Find my glasses, then take out my contacts.

I had a gym membership for 4 years.  On Tuesday, I quit.

I liked my gym.  I liked the staff, I liked the vibe.  It’s not fancy.  It doesn’t have a pool or a spa treatment room or day care or any of that.  I don’t need that kind of gym.  I want a place to get sweaty & lift some weights.  I want to show up & do my thing.

It’s in a narrow city building, 3 stories tall.  My favorite machines were on the first floor, right in the front windows.  A lot of machines have TVs on them, but not these.  I’d put on some music, and look out the window.  It’s in an excellent location for people watching.  But a few months ago, they renovated.  The machines I loved were moved up to the second floor, and the first floor space was turned into a personal training area.

And the second floor?  It’s real gross now.  The extra machines are crammed in there, and it’s congested.  I can’t look out the window when I use the machines I like.  But the worst part: the ventilation can’t handle the humidity from the sweaty people working out.  I can’t imagine what it will be like in the dead of winter, when everyone is working out inside.  It will be a giant armpit.

But the first floor?  It looks great.  If you’re someone looking to join a gym, you’d be impressed.  There’s new equipment, and the renovated area is real sexy.  (I actually don’t know if I’m allowed to use that area or not.  So I don’t.)

On Tuesday, I was on the third floor, doing crunches in an odd little side room.  The mat I was using was all picked apart, and there was a cracked outlet cover on the wall.  And I started looking around & realized how run down the whole place is.  There’s broken machines with notes on them.  The parts are on order!  The TVs don’t all work, and they don’t get all the channels they’re supposed to get.  Some of them don’t get sound.  The walls are scuffed, and, yeah, I know it’s a gym, but they haven’t repainted in the 4 years I’ve been going.

With all that money they spent on the first floor, they could have replaced the nasty mats, fixed all the broken machines & broken TVs, and still had money left over.  I get that personal trainers bring in money, and I don’t begrudge them that.  But I really don’t think that new mats & proper ventilation are too much to ask for.

The gym became a business more interested in looking good for new clients than maintaining a relationship with old ones.  I’m sad to go, but it’s was costing me way too much money to be treated like I’m second class.

How can you resist?

There’s a pharmacy here at work, and in this pharmacy, one can choose from an assortment of snackable goods.  This ranges from your everyday candy bars & chips to more niche options like pork rinds.  Every now & then, one will find something so odd that it practically begs you to try it.  One such item is the 7Day Soft Filled Croissant, chocolate flavor.  I was surprised to find that, completely independent of any idea I had, a friend also purchased the cherry filled version!

It was snackrendipity.  It demanded a taste test.

Fortunately, there are many people here at work that enjoy both eating and giving their opinion.  We gathered in the break room.

Upon opening, our first act was to smell the pastry.  We agreed that the chocolate smelled like something confectionery.  The cherry smelled like a fig newton.  So far so good.

Mmm?

They thought I was weird for taking pictures.  The thing inside the package was more breadlike than croissant.  It wasn’t flakey.  It wasn’t buttery.  It did, however, leave a film of something oily on the roof of ours mouths.

The chocolate tasted like pudding, and had the same consistency.  The cherry tasted almost completely unlike a cherry.  It was more like “mixed fruit” or non-descript thing that grew on a tree.  Not terrible or unpleasing in flavor, but not cherry.

So, will any of us buy this snack again?  No.  Was it worth the $1.27?  Sure.  My favorite part was the warning on the label that said not to microwave.  That’s an experiment for another day.

Up next in the “Snacks we’re gonna try” series: Big Az Chicken sandwiches.

Over at Vocalo blog, they’re talking about their F*ck It lists.  I think the * is supposed to be a u.  (I’m surprised that a site affiliated with NPR would make that kind of typo.)  So I think it’s supposed to read “Fuck It”.  Like the opposite of “Don’t Fuck It”?  I don’t know, I’m not a journalist.

Anyway, people seem to be listing things that they will never do.  Lots of people will never run a marathon.  Lots of people will never turn off their Caps Lock key.  Lots of people will never use spell check.

There’s got to be a drinking game in here, right?  Take a drink for everything you might someday consider doing?  For example, Ursula from comment #16 “will NOT dive into the bottle as a means of escape!”  I’ll probably do that someday, so I’d take a drink.

Swirly in comment #45  will never “SLEEP ON A COUCH”.  What the hell is wrong with you, Swirly?  Sleeping on couches is the shit.  Sometimes, I drive through alleys looking for couches just so I can take a nap outside.  And then I dive into the bottle as a means of escape.

subWOW in comment #52 will never RUN.  You’ll RUN if I’m chasing you with a knife because you’re trying to bogart my napping couch, subWOW.  Oh yes you will.

Here’s my F*ck It List of things I will never do:

1. Punch a lion in the face.
2. Make out with Mayor McCheese.
3. Pull a locomotive engine with my teeth.
4. Wear overalls.
5. Learn from my mistakes.

If you’d do any of these things, go ahead & drink.  If you’re right now in the boxing ring with a lion, or if you’ve got Mayor McCheese’s tongue in your mouth, go ahead & finish the bottle.  I think you’ve earned it.

I’ve been fumbling along with a PC for about a year & a half now, and for what I needed at the time, it was just fine.  I had my Notepad ++ text editor & GiMP for working with images, but if I needed to use anything more advanced than that, oh hell no.  There have been tears, curse words, threats of violence, and victories that were too few & too far between.

I’m looking at you Cigwyn.  I’m still mad at you, asshole.

So at this point in my nerd career, it’s time to get the right tool.  I need something where development tools run naively.  And I need something I can carry without breaking my back.

So I got a MacBookPro.  And it’s really pretty, and I’m a little intimidated by it.  It’s more computer than I’ve ever owned, and I feel like kind of a fraud.  Am I really a person who needs something so ‘vroom vroom’?

I did manage to knit it a sweater, because that I know I’m competent at.  And I named it Flapjacks.  I don’t really even like pancakes all that much.

I love the feeling of a newly changed password becoming second nature to your muscle memory.  I’m sure the ghosts my blue-collar ancestors, who actually worked with their hands, are staring over my shoulder & wondering how we got to be so soft.  It’s a first-world life I lead.

Here’s Nick Cave’s version of Stagger Lee, with a video shot by a student film maker.  It’s a darker, heavier version of the song.  It’s the soundtrack to tears in a glass of whiskey & regrets that won’t leave you alone, rather than a lighthearted coming of age beach trip for high school girls.  There’s a time & a place for both of course.

And courtesy of my friend Keith, here’s a version from a band called Modern Life is War. So this version is definitely not my style.  I can’t get into the growling vocals.

Neil Diamond also covered this song.  It’s remarkable for just how straight it is.  I don’t think Neil Diamond could sing behind the beat if his life depended on it.  I’d love to see what would happen if the audience at the Wilson Pickett show got to see Neil Diamond perform this instead.  Riots.

There is also a saxophone solo.

Let’s check in with Ike & Tina Turner & see what they have to say about all this.

In the previous versions, Stagger Lee loses his “brand new Stetson hat” to Billy.  Ike & Tina have him losing his “brand new Cadillac.”  They play higher stakes dice in Ike & Tina’s world.

But who’s right?  I feel like Lyle Lovett would be the perfect person to adjudicate this, but he has yet to weigh in, so we’ll get another white person’s perspective, courtesy of Huey Lewis & the News.

And now, don’t you all want to listen to Power of Love?  Because that song is awesome.

The song “Stagger Lee”.  If you’re a lady my age, you probably first heard it in the movie “Shag”.  Remember how much you loved that movie?  I wish I could dance like Pudge.  And how happy were you that Carson ended up with Buzz?  It was like Sex & the City for teenaged girls.  Think about it: you have the socialite, the slutty one, the uptight Senator’s daughter, and the girl who’s prettier than everyone thinks she is.

Anyway, the version of Stagger Lee used in the movie is the bowdlerized version, which was recorded at Dick Clark’s request.  Apparently, fighting over a woman is better than murdering a man because of a dice game.  Whatever Dick Clark. Lloyd Price had a #1 hit with the original.

And here’s Wilson Pickett, making it a Wilson Pickett song.  Can’t you just imagine him busting into the chorus of Land of 1000 Dances?

So today, I unmolded the soap brick.  It looks & smells almost completely unlike strawberries.  But it’s soap, and it’ll wash the sin off you.