There's a new commercial that's flooded all of my favorite channels for the Teeter Hang Ups Inversion System. It's basically this pivoting table that you strap your ankles in and then lean back and hang upside down. I used to use one in my yoga class in college and always loved the way it made my back feel. So I went to the Teeter website. $400. Give me a fucking break. I was relaying this story to a coworker as we walked around Wal-Mart on a lunch break and decided to go look and see if they had an inversion tables. And they did! Gold's Gym brand for about a 4th of the cost. So I bought it.

It took like 4 hours to put together. And it comes with a chain so that you can limit the angle that you can fall back to. The manual suggested limiting it to around 15° to start out with until your body gradually gets used to being inverted. But I was like fuck that I wanna go all the way. So no chain. I got on, threw my arms back, passed the pivot point of balance and flipped in one swift motion 180° until i hit the cross support bar and then hung there unable to get up. I was terrified, laughing hysterically, and fighting the rush of blood to my head all at once. I screamed to Daniel and he came and rescued me. Only to decide he wanted to try it himself and suffered the same fate.

But now I'm gradually lengthening the chain and I really like what it does. It just feels so good. I wish the ankle supports were more comfortable though because that's what really limits the amount of time I can spend in it. My feet go numb and my ankles hurt. I may come up with my own solution. More expensive models have boots you wear and I can probably make some.

Oh, in other news, the Allistralian and her fiancee Dom are keeping a travel blog of their 13 month trip around the world. And they asked me to set up their blog for them since mine is so kick ass. And I didn't want to tell you all about it until it was done ... and I'm not sure it is ... but it's close enough. So go check out whileyouwereworking.com.

Today we're going on The Walk with Hanson and then to the concert tonight. We might get to meet em. Mmmbop!

You know how sometimes I give there really great suggestions for how to improve your life? And usually they involve something you should be buying if you aren't already? Well, I've got another one for you.

It has recently come to my attention that many of you have never eaten a mango. And I'm here to tell you that a fresh mango is the most delicious thing you can possibly put in your mouth. It is by far my favorite fruit. I'm in Houston right now at my brother Stephen's house and I bought a couple mangos for us to enjoy. g*d diddly damn they are good. Anyway, here's a picture in case you aren't familiar with what a mango even looks like. Go buy one and cut it up and eat it. Just watch out for the massive lima bean that you will find inside. I don't think you can eat those.

So I came to Houston on Wednesday for work and then decided to stay and visit my brother and his family. It's been really fun. I worked from his house Thursday and Friday. If you consider bike rides to the park work. Hanging out with Kaylyn and Will has been pretty fun. Plus, it makes you really thankful for all the things you don't have in your life. Namely children. I kind of feel about children like I do about dogs. I like them, but I like them better when they belong to someone else and you can just come over occasionally and play with them, but then get rid of them when they poop.

I'm going home tomorrow. This was a nice little visit. I needed a change, my job has fallen into a bit of a rut again. I don't see anything exciting coming on the horizon, so I'm just going to have to rededicate myself to my new attitude towards work. I think if I got back into yoga, I would feel better all around, so I'm going to look into that when i get home.

Whelp, everyone else in this house is asleep, so I guess I'm going to do the same until the early morning shit fits begin. Ciao.

So Thursday was my birthday. I was pretty vigilant with my vow after last year's debacle to not make a big deal about it. Thanks to everyone who remembered and sent me a message or called. I worked on my birthday but took this Friday off because I was pretty sure I was gonna be drunk.

I decided that all I really wanted to do was sit on the TV and watch some beers. So when I got home from work, I tidied up a bit, cooked a frozen pizza and got down to drinking. Brett Sabulous had kept his plans tentative just in case I was doing something, and decided to come join me in my quest. So we sat on the TV together and watched a lot of beers. When Daniel got home, we moved the party down there and continued drinking. It was so much fun. So low key. So much more my speed.

Daniel got me a really nice Bulova wall clock for over my TV. That brings my clock total to 6 now. That's almost one clock per 100 square feet of my apartment. I am obsessed with knowing what time it is. This is the only nice clock I have though. It looks pretty smart over my new TV stand. I need to hang it just a smidge higher but I couldn't reach, so it's temporary now. Brett got me a gift certificate to Face, this men's salon in uptown. I'd never heard of it but their menu was quite impressive. I'm going to go get a real shave. I have ALWAYS wanted to do that. Hot towels, hot lathers, straight bladed razors. Omg, I can't wait. My parents got me a month of yoga. I really want to try out this place called Dahn Yoga over on Beltline. I don't know what brain respiration is but I'm soon going to find out.

So everything went just swimmingly this year. Unfortunately, speaking of swimmingly, Tuna is in bad shape. He's been really lethargic lately, so this morning I got online and researched his condition. He is showing every symptom of disease. I am going to get a heater for his tank since the temperature should be between 74 and 78 degress Fahrenheit, and if you've ever been to my refrigerated apartment, you know it's always colder than that. I'm about to quarantine him, clean his tank, and see if we can't revive him. But he's 2 years and 3 months old now, so I'm not sure how much longer he'll be with us. I'll keep you updated on his condition. Remember him in your prayers to Chuck Norris. Peace out, have-nots.

Having a roommate is so good for my productivity. Instead of sitting around alone with my computer on my lap waiting for someone to IM me, I've been doing shit. I no longer accompany Andy to 24 Hour Fitness, but he does give me a run down of what to do at my gym every day and then makes sure that I go. He's also controlling my diet somewhat. I never realized how much crap I eat until I had someone constantly pointing it out to me. I'm really pushing to shed what additional pounds I can before Febrehabruary is over so I can make my success story that much more compelling. Let's just say, I think you'll all be proud of my fat ass.

I redid Tuna's tank the other night. I was in the mood to spend money and PetsMart was right next to Sally's so I dropped in and perused their selection. I got rid of his rainbow castle that Marshall gave me and replaced it with this more natural looking rock. It's got some small plants and a few big shrooms growing out of it. I also put in some grass along the bottom. It looks sooooo much nicer now. I think Tuna likes it too. I'll take a picture of it for you just as soon as I get my laptop back from Best Buy. Ohhh yeah, I took it to Best Buy this morning after I went to yoga and before I went to work out. It should be back in 7-10 business days and then we will be back in action, kids. I can't wait.

Andy also convinced me to get a tanning membership with him. Well, I say "convinced" but really he just said, "Hey, let's go tan" and I said, "Rrrrrokay." I learned on the History Channel that long, long ago, women would powder their skin in an attempt to look more pale. They did this because only the wretched poor serfs (today's modern day retail employees) had to work outside and get tan. A true sign of affluence was pale white skin. I had adopted this mentality up until recently. I'll never be dark, but I suppose it would be nice to be human-colored.

Speaking of modern day retail employees, I am so sick of boys who brag about working at Abercrombie or Hollister. So I will leave you today with a little rule for you all to remember, in case you ever feel special about your mall job: If you fold clothes that are not your own, you are a servant.

Yoga yesterday was wonderful. It was just me and three foreign middle-aged women, on account that the class was during the Super Bull. I was sweating rather profusely, as it is hot yoga, and since there were very few people there (and the male instructor is essentially nude already) I decided to take my shirt off. Now, you all KNOW how much I hate to toot my own horn, but I just wanted to share with you that while I am still morbidly obese, my working out has begun to spring the roots of progress into my mounds of fatty flesh. I think I'm starting to improve, and that is such good incentive to keep going, since my workout partner has disappeared for the past 2 weeks and has vowed to disappear at least one more. I still haven't missed a day though. Toot! Toot!

So far so good on the sobriety experiment. The only problem is that I've become increasingly irritable. I blame that more on the cigarettes than anything. I just don't like it when people try to tell me what Febrehabruary is. I made the fucking rules for me, for me to follow, not for you to assess. I am slowly withdrawing to protect my original decree of 28 days of no drinking. I'm afraid that by the end of this, I will have no friends. But I will persevere. Little things have just been annoying me more than they normally would.

It's like when somebody tells you that going from 2 packs of cigarettes a day down to a pack a week "doesn't count." And then pokes you... repeatedly....

But I did have a wonderfully productive weekend. Waking up at 10 feeling fully refreshed and ready to tackle the day was a welcome respite. And feeling tired on Saturday night meant that I curled up in my PJs with my laptop, when normally I would have feel obligated to go out. So there is good associated with the whole thing. I talked to AllieD last night, and asked her how Jamey did it. Jamey, her squeeze, gave up alcohol for 2004. The whole fucking year. He said I would be done with my experiment long before the hurt went away. So that was encouraging.

You'll notice I also have scads more time to update my webpage. I should be at Studio Movie Grill right now, but instead I think I'll go to the gym. Peace out, have-nots!

I finally decided to name my fish. I think it's safe to say that he is going to survive for the long haul. Anyway, his name is Tuna. I'd be lying if I said that the can of StarKist in his tank wasn't an inspiration. Anyway, I think it's a fitting name and its a relief to finally have named him.

This week has been alternating between really fun and really stressful. The documentation is going well. I can really churn this shit out like you wouldn't believe. Twenty pages in just under eight hours? Gimme a break. I'm a machine, and if I keep this up I'll be doing okay. Not ahead of schedule or anything, but just okay. Last night I went over to my new neighbor Marshall's apartment and drank beers and 'gina juice with him and Thommi. It is too fun having him live so close now as opposed to 20 minutes away. A true improvement.

I had yoga yesterday. She had promised that she was going to teach us all some new poses that day so I showed up ready to go. Apparently she had changed her mind and was just handing out grades and letting people leave. I had no intention of leaving. I paid to do yoga and I was gonna do some. I ended up being the only person to stay. After a little warm up, we just kind of started trying to out-yoga each other. We can both do the scorpion now that she's been working on it all semester in an effort to match my abilities, so that didn't work. Then we started doing all these fucked up headstands. Like inverting and then going into the lotus with our feet, or doing the splits upside down and stuff. It was too fun. Then she wanted to know if I could do a handstand, which I'd never done before. So now I can totally flip myself completely over ... and then I trumped her by doing a couple of inverted Nicholas-Cage-in-Con-Air pushups. Boo yah.

So that was ridiculously fun, I'm sorry it had to end. Then I went and got a pep-talk from the cafeteria lady who was giving me advice on what to do after graduation. Apparently she hadn't read my last post. I'm not sure why. This weekend I am trying to avoid going out and just work on a paper, but keeping me away from a night of drinking is like ... um ... keeping an alcoholic away from alcohol. Is that even a simile? Whatever, SHUT UP! Czech you skillets later.

Went to IHOP late last night to break my diet. Stuffed french toast was worth every carb. Went to bed watching Waking Life. Good flick. Hard to watch when dozing off at 3:00am. It's a thinking movie, not a drinking movie. Woke up with no cough, good news. Woke up (early, as you can see) with pain in neck and shoulders so intense that sleep is not an option. A hot bath did not alleviate any discomfort. Perhaps some yoga will help. Otherwise agony continues. Hope you have fun in church today, suckers.

Ahh, what a week this has been. I haven't been to class all week. I place the blame squarely on jesus. I did make it to yoga today though, because as you all know, I do not miss yoga for any reason. Now I'm back on my signiture couch vegging out. I'm watching T3 again. I watched it last night with Raul, Tommy and David, but we didn't really pay attention. It has been out from Blockbuster for SO long now, but it's on Tommy's account so no worries here. I really should get it back at some point. We also watched Circuit. Believe it or not, I didn't like this movie despite the title. There wasn't one integrated circuit, resistive network, soldering iron, or pc board in the entire movie.

Today after yoga this girl came up to me and said, 'Hey do you ever hang out at Revolutions.' And by god, I do. She said she recognized my hair from the other weekend and wanted to tell me that she liked it. I hawked it today for the first time since the bleach incident. I've been kind of scared to put a flat iron to it in fear that it would just melt off.

Since the incident I've been doing just about everything I can to get my hair back to ... well, hair status. First I bought some shampoo and conditioner specifically designed for bleached, fried hair. That's helping a little bit. Then I did a protein pack on it, that was really good, I might need to buy a couple more of those. Finally, I got some Infusium leave in conditioner. All of this together, Pesci willing, will give me back the hair I once had. Wish me luck, have-nots. Back to T3...

I honestly never really thought that I had a problem with spending money. I always just figured I could kind of stop whenever I needed to. Wrong! Now that I am using my checking account for everything (I cut my beloved credit card into 3 pieces ... I have one, Allison has one, and Tommy has one) and have an opporitunity to watch the expenditures accumulate, I realize just how ridiculous my spending habits are. This weekend alone I managed to spend 200 dollars ... and I have nothing to show for it. That's like almost a pair of pants I could have had, blown away on food and booze. Alas, I disciplined myself by going to Pier 1 and buying the coolest little tea candle holder. I need some ambience for when I yogate.

Although I have to admit that all the money I spent this weekend was well worth it because I was joined by my old, dear friend, Edward Spencer. I haven't seen him in a couple of years, but the fact that we've known each other for roughly 15 years allows for such gaps. He came in on Saturday evening, we ran around buying booze and food, and then headed to Tommy's for a pre-party. The pre-party ended up being attended by Tommy, Edward and I, so it wasn't much of a party. Then we went to Halo and drank a whole bunch. Edward's like in medical school or something, so he's not used to doing this every night like we do. But I think he had fun. The after-party at Tommy's was out of control ... I heard the cops came around 5:30 and told everyone to leave. Whateeeeever. The next afternoon, we dragged out of bed, Edward went back to Houston, and I took a nap.

I put my John Denver video on while I was sleeping and when I dozed off, the tape ended, rewound automatically and then the VCR shut off. As it turned out, when the VCR shut off, there was all this stuff about a SuperBull or something. Who woulda thought. I wanted to make some Wolf Sauce, a recipe for queso I got from BreakfastParade, so I went to the decimated grocery store, bought some ingredients and then took the crockpot over to Tommy's. James came over and we all ate the Wolf Sauce, which was delicious, but I forgot to turn off the crockpot so by the time we checked, the cheese was blackened and disgusting. So much for leftovers. I would comment on the game, but the portions of it that we did watch, I pretty much slept through. I don't really even like basketball, as most of you know.

On a final note, I've decided that I'm not going to answer my phone anymore. I have begged. I have pleaded. I have harangued, but people still call me just to see whats up and try to hold my attention for long phone conversations. Since nothing I can do can make you all stop, and nothing you can do can keep me from feeling like ants are crawling out my eyes if the conversation lasts more than 30 seconds, this is the only viable solution. Just leave me a voicemail and I'll call you right back. That way I can see what you want before hand. And a "Hey its me, call me back" doesn't count. Thats what a missed call means. Sorry to have to do this. Talk to you all later (MAYBE HA).

So today I thought I would share a bit of yoga progress with you all. Since it would be hard to explain the insanity of the Plow Position in words, I thought I would include a little picture. I did this posture today. Me. Ouch. Keep the comments g-rated.

In other news, I have a test tomorrow in my LAN/MAN class that I am completely unprepared for. And on top of that, its at 8am, so there is no way in hell I can go out tonight. That's very upsetting to me. But I just ran into Dustin on campus (don't worry, he's okay) and he said he's not going out tonight either, so we'll both be rarin' to go on Friday night. It's going to be nice to be able to just lay around for a weekend ... what a change. Owen is going to Dallas after our exam at 8, so I'll have the place all to myself. Maybe I should throw a par-tay. We'll see. For one thing, I have GOT to clean my house. I just did an emergency load of laundry at Harvey Gangbangers yesterday since I've been recycling for the past two weeks. Feels good to be clean.

I dunno, not a whole lot to port or report. Hope everything is going well for everybody. Catch you on the flip slide, you have-nots.

Tonight I was going into my backpack to get out some homework assignments due tomorrow when I came across my Yoga textbook. I realized that I've barely cracked the thing since I (and by "I" I mean "my dad") bought it those weeks ago. I felt like I was at a point that I could do some independent yoga, so I popped it open to see what was in store. You're supposed to start with basic spinal twists and stretches ... which is major boring shit. So I skipped right to the head stand. After a few painfully unsuccessful attempts, I decided to start with their starting positions and read the instructions, rather than just jumping on my head. I'm proud to say I successfully held the headstand for a few seconds. As Owen as my witness, I did it. I wasn't too successful at the Crow, even though I did get into it, just not as cleanly as I would have liked. And the Peacock was NOT going to happen anytime soon. I also came dangerously close, with the help of Owen pushing on my back with his foot, to touching my nose to my knee. Allison made a bet with me, I do hope she's remembering, that the first person to touch their nose to their knee gets an entire night of free drinks at Northgate. And I am actively persuing that goal.

Why do I keep having dreams that I've killed people? They're never violent dreams, they generally only deal with the guilt and paranoia of having just killed someone. Why can't I have wet dreams like a normal person...

I just got done with my first real session of yoga, and holy crap was it hard. The entire thing is isometric, which looks easy, but man my muscles were burning up. The stretching we did last week felt so good and was totally relaxing. And we did it again this week but then followed it up with some yoga that could only be described as aerobic. And anyone who knows me knows I'm not down with the aerobics. But, this is the class, and I love it for what it is, and I'm going to give it my all.

That Quotes and Convos excerpt from my conversation with Sean (TAMUROCKS) has gotten me thinking. Maybe there should be a Miss Quoting Pageant. That would certainly be more entertaining to watch than the Miss America Pageant. She could go up to the mic and the announcer would say, "1 minute on the clock, top ten answers on the board. Chris Farley." And the contestant would say, "I've been using your product for a year now, and I'm still excited. They have a thin candy shell, I'm surprised you didn't know that. Hey Dad, I don't see too good, is that Bill Shakespeare over there? Lay off me I'm starving." And then the buzzer would sound and the results would be tabulated... God, thats a good idea.

Always one to try and share the wealth of visitors that I have on a daily basis, I have to announce the conception of another new blog. Chris (henceforth known as Topher ... his collegiate persona) has started a blog of his own. You can click here to read it, its pretty a pretty clever little page. Thats him up top in the cowboy hat for the one or two of you who haven't spoken to me in the past 4 months and don't know who he is. *wink*

So as I was walking back from yoga there was a young man, about my age, standing out by the ol' Sul Ross statue ... better known as the free speech area of campus. And right around as I got into the audible range, before I could make out individual words, I just knew that he was yelling about god or jebus or something. Nobody talks that loud in public unless they're spouting off some shit no one wants to hear. He was talking about how his friend went into a coma and he saved his life. Because the incompetant doctors with all their book smarts had said that if he recovered from the coma he wouldn't ever be the same. So this kid, being smarter than the doctors, started praying and cured his friend. Christ on a cracker, desperate people so often cling to desperate notions. I wavered between laughing, crying and wailing on him with my tennis elbow. But ultimately, I did nothing but ignore him, as I do most people on campus.

Speaking of, kind of funny. My friend Charlie is a senior in the corps. Don't ask how I got mixed up with a corps boy but I did. So I hear this corps boy (they all look the same to me) yell, "Hey!" And I ignore him, of course. And then I heard it again. And I was thinking that he was probably upset about the fact that the patch on my bag says, "War is not healthy for children and other living things," ala John Denver's Whose Garden is This album cover. And we all know corps boys are not taught, but trained, so I figured he was reacting to the stimulus of rationale. But then he finally caught up to me, boots clanking the whole way and grabbed my shoulder. He's lucky I'm incapable of inflicting any harm, unwilling to exert myself, untrained in any self defense, and lacking all sense of reflexes, or I might have flipped him over and put him in a hold. Damn lucky. Instead, I realized that it was my friend and said hi. Kind of anti-climactic, but I enjoyed the happy ending.

That's about all from the home front. I'm attempting to blog every day this week, but hesitant to make that claim cause I'll probably forgo one day this weekend. But I am starting to see my numbers steadily rise and I can only contribute it to my own dedication. So keep checking back. Peace out, you have nots.

I think I've decided that I party too much. It was easy to slip into the habit as day after day of summer rolls by with little more to do than to make sure I get to work in time to go to lunch with my friends. An excess of money and a shortage of nightly activities led to a pattern of coming home from work, getting cleaned up and ready to go, arguing with Allison about where we're going, finally begrudgingly settling on Northgate (again), drinking 2 or 3 beers at various bars until finally deciding that they all suck and always do, driving home around 1, getting into the personal stash until 2 or 3, passing out, and going to work at noon the next day.

Well, I've had enough. This tomfoolery has got to stop lest I lead a trite and meaningless existence. Last night was the first night in a long time that I didn't drink. I intend to do the same tonight. You know its bad when you've become so habitually addicted to drinking that you actually have to make a conscious effort not to. I'm also disgustingly fat, so I'm going to start going to the rec nightly again. On top of that, I bought this rad yoga video at the grocery store to help me prepare for my yoga class next semester. I watched part of it and it was too hard for me to do, so instead I just chose two or 3 of the positions and tried to do them. This is definitely a physical workout, so it should be really good for me if I can do it. Its a lot of squatting and then standing up ... shit I don't do so well. But I'm going to give it a go.

I'm excited about my new lease on life. Granted its like my third one that I've had this summer, but this time I think it may be different. So from now on, if you need to get a hold of me, no longer wait around Northgate, instead try the Rec Center. Laaaaaaaaaaate.