I Love Animals

Bumpkin with her mama, Sheila (standing)

I really do.  I like animals more than people.  An animal has never insulted me.  An animal has never taken my job away from me.  An animal has never treated me in a condescending way.  I have had problems with depression, but it always cheers me up to look out my window and see a groundhog.  It's hard to feel like shit when I'm looking at a chubby little groundhog nibbling on grass.  Today I looked out my window, and right in front of me, a robin, who was perched on a telephone wire, took a dump.  "Thanks," I said.  "Right before I eat breakfast."
I like them all.  Mice are cute.  So are birds.  I love to look out my window and see rabbits.  It's very sad that someone would look at a rabbit and want to hurt or kill her.  I can only assume that such a person is evil.  The other day, I watched a rabbit approach a particularly bushy clump of grass.  Then she pawed at it with her front legs.  She moved both of them in a circular motion.  I have no idea why she did that, but it was very cute.
I like watching robins too.  They stand with their head up high, then they duck down, walk briskly for several steps and stop.  The head will pop back up again, and it will all be repeated. 
The love I feel for all animals is so strong.  I don't understand why so many people don't feel the same way.

Birds Are Driving Me Crazy!

Please keep it down!

I have dealt with birds living in the space behind my kitchen fan before.  They probably discovered it and thought, wow, what a great place to live!  What a great place to raise some babies!  It all began with a bird who tweeted in the morning.  Sometimes, he woke me up.  I knew that the time adjustment for daylight savings time was approaching, and I hoped that it would improve the situation.  If he began tweeting at the usual time (for him) after the clocks had been moved forward an hour, he'd now start an hour later (as far as the clocks and I were concerned).  That's pretty much how it turned out.
However, today, things have exploded!  It seems like the loudest bird family in the world moved in to the space behind my kitchen fan.  They have been chirping and tweeting loudly all day long.  They've been making all sorts of weird noises. I kept telling myself, they have just as much right to be here as you do (even though they're not paying rent and I am).  I wanted to yell at them to shut up, but I resisted the urge.  I didn't want to scare the bird shit out of them.  I love animals.  How can a bird, who's chirping constantly, realize that he's being annoying?  I resisted the urge for so long.  I finally said, "that's it."  I marched over the the kitchen fan and said, toward it, "quiet please!"  I showed some restraint.  I didn't yell.  I just said it clearly and sternly.  I don't think it had much of an effect.  I tried it again.  I've said it a total of three times so far.
Currently, finally, it is silent behind my kitchen fan.  But how long will it last?  For how long must I endure this chirping Armageddon?    

I Love Metal

One of my favorite Black Sabbath albums: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

