Truth be told this is an old documentary. 2008! I was still at my second university pretending to be an accountant. At the time I was trying to cut weight whilst remaining big and strong. I never reached the upper echelons of competitive sport, not for lack of talent but because of bad timing. Oh and I should point out that by talent I mean
1. I grew at an alarmingly fast rate: 5ft 8 aged 11
2. I was massively heavy: 100kg + aged 15.
Those were my talents! Being bigger and stronger. Luckily or unluckily I was also fabulously flexible, hyper extending joints son! Some of you may see the problem here but for those who don't trying to apply power through joints that don't stay in place result in dislocation. These dislocations lead to many sprains, tears etc. Meaning that I could tear shit up on the field but I'd tend to get injured really easily.
But enough about me let's talk about why steroids are illegal! The usual spiel is that they are dangerous. I was going to list things but there are better lists compiled by people/institutions that know what they are doing so:
The video goes over one guy's inspiration to be big and strong. Actually it's three brothers who were inspired by their childhood heroes Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan etc. Then slowly realising that wrestling is fake and top class body builders juice all the time. The older brother is hell bent on being a pro wrestler and the younger wants to be the best strength athlete he can be. The middle brother, Chris, is the narrator and interviewer throughout.
I'll say that this does seem to come out in favour of steroids being safe and legal. Interviews were generally in favour of steroids use and most of the people being interviewed were on steroids. I'm not endorsing the use of steroids neither am I saying that if you use steroids you should be locked up. The other points that were hinted at throughout the documentary are what really fired up my mind grapes. Why are some things considered cheating whilst others are fine? One example used was that Tiger Woods had laser eye surgery. There's a pretty good article from the Independent here. The guy has better than perfect vision as a result. So artificially boosting your muscle size/strength is bad but artificially boosting your eyes isn't.
The second point that hit home with me was the four ways you can boost your red blood cell count. Red blood cells carry oxygen, so more red blood cells = more oxygen = greater endurance. There are four ways of increasing the number of red blood cells in the body
Blood doping - remove some of your own blood and and bang it back in before your event.
Hypobaric chamber - sleep in a chamber that simulates a region much higher than sea level.
Altitude training - train somewhere that is much higher than sea level.
EPO - a hormone that just tells your body to make more red blood cells.
Two are legal and two are illegal. Why is that exactly? So the line appears to be arbitrarily drawn. Perhaps experts have been consulted. From the look of it the expert's testimony during the congressional hearing into steroids was ignored. Political careers were built on making things happen. Or at least making it look like things were happening. Steroids were banned but their use is rife. Towards the end Chris even demonstrates how easily you can get a legal prescription for anabolic steroids. Banning something is meaningless if the enforcement of the ban is non-existent. So they made it look like things have changed when nothing really has. The second point that seemed to stand out was the supplement industry that has sprung up. In my early teens I was convinced that if I got my hands on protein powder, creatine etc. then I would be as ripped and strong as the big, buff guys in the magazines. But the reality is that there is a carefully crafted exercise and diet regime that gets them the majority of the way there. And maybe some steroids. Oh an don't forget all the airbrushing etc.
That's a little video from my favourite professional eater, Furious Pete. Showing that by utilising the pump, oil and some photoshop he looks a hell of a lot different.
I do have a few old mates who are genuinely mad ripped
without juicing. I'm talking massive arms, pecs and abs for days. There
is a lot of hard work behind their physiques though and they all take
supplements. Not sure if they read this but here's a little
shout out to the man with the biggest head in the world whose middle
name is Geoffrey! The guy who broke his hand on my face and is
always known by his middle name! And lastly the insane most push ups in one minute world record threatener. It stands at 138 and was set in 2004! I can't seem to find the record on the Guinness world record site.
If you skip to 1 hour 18 minutes in the vid at the top it'll go over the supplement industry in an entertaining and dramatic fashion. If you don't want to then read on, I'd prefer if you read on. Because...ego! Creating an entirely new industry that sells stuff that, for most of us, won't make too much difference. Do you have to take whey protein to get gains? I'd say no just eat a decent amount of protein, workout right and let your body do the rest. Maybe if you're an elite athlete then it's necessary but most of us aren't so it's something wholly unnecessary that has become big business.
So far we have a ban that isn't a ban and an industry that sells stuff to people who likely don't need it. Now there is a nugget in here that cuts to the core of why this is happening. I am insecure and tend to think that if I manage to get such and such life will be better. Action figures, athletes etc. have become increasingly ripped. Bigger, stronger and faster. Being fit isn't as attractive as being ripped. And this desire provides an opportunity for the unscrupulous to exploit.
