Monthly Archives: March 2012

Interrogation

Posted on by
Reply

A man sits in an interrogation room.  His hands are folded on the table, and they are handcuffed.  He looks around the room.  A camera is perched in the corner near the ceiling shining a tiny red light.  The man looks straight at the camera, and then notices three bullet holes in the ceiling.  Then he looks down into the large one-way mirror that takes up the wall in front of him.  He blows a kiss at the men behind the mirror, waves at the camera, and begins to laugh.  Then the red light on the camera shuts off.

MAN: And here we go.

A cop kicks the door in and storms across the room, rolling up his sleeves. He rips his badge off his shirt and throws it out the door before he slams it shut.

MAN:  You might as well turn around, because I ain’t gonna say a God-damned—

Turning directly from the door to the man in a single step, the cop slams the man’s head down on the table, leaving a small dent. The man falls to the floor, clutching his hands to his face.  The cop lifts the man up, pulling him by his hair. He punches him across the face twice.

MAN:  You think I haven’t been through worse?

The cop backhands the man.

MAN:  Keep going, my lawyer will be here any min –

The cop takes out a revolver and pistol-whips the man. He then opens the cylinder with one jerk and unloads all but one bullet onto the table. He spins the cylinder, cocks the gun, and puts the barrel next to the man’s head.

MAN:  What the fuck are you -

The cop pulls the trigger quickly five times to empty clicks and then fires the live round into the air, adding a fourth bullet hole next to the others.  Then the cop punches the man in the groin, gives him a kick to the gut, lifts the edge of the table and lurches it at the man’s face, and then turns to leave the room.

MAN:  (spitting out a bloody tooth)  I’m wise to you, pig. You gonna send in the “Good Cop” now?

The cop spins in place at the doorway to face him.

COP:  I AM THE GOOD COP!

He slams the door.  On the other side of the glass, the cop joins a large group of others, who are looking solemnly through the glass.  One is eating popcorn.  They stand in silence.

COP 2: You’re getting really good at that Bobby.  I always love the gun trick.

The other cops murmur in agreement.

COP:  I never would have guessed a few slight of hand magic tricks would come in handy in the interrogation room.

COP 3:  Well, time makes fools of us all.

COP 2:  Well said.

Most of the cops begin to leave the room now that the show is over.  A phone rings and the first cop picks it up.  He grunts, listens, grunts again and hangs up.

COP:  Lawyer’s here.  Turn the camera back on.

Inside the interrogation room, the little red camera light turns back on.

Co-written by Time for More Cake.

Playing With Food

Posted on by
Reply

Some of my friends understand that if they go out to eat with me at a restaurant and we end up staying long after a meal is finished, I will start to do something very interesting: Playing with my food.

Now, I don’t play with my food in the same way a child might toss around a piece of broccoli that they don’t want to eat.  I don’t even play with my food, per se, but rather that any part of the meal left over stops being food and starts being fodder for my tiny art projects.  Without thinking about it (because if I think too much, it won’t turn out right), I will begin to create little sculpture out of anything that is around me – utensils, food, candles, sugar packets, glasses, plates, etc.  I will begin to balance things on other things, lean some stuff against some other stuff, stack objects on other objects.  By the end, I will have created a tiny piece of art right there on the table.

Usually, these attempts end up failing, either because we are about to leave (or be kicked out), or because I can’t get things to balance quite right and I don’t have the patience to stick it out.  But when they do work, I am quite pleased with the end result.  They are like sand castles in the fact that they are only temporary.  Once we leave, the server will come by and clear the table for the next customers.  This makes every piece somewhat pure in its artistic essence; that by only existing for a short period of time, they are more perfect than anything else I’ve done.

Here is one example from a few years back that happened at a large dinner of old friends.  It was far from my best, which is a title that is held by a piece that I created at breakfast with my girlfriend and another friend of ours my freshman year in college.  They were talking about something I didn’t care about, and so I created a foot tall mobile which included forks balancing sausages and apples on the rim of a glass.  Just as I finished, the other two finally noticed what I was doing and asked, “What is that?”  I hit one of the balancing utensils, setting the entire piece into a slow spin, looked up and said, “It’s a balanced breakfast.”

It is quite possibly the greatest thing I have ever done.  It’s been down hill ever since.

Diet: Exercise – One Final Reason

Posted on by
Reply

Sigh.  You’re still not on board with the muscle thing, are you?

Patrick Stewart is so disappointed in you.

Look, I can understand why you might be hesitant about lifting weights or flipping over a big tire or doing a chin-up.  Most weight lifting/strength training is either associated with bodybuilders (which, I agree, seems down right bizarre and utterly frightening sometimes.  I mean, look at this guy -

I really wish I could say this was photoshopped.

- yeah, it’s impressive.  It’s also fucking scary), or athletes/models/action movie stars -

He may have a nice body, but I bet he's ugly as sin. Why else would they crop off his head?

- which, while being very pleasing, isn’t exactly practical for most of the human population (those people were either born with some incredibly good genetics, or they just work out almost all day).  You’re not trying to be some kinda meat monster, and you have enough problems dealing with the unrealistic body image issues that the latter group invokes in society, let alone trying to look like them.  You want to lose weight and be healthier, not be the shining example of supreme fitness and muscle tone.   I dig it.

Literally.

