I Need an “I’m Weak” Emoji

When is the worst time to completely lose your desire to eat healthy and exercise? Yup, right before the holiday season, and for me that’s exactly what happened. Earlier in the year, when faced with food temptations, I was strong. I stuck to my slow carb diet, had my cheat day, and I would even text my wife how strong I was by texting her the food choice in front of me, and using the “I’m strong” emoji ????, and profess my awesomeness for not eating it. Slowly “I’m strong” fell apart, and what I really needed was an emoji to say “I’m weak” that I could text to her as I was stuffing my face with a brownie.I'm Weak Emoji

I think my initial loss of desire started with our trip to Costa Rica in early May, but thankfully the summer activity helped my weight overcome some of the bad food choices as cheat day started to turn into cheat weekend. A vacation in the fall didn’t help, and by the time Thanksgiving came I was in full-blown “I’ll eat anything, and if it involves chocolate or beer, even better!” I was weak. So weak. And I wanted to express it. My iPhone didn’t have it. 🙁

I’m Weak

I know some of the face emojis are supposed to signify weakness, or something like that, but usually I look at most of them and they either say “I’m happy ????,” “I’m sad ????,” “I’m mad ????,” “I’m sneaky ????,” or some variation ????. None of them expressed my weakness the way I imagined it, but thankfully my nephew understood what I was thinking, and drew up  the “I’m weak” emoji, complete with cookie. Does anyone have the phone number of the emoji people so I can petition them to adopt it? I mean, hell, they added bacon and a clown face lately, why not the wiggly arm of weakness?

I would like to say that with the new year things are different, that I am back to being ????, but although I may have tried to walk a little bit more than I did in December, January has still had instances of weakness. Take yesterday, for example. There I am, at Starbucks, ordering my venti, iced, nonfat latte, and I spot a brownie in the display. I didn’t text my wife, but if I did it would have been I'm Weak Emoji.

Yes, I had the brownie.

I’m weak. At least right now.

WKRP Turkeys Away

Via YouTube – WKRP Turkeys Away Snippet

One of my all-time favorite TV episodes, and one of the best lines ever, “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Turkeys cannot fly.

Ice cream for breakfast makes you smarter, Japanese scientist claims

From The Telegraph…

  • … a Japanese scientist has discovered that consuming ice cream for breakfast improves a person’s alertness and mental performance.

I have a new diet plan.

Working for the Machines

From Scott Adams’ Blog…

  • I would argue that your political choices are already largely determined by Facebook, Google, Twitter and the other media companies. It feels exactly like free will to you, but it isn’t. And someday soon our technology will tell us how to eat, when to sleep, when to sip water, when to exercise, and even who to date.

I’ve been fascinated with Scott Adams throughout the entire election and his analysis of Donald Trump as the master persuader. Now that the election is over he continues to make me see things in a different light. I’m already working for the machines every time Siri tells me it’s time to start heading to my next calendar appointment, or when Waze instructs me to go a different way to my destination than I want to, but I follow Waze because she is wiser than I am.

Uncle Nick

Entertainment Ave!…

  • Uncle NickSome of Uncle Nick is kind of Cleveland bashing, or embracing the idiosyncrasy that is Cleveland depending on your point of view, with comments like “When you have Ohiogenetics your body morphs into the shape of a tugboat by the time you’re thirty,” and “Cleveland had plenty of lows since the Ten Cent Beer Night… We’ve come to accept it,” but for the movie, it worked.

It’s a raunchy look at your yearly Christmas party, complete with comparison to Cleveland’s legendary Ten Cent Beer Game. I gave it 3 stars out of 5.

Backyard and Up

Backyard and Up

Everyone can see our backyard tree looking like, well, a tree, but since it’s our backyard, I get to see it as colorful sky.

A Couple Had Their Engagement Shoot Photobombed By An Incredulous Squirrel

From Buzzfeed:

  • The best part might be its expression — like he’s confused as to why a camera is interrupting his snack.

I don’t know why I love squirrels incorporating themselves into human situations, but I do. This is awesomelly cute, and as you scroll down through the story, the squirrel photo is perfect.

I’m Sorry, Cleveland, I’m a Chicago Cubs Fan

Dreaming of SummerI tried. I honestly did. I’m sorry, Cleveland, I’m a Chicago Cubs fan.

For years and years, even since I moved to Chicago, I questioned my allegiance, wondered who I would root for, in the end, if the “End of the World” scenario would happen, a Chicago Cubs vs. Cleveland Indians World Series. The world is still spinning yet here we are, five games into the World Series, with Cleveland up 3 – 2, and I finally know where I stand. It occurred firmly during game five when I announced on Facebook I had cheered on the Cubs for the first four games, but I was all in for the Tribe in game five.

