People in Pain

First of all, check out this ridiculous video from the Olympics. Hungarian weightlifter, Janos Baranyai, dislocated his elbow while trying to life a shit ton of weight. I read about it and wanted to see a video but I couldn't find any official videos of this on the NBC Olympics Web site. I searched the dude's name on YouTube and there were some bootleg videos up (this event wasn't on primetime TV) so I stole one and posted it here. But watch it quick because I'm assuming that someone is going to realize that this is on YouTube and it probably isn't supposed to be so it might get jacked and taken off. In case that happens, I'm putting up some pictures also.

And some images...

I know that last picture has poor quality but I did a screen shot of the video while it was in commission so that you could see these hysterical peeps in case the video gets taken away. One of the most disturbing parts is him shaking afterwards, so the video really is clutch to see that. I also, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the little people that scamper out to block the dude. In case you can't find the video, all these Chinese men and women run out about 2 seconds after the last picture was taken with these big posterboard looking things and just form a circle around him and the medical personnel that come out so nobody can see. Can you imagine if that was your job!?!? I imagine the conversation like this...

-- "So, what do you do?"

-- "I am working now for the Olympics in Beijing!" (if this was your job you'd prob. want to start with a general statement like this to sound cooler.)

-- "Cool! Have you met Michael Phelps???" (that would be one of my questions)

-- "No, I haven't. I'm actually working primarily at the weight lifting venue."

-- "Really? What exactly do you do there?"

-- "Oh well, if someone... you know... drops a giant weight on themselves, passes out, or suffers any sort of severe injury... I help out in those sorts of situations." (sounds good, right?)

-- "Wow. You're a medical technician?"

-- "No, I just run out and stand in front with a little posterboard so nobody can see them in pain."

On this note, has anybody ever realized that Americans LOVE to see people in pain? For us, when someone is suffering, it is entertainment. Shows like Fear Factor, Survivor, Lost, etc. Even shows like "The Biggest Loser" are all about suffering because while those people are working out and not eating and pushing themselves to the limit... they are suffering let me tell you! We LOVE seeing people get hurt. How many of us saught out that video on YouTube of Jake Brown falling over 40 feet? I know A LOT of people did. Even just think about "America's Funniest Home Videos"! Yeah, a lot of that show is little babies or kittens and puppies doing dumb shit but a HUGE portion of it is people running into things, falling off of things, getting hit by things, etc. And THAT is what American's find funny!

So, to conclude, if you are a normal American, I recommend that you watch the video of the guy dislocating his elbow (search on YouTube if its not working here) and if you are not a normal American, watch it anyways because you don't see much since the Chinese block him with Beijing posterboards.

B is for Brad

This may sound silly and a bit ridiculous, but I recently realized that I LIVE in New York! Shocker, right?

But seriously, prior to the past few months I always would answer the question, “Where are you from?” with a statement along the lines of “I am originally from Rhode Island, but I am going to school in Syracuse.” Or “I am from Rhode Island, but I’m living in NYC for the summer.” And when I was abroad it was an even more complicated answer of “I’m from the United States. I grew up in a state called Rhode Island. No, I’m not here with a group from Rhode Island, but I am here with Syracuse University, where I have gone to school for the past few years.”
Recently, when I’ve been meeting people out in Albany conversations have been going along the lines of…

- “Albany sucks.”
- Yeah, but its better than Syracuse
- “Is that where you are from?”
- Well, no, I’m from Rhode Island but I just graduated from Syracuse
- “Oh so what are you doing in Albany?”
- I have a job
- “like a summer internship?”
- No, it’s a full time job
- “Oh… so you live here permanently now?”
- Yeah, I guess I do…

Before it was always temporary but now I LIVE here.

Ugh.

I do not want to LIVE in New York. I do not like LIVING in New York. I don’t like the way it sounds I don’t like the way the license plates look. I don’t like the way the license is made. I don’t like not getting NESN. I don’t like the “thruway”. I don’t like the accents. I don’t like seeing Yankees/Mets/Giants/Jets crap everywhere. I don’t like it at all!

Last week I was at a party when M-diggity was visiting (you happy that I said your name there lil lady?) and I saw a boy with a Giants T-shirt on and a Boston baseball cap. First of all, my eyes have radar for Boston hats after being in NY for so long. I spot them and am drawn to those people from miles away. I immediately want to go up and talk to them and find out where they are from, why they are in this God forsaken state (that was a little harsh but I’m going to leave it) and if they want to be my friend and bitch about New Yorkers with me.

Usually I meet some cool people this way (although on a recent trip home to New England, my Boston hat radar didn’t register the change in location and was going off the wall with excitement and BoSox overload). So when I saw the boy with the Boston hat/Giant T-shirt combo I went up to him and initiated a conversation by asking him about it. When I asked if he was a Boston fan AND a Giants fan he said, "Nah, I don't like Boston, I just bought this hat because it has a "B" on it and my name is Brad."

He. was. dead. serious.

What? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? Has anybody in their life heard of something as ridiculous as this? As a Red Sox fan and as a fan of baseball and baseball hats in GENERAL... I was offended.

All I have to say is... what a tool.

Weigh-In

Weigh in was this morning!


I had some trouble with the slidey thing on the scale. Seriously, it was not balancing in between. It was going right from slamming up at the top to slamming down at the bottom-- THERE WAS NO SWEET SPOT! So, I got off that scale that I had been using and went to the one that sits on the floor and then the spinny needle of death shoots up to like 350 pounds then bounces back down and flops back and forth for a little then finally decides how fat you are.


So THAT scale tells me that I weight FIFTEEN pounds less than what I'd been doing with the big scale. Now come on! How could two scales be so ridiculously different? This is bullshit.


Moral of the story, I really have no idea how much I weigh right now. I got back on the slidey thing scale because thats what I've been using for the past 2 weeks.... and although I'd like to think I weigh 15 pounds lower like the spinny scale told me, I knew that was wrong. I finally got the slider to balance somewhere and it turns out that I (think) I lost 3.5 lbs this week!


Which means my total is: Loss of 8.5 lbs and my weight is currently XX0.

Next week will be interesting because I don't know if I actually did lose 3.5 or what the deal is... but hopefully the slider will be working more accurately and will be BELOW the XX0 mark next week.

If only this dude had been in the women's locker room at Best Fitness to help me.

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Photography

Isn't this picture nutty? It was taken on July 27 in Suining, China, which is part of the Sichuan Province. Temperatures were over 98 degrees so people crowded to pools... this is what overpopulation and lack of water supply does to you I guess. As one of my friends pointed out, "Why didn't they just get rid of those inner tubes? They are taking up room!"

If anybody else loves photography, you should check out Week in Photos... I love it. And you get to vote at the end and it interesting to me to see how the picture I selected as my favorite was voted upon by others.

A letter to blog-world and info on my new friend!

Dear Internet People and Blog-world,

I feel as though I've been neglecting you all lately which was never my intention. I guess the excitement of my 2nd blog child has left me no room to vent and talk about random things over here. I truly apologize and I have SO much to say that you and to tell you about. I have things I want to share. I have big, fun news. I have things to vent about. I have things to cry about. I have it all. Please just know that I've missed you just as much as I'm sure you've missed me.

I'm glad to have you back in my life.

To start, I wanted to give you a follow-up on the "Women In Business" event that I attended last week with the old ladies. One of the more chipper women in the crowd had asked for my e-mail address and as I am always anxious to find more people to e-mail with during the day at work, I gave it to her and gave her my work e-mail. A few days later I received this e-mail:

"It was great meeting you at the WBC mixer. I'd love to connect again and
wondered if you could be a Mary Kay face model for me and give me your feedback
about our products. I have sessions on Saturday and Monday night at my home in
Loudonville. Would any of those times work or would you like to schedule an
appointment at another time? I hope you are having a great day!! Looking forward
to hearing from you."

Face model, eh? I said I guess I was interested but what does it mean to be a face model...

"Great....would love to have you over...we are expecting a few great women and
it's an eye cream social...so we are focusing on eyes. Being a face model just
means testing out our colors and products and coming over for a make up demo and
to get your feedback. It takes about an hour and you are welcome to bring a
friend. We take an after picture of your new look if you wish. A lot of fun too!"

Well, I informed her that I have NO friends (which is why I went to the damn Women in Business thing in the first place) so that sure I'd come but I was going to be riding solo. We wrote back and forth a few times for directions and whatnot, then yesterday was the big day! I was pleased to see this little e-mail from her pop into my inbox during the day yesterday...

"Just checking in to see if tonight still works for you....just let me know and
I can't wait to see you."

How precious, she can't wait to see me! So yeah, I went over and when I first got there, our evening started a little rocky as I accidentally let her dog out and had to stand in her doorway for 5 minutes as she ran down the street yelling for "Sophie" to come back. My new friend baked me cookies, which I felt guilty about turning down, but I did (that situation is the worst... I hate when I cook people things and they don't eat it so I didn't want her to think I was rude but I also didn't want to break my diet just to be polite... plus, the cookies didn't look that good and I didn't want to break my diet on something lame like a non-good-looking cookie.

Speaking of being good-looking... last night was my first experience as a "face model" aka "complimented enough that I feel like a rockstar and buy lots of makeup". If you want to see pictures or read more about my experience, you can check out the entry I wrote about it on my 2nd-born blog, over here.

So internet world, I hope you don't hate me, because I love you.

I'll be better. I promise.

Much love,
Katie B.

P.S. Is it weird that this blog has given me some perspective on parenting? I am a middle child so I always feel like I'm the one that totally gets the shaft all the time. But first born kids are probably totally neglected once a new baby comes along. I suddenly feel bad for my older sister... but not too bad, which you'll learn about why in an upcoming post!

Monday, 8/4

I've been having a hard time getting motivated at the gym. I don't know why, but it is as if my body isn't working with me. Today I did 15 minutes on treadmill and 15 minutes on bike and thats all I could get out of myself!



Today I ate:



- coffee 2 points
- lean cuisine lasagna florentine 6 points
- bag of baked lays 2 points
- another coffee 2 points
- pudding 1 point
- banana 1 point
- sandwich from subway 6 points

TOTAL: 20 points

Ew, ew, ew, ew.

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Have you guys heard of the Montauk Monster? This thing is legit disturbing but everything that they have written about it on Gawker and the obsession they have with it is amazing and posts like this are the reason WHY I love Gawker. I really want to know what the hell this thing is and I love Gawker's response to Fox News bringing in Jeff Corwin (ha, I love that they did that, BTW) to comment on what this thing is:

--

"Fox News did a segment on our little creature friend this morning, bringing
on noted animal expert and possible crazy person Jeff Corwin to resolve the
matter. There he sat, reporting live from my beloved home city of Boston
(Katie B.'s note: BOO YAH!), and lied to America. "It's a dog, or a
raccoon" he said with shifty eyes. Whatever government agent was off
camera almost certainly had a gun leveled right at Corwin's head (or, you know,
some hell beast agent of the Dark was pointing a talon). When will this
vast conspiracy unravel? When will these potents be accepted as auguring
the end of days? For what it's worth, the Fox news lady doesn't believe
Corwin's awful lies, because she Wants to Believe. This is a monster
folks, plain and simple."

--

(P.S. Sorry about all the links... I should warn you now they all go to Gawker... as does half my posts here I am realizing... but I just love it. Is it an acceptable source of hard breaking news you think?)