Monday, January 04, 2010

Welcome to 2010

So I guess Arthur C. Clarke got it wrong...I mean in 2001 there was no black monolith on the moon or a computer named HAL that killed everyone off on the International Space Station.  Heck here it is 2010 and the Planet Jupiter hasn't imploded and become a second sun and we haven't been warned to not touch Titan for some reason.......oh...am I the only that remembers that movie?  Anyway I digress...here is the first Rant of 2010:

Fitness is a big issue for people in the first 3 months of the new year.  Everyone and his Brother seems to make the resolution to "go to the gym and lose X pounds, etc".  They fork out big bucks to join the gym, go until March, then quit come April.  I personally use two programs on the Wii, My Fitness Coach by Ubisoft and Wii Fit Plus.   My Fitness Coach is more like an interactive work out video than it is a "game".  You set up a profile; weight, height, age, etc then the program sets up a program for you...i.e. weight loss, cardio, etc and you pick the amount of time you work out each time it schedules you.  There are 500+ exercizes built in and they change each time.  You can earn different music and workout locations.....well at least where your Personal Trainer Maya works out at....it's a good program.  I pair it with Wii Fit Plus using the Balance Board.  Some good strength exercizes and yoga too.  The "games" they give you to play really work you out, I especially like the rhythm Kung Fu and and the Biking and the Running.  Although we may look into a gym, for now we have our Wii and our bikes (yet it's too damn cold to go out riding at the present time.).

Okay Steve...where's the Rant....I know I know...getting to it....

Because we are a nation of fatasses, and have you noticed that the stuff that's good for you costs an arm and a leg and the crap is cheap...bastards!!!, there is a huge market for "systems" and gadgets that will get you into shape.  Miracle pills, etc that are available all for "5 easy payments of xxx.xx".   Half of it's crap....okay the majority of it is crap.   I remember one of the first ones I saw....Suzanne Somers and her AbMaster....a spring thing you put between your legs and squeeze them together and it was supposed to tone you up.  Okay...sure it does.  From what I've heard, the Total Gym (hey Chuck Norris pushes it.....) and Bowflex are two of the best machines you can buy for your home.   Have you noticed, that when some yahoo puts out a "system" they bill themselves as a "Fitness Celebrity".  Really?  If it wasn't for your stupid ass being on an infomercial constantly no one would know your name.   Remember the video tapes called "Fitness Made Simple"?   They were in the '90s.  It was a series of work out tapes being pitched by "Fitness Celebrity" John Basedow.   Who????  Never heard of your ass before you started pitching tapes.  I guess not much of a celebrity.  Billy Mays, that's a celebrity, Anthony Sullivan that's a celebrity.  You saw those guys walking down the street, you'd know them...well not Billy Mays anymore, RIP Pitchman.....you saw John Basedow walking down the street you wouldn't know it.  Hell if you saw Billy Blanks...you know the Tae Bo "Fitness Celebrity"....you'd probably not recognize him.   There's only one Fitness Celebrity and that's Jack LaLane.  There's this new chick out now hawking this ab swing thing....it looks like a round disc on a stand with handle bars and from a central spot extends two knee rests.  You kneel on this thing, grab the handle bars, and rock your hips from side to side.   The machine comes with the "Ab Rocker System" developed by "Fitness Celebrity" Something Nicole Lee.........again with the title of "Fitness Celebrity"........honestly folks, from what I hear the best exercize is to walk a half hour each day.   And watch what you eat....yeah I know easier said than done...trust me I haven't met food I didn't like.   Remember Daisy Fuentes?   Thankfully that talentless hack we haven't heard from in awhile.   Oh yes, she was a model I think.....I believe she was a beach volleyball champion too, which is great, but when you think that qualifies you to be on MTV....okay, any monkey with half a pulse could have been on MTV.....or to sing/act/be a host of a show.....sorry no.  For some reason ABC decided to add her to "America's Funniest, Cruel, Embarassing, Attention Whoring Moments caught on tape" because I guess Bob Sagget just wasn't cutting it enough.  Yeah, she killed that show, just like adding Carmen Electra to Battlebots pretty much sent that show to the shit heap.  Side note: Battlebots was a show for Geeks.  Yes Geeks like looking at hot chicks, but when said hot chick....Carmen Electra...not so much.....demands more airtime it kills the show.   We wanted to see robots battling robots not "Carmen Electra's Battlebots 101".  Ummmm these are machines built by guys like Grant Imahara of Mythbusters and yet Carmen Electra is going to tell me in a hair tossing, breathless voice how to build one of these things.   Not likely.  This chick couldn't operate a can opener let alone know how to build a robot.  Side note done....now back to your regularly scheduled rant.

Daisy Fuentes...that's where we were.  So after Daisy lost every job she ever had on TV she decided to go into clothing design and pitching something called "Windsor Pilates".   When I first saw that word written before I ever heard it pronounced I thought it was Windsor Pilate....(pilot), you know, Brother of Pontias.......I still wondered what the hell a Windsor Pilate was.......essentially it's stretching and pulsing in those stretches to work out targeted muscle groups.  Windsor apparently is the person who decided to take stretching and call it someting else...Pilates.   I just don't understand.  

How about all those "magic" pills.....you know the Fat Blocker ones.  Or Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem.    Kirstie Alley is a prime example of what happens when you go off of Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem, you end up gaining it all back.   Valerie Bertinelli is managing to stay slim because she exercizes and eats right...she learned the maintenance others don't.  Not saying these systems don't work, but you have to eat their pre-prepared food and you don't learn how to eat out or make it yourself to continue to maintain your weight after you are done with their programs.  Weight Watchers is the best of them I think.  They teach you to eat real food and how much of and what types of food to eat.    The one that scares me is the Alli pill.  A friend's wife started the Alli system.   You take a pill with each meal, up to three a day, and follow their plan and you will lose weight.  Apparently the book that comes with the program is 100 pages long and filled with warnings.  What these pills do is block the body's absorption of a percentage of fat.  The plan says you can only eat so much fat a day based off of what's left after the pill has blocked what it's going to block.  If you eat over that amount, the rest of the fat comes out of your ass as the runs.......yes, this pill punishes you for cheating on "The Program" by making you piss out of your ass.   Nice.   Sounds like what happens when one of the GoG eats dairy.......not mentioning names, he knows who he is.  

No comments: