X-Sport Fitness

I recently had some bad blood with the X-Sport Fitness company, which has made them the newest addition to my blacklist. It's a long story, but the end result is that I will end up being a member of their club for one more year, except now I have a "Power Pass". After a drawn out battle between me and them, I guess that's the best I could do. I won't tell my whole long sob story here, but let me just say that these people are shady motherhuggers and after this year is over, I'm done with this company forever.

So anyways, a couple weeks ago, I went to the X-Sport in Arlington Heights for the first time. And man, is that place nice. I haven't been to Lifetime, or any of the other fancier gyms before, but I felt like high society to be working out at this place. Among the features that impressed me most:

- Basketball court: Not just one, but two full courts. And I rarely see anyone using it, so if I decided to shoot around, I'd probably have 2 courts to myself. So luxurious.

- Swimming pool/Jacuzzi: They're not like the ones at Bally's, which are a little bit old and dingy, and filled with dirty old men. These are shiny new, and filled with clean old men (or no one at all). Plus on the walls they have little waterfalls running to spice things up. Very nice.

- Personal TV Screens: If the hundreds of TV's on the walls and hanging from the ceiling weren't enough for you, every cardio machine has its own little flat panel TV screen hooked up to it. You can control the channel/volume while you jog/bike, and plug in your own headphones and everything.

- Locker Rooms: There's a lot of TV's in the locker room too. And I mean a LOT. Basically every direction you look, you will see at least one TV if not more. Also a nice feature of their locker rooms is that there's dividers between urinals. I always appreciate dividers.

- Internet Stations: Yes, they actually have a spot in the gym with a bunch of computers set up for you to use the internet. When I saw that, it was about when I realized that I was in high society. Now, I haven't used it yet, but it gives me a sense of comfort to know that if the internet at my house went down, I could always drive down the street to check my fantasy teams at X-Sport.

There's probably more cool stuff that I haven't mentioned, or discovered yet, but just the stuff I listed above is pretty crazy if you ask me. Granted, I'm comparing it to an older X-Sport and the 2 or 3 Bally's I've been to, but still.

One other thing I wanted to mention about my X-Sport experience, is the subject of 150-lb dumbbells. I don't think I have seen dumbbells that heavy, until I got to this gym. When I first saw them sitting on the rack, I thought maybe it was a novelty thing. Kind of like when you go to Hooters, and they have a deal for wings with a bottle of Dom Perignon on the menu. Or when you're at the arcade, and looking at stuff you can win with your tickets. It's like you can redeem 5 tickets for some stickers, 50 for a rubber toy, 200 for a coffee mug, or 8 billion for a plasma TV. You know nobody's ever going to save up enough to get the TV, it's just there for show. It's the same with those humogenous dumbbells at the end of the rack, purely a status thing I figured. I mean, who is actually strong enough to need 150 lb dumbbells?

Well sure enough, yesterday when I went, I saw a guy using these giant dumbbells. And he wasn't doing like shoulder shrugs either, he was straight up bench pressing with them, one in each hand. At least about 10 reps per set too. I don't know, maybe some of you guys out there have seen something like this at your gym before, but for me, watching this guy press 150's really blew my mind.

The most entertaining part for me was later on when I overheard him telling his friend "man, that last set with the 150's really wore me out" and I'm thinking to myself, "wow, imagine that". I felt like saying to him "yeah, I guess you're just weak", but I didn't want to risk him not thinking it was funny, and then deciding to break me in half. Come to think of it, 150 is more than I weigh. Scary.

Oh, in case you missed my original point, I'll sum it up again. In conclusion, don't join X-Sport. Just trust me on this one. Their new gyms are nice, but they are a shady company, from top to bottom. If you get involved with them and regret it, don't say I didn't warn you.

Super Size Me

My sister rented Super Size Me over the weekend, and since I eat a lot of fast food, I decided to watch it with her. If you haven't heard of the movie, basically it's a documentary done by a guy who decides to eat McDonalds every single meal for a month and see what happens.

If that sounds like a ridiculous premise for a movie, that's because it is. It was intriguing enough to suck me in though. Actually, I think he got the idea from an argument posed by McDonalds' lawyers in a lawsuit by people suing them for causing their obesity.

Anyways, I'm not going to write a lot about this movie, like I did about Fahrenheit 9/11. I don't recommend it though, I didn't find it to be very informative or persuasive. First of all, I think we are all already aware that there are lots of fat people in this country. Second of all, I think we all already know that fast food is bad for you. All he proved by his stunt was that if you eat way too much McDonald's like an idiot, you will gain lots of weight and lose performance in bed. You don't need a movie to tell you that.

The funny thing is, after watching the movie, my sister said "I feel like getting some fries now". And I agreed with her.

On a side note, watching the movie reminded me of Wesley Willis, because the director used part of his "Rock and Roll McDonald's" song in it. I'm guessing most of you have never heard of Wesley Willis, even though he is one of the greatest musical geniuses of our time. I highly recommend that if you've never heard any of his songs, you should go download some (I can send you my collection if you want).

So I went through my computer and listened to all my Wesley Willis songs. Among my favorites:

They Threw Me Out of Church
It's Against The Law
I Whipped Superman's Ass
I Whipped Batman's Ass
Shoot Me In the Ass
Suck A Caribou's Ass
Rock Saddam Hussein's Ass
Rock It To Russia

Pretty much every single one of his songs uses the same tune, and then just has him hollering lyrics like: "You are a rock star. You are a rock and roll girl. You are a good rock and roll singer. I like you a lot. LIZZZZ PHAAAAIR.... LIZ PHAIR............ LIZZZZZZZZ PHAIRRR......... LIZZZ PHAIRR"

And the best is that he ends every song with: "Rock over London, Rock Over Chicago," and then a slogan like "Wheaties. Breakfast of Champions" or "TCBY. It's The Country's Best Yogurt" or my favorite, "On ATA, you're on vacation".

This Day in Fantasy Sports

Though I know that not many people who read this blog care to read about my fantasy teams, today was a landmark day and I must record it while I can. Over the weekend, I clinched my second Dudo League championship in a row in baseball, and also won my matchup against Dave Chan in football. I am extremely proud and happy about both accomplishments. If my fantasy hometown of Taipei existed in real life, I would definitely have to declare today a city-wide holiday.

That is all for now.

Watch This

- Watched Hero a couple weeks ago. I thought it was a cool movie, except the story was a little hokey. They tried to make it a little too deep and philosophical, and it didn't really work, if you ask me. Still, I would recommend it to anyone who is considering watching it, and I think it is worth paying the $7 to see on the big screen.

- Watched Mean Girls with Olivia. It was a truly profound film, that has changed my outlook on life entirely. Well maybe not, but it has convinced me to start using the word "fetch" more in my everyday conversations. "You see the rims on that Benz? So fetch man." "Wow, good thing I pulled that full house on the river. That card was pretty fetch."

- Watched Roy Jones Jr. get dismantled by some Jamaican guy, getting knocked out in the 9th round or so on Saturday night. He just did not look good at all throughout the fight. It's sad to see how fast things can come apart for a guy in the world of boxing. You dominate your sport for more than a decade, then all of a sudden you lose two big matches in a row and your career is pretty much over just like that.

- Watched Dan play PartyPoker for real money. I never realized how entertaining online poker could be, but it was awesome. It made me want to deposit some money in my own account and start playing myself. Only thing that's stopping me right now is that I don't really trust them with my credit card or bank account numbers.

- Watched a frustrating day of football, both fantasy-wise and Bears-wise. Got to see Onterrio Smith and Culpepper have their way with the Bears defense, while simultaneously lighting me up in the McNown league. Roy Williams was also a killer, I must say. I might've had a chance to win, if Domanick Davis didn't get injured, and more importantly, had I started Reggie Wayne instead of Larry Fitzgerald. What a stupid decision by me. Every pass to Wayne was like a knee to the groin, so by about 6pm yesterday, you can probably imagine how swollen my jewels felt. Seeing Manning and Favre going head-to-head was a real treat though, as a football fan. Especially after watching Josh McCown and Drew Brees repeatedly mess up drives for my boys with their rampant fumbles and sacks. Which often came on the same play, I might add.

Confessions of a Messy Eater

For someone who eats as slow as I do, you would think that I would be careful enough with my food to not always spill stuff on myself. But I don't. In the past few days alone, I have:

- Spilled tartar sauce from a Filet-O-Fish on my shirt and pants (it was right after church, so they were among my nicer clothes)

- Accidentally smeared grease from a hamburger onto two different pairs of khakis, in the SAME MEAL. After I noticed the first stain on one of my favorite pairs of pants, I wanted to wash it out right away before it set. So after I did that, I changed into another pair, continued eating my burger, and within minutes I did the exact same thing again to the new khakis.

- Dropped half the toppings from a slice of pizza onto my pant leg. Interestingly enough, I had a napkin open on my lap to protect from such incidents, but the cheese, spinach, and chicken magically avoided the napkin and scored a direct hit on my lower leg.

Honestly, I don't know how I manage to do it sometimes. I think I need to wear a bib, disposable/rubber clothes, or at least those Dockers Stain Defender pants. Not sure if those would even work, but hey, the commercials are cool.

Speaking of commercials, I listed a bunch of dumb commercials that I liked in the last entry, but just so people know, I do have some standards when it comes to rating the quality of commercials. Those standards may be low, but they are standards nonetheless. Here are some commercials that I don't like:

- Miller, President of Beers. What a retarded campaign, not funny or clever in any way. Actually made me drink more Coors Lite and Bud Lite instead, since they were so bad. The new Miller commercials with the referees might bring me back though. "We've got a disproportionately hot girlfriend here, further review is required"

- ATA. Sorry if you like the song, and I do know at least one person who does, but I hate it. HATE IT. I couldn't think of a more annoying or flaming tune if I tried.

- McDonald's I'm Loving It commercials. So lame.

- Geico. At first it was kind of entertaining, but now I just feel sorry for the duck. Nobody ever hears the poor little guy.

- 1-800-CALL-ATT with Bobcat or David Arquette. Partly because I'm bitter that 2 no-talent clowns like them get to be with such hot chicks. But really, those commercials do suck.

I think it might be possible that I have been watching too much TV lately.

Note to Domanick Davis: STOP FUMBLING