SomethingSoWrong

Somethings I hate to hear or see in print:

“and” instead of “an”
“irregardless”
“for all intensive purposes”
“should of” instead “should’ve”
“over-jealous” instead of “over-zealous”
“axe” instead of “ask”
“Titantic” instead of “Titanic”
misplaced apostrophes (they don’t make things plural, retards)
“same difference”
“scrimps” instead of “shrimp”
“their” vs. “there” vs. “they’re”
and
“your” vs. “you’re”
and
“to” vs. “two” vs. “too”
“melk” instead of “milk”
“isle” instead of “aisle”

Do you taste that? Do you?

That’s the bitter taste of defeat. And it tastes worse than Arby’s.

Once again, the Dallas Stars have let us down, losing to the Avs (Nordiques to you old-time hockey fans) tonight at the AAC, pegging the playoff series at 0-2. And it makes me fucking sad. Sad that we probably won’t be getting anywhere near the Stanley Cup this season. Sad that tonight might have been my last trip to the AAC for a few months. Sad that I no longer have a good excuse not to visit my poor, widowed mother more often.

Oh sure, we played better tonight than we did Saturday, when we looked like we were coached by Pat Quinn and “Coach” Wayne Gretzky’s bastard child. But it wasn’t enough. Sudden death overtime was suddenly our death. And all I have to make me happy are memories of the weekend (specifically the time after the game when we were out celebrating ‘Shank’s birthday).

We went to The Gingerman. We imbibed Franziskaner. We waited three hours for our songs to come on the jukebox. I drove the wrong way down a one way street to find Johnny. And we got to hear the best quote of the weekend:

“I’m proud of my pink!”

Michele said it. We applauded it.

Even though she wasn’t talking about what you’re thinking, you dirty bastards.

I’m going to try to get the pics up this week…I’m sure Joe won’t stop hounding me about it until I do. Now only if Dave Tippett will hound the Stars to play like a real hockey team just as much.

…for eating a corndog.

“…This Starbucks doesn’t have a drive-thru, sir…”

Well, it’s started again.

The torture. The pain. The weird way your shorts rub on your junk when you’re on the stationary bike.

That’s right…’Shank and I have resumed our twice or thrice times a week journey to the gym. And it’s been not quite as fun as I remembered it being before we became lazy and stopped going a couple of months back. Oh sure, there’s the hot chick at the front counter and all the free water you want from the water fountain, but these are little reward for the soreness and achiness that sets in the day after a good, long workout.

The interesting thing about the word “gym” is that it’s a shortening of the word “gymnasium”, which is, of course, from the Greek for “big building at high schools where pep rallies are held”. Or maybe not. Actually, it’s from the Greek word “gymnos”, which, as everyone knows, means “naked”. Everyone that’s Greek, that is.

It seems that back in the day, most athletic endeavors were carried out in the nude, which is not surprising, because the Greeks are…well…a little bit “Greek”, after all. Personally, I haven’t seen anyone working out in the nude at my gym. There was that creepy guy hanging around the locker room, but I think they finally called the cops on him. I think.

There’s always interesting people at the gym. For instance, the other night there were two Asian ladies (no doubt having driven there in leased Lexuses that they parked badly) on a couple of stationary bikes. They chatted and pedalled, no doubt feeling that they were getting the best workout of their lives (“rives” if they were Japanese). The problem with this is that they were both pedaling at about 12 rpm. And one of them was doing it backwards. Why bother?

Then there are the grossly obese folk. Bless their enlarged hearts, for they are in the right spirit. I mean, at least they realize that they have a problem and are making somewhat of an effort to do something about it. But five minutes on the stair climber isn’t going to cut it, even if it makes you just as sweaty as a fit person would be after an hour. These people never seem to make much progress…I imagine that a lot of them use going to the gym as an excuse to consume more food, the logic being something along the lines of “I worked out for twenty minutes, I should reward myself with a Dr. Pepper and a couple of double cheeseburgers on the way home.”

The old lady on the treadmill. I’ve only seen her a couple of times, but she loves that treadmill. I imagine that she figures walking on the treadmill at the gym is a good way to get her walking in. But by going to the gym instead of walking around her neighborhood, she misses out on some of the things that make walking so much fun. Such as snakes, mad dogs and random street crime. At least by working out at the gym, there’ll be someone nearby to call the paramedics when those hips finally snap.

The overly-enthusiastic girl and her apathetic boyfriend. Feeling that she’s fat, even though she’s nowhere near it (typical woman), she’s joined the gym and somehow talked her beer-loving, chicken wing-eating, sports-watching boyfriend to join with her. While she eagerly does everything–the elliptical trainer, the stationary bike, the stretching, the weights, pilates, he just half-heartedly follows along, all the while wondering whether or not the sex is bad enough to justify dumping her ass. I’ll let you in on a little secret–he won’t dump her, even if the sex is really bad…because bad sex is better than no sex. And she’s not really there because deep down she thinks she’s fat…she’s there because she noticed that the boyfriend has put on a bit of flab and is being manipulative in getting him to work it off without letting him know it.

