Memoirs Of A Dude

Another month, another good weight loss, 5lbs this time.

So I'm now down to 13st 8lbs. Yay.

http://tv.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=150116842>1=61503

Hmm...

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2009/09/19/research-finds-that-atheists-are-most-hated-and-distrusted-minority/

Lovely. I'm hated and feared because I take an intelligent and rational look at things and say to myself 'hey, I'm going to apply the same logic as adults do to Santa Clause and use it for god'.

More people would be pissed off if their offspring married an atheist than a right-wing christian? Wow, that's some lovely bigoted world you want your grandchildren to be brought up in.

I might as well have the words 'SEX OFFENDER' tattooed on my forehead.

Sooo, after losing 7lbs last month when I had 4lbs as my goal, I decided to stick to my original estimate and say that I would like to lose 4lbs this month.

I lost 6lbs. ^_^

So I'm now down to 13st 13lbs, which is good for three reasons:

1. Under 14 stone.

2. I'm finally under 200lbs.

3. I'm now actually at the weight I kinda had in my head when I started thinking about my goal. Still feel kinda fat though, so I don't know if I'm gonna ease up at all, I'd feel disappointed in myself if I didn't do all I can.

It's finally happened.

Rap music, once the genre for raw, explosive and gritty music, has now become as soulless, generic, cheap, commercial and bland as pop music did in the 70's and RnB did in the 90's.

Soldier boy (I refuse to spell his name wrong), yea I wish you would be a real soldier, so you could travel to some war torn country and hopefully have your head blown off so you couldn't subject the world to your particular brand of terrible, terrible music.

There are others as well, but he stands out as one of the main perpetrators.

Grr, and I like rap music as well!

So, I weighed myself yesterday, I hoped to lose 4lbs because usually you can't keep up the same weight loss month after month......and I lost 7lbs! :D

It's the same amount I lost last month, don't know how I managed that, but I'll take it. :P

So I'm now down to 14st 5lbs. ^_^

I've been meaning to do this for a few days now, but I have an announcement to make. I've told some of you, but now it's time to tell everyone.

In September, I will be running the bristol half-marathon. ^_^

I didn't want to talk about it until the month before, just in case I didn't feel like I was ready and I ended up not doing it, but my place is booked and all I have to do now is keep on training and wait.

13.1 miles, hooray?

I lost 10lbs last month, so I thought 6lbs would be a good amount to lose this month, and I lost 7lbs! :D

So I'm now down to 14st 12lbs, yay. ^_^

So, for those who care, a little update on my weight loss.

Two months ago I lost 4lbs, which pissed me off. Last month I lost 2lbs, which pissed me off even more. So, buckling down again, I started running a lot more, to the point where I'm now running about 26-27 miles a week, and I've cut back on the food I eat at night, and the result?

When I weighed myself on Tuesday, I lost 11lbs this month! :D

However, I weighed myself yesterday and it said I lost 9lbs, so I'm averaging it out and saying I lost 10lbs. :P Which is a great achievement, it's 5 times more than I lost last month and nearly twice what I lost in the last two months put together. It's also the second most I've ever lost while going to the gym.

So, I now weigh 15st 5lbs. I'm getting there. ^_^

Just gonna make a little prediction here.

As some of you may know, there is a G.I. Joe movie coming out this summer, entitled 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra'. Now, I don't think this film is going to do very well.

Ok, let's go a little further shall we? I think this film is going to be the biggest flop since 'Battlefield Earth' and within the next few years will be up there with the aforemention abortion as one of the worst films of the 21st century. Dunno why I think this, I just have a feeling.

With swine flu making the headlines, I am reminded of this classic quote:

Kent Brockman: Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?

Professor: Yes I would, Kent.

I wouldn't really brag about this.

I did wonder whether to post about this or not, I wasn't feeling great before today anyway, and this didn't help.

This morning I was awakened by someone knocking on our door, someone who definitely wanted me to answer the door. So in my sleepy haze, I answered it. It turned out to be my neighbour, who said that the lady who lives directly behind us had a black cat in her garden who was in a bad way. Now, at this point I hadn't seen one of my cats, Tom, for a few days, but I wasn't worried as this is not a rare occurrence for him.

So, with blanket in hand, I headed over to the garden and came face to face with Tom. He was a sorry sight, laying by her shed and with a trail of blood coming from him. I picked him up, with blood on my hands and some dripping on the floor, put him in a box and took him home. At this point I had phoned my mum and she was heading home so we could take him to the PDSA.

Alas, it was not to be, he died around the time that my mum arrived home. We buried him in our garden next to Jerry, a cat we had who died a while back. I told my brother, as I thought he had a right to know, and my mum seems fine as well.

What pisses me off is that he was in a lot of pain before he died. I have this overwhelming urge to protect everyone that I care about, and to think that he was suffering while I was going about my own business is hard to take.

Yea yea, I know, I shouldn't get so worked up about a cat, but we had him for about 11 years, and he was part of our family. I still haven't come to terms with it, I can't deal with death, I just completely block it out.

This is why I feel it's best to be a recluse. I can't deal with things like this, I don't want to put time, effort and feelings into people and animals because stuff like this happens. I know it's stupid but there we go.

So, yea, I haven't had the greatest day.

:(

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7945569.stm

Me, Lee, Tara and David are screwed. :(

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/Darwin-Birthday-Believe-Evolution.aspx

I swear we need a cull.

I could go on about this subject for ages, but I'm far too lazy.

If someone is talking behind your back, wouldn't that mean that they're talking in front of you?

These are my top 11 movies of 2008 (not in order):

1. Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) – Stunning little Swedish film about Oskar, a bullied 12yr old boy who falls in love with a girl named Eli who just moved in next door. But there are a few unusual things about her, she hates the sun and can’t come into a room unless she’s invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to fight back against his tormentors, but will he be able to forgive her for who she is? A beautifully made film with a lot of heart and character, this has about the finest acting I’ve ever seen by two children. It’s never boring, with a darkly violent tone, the two main leads carry the entire film superbly, and help make this one of the best films made this century.

2. The Dark Knight – Not really anything else to write about this is there?

3. Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs – Incredible attention to detail, movie references aplenty plus the now standard genius writing and humour, truly one of the greatest TV series’ ever.

4. Hellboy II: The Golden Army – How this film can maintain a realistic tone is a mystery to me. Ron Perlman is perfect again as the titular hero, but props have to be given to Johann Krauss, who is funny and bizarre enough to fit in perfectly into the Hellboy world. Plus, it has Hellboy and Abe Sapien singing Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile without You”, which is definitely one of the funniest scenes I saw this year.

5. Cloverfield – JJ Abrams produced monster movie that is terrifying, tense, completely immerses you in the terror the characters are going through and doesn’t let up for a second.

6. Milk – Sean Penn gives an incredible performance as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA. With great performances by James Franco and Emile Hirsch, this is a really immersive drama. It will be a travesty if Sean Penn doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this.

7. Recount – Drama about the 2000 presidential election starring Kevin Spacey, John Hurt, Denis Leary and Ed Begley Jr. Very engrossing, it will leave you at least a little angry about what happened 8 years ago.

8. Seven Pounds – Will Smith stars as Ben Thomas, an IRS agent with a secret who befriends people and says he can change their lives. This film has gotten horrendous reviews, but I loved it, Will Smith and Rosario Dawson have amazing chemistry together and make the film well worth watching.

9. WALL•E – Wall*E will go down as one of the best animated characters ever. In 10 years we’ll be speaking about it in the same vein as Toy Story. For a film with very little dialogue and the main characters being two robots, it has remarkable warmth and humanity that an all-human cast would have to work damn hard for.

10. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button – Brad Pitt stars as the titular character who starts off life as a wrinkly, saggy, arthritis-ridden baby who, the older he gets, the younger he looks. This is old fashioned story telling at its best. Brad Pitt is fantastic and has great chemistry with Cate Blanchett, who has never looked better. There is a particular bit when she is dancing with Benjamin watching, and she’s doing it in a very alluring way, very much a phwoar moment. It has as much magic and charm as any film I’ve seen for a while. I don’t know what Brad was using towards the end of the film, but I want some! He looked damn near a teenager, he looks amazing. Anyway, I’m detracting from what is a very beautiful love story played across the decades, interspersed with world wars, flings, births and deaths. The supporting cast do a tremendous job, they are all fully fleshed out characters with their own flaws and personalities and help make this a very well balanced, deep, thought-provoking movie.

11. Tres Días (Three Days) – A film about the way a small Spanish village acts when they discover that the world is coming to an end in 3 days. Great acting by all involved and quite dark in places too, it revolves around a man trying to cope with the imminent destruction of everything he’s ever known, while trying to keep his brothers children safe. The end is coming and you can feel it in every second of this film, and that is a very rare thing for a movie to put across.

Films that didn’t quite make it include Changeling, Frost/Nixon, Iron Man, Leatherheads, Quantum of Solace, Religulous, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Speed Racer and Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
As for the best film of this year, that’s a toughie, but I’m gonna go with Let the Right One In, a masterpiece that will sadly be overlooked by the vast majority of people.

I highly recommend these films for anyone as they are all well made, well written, well acted and helped make 2008 a very good year for films. Shame it was a terrible year for losing some absolute legends. :(

I would also like to add these films that, while they didn’t come out this year, I watched them for the first time in 2008 and I found them to be quite exceptional: The Hudsucker Proxy, Juno, Inside, 12 Angry Men, Demon Seed, Apocalypse Now, Reeker, The Signal, Soylent Green, [Rec], All the President's Men, Atonement, Vexille, Blood: The Last Vampire, Bullitt, Children of the Corn, Timecrimes, The Godfather, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Suspiria, Phenomena, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey and too many more to list!

I only lost 2lbs last month, which I was a little peeved about. So, with me cutting down again:

Weight on 7th November 2008: 17st 8lb / 111.6kg

Weight on 8th December 2008: 17st 3lb / 109.5kg

So I lost 5lbs again, which I'm feeling pretty good about. ^_^ It also means that I've FINALLY got past the 4 stone mark this year and, seeing as I'm not expecting any loss during the festive period as I shall be eating my bodyweight in mini sausage rolls, the weight I've lost now will be it for this year. So, the final tally:

Weight on 7th January 2008: 21st 7lb / 136.7kg

Weight on 8th December 2008: 17st 3lb / 109.5kg

So my weight loss for 2008 is 4 stone and 4 lbs, which is pretty good. It's less than I would've liked, but I'm still a lot closer to my goal. ^_^

hes done it.

I know a lot of you won’t read this, but I feel like I need to do it.



Please America, don’t fuck this up.


Hello America, how are you? I am fine.



Listen, you’ve got a big election coming up, and I want to try and help you make a good decision as to who you want to run your country for the next four or eight years.

It speaks to the arrogance of some Americans who will only vote for someone who is just like them. I can’t think of anything more moronic. It’s probably why John McCain and Sarah Palin are doing so well in some parts of the country, parts dare I say, where the IQ level drops off a tad? George Bush was elected because he seemed the kind of guy Americans wanted to have a beer with, now they can’t afford beer because they’ve lost their job.

I would not vote for someone like me, when I’m looking for someone to run the country, I want someone extraordinary, not ordinary. That is why I hope you will support Barack Obama for president. He came first in his class at Harvard Law School, and if that’s not smart, I don’t know what is. He won each of the 3 presidential debates, and where McCain looked flustered, jittery and nervous, Obama was cool, calm and composed. He regularly has crowds of more than 100,000; there really hasn’t been anyone like this who has ignited the public spirit since Kennedy, or maybe Bill Clinton.

Let’s look at the facts, Reagan was a fiscal conservative and had a huge deficit, same with Bush Snr., Clinton however, is a “tax and spend” liberal who actually had a surplus of money, then Bush Jr. came along and plunged the country into a monetary black hold the likes of which has never been seen before. It’s funny that there is a national debt clock in New York that accurately shows the entire national debt of America. Now, they took it down during the Clinton administration because there was no need for it because there wasn’t a debt, but now they actually have to put an extra number on it because the debt has gone past 10 trillion dollars. 10 trillion dollars, can you even imagine that number? Is it really that bad to have a “tax and spend” liberal in the White House?

You need radical change in your country, and Obama is the one to give it to you. Ignore the fact that’s he’s black, and focus on his policies. He has a way of getting out of this financial mess that might actually work, he is pro-women’s rights, pro-gay rights, he wants to put more money into schools, rebuild the failing American infrastructure and he will actually make big corporations pay their taxes, unlike John McCain who is in favour of giving them billions of dollars in tax cuts. And as for elitist, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, grew up on welfare, and has one house and one car. John McCain doesn’t even know how many houses he has (It’s 7)! Plus he has over 10 cars AND a private jet in which he hangs around with well known news journalists and high ranking politicians. He also married an incredibly wealthy beer heiress. Hmm, yep, Obama is definitely the elitist there.

John McCain has the lost the plot, and is resorting to desperate measures in order to try and get votes. He is at complete odds with the man he used to be eight years ago. In the Republican Primaries in 2000, his name got dragged through the mud by Bush and the cronies he employed. Now, McCain has hired the same people in order to try and drag Obama’s name through the murky depths.

He has changed his position on so many things I’m surprised he recognizes himself when he looks in the mirror. He was for keeping abortions, then against them, he was for the Bush tax cuts, then he was against them, he even wrote an immigration bill that during the primaries he said he wouldn’t vote for! Is that really the kind of person you want running your country, someone who changes his mind in an attempt to garner more votes?

Yes, I am aware that John McCain is a war hero, he was in a POW camp for five years, and didn’t leave even when his captors gave him that option, because they wouldn’t let everyone go. To this day he can’t even lift his arms above his head. What he went through is something very few people could go through, I know I couldn’t, but that does not give him any bearing on running a country. He is out of touch with the American voter, he himself admitted the economy is not his strongest subject and he engaged in the most see-through, patronizing political move I have ever seen in picking Sarah Palin for Vice President. Not only to try and get a lot of female voters from the failed Hillary Clinton run, but also to bring the evangelical wing of the Republicans to his side. Nice try John, but I think women are more intelligent than that.

Sarah Palin is a vile, hate-filled, clueless, spiteful woman. Now, I don’t say that because I’m sexist, I don’t say that because I hate women, I say it because it is the truth. Let us not forget that she believes she has foreign policy experience because SHE CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ALASKA! How this is even treated seriously by the news media is beyond me, they must be secretly laughing that someone running for one of the most important jobs in the world can be so deluded. She doesn’t even know what the VP does! In an interview in which she was asked question by 3rd graders, she was asked what the Vice President does, and she answered that they are in charge of the senate. No, no, a thousand times no, Vice Presidents are not in charge of the senate. I don’t think many people could describe President Bush of being a smart man, but at least he knew what the job he was running for entailed.

And she doesn’t stop there, no sir. She would like creationism taught in Science classes. Creationism, if you don’t know, is the idea that the world is only 6000 years old, that Evolution is a hoax and that humans lived with Dinosaurs. And who could come up with such a preposterous idea? Why, Christians of course! How anyone could fall for this stuff is beyond me, I have no problem with them teaching it in their Churches, but in schools is a big no-no and one of the few things I would actually stand up and fight for. The simple fact of the matter is that it isn’t science, and if anyone wrote a scientific paper showing evidence of a young earth and Evolution being a hoax, their theory would be torn apart within seconds and they would be laughed out of the scientific community. Because that’s what Science is, the search and study of truth, not the spreading of misinformation and lies.
Just before the Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden they were talking about the candidates and what they should do. For Biden it was not to make a gaffe, not to seem overbearing or condescending. And for Palin? One analyst actually said that she needed to show that she can finish a sentence. I shit you not. Is this where American politics has sunk? That someone like that, who, in an interview, couldn’t even name a newspaper (!), is so close to the Vice President’s office chills me to the bone. Well, at least she won’t know where to turn up if she wins.

She also tried to get books banned while she was Governor of Alaska (for less than two years I might add, and before that? She was a mayor of a town of less than 10,000), she is against abortion even in cases and incest and rape, she made women who had been raped to pay for their own rape kits at hospital (universal healthcare? Not on my watch!) and she left the town she was mayor of in a $20 million hole. Actually, she and George Bush might get along well. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that her husband was a member of a group that wants Alaska to secede from the United States, and Palin herself spoke at their conference saying she believed in what they were doing. If that was Barack Obama, this race would be over.

There is also footage of Palin in her church being blessed by a black witch doctor who got rid of all her demons, how nice of him. If that was Barack Obama being blessed by a witch doctor, this race would be over. This is a woman who is one old man’s heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world, and if that thought doesn’t terrify you, I don’t know what will.
The negative campaigning from McCain’s camp is nothing short of despicable. Trying to forge a connection between Obama and Bill Ayers, a one time member of an anti-Vietnam group who carried out bombings in the US, trying to make him look like a socialist with his “spreading of the wealth” comment, of course not forgetting that any tax is basically the same thing as spreading the wealth, and where did the $150,000 that paid for all of Sarah Palin’s clothes and make-up come from? Yeah, you’re right, she’s just a normal American.

It seems like as we come to the final days of this election the Republicans are resorting to more and more desperate measures. Apparently Bill Ayers didn’t sound foreign enough so they’re trying to tie another so-called extremist to Barack Obama, namely Rashid Khalidi (Boo! He sounds like a Muslim!). Apparently he has known Obama for years and was once a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (not true).
Now, here is the best part. It seems someone gave this Khalidi $448,873 ten years ago when they were chairman of the International Republican Institute for his center for his Palestine research and studies in the west bank. You know who that was? Senator John McCain. ^_^

Oh, and you know who also gave Khalidi money? Bill Ayers. So it seems by bringing this up McCain has not only tied himself to the person he was trying to tie Obama to, but also to Bill Ayers! Now, either they were so clueless that they didn’t know this, or they thought that we were so stupid that we would never find that golden nugget of information out. It just seems like they hoped that Obama’s campaign would take more damage than theirs if the truth came out, so they’re not even above shooting themselves in the foot. Wow, that is all kinds of stupid.

And all this stuff about ACORN is just plain bogus. Apparently Obama has been involved in this group that has perpetrated one of the greatest election frauds in history. For those who don’t know, ACORN is a group trying to get as many new voters as possible, and sometimes they get forms back with names like “Mickey Mouse” and “Donald Duck”, and by law, they have to give all forms in, no matter how suspect they might be. It’s not voter fraud, it’s registration fraud! It would be voter fraud if Mickey Mouse turned up with all the correct ID, but that is unlikely to happen, so it’s just another non-story the Republicans have concocted.

Oh, and you know who spoke at ACORN in 2006 and said what they’re doing is a great job? Take a guess.

America is a great country, with beautiful landscapes, amazing wildlife and intelligent hard working people. But there are also a lot of intolerant, narrow minded, bigoted idiots, and you can’t let them vote John McCain and Sarah Palin into office. They will restrict your freedom and your liberty, two of the things you hold most dear, and plunge America, and maybe even the world, into an even deeper hole than it already finds itself in.

Please America, don’t fuck this up.