mad anthony

Musings from the snowpocalyse..

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:07:00 +0000

So except for about an hour spent shoveling my walkway and clearing the two feet of snow off the top of the heat pump in the hopes of keeping my electric bill below what my car payments used to be, I haven't left the house in 36 hours - and except for cleaning off the truck tomorrow, probably won't for the next 36, or more if school is closed on Monday.

So what have I done with my time? Probably not as much as I should have. I got some little things done - set up a laptop for one of our directors at work (it's been backordered, and finally came in 10 minutes before our early closing on Friday), straightened up my home office a little, got some stuff together for a swap meet next weekend, did the reading for my classes, typed up some eBay descriptions, paid some bills, and installed all the OS updates on 3 of my computers. I also made a crock pot of chili and a dozen muffins. If I'm off Monday, I'm baking a cake. Because I have a box of cake mix that's been sitting in my pantry forever, and because I'll be bored. And because I like cake.

Which brings me to one of the perils of being snowed in. When I'm bored, and home, I eat. I also haven't exercised much, since the gym has been closed on account of snow. Which is especially bad since I entered our work "biggest loser" competition. I wasn't planning on putting a whole lot of effort into trying to win, because that would require me to pretty much not eat anything that tastes good and spend all my free time working out. But at this rate I think I'll actually end up gaining weight. I've put in some time on my basement treadmill, but not as much as I would have if I'd went to the gym.

There are plenty of things I should do but haven't - cleaning, starting a paper for one of my classes, figuring out how to move this blog since blogger is shutting off ftp usage at the end of March. But there is something about being snowed in that makes me even lazier than usual, and I've spent most of my free time watching stuff off my DVR, obsessively checking my email and facebook, and letting the cat nap on my lap.

I've lived alone for the last couple years, and most of the time I like not having roommates - I don't need to share freezer space, or clean the bathroom, or wear pants. But on days like today, where the closest thing I have to human contact is facebook, I kind of miss having someone to talk to. It's also one of the times I most hate being single - being snowed in with someone you love would be a whole lot more
enjoyable.

One smart thing I did was actually go grocery shopping on Wednesday night, as soon as I heard the threats of Snowmegedon. I had needed to go soon anyway, and figured if I was going to be snowed in I might as well pick up the ingredients to make chili and muffins, and make sure I had enough kibble for Nibbler, my carefully trained attack kitty - plus Diet Mountain Dew was on sale, and I was down to my last 5 or so cases. My 9pm trip to the Weis was surprisingly calm - unlike the stories I've heard of people who went Thursday night. Normally, I suck at planning ahead, so I'm proud of myself for actually doing it for once. If only I could plan my career or my interaction with the opposite sex as well.

In defense of bottom feeding...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:13:00 +0000

I had mentioned the show Pawn Stars a few days ago to a coworker, and he grumbled something about how he hated the store owners on the show because they usually make lowball offers to people selling them stuff - people who often desperately need the money.

I like the show, but I also see a little of myself in the main characters. If you've watched the show, they will often get an estimate from a pro of what something is worth. The person selling the item will then ask for close to that value, and the owners will usually offer them about half. He'll usually point out that the top value is usually what it would fetch at an auction, which would charge a serious commission, that he's got to pay the costs of running a store and still make a profit, and that he may have to sit on the item for a while before a buyer interested in it comes along.

I'm pretty sympathetic to these arguments. And if you've watched the show enough, there are times he's gotten burned - bought something that turned out to be unrepairable, or not sell-able, or stolen.

The way I see it, what he offers is liquidity - cash on the spot, hundred dollar bills. Sure, you could get more on eBay or at an auction, but that takes work. eBay isn't too hard once you get the hang of it, but there is a learning curve if you've never used it, and people are reluctant to buy from someone with no feedback. There are also a ton of ways to get ripped off if you don't know how to protect yourself as a seller. And auction houses and consignment sellers charge heavily - I was surprised when a faculty member at work asked me about selling some stuff on eBay for him - and told me that he had previously used a consignment store that charged 40% of the selling price.

Maybe I'm just rationalizing, though. The thing is that I've bought plenty of things at estate sales and auctions, yard sales, bankruptcy and going out of business auctions, and otherwise profited off people's bad fortunes. But it's not like my actions caused the death of the lady whose Onkyo receiver I bought from her sister for $3 and eBayed for $55, or caused the criminal actions of the bankrupt nonprofit whose 8 rack-mount servers I bought for $5 each and resold for $75 - $150 a piece. The way I see it, I'm offering liquidity, giving individuals and creditors money for something that they otherwise wouldn't want. And I take my share of risk - I've bought tons of stuff that turned out to be broken, missing parts, or not worth what I thought. I've also bought plenty of stuff that turned out to be harder to sell, including a new in box APC rack mount UPS for $250 - despite the fact that it's normally an $800 piece of equipment, it's still sitting in my basement because I haven't found a buyer yet, and it weights a metric crapload.

Pawnshop owners and eBayers might benefit from people's mistakes or bad luck, but they didn't cause it, and they perform a necessary function in converting assets into cash. Much like debt collectors and repo men, they perform a function that isn't always pretty, but is essential to the economy.

Back to school...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:44:00 +0000

When you work for a college like I do, the start of the semester means thousands of students flooding the school, professors coming back to their offices after weeks away, and a flurry of effort to make sure that they are taken care of.

But this semester, it also means I'm going back to school, for the first time in two and half years, when I finished up my MBA.

See, a few months back I looked at my life and decided since it wasn't really going anywhere, personally or professionally, I should try something new. One of the perks of working for a college is that I get to take classes basically free. We've got a number of grad programs, but I didn't really think I wanted to take any more business classes, and I didn't want to get swamped in code in computer science. So I decided to apply for our Educational Technology program, which is aimed at getting teachers familiar enough with using technology in the classroom to take a lead role in their schools. Granted, I'm not a teacher, and the program is aimed at k-12, not college, where I work, but I figured there would be some crossover.

There were other reasons - we got new management a few years back, and one of their priorities has been on how students and faculty use technology in the classroom - much of the new opportunities have been aimed at that. So I figured enrolling in the program would show I was interested in that kind of thing. It also hasn't escaped my thinking that most teachers are women, and that, well, this could be a good way to meet girls. While I don't expect to get a date out of this, I figure meeting new people can't hurt. Plus, it will give me something to do - I like to be busy, and figure time in class or doing homework is probably a better use of my time than random web surfing.