Have you all seen Fight Club? or read Fight Club? It's pretty good and I've just realised that it's 15 years old! So it's well worth a watch, as for read I don't know but it does have an average rating of 4.5/5 on amazon from 189 ratings! Anyhow there's a point in the film where Tyler, the main antagonist, makes a speech. There's a quote below in italics but it sounds better coming from Brad Pitt.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we
hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day
we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars.
But we won't.
And there it is the dream that drives the industry. A delicately balanced house of cards built on a foundation of lies. I'm all for conspiracies as you may have already gathered!
Do you see a pattern emerging? Now I realise my slacking off and refusal to tag all those included has dampened the reach of my ramblings. But I've become a recluse so I don't really interact with members of the public anymore. I wonder what will emerge from this cocoon of solitude I have encased myself within. It's not really solitude there's still Tim the dog. So the tune-age at the beginning, a wise man once said you can't beat a classic. So starting with one can't be all bad right?
This particular song has an undeniable upbeatness and I am an enormous fan of the remix with Q-Tip: Breathe & Stop. In my humble opinion Breathe & Stop doesn't stand up by itself. I've just listened to it again and it looks like I was remembering it through rose tinted glasses. Doesn't quite work rose tinted head/ear phones perhaps? It sound awful!
Whilst perusing facebook one day I saw this phrase:
A real man never hurts a woman. Be very careful when
you make a woman cry. Because God counts her tears. The woman came out
of man's rib. Not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be
superior. But from his side to be equal. Under the arm to be protected.
And next to the heart to be loved.
And I near enough exploded with outrage. Woah nowwoman upsetters everywhere don't make the ladies cry because God is watching! Now here's an offer for you, can you tell me where "God is watching!" is used as a punchline? Yes women have gotten the short end of the stick for centuries, millenia, maybe even longer! But I don't think scaring people into doing the right thing is the way forward.
If you're not nice then you'll likely find yourself alone!
This was the first tag line that came to mind. But then that kind of presupposes that everyone doesn't want to be alone and also plays off the fear of being alone. It was at this point I stopped trying to generate a snappy tag line to encompass why being nice is preferable to being a douche. Primarily it's a selfish thing. You're nice and so other people reciprocate, pretty much common sense. Doesn't tie in with the "bad boy" that tend to get all the action so I'm back to: I don't know what the right thing to do is!Perhaps a mass movement of women not willing to put up with nasty, abusive men would bear better results. But then again my old approach to abusive men was to punch them in the face or walk away laughing or grinning from ear to ear. I'm in a privileged position and have been able to resolve bad situations, previously through brute force and now by leaving the fool to carry on his farce.
One size doesn't fit all, so the question would require a generative approach to look at each situation individually before finding/identifying possible solutions. A question for someone much more able than I, I reckon. Reckon I...recognise!
Then I saw this:
#eclectic
This is every Johnny Depp character in one cosplay. A bold claim as he has 76 actor credits! I've only managed to count 14 elements to the outfit. Crow, bandanna, hair, glasses, spliff, bow tie, sheriffs badge, pocket watch, scissor hand, camera, coat, plus fours, odd socks, boots, belts? Ok that's 15 and I've given up trying to match the element to the film. But I did come across a porn star with the name Johnny Deep! I did not know IMDB covered porn. Every day is a school day I guess.
Ooh and during a brief meditation session something occurred to me. There is a theory that if you know the position and velocity of every atom in the universe then you can predict the future, Laplace's demon. It sounds so cool right? But with this in place it kind of throws free will out of the window and implies predeterminism. I should mention that I had recently watched Donnie Darko, yep a 13 year old film and I've only just gotten round to watching it. On a macro scale we don't really have much influence and I don't think we ever will.
For example in about 5 billion years, that's 5,000,000,000 years, the sun will start to die. Regardless of the advancements we make in technology I don't think we'll be able to do anything about it. The sun will die and unless we find/develop means to run away the human race will die too.
So whilst what we do day to day can be determined by ourselves e.g. toast or cereal, walk or drive, sit or stand etc. The regular, day to day, humdrum shtuff can be pondered and decided upon. But when we get to a scale, somewhere around our solar system, we are powerless to decide/influence anything.
It's around here that I kind of lost my mind. Feel free to skip up until the you see the bold red Ah.