I'm referring to the music: not steel or aluminum.  I own many CDs, but against all common sense, I'm in the midst of shopping for even more, because there is a big sale going on at a website that sells metal CDs.  I really, and I mean really, shouldn't buy any more, but sometimes I can't help myself.
Ever since I was a kid, I've listened to hard-rock bands like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen.  I was one of the last to switch from cassettes to CDs.  Similarly, I still listen to CDs, and I don't have an MP3 player.  I also don't own a cell phone, so I'm always at least a step behind.  Although, I don't own a cell phone because I hate them.  When it came time to buy my first CD, I chose a greatest hits album by Black Sabbath, because I had always liked Paranoid and Iron Man.  I wasn't very familiar with them beyond those two songs.  I was blown away by the CD I bought.  I now have 16 Sabbath albums.  I also had remembered liking a couple of Iron Maiden songs when I was younger.  So I bought their album Number of the Beast.  Again, I was blown away.  Now I have 12 of their albums.  There are many metal bands, and quite a few very different-sounding styles among them.  But, in my opinion, Sabbath and Maiden are the Beatles and the Stones of metal; they're the best.
It's a shame that people stereotype metal and their fans.  It's as wrong to stereotype a metal fan as it is to stereotype someone because of their race, creed, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.  Some people assume that all metal bands and their fans are satanists.  That's ridiculous.  In my collection, there are satanic bands and christian bands.  It doesn't matter to me; all I care about is the music.  And I believe in neither God nor Satan.  Although, if I found out that a band went so far as to sacrifice humans or animals, then of course I would not buy their albums.
Metal is a worldwide phenomenon.  Metal fans exist in nearly every nation: even in countries where they might cut your hands off if they caught you playing metal.
Why do I like it so much?  I didn't really choose it; it chose me.  I love the energy and the power of it.  Even when I buy a metal album and it turns out that I don't like it very much, at least I can usually exercise to it.  I also find a lot of truth in metal.  Much of it is dark: just like life.  So many people happily bring people into this world, gleefully ignoring the fact that EVERYONE is going to die.  There is a whole sub-genre of metal called death metal, so, obviously, this sort of music isn't sweeping death under the carpet, which is something that so many people try to do.
Since I'm a vegan, this sometimes clashes with my tastes in metal.  For instance, I like Judas Priest.  They're a great band.  I just wish they hadn't fetishized leather as much as they have.  There's nothing cool or sexy about leather; it's just dead innocent animal skin.  At least the guys in Judas Priest admit that they are a metal band.  I've read that Ozzy Osbourne was irritated at the suggestion that he was a metal artist, claiming that he was "rock and roll."  If that's true, then he should be ashamed of himself.  Metal fans have made him a very rich man.  I won't buy anymore of his albums, because he has bitten the head off a dove and killed a bunch of cats, among other cruel things he's done to animals.  Of course, he was probably out of his mind on drugs when he did these things, but that's no excuse, and, even worse, he seems to think these things he did are funny; he doesn't seem to be apologetic about it at all.  In my opinion, Ozzy is the luckiest man in the history of metal. Right from the beginning, he's been surrounded by great musicians.  He, of course, established his name with Black Sabbath, which I think is a situation where the music clearly overshadowed his vocals.
I was watching TV one day, and they were talking about the video for Faith No More's "Epic," which ends with a fish out of water flopping around.  Then they mentioned that PETA had complained about that.  Scott Ian, of Anthrax, appeared on the show.  His response to all of that, to the best of my memory, was f--- the fish and f--- PETA.  My immediate thought was f--- Anthrax.  At that point, I already had an Anthrax greatest hits album, so not buying any more of their albums was a very easy thing for me to do.
I love metal, but I don't care how great you are, if you f--- with animals, I won't buy your records.   

Forks Over Knives

I love groundhogs: especially juveniles.

That's the title of the documentary I watched last night.  I'm not claiming it's the best movie I've ever seen, nor the most compelling, but the basic message is what's most important.  Eating meat and dairy products is bad for your health.  It can lead to the development of diseases like heart disease and cancer.  Eating a whole foods, plant-based (vegan) diet is good for your health.  The movie is similar to Super Size Me (except in reverse), in that several people switch from a typical American diet to this whole foods, plant-based one.  All of them lost weight, felt better, and had more energy.  One of them was a man who was overweight and taking several different prescribed medications.  He was able to stop taking all of the medications and he felt better than when he was on them.  He also underwent a very impressive bodily transformation.  On meat and dairy, he had a typical pudgy, out-of-shape physique.  After switching to the vegan diet, it looked like he was in better shape than a lot of men who are half his age.  It certainly seemed like he was much happier as a result of ditching the meat, dairy and medications for fresh vegetables.
I had suspected this myself for a while.  Be good to animals (by not eating them), and as a result, you'll have good health and you'll be more likely to have a slim body.  Don't care about animals and contribute to their suffering (by eating them), and you're more likely to be overweight and have poor health.  Pigs, chickens, and cows are closely controlled by people.  They don't have much of a chance to strike back at their tormentors (humans).  However, they often end up doing it posthumously by negatively affecting the health of those who eat their flesh.
This isn't about my opinions though.  As this movie shows, several studies support the film's message about the importance of the right diet.  Also, several doctors have found this to be true.  One of these doctors, a firm believer in the evils of a diet which includes animal products, estimated that health care costs, which dwarf the defense budget in America, could be reduced by as much as 70-80% if everyone switched to the whole foods, plant-based diet.  That's not all though.  Switching to this diet is better for the environment.  The meat industry contributes to global warming more than the transportation industry does.  And I've mentioned it before, but it was included in this movie, and it's worth stating again.  Do you consider yourself a compassionate person?  Do you care about people, especially children, who are starving to death?  If so, become a vegan: or at least a vegetarian.  If enough people became vegetarians, then it would reduce the demand for meat, so less livestock would be intentionally brought into the world (for human consumption).  Currently, massive amounts of (vegan) food is grown for livestock.  If we reduce the amount of pigs, cows, and chickens brought into the world (for the purpose of being eaten), then more of the corn, soy, etc. that had been allocated for these animals would now be available for human consumption and could be sent to hungry people around the world.  In short, if enough people became vegetarians or vegans, we could end world hunger.     

