Back-to-Back Consumption Blogs

It's kind of depressing to hear/read that everything I eat or have eaten throughout my life has been utter shit. While researching the previous blog, I came across this quote from a blog in the Los Angeles Times:

"...we have lots of real-life silliness of that kind on our food packages today. I especially like the listed example of Gerber "Graduates," juice treats for preschoolers, in a package that is covered with pictures of whole fruits and that proclaims it's made with "real fruit juice concentrate and natural fruit flavors" and is "all natural." Each serving contains 17 grams of added sugar. Hardly any of the pictured fruits are in it. The main ingredients are corn syrup and sugar."

There are examples like this all over. And you can't really blame the companies, because there is no singular company you can point at and place blame. It's everyone, all the time. Food companies, and namely, their marketing department, suck. All of them. I feel like I can't trust a single one. I have been eating a lot of Amy's Kitchen products, which all claim to be organic and produced with care and a real effort to be done in the correct way. But with the scale of their distribution, I find it hard to believe that they can really be the "good guys" of the mass produced food industry. No one is the good guy, unless you own a farm down the road, which no one does anymore. Like I said before, it's depressing to think about, that all food is shit. (now that I think about that is very true, all food will at least eventually become shit, in the very literal sense.) But it's true and there is nothing anyone can do about it unless you grow your own, and not everyone has the resources to do that.

Basically, we became lazy in our food selections. We want convenience over quality food. And I have grown up in this convenient world, and I live in it. Old habits die hard, especially ones that are VERY much out of your hands.

So that's why they list caffeine content on the side of cans, because we're all fucked.

Meandering Thoughts of a Lazy Bastard

When I get around to doing things that I feel I should be doing to make myself happier, sometimes I go forth and make it reality, and sometimes I just totally forget about it and put it off. I have currently set myself up with entirely too many things that theoretically should make me happier, but now I've gotten to the point where I'm stressing myself out with the amount of fun things I want to do. My main problem is that I've got too many things to do with not enough time in the day to do them. A normal day during the week would include sleeping in till around nine, reading the newspaper, making/drinking coffee, then playing Modern Warfare 2 until it's time to take a shower and eat lunch so I can go to work and make money. Somewhere within there, I open my computer and check my social networking sites, and also try to see other interesting things scattered about the Internet, but I usually just look at the clock, think about how little time I have to be fiddling around with the Internet, and get moving on to the next thing. There is never enough time in the mornings to do the other things I want to do.



I have set myself up with too much reading, to the point that I feel I have to go out of my way to read them. I get a newspaper daily, Sports Illustrated weekly, and Alternative Press monthly. I've found that reading the paper in the morning is becoming a headache, because there are so many other things I would rather be doing. So now the dilemma comes in where I don't really want to read the paper anymore, but I feel an obligation to read it so I'm at least somewhat informed. People will say "that's what the Internet is for." And to them I'll say "but the Internet is killing the print news, which I like." So do I continue my subscription to the paper, which is about $16 a month? Or do I cancel it so I can do other things I want to accomplish daily? There is so much to read already, with the magazines and the Internets...I don't know what to do.



I also have some very expensive video games currently collecting their weight in dust as well. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has absolutely DOMINATED my attention for the past month and a half. I own Madden 10 and NBA Live 10 as well and I know I would seriously enjoy playing them, but right after I get done with CoD...which never happens because I run out of time every day. "I'll play Madden tomorrow" usually turn into "I'll play Madden tomorrow" the next day as well. I paid good money for that to just sit there. And I enjoy it! I just need to quit my job so I can play more video games.



Additionally, there are millions of songs that have been recorded that I have never heard. I am on an announced mission to listen to damn near every one of them. But guess what? I don't have the time to sit there and really listen to any of it. Why? because I'm reading the paper and playing Call of Duty. Believe it or not, as I sit back and think about it, I'M BITCHING ABOUT ENJOYING MYSELF AT HOME ON MY COUCH. So I take back everything I just said.



Which brings me to my next part. I daydream at work about heading back to the FREE fitness center at my apartment complex because I have gained 1o pounds in the past few months from my increased laziness. Defenitly no time for that.



Thanks for reading, I'll be playing Call of Duty if you need me.

Half-Paying Attention to What I'm Writing.

It's been a crazy, wild, unusual weekend here in my world. So much crazy, memorable stuff has happened in the past 3 or 4 days, and there was absolutely no time to blog about it all. I played my first show with my new band, I watched the Super Bowl. I watched the Super Bowl commercials. I worked one day without the computer on at work, so I couldn't blog about stuff that I would have done. So without a stockpile of blogs, I hope to update regularly anyway this week. It just may require more work that I'm prepared for.