That said physics is fighting to unify the enormous and the quantum. So that what applies to the very, very small can be stretched to the very big. My mind is rushing around searching for an answer that I can share. The rules/truth is going to be the same across the board, everything is made of the same stuff. I feel my madness leaking a little! Man is but a piece of earth that prances around for a bit before returning to the earth. That is to say every thing that is this body was gathered from the earth. First your mother ate, drank etc. and the food was digested and the nutrients fed to your foetus via the placenta. And as you got older you ate and drank, absorbing nutrients, growing. When you die what was absorbed from the earth will be broken down and reabsorbed. Unless you're frozen/embalmed etc.
So the rules that apply to us apply to them. By them I mean the planets, systems, galaxies etc. Scale defeats me. I am limited by the thinking of my time, what I have learnt and what is perceived to be possible. The realist tells me we will advance and learn to do wonderful things. But we will be limited.
But there is a dreamer a mad voice that sees that we will have the ability to create stars, planets etc. Not just create but rearrange, chop and change. Then there are the monstrosities that even light can not escape from, black holes. Infinitely dense, how can I perceive that! But there are many smarter than me. I take solace in that. I am about average, maybe a little above average but only because I've had some amazing people in my life pushing me to rise just that little bit higher.
Ah so free will! If we become able to influence the cosmos then I think we can safely say free will exists. But it could still all be an incomprehensible domino effect from beginning to end. I was about to launch into yet more back and forth. I'd have more than likely arrived at my usual position: I don't know!
MUSCLES GLASSES IS FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER! If you don't know who that is then what in tarnation have you been doing with your life! Something worthwhile and constructive no doubt :-P
Before I wrap this ill thought out ramble up here's some awesome car doodling: http://www.boredpanda.com/car-art-sharpie-pen-drawing/ I do love a good doodle, as I went on about at some length here. If any enthusiastic doodlers would like to transform my car into a work of art that is still full functional then do get in touch!
Read it in the voice of Harley Morenstein AKA Sauce-boss! Back to the matter in hand, mediocre hot sauce. I'm not a connoisseur, apparently I have no idea how to spell the word connoisseur! Anyway I am not one, I am but a fan of spicy liquids. Where does this perverse tendency burst forth from? I hear you whisper. Perhaps from my lineage...as previously mentioned I am descended from a race of volcano dwelling tree folks. Ah we would feast upon the magma or lava, there is a difference despite the words being used interchangeably, regularly, in day to day speech. And I know what you're thinking how do tree folk survive in the extreme heat of their chosen volcano habitat? Well we would clad ourselves in confidence thus allowing us to do pretty much anything. I'm obviously being ridiculous as confidence does not give you the ability to do anything, competence does.
It's liquid rock!
Yeah so back to the spicy not so great sauce. I was having a casual shop in Sainsburys for my weekly supplies. My diet consists of mainly fruit and veg with a little bread/pasta/rice for good measure. There was a time when I viewed carbohydrates as the bane of my existence. I don't remember the last time I had sugar, urgh I've become one of those guys! I spot a hot sauce for sale in the reduced produce bit, £1.50 or thereabouts. I am a fan and owing to my phaseleresque tendency to try things I've never tried before, I convince myself to pop it in my trolley. I say convince I basically saw it and immediately put it in my trolley. This tendency was mentioned before, here. Shop done and I'm home time to workout and onwards to lunch! Now I decide to douse my salad in the new hot sauce. It's terrible, it's like ketchup without a kick. I despair before remembering I have an ingredient that adds heat without adding flavour...1,000,000 scoville concentrated pepper extract!
See the neck of the bottle?
Now that blackness is pretty much the colour that the extract is. Well I suppose it's more of a deep, dark red. I add a drop or two and shake the bottle with vigour. I am clad in confidence, based on the previous underwhelming experience of the sauce. It was misplaced I end up having to wash it off several pieces as my mouth, lips, eyes etc. can take nay more!
That's the little label that came with the bottle you can purchase it here if you'd really like. Looks like it was a originally a restaurant that sells a signature sauce.
I should explain the choice of video at the beginning. I love this song! It's upbeat but has an underlying melancholic quality.
