Hey all, just thought I’d quickly explain my recent absence.  The vicious recurring episodes of depression I suffer from have skyrocketed over the past few weeks.  I am not sleeping or eating much, and thus, have not exactly had the energy to work out (or write anything for that matter).  Don’t worry, I am putting in effort to seek treatment.  Will hopefully resume Flaabing again soon.

   Want to burn off a few extra calories racing around the house, rolling on the floor maniacally, and laughing hysterically?  Get a pair of kittens.  We did, and it sure beats hitting the elliptical.

That is all.

He stood beside a black garbage can and lit the fuse of a cigarette.  His hands were shaking.  From the cold. 

She walked towards him and stopped about six feet away, digging for something in her purse.

He looked away.  Trying to focus beyond a palpable elegance that permeated the thin air.  He tried to conceal his unease.

“Do you have a light?” she asked.
“Yeah.  Though, it might not work well with this wind,” he replied.
“Anything’s better than nothing.”
“That can be true.”

He watched as she lit the fuse of her cigarette. 

“Thanks,” she said with a smile as the wind whipped caramel strands across her cheek.
“You’re welcome.  See you around.”

He would wait for next Monday.

You cold?  Tough shit.

   It is forty-million degrees below zero out, and yet somehow, I still manage to look fabulous.  Like Johnny Depp if he starred in Fargo.  I like to think, at least.

   Here's a rundown of today's chosen attire, walking to school & work through the Great Northern Canadian Arctic Tundra:

•    A heavy cotton jacket.
•    Two scarves; one for the face and ears (my ears, by the way, are horrendously frostbitten after last night’s adventure---they are flaking and blistering and so, require special care) and one for the neck.
•    A stylish weatherproof fedora.
•    A pair of wool-lined fitted leather gloves.
•    A heavy hooded sweater.
•    A thinner v-neck soft wool sweater.
•    A Mike’s Hard Lemonade t-shirt with a slogan on the back that reads: “Mike says: Do unto others… then run.”
•    A pair of heavy denim jeans (brought out of last night's icey prison thanks to the dryer).
•    A pair of long-johns.
•    Two pairs of socks; one thin pair for wear with indoor shoes, one thick pair to go over the thin pair while outside.
•    One pair of exceptionally dapper boots.

   Remember folks, more layers means more burned calories.  Heyo!  Now if you'll excuse me, my eyelds are frozen together and require immediate attention.

WHITEOUT

   Big blizzard today.  Huge.  The kind you only hear about in adventure novels and nursing homes and on the Discovery Channel.  Or so it goes. 

   Excuse the theatrics, but it's always worse when you have to battle your way through it on foot.

   As previously mentioned, the greedy mingers who drive buses in this city are on strike.  They feel they deserve more money and priviledges for driving a fucking bus.  I digress.  So I've been walking to and from school, a brisk 40 minute walk each way on a good day.  Today, it took an hour each way. 

   There were great blankets of snow falling from the sky in the late afternoon as if some Heavenly mountain suffered an avalanche.  Then, in the late evening as I walked home, a vicious wind whipped it all into a restless arctic cocktail chilled to 36 degrees Celsius below zero.  Snow and ice that stings the face like great swarms of rocket-propelled metal mosquitoes.

   I arrived home light-headed and unsteady.  I lumbered up the stairs and into the bedroom.  Shrugged off my messenger bag, my scarf, my hat, gloves and jacket.  Collapsed onto the couch.  Weakly lifted off my sweater and paid little attention to the Hellish burning in and out of my ears.  Chiseled my legs free of my jeans, now solid sheets of denim encased for all eternity in ice.

   Then I stepped onto the scale.  It read: 157.  That's another 4 pounds gone in 7 days. 

   The walk was worth it.  Now, if only I could feel my ears.

   Though, I'm starting to think the Japanese have the right approach to exercise:

(Above photograph from the Washington State Dept of Transportation's Flickr album.)

   I need to go listen to Gensis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway now and go to sleep as my muscles struggle to come to terms with this whole "working out" concept.  Rum only numbs the ache very slightly. 

I don't exercise. If God wanted me to bend over, he'd have put diamonds on the floor.     - Joan Rivers

  All right, this’ll have to be brief since I just spent 40 minutes trudging through a solid two feet of snow on Ottawa’s lovely unplowed sidewalks and I am in desperate need of a beer.  A walk that normally takes me 15 minutes, it should be noted.  And REAL beer, it should also be noted; none of that 64-calorie llama piss in a bottle shite (cough, Jason, cough).

 
   Right, where were we?  Weight maintenance and PROJECT FLAABBUSTER PHASE 2!!!11 

Listen:

   I don’t necessarily want to launch PHASE 2!!!11, but it’s been over a year since breaking it off with the only ex-girlfriend I consider significant, and now, having shed 11 blubbery pounds and any iota of grief, I am physically and emotionally ready to date again.  As much a cliche as it sounds.
  

   There’s one problem: relatively sedentary as I was for many months, near every ounce of muscle mass on this carcass that once was, is gone.  Evaporated.  Ceased to exist.  And who wants to cuddle with a bony sack of fresh dinner rolls?  As goddamned tasty as bread smells.  But I digress.  Terrible analogy.

So it could be said this will be a tale of dates and dumbbells.  Clever, huh?

THE DEADLINE:

7 weeks from tomorrow, February 26th 2009.

THE GOALS:

1)    Biceps greater in circumference than Bill O’Reilly Neanderthalic cranium.
2)    Abs like a lobster.  Or at least, some semblance of abdominal mussels.

Get it?  Lobsters?  Shellfish?  Mussels?  Muscles?  I’ll be here all week, folks.

-----

LINK OF THE DAY:

Kure Kure Takora

   So, it's the end.  It comes down to this:

STARTING WEIGHT: 172 million POUNDS

  DEADLINE WEIGHT: 161 POUNDS!!!

  WEIGHT LOSS GOAL: 5 POUNDS

      TOTAL WEIGHT LOST: 11 million POUNDS!!!

          (That's more than half for you philosophy majors.)

   Complete rundown of what worked and what didn't and just how much of a total loser Billo is to come tomorrow.  Along with details on where I'm going from here.  Specifically, PHASE 2!!!11 of PROJECT FLAABBUSTER.  Yeah, you didn't think there'd be a PHASE 2!!!11, did ya?  Well sit down and shut up, 'cuz you're going to have to deal with me a little longer.  School has once again oiled the gears of procrastination and I'm ready to blog full-time.  About more things than just how fat (yet surprisingly shapely) my ass is, too.

   But right now, I'm a heavy-breathing mass of sweat pudding after walking to school and back thanks to the public transit strike which analysts are saying could last for months.  More on that tomorrow.  Right now, I've gotta find a jacuzzi...

   Thank you FLAAB, and lol, internet!

   For some odd reason, I awoke this morning with an absolutely insatiable craving for SUGAR.  Maybe it's the combined pent-up desire from 4 weeks of very minimal and controlled sugar intake finally catching up with me---maybe it's withdrawal.  Or maybe, it's all the candy all over the whole Goddamn house.  Either way, fruit just wasn't cutting it (imagine me saying "fruit" with a palpable tone of pure contempt).

   So today, for 10 hours straight, with two smoke breaks and four cups of coffee, I drew the Big Dolt himself, my very worst enemy, Bill O'Reilly.  With his repulsive smugness smeared over my iMac’s screen throughout the day, I did not touch a single chunk of dark chocolate or daintily wrapped swirled candy.  Swear on my left testicle.

   Some folk meditate to work around temptation.  I engage in deep-seated loathing.  Do whatever works, denizens of Flaab.

If all cheese were priced this way, maybe I wouldn't have been so flaabby to begin with!

(Note: I took this photo at a local grocery store and submitted it to FailBlog.)

Good Lord, it's a sign...

For the record, I’m not fat.  I’m fluffy.   –Gabriel Iglesias

   Flaabbers, what little things are you doing to motivate yourselves away from cakes and candy during the Consumeristmas season?  Are you chucking darts at a photo of your worst enemy?  Are you rewarding resistant behaviors?  Are you marking your daily weight on the calendar?  Or jabbing rusted brass screws into your eyeballs whenever in the presence of holiday sweets to classically condition an association between evil foods and intolerable pain?

   ‘Cuz Mary mother of Christ am I feelin’ the pressure.  Patrons at work are continually stocking the office with such a vast supply of home-baked goods that one must scale a cliff of gingerbread men (or gingerbread people, for you P.C. freaks) and summit an alp of vanilla cupcakes just to reach the photocopier.  Eating one’s way through is so much easier.