But I’m not trying to reshape your body to be more pleasing to the eye, nor is it my goal to have you be able to pull a semi with your teeth.  I don’t care if your body meets up with society’s standards.  What I care about is your health, both physical and mental, and I know that if you have been a big person for most of your life your weight is a key factor in both of those arenas.  I know that if you can lose the weight, you’ll live longer and feel better about yourself.  So I’m going to bottom line this shit.

BUILDING MUSCLE MAKES YOU LOSE WEIGHT

It may not seem like it, but it does, and a lot.  Aerobics are still going to be your main avenue on the weight-loss journey as you need to build up your endurance more than anything else at first.  But after your endurance is up, you will need to start doing more and more muscle work, and here’s why:

When you exercise, you boost your metabolism.  The harder you work out, the higher your metabolism goes and the more stored energy you burn.  When you finish an aerobic exercise, your metabolism is going to stay boosted for about 20 minutes.  It takes a little while for your heart rate to return to normal and if you exercised vigorously your body is going to be working in overdrive to replenish the energy you used up.  Twenty minutes, and then your heart rate gets on the square away again and you body isn’t as starved for calories as it was, and thus your metabolism returns to its ordinary setting.

But with weight/strength training, your metabolism stays up for the entire day.  THE.  ENTIRE.  DAY.  If you lift some weights for half an hour in the morning before going to work, then your metabolism is going to burn hotter while you’re driving to work, typing up them sick spreadsheets, taking a break one too many, and all the way until you get home for dinner.  This is because, while your heart rate can return to normal fairly quickly, it takes at least a day for your muscles to return to normal after a work out.  A full day in which your metabolism will be working harder to get the energy your muscles need.

That’s it.  If all my talk about how it makes you healthier hasn’t sunk in, then just focus on this – If you want to lose some serious weight, if you want to change your body chemistry so that you keep off what weight you lose, weight training is one of the most important things you can do.  BUILDING MUSCLES MAKES YOU LOSE WEIGHT AND KEEP IT OFF.

Now don’t go picking up that dumbbell just yet.  While weight training is important, it can also be a lot more dangerous and correct form is crucial in your ongoing safety.  Also, there are more options to this than just lifting weights, so there might be something that is better suited for you.  I’ll go over all of that soon enough.  But I don’t want to hear any more of this, “But I don’t wanna”, bullshit.  If you say that, you’re gonna get smacked.How did that feel?Not very good, yeah?That not me that’s slapping you.  That’s the “Fat Voice” in your head; the one that tells you you’re not worth a damn.  The one that says you’re not worth the effort of losing weight.  The one that wants to keep you fat.  Every time you make a bullshit excuse to not work out or eat right, that Fat Voice is going to -- you.  And let’s not pretend; its slapping you down.  Down into depression, insecurity and shame.  But I’m here to help in every way I can, to help you find the tools to fight the Fat Voice, because that motherfucker does not get to win.

The struggle against weight loss is about conquering your barriers, and that’s going to take a lot of effort.  But you know what?  You’re worth it.

That last one was from me.  It kinda looked like fun.  It totally was, too.  But I’m really sorry.  If you want to, to be fair, you can go ahead and -Ow.

No More Yielding But A Dream

Posted on by
2

Since starting this blog, I’ve tried to write down my dreams in the hope that I may discover a subject for a story.  Usually my dreams are nothing more than vague images and fragments of memories, as most dreams usually are, and they fade from my memory before the end of the day, as most dreams usually do.  On the few occasions that I remember most of what I saw, I tend to find that my dream was just me going through what I normally go through in a day.  This tends to anger me since I feel like I have been forced to back track and relive something I have already gone through, or that instead of acting as a respite from reality the dream just put on an eighth day to my week.  But every now and then I strike gold, and when I stumble from bed to my computer and type my dream I find something magical; like digging up a time capsule, only to find gold instead.

When I do remember enough of my dream to make it worth the time to write it down, I usually don’t remember the actual act of writing so when I sit down and read about my dream, I get to be surprised by it all over again.  It would be like taking that gold you dug up and hiding it in the back of your sock drawer, only to be found when you put on that last pair of socks with the holes in it that you only save to remind you that you should probably do your laundry.  Then, lo and behold, you find enough gold to buy enough socks for everyone on the block.

So today, being either absolutely out of ideas or too lazy to finish writing some short stories I’ve been working on, I opened the file labeled “Dreams” on my desktop to look for something I could post today.  And what I found was this:

Living in Germany during World War II, fighting Nazis by smuggling alligators out of the country.

I can vaguely remember the dream itself and although the description is rather short, I do recall the dream being rather long and detailed.  It seemed like the perfect choice.

And yet, as I stare at the blank Word document waiting for me to start typing, I realize that nothing I could say would do justice to the idea.  I know it was important work, smuggling the alligators out of Berlin, and I know it was hurting the Nazis something fierce, but I can’t bring myself to elaborate or explain any of these things further; I’m just too afraid I’d fuck up its purity, the ever-loving “awesomeness” of it.

So instead of drawing out a scenario from an idea that I’m not sure even Hemingway could justify in a story, I’ll just leave you all with the muse itself.  How does stealing alligators hurt the Nazis?  I have no idea, but I do know Hitler hated that I was, and man, fuck that guy.

by Illishar on deviantART