I had heard this on MTV many, many years ago and forgotten the name of the song. During a chance MSN conversation with a lovely young lady named Georgia, sweet Georgia, I asked for a song suggestion. She insisted I listen to Hi Tack - Say Say Say. I ignored her suggestion and wandered off into the aether of the internet. Days, perhaps weeks, passed and I asked for another song suggestion. She suggested the same song. This time I found it and was pleasantly surprised! Managed to backtrack and find the original from Georgia's suggestion. Some background on Georgia: Crazy mad swimming skills...that's all I know about Georgia! Just looked her up and she's an ecologist at some kind of environmental concern. Environmental it's the worst kind of mental. Not really the worst kind of mental just a joke I repeat every time I hear, see or smell any word ending in mental. For example fundamental, experimental, instrumental. Oh and I've just remembered that Linda McCartney is in it as well! I had no idea who she was and now I know much more.
I was summoned to a meeting this past weekend. Now I've been involved in any number of projects that never really got off the ground. But this one actually looks like it might. There was a lot of talk of what we'd need. I was extremely out of my depth. I rarely write something with a focus. I let my mind loose and this blog with it's soul destroying word count is the result. But having a crack at fiction has been fun thus far. I get carried away very easily. So I've written a few thousand words already but it was fun! And I suppose that's the point. I write because it's fun :-D Oh and I may have to cease my unceasing effusion of cool stuff I saw online. The meeting descended into a round of subtledildo. Search #subtledildo to see what all the fuss is about.
Incidentally I was reminded of a tale from my final year at university. I may return one day, actually I've been back every year since for one reason or other. Anyway a lovely red haired lady, we first met in the Somerset countryside. I had just skinned my knee prior to a four day process that involved a lot of kneeling. I have the best luck...in the world! She had posted a picture of her alarm clock in her work handbag. Reminds
me of the time I popped off to purchase a pillow in between lectures.
My brother had specifically requested a memory foam pillow for his 16th,
peculiarity clearly runs in the family. I arrive at the last lecture of
the day with a big bag full of pillow. Oddly enough I was notorious for
dozing off in the odd lecture and now I'd arrived prepared with my new
fancy pillow! Click here to reminisce about my redheadedness
Here's a vid of a blacksmith making Thor's hammer!
Starting with a classic, can't go wrong right? Wrong, that is rather difficult to understand but I'll assume you're all rather clever. Why wrong, mostly because this song has become associated with the ever popular spinning member gif. If you are unfamiliar with the rotating meat I am referring to then I urge you NOT to google it. Sooner or later it'll likely enter your life and you will be forever scarred/giggly/curious.
So after a month of furious dieting, I get pretty furious when I am calorie restricted, I have lost around 6.5kg. That's just over a stone or 14 pounds. Which puts me back at the weight I was this time last year and the same weight I was in 2007! Do you get my circular reference yet?
Just as the fat is rendering off my physique I get an offer I can rarely refuse, all you can eat buffet! This was offered to me by my fellow crafstman Swapnal. One of a few socially accepted situations for eating more than what is considered civilised/ necessary/ humanly possible. Naturally I headed online to my all you can eat go to guy, Furious Pete. He's a competitive eater who holds the world record for eating a 12 inch pizza in the fastest time, anyone care to guess? 43 seconds. Yep and what makes it more impressive is that you have to use a knife and fork, only eat one slice at a time and whatever is on your fork has to go in your mouth. Oh and he's super ripped.
His advice is to get value for money. Aim to eat three times the cost of the buffet e.g. £20 buffet = £60 worth of food consumed. Eat meat is pretty much the order of the day and high end seafood. Now this sits well with me as I'm planning on only eating protein. But the buffet plan runs out of steam and I'm sat with all this buffet wisdom and nothing to do with it. Like the majority of facts rattling around in my sponge-like brain.
I did have the joy of sitting in several carparks for several hours, this past week. Well that's to do with my current occupation, still steeped in secrecy so I'll leave y'all to draw your own conclusions. Whilst sat in one of the car parks I noticed a lady wearing a cardigan, clutching a fistful of it around the collar bone area. Not so strange as bag straps rest around that area and are notorious for slipping off shoulders. The strange bit is that she was speaking to her hand. As she approached I observed that she was in fact speaking to a puppy that was wrapped in her cardigan around the collar bone area! I also saw a lady who was part of the housekeeping team at Lincoln County, I think here name was Moira. She once told me about how she likes to add whey protein to hot chocolate. I've tried that and it just goes all lumpy and terrible.
I also had the chance to sample Morrison's fresh ground coffee, it's truly terrible. Weak and lukewarm. Maybe I just like overly strong coffee. Then again I once had an espresso that's right not expresso but espresso. A truth that was revealed to me by a co worker by the name of Chris. Back to that one time I tried and espresso, it was terrible. But terribly strong not terrible full stop. The acquaintance I was frequenting the establishment with commented that their dad drinks espresso and asked me why I'd gotten espresso? My answer was because I'd never had one before. I did the same with root beer once whilst attempting my one and only eating challenge to date. It's like fizzy deep heat, not my cup of tea. I guess I owe my tendency to try things I never have from Senor Phaseler Yeah so don't bother with Morrison's coffee is what I'm saying.
And now onto the controversy with Frank's Redhot sauce. I knew from previous...observation? I'd read the bottle. I knew it was high in salt and sugar. Strange I know that a hot sauce would be high in sugar! But it is made from peppers and so it makes sense that there's a fair bit of sugar in the concentrated sauce. Somehow or other I end up looking up the product on Amazon. They sell it in bigger bottles and they also have the option to purchase a 3.78 litre bottle. Scale often defeats me so imagine your classic 2.272 litre bottle of milk or 4 pinter in old money. This bottle of hot sauce is 66% bigger! I know statistics make everything way more exciting (!)
1000 words?
Not sure if you can see the label, click pic to enlarge. Says there zero sugar! Now this does not tally with my previous observation. So after a few days of not reading the bottle I've got kicking about the house I read it, lo and behold there's loads of sugar present, at least according to the label. Now I'd been off the hot sauce because of all the salt and sugar. But this confusion left me wanting some spiciness in my life. So I decide to get it out of my system and douse my salad in red hot. Made it a whole lot more interesting. Now I know you all trust me to the ends of the earth but seeing is believing, right? Wrong! Anyone seen swordfish? The film not the animal.
Click to make enormous!
You know this is my desk for sure. For one my centuries old phone is in the background, still works btw. Likely mentioned that the calender runs out, as in when you try and scroll past the 31st of December 2014 it won't let you. It's Y2K all over again! Albeit on a very local level. You may have spotted the scuffed coaster, JD coasters boi! I get JD freebies on account of being awesome. Passport holder, keyrings, calenders, ice cube bags, spice rub, basting brush, signage, cocktail mixer and so on! There is also the egg on top of the reflective ting to the left of the picture. The reflective thins is a another freebie I got from 3M the egg is hewn from onyx. My broskis theory is that if you can get it hatch then you'll get an actual onix.
Cropped and zoomed for your viewing pleasure.
You can see my centuries old phone! Yeah so what's the deal Franks!?!? Why the sugar in your super market stuff? But not in the mahoosive bottles available on amazon!!?!! I think it's a fifo stock management thing but I did briefly go all conspiracy theory an think it was a ploy to keep the UK hooked in a diet that was way too high in sugar. Well now you know...
My dear old dad has exited the country en route to the land of my ancestors, Magrathea. If you get that reference then there is a very special place in my heart for you :-D I am of course descended from people who lived in the vicinity of the Indus valley. Before departing I was asked what I considered success. I gave a generally woolly answer, not a fan of answering such big questions. Something along the lines of it's different for different people. Cash = success, perhaps. I think I landed on leaving the world better than you found it.
Ooh and my old, old dog. Long time readers will be familiar with the living legend that is Tim the Labrador. He featured in my first few blog posts and I recently asked my brother how old he was. Tim lives with me but I am terrible at remembering how old anyone is. He's thirteen, fourteen on the 18th of March next year. Now for some reason or other I thought he was only eleven. Thirteen is ruddy old for a labrador! According to a calculator that makes him 86. In another two years and four months he'd be 100!
He's being have, get it? You can read the older stuff about my awesomely old dog here and here.
Around this time for the past few years I get a bit of a louder shout from life, universe and everything.
2012 my little brother went to uni
2013 I became ruptured two discs and became pretty much paralysed from the waist down
2014 more people moving away, death and cancer.
The death was in a friends family, tragically young. The cancer has nothing to do with anyone I know. Well there is a lovely young lady who is kicking hodgkins lymphoma's ass right now. I know her in so much as I spoke to her whilst representing my house, Johnson, in the the interhouse netball tournie. I sprained my ankle for the millionth time during that tournie. She writes a blog! The cancer that surprised me this time was Furious Pete's. The fella I mentioned earlier. Turns out he had a cancerous testicle, he had it removed and it appears that it hadn't spread so the outlook is promising. His message subsequently was to seek out help if you need it. Don't wait. So this is me repeating that sound advice. Tell someone, call someone, do something.
He says it much better than I do.
So as not to end of such a sombre note here is a fantastic disneyfied cake to fulfil your cake gif needs.