Suicide

A Crude Noose

It's an epidemic, and I suppose it always has been.  It's always one of the leading causes of death.  Yet it's something that gets swept neatly under the carpet.  Many suicides occur everyday, but the media usually doesn't report them unless a celebrity was involved.  They are routinely covered up by friends and family members who wish to hide the true cause of death.
If someone killed him or herself because he or she was miserable, and he or she was basically a decent person, then I wouldn't even think of insulting the memory of this person in any way, shape, or form.  It's a horrible choice to have to make.  In a perfect world, no one would even have to consider it.  Unfortunately, many people are miserable on a daily, or near daily, basis.  I believe firmly that everyone has the right to take his or her own life.  There are exceptions, however.  If you have kids, especially young ones, I believe it is wrong to kill yourself.  If someone has at least one pet, then I likewise think it's wrong for such a person to commit suicide.  If you have no kids and no pets, then it's your life, and it's up to you.  It's a hell of an ugly thing though.  The way I see it, it's the mind killing the body.  The mind wants to die, but in many cases, the body will struggle to survive during a suicide attempt.  It will thrash around at the end of a noose or frantically try to avoid drowning for instance.
Over one million people commit suicide every year.
I used to think that George Carlin was the best stand-up comedian of all time.  I no longer think that.  He was always cynical, but he eventually became super cynical.  In the last HBO special of his I saw, he made fun of people who have depression, and he even made fun of people who have committed suicide.  The idiots in the audience just kept laughing: not me.  That was where I stopped laughing.  I really don't see the humor in laughing at people who are suffering, especially those who have resorted to such extreme, unpleasant, and final means to end their pain.

Breaking News: The World Has Been Blown Away!

Young Groundhog in the Sun

You heard it here first.  It seems like it just keeps getting windier and windier.  Sometimes, the wind blows so strongly, it's ridiculous.  This seems to be happening more frequently.  What a cold, godforsaken world this is.  I believe that the world, as we know it, will be blown away by raging, out-of-control winds.  I'm no meteorologist, but it seems to me like hurricanes and tornadoes fall into the category of wind.  It's wind that blows cars and trucks around.  It's wind that destroys buildings and scatters the resulting debris with the greatest of ease.  I predict it will get worse.  It will eventually get so bad that it will blow skyscrapers over, and once that happens, it will be the beginning of the end.
Prepare now.  Prepare for the end of the world.  You have been summarily warned.  I'm not sure what summarily means, but it seems to fit here.  The end of the world, as they know it, has already occurred for the squirrels who used to live in front of my apartment building.  Recently, all their nests, that had been supported by tree branches, came crashing to the ground.  I sincerely hope that none of them were hurt when that happened.  Sadly, they have moved.  I used to feed pure in-the-shell nuts to them.  They used to chase and corner me for my nuts.  That hasn't happened in weeks.  I still have a lonely bag of nuts sitting on my kitchen counter.  That sack of nuts is a constant reminder of how we will all be brought to our collective knees.
You have been warned.

TV Is a Drug

Don't watch TV; watch this young groundhog!

It really is, and I am a recovering addict.  As a kid, I watched tons of it.  As an adult, I've watched tons of it. When you add cable, it becomes a hard drug.  A TV with digital cable is cocaine.  A TV with digital cable plus a movie channel is crack.  A TV with digital cable plus two movie channels is meth, and so on.  You get the point.  TV, the way I have it now, is like alcohol or marijuana.  I have no cable, so I get only three channels, and one of them is a 24-hour-a-day weather channel.  However, I have a DVD player.  I watch very little television programming, but I might watch anywhere from part of a movie to two movies in any given day.  I certainly don't miss having to pay the monthly charge for cable, which went up every single year. 
TV, like drugs, can be a real time-waster.  I'm pretty sure that Time Warner Cable isn't planning to offer free cable to me, but even if they did, I think I would decline it.  The older I get, the faster time seems to move.  I feel like watching TV is like watching your life pass by.  I want to do more with my life than watch TV.  And it really does get me high.  I turn it on, watch it, and get high on it.  It brings on a certain feeling of relaxation. 
Someone recently said to me that TV gets a bad rap.  I think that's true to a degree.  I think most of the programming is crap, but I have seen some interesting and informative stuff.  Probably the most informative show I ever saw was about the Three Gorges Dam in China.  I learned that many people were displaced by it.  A city was shown, from above, that was eventually going to be entirely underwater because of the dam.  It blew my mind, because it was a real-sized city with tall buildings and everything.  It was hard to imagine.  Of course the buildings would have to be demolished.  You can't have a ship, traveling down the river, crashing into an underwater building.  In fact, some people were paid to demolish buildings in their own town that they were being forced to evacuate: adding insult to injury.  So, as you can see, that was a very informative program.  On the other end is a show like Celebrity Apprentice.  What a piece of crap.  I have to admit, the commercials drew me in.  I gave it a try.  It didn't take long to realize that Trump's main objective was to create drama by getting the participants to criticize each other: garbage.
You're free to watch as much TV as you want to.  Just remember, ultimately, what you're doing is watching a box.    

Quit Smoking or Die!

Don't smoke cigarettes; eat grass instead!

Cigarette-smoking is so stupid.  I think it's great that smokers have been forced out of so many places.  I love to see them freezing their asses off outside in the cold.  They deserve it.  What is the upside to cigarette-smoking?  Smokers really can't expect non-smokers to see it at all.  The downside to smoking is obvious to a non-smoker like myself.  Every aspect about it seems to be a drawback.  I really don't think I could have a girlfriend who smoked cigarettes.  I hate being around people who reek of cigarette smoke.
Any self-respecting government would have completely outlawed cigarettes by now.  It's the right thing to do.  Of course it won't happen as long as tobacco companies contribute mightily to politician's campaigns.  Regardless, this is what I think should happen.  Obama should announce that he's going to deliver an urgent address to the nation tonight, and several TV networks should broadcast it.  Then he should inform the American public that smoking cigarettes is illegal as of tomorrow.  Additionally, if the cops see anyone smoking, they have the right, and obligation, to shoot them dead on sight.  It would probably be a good thing for the cops.  I suppose many of them became police officers so they could shoot at people.  They're probably bored by the reality of being a cop, and it's likely that they rarely, if ever, get to discharge their firearms in the line of duty.
Besides, it's obvious that smokers want to die anyway.  Every one of them is committing suicide: just very slowly.  This way, we'll see who really wants to quit and who really wants to die.  Besides, there's no doubt that smokers are doing horrible things like smoking while they're pregnant, smoking near pregnant women, smoking near children, and the like.  As every sane adult should know, smokers harm not only their health, but also the health of those around them.  This is what makes many of them such a menace.
Don't worry, smokers.  This scenario will never happen anyway.  But a responsible government would ban cigarette smoking, since it has outlawed several other dangerous and addictive substances.  I haven't had a successful career so far.  This society frequently makes me feel like a loser, but at least I'm not a cigarette smoker.

The Baldness

The beautiful, glamorous matriarch: Sheila.  The Grande Dame of groundhogs.

Good God, it sucks.  Every sighting of a bald head is proof that life isn't fair.  Why me?  I've shouted toward the sky again and again.  I'm still waiting for an answer.  I try to be a nice guy.  Why is it that I'm stricken with baldness and evil people, like terrorists and war criminals, have lush, full heads of hair?
I don't care what women say, if they have a choice between a guy who's bald and one who has a full head of hair, and everything else is equal, baldie will get the shaft every time.  Unless the lady in question has a fetish for bald guys.  It's possible.  After all, chubby chasers exist.  If folds of fat can turn someone on, then horseshoe-pattern baldness might as well.  I was seeing someone.  We were getting along fine.  She knew I was bald.  One day, I donned a hat and her passion level went through the roof as a result.  It was as though she completely forgot that I was a bald bastard.
I met and began dating a lady; I was wearing a hat from the beginning.  We had been going out for weeks, and she hadn't seen me without a hat on at all.  I was nervous.  What will happen when she finds out that I'm bald?  While we were having sex, it got pretty wild, and my hat fell off as a result.  She froze like a deer in the headlights and looked at the baldness in horror.  Then she said, "Get off me."
I said, "what?"
"Get off me now!" she screamed.
I got off her.  "What's the problem, baby?" I asked.
"The problem is you're bald, bitch!  It's over!  Get dressed and get out of here right now!  And start by putting your hat back on, for Christ's sake!"
"Are you serious, baby?"
"I'm as serious as a heart attack!  You disgust me!  Now get lost!"
Okay, the relationship just described never happened.  But I'm sure things like that have happened. 
There is one good thing about being bald.  I haven't had to pay for a haircut in years.  Every time they finish cutting my hair, after grabbing my jacket (if applicable), I act like I'm going for my wallet, then I take off running.  I'm just kidding.  I cut my own hair.  I shave it all off.  I'm pretty sure the trimmer and hand-held mirror paid for themselves by the second haircut I gave myself.  It doesn't even take that long anymore.  If I didn't have OCD, I'd probably have it done in a jiffy.  But I can't help trying to get it perfect.  I do a better job than some of the barbers who have had the pleasure of working on my head.  It's not because I'm better at cutting hair than any of them, it's because I care more about what I look like than they do.  One young guy even cut me with the trimmer once.  The blood dripped down my head.  I tipped him anyway, and I regret doing that.  He didn't deserve a tip after butchering me.  I've never done that to myself.
Also, I have a real appreciation for bald humor.  I'm a big fan of Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I love it whenever he uses baldness for the purpose of comedy.  The funniest was when he refused to give candy to a couple of girls who came to his front door on Halloween because they weren't wearing costumes.  The next day, there was toilet paper all over his yard, and someone had written "bald asshole" on his house.  He called the cops and suggested that perhaps it should be treated as a hate crime because of the bald asshole thing.
One of the cops had a shaved head, but not because he was bald, it was because that's the kind of haircut he wanted, and he said, "I'm bald, and I'm not offended."
Larry said, "With all due respect officer, you shave your head because it's fashionable to do so, and we don't really consider you to be part of the bald community." 

Lose Weight and Keep It Off With The Farmer's Diet!

What a cutie!

I lost quite a bit of weight, and I didn't change the food I ate, eat less of it, or exercise more.  I lost so much weight that I had to change the way I shave.  I don't like having sideburns.  I used to shave downward from the top of the bases of my ears.  Since losing the weight, I can't do that anymore.  I lost weight everywhere: including from my face.  As a result, the cheekbones jut out more.  If I try to shave over my cheekbones, I will cut myself there.  But don't be afraid of that; if you want to lose weight, just read on.  I used to do things backwards: a lot of people still do.  I used to exercise on an empty stomach; that didn't make a lot of sense.  I used to skip breakfast and eat a big dinner; it also didn't make sense to do that.
First of all, don't look for a magic pill.  It's simple enough as it is: diet and exercise.  That's all you need to focus on: two things.  And I've read, more than once, that diet is more important than exercise when it comes to losing and maintaining weight.  It's like that line in that Nickelback song, "We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't eat."  I believe that's how many people stay slim; they don't eat that much: just what they need.
I call this The Farmer's Diet, because I think this is how farmers eat.  Begin the day, whether you're hungry for it or not, with your largest, and most nutritious, meal of the day.  There's a catch though.  The other two meals you eat during the day should both be small ones.  What's the point of eating your largest meal just before you go to bed anyway?  It's just going to turn to fat while you're sleeping.  Start off the day with your largest meal and you'll be burning off the calories throughout the day: especially when you exercise.  I think this is the way everyone used to eat before people began to work in offices and before we had all the modern conveniences that we have now.  They began the day with their largest meal because they needed the calories and energy it would provide. 
I exercise four times a week, but I'm pretty sure that about an hour a day, five days a week, is what's recommended for good heart health.  I have quite a bit of discipline when it comes to eating, and I also happen to be vegan, which I'm sure helps. 
So, summing up, it's very simple.  Begin the day with your biggest and most nutritious meal of the day.  The meals I begin each day with are so nutritious that the subsequent two only exist to satisfy hunger.  That brings me to another point; don't stuff yourself.  I never stuff myself, and I never want to.  I don't even necessarily eat till I'm full.  I think the right word is content.  Eat till you're not hungry anymore, not till you're bursting at the seams.  Back to the plan: exercise.  People either do it or they don't.  They either do it or they make excuses why they don't.  It's up to you which type of person you'll be.  Of course, as I mentioned, the less you eat, the less you need to exercise (to a degree).  Most people are aware that exercise is important when it comes to maintaining weight and physical health, but it's also good for mental health.  For instance, anyone who has depression, that doesn't exercise, really should start.
I don't know much about women's clothes sizes, so I don't expect this to mean much to women who don't know anything about men's clothes sizes, but, nevertheless, I went from size 42 waist pants (I wasn't exercising at the time.), to size 36 waist pants (I was exercising, but not eating like a farmer.), to comfortably fitting into size 30 waist pants, like I presently do.  I lost so much weight from my ass.  It essentially became deflated.  The first time I went from sitting in my soft microfiber chair to a rigid New York City subway seat, I really felt the difference.  With much less fat padding my ass, I was hurtin' for certain.  I was shifting and squirming in the seat in a vain attempt to get comfortable.  Of course, being comfy on a subway seat isn't a very good reason to carry a fat ass around with you.  If you needed to, you could carry a cushion around with you; it's better than having a fat ass.   

I Hate Remakes

They can't remake this original: Bumpkin.

I really do.  It's such a shame that, apparently, there's so little originality left when it comes to making movies.  At this point, I can't imagine being surprised upon finding out about any given remake in the works.  Citizen Kane, starring Zac Efron, sure, why the hell not?  I'm not going to watch it anyway.  I mean, they remade Footloose for God's sake!  Footloose!  Was that really necessary?  And as a fan of horror movies, I'm sickened by the vast majority of the remakes of genre classics.  I like Rob Zombie, but his Halloween wasn't half as good as the original.  That's what happens when you take on one of the very best horror films of all time.  It's the same thing with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Omen.  When The Omen came out, a coworker of mine saw it and raved about it. 
"They really didn't change it much at all," he said gushingly.
Really?  Then what was the point of remaking it?  If you want to see The Omen, then why not just watch the original?
"I love this movie.  They should remake it," I've heard a coworker of mine say that several times.
Why?  If you love that movie, then watch it when you feel like it.  When people are fed shit often enough, I think they begin to like it.
Occasionally, a remake is pretty good: like Dawn of the Dead.  It's good, but as far as I'm concerned, George Romero's original version is better.  So, ultimately, what was the point?  Undoubtedly a cash grab.  They pump out the remakes for the same reason why people have attempted to make hit songs using other people's hit songs.  You take a proven winner and try to make it win again.  I don't go to the movies anymore anyway.  When I did, I always seemed to be sitting in front of the jerk off who liked kicking the seat in front of him for the duration of the film.  Additionally, I hate cell phones.  If I heard one go off in a movie theater, then they might be making a movie about the guy who killed someone in a movie theater because he didn't turn his cell phone off.  Perhaps De Niro or Bruce Willis would play me.  At least it would be original material.