But now that it's starting, I'm starting to second-guess myself. I figure I won't fit in - the only non-teacher in a class of teachers - and that probably won't endear me to the faculty either. My final in one of the classes is the first day of a conference that I would otherwise be able to go to in Vegas, related to my job- so now the classes are hurting my career, because I can't seem to make my boss understand why skipping a final is not a good idea.

But we'll see. I figure if I'm too miserable or suck too much at it, I can always stop taking classes - all I basically lose are a few hours twice a week for class, plus however long I spend doing homework. And maybe it won't suck and I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Business models that puzzle me... GPS companies...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:39:00 +0000

On New Year's Day, I went on a hike with an old college roommate and a bunch of his friends. Afterwords, we went out to grab something to eat. Since I had my Tom-Tom, and drive a bright yellow truck, one of the women who went followed me. Unfortunately, the interchange that Tom-Tom sent me on was redesigned after my maps were made. I went the wrong way, she went the right way, and I ended up gettting there about 15 minutes late, although part of that was that I had to stop and get gas since I was almost out.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I ended up ordering a new Tom-Tom. eCost had a refurbed Tom-Tom One - a slightly updated version of the one I have now, with a better mounting bracket - for ~$60 shipped after rebate. It includes new maps for the first 30 days, so I'll get a current map. I figure that I can probably sell my old TomTom for $30 or so at a Hamfest or on eBay, so I'll have a new GPS with new maps for $30.

What is odd is if I wanted to buy new maps for my existing TomTom, it's $55. They do have a map update service where you get 4 new maps in a year for $40, which sounds like a great deal until you read the fine print and realize that it makes you pay full price for the first map.

I'm really puzzled by this business model. Why is it cheaper for me to buy the hardware and software than just the software? After all, software has a near-zero marginal cost - it costs next to nothing to distribute an additional copy, especially as a download. If I could get an updated map for $20 or so, I'd buy it - it would save me the hassle of transferring all my favorites to the new device, installing POI's, ect. But when it's the same price for a new device as the maps, and I can resell my old device, it's a no-brainer.

The only thing I can come up with is that TomTom wants to keep up/increase market share, and they figure that means keeping the price of the device low so that new customers buy it. Since they can't separate new customers from old ones - there's no way to price-discriminate, as an economist would say - existing customers like me get an advantage. The other thing I can think of is that they figure that people who insist on super-up-to-date maps are people who really need them - businesses, people who drive for a living, ect - and they are willing to pay whatever to get them. To use another econ term, they are price-inelastic.

I do wonder if a GPS company would do better if they sold the maps cheap instead of making it cheaper to buy a new device. I feel like I'm buying a new PC just to get a copy of Windows, but if it works...

New Year's resolutions, 2010...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Well, I do this every year - make a list of the things that I'm going to try to do this year. I end up sticking with the couple I would have done anyway, and failing at the rest. But what are holidays without tradition?

The big ones:

1. Lose, or at least maintain weight - Several years ago I lost a significant amount of weight - about 100 pounds over the course of two years. Since then, my weight has fluctuated a little, but not a whole lot. I'm actually probably about 15 pounds lighter and 2" slimmer in the waist than I was a year ago. I could stand to lose a few more pounds - I've packed on a couple over the holidays, and I've still got a bit of a belly - but it also seems to me that the extra weight isn't having a huge affect on my appearance or my health, so I'm not willing to put all that much effort into losing it. I also want to start lifting - I do a lot of cardio, but no weight training. Once again, it would be nice to have a little more muscle, but I'm fairly sure that it won't send the ladies swooning or enable me to have a second career on the parallel bars.

2. Save money - another resolution that hasn't been much of a problem to keep in the last few years. I'm in decent shape - I've got some savings, and my only debt is my giant underwater mortgage and a small, very low interest student loan. Still, I've been doing a lot of spending of late on small things ranging from sneakers to gadgets to tasty coffee-based beverages, and I do want to slow down on that and try to put more in the bank, where it will earn an interest rate that is probably less than inflation.

3. Find love. This is the one that I fail at every year. It also is the one that requires at least some outside force - I'm responsible for how much I spend and how much time I put in on the elliptical instead of eating bacon, but I can't make women like me. On the plus side, in the last year I've had more dates than I have in the rest of my life. On the negative side, that number was 3, none of which turned into a second date. I've tried online dating, and I think it's time for me to take a break from it, because I find it's done little but frustrate me. I want to try some more in-person things, like some of the swing dances that are around, but the thought of showing up alone at them doesn't exactly thrill me. I'm starting grad school classes in a few weeks, and I figure even if I don't meet anyone there, at least being around other people, some of them female, might help me socially - or at least keep me busy enough that I won't have time to think about the fact that I seem to be on a path to die alone and unloved.

There are also plenty of smaller things that I hope to accomplish this year. I've got a number of small things that need to be done around the house - electrical wiring, carpet laying, fencing in the back yard. Pretty much all of these are things I've needed to get done since I bought the house almost 3 and a half years ago, but I'm hoping that this is the year I actually go through with getting them done. Obviously, succeeding in grad school and at work are things I hope to do, although I have yet to unlock the mystery of how to do the latter - evidently, hard work, taking on new responsibilities, and learning new skills are not part of that. I do want to try to take a vacation this year, but work, time, money, and life will determine if that actually happens. And I'd like to figure out how to balance helping my parents with living my own life, but I doubt I will.

And maybe I'll adopt another cat or two.

A half-decade of madanthony, in pictures

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:09:00 +0000

So back in 2004, I had a family member take a picture of me at Christmastime while I was up for Christmas break. A few months later, I made a concious decision to start losing weight and taking better care of myself, so since then every year I've had them take another picture. I like to post them around New Year's - losing and keeping weight off has been one of the few things I can say I've been successful at..

madanthony, December 2004:

madanthony, December 2005:

madanthony, December 2006

madanthony, December 2007:

madanthony, December 2008:

madanthony, December 2009:

We can never repay the debt we owe our parents. So how hard should we try?

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:08:00 +0000

I'm up in NJ for Christmas, spending a few days with the parents. Since I work for a college, every year I have the same dilemma - how much time should I spend there? The paradox is that as the reasons for me to want to spend more time in Maryland grow, so do the reasons that I should spend more time with the parents. Several years ago, when I was living in a rented room, spending most of the break with the parents wasn't a big deal. Now, though, I own a house and a cat and have more roots in MD than when I first moved there. But now, my parents are also older and have health problems - my dad has MS, my mom has bad arthritis. They struggle to do basic tasks, and could really use the extra help. And I feel like a horrible person for not staying around to give it to them - they seem so greatful for the smallest thing. I also am the son who went away - my brother lives close by, about 20 minutes away, so he frequently comes over to do things like mow the lawn, shovel snow, ect. I don't, because I live 4 hours way, so I feel bad that I'm not doing as much.

Yesterday, I drove my mom to 7:30AM Christmas morning mass. As I stepped out of my truck, I realized that there was a bunch of black ice where I had parked - snow had melted, started to run to a drain, and froze. So I walked around and held my mom's hand as she got out of the truck. It was a reversal of roles - the child holding the parent's hand. But in the short amount of time I'm up here, I've found myself doing a lot of things that used to be done for me - cooking, driving, mopping the floors, running errands. It's weird and depressing to be doing stuff for your parents.

And I find myself conflicted about how much I should be doing - sometimes I think that since my parents sacrificed so much to raise me, I owe them the same - that I should sell my house and quit my job and move back in with them. Other times, I think that I don't really HAVE to do anything for them, so anything I do is, well, better than nothing. Reality lies somewhere between these two extremes, of course - but the question is, closer to which?

I don't have a girlfriend or wife or kids or any other obligations, so I have more time and fewer excuses not to help them out. Still, I want those things, and spending every waking free hour driving to and from NJ isn't going to help me get them (although I may be beyond help).

I'm thinking that I'll probably end up leaving NJ sometime in the next few days, which will give me basically 5 full days with them, plus 2 partial days spent traveling, and 4 days in MD to myself to relax/do stuff around the house/play with the cat/run errands/hang out with friends. I'm not sure if this is the "right" amount - if I'm a sinner, a saint, or just a typical son.

Back in NJ, and I only got pulled over once...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:57:00 +0000

So I'm up in NJ for the holidays, spending the next few days with the parents celebrating Christmas. I drove up today - it was a fairly uneventful trip, except for hitting some traffic near Harrisburg - and for getting pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving on I-78 in central PA.

I'm driving, right hand lane, going maybe a few miles above the speed limit, and I see a cop car behind me. Naturally, I slow down to a couple miles per hour below the speed limit. Cop is still there, and another one next to him in the left lane. This goes on for a mile or two, and then cop throws his lights on. I pull over, and he pulls behind me. I'm not sure why I'm getting pulled over - I actually wasn't speeding.

Officer comes to my window and tells me that someone called in a complaint that I was driving erratically, weaving in and out of traffic, and that they thought I was drunk. I'm rather puzzled, since 1) I hadn't drank anything except about a half-gallon of coffee and 2) I wasn't driving erratically - while I will admit to not being the world's most careful driver, I'm generally pretty patient - I don't generally lane-hop or anything, and I can't remember cutting anyone off or anything.

The officer was actually pretty cool - he says he can tell I'm not drunk, and that as long as I'm not wanted and my truck isn't stolen he'll let me go with a warning - and he does. I'm not sure he really could have done anything - I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect it would be pretty hard to convict me of any traffic violations just on someone's say-so.

So I'm puzzled who called me in - if I did cut someone off and not notice, or if someone just was overly paranoid, or decided they didn't like me. I'm certainly glad that I didn't get a ticket, and I understand that the police can't really ignore calls about suspected drunk drivers - if I was drinking and hit a busfull of nuns or something they would look pretty bad. But I'm annoyed that someone would call in about me in the first place - I mean, I'm not that bad a driver.

A tax credit for everyone except me...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:38:00 +0000

I was reading the auction listings today in the newspaper, which is at the end of the real estate section. So I happened to see an ad for a new homebuilder mentioning the tax credit for existing homebuyers, which made my blood boil.

The fine print is that if you have owned a home for 5 continuous years out of the last 8, you are elgible for a $6500 tax credit if you buy a new home.

I've grumbled about previous handouts - from the mortgage bailout for people whose mortgages happened to be owned by the right agency to cash for clunkers, for people who happened to own the right cars - being handed out pretty randomly, and to groups that never seem to include me.

But this one takes the cake - it includes huge groups of people, but is especially written to exclude people like me - I bought my house in 2006, at the exact peak of the market. Now, it's not a huge deal because I have no plans to move anytime soon - besides the fact that I'd probably have to bring a check to closing if I sold my house, I have no desire to pack up 3 floors of crap or to keep my house showing ready.

But it seems odd to have a tax break that benefits people who bought their house in 2004 or before - when housing prices were still pretty reasonable - but excludes people who bought their houses when prices had gone up, and most likely are having to sacrifice more to pay their mortgages. While few of these people might be looking to sell and buy a new house, there are probably some who have to - because of financial reasons, job transfers, marriage/kids/ect - who are probably taking a loss selling their house, and would benefit more than someone who sold their house 3 years ago at the peak of the market and has been renting since - who would be qualified under the bill.

Of course, bills like this mean that those who don't receive it will be kicking in the extra taxes for those who benefit - to the tune of $10.6 billion, according to this article. Now, I don't harbor any ill will against someone who was in the right place at the right time and bought a house before prices climbed - that's life. But I do question why people who weren't so lucky are paying to give those lucky people even more money.

As a borderline libertarian, I've never really liked programs like welfare, but I grudgingly accept that there is merit to helping, say, to make sure poor kids have food and shelter. But government of late has pretty much just been handing random piles of money to random people and businesses in the hopes that it will spur the economy. In that, they've got a weird reverse kind of Robin Hood thing going on, where they often give people who are in pretty good shape a bunch of money, paid for by people who aren't so well off. And that strikes me as unfair, illogical, and frustrating.

Pay your bills, deadbeat, or why I'd like to kick strategic defaulters in the nuts...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:23:00 +0000

I was glad to see that I'm not the only person who had a negative reaction to this WSJ article about fun with strategic defaults - which pretty much boils down to profiles of people who stopped paying the mortgages on their underwater houses, and now are renters with tons of money to spend on concert tickets and new furniture.

Megan McCardle has a good article here, with the followup to the followup here.

But what's odd is that she and I seem to be a rare breed of people who think that people should actually, you know, pay their bills. Sure, on relatively conservative forums like FW Finance, people who advocate strategic default usually get replies involving the favorite FW Finance reply, "pay your bills, deadbeat!". But on Megan's blog, and places like consumerist, strategic defaulters are OK, because banks are evil.

I'm not going to debate the merits of banks or individuals. I do think that people - and businesses - who agree to pay a debt should pay it as long as they are able to. It's one thing to not pay because you really can't - that's why we have things like bankruptcy. But mortgages were designed to be a means of financing a large purchase, not as a sort of option on a house, payable only if the house goes up in value.

So right now mortgages are priced with the expectation that people will make every effort to pay them back. With the number of strategic defaulters, who seem to view them more as a sort of loan on buying a stock option, that is about to change. And that will make responsible buyers and borrowers worse off. Because now mortgages will be priced more like buying stocks on margin. Credit scores and down payments will be higher, and fewer people will be able to buy houses at all. And those who do will pay for it dearly - and those who view mortgages the way they are supposed to be viewed - as financing for a large, long-term purchase - will be paying extra for a feature they will never use - to make up for strategic defaulters.

So this is bad for first-time homebuyers. It's also bad for people who own homes, because fewer and more expensive mortgages mean lower housing prices when they go to sell.

Now, you are probably wondering where I fall into this. FWIW, I'm probably marginally upside down on Casa De Mad, my circa -1978 townhouse - not enough that it would make sense to destroy my 800+ credit score, even if I didn't have the ethical objections to strategic default. And I have enough income and savings to pay my mortgage - but I have that because I've generally lived frugally and sacrificed, and it's frustrating to read about the great lifestyles that these people are having - and that I'm going to pay for if I ever refinance or sell.

Sick of being sick...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:01:00 +0000

So about 2 weeks ago, I woke up feeling like crap. Well, more like crap than normal for a Monday morning. Sore throat, nasal drip, congestion, running/stuffy nose, ect.

I dealt with this the way I normally deal with being sick. I ignored it. I kept doing what I normally do, and figured it would go away in a few days. That might not seem like a great plan, but in truth it's worked for me for the last few years. But after a week and a half of being filled with phlegm, I decided it wasn't going to work this time. So on Thursday I went to the doctor's. He confirmed what I expected - sinus infection. Prescribed 11 days worth of generic Zithromax.

I don't really feel any better yet. The medicine had been tearing up my stomach the last couple days, though. I'm hoping by Christmas I'll stop having to blow my nose every few minutes.

And I'm still pretty much doing what I'd normally do, including going to the gym. There are actually studies showing that exercising while sick doesn't hurt recovery time. I have cut back on the length of my workouts though - more because the gym is on reduced hours thanks to finals than because of my health. I figure the last thing I want to do is stop exercising around Christmastime, when I'm spending a large chunk of the month shoving food in my mouth.

Scenes from work, in some places edition...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:13:00 +0000

coworker1: We could reduce a lot of viruses and malware problems if we prevented end-users from being able to install software.

coworker2: that would never fly. Faculty will complain that we're interfering with their academic freedom.

mad anthony: You mean "I need that porn for research purposes"?

coworker1: I don't care if they have porn. It's not executable.

mad anthony: In some countries it is.

Scenes from work, I've heard that before edition...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:03:00 +0000

employee: Hey, thanks for fixing my secretary's computer. She was really happy when you left.

mad anthony: I'm used to women being happy when I leave.

I wonder if manufacturers and stores will ever figure out that guys buy stuff, too...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:12:00 +0000

My mom is a member of Vocalpoint, a social networking community run by Proctor and Gamble. She gets all kinds of neat stuff from them - from stacks of coupons for nearly- free Kashi cereal to a set of giant purple mugs from Viva paper towels. She knows I'm a dealhunter myself, so she sent me an email that she got looking for new members. I filled it out, and was rejected, presumably because I have a penis. The message, which I took a screenshot of and posted above, says that they look for "certain groups of women", which I am not, and assuming I avoid painful sex-change surgery, will never be.

I'm kind of puzzled by this. I don't see my mom as much of a target audience for this kind of thing - unlike me, she doesn't have a blog with a readership that may be in the double digits, an active facebook page, a twitter account, or a job where she talks to lots of people. She's retired, probably more set her ways than I am, and probably has a lot less contact with people both in cyberspace and in the meatspace than I do. But yet P&G figures that she would be more likely to spread info on their products than I am, just because she's a woman.

Now, I'm not some crazy "gender is a social construct" type, nor do I begrudge large corporations from deciding how they want to market their products. I do, however think that their marketing is misguided. If they want to harness social networking, they should be targeting people based on their use of social networking sites and tools, not on their gender. They also need to stop assuming that women are the only people who make purchasing decisions on household products. I'm a male head of household - granted, it's a household of one, plus a cat. But I own a house, have a decent amount of disposable income, am fairly active online, and make all the purchases and purchasing decisions for my household. And I'm sure I'm not alone. This isn't 1950 anymore - people don't live with their parents until they get married and then live in a household where the husband goes to work and the wife stays home and does the marketing. There are lots of guys who live alone, either by choice or by circumstances. People are getting married later, if at all, there are same-sex couples, and dozens of other alternative living situations. Hell, I know married couples where the guy does most of the shopping. Companies that try to market only to women while selling products that both men and women use - like cereal and paper towels - are cutting their own throat.

This extends past P&G, though. Every time I go grocery shopping, I always wonder why the checkout isles are set up with the assumption that only bored housewives buy groceries. I usually see quite a few men and couples at my Weis or Giant, but the checkout counters are lined with Women's Day, Soap Opera Digest, The National Enquirer, and other fair designed for the sits-down-to-pee set. Why not a few copies of Car and Driver or Sport Compact or Maxim? As Paco Underhill has pointed out, magazines in checkout lines aren't just there for you to buy them - they are also there to give you something to do, to distract you from how long you are waiting in line. But they also do something else - they give insight into just who grocery stores seem to think is shopping there - and it doesn't seem to be a very accurate picture.

Guys - especially single, fairly young guys - are a great demographic to go after. They (at least I suspect) often have a fair amount of money, they aren't set in their ways, they often make impulsive decisions, they are less willing to price-shop, especially for grocery type items, they are more willing to buy pricey convenience items, and heck, they eat more than most women. But both grocery stores and consumer-product manufacturers seem to go out of their way to discourage them.

Car talk...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:22:00 +0000

I have a problem with my truck. It works perfectly fine.

See, I'm a bit of a car nut. When I was a little kid, I played with matchbox cars all the time, could pretty much identify any car on the road, read those free used-car listing magazines they have at the grocery store, and dreamed of what kind of car I would own when I got a license and money.

Not much has changed. As soon as I've bought a new vehicle, I'm already thinking about what the next one will be. But I'm also frugal, and so I have been pretty practical about buying cars. It's also helped that I've been pretty broke - I bought my truck right after I bought my house, so I didn't have much to spend, and bought pretty much the cheapest one that met my needs.

I've had the truck for a little over three years. Aside from some random transmission clunks, it's been solid, and it has less than 50k on it. It's paid off. But as usual, I'm thinking about what the next thing I buy will be.. and when.

The problem is, for the first time in my life, I actually have enough money that I could buy something pretty nice, and pay cash for it.

The vehicle that's caught my eye of late is the Lincoln Navigator. I can get a clean used one with less than 30k on the clock for a little over $30k, and my trade is worth around $12k. I'd love to have leather seats, some more space in the back for hamfests and auctions, climate control, and the ability to refer to "the Navi".

Of course, financially it's a horrible idea. I'm at the sweet spot for my truck - it's taken the biggest of the depreciation hit, but still has a lot of life left in it, and is paid off. The best thing would be to keep it for another 3 years or so, by which time it will be 6 years old and have 90k or so miles on it.

So I'm torn between the car nut and the cheapskate. The deal I've made with myself is that I won't do anything until at least the summer. The goal is to save as much money as I can until then and then make a decision. I'm not sure I could bring myself to drop 5 figures on something I don't need - but if I was going to, it would be on this.

The power of negative thinking...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:48:00 +0000

We had a presentation at our "all hands" meeting at work today about how to deal with holiday stress, given by a psychologist. It did include a lot of good concrete advice for dealing with stuff - take time for yourself, exercise, eat right, don't overdo the food or booze, ect. (he also suggested limiting caffeine, which would be the most stressful thing I could imagine doing).

But while he's a nice guy and means well, I think he was a little too positive. I think negative thinking is severely underrated. I think things like guilt, fear, and a desire to achieve perfection do make us stressed - but they are also great motivators. They make us do things that we can't do if we take a warm, fuzzy, "things will be fine" attitude. For example, at one point he said that "we often find ourselves looking at the amount of things that we have to do and say that we'll never get it done. But when we look back on other times we've said that, we've been able to get everything done." Maybe. But chances are the reason that we got everything done is because we looked at the amount of stuff we had to do, said "I'm never going to get done", and then did concrete things to make sure it did - starting early, working late, planning schedules, delegating, finding shortcuts, whatever. If you had just looked at it and said "it will get done somehow", it probably wouldn't have, because you wouldn't have had the incentive to do stuff to make sure it gets done.

I think the same is true of a lot of things. There are plenty of achievements I've had, from doing well in school to losing weight to saving money, where fear was my primary motivator - knowing that if I failed that class I'd lose my scholarship, or that if I didn't keep on my diet and go to the gym I'd probably be dead of a heart attack by age 45, or if I didn't keep a tight reign on my spending I'd be homeless, living under a bridge and eating out of a dumpster.

The same is true of guilt. The talk about guilt and family pressure was especially relevant to me, because I'm torn at Christmas - when we get a ton of time off where I work - between spending it all with my parents in NJ, who have a bunch of health problems and could use all the help they can get - and spending it in Maryland, where my house, my cat, my friends, and pretty much everything I own are. If I don't spend all of it with the parents, I'll probably feel guilty - and I should. Given the sacrifices my parents have made throughout their life for me, I'm pretty much a piece of shit if I can't give them a couple extra days. I should feel bad about it. Guilt is generally a way of letting us know that we're doing something that we shouldn't. We shouldn't ignore it and tell ourselves that it's something we should overcome with positive thinking about how great we are - we should look at why we feel guilty and try not to do it.

Pop Psychology loves to try to make life all hearts and rainbows, to try to take negatives like stress and sadness and guilt and fear out of life. But those things are a part of life for a reason - they are survival tools that helped us survive since our ancestors lived in caves, that helped us form coherent societies. They are real emotions that should be embraced, not worked around or ignored.

madanthony's continued adventures in swing dancing...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:55:00 +0000

So last week I started swing dancing lessons, and they weren't quite what I hoped for. There was the fact that there were 3 guys and one girl (who was with a guy). And there was the fact that I, well, sucked at it.

But I paid in advance, so I figured I'd stick with it. Well, that and I didn't want to be a quitter. So, feeling pretty ridiculous, I actually tried to practice. I watched triple-step swing tutorial videos on youtube, and tried to follow along on the hardwood floor in my dining room, feeling like an elephant trying to tap-dance. I'm glad I bought a townhouse instead of a condo, because if I had downstairs neighbors they would have been throwing things at the ceiling. But I felt frustrated - I got the concept, I understood the counts and where one's feet were supposed to be, but I didn't feel like mine were really cooperating.

But I went anyway, dreading it. But it actually went better. First of all, there were a few new people - one more guy and two new women, bringing the ratio of women to men to 3:4 - not ideal, and still unusual, but better than 1:3. And my practicing actually wasn't in vain - I actually got better, good enough that I could keep up, and good enough that the instructor commented a few times that I must have practiced and was 100% better, which made me feel proud and embarrassed at the same time.

I actually drove home last night feeling pretty good, singing along with the random swing songs I'd burned onto CD. I'm hoping to actually go to one of the dances that a few places have around here in the next few weeks - hopefully I can convince some people to go with me, but if not I need to suck it up and go by myself - the worst that can happen is it completely sucks and I leave after a while, and I'm out a few bucks and an hour or two.

Now, I'm still not great, but I don't feel like a total failure, so that's a plus. And I guess the moral, at the risk of sounding like an after-school special, is that practice and effort does pay some dividends.

So you think I can dance? Not so much...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:13:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I got into my mind the brilliant idea that I would take up swing dancing. Back 10 years ago when swing had it's brief revival, I got into the music, and I would still find myself occasionally firing up some Royal Crown Revue on iTunes. Plus, I figured it would be a give me something to do, could be a good way to meet women, and that if I wanted to do it, I needed to do it soon, before I started grad school. There is a group that gives lessons in various rented locations not too far from where I work, so I signed up. The first class was yesterday.

Well, the meeting women thing didn't exactly work out - I seem to have the ability to time things as badly as possible. The class ended up being 3 guys (including myself) and one girl, who was there with one of the other guys. The instructor remarked that it was unusual to have the guys outnumber the girls, and that the last class he taught had 3 more girls than guys. Just my luck.

The other little problem with this brilliant plan? I suck at dancing. I just can't seem to get it - after a few steps I find myself hopelessly lost. All the things you are supposed to do - keep your weight on one foot, not move your right foot, keep your limbs loose, take small steps - none of them come naturally to me. The instructor was pretty patient, and he did give out printed instructions, so I'm going to try to do some practicing this week, and maybe find some tutorials on the web. Hopefully I can at least get to a level of not sucking too much, but it's pretty obvious I'm never going to be great at this, or even decent. I'm going to stick out the lessons - I've paid in advance - and I will probably still try to get to one of the dances that one of the groups around here runs, especially if I can convince someone to go with me.

But I in fact, do not have rhythm.

So this is what a weekend is like..

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:39:00 +0000

I've been looking forward to this weekend for the last couple weeks. Not because I had any big plans, but rather because I didn't.

See, the last few weekends I haven't had much time to spend at Casa De Mad. Last weekend, I worked on Saturday and had a Hamfest on Sunday. The weekend before, I drove up to NJ to visit the parents. The weekend before that, dinner with some coworkers and hanging out with a friend. Weekend before that, another Hamfest.

So my house has started to resemble something out of Hoarders. Well, not quite - I don't have broken waffle irons piled up in the front yard yet. But I haven't exactly had time to put stuff away or the like. So I resolved this weekend that I would try to keep the errands to a minimum, skip the yard sales, and try to spend some time around the house. After all, something like half my paychecks go to paying the mortgage... I might as well spend some time here.

As is typical with any to-do list, I didn't get quite as much done as I wanted. My house is still pretty messy. But I got it started, and have a better idea of what I want to get done next week. I have descriptions ready for a bunch of stuff that can go on eBay in the next few days, which will mean slightly less crap around the house and slightly more money in madanthony's bank account. I also caught up on sleep, got in a couple good workouts at the gym, petted the cat, got a haircut, and made a giant bowl of Pasta Fagoli, a bowl of which I just finished chased with a glass of two-buck chuck, probably the first time I've had a glass of wine in about 6 months. Usually I avoid it, because it makes me sleepy, but I figured it was worth it to treat myself for once.

Part of the reason I want to spend some time enjoying myself, and some not-so-enjoyable time getting my house into something resembling an order, is because I expect that in about 10 weeks, my free time will go down to close to zero, because I'll be starting grad school again - I'm going back part-time for a degree in Educational Technology. So I want to have everything in order by then. Which is unlikely, since I'm 1)messy and 2)in the crap-resale business, which means I tend to have lots of crap around. But I'll do my best, and I feel like I've at least got a start.

Why I want to take a break from online dating...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:45:00 +0000

I've been trying to meet women online for nearly 3 years in some form. In that time, I've gotten a grand total of 3 dates, none of which resulted in a second date. So I'm thinking it's time to give up.

Well, not give up on the idea of dating altogether, and not ruling out the possibility of going back to online dating at some point. After all, I wouldn't want to hang myself with a celibate rope.

But more and more I'm finding online dating to be frustrating, more cost and less benefit. Looking at profiles of women who I would love to date but have no interest in me, or the occasional woman who is interested in me but I'm not interested in, just depresses me. If I added up all the time I've spent browsing online profiles, it would add up to a whole bunch of time I could have spent doing something more enjoyable.

I'm not sure why I've failed at online dating when I know other people who have succeeded. Well, I have some ideas. First of all, I don't have a great hook - I'm not unusually attractive, or smart, or a great writer, or athletic, or have some cool unique hobby. I think I'm a nice guy, but everyone online is a nice guy - nobody is going to make a profile that says "I'm a douchebag, date me!". So I don't really come off as someone women are dying to meet. Either that, or I'm just so antisocial/hideous that there is no hope for me. But I'm hoping that it's just that I come off better as a real person than an online profile, and that it's just that I haven't been around enough women in the meatspace to meet one.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of signing up for one of eHarmony's discount 3-month subscriptions, so I can't cancel for another month or two. That actually works out well in a way, because that is around the time I'll be starting on grad school for my second master's degree. Which I'm also hoping will be a good way to meet people in the real world.

As I mention in the post below, I'm also planing on doing a few other things that I hope will help me discover more who I am, and get more comfortable around people. I hope it's sucessful because online dating is generally the meeting place of last resort, and it hasn't worked for me - so if I don't either find a way of making myself more datable or finding some hidden cache of women who want to date me, I can pretty much expect to die alone.

I has a bukkit list...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:03:00 +0000

I don't have a bucket. And I don't really have a bucket list of things to do before I die. Truth be told, I'm not much of a risk-taker, so if I make it to my deathbed without bungee jumping or skydiving, I don't think I'll regret it.

But I do have a much more mundane list of things I've been saying I was going to do for the last few years that I keep putting off - partly because of laziness, partly because of fear, partly because of business, and partly because I've been hoping to meet a woman I can spend the rest of my life with and do some of those things with. But the last of those hasn't been happening, and I'm starting to think it's time to focus on some other stuff. I've been trying online dating for a while, and I'm probably going to take a break from it - partly because I'm frustrated with it, and partly because I think it will help me focus on the other things that I'm hoping to do in the next year or so. I'm also hoping that by being busier, I'll have less time to spend moping around being sad about how I'm unhappy with my life. I'm also thinking that if I try to do things that require human interaction, maybe a little bit of risk, maybe I'll be more personable, meet more people, be less socially awkward - and maybe those things will help me on the dating and social fronts.

For the last few years, I've lamented that I've been able to accomplish some goals - like losing weight - while being unable to accomplish others - like meeting women. I blame part of this on the fact that weight loss is entirely under my control, a matter of what I put in my body and what I do to burn it off. Dating, on the other hand, involves some externals - I can't will a woman to like me. But I can try to make myself more likable.

So, the list:

1. Grad School, part deux: I work for a college, which means free tuition to any of our part-time Master's programs. I got an MBA about 2 years ago. It didn't help me at all career-wise. I've thought about doing another master's program, but kept putting it off. I decided it was time to stop putting it off - if I do it, and it sucks, I can always drop out, and I won't have lost anything other than a few dollars for books and registration and a few hours of my time. So I've applied to the Master's in Educational Technology program at the college I work for, and got my acceptance packet yesterday. So come mid-January, I'll be taking education classes. My hope is that by doing this, management at work will see that I'm interested in the softer side of Educational Technology, that I'm more than just a technical person. And if they don't, it could help me if I decide to change careers or jobs. Plus it's another degree for my wall. In the back of my head is also the idea that lots of teachers are female, and some of them are single - it could be a good way to meet women - even if I don't get a date out of it, spending time interacting with the opposite sex would probably be a good thing, especially since I don't much in my day job or free time.

2. Take a vacation - Where I work, we accumulate vacation time to a certain point, and then we stop accumulating, which means losing vacation time. I lose a lot of vacation time, because I rarely take time off. I figure that should help me career-wise - it should show my dedication. It really hasn't. So either the couple days I have taken off are too much, or it's not a factor in advancement - and I'm going to guess it's the latter, since plenty of people have been promoted who don't have the same aversion to time off that I do. I also don't generally travel anywhere beside visiting the parents and the occasional work training trip - partly because of the time, partly because I guess I've been hoping to find someone to travel with, and partly because I'm cheap. But I'm at a point where I can afford a vacation without breaking the bank. So where to go? I'm thinking Atlanta, because I've long wanted to see what a Post Office unclaimed mail auction was like. Plus I could tour the Coke museum. This will probably wait until spring/summer (and will need to work around classes), but I do want to make sure I do it.

3. Swingin' - back a decade or so ago, when it was the fashion at the time, I was a fan of jazz and swing music. I played in jazz band and a jazz/fusion band in high school, and wanted to learn to swing dance. I never did. Now I'm going to. Evidently, there are actually a few swing groups in the Baltimore area. So I'm going to start lessons November 3rd with these guys and hopefully work up enough skills and confidence to go to one of their dances. The thought of going to a dance alone with a bunch of people I don't know terrifies me, but it's a good way to meet people, and hopefully give me a fun hobby.

4. Get some pussy..cat For a while, I've talked about getting another cat, but I haven't done anything more than scroll through listings on petfinder. I've been reluctant to go through the whole "slowly introducing your cat to the new cat so they don't kill each other" process. But Nibbler, my current cat, spends a lot of time alone at home, and I feel like she's getting lonely and would benefit from a companion. Plus, the idea of saving a cat appeals to me. This is probably going to have to wait until the first week of January - I'll be away for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and don't want the new cat to be alone right after I get him/her.

5. Buy a second car - I've been thinking about doing this for a while - I've always been a car nut, and I've wanted a fun vehicle. I'm finally in a position financially where I could do this, which means I should actually do it. I realize that from a financial perspective this is a horrible idea - it's a giant metal hole into which I'll throw money. But at the same time, it's silly that I work and save, and then don't spend it on things I want and enjoy. I don't know what I'll buy - I've considered a very wide range of vehicles, from the low end (AMC Eagle, Chrysler LeBaron Convertible) to the middle (Toyota MR2 Spider, 80's Vette) to the high end (early-90's Bentley or Rolls, DeLorean, Porsche Boxter). I want something that's fun and attention-getting and cool. I figure I'll keep my pickup as a daily driver- it's still got a number of years left in it, it's set up the way I want, with a hard bed cover and bedliner, and it's been solid so far - and use car #2 as a weekend/fun car.

So there is my list - 5 things I hope to do in the next year. Sort of a new year's resolution list without the new year. There are still things on my new year's list - like lose/maintain my weight - that I also plan on continuing to do - but I'm also resolving for once to actually do these things, rather than just say "I've been thinking about" or "I should"...

At the crossroads of health and temptation..

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:07:00 +0000

So for the last 6 weeks or so, I've been carefully watching my weight - no more than 2000 calories a day, and 2 hours of cardio every day. But today I'm blowing it - I'm eating a 500 calorie Ms. Freshly's Chocolate Pie from the vending machine, and I'm probably going to stop and buy some donuts on my way up to NJ tonight. I will hit the gym, but for an abbreviated workout.

The diet has actually been pretty successful - I've dropped about 12 pounds and probably an inch or two. I still have a little bit of a belly, but less than I did before. I'm still on the high side of normal for my height - I'm around 138 pounds, the CDI says anything between 111 and 149 is normal for someone who is 5'5".

One of the reasons I started turning into a weight loss Nazi was frustration about my lack of dating success. But I doubt that losing 15 pounds is going to make a difference. And it's getting frustrating being hungry, not being able to order what I want on those rare occasions I grab dinner with a friend, ect. The workout is getting to me too - if I leave work a few minutes late, by the time I get to the gym, work out for 2 hours, and drive home, I'm not getting home until 8:15 or later. That leaves me less than 4 hours of time to check email, surf the web, watch TV, clean the house, pet the cat, put into my eBay business, ect.

