Friend Chicken

I’m still suffering from my father-in-law’s birthday party blowout at one of his favorite greasy spoon eateries. Over the last five or six months I’ve eaten relatively healthfully other than the occasional lapse [usually 2-3 days, which is why I’ve pretty much been losing and gaining the same seven or eight pounds since Thanksgiving.] This was probably one of the worst things I’d eaten in a while, fried chicken, fried mushrooms, fried onion rings…I think you get the overall theme here. And now my digestive system is lodging a complaint.

Food was delicious, though. I’m happy I’ve lost the weight I have, and I know I need to lose quite a bit more to be at a technically healthy weight according to the BMI charts, but sometimes I feel like I should just try to work on maintaining the weight I’m at. Of course, I guess if I quit striving to improve, I may end up gaining it all back….again!
But I feel healthy, I’m active, and my various bloodwork numbers are all really good, better than most people’s. I know long term, though, things would be better if I weighed less. I had a big weight gain right after I turned 30, and I imagine there will be a similar metabolic milestone sometime down the road unless I continue to work toward a healthier lifestyle. I am technically diabetic [have it under good control with medication and lifestyle changes to the point where if I lost a little more weight I could probably be “cured”] and have high blood pressure [also currently under control.] I have family members who have suffered from it and have health problems that make their lives pretty difficult in their old age, and I don’t want that to be me. But boy, that fried chicken [I keep misspelling it as “friend chicken”] was sure good.

My wife found my old audit textbook from school in a closet, so I’m going over it a little bit. I have to keep reminding myself I don’t really need to memorize things, just be able to talk intelligently about governmental and internal auditing. I am not really nervous yet, I probably should be.

Library Saturday will probably be pretty weak next time, I have not really made any progress in reading anything due to being busy otherwise.

Tonight my wife and I are visiting with one of her longtime friends and her family. They are really, really into online gaming. I kind of view video games as like some kind of addictive substance, I don’t want to take it because even though I might enjoy it I’d probably have a hard time stopping. One of the things is that her friend’s husband really wants me to get into playing games online, which I don’t want to do. Even if I were to play, I’d rather play alone so I could feel free to mess up and shoot the wrong people or shoot myself or whatever. I am too uncoordinated to be very good at any of it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to humiliate myself in “public.”

I was even bad at Pac-Man when I was a kid. No way could I handle shooting Nazis or zombies, or Nazi zombies, or whatever else they shoot in these games. Something is always shot.

Just noticed that I have finally reached the point where there are "Older posts." I think that is a first. I also don't think anyone has read this other than me. I guess I should start trying to "promote" this more, but you know how I am about marketing and networking...

So long, Scotty!

Apparently the Klingon and/or Romulan Empires have finally prevailed over the U.S.S. Enterprise, the Star Trek slot machines are no more. We asked a slot attendant and were told they'd been moved out. I was not surprised, the machines didn't seem all that popular, and generally those who played were disgruntled at how fast their money was being taken by the machine. We found a new one, though, called Time Machine which I really enjoyed playing. Didn't win, but got a decent amount of play for my $20. Also everyone got their lunch comped--none of us really had earned it, but I think the casino host decided to be nice.

I've been on a 50s Sci Fi kick lately, and was happy to see the giant ant classic THEM! on Turner Classic tonight. My father-in-law humored me and agreed to watch it and promptly fell asleep after about 30 minutes. Giant radioactive ants wreaking havoc in Los Angeles and other places, what's not to like? It actually got an Oscar nomination for special effects, which aren't all that bad considering it was 1954. Actually I've noticed a lot of the effects in those movies [the bigger budget ones] are actually pretty good, they don't seem nearly as fake as all the computer generated stuff today. Well, I mean, assuming you buy into the whole giant ant thing in the first place.

I'm expecting another one via Netflix tomorrow, THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS. I'm guessing this will not be one with relatively good special effects.

Library Book Saturday still going to happen later today, after I sleep and stuff.

You can't violate the laws of probability, Captain!

We're celebrating my wife's new job with lunch at one of the casinos. I'll probably give the STAR TREK machine a try--always enjoy that one. We are such penny ante gamblers, though, that we will probably quit early. Both of us usually feel guilty if we lose $20. My elderly in-laws will probably proceed to blow their monthly retirement checks. The tribe should name a wing of the casino after them.