6 Circles Of Hangover Hell
Posted by swingate | Filed under General, Jokes
1st Circle: The Ducked Bullet
No pain. No real feeling of illness. Your sleep was deep and all those carbo-loaded beers have gifted you with a week’s worth of misplaced energy. During lunch you torture your less fortunate coworkers, bragging about how you can pound booze all night, drink warm gin out of a dirty ashtray for breakfast, and still show up fifteen minutes early for work. You crave a steak sub and a side of gravy fries.
2nd Circle: The Thirsty Mongoloid
No real pain, but something is definitely amiss. You look okay but you have the mental capacity of a staple gun. You are definitely dehydrated and after drinking two Gatorades you still feel that way. You feel kinda dumb and you notice the temporary lowering of your IQ has made you more sociable and less concerned with workaday worries. You crave a fruity pancake from IHOP.
3rd Circle: The Headwound That Won’t Heal
Slight headache. Stomach is upset. You are definitely not the paradigm of a productive worker. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the warm gin shots you did at your friend’s apartment after the bouncer ejected you at 1:45 a.m. Memories of bad behavior seep in and you cringe with shame. Life would be much, much better if you were in your bed with a dozen donuts and a meatball sub watching Hogan’s Heroes reruns. You’ve had four cups of coffee, a gallon of water, three iced teas and a diet coke and you haven’t peed once.
4th Circle: The Hunchback of Cheap Champagne
You have lost the will to live. Your head is throbbing. You can’t speak too quickly or you’ll punctuate your sentences with vomit. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and reeking of booze. The clothes you put on won’t win you any fashion awards and your face looks like a golf green mowed by a blind junkie (ladies, it looks like you applied your make-up with a shotgun). Your eyes are red enough to give your features a lizardish cast and your hair makes your coworkers ask if you’re starting up a new wave band. You vaguely remember doing some really dumb and embarrassing things last night and you don’t care. You would murder your favorite bartender for a foot-long Bratwurst smothered with dijon and fried onions.
5th Circle: Dr. Kevorkian’s Dream Date
You don’t feel human, you don’t even feel like a mammal. Your long morning shower didn’t take, no amount of soap could penetrate the coat of sleaze. You have a second heartbeat in your head which is actually annoying the employees sitting near you. You’re getting drunk from the vodka vapors seeping from every pore. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from the futile attempt to remove the taste of decaying rat. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva, your tongue flops in your mouth like a nightmare-plagued wino thrashing around in his cardboard hooch. You’d cry like a baby but that would steal the last few drops of moisture left in your body. Death seems pretty awesome right now. You definitely don’t remember who you were with, where you were, what you drank, and why there is a stranger still passed out in your bed.
6th Circle: The Infinite Nutsmacker
You wake up on your bathroom floor, your arms death-locked around your porcelain lover. You would vomit but you quite apparently took care of that last night, with none too good of an aim. You turn your head too quickly and smell the funk of 13 packs of cigarettes in your hair. Suddenly you realize you were smoking, but not ultra lights—some sadist handed you a pack of Pall Mall nonfilters and you chain-smoked them like it was your full-time job, telling anyone who would listen that smoking filtered cigarettes is like drinking whiskey through a bar rag. You look in the mirror and find the Ready to Rock stamp has migrated from your right hand to your forehead with the help of Jager magic. You try to rehydrate but all you can stand is one cupped handful of brackish tap water. You crawl into the shower and the coldest water fails to revive your nerve endings as you mumble solemn oaths of never, ever letting a single drop of evil alcohol inside your body again. Ever .
If you could remember your behavior last night you would never step outside your apartment again, but the last thing you recall is accepting your ninth shot offer with the exhortation, “Fuck yes! Let’s get this party started!” Everything after that is a black vacuum populated with shifting, vaguely-menacing shapes.
Instead of yelling at you for being late, your boss solemnly invites you into his office to ask you if a parent or sibling passed away. Your super-sensitive ears pick up low talk among your coworkers about “interventions” and “rehab.” The cute girl from accounting you’ve been flirting with for three months looks at you like you’re a leprous hunchback who has come for her organs. You cannot bear to eat, the granola bar from the snack machine sticks in your craw like petrified log jammed in a woodchipper. You curse yourself for not calling in sick because all you can manage to do is sit in your chair and breathe . . . very gently.
Workout Log Software
Posted by swingate | Filed under General, Triathlon
I came across a pretty handy software app for keeping track of workouts. It’s good for running, swiming, biking, weights and cardio machines. Give it a try!
I did pretty good yesterday til those Oreos got the jump on me while I was watching tv.
Breakfast:
Kashi GoLean cereal w/2% milk (8 grams fiber!)
Lunch:
Chicken noodle soup & energy drink (hey, it was free)
Snack:
sugar-free Apple Cinnamon oatmeal
Dinner:
Angel hair pasta w/olive oil, 2 tbsp sun-dried tomato pesto sauce, 6 turkey meatballs, parmesan cheese & water. (how ya like me now, Emeril?)
Snack:
5 Oreos & cup of 2% milk
Workout:
20 minutes on stationary bike at 70% max HR
30 minute run/walk on treadmill at 75% max HR
Running on a treadmill has really helped me a lot. Being able to control the gradient and speed more precisely. I’m doing a 5mph pace now and my HR at that pace has dropped about 7-8bpm in the last month. I want to finish my first 3K in 30 minutes. Another month and I’ll start doing more lactate intervals on the bike.
The Wet Spot
Posted by swingate | Filed under Amore & Vita, General
Theatre for some of the fiercest battles ever experienced by mankind. No doubt that countless relationships, even marriages, have been sacrified as casualties of the war over who sleeps in the spot created during a (hopefully good) roll in the hay. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find lawyers hashing this out as part of prenuptial agreements.
I wonder how many couples go without sex because they can’t decide who will sleep in it. This probably results in both parties forgoing actual sex in exchange for mutual masturbation, but then both parties would have a wetspot to sleep on, which would solve the “who gets to sleep on the wetspot” argument. It’s probably been a topic on a few Jerry Springer episodes too.
Belle and I are already jockeying for position and we’re months away from it being an issue at all. She claims she drew short straw last time although I contend the wet spot was actually in the DMZ (de-militarized zone). The usual contentions are that women bear children, menstruate, and usually sleep on the wet spot whereas men only occasionally get the wet spot. I suppose I could be a gentleman about it. Laying a towel down over the wet spot is like putting your jacket over a mud puddle for her. I’m sure PajamaThief* will convince her i’m unworthy if I don’t concede on this one. Sometimes ya just gotta stand up for whats right so like Kevin Costner in that dog of a movie Waterworld I continue my quest in search of Dryland once again. 
PajamaThief = Belle’s gal pal who has commandeered my beloved pajamas bottoms that Belle tricked me out of…not that it took much to get me out of them.
Fixed Gear Fever
Posted by swingate | Filed under General, Sports
I went to watch the UCI World Cup Track Cycling event this weekend at the Home Depot Center. I’m still trying to get the hang of indoor action photography so the pics are not great. The neat is that my camera takes pretty decent video also. I made three but they’re limited to 1 minute each.
Here’s a link (15MB) to one of a match sprint race between guys from the U.S and Poland. You try going 45mph on a bike with no brakes and see how you like it.
This next one is from the men’s points race. This one is 6.5MB.
Follow your heart but trust your gut
Posted by swingate | Filed under Amore & Vita, General
Over the years I have always been pretty true to myself and placed full faith in my decision making. Seven years ago I went against the opinion of my loving but overly pragmatic parents and moved to California without a job or transportation. I had little trouble finding either and although my reasons for the move didn’t pan out I do enjoy the life I’ve had here. I miss my friends in Atlanta and no doubt I’ll be back there within 2-3 years.
Last year I placed the opinions of others ahead of my own when it came to relationships. I went against my gut intuition in favor of an objective opinion. That turned out to be some monumentally bad (although well intentioned) advice. This year I will get back to basics and stay true to myself. I think I know what’s best for me. Whether I end up where I hope will remain a mystery but life isn’t about the destination…but the road you take to get there.
Imminent Domain
Posted by swingate | Filed under General, Technology
Just in case I become famous one day I registered my name as a domain and directed it to this site. So if you know my name then www.firstlast.com/blah/ will get you here. If you don’t know my name then WTF are you all up in my bidness for anyway?
I’m learning the ins and outs of my new camera so I can take pics of track cycling at the Home Depot Center this weekend. Here is my messy office.
WTF?
Posted by swingate | Filed under General, Phun
Some people just don’t fucking get it. Hello? She’s smoking a damn cigarette!
