At-home Exercise

After all of the Christmas parties and feasting, you’re going to feel extremely bloated. You’ll look in the mirror and think you’re fat. Probably not true. Maybe you’ve gained some weight, but it’s most likely manageable at this point.

Most people aren’t very good at judging themselves. The slimmest woman will tell you she feels fat, and you’ll wonder more at her mental state than her physical state. For sure, what we can’t disagree with is how someone feels, so just silently agree, make no comment, and walk away. Even though you can more accurately judge someone’s physical state than they can, it’s best not to. Unless you’re a doctor, you shouldn’t be telling anyone how out of shape they are. If you’re not sure about yourself, whether you’re really in danger of becoming obese, or if you should start an exercise routine, you should consult a physician. Let them do the judging for a minute.

Judge your own self and keep smiling, knowing you’re probably wrong.

After checking yourself in that mirror, if you were thinking, “I’m going to make a New Year Resolution to go to the gym,” stop thinking that way. There are far too many people who waste money on gym memberships. We learned a lot during the recent pandemic, and one thing we learned is that gyms are unnecessary. They were shut down and the masses realized there’s a lot you can do outdoors. It’s free and you can get away from other people. Treadmills in a crowded gym are far inferior to running and walking outside away from the crowds. Recumbents and other stationary bikes are like the retarded step-cousins to a real bike you can ride outside. Ride that bike up a dirt trail just as Orville and Wibur Wright intended.

Another reason not to join a gym is because of how unclean they are. Due to the worry over viruses spreading, many gyms are now using harmful chemicals such as ADBACs (Alkyl Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Chlorides) which are effective at killing viruses, but are not meant for humans to ingest. These chemicals have proven harmful to humans in many tests, and are often labeled with a recommendation not to use them on food preparation surfaces. In fact, the recommended application process is to wear gloves, apply the ADBAC, allow it a short moment to kill any viruses which might be on the surface you are treating, then rinse the surface liberally with water. How many gyms are there that provide water for rinsing, or even gloves? They usually have the ADBAC-soaked wipe available, or a spray bottle with the chemical in it and a rag; no gloves, no rinse.

Understandably, January weather in the northern hemisphere can make an indoor gym seem more appealing. Still, there are a lot of things you can do at home for a fraction of the cost of a gym membership.

The following is a sample exercise routine you can do without any equipment for only a few short minutes in your home:

  1. Run in place for 5 minutes.
  2. Stretch: arms, legs, torso.
  3. Pushups x 10
  4. Situps x 10
  5. Squats x 10
  6. Lunges x 10
  7. Pushups x 20
  8. Situps x 20
  9. Squats x 20
  10. Lunges x 20
  11. Pushups x 30
  12. Situps x 30
  13. Squats x 30
  14. Lunges x 30
  15. Pushups x 20
  16. Situps x 20
  17. Squats x 20
  18. Lunges x 20
  19. Pushups x 10
  20. Situps x 10
  21. Squats x 10
  22. Lunges x 10

If at the end of this you aren’t feeling very fatigued, start over and do it again (and good job—you’re in fair shape). On the other hand, if you feel fatigued in the middle anywhere, do a little less and work your way up to this workout over the course of days. Don’t hurt yourself. For instance, if running in place for 5 minutes is too long for your endurance, try running in place for 2 minutes and increasing the time gradually each day.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Weird Christmas Songs

As far as weird Christmas songs go, some of the songs which receive the most radio play can be the weirdest. Look at the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. On the surface it can seem innocuous. Dig a little deeper and it sounds like somebody’s planning a felony.

Not all weird Christmas songs are so deviously written, though a lot of the ones that are about evil Santa, or zombie elves, or even a statement of Christmas hate, are too common to be novel. The writers of those types of songs were trying so hard to be different that they ended up being more of a clone than most Star Wars characters.

The following list of a baker’s dozen is full of weird songs which can hit you in the gut without making you lose your gingerbread cookies.

1. Weird Al – “Christmas At Ground Zero”. This is only a little weird. If you heard it in the background, you would probably dismiss it as only another holiday tune. The theme and the lyrics will get you laughing though. If my neighbors are going to go caroling, I wish they’d sing this one.

2. Feet – “Vegetarian Christmas”. Bizarre in many ways. To heighten the weirdness, check out the YouTube video.

3. Tiny Tim – “White Christmas”. You’ve got to love his warbling.

4. Fishbone – “It’s A Wonderful Life (Gonna Have A Good Time)”. Too much fun for one title, they had to give it two.

5. No Doubt – “Oi To The World”. Try NOT to chant oi with them.

6. Kurtis Blow – “Christmas Rappin’”. The original. This one tends to be even more fun as time goes on.

7. Fountains of Wayne – “I Want An Alien For Christmas”. Don’t take my word for it. Go listen.

8. Mystery Science Theater 3000 – “Patrick Swayze Christmas”. This one is truly weird, and difficult for me to hear more than once.

9. White Stripes – “Candy Cane Children”. Fun, in the vein of the White Stripes.

10. Yello – “Jingle Bells”. Basically just a remake of “Oh Yeah”, this is kind of creepy if you listen too long.

11. Sonic Youth – “Santa Doesn’t Cop Out On Dope”. A spoken song, it’s about how Santa doesn’t do drugs.

12. Da Yoopers – “Rusty Chevrolet”. It’s important that the radio is okay.

13. Beach Boys – “Little Saint Nick”. Like Yello, the Beach Boys seem to have wanted to make everyone all too familiar with the sound. This is only “Little Deuce Coupe” reworked into a Christmas jingle.

Merry Christmas, music lovers!

Best Christmas Albums

My top ten favorite Christmas albums, in ascending order:

10. Tracy Thorn – Tinsel and Lights. Her voice will bring a good mood to whatever time or space you choose to play her album.

9. Michael Buble – Christmas. This one has been reported as the best selling album in Australia for six years in a row. Not sure how true this statement is, but he does have a good voice.

8. Sixpence None the Richer – The Dawn of Grace. Leigh Nash sings for the band, proving that the female vocalists dominate this list. Her delivery is superb, especially on “Christmas Island”, easily the best song on the album.

7. The Brian Setzer Orchestra – Boogie Woogie Christmas. Great fun for when you don’t want to be so calm. When you want to rock, turn the table on this one. And yet, the song “O Holy Night” brings a pleasant mellowness to the otherwise raucous mood.

6. Sarah McLachlan – Wintersong. Using her usual commandingly emotional singing voice, Sarah brings the joy and sweetness to you for your holidays.

5. Annie Lennox – A Christmas Cornucopia. Like many others on this list, Annie’s voice is perfect for these kinds of songs.

4. Nat King Cole – The Best of Christmas. All the traditional oldies, sung by one of the greatest of all time.

3. Martina McBride – White Christmas. Her renditions of some traditional Christmas songs make you feel as if you’re listening to a choir instead of only one vocalist. She’s a country singer at heart, though the songs on this album don’t sound like country music.

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi Trio. If you’re in the mood to relax, there’s no better album to play than this. The children’s voices in the choir are soothing. The instrumental pieces are superb and calming.

1. Hi-fi Holiday. This compilation, put together by Old Navy, is like the playlist of Christmas songs you wish you lined up. There are exceptional artists on the album such as Smokey Robinson, and then there’s also James Brown, who does it the way he does it. Sometimes I don’t care for how James Brown does it, so I skip his song. Regardless of the one sometimes dud, this is a fantastic Christmas album full of energetic favorites. Worth one thousand repeats.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol

This is not so much a review as a reminder that there are fun things out there beyond the average Marvel sidekick character spin-off series. Not that I hate or even dislike Hawkeye or Black Widow—they’re cute little characters—but they don’t hold my interest for long. I can’t understand how anyone could sit through mindless hours of sloppy-cam footage in a failed attempt to make bowstring pulling or unbelievable martial art action more exciting.

(And here, I have to admit, I haven’t even seen the Hawkeye, or the other, series to say for sure it does have sloppy-camera, but it is probably so, since the ones I’ve seen have all had it. Loki had the least, and that’s why Loki is in the lead.)

There are fun things out there.

What fun?

“Mickey’s Christmas Carol”. That’s what fun.

It was made in 1983, and a couple of interesting trivia factoids are these: an early Christmas Carol movie was made in 1938 (probably only a coincidental transposition of numbers); John Lasseter was credited as one of the many in the making of this cartoon rendition of A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens. John Lasseter you could possibly recognize as the name behind some of the great early Pixar movies. He’s been around.

“Mickey’s Christmas Carol”, by the way, is only 26 minutes long. Just right for a busy holiday season. You can watch it and not lose much time out of your day. Go wrap a present for your mom already.

While I watched it, I also had fun picking out the classic Disney characters that make appearances. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you which ones are in the short film. Keep your eyes open—they’re everywhere.

One idea that I got from this one, which I had never thought of with any other rendition, is that I’d rather be Scrooge than Marley. The character Marley is burdened with chains and a guilty conscience, or both, because of how he lived his life, and he doesn’t seem to have any way to escape his chains. Those chains are eternal. He’s also burdened with the apparent obligation to tell Scrooge about the guilt, and to rattle the chains. Scrooge, however is given the chance, by Marley and the other nightly visitors, to change himself, to repent, to be redeemed. So the question I have to ask Chuck the writer is this: “Is Marley’s redemption in the act of challenging Scrooge to hear the ghosts?”

Now I really want to read the book to find out if there’s any hint to answer my question.

Another funny side note to “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” is that this 1983 cartoon employed a sort of sloppy-cam. The irony’s joke is on me. It looks like they moved a single cel up and down quickly to suggest earthquake-size movement. Silly, but fortunately it doesn’t last too long. It’s bareable in its brevity. 

Speaking of brief: if time is money, and Scrooge McDuck would say it is, then 26 minutes is cheap. You can definitely afford to watch “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” and still have a ha’penny left for a gift for your mom this Christmas.

Enjoy.

Ventanas

Always looks like a trap, then you realize you found freedom. The irony fools us again, and again. We expect to be stuck with the hollow, depressing feelings, only to find there’s a playground in all the hollows. We expect to hurt wherever the sharpness punctures and get all surprised when the holes are large enough to widen the view. The holes are large enough to let our real selves escape.

From an accustomed perspective we don’t get much done. We don’t learn. Without the learning opportunity, we don’t grow. Stationary is what we are, when we miss the chance to progress. Another sun sets on our less-than productive day. All we needed to do, though we maybe didn’t realize it, was to open a window.

Windows are cracks in houses, like eyes are viewports on souls. Someone’s always looking out while someone else is looking in.

The only sad thing would be if no one missed us while we left ourselves behind. What reason would we have to return?

And then there are those who don’t even look you in the eye because they’re too caught up in their framework of feelings. They seem too wrapped up in a mood to connect with anyone else. If given half a second of contact, they might combust. But then, turning traps to ashes could bring freedom too.