As each year passes by I refine my purpose on this planet. I’ve wrote this entry dozens of times over the years but one more doesn’t hurt. My life without work is a shitshow.

The past 4 days of not working are me wasting time not in the best fashion. 4 days of this leads me to question what I’m even supposed to be doing and that starts feeling depressing. It’s not loneliness as I’m spending time with other people. The drinking doesn’t help but I even did a better job than past years at curbing that to a moderate degree. I watch some TV, play some chess, and bowl but it’s killing time with no means in ends. I’ve lost the ability to enjoy time spent as relaxing.

I know this because when I went to work today I spent 5 straight hours packing orders, answering the phone, and running a business and the time flew by. I wouldn’t say I felt alive, but at least I felt productive. This is the entire paradox of it all:

I work to make money…so that I can spend money to live…yet I spend the money in absurd fashions. Living life pretty much always costs me more money than I want it to and I don’t nearly enjoy it as much as I should. Some alternatives to how I usually waste my time:

• In my teens and 20’s I wasted more hours than I can count on video games and I’m not going back.
• I could give up  drinking and devote a life towards some activity that will turn me into an overzealous zealot.
• Go on as many dates as possible to stop being “single” for the sake of not being single and then having someone else who I can share my self pity with.
• Move to the mountains and live in a log cabin by a pond like Henry David Thoreau.
• Keep doing what I’m doing even though I know what I’m doing is only passing time and although I’m getting less destructive, it’s still not “living”

The hardest part for me is the work aspect of life because I spend so much time doing it, that when I’m not doing it, I want to do anything else balls to the wall. I don’t want to spend weekends pretending like I’m happy. The converse though is getting wasted and feeling regret about whatever I did and the damaging effects to my body.

I look back and consider that I’m still doing whatever I was doing in my 20’s, in my 30’s, and it’s a bit unsettling as I see my friends getting married and having children. Some guys do it because they feel like they should and I’m doing my best to not force anything, but I’m also not trying hard enough. It’s also odd that I tend to ponder these situations coming off these long weekends that are alcohol induced and tend not to think much about them when I’m living a sober life style. It’s like the alcohol wearing away brings the self loathing but the without it life seems dull. I suppose I should be happy all I’m complaining about is alcohol and not the mess of other problems available.

Don’t worry about me though, I’m all good and the blog will march onward but I wanted to give a life update.

When I have to polish brick hammer heads, I go through the torture of listening to AM/FM. Now I’m not going to berate AM/FM listener and call them poor or stupid because that would be mean, but I’ll certainly make them aware that they fall into the sheeple category. If I wanted to listen to 4 minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of songs, I’d listen to AM/FM. 1045 even has the gall to go through 3 minutes of ads and then say, “don’t worry listeners, there will be music back in 1 minute.” Brutal listening experience and don’t even get me started on the outdated nature of the songs they play. For the record, I do get extremely annoyed when 4 of my stations on Sirius play Spoon and that godforsaken song “Hot Thoughts” and “Can I Sit Next To You”.

One positive advertising thought that came out of listening was the radio 104.5 90 minute commercial-free music session in the music. I can’t remember exactly what it was called but a company was sponsoring the session and this made me look favorably on whatever company was doing it. I can’t remember the company so it didn’t work, but I also wasn’t paying attention to it either. So rather than play an ad that is going to make me want to run over a squirrel with my car, the company gets in my good graces by a non-selfish act. Much more effective in my opinion.

With that being said, I listen to WIP every night before I go to sleep and the ads that are played are absolutely gut wrenching. Here are a few examples:

I’m getting nasty with Photoshop

Reverse Mortgage – I was told that using this company for a reverse mortgage (over the age of 62) is “the biggest no-brainer move in the history of mankind”. I’m not an expert in reverse mortgages but my initial thought is that its a deal where you get money and you sell your soul to whoever is on the otherside. I’m not far off because it’s where you get money for giving up equity in your home. Don’t get me wrong, if all your money is in your home, and your flat broke, a reverse mortgage might make sense. But there is no way it’s the biggest “no-brainer move” in the history of mankind to give away your equity at a “no doubt about it” discount.

