Just got back from my doctor for my check-up, and it appears I am going to make it. I need to lose some weight and apparently my allergies were so bad at some point my eardrum perforated so we may have to check on that at some point, but otherwise I am in good health for a fat man.
So I got that going for me.
cleek
open thread, eh?
in that case, y’all are invited to name that tune.
cathyx
You’re in good health until you’re not. Being overweight is a ticking timebomb, as far as health goes. Take care of it now before the bomb goes off, and you’ll live a long and happy life.
SteveinSC
I’ll bite, how fat?
MikeJ
In know today is supposed to be the end of the world, at about 6pm. What time zone is that?
Shygetz
MikeJ, the webpage says May 21st. We still have time to offer to buy their houses for $10 each.
cathyx
My dad was overweight for years, he was lucky to have good genes and not get diabetes until he hit 70. All those fat years he thought he was healthy, because he didn’t have any obesity related problems. But of course he did eventually. Then I would hear how he was so healthy, where did this come from? This all came out of nowhere. But it didn’t come out of nowhere. He was lucky it didn’t happen to him earlier.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Here’s a very interesting article on domesticated animals.
Animal Domestication – Taming the Wild (National Geographic)
This what happens when folks not used to using their hands hold expensive things
Go Bulls!
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: Your link said May, not April. We still have a month.
Omnes Omnibus
I have an idea. Let’s lecture the fat man about being fat. Obviously his doctor didn’t say anything to him about it.
Cat Lady
Are you in the bathtub with
a mopthe blues?MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn, I was so excited about the god botherers leaving us alone I jumped the gun.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@SteveinSC:
…so fat that his Body Mass Index (BMI) is measured in acres
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Holy shit, man, perforated eardrum? Fuck, I just scratch my eyes until my tearducts are perforated, but your EARDRUM? Jesus.
But yeah, allergies aren’t helping. Especially when I have to face a reality where Climate Change is somehow at its least credible in the US, but Birtherism is hitting the super-mainstream gravy train. Oh, and somehow, death panels are being raised as a spectre again, while state GOP gov’ts want to help abolish towns and local councils by fiat, because of ‘financial concerns’.
I’m growing allergic to the United States at this point, because fuck all. It’s like a giant unstoppable fucking juggernaut of stupid.
Loneoak
So fat that Tunch points and laughs.
Joe Beese
Surprised to learn you’re “one of us”, Mr. Cole. Always pictured you as the lean, hardbitten type.
A softer cushion for Tunch, at least.
Comrade Mary
If your doctor isn’t worried about your perforated eardrum (!), I guess I shouldn’t be, either.
It’s good that you’ve been trying to reduce your weight already. Some advice from a former chunkball now cruising the average range:
1) Find some activity you like to do that you’ll keep doing. I found that lots of walking got my weight down enough that I could ride a bike without feeling ridiculous, and that made me fitter, slimmer, faster and happier. Endorphins for the win!
2) Moderate calorie reduction is good, but to reduce stalls that leave your weight plateaued for a long time, try a cheat day or a couple of cheat meals a week. The intermittent higher calorie intake makes your body less likely to panic about being starved, and less likely to crank down your metabolism in response. Psychologically, you’ll get through your weeks better knowing that a treat is imminent.
R-Jud
Awesome. Bean’s got allergies in full throttle, and that’s something else for me to lie awake worrying about.
W/r/t weight, did you see this on the Old Grey Paywall?:
What’s The Best Exercise?
Hint: the guy who says “squats”? Listen to him.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s Easter time! That means it’s time for PEEPS!
Here is a true classic: Romeo and Juliet tableaux in PEEPS.
http://www.theplainjane.com/peep_plays/rj_scene01.html
(Possibly NSFW, depending on where you W.)
Citizen_X
Goddamn it, people, leave Cole alone about the fat!
His personal nemesis is frozen water on the ground!
Paul in KY
@cleek: You need to post that link at FutureRockLegends.com, those guys would eat it up.
freelancer
Big hitter, the Llama.
