"Fat As I Am"

No, I don't feel fat. That's just the title of a comic Bette Midler song that I love that also happens to underscore an excellent article by Benjamin Ryan that's posted on gay.com.

My pal Frankie refers to the steroid-possessed bunch as "body nazis." Ryan's article talks about his personal experiences learning to love his body as it is and goes into detail about the dangers gay men face as our sub-culture becomes obsessed with an unnatural norm.

Read the article at http://www.gay.com/health/fitness/article.html?coll=health_fitness&sernum=3213&page=1.

Don't worry. I'll address my own physique in a future rant.

Amazon.com weirdness

I LOVE amazon.com. They're brilliant at what they do. They way they can tailor their site to what you want based on your purchases and items you've viewed is excellent. Sadly like many online businesses their customer service is less than stellar, particularly if you need help with something that doesn't fit a "boilerplate" response. But they're still light-years ahead of everyone else out there.

What's odd that I haven't figured out is how I've managed to create three different user accounts there all with the exact same email address, just different passwords. Weird! Several months ago I thought it was very strange when my "Wish List" suddenly lost all kinds of stuff. Then on another visit it reappeared. Turns out I'd just logged on with two different passwords and then accessed the two different accounts.

I wrote their customer service about this, asking that they merge the two accounts. That's when they told me I actually have three accounts with them. And, no, they can't merge them.

WEIRD!

Auto Erotic

What is it with people who invest so much of their own personal self-worth in what car they drive? I'm amazed at the number of guys online who post a photo of their car in their profile. WHY?

The personal automobile is a productive, if horribly inefficient, means of transporting yourself from point A to point B. Anybody can buy one. Hell, you can RENT one for a day to have your picture taken with it. I'd much rather spend my money on travel to new places, experiencing new things, having my picture taken in exotic locales rather than having it taken in the front yard with an over-priced gas guzzler.

And what is it with people defending driving SUV's and pick trucks. Did America not learn a lesson during the energy crisis of the 1970's? We can't continue this gluttonous consumption. Fossil fuels are a finite resource. One day we will run out. What will airplanes fly on then? We've got to stop squandering this "liquid gold."

C. J. Cregg

C. J. has got to be the coolest woman on the planet.

Yeah, she's a fictional character. So what. She's the coolest woman, real or fictional. She's 75% of the reason I've become a West Wing junkie. I live for Mondays and the West Wing marathon on Bravo.

No, I haven't seen any of the "current" episodes where C. J. is now the Chief of Staff, just the repeats on Bravo.

High time

I've been having lots of thoughts lately about life, the universe, and everything. So I decided it was high time to start a blog where I can rant about some of the shit I see around me. This is the first step.