Bolt – I apologize in advance for not grabbing my pen fast enough to jot down the details of this ad exactly. It starts off by calling you soft. Soft as in being a complete wimp but I suppose it is also referring to your dick. It proceeds to say that America is going soft with participation awards and how our fore-fathers would be completely disappointed in us. It turns out its for some energy drink to make you a badass in either life or bed, I can’t remember. It concludes by asking you to text the word “bolt” to 202020 to get a free sample. I googled this and didn’t come up with the actual product which does not seem to be Bolt Energy Drink. Like I said to start, my apologies for not getting the exact info. I’ll note that I do think America is soft as 2 members of our fantasy football league dropped out because they have responsibilities like children. Are you fucking kidding me?

Spothero – Ck4 was telling me he tried to use a parking app which reserves a parking spot for you. When he got to the area there was no spot and it turned out the app did nothing at all. I can’t possibly understand how an app is going to tell you which parking spots are open but that’s besides the point. The ad used “it’s like dropping an egg in coffee” which had me scratching my head. It’s like your so busy you have to make some disgusting drink to hurry up? How about waking up 5 minutes earlier so you can cook your egg? The point is that your in a rush you can’t be troubled by finding a parking spot. This app will save the day. I don’t believe it.

I went to Yahoo and looked at the top headlines:

Daniel Day Lewis Quits Acting – Who cares?
Johnny Depp is Now Johnny Debt (How Didn’t They Use This Title) – Boo Hoo.
Colin Kapernick Still a Kaperdick – Get a new schtick

Then I saw this one

Prodigy dies at age 42 

My first instinct was the guys who sang Breathe and Firestarter died. I thought they were a group (actually The Prodigy) so I read on to make sure I got my facts straight. Turns out it’s Prodigy of Mobb Deep who died from sickle cell anemia at the age of 42. I’m not that familiar with Prodigy and his impact made no difference in my life, but for some reason or another I needed to know how he died at the age of 42. This was not normal.

I asked myself, why did I care how he died? In the mortal sense, I’m always concerned for my own well being that it’s important to be cognizant of how people around you are dying. When you read about terrorist attacks or people being burned alive in buildings, you chalk these up to freak occurrences and “wrong place, wrong time” type deals. Nothing to worry about. Then you’ll read about the other breed of people who are too rich and get into drugs or too poor and get themselves shot over drugs. Drugs are bad, mmmkay. These don’t apply either. So when you see someone dead at 42 due to neither of these instances, it’s important to know why.

Sickle Cell Anemia is inherent at birth so I let out a sigh of relief. The #1 instinct of a human is survival. Some people disregard this natural born instinct but it’s very much in my mind. I’m pretty sure you only get one crack at life before you get reincarnated as a leaf or kite. Who knows. But dying at 42 is too young. Go see your doctor.

Below is chart of obesity by State from 2003 to 2015 in the United States. Yellow means fat. What should be startling is that the dark black is still 20%. Colorado and DC are the more fit states while the Southeast is scary.

I’ve had this post in my back pocket for a bit but this chart was the icing on the cake. I can’t quantify it, but when I look around the 1 mile radius that I live in, I’d guess 85% of the people are overweight. Being in shape now a days is a rarity. I can’t tell if people take health less seriously or it’s straight up laziness. A few factors to consider:

• Income level – People with less money eat unhealthy foods which in turn makes them fatter, quicker. Think fast food.
• America – The portion sizes in the US are huge. After scrolling through the comments, serving sizes in America are 2x as big as Europe.
• Exercise – Or lack there of. This can also go hand in hand with a general apathetic attitude towards staying fit.
• Personally – I don’t eat healthy but I also exercise almost daily. If you are going to drink 20 beers a week and never eat a vegetable, you have to balance that out with some sort of exercise. It’s not that hard to do so and keeps you feeling better about yourself.