   The lovely Donna cut off her hair, and she looks absolutely radiant.  So maybe that’ll work on me.  The first step to maintaining an effective defensive front against great Mongol hordes of foil-wrapped chocolates is to feel good about yourself, right?

   Now, the question: to lop off the mop, or not?  I have the dreadful tendency of feeling good about going back to shorter hair right up until it all falls to the ground.  

        It's not a particularly bad cut right now...

      ...it's just everywhere.

Those other two photos were only to emphasize how messy it is on a regular basis.  This is what it looks like when I hit the library during study hour.

   What say you?  Shorter hair would compliment a newly (almost 10 lbs!) lighter young man, right?

-----

Link of the Day:

Best Roller Coaster Souvenir Photos Ever

In response to Donna's post below...

Pretty soon I bet it’s going to be almost impossible.  You’re gonna have to be morbidly obese while maintaining tiny little tweety bird ankles; and a wandering eye.   –Maria Bamford

   The endlessly witty MJ posted a few photographs of a 90210 star yesterday, and it got me thinking about something that often comes to mind, approximately every 7.3 seconds: women’s bodies.  Rather than the usual sorts of feeling the female form elicits (in my nether regions), I experienced a tremor of anger.

   How did coat stands in denim jeans become totems of physical attractiveness?  What compelled North American society (and indeed now much of the WORLD) to reach such a pinnacle in the ever-present desire for a body size that is unattainable by the majority? 

   When waists the width of a dime were in style, all women had to do was buy a corset.  When plumpness was all the rage, dieting to attain such shape consisted of a second slice of cake with afternoon tea.  But today’s standards lead women to potentially life-threatening actions that deprive themselves of vital sustenance more often than I feel comfortable believing.   

   Is it that trends have covered every manifestation of willful form alteration and skinniness is the ultimate extreme?  Biased as my position is towards curvaceous beauties, this vogue is furiously troubling.

   (Know that this is not an attack on those women in the spotlight whose very employment relies on how much they resemble an upright two-by-four.  Nor those who feel compelled to idolize these women.  It is a questioning of the concept.)

   I have reason to believe Bill O'Reilly is responsible.

-----

Link of the Day:

Buy Artificial Virginity Hymens!

   Just a quick note, Flaabbers.  Be sure to remember that impossible ideals and dreams, though temporarily achievable, will destroy you.  EMBRACE yourselves for what you are!  Embrace HEALTH, not skin-and-bones.  Love thyself, flaab and all.  You are all beautiful.

We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.  -Bill Hicks

  Breakdown of the past few days:

  Tuesday Night:  Finished my last exam.  Blasted through that abomination in an hour and a half.  Proceeded to the campus bar.

   Wednesday:  Did not turn on my alarm for the first time in 4 months.  Slept until 11:00 AM.  Felt groggy for the rest of the day.  Walked to the bar (Public Transit gorillas are still on strike).  Walked home.  Watched Lord of the Rings.

   Thursday:  Decided that doing nothing for the break was acting in an irresponsible manner.  Decided to help my mother and rearrange the house's furniture as she's been meaning to do for months, but never has the time.  Bless her soul, that woman is over 50 (but looks just shy of 42), works as a server for a catering company, AND teaches yoga classes.  She just got home 10 minutes ago (11:25 PM).  She left the house at 9:00 this morning.  She is an inspiration.  Anyway, I spent Thursday, from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM moving furniture.  Passed out after watching Lord of the Rings until One.

   Friday:  I awoke this morning absolutely paralyzed.  My back and forearms ached as if fire ants were tunneling through my veins.  Spent the day lounging and doodling and watching Kill Bill.  Watched this video several times (WARNING: NSFW).  Burned 1.3 million calories laughing.  Walked to the bar, walked home. 

   Tomorrow, I am going to begin working out again.  May even go sign up for a gym membership at the community centre.  There is a Wild Wings with a bar right across the road from it, too.

   Oh, and by some insane freaking miracle, I lost 2 more pounds.  I weigh 162.  This is the lightest I have been in, God!, many moons.  This time last year, I was toying with 192.  Might have to start wearing heavier socks to avoid floating away in the breeze.  My boxer briefs don't fit anymore, either.  Photos not available upon request. 

       Extra points if you can correctly guess which is me.

Anyone really digging a hot dog right now?

Watch this video.

"How It's Made: Hot Dogs"

           Yeah, not anymore you aren't.