Let's start with the band show on Friday night. It went as well as a first show should probably go, especially taking into account that we have really only played together for bout an hour and a half before we played in front of 26 people. I couldn't hear the guitars or vocals so I was pretty much guessing on most of the songs as to where we were. I think it went alright, overall. But there will be much better shows in our future.

After the show, we went to a bar in Murfreesboro with Dave and his girlfriend. Bad idea for the next morning. I ended up with 3 hours of sleep when I went to work at 6 a.m. Compounding that was the fact that the computer was turned off, as I mentioned before. So I read Alternative Press and listened to music on the iPod for 8 hours. Went by quick, actually and that was a good thing.

We went out to diner Saturday night at P.F. Changs. They told us when we got there that there was approximately a one hour wait. An hour and a half later, sitting in the freezing cold waiting area, we finally got seated. I ate my entire plate of Ma Po Tofu, which is way too much food, and went home and passed out because I had to work in the morning again.

Set the alarm for 5 p.m. and not 5 a.m.... woke up at 7:25. Called my Supervisor. He told me not to come in and that he had someone else on the way. So I went to back to bed and felt like a jackass who cant get up to go to work.

Watched the Super Bowl. Saints won, to the dismay of my lovely wife. To me, I'm happy for the people of New Orleans. They deserve a championship. Their team has sucked for the majority of their existence, so I'm glad to see they're champions.

Favorite commercials of the night included the Doritos commercial with the kid telling the guy to keep his hands of his mama and his Doritos. Also, the Bud Light commercial with the Auto tune. That was funny.

Bethany is in severe back/hip pain yesterday and today. It's hard to see her hurting like that. It would suck to be her right now.

Today, I'm going to the boro for a band meeting, to discuss the future of our band. Our branding, our look, our sound, our dance moves. Also, future shows, which can't be worse than the first one. I was worried about the meeting, the way the wording was then it was proposed to me. I thought I was gonna be in the middle of a drama show, people getting pissed and stuff. But, from what I have come to learn this will be a good one. The future is bright. A kid from Negaunee has a future!

Music City. Live the Dream.

So you may notice that Gotta Keep em' Bloggerated has gotten some aesthetic changes since we last visited each other. This is because I couldn't stand looking at that preset template any longer. I had to personalize this thing, in some way. So I changed the layout, the color scheme, and added some gadgets to the side last night. I like it for now, but this may change again in the future. I get bored, and even this layout seems a bit blah, and I know I can do better.

My mom decided to drop in to Nashville for the weekend. She made this decision on Tuesday, and today is Thursday, so needless to say, I had to do some cleaning. Not major cleaning, because thankfully, we had just cleaned last week. So I cleaned the bathroom and Bethany did the kitchen. Looks great! The point to this is that there is no point. Cleaning sucks, but it's worth it when you're cleaning for your mom's arrival.

The reason my mom is in town is because she wants so see her son's dreams come true. Tomorrow night, I will play drums in a rock band of (essentially) strangers in a little town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We formed a band out of necessity. These guys from the boro needed a drummer, I needed the rest of a band. Boom. The only problem we're currently having is that we don't have a name. The guy who seems to be running this band from the get-go is named Sean. He has this solo project thing that he does with friends and he calls it Sweatervest. Everyone hates the name Sweatervest, so we decided to change it. As of the time of me typing this, there are a few finalists, but not winner yet. I will let you know what is decided when it is decided.

But yeah, I'm in a band with like-minded folks, and our mission is to reach as high as we can in the music industry, and we feel we can reach pretty high. The mission from day one is fame and fortune. Why not reach for the stars? So hopefully, this little boy, from little old Negaunee, MI can sometime be considered the thing one might brag about when a visitor comes to town. "Hey you know the band (insert name here)? You know, the drummer is from Negaunee. Isn't that crazy?"

I wasn't sure moving to Nashville, Tennessee was the greatest idea, but now I see the brilliance of the whole thing. Music City, baby. I'm the happiest boy in the world.

The Hottest Rapper in the Game

So I sit here this morning, drinking my usual coffee, reading my usual newspaper, nothing out of the ordinary. I decided that I wanted to listen to something while reading this morning, as I usually don't have time to do the things in the day that I want to do, so I multitask. So the decision on what to listen to had to be made. I remembered that I had heard the the new Lil Wayne record had come out yesterday, called Rebirth. This is the rock record that he had been talking about releasing since sometime in the middle of last year. Well, since I have a facination with hearing artists experiment outside of their "comfort zone," I absolutely had to hear one of the most critically acclaimed rappers of the day attempt a rock record. To say that the results are mixed would be the understatement of the millennium. Lil Wayne is supposed to be the hottest rapper in the game, but honestly, I don't understand why. He can be witty sometimes, and make you smirk because what he said was kind of clever, in a way. But overall he is really pretty talentless. I believe the term is "no-talent ass-clown." I understand that what makes music good and what makes music bad is all a matter of taste and personal choice. Listen to what makes you happy, but seriously, this is pretty shitty. The album has it's highlights, but so do a lot of records. Not every Nickelback song is that bad...yeah this record has got me defending Niclelback. This is music by a misguided young man who has had his ego inflated to the point that he thinks he can do anything he wants and not only get away with it, but make a lot of money doing it. And as far as that point goes, I have to give him credit. He can cash in on name only, because for some reason, people just listen to his music. I don't personally get it, but I took a different musical journey to get to the music I currently enjoy. Some people will genuinely enjoy this record and it will make them happy. There is no reason to hate the people that will find this enjoyable. It is only my opinion that this is bad music. If this record was made by anyone besides an established artist like Lil Wayne, it would probably never see the light of day. I don't recommend anyone listen to this record, just trust me, it sucks.

What bothers me most about this is that people tolerate bad music, and even go as far as to say that is is good. There is no way to make people realize that the music they enjoy is shitty, and there is no reason to do so. Like I said before, it's not the people that buy this/listen to this, it's the artists that make bad music. I know that there has to be bad music as an option, because it helps the people that listen to "good" music justify their actions. Someone is always in last place. There is always one team in the NFL that has the worst defense against the run, or the team in baseball with the worst starting staff ERA. And when that happens, people get fired. The idea is to step up your game so you are not in the bottom tier of whatever you're doing. Unfortunately, Lil Wayne is considered to be in the top-tier of what he is doing. And that's what bothers me most about Rebirth. He makes bad music, gets praised for it, and good artists go unnoticed. But, if Rebirth is what the people want, than I guess the good yet struggling artists need to take a look at what's going on and fire their defensive coordinator. Even it seems fucking absurd.

Why am I so damn Twitchy?

I just noticed the other day that Coke has started listing the caffeine content of their drinks on the side of the container. Not in the regular nutrition facts or in the ingredients, but in tiny little writing on the side of the bottle, a little over from that other business. Drinking a can of Pepsi Max this morning, (Max apparently meaning you are drinking twice the caffeine content of a regular Pepsi (remember Jolt? Like the original Jolt cola? That shit was gross)) I decided to look if they listed the content like Coke does now. In fact, they do, but on this can, it's right after the ingredients. Probably a spacing issue, or else I'm sure they would have relegated it to the outermost part of the can, which makes no sense because it's round, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I started thinking. Was this just something that these companies decided to do on their own? Taking responsibility for the things they put into the popular sodas they produce? Or was this an act of government, forcing them to disclose the information, which they've neglected to do for so long, yet everyone knows there's caffeine in there? I figured that since it appeared on the cans out of nowhere, seemingly, there was probably the government mandate part I have theorized to disclose the content on the can. This was probably because of some concerned mothers or fathers that want to know exactly how much caffeine their ultra-hyper kid is actually consuming. Well, I couldn't find anything after researching for five good minutes, so I got bored and quit searching. Anyway, I found it interesting, and I think my suspicions that their hands were forced to disclose the information are correct, so we'll assume this is all true.

It's Like a Sperm Bank For Thoughts.

So if I can just write and save a bunch of blogs, and just like stockpile them, when I have a lot to say, I can just save them and post them another day? This may be a good thing for the future of my blog, and it's accelerated maintenance.



Well now that I figured this out, You should see a serious increase in blog posts. I have a lot of time on my hands on a Saturday morning, so i Won't lie, I will probably write a few here, save them, and post them throughout the week.



So, on to the real subjects here. I believe I can now officially declare my latest attempt to quit smoking a failure. Bethany tried to make a compromise with me that she would become a vegetarian if I tried extra hard to quit smoking. This is something I want her to do because eating meat, from what I have learned, is not really a good idea. But it was never my intention for her to actually join me on this journey into a life without meat. The only problem I have is that, if I don't quit smoking, would she go back to eating meat? If she did, would that bother me? The answer is no, it doesn't bother me if she eats meat. So the ultimatum was not really an ultimatum at all. It was just her deciding to not eat meat, and asking me to quit smoking at the same time. I know the ultimate goal is health, for both of us. I sort of want to quit smoking. People that don't smoke would find it hard to believe, but I actually enjoy smoking. It tastes good to me. It gives me something to do when I'm bored out of my frickin' mind at work, which is most of the time. Going out for a smoke breaks up my day at work. My long, boring day. Without it, I would probably go nuts. I did go a few days there without it but that isn't to say I didn't think about smoking every single time I got up from the desk to take a walk. This is NOT a defense of my habit. I know I must kick it, and do it soon. The main problem is I don't really want to, and that's something I have to deal with.