Truckin' Along

I'm currently riding in a large garbage truck. It's cramped, loud, bumpy, and warm inside (the heater is at full blast because the driver is freezing from his trips bringing bins to the truck's lift). If the weather was better I could get out and help, but I've been instructed to stay put -- "as you'd probably just slow me down." It has started snowing again, and we just came from the dump where we got rid of about $671 weight-worth of garbage. Because of the winter storms we have to collect recycling today as well, so another trip through the snowy streets of our section of Shoreline.

MmmmmMcDonald's

The closest eatery to my place of work just happens to be a McDonald's. This could spell disaster... or perhaps delicious. Either way, I'm glad I have a gym membership...

Celebrity Sighting!

What a way to end a freezing snowball-ridden first day of work -- Dave Ross of 710 KIRO (or technically KIRO 97.3 now) fame getting off the bus in front of me. That's him dead center in the picture. How did I know it was him? His classic unmistakable baritone voice -- which, by the way, due to the shift to FM can now be heard in stereo!

Winter Wonderland!

Snow! I haven't seen this much white stuff on the ground since just before I switched shampoo to Head & Shoulders. Zing! Just kidding, Pert Plus all the way baby -- the bottle is a cool shade of green. Anyway, I can't remember the last time we've had this much snow, and it's still coming down pretty hard. In a perfect world we'd have a football game going by 10AM, but let's be reasonable -- I'd have more attendance if I created snow-people to play with.

Crazy, I Am!

I was cruising through an online forum I frequent when I came across this dude's avatar and couldn't help but start laughing. Don't ask me why I find it so funny, but I hope that at least I get a chuckle out of you.

Opportunities...

Late last week a friend of mine (who also interned with me at the City) gave me a call and asked I was looking for a job. Apparently he is the sole GIS (Geographic Information Systems) person for a local garbage trucking company and with increasing work loads and an expanding role of GIS within the company they wanted to add someone else into the mix. Enter: me. After a 7AM interview that lasted nearly four hours (and included a drug test) on Thursday, I received an offer letter from the company yesterday afternoon inviting me to come onboard. I'm due to go in on Thursday to sign some finalizing paperwork, but within days I will officially become a member of the working class. Holla!

New Wheels!

So lookie what I got! Sister is now not the only Shin in the family with a Toyota Corolla/Blund combo (although unlike Sister, my Blund gets the driver's side seat). It's white, it's new, and it's sitting in my driveway with a solid 450 miles on it. Some of you may ask: "But David, how could you afford a new car with no job or any other source of income?" And I would tell you: Brigandy; straight highway robbery. Receiving word that Michael's Toyota of Bellevue was about to get a delivery of eight brand new 2009 Toyota Corollas I meticulously plotted a Shin in distress ruse to get the truck driver to pull over and stop on an isolated passage of I-90. The driver came to help me and with one deft swing of a pipe wrench I was able to knock him out cold and secure myself a brand new pimpin' ride. I eBayed the remaining vehicles as well as the truck for cash money.

In other news, I had a fitness assessment at the gym today. According to their calculations, I'm walking around with a body composition of 24% body fat. Yowza! I think I was doing OK until he calipered my stomach...

Dark Knight Back to Theaters?

I recently read that The Dark Knight would be re-released in theaters in January. This is to both bolster its chances of getting some sort of Academy awareness as well as try to get $4 million more to reach a grand total of $1 billion taken in at the box office. That's all well and good, but I ask this: with movie ticket prices so high, why would people go to the theater to [re]watch this movie? A DVD copy (released tomorrow) costs $15 right now, and will probably be less in a few months. Two tickets to the local cinema (and I say two because who goes to the movies alone? *cough*) will run about $20. Why go to the cinema when you can own the movie for cheaper, or even rent it for a fraction of the cost? Would the die-hard Batman fan really pay again to see it when they already have a copy of it sitting in their living room? Clearly I think the idea is silly, but I guess they wouldn't be doing it unless they were sure it would make money.

Source: Screenrant.com

Gym Trickery...

On Thursday I went in with my friend Howie to try a three day trial of L.A. Fitness. When we walked up to the front checker person and asked if we could begin our trial, we were told that we would first be given a tour and info session. I looked over to a cluster of tables to the side where three really large men were sitting boringly in front of their computers chatting with each other. "Great," I thought, "we might get strong-armed [literally] into joining this gym."

You ever see that Friends episode where Chandler tries to terminate his gym membership? I guess the story must be steeped in truth because out from behind these gym rats came a good looking Asian lady (roughly our age) who took us over to her desk and asked us why not join the gym that day. After a quick tour and some small talk (in which she told us she also went to UW but did not finish her business/psychology double major, and also ripped local Chinese restaurant Tea Palace (ouch, sorry Ching!)) Howie and I made our way to the locker room, our credit cards having been charged a discounted registration fee as well as first and last month's membership dues.

Fast forward four days and I have made two successful trips to the gym. I felt terrible Friday morning (a good kind of terrible), as my muscles tried to repair the damage that had been done the night before. Having not weight trained in months, it's taking an extremely long time for the muscles to recover; my legs are still sore today from the squats I did on Thursday. Hopefully this week I can start some regular cardio workout as well -- this stomach fat has got to go.

Belly Buster (or Gut Check)

Ever since I took weight training my senior year of high school and seen how exercising four days a week can change a body I've tried to work out and exercise regularly. I have been fairly unsuccessful in that endeavor as I have bouts where I go for a few months and hit the gym three times a week and then the next few months not go at all. Throughout most of the year I mostly get at least one session of basketball or football in a week, but any doctor (like mine did) will tell you that that is not enough exercise to be "healthy". Combine this lackluster effort with my sedentary ways of sitting in front of my computer or the TV, and I have harvested myself a pretty hefty gut. I will not put up a photograph because firstly I'm too lazy right now and secondly because it is not the purpose of this blog to make you vomit. For those curious as to how bad it could be (being as lanky as I am), a personal demonstration can be arranged. To give you some sort of idea though: if you saw me shirtless in a remote African village, you might think that I was suffering from Kwashiorkor.

Is it lack of motivation, commitment, or simply the fact that I am lazy by nature? With the past few months of non-work, I actually have been getting some home workouts in here and there -- but there is no substitute for a squat rack. Which is why tomorrow I will be accompanying a couple of friends to a local L.A. Fitness and using a Free Pass to see if that place is for me. If I can't drag my own butt to the gym, hopefully the threat of a monthly fee going to waste will. Weight training not enough to take care of that abdominal fat, I am going to try and get some cardio in everyday -- which will be hard, as I hate distance running with a passion. Combine all this with 8 Minute Abs and I feel like I am on my way to an ideal body:

1. A healthy one. First and foremost this is for my health -- to build good habits for the rest of my life and give me a good foundation to stave off disease and infection.
2. A good looking one. Vain or not, having a good self-image is the first step to boosting self-confidence. I'll feel like I've succeeded once I secure a six-to-eight pack.
3. One built for athletic performance. At the very least I want to improve my baseball game; faster [twitch-muscle fiber], stronger [core and power foundation], better. And preferably without the use of HGH. 
   

I'll put up some stats once I get a real measuring device -- that 165 lbs to the right is a guestimate (although it's probably fairly close). My goal right now is to change whatever fat is in there to muscle -- about 175-180 lbs of it. Well, minus brains and bones and blood and guts and peepee and stuff. Let's see how succesful this endeavor becomes... It is my intent that by summer I can distribute to all you loyal readers some tickets -- tickets to my gun show. 

Role Models Review, For the Children

After weeks of delays and putting it off and trying to wait for a day where people could catch a matinee together, I was finally able to see Role Models last night and I can easily say I loved it. Better than Superbad, and better than Clerks II -- both of which I hold in the highest regards of the comedic cinema category. Unlike many modern day comedies where crazy antics and well timed one-liners give way to more serious themes and dilemmas permanently altering the mood of the movie (after escaping the adult party with laundry detergent jugs filled with alcohol in tow; or Rosario Dawson revealing that she was pregnant in the aforementioned movies), Role Models maintains the comedic quality of Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott (and their "littles") throughout. The transition to serious in this movie is both short lived and does not cause the movie to lose steam as in others. At the heart of the film are the two kids placed into Rudd and Scott's care: one played by McLovin as a LARPer and the other Ronnie, the dirtiest mouthed black ten-year old imaginable. The interactions between the cast is nothing short of hilarious and I really can't find any fault in the movie; enjoyable start to finish with just about every joke hitting their mark.

My Score: 10/10, Cinematic Perfection

Favorite Quote:
Danny: Pick us up in two hours.
Ronnie: Fuck you, Miss Daisy.

As of this writing,
Rotten Tomatoes: 76% (Superbad: 87%; Clerks II: 63%)
MetaCritic: 59 (Superbad: 76; Clerks II: 65 )