Friend of mine

AJ Crouse is my supervisor at work.

You should have gone to class.

This stupid fucking shirt has started making the rounds on Facebook again. Wow.

I had at least one semester of high school where I did two phys ed classes. I got high almost every day and even went to class drunk a few times. I'm at the very least as dumb as I look and I was eventually kicked out of high school for fighting. And yet somehow I still managed to absorb all the shit that's on that T-shirt. And when I framed houses for a while after high school I'd use the Pythagorean theorem every time I needed to build an outside corner. So it was hardly useless despite what the shirt is trying to imply.

Some people seriously need to pull their shit together and lay off the conspiracies for a while. Holy fuck. School was what you made of it.

One of the best Christmas movies ever

Maybe not as good as Bad Santa or that one with Ralph who wanted the BB gun but those are movies that everybody's already seen. Not everyone has seen Santa's Slay yet. The intro alone is one of the greatest scenes ever filmed. I rented this movie once from Blockbuster and liked it so much that I just never took it back. Fuck Blockbuster anyway. But I don't know where that movie is right now so I have to watch it on Youtube.


Since it is Christmas Eve I guess I'll give you something.

Card Game
Using a regular deck of cards.
Turn one card. This is how many sets you're going to do.
Before each set you turn another card and that will be how many reps you're going to do. A Joker is a set to failure.

Beyond that everything else is up to you. You can take as long or as short of rest periods as you want. You can change weights between sets, or not. You can even change exercises or exercise variations between sets. It might not seem like it just reading about it but it's a pretty versatile game.

For the advanced version, the first card you flip is going to be how many exercises you'll do. Then you continue as you normally would, flipping for sets and reps on each exercise. On an unlucky day you might end up doing 10 exercises for 10 sets each so save it for a weekend or any night when you know you've got it pretty easy the next day at work.

If you don't have a deck of cards around, buy one at the fucking dollar store. What's wrong with you? In the meantime you can use dice.

You'll only need one but you can use more if you've got them lying around. This will limit your numbers to between one and six rather than one to 10 but you'll more than likely end up using more weight so it works out either way. That is unless you ever went through a really nerdy phase and actually own dice with more (or less) than six sides.

I did. I think I had two or three sets of them for a while. I don't know where they are now though. I even had the 100-sided die, which was totally fucking useless.

The first time I ever played this game I had planned on using dice but I couldn't find any so I went with cards instead. The end result is ultimately pretty much the same.

Anyway there you go. And if you're feeling particularly badass, or you're just limited on weights, you can use the dice or cards to decide how many minutes a set will last rather than how many reps. Entirely up to you. You can't cheat at this game. I do recommend that you try though.

 Merry Christmas.

Happy birthday tomorrow!

Getting Up Off The Couch

I have a certification in standing up off the couch. I've held off on giving them out to anyone else because, quite frankly, this is top secret stuff and I'm very tempted to keep it to myself.

But for a limited time I will be selling a 10-page booklet which contains all my notes and diagrams collected on the subject over a period of more than 30 years (a $99 value)

Also for a limited time, you can upgrade to my book and DVD package (a $999 value)
The DVD contains live, real-time demonstrations of most of my advanced techniques, along with tips on avoiding injury and various progressions from beginner to intermediate to advanced. There is also a section containing several routines with detailed explanations on sets, repetitions, and exercise combinations.


For a limited time you can get all this for just $29.99 for the book only or $299.99 for the book and DVD.

If you're really lucky, my fingerprints will be on it (a $99 value). But for an extra $25.00, I'll sign the fucking thing (a $999 value).
You'll be able to show it off to your friends!

Disclaimer:
The above offer is not actually real. Feel free to send me cash, cheques or money orders but do understand that you will receive nothing in return.

School Bullshit

Twice last week I saw this picture posted on Facebook. I'm actually surprised it wasn't more times but all I can guess is that enough people realised right away that it's stupid so it faded away. I'm sure I'll see it again though.

This is a stupid picture. There are no two ways about it. It's fucking stupid. Anyone who shares this picture trolling for Likes is clearly an imbecile. Either that or they just never went to class. Either way, all that shit was covered in school. With the exception of voting everything up there was covered in high school math. I honestly don't remember much about politics being covered until college and I understand not everyone goes to college or university but still. "How to vote?" That's not exactly rocket science, is it?

As far as the Pythagorean theorem goes, I used to use it all the time back when I was framing houses in my late teens so I, for one, am glad I know it. Every carpenter probably knows it and I really doubt that carpentry is the only trade that needs it.

Basically, anybody who would wear that T-shirt is a moron.

Here's another one I've seen posted and I've seen this one a lot. So I guess it implies that school isn't fair because everybody's different and will have different strengths and skills. Well, life isn't fair! OK, so the monkey and the bird are going to ace this exam and everybody else is going to flunk. Too fucking bad. There are certain things everybody needs to learn and be capable of because that's just how society works. Fit in or fade out. You don't have to like it. People who can't read or problem solve are going to have bigger problems in their adult life than they ever did with not enjoying basic subjects in school. The implication set forth in this picture is a gross exaggeration anyway, lets face it.

Now, I hated school just as much as anybody else so I'm not trying to say that I was some fantastic student or anything. I definitely wasn't. I used to get suspended all the time and the biggest lessons I remember from my experience in school are that 

1. Might makes right and 

2. Ugliness is a crime.

To a lesser extent I learned that popularity is the most important thing you can strive for, you can never let anyone know how poor you really are and virginity is for losers.

Yeah, real important stuff, I know. But the fact remains, it's a process everyone in the civilized western world goes through. So whatever you didn't learn, it was probably your fault.

GROO

Lately I've been reading old issues of Sergio Aragones' Groo The Wanderer to my daughters. I forgot how much I used to like those comics. Any of the ones I have are from around the mid to late 90s but it's surprising how the messages and morals contained within the stories are still very relevant.

I hate ninjas and apparently so does Groo. Ninjas only exist for the sole purpose of getting beat up.

I'm tempted to go find the back issues I'm missing at one of those comic book stores and try to complete my collection now but I have no idea how expensive that would be and I think it's going to rain today anyway.

The girls still like Batman too. They've got my wife making them Robin and Catwoman costumes for Hallowe'en.

No real reason for posting this other than it's awesome and if I uploaded it anywhere else it would have been automatically shrunk down in size.

 *EDIT
A bunch more pictures just for the Hell of it.