300.5 lbs.
That's what the scales said today, when I weighed myself for the first time in about a month. In the past week I've gone for 4 walks of 1.6 miles each, and then today I went about 5 miles, and during that walk I weighed myself at the hospital, because I can't weigh myself at home because my house tilts and that makes scales unusable, and I'm still on the ugly side of 300. But just barely. I didn't walk all the way home. I took the bus for the last 1.3 miles because my feet were killing me.
I was so hoping I was going to break 300 today. I was so sure I was going to do it. Well, if I walk to that scale and back home 5 or 6 times a week, I'll break 300 at some point, surely.
I don't know exactly how far I walked because I got lost on the way to the hospital and for an unknown distance I was walking in circles. Straight to the hospital scale I used and straight back home would've been 5.4 miles.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Socialism in the US
Some of the Democratic candidates in the 2018 mid-terms, most prominently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are referring to themselves as socialists, which is freaking some people out.
Although this is a huge problem, it's a purely semantic problem.
Part of the problem is that anti-socialist propaganda has been extremely successful in the US, and Americans have been very effectively cut off from news of socialism in the rest of the world, so that people in the US often lose their minds as soon as they hear the word "socialism." Socialism has functioned perfectly well in the UK (where it's called the Labour Party), France , (West, and then reunified) Germany, Italy and the rest of Western Europe, but in the US, it faces unique obstacles. For example, all of the Americans who "hate Marx" without ever having read anything written by Marx. Many Americans "hate socialism" without knowing what it is. It's basically what the Democratic Party stands for: good wages, health care, a clean environment, good and affordable (or free) education, etc. It's help for people who actually need help, instead of for the rich people who already own most of the US and are outraged that they're not allowed to pollute more and pay their workers less.
Part of the problem is that for the moment, in the US, the term "socialist" has been partially monopolized by Bernie Sanders, who is no more socialist than the left wing of the Democratic Party, and whom people dislike for all sorts of perfectly sensible reasons which have nothing to do with socialism. Basically, Bernie is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Ralph Nader. Bernie, a socialist? It's a joke! He's too anti-social to have belonged to a political party for most of his career, until he joined the Democratic Party in time to ruin things for Hillary, to help Trump get elected, and, above all, to feed his seemingly insatiable ego. He moved from multi-cultural Brooklyn to lily-white, affluent Vermont, where they use a lot of green power, which is good, but don't participate very much in the actual socialist (that is, working-class) struggles going on the US.
Socialism is as American as FDR and LBJ -- even though both of them, unfortunately, avoided the label and left it to be used as a weapon against them by their libertarian rivals. It's as American as FDR's cousin Theodore breaking up the biggest companies in the US in order to stop them from taking over the US. Hopefully, soon, Americans will finally learn what the word means, and realize it's something they know and have been voting for all along.
Although this is a huge problem, it's a purely semantic problem.
Part of the problem is that anti-socialist propaganda has been extremely successful in the US, and Americans have been very effectively cut off from news of socialism in the rest of the world, so that people in the US often lose their minds as soon as they hear the word "socialism." Socialism has functioned perfectly well in the UK (where it's called the Labour Party), France , (West, and then reunified) Germany, Italy and the rest of Western Europe, but in the US, it faces unique obstacles. For example, all of the Americans who "hate Marx" without ever having read anything written by Marx. Many Americans "hate socialism" without knowing what it is. It's basically what the Democratic Party stands for: good wages, health care, a clean environment, good and affordable (or free) education, etc. It's help for people who actually need help, instead of for the rich people who already own most of the US and are outraged that they're not allowed to pollute more and pay their workers less.
Part of the problem is that for the moment, in the US, the term "socialist" has been partially monopolized by Bernie Sanders, who is no more socialist than the left wing of the Democratic Party, and whom people dislike for all sorts of perfectly sensible reasons which have nothing to do with socialism. Basically, Bernie is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Ralph Nader. Bernie, a socialist? It's a joke! He's too anti-social to have belonged to a political party for most of his career, until he joined the Democratic Party in time to ruin things for Hillary, to help Trump get elected, and, above all, to feed his seemingly insatiable ego. He moved from multi-cultural Brooklyn to lily-white, affluent Vermont, where they use a lot of green power, which is good, but don't participate very much in the actual socialist (that is, working-class) struggles going on the US.
Socialism is as American as FDR and LBJ -- even though both of them, unfortunately, avoided the label and left it to be used as a weapon against them by their libertarian rivals. It's as American as FDR's cousin Theodore breaking up the biggest companies in the US in order to stop them from taking over the US. Hopefully, soon, Americans will finally learn what the word means, and realize it's something they know and have been voting for all along.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
A Message to the Political Big-Shots
POLITICO reports:
Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats are publicly denying that they are the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed detailing a "resistance" movement inside the Trump administration, in an extraordinary demonstration of how the editorial has rattled the highest levels of government.
Someone in the White House, possibly the Secretary of State, possibly the Vice-President, says that there's a movement within the Trump administration which has been secretly doing what most of America has been openly doing -- resisting Trump and his unhinged, anti-democratic policies.
On the one hand, yeah, this is a bombshell, and it's nice to have some confirmation -- I should say: some more confirmation, since this is not the first report of its kind -- that not even all of his own administration is with Trump. On the other hand: aren't you sick of how almost all comments by big-time Republican politicians saying what we all know are anonymous, off the record? Haven't you had enough of this attitude of: "Yes, he's a dangerous psycho and an out-and-out sociopath -- Buuuut, instead of doing something about it, let's just ride his administration out, as long as it may happen to last"? Not to mention all the speeches by both Democrats and Republicans at the very highest levels up to and including former Presidents, "clearly indicating Trump, without mentioning his name..."?
GROW A PAIR AND SAY IT RIGHT OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC: TRUMP IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT, AND HE'S ALSO A CROOK, AND HE'S PLUNDERING THE COUNTRY AND CAUSING WIDESPREAD SUFFERING! THIS SHIT HAS GONE ON WAY TOO LONG!
That is my respectful message to the biggest political big-shots in the US. This is supposed to be a democracy. In a democracy, the important things are supposed to be handled openly. Publicly. I know they're not handled that way, but this would be a glorious opportunity to start to change that. Do what all of us little guys have been doing: say Trump's name when you say what you honestly think of him. Say it on the record. Say it on TV. The left wing of the Democratic Party and Steve Schmidt can't do this all by themselves. (God bless you, Mr Schmidt, btw.)
Well, since the Republicans who have had the power to remove Trump from office haven't been taking any action at all to do so, one can only hope that, after November, when the Democrats have the power, they will use it. It's true, the Democrats won't have 2/3 of the Senators after November, but they will have a majority, with which they will be able to put pressure on those Republican Senators who are awake enough to have noticed how supporting Trump's political career has tended to cause their own political careers to go down in flames.
Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats are publicly denying that they are the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed detailing a "resistance" movement inside the Trump administration, in an extraordinary demonstration of how the editorial has rattled the highest levels of government.
Someone in the White House, possibly the Secretary of State, possibly the Vice-President, says that there's a movement within the Trump administration which has been secretly doing what most of America has been openly doing -- resisting Trump and his unhinged, anti-democratic policies.
On the one hand, yeah, this is a bombshell, and it's nice to have some confirmation -- I should say: some more confirmation, since this is not the first report of its kind -- that not even all of his own administration is with Trump. On the other hand: aren't you sick of how almost all comments by big-time Republican politicians saying what we all know are anonymous, off the record? Haven't you had enough of this attitude of: "Yes, he's a dangerous psycho and an out-and-out sociopath -- Buuuut, instead of doing something about it, let's just ride his administration out, as long as it may happen to last"? Not to mention all the speeches by both Democrats and Republicans at the very highest levels up to and including former Presidents, "clearly indicating Trump, without mentioning his name..."?
GROW A PAIR AND SAY IT RIGHT OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC: TRUMP IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT, AND HE'S ALSO A CROOK, AND HE'S PLUNDERING THE COUNTRY AND CAUSING WIDESPREAD SUFFERING! THIS SHIT HAS GONE ON WAY TOO LONG!
That is my respectful message to the biggest political big-shots in the US. This is supposed to be a democracy. In a democracy, the important things are supposed to be handled openly. Publicly. I know they're not handled that way, but this would be a glorious opportunity to start to change that. Do what all of us little guys have been doing: say Trump's name when you say what you honestly think of him. Say it on the record. Say it on TV. The left wing of the Democratic Party and Steve Schmidt can't do this all by themselves. (God bless you, Mr Schmidt, btw.)
Well, since the Republicans who have had the power to remove Trump from office haven't been taking any action at all to do so, one can only hope that, after November, when the Democrats have the power, they will use it. It's true, the Democrats won't have 2/3 of the Senators after November, but they will have a majority, with which they will be able to put pressure on those Republican Senators who are awake enough to have noticed how supporting Trump's political career has tended to cause their own political careers to go down in flames.
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Great Big Fat Guy, Day 835
As faithful followers of this blog know, exactly one month ago, August 1, 2018, Great Big Fat Guy underwent surgery during which his right kidney and a huge cancerous tumor were removed from his body. Today, Great Big Fat Guy went for a walk which lasted exactly 30 minutes and covered 1.6 miles.
I (also known as Great Big Fat Guy, also know as The Wrong Monkey, also known as Steven Bollinger) was planning to take a route which covers 2.1 miles, but a little past the 1 mile mark, I was feeling exhausted and decided to take a short cut home. There was one steep hill on the route, by Ann Arbor standards. (By Knoxville, Tennessee standards, there were no steep hills on the route.) (The distances were calculated with Google Maps.)
I tend to write these Great Big Fat Guy posts right after doing some cardio, so maybe they're 100% written under the euphoric influence of endorphins. However, right now, there's one big buzzkill that's cutting right through the euphoria: before the surgery, I weighed 320 pounds. That's too much for me. There may be some guys who stand 6'3" and are actually so full of muscles that they weigh 320 pounds and are not fat, but I can't kid myself into thinking that I'm one of those guys. 220 pounds would be much more like it, and 180 would probably be better than 220.
I hadn't been weighed in 2 years (which is a very convenient sort of thing if you'd rather be in denial about what kind of physical shape you're in), because I hadn't been to see a doctor in 2 years, and my house is tilted so a scale isn't accurate inside it. I used to walk to the hospital just to weigh myself, which is about 2.5 miles each way, 5 miles round trip, and when I did that, I weighed a lot less than 320 pounds, and it wasn't a coincidence. When I weighed 180 or less, I often walked more than 30 miles in a day -- are you starting to see the pattern here?
Time for Great Big Fat Guy to spend a lot of time being Great Big Sweaty Guy. I want to start a new series of blog posts replacing the Great Big Fat Guy posts, with titles like Big Tall Guy, Not Particularly Fat, Day 45, or Slender Guy Breaks 20 Minute Barrier in 5K.
PS, 2 September 2018: One day later. Same 1.6-mile course. 30 seconds faster: 29 min 30 sec. Just like yesterday, I left home intending to walking the entire 2.1-mile course. Just like yesterday, I chickened out and took the shortcut home. Unlike yesterday, today it was cloudy for much of the walk, making it much cooler and easier. I thought I was going to beat yesterday's time by more than 30 seconds. Oh well. At least I actually got out and walked two whole days in a row.
I (also known as Great Big Fat Guy, also know as The Wrong Monkey, also known as Steven Bollinger) was planning to take a route which covers 2.1 miles, but a little past the 1 mile mark, I was feeling exhausted and decided to take a short cut home. There was one steep hill on the route, by Ann Arbor standards. (By Knoxville, Tennessee standards, there were no steep hills on the route.) (The distances were calculated with Google Maps.)
I tend to write these Great Big Fat Guy posts right after doing some cardio, so maybe they're 100% written under the euphoric influence of endorphins. However, right now, there's one big buzzkill that's cutting right through the euphoria: before the surgery, I weighed 320 pounds. That's too much for me. There may be some guys who stand 6'3" and are actually so full of muscles that they weigh 320 pounds and are not fat, but I can't kid myself into thinking that I'm one of those guys. 220 pounds would be much more like it, and 180 would probably be better than 220.
I hadn't been weighed in 2 years (which is a very convenient sort of thing if you'd rather be in denial about what kind of physical shape you're in), because I hadn't been to see a doctor in 2 years, and my house is tilted so a scale isn't accurate inside it. I used to walk to the hospital just to weigh myself, which is about 2.5 miles each way, 5 miles round trip, and when I did that, I weighed a lot less than 320 pounds, and it wasn't a coincidence. When I weighed 180 or less, I often walked more than 30 miles in a day -- are you starting to see the pattern here?
Time for Great Big Fat Guy to spend a lot of time being Great Big Sweaty Guy. I want to start a new series of blog posts replacing the Great Big Fat Guy posts, with titles like Big Tall Guy, Not Particularly Fat, Day 45, or Slender Guy Breaks 20 Minute Barrier in 5K.
PS, 2 September 2018: One day later. Same 1.6-mile course. 30 seconds faster: 29 min 30 sec. Just like yesterday, I left home intending to walking the entire 2.1-mile course. Just like yesterday, I chickened out and took the shortcut home. Unlike yesterday, today it was cloudy for much of the walk, making it much cooler and easier. I thought I was going to beat yesterday's time by more than 30 seconds. Oh well. At least I actually got out and walked two whole days in a row.
Friday, August 31, 2018
"How many good documentaries about chess are there?"
That's what I'd been asking myself lately. Finally, a couple of days ago, I actually remembered to google best documentaries about chess, and people, there are a ton of documentaries about chess, and lots of them are really good, and you can see a lot of them on YouTube, the whole movies.
The thing is, I'd seen chess in movies, and while some of the movies were good movies, such as Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Searching for Bobby Fischer (meh, it's not terrible), the chess in them isn't really worth much.
So then we go to the documentaries, and in the ones which are made by real chess players, everything that's said and shown about chess is way over my head.
So if I were going to make a documentary about chess, it would have to have the same problem I was just complaining about: it wouldn't be about chess per se, as about the personalities of people involved in chess and what have you.
But maybe I could write about people who make documentaries about chess. And those of them who are half-decent chess players themselves, I could try to find other interesting things to say about them, rather than do something humiliating such as filming them trouncing me in chess.
How about a chess tournament where all the players have made movies about chess? And then make a documentary about that tournament? Eh? Eh?
Let me answer the question many of you are asking yourselves: no, I see no evidence that I would be good at making a movie, about chess or anything else, a documentary or not.
I could write a novel about a fictional chess tournament contested by real filmmakers who have made good documentaries about chess. A novel which actually has nothing to say about chess. "A spine-tinglingly mellifluous melange of fact and fiction, dreamy fantasy and necessary substance. A masterpiece." (The New York Times)
Another idea for a documentary: a documentary about people who are fascinated by chess but who are terrible at it. Like me.
The thing is, I'd seen chess in movies, and while some of the movies were good movies, such as Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Searching for Bobby Fischer (meh, it's not terrible), the chess in them isn't really worth much.
So then we go to the documentaries, and in the ones which are made by real chess players, everything that's said and shown about chess is way over my head.
So if I were going to make a documentary about chess, it would have to have the same problem I was just complaining about: it wouldn't be about chess per se, as about the personalities of people involved in chess and what have you.
But maybe I could write about people who make documentaries about chess. And those of them who are half-decent chess players themselves, I could try to find other interesting things to say about them, rather than do something humiliating such as filming them trouncing me in chess.
How about a chess tournament where all the players have made movies about chess? And then make a documentary about that tournament? Eh? Eh?
Let me answer the question many of you are asking yourselves: no, I see no evidence that I would be good at making a movie, about chess or anything else, a documentary or not.
I could write a novel about a fictional chess tournament contested by real filmmakers who have made good documentaries about chess. A novel which actually has nothing to say about chess. "A spine-tinglingly mellifluous melange of fact and fiction, dreamy fantasy and necessary substance. A masterpiece." (The New York Times)
Another idea for a documentary: a documentary about people who are fascinated by chess but who are terrible at it. Like me.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
I Know What Big Guys All Over the World are Doing
We're looking into the mirror and saying, "Do you feel me? --Do YOU feel ME?"
I don't know what small guys all over the world are doing. Maybe hoping that Russell Brand will sue The Rock for standing on his foot.
Maybe Russell Brand's character already has sued The Rock's character for standing on his foot. I don't know, because I don't have a TV. But I am still on Facebook, and I'm seeing that trailer for "Ballers" all the time.
Cutting off the Internet as well as TV -- that would be extreme. (And not necessarily in the positive sense in which the term was used by those guys who picked on Harold and Kumar.) That would definitely involve leaving the house more often and for longer periods of time.
Maybe there are much better catch phrases than "Do you feel me? --Do YOU feel ME?" popping off of the tube all the time. Maybe I'm wrong to think that "Do you feel me? --Do YOU feel ME?" is going to join "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?" and "Everything's a situation" in the tough-guy catch-phrase Hall of Fame.
Anyway... (waving forlornly at all of you from no-tv-land...)
I don't know what small guys all over the world are doing. Maybe hoping that Russell Brand will sue The Rock for standing on his foot.
Maybe Russell Brand's character already has sued The Rock's character for standing on his foot. I don't know, because I don't have a TV. But I am still on Facebook, and I'm seeing that trailer for "Ballers" all the time.
Cutting off the Internet as well as TV -- that would be extreme. (And not necessarily in the positive sense in which the term was used by those guys who picked on Harold and Kumar.) That would definitely involve leaving the house more often and for longer periods of time.
Maybe there are much better catch phrases than "Do you feel me? --Do YOU feel ME?" popping off of the tube all the time. Maybe I'm wrong to think that "Do you feel me? --Do YOU feel ME?" is going to join "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?" and "Everything's a situation" in the tough-guy catch-phrase Hall of Fame.
Anyway... (waving forlornly at all of you from no-tv-land...)
How the Bursting-Into-Color Thing Has Been Going So Far
See my previous post for what I mean by bursting into color.
So far it's mostly been a bunch of big talk. I haven't completely healed yet from the operation. Pretty much the only exercise which is allowed is walking, and I'm not allowed too walk to far from home base, on the off chance that I collapse. But Boy, a couple of weeks from now, (insert more big talk)!
I think I've been spending more time in front of the computer since disconnecting my TV.
Several different people seem to agree that I'm losing weight. In addition to the walking I'm trying to eat less overall, with more veggies and all of that totally annoying crap.
Today, a woman who'd turned me down flat when I asked her out before the surgery -- but had been polite enough to add "--but I'm totally flattered!" -- said that I looked really good. She meant: compared to just days after the surgery, when she had seen me. It was only later that it occurred to me that it was possible that her remark could also possibly be construed as encouragement to ask her out again.
I'm really bad at this subtextual thing that many of you humans often do. I'm also bad at figuring out which of you is more liable to do it. That's autism for you.
I may have been standing up taller than usual lately. That's possible.
I feel much, much better than I did a week ago, when I was wondering exactly how long I was going to be in constant pain. The answer was: about that long. Now instead of the pain, there's a tightness in my lower abdomen most of the time. Sort of like having gas, but not having gas.
Helath-care professionals have been visiting me in my home. They're all really nice. One of them is helping me to install a shower head in my tub. With the shower head, I will be able to sit on the tub bench also provided by them, and spray myself. That will be awesome.
So far it's mostly been a bunch of big talk. I haven't completely healed yet from the operation. Pretty much the only exercise which is allowed is walking, and I'm not allowed too walk to far from home base, on the off chance that I collapse. But Boy, a couple of weeks from now, (insert more big talk)!
I think I've been spending more time in front of the computer since disconnecting my TV.
Several different people seem to agree that I'm losing weight. In addition to the walking I'm trying to eat less overall, with more veggies and all of that totally annoying crap.
Today, a woman who'd turned me down flat when I asked her out before the surgery -- but had been polite enough to add "--but I'm totally flattered!" -- said that I looked really good. She meant: compared to just days after the surgery, when she had seen me. It was only later that it occurred to me that it was possible that her remark could also possibly be construed as encouragement to ask her out again.
I'm really bad at this subtextual thing that many of you humans often do. I'm also bad at figuring out which of you is more liable to do it. That's autism for you.
I may have been standing up taller than usual lately. That's possible.
I feel much, much better than I did a week ago, when I was wondering exactly how long I was going to be in constant pain. The answer was: about that long. Now instead of the pain, there's a tightness in my lower abdomen most of the time. Sort of like having gas, but not having gas.
Helath-care professionals have been visiting me in my home. They're all really nice. One of them is helping me to install a shower head in my tub. With the shower head, I will be able to sit on the tub bench also provided by them, and spray myself. That will be awesome.
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