So I think I'm going to start compromising. I'll still watch what I eat, but I'll allow for the occasional splurge. I'll try to do 2-hour workouts when I have plenty of time, like on weekends, but I'll go back to 90 minutes when I have stuff to do at home. I'll probably gain a couple pounds back, but I'll still probably be lighter than I was 6 weeks ago. I have picked up some good habits - smaller portions, more fruits and veggies, better weekend breakfasts, smaller snacks/desserts - that I'll try to keep up with. But I'm starting to think that I've reached the point of diminishing returns - I have to make big changes in food and exercise to get a small loss of weight. I'm not where I was 5 years ago, where I was 100 pounds overweight, where small changes meant big losses, where not losing the weight meant major health problems. Any weight I lose now will do little for me healthwise and appearancewise. I think it's time to ease off.

Kash for Kitties?

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:02:00 +0000

Via Consumerist, and also a lengthy fatwallet thread, is the proposed tax break for pet owners, allowing them to deduct pet care from their taxes, up to $3500. The proposed law doesn't really define "pet care" beyond specifying that it includes vet care and excludes acquisition costs.

I'm torn on this. On one hand, I'm not a big fan of the government using tax law to reward some groups (and thus basically take money from other groups and give it to them). It's why things like cash for clunkers, the first-time homebuyer tax credit, mortgage readjustments for people whose mortgages happened to be owned by the right quasi-government agency, and many of the other recent schemes piss me off - they just give money to random people, often for not doing anything more than being in the right place at the right time - having the right trade-in or being in the housing market.

On the other hand, as a pet owner, it would be nice to get a break. You could probably justify the break not only on the claimed health benefits, but also on reducing some of the cost for animal control and shelters if it encourages people to adopt more.

Actually, one of the posters in the fatwallet thread had a better idea - how about a one-time tax break for the cost of spaying/neutering pets? I'd even throw in being able to write off the cost of adoption fees for adopting a pet from a shelter. This would be far cheaper than being able to write off $3500 worth of kibble, and also bits. It would also encourage/reward people for doing something responsible, and something that clearly impacts shelters/animal control.

Miserable....

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:52:00 +0000

madanthony has been feeling pretty down lately, to the point of talking in the third person. Seriously, especially the last month or so, I've been feeling like nothing seems to be going right, and I'm not really sure how to change it. my outlook on life tends to go up and down as events in my life occur, but of late it's been all on the down side, and most of it seems to be out of my control. There are times pretty much every day where I pretty much just want to cry.

Work - I feel like I'm pretty much doomed to be stuck in the same job forever, and it's a job I don't particularly like much anymore. I was an business major as an undergrad, I have an MBA, but I keep getting more and more technical stuff thrown at me, much of it way out of my league. I'm not getting a whole lot of direction, and it's making me unhappy. The thing is that I can't figure out what I did wrong - I feel like I do a good job, I do everything I'm asked, I got my MBA, and yet it hasn't helped.

dating - still single. Haven't even had a date in a couple months, and online dating is not working out. I had some hope a couple times, but nothing came out of them, and now everything seems to be going more towards hopeless. I feel like there's something horribly wrong with me that just repels women, but I don't know what it is or how to change it.

the parents - both of my parents have been having a bunch of health problems lately. My dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis a few months ago, and my mom has a ton of issues with her back, knees, and heart, among other things. My emails from them and weekly phone calls consist mostly of hearing their problems, and I feel bad for them. I feel like I should be doing more to help them, but I'm not sure what, and I'm too selfish to go up and visit them on a regular basis.

my weight - I decided to try to get back to taking weight loss seriously, and made an effort to drop my caloric intake to around 2000 calories and increase my workout to two hours a day. On the plus side, I've dropped 12 pounds. On the con side, I'm completely miserable - I'm too out of shape to make it through my workout without feeling sore and tired, and by the time I get home from the gym, it's often 8:30 or later. I also miss a lot of the foods I enjoyed. I skipped the gym and went out to eat tonight - I had a good time, but I know it's going to kill me diet-wise.

my cat - I'm pretty sure she hates me. She's been meowing frantically every time I'm on my home office PC, but when I'm somewhere she can crawl on my lap she ignores me. I want to get another cat to keep her company, but don't want to go through the whole "getting your cats to not kill each other" phase. Plus I feel like I'll just end up with two cats that hate each other, and me.

Now, I realize that things could be worse. I'm alive, my parents are still alive (even if they aren't in the greatest of shape). I'm in pretty decent health. I'm gainfully employed, even if I find myself dreading most mornings. I have some savings, a paid-off vehicle, I'm able to make the mortgage payments on my house (even though I'm upside down on it and things keep breaking in it), and I haven't hit anyone with my truck in almost a year.

So where do I go from here? I'm not really sure, although I have a few ideas about a few things. I'm very seriously thinking of getting another Master's degree - the college I work for has an Master of Education degree in Educational Technology. It's mostly intended for grade/high school teachers, but I figure it's free, there has to be at least some crossover to higher ed, and hopefully it will make management at work see that I'm someone who wants to self-improve and is interested in the softer, more user-oriented side of technology. Plus it's a good opportunity to interact with people - and lots of women are teachers, and at least some of them are probably single. Which is probably the stupidest reason ever to get a degree, but whatever. I need to make up my mind pretty soon, though - if I want to start in January I need to get my application in by the end of the month.

In terms of dating, I'm seriously thinking about taking a break from online dating. I find it takes a bunch of my time to comb through profiles, and usually leaves me feeling worse when I'm done - either I've looked at a bunch of women I have no interest in, or a bunch of women who have no interest in me. I'm thinking that taking a few months off wouldn't hurt. If I end up going back to school, it's a good excuse to cancel my subscriptions and delete my profiles.

As far as the weight thing, I'm torn - I'm kind of proud of myself, and I think I look better. But the workouts are killing me, and there are some foods I really want to eat. I'll probably keep it up for a while longer, but I think if I drop another 10 pounds or so I might back off. Besides, I'm not sure I want to lose enough weight where I have to buy new clothes. At least I've proven I can do it if I have to. Once again, if I go back to school, I'll have to cut back on the workouts.

So maybe the grad school idea isn't a bad one - it might make me readjust my priorities a little, or at least take up enough of my time that I won't be able to think about being miserable.

My cat will probably hate me even more, though.

Scenes from the outback, pie edition...

noreply@blogger.com (mad anthony) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000

bsom: Man, I could go for a piece of pie.

t (bsom's wife): But I'm on a diet. Pie is banned in our house.

mad anthony: But if you've banned pi, how can you measure the circumference of anything?