Because, like many a sports fan, I assumed my actions actually influence a team in some way, I blamed the Cubs being in their losing situation as my fault because I was on their side. I also didn’t want to be on the side of the loser so I announced on Facebook that I was all in for the Tribe, and in doing so I was either helping out the Cubs because my flipping sides would cause them to win, or I would at least be on the side of the winner and could revel in a glorious World Series victory. That “flipping” lasted about 1/2 pitch.

Firmly implanted in the couch, with beer on my left side, the Indians came to the plate, and I quickly began to drive my wife crazy as something good would go the Cubs way, I would express my glee, but then quickly say “No, wait, I mean ‘Bad, bad, bad!'” For that first inning, with every action, my wife had no idea who was doing better, and try as I might to switch my happiness or disappointment to an action by Cleveland, I kept finding myself happy or disappointed in the actions by the Cubs, and when Cleveland scored in the second inning, and I was pissed at the sign of impending Cubs doom, I realized right then that it had finally happened, I was a Chicagoan. I was a Cubs fan.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as I’ve lived in Chicago for about 31 of my 49 years now, not including my short stint in middle Illinois, and as the years have gone by, and never being able to actually watch a Cleveland sports team, I’ve gotten sucked in by the generally suckiness of Chicago teams, with a few glimmers of hope in the White Sox World Series, and if I were a bigger hockey fan I’ve always got the Blackhawks.

Don’t get me wrong, I still root for the Cleveland teams, just not when they are playing the Chicago teams.

So here I am, the morning of game six of the World Series, and it’s time to accept it, I’m a Chicago fan. I will accept my fate in this World Series, either being happy for my Cleveland fans who for years, up until the Cavs, wallowed in suckiness, but from the first pitch tonight I’ll be all in, oh way, I can’t be “all in,” that’s a Cleveland thing, so I guess I’ll just be cheering on the lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs, and pray they won’t be losers any longer.

As my mom would say, “Go Cubbies!” She would have loved this series, though it might have killed her, but as much as she like the Cubs I have no doubt she would be cheering on the Tribe because she never left #Believeland.

Bad Winter Rising

A squirrel at the ready for a bad winter.There is a bad winter rising this year here in Chicagoland. That is my prediction, and I’m sticking to it. Mind you I have no scientific evidence, no empirical data, and no analysis of current weather patterns and how they relate to past weather patterns that would predict a harsh winter. My prediction this year is based solely on the squirrels.

The Wooly Bear

I understand some people may use other methods, maybe the prevailing winds at the time of the autumnal equinox, or the timing of the leaves falling from the trees, or the Farmers Almanac, or, in the case of my childhood, the famed weatherman from Cleveland, Dick Goddard, utilizing the wooly bear caterpillar, but I wasn’t paying attention to the wind, and haven’t seen a wooly bear since my youth in Ohio. What I have been paying attention to, lately, are squirrels.

Let me explain a little more.

Out of the Palm of My Hand

In my attempt to try not to balloon to 300 pounds my general version of exercise is going for a walk. For the past few years my favorite walking areas are a park near my day job, and a park near home where we walk our dog, Milo. Both parks have a stable amount of trees, nothing crazy, it’s not like I’m walking in a forest, but with the trees comes the occasional squirrel.

I’m a fan of squirrels, find them kind of cute, and remember being that young lad in Ohio when we would leave peanuts for the squirrels on our patio to the point the squirrels became comfortable enough to take the peanuts out of my hand. Maybe it is that fondness that causes me to notice them while I walk, and smile, but lately I have noticed something.

Scared Squirrels

I do recall the past few years seeing squirrels foraging as Fall arrived, but there weren’t that many, and the past couple of winters haven’t been that bad, all things considered. This year, though, I have been noticing a lot of squirrels, to the point at one time I saw about five of them all in this area of the park. They seem to be scrambling, they seem to be on a mission, and they seem to be scared.

Yes, in their eyes I see worry, and there aren’t many things a squirrel worries about. I know, I’ve asked them. They mention the snakes and raccoons are a pain, most dogs they can get away from by scurrying up a tree, but the hawks generally worry them the most. This year, though, their squirrel-sense is tingling, and the tingling is because they sense snow and cold, which leaves to no food, which for a squirrel is worse than a hawk, or so they say.

Snow Blower

I used to enjoy winter, but lately, as I get older, that enjoyment tends to go away after the first, beautiful carpet of white turns into a dirty mess. Maybe I should return to my youth this year and go back to building snow forts and making snowmen, but first, I suppose, I should get the snow blower out of storage soon, I have a feeling I’m going to need it a lot this year. The squirrels are telling me so.