Paul in KY
@Joe Beese: See! No anti-Obama stuff in that one. I knew you could do it.
j low
Did you ever see the World of Warcraft episode of Southpark?
Eric Cartman fat.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I demand my benign comments be freed from moderation!
Free Rusty!
Tsulagi
Your eardrum perforated? How do you do that shit?
SO has some allergies that pop up this time of year. In our area the pollen can get really heavy. Wash your car then if it sits for an hour you’ll see a yellow-green haze on it.
HEPA air filters in the house have helped. But her bigger improvement came when she started driving a car, an Audi A4, that uses cabin air filters. I put in the best replacement filters every year about this time in her car and mine. It’s helped a lot.
MattR
Am I the only one freaking out about the impending arrival of OT1K (Open Thread 1000)? Can Word Press handle it or is the whole blog gonna explode?
Just Some Fuckhead
Always remember that good health is the slowest rate at which one dies. Sounds like you may be going at a faster clip.
Woodrowfan
you need a pet to help your exercise. I hear Jack Russell’s are good for that….
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Is somebody going to blog on the attempted bombing in Denver? I realize the person of interest is not Muslimy looking, and our mass media are collectively yawning as a result, but maybe a BJer can look into it.
JCT
You get triple points from me for even GOING to a doctor, J.C.
The data regarding guys who have even semi-regular checkups is harrowing.
Served
I had my ear drum perforate one time in Middle School. Had an ear infection, got antibiotics from the doctor and went home. Fell asleep, thing was popping and crackling like crazy, and woke up with a pillow covered in dried blood. Have a great lunch everyone!
PS I have the same infection right now (but no fever or other symptoms thank the diety of your choice) and the doc said that it might happen again at any time in the next three weeks.
gex
All the pup walks really help with that, I think. Health and weight are obviously correlated, but being active and health probably has a stronger correlation. Plus the animals are all good for your health also too.
ETA: But speaking for myself, the 60 lbs I’ve lost in the last two years has been really good for me. It starts to snowball as you feel physically better. I started dog walking and have changed my dietary choices without counting calories or dieting.
ruemara
Cole, you might want to take a little better care of yourself. Perforated eardrum, for pete’s sake.
also too, a peak wingnut jpg, if you’d like.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Wait, we’re talking spontaneous perforation? Wow, I didn’t know that allergies could do that.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Seeing the way the “Villagers” still kowtow to the neocons on foreign policy and the trickle-down crowd on economics, I’ve come to the conclusion that if Wile E. Coyote were a Republican, the Washington Press corps would be falling over themselves praising him as an expert bird catcher.
WyldPirate
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
fixed.
Citizen_X
Hey Cole: you might also consider making lunch, or even breakfast, your big meal of the day instead of dinner. I understand (i.e. I’m too lazy to google) that nutritionists and dietitians widely suggest the practice. I’ve switched to eating big at lunch recently, and it’s really cut down on the late-afternoon snacking.
Well, time to make dinner, er, lunch!
JenJen
So judging by my inbox, the latest GOP meme is to attack President Obama and the First Lady as massive hypocrites for taking $375K worth of tax deductions on their 2010 filing.
It’s so weird how coordinated this stuff is. Anyone else getting this chatter?
Comrade Javamanphil
“I need to lose some weight” != “Please tell me how and why I should lose weight”
Just saying.
trollhattan
Why am I seeing a banner ad for saving millions of babies by defunding Planned Parenthood…NOW…by signing this petition? Weirder than usual.
To JC: have you given Flonase, et al a try? It and generic Claritin are how I survive spring. Still haven’t defeated wintertime molds, though.
Tim, Interrupted
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have an idea too: Let’s pretend that the fat man didn’t just write a post about being fat, thus begging for comments about his condition.
Tim, Interrupted
So lose the fucking weight or shut up about it.
Lolis
My eardrum perforated about three years ago. It hasn’t healed on its own, but I haven’t fixed it yet. It requires surgery and I can hear just fine. Although now I have decent insurance so I may just do it.
I really suggest yoga for your health. I lost a good 15 pounds doing it just a few times a week and never gained the weight back, even when I didn’t do yoga regularly. Now I do yoga six times a week and it makes me feel so good, mentally and physically. Good luck to you, John.
Fe E
…which is nice
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: We have Peep contests at my work, where the best team comes up with the most creative usage of said marshmallow animal. The rules are you’re supposed to only use the number they give you, however one of my co-workers has a stash from previous years that she has built up that will makes our numbers quite impressive. And we’re thinking outside the box thematically (it’s a Western theme) and might just go full-on Hunchpeep of Notre Dame. It’ll be epic.
WyldPirate
Almost forgot…this is a good chance to pimp a really good website about obesity: Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes
BTW, John, good luck on the weight loss effort. It’s a tough road, but you can do it!
TooManyJens
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t be silly. Nobody who’s fat has ever heard that they need to lose weight. That’s why people need to bring it up at every opportunity. Also, too, those of us who aren’t Christian have never heard about Jesus Christ before.
trollhattan
The key to good health? Maybe contortion!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/video/mediacenterbc3.html?bctid=909820191001
(You fellows, behave yourselves.)
Also, too, in the banner ad Rand Paul and a dramatic lighting scheme are now instructing me to sign the right to work petition Obama fears. I though he feared Pawlmentum?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tim, Interrupted:
Mrs. Fuckhead once asked me, “Does the mirror make me look fat?” I answered, “Yeah, and the fridge is making you eat.”
Poopyman
I just finished the course of antibiotics I got for having another cold turn into a sinus infection. The doc at the urgent care ctr also gave me a referral to an ENT. He seems to think a deviated septum can cause some blockage. I don’t know where he would get that idea….
@WyldPirate: I see another units nazi beat me to the punch.
My father had a perforated eardrum his whole life from a case of scarlet fever in his youth (1920s). Kept him out of WWII, so I suppose I might not be here but for a perforated eardrum.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I bet you still got nookie that night.
ChrisB
Just curious, did you avoid a co-pay for your check because of Obamacare?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Yutsano:
What’s that?
metricpenny
What’s the connection between peak wingnut and cake?
Paul in KY
@Poopyman: For me it’s sort of the reverse. My dad lived in Eastern KY & married a lady he met in England during WW II. I’m pretty sure they never would have met, except for war.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY: Stuck could be your father. That has to scare the hell outta ya.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: This falls under the category of if ya have to ask…
@Paul in KY: Three of my four grandparents were WWII vets. Though they all met outside of the context of the war.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: If he’s posting as the General, then he’s fooled the Hell outa me.
Have question: In Salon I can go & see all my posts collected up with links to threads I posted in. Is there any kind of equivalent here at BJ?
Paul in KY
@Yutsano: Cool! Hope you’re whupping on them tax scofflaws.
Omnes Omnibus
@TooManyJens: Jesus who?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
No.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Good god, that would be horrifying.
Bruce S
This has probably been noted here in various threads and definitely is part of today’s blogosphere conversation, but the House GOP has descended into total incoherence, self-contradiction and terminal dishonesty. My guess is that Obama is going to eat these assclowns for breakfast on the road to 2012. The recent midterm triumphalism is IMHO increasingly in a shambles. Even the Tea Partiers aren’t buying Ryan’s assault on Medicare…
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/04/house-gop-just-few-months-into-their.html
Bill H.
I’m in good health except that I should have a problem corrected by surgery which would require taking me off the anti-coagulant that I take to prevent strokes. I have the most recent of 13 strokes just a year ago, so the doctors are presently having a discussion of which presents the greater risk – leaving the surgery undone, or taking me off the anti-coagulant and risking another stroke. We’ve gone back and forth several times, and I am staying out of it.
But that leaves me rolling on the floor every time that I read silly discussions about “medical consumers” who “need to be making informed decisions” about their health. Which is the more important organ, brain or heart? Last I heard, you need both.
On second thought, maybe that’s not “good health” after all.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Unfortunately, I sometimes forget which thread I commented in the day before or last Friday or whatever.
I then waste time by opening up some & going thru the comments, etc. etc.
To me, the Salon thing is a nice feature.
agorabum
Not sure if this got discussed, but when speaking about our ‘galtian overlords’, there is an actual John Galt Company in NYC.
Oh, and it is being prosecuted for killing two firefighters after removing critical fire-fighting equipment on a demolition project to save $$ (no water pipe). Despite numerous smaller fires in the days leading up to the incident.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/nyregion/05deutsche.html
Free market FTW?
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: Thanks for answering.
McMullje
I, for one, am grateful that you are well. Stay that way – please.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
Useless frills like that is why Salon is always teetering on bankruptcy.
catclub
@Bill H.: I appreciate your good humor about the whole thing.
shano
Get some local bee pollen and eat it every day. I put it on toast or a banana with nut butter. If you do this, your allergies will go away. try it. It tastes GOOD.
You know you have to BAN HFCS from your diet. Read all the labels. if it says corn syrup, corn sweetener, modified corn starch etc. do not buy it, very simple.
gex
@metricpenny: Portal (a game by Valve) with a theme song by Jonathan Coulton. It’s a gamer/internet nerd meme.
Marc McKenzie
Ouch…well, at least it’s nothing life-threatening, but take care of yourself.
Anne Laurie
Tell your mom this is why you only listen to her half the time. (Allergy-responsive overactive immune systems are heritable, and the individual allergy response is related to one’s early childhood exposure to allergens.)
If you do this over the phone, choose the ear she’ll be shouting into carefully.
Warren Terra
I suspect that this thread is dead (it’s 6 hours old, with the most recent comment 100 minutes ago), but it’s still the most recent Open Thread, and I don’t feel like going off-topic in a more recent thread.
There’s an interesting story in the New York Times:
It hasn’t rained in 6 months, including the whole winter, they’re at something like 10% of reservoir capacity heading into the summer – and now they’re reducing lawn watering a bit? I mean, I know that high school football is the local religion, closely followed by climatically inappropriate lush green lawns, but this is absurd. And high school football has been over for something like four months, anyway.
Oh, and those water use restrictions? Well, here they are:
This is like starting your diet by getting a Big Mac but not supersizing your fries. Actually, it’s not even that serious:
But for those of you worried about the true priorities, there is hope:
henqiguai
@Paul in KY (#65):
Yeah, dead thread, but just in case, try this in a google search block…
LiberalTarian
Add lots of beans to your diet. Better than any other resistant carb, they digest slowly and keep you from feeling hungry.
At first you’ll fart, a lot. It takes a while for your symbiotic community to learn how to digest the beans. But, better a farter than a fatty.
Also, check out the Game On! diet. Very doable, you’ll lose weight.
By the way–the appropriate way to think about getting lean is to think of healing your body. You aren’t fat because you are healthy–it is a form of sickness. As you lose weight, you heal.
GO FOR IT!! It’s a better way of life. :)
englishmajor
Just walk, john. Just walk a bit here and there – in the countryside, on the way to the drugstore, by yourself, with the dogs…. Walking, like thinking (however fucked up) is a fundamental human trait – ambulo ergo sum. And – coincidence? – walking promotes thinking; wonderful, free-form, zen-state-inducing thinking. You may stay fat, but you’ll be happier. And probably less fat.
When she was a girl, my friend’s mom always told her to say to people “I’m not fat, I’m pleasingly plump.” It always makes me happy to think of that because it harks back to a time when there was no such thing as BMI, ellipticals, Madonna, skinlessbonelesschickenbreasts… and fat was not this fucking national emergency in which every bite you eat nudges the whole country – even the innocent skinny people – nearer to the abyss.
I’m skinny, if it matters.
englishmajor
Why do your stupid threads go dead in a few hours? You used to be a small house – now you’re a hot, stinking metropolis with honking cabs and beeping backing up trucks and rude hot dog vendors and gridlock and guys shouting “hey lady!” I loves me a real city, but this place has lost its charm.
metricpenny
@gex:
Thanks Gex!
Paul in KY
@henqiguai: Appreciate your help. Will try it.