking by saying things like, "It has never caused me to miss work" is proof enough. While it is true that I have never missed work because of my drinking, that is about the only thing that I haven't missed because of it. A few notable examples of what I have missed being things like, say, the last decade of my life, five years of marriage, numerous events that I should have attended with my wife, the list could go on forever. Alcohol is destroying my life and I know it, I have known it for a long time but have been powerless to do anything about it.

I don't put much stock into the idea that alcoholism is a disease. If this is a disease it is one that I willingly subjected myself to, and one that it took many years to incubate into the out-of-control condition it has become. I used to be able to control the alcohol, now the alcohol controls me. It is rather a helpless feeling.

Quitting drinking is pretty easy in concept, all I have to do is not open that can of beer, not drink that can of beer, but I can't do it. The alcohol calls to me, my body shakes and trembles awaiting the depressant qualities of the liquor. I think to myself "Perhaps if I have just one, just to calm my nerves, what could it hurt?", the next thing I know I am completely drunk wondering where the day went. I tell myself that tomorrow will be the day that I don't drink but when I wake up it is today, and today I end up drinking. In this sense tomorrow really never comes. A cycle that I can't seem to break.

No more!

I would like to say that I had some great emergence of will power to help me try to quit, that would be a lie. I am not sure if I would ever have even tried to quit drinking for my own sake. Quitting would be very good for my health of course, I just don't think I could have ever tried to wrestle the demon without some external motivation. Finding out how badly my drinking was hurting my wife was a pretty powerful motivator.

Overcoming a drug addiction is one of the most difficult things a person can ever try to do. I have tried many times to quit drinking and to quit smoking, all attempts have failed. I am not trying to fool myself into believing that this attempt will be any different, but I have taken a different approach. I am not telling myself that I will never drink again, instead I am telling myself that I will not drink today. If I can just make it through today then I will have the chance to make the decision again tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes it will be today, and I have already made the decision for today, right? It is actually a bit more difficult than that, but you get the gist of it.

It has been two days since I have had a beer. That might not seem very impressive but considering that is the longest I have gone without a beer in about a decade I am considering it a victory. I am really wishing I had one right now though, and I have some in the room next to me. Oddly I think that is making it easier for me to fight the desire. I know that the beer is available if the desire becomes overwhelming, which seems to keep the desire from becoming overwhelming. It is like I am tricking the part of my brain that needs the beer into not needing the beer since I have the beer if I need it -which doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but it is my brain and I know how to trick it-.

Aside from the trembling (more so than usual) the other adverse effect from not drinking was exactly the one I thought I would have: sleeping. My eyes can be as heavy as bricks but my mind, being so used to the daily depressant, is still wide awake. I am sure that within a few days this will get easier, as my body gets used to not having the alcohol administered to it on a daily basis, but the last two nights have just been a lot of tossing and turning.

Sunday Jan. 8

Another sleepless night. I turned off the television at about a quarter after one in the morning then stared at the alarm clock for about three hours before deciding to go read a little bit. Got back into bed at about 4:30 and stared at the clock until I dozed off at about 5, only to be awakened by the barking of my neighbors dog a half an hour later. (totally as an aside. Don't you just hate the first month after Christmas, lots of kids got puppies that they absolutely loved...For about two weeks. Now all you can hear at night is the sound of the puppies barking as they are locked outside and forgotten. A couple more weeks and the sound will die down as the dogs end up in local animal shelters. One should never give a child a live animal as a gift, it really is animal cruelty). Asleep again sometime shortly after six. Woke up again shortly after seven, this time for good. Once the sun starts to rise I find it nearly impossible to sleep.

I did a bit of research into this and found this website: http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/health/a/blacer030816.htm . It says exactly what I thought it would say, almost verbatim. I am only one of the many people who really began drinking (at least daily) as a sleep aid. Of course it led to dependency, how could it not? Over time it would take more and more to relax me to the point that I could fall asleep, until I was eventually passing out instead of sleeping. Now I am dealing with the fallout of being self-medicated for so long. One unfortunate thing in that article is that it says many recovering alcoholics continue to have sleeping problems for more than a year after giving up alcohol, that is not a welcome prospect.

I have been trying to keep my caffeine consumption as low as possible over the last few days, but since I drink diet coke that is not an easy thing to do. The only caffeine free diet soda I could find in town was 7up, I have been drinking that in the evenings to try to make sure I don't have a buzz when I am attempting to sleep. Honestly though, that stuff doesn't taste very good. Not that any diet soda really does. Add to that the fact that each time I get up to use the restroom or whatever during the night I take a quick drink of soda, Diet Coke, and it is easy to understand where at least some of the sleeping difficulty is coming from.

This morning I went to the grocery store in Coolidge and bought one of every kind of caffeine free diet soda they had on the shelf, I am not even kidding. I brought home diet orange crush, caffeine free diet coke, diet a&w root beer, diet squirt, diet mug root beer, diet 7up, and three different flavors of sparkling water. Surely one of these will be to my liking. I am not entirely sure if I should try to give up caffeine completely at the same time as I am giving up alcohol, but if I could just not have any caffeine in the afternoon it would surely be a step in the right direction.

As for how I am actually feeling it is still hard to say. I think my body feels better, I am certainly eating more, or at least more often but in smaller quantities. The effects on my mind have been pretty immediate though. I am thinking more clearly now, even though I feel so fatigued from lack of sleep, than I have in as long as I can remember. My hands are not trembling as bad as usual. And I am actually typing quickly sober, that is something that I used to never be able to accomplish until I had downed at least a couple. I am in pretty good spirits so far, hopefully I can keep them that way.

I quit writing about it after that because it just kept reminding me that I am supposed to be drinking, not the best idea when I was trying to quit. I can tell you though that the most difficult day was the 5th day. I don't know why but I needed a drink so bad I felt like I might actually die without it. With no way to fight the desire I just went to bed and tried to sleep, of course I didn't sleep at all. I did stare at the alarm clock until the morning though and by then the desire had passed.

It has now been 8 days since I gave up drinking. I find that I hardly even think about it now, and when I do it is more of a "a beer would be nice" type thought, opposed to the "must drink or perish!" commands my mind had been making for the last decade. I think I may have subdued the demon this time, yet I know that if I ever take a single drink it will likely lead me back to the hell I was in before. So, success for now.

I should also note that I have just about completely given up caffeine as well. It turns out that staying up late getting horribly drunk makes your body desire caffeine in the morning. With the alcohol out of the equation I don't really have a need for it any more. Since the fridge is loaded up with nothing but caffeine free soda I haven't had a caffeinated beverage in three days. Let me tell you though, Diet Squirt tastes like a carbonated grapefruit, that shit is foul.

With that it seems that smoking is now my only vice, a vice that I am keeping for myself, at least for now. I don't think I could handle giving up all my vices in a two week span.


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