The steroid guy. Sure, he might not actually be on ‘roids–or so he claims–but that fit of rage he had at Smoothie King last week when he found out they were out of wheat grass says otherwise. That and his tiny, steroid-atrophied genitalia. But who needs big–or even normal-sized–genitals when you’ve got THE BIGGEST MUSCLES IN THE GYM? Because who cares about having sex when you can crush soup cans with your flexed arm muscles? This is the guy who makes a sound like some kind of large industrial equipment bleeding off excess steam pressure every time he lifts. Breathing “correctly” is all part of a balanced workout routine, right?

The soccer mom. Being that the gym is in Coppell, she votes Republican, but she was once young and idealistic and campaigned for Bill Clinton the first time around, back when she was a member of Chi Omega at UT. But that was fourteen years ago and she’s married and squeezed a couple of kids out since then. Well, actually, she hasn’t…because everytime she leans too far back during her stretches, her top pulls back enough so that everyone can see a sliver of a caesarian scar, so we all know that her “lady business” might not be in factory condition–she was in a sorority afterall–but we do know that it’s in good working order. She’s still trying to look hot, but years of sunning herself on beaches in Mexico and the Caribbean have robbed her skin of its tautness and sheen, leaving it whithered and faded. Oh, and she’s pretty sure that her husband is banging either the nanny, his secretary or the kids’ Sunday school teacher. Or all three, in kinky orgies of UNBRIDLED SEXUAL DESIRE on his boat on Lake Lewisville when he says he’s going fishing with some buddies, but she’s pretty sure he’s spending Saturday afternoons out there not using his fishing rod in some secluded cove, but rather using a different rod at Party Cove, if you know what she means…

The guy that works out in jeans. There’s always one guy that’s there in jeans. He has no clue about proper workout attire, but since he wears jeans–or Canadian tuxedo pants, as they’re also known–all the time, why not wear them to the gym? Nothing provides comfort and flexibility like a nice pair of Wranglers. At least he isn’t wearing boots to the gym…yet.

The really skinny teenager. This is the kid that fat forgot. He looks as if with every step, his bones will snap. Too skinny to play sports and too skinny to be in the band (something about being confused with a piccolo too often), he’s determined to bulk up and win the heart of Katie Mason–future homecoming queen and the most popular girl at school. Little does he know, it’s all for naught, as Katie is too enamoured of her boyfriend, Bryce Daniels, to ever notice him and everything he does is–in some weird way–for her. Hey, skinny kid…you don’t want her anyhow. Because while she may be popular, she’s as stupid as a anvil. She’ll end up going to school at some crappy place like community college or Texas Tech, maintaining a long-distance “relationship” with Bryce while he plays collegiate baseball at the University of Houston, meanwhile she’ll end up sleeping with six different guys (and going down on more than she can count, which, honestly, isn’t very high) after she pledges Chi Omega and majors in history. But it doesn’t matter, because Bryce will sleep his way down the skank ladder at UH. Then, during winter break their sophomore year, they’ll break up. Katie will become so depressed, she starts eating Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey by the carton, putting on 27 pounds in a matter of months. Desperate to be wanted, she will sleep with Carlos Gomez, a bouncer at a local bar known for “forgetting” to check IDs when serving alcohol. A single one of his Hispanic sperm cells will come into contact with one of her middle-class Caucasian egg cells and will begin the glorious dance of life. Unfortunately for her, she’s been forgetting to get her Ortho Tricyclen prescription refilled at the student health center. And this little oversight will allow that little zygote to go ahead and implant itself into her uterine wall. Of course, she won’t know this for another seven weeks, when she realizes that she’s three weeks late, so–worried

sick to the point of throwing up–she and her roommate, Monica (who’s from Hobbs, NM), will go to the nearest CVS and buy the store brand pregnancy test. Forty-seven minutes later, Katie will be lying on her bed crying her poor little eyes out because she’s pregnant. Carlos, of course, won’t have anything to do with her, claiming it most likely isn’t his kid, saying that she’s a slut and sleeps around a lot. Which was true until she got fat and he’s been the only guy in like three months, at least. She decides to get an abortion, paying for it with some of her student loan money. She’s upset at killing the baby growing inside of her for maybe two or three days, but then she’s back partying again, having discovered the magic of anorexia to take care of that extra weight.

So, yeah, Skinny Guy at the Gym…you’re better off.

There you have it…the myriad of odd people at the gym. As for me, I’m going to try to forget that “gym” comes from the Greek for naked, because most of the people at the gym, I don’t want to imagine naked. But I am going to try to figure out if “naked” is the past tense of “nake”.

…but in reality, it’s the rather-lovely Holly’s, as interpreted by myself.

Sorry it’s not really wrong at all, but I thought it was a cool pic…

I know it’s been more than a month since ‘Shank and I got back from Ontario and we have yet to post a gallery of pics. Sorry about that…we’re working on it, I swear!

To hold you over, though, here’s a pic I took of some giant icicles at Niagara Falls when we were up there…

or–on second thought–maybe this is: