Will my heart let me down?

I learned that an old acquaintance died of a heart attack recently. He went to play basketball one day and didn’t come back. He is survived by his wife and two young children. He was 36.

My biological father died of a heart attack when he was in his fifties. My mother had a heart attack this year, but is recovering well (thank God!).

My family history is working against me and I’m scared.

I make it no secret that I’m fat (hence the name of the blog). I suppose the only good news is that I used to be fatter. At the pinnacle of my fatness I weighed in around 240 pounds. Over the last couple of years I have gotten down to around 200. But even 200 el-bees ain’t that good when your 5′7″ (with boots on).

So I will make my usual resolution to loose weight this year and hope that the nagging fear of leaving my family way too early keeps me motivated.

Don’t worry though, you wont have to hear me whine about my battle of the bulge on this blog. You can still tune in to read about poop, zombies, music, and other random topics. I just thought that putting this in writing would make it stick. Kinda like a contract with the blogosphere.

I hope you and yours have a happy new year. And to the two or three people who read this blog I say thanks!

Creepy video of a huge thunderstorm.

This home video of a thunderstorm and ball lightning set to Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around is kinda creepy.

Remeber Saturday morning cartoons?

I just heard an awesome song about Saturday morning cartoons! As usual I’m way behind the times because this tune came out last year but just in case I’m not the last person on Earth to hear it I thought I would share.

It’s called Breakfast Club by DJ Z-Trip (featuring Murs and Supernatural). The song is all about waking up as a kid on Saturday morning to scarf down cereal and watch cartoons. Here is a sample of the lyrics …

Ooh, I love eatin’ cereal
When I’m watchin’ my cartoons
Ooh, I love Fruity Pebbles
When I’m watchin’ my cartoons
Ooh, I love Super Sugar Crisp
When I’m watchin’ my cartoons
Ooh, I love Count Chocula
When I’m watchin’ my cartoons

Let’s go
Pour the milk in the bowl
Make sugars ice cold
Hold my hand on the top
So it won’t overflow
Forget playing outside
With my friends from school
It’s Saturday morning, fool!
But you know what ain’t cool (what?)
Wakin’ up first
’Cause all that be on the tube
Is the Snorks and Smurfs
(?), Strawberry Shortcake, the worst
But comin’ up next
Was my boy, Johnny Quest
Sim Sim Salabim
But Fat Albert was the best
The Brown Hornet Picture Pages
Made me want to write graffiti
I had to do it when
Davey and Goliath couldn’t see me
Always tryin’ to do right they’d be hangin’ out with Dudley
But I watched Wacky Races
Rootin’ for my dog, Muttley.
You know what really bugged me? (What?)
Colbots was whack
Man, they bit the Transformers
And that’s a well-known fact
But…
After these messages we’ll be right back…

You can listen to Breakfast Club and even download it for free at C-Net’s Download.com.

BTW, one of favorite Saturday morning cartoons was definitely Thundarr the Barbarian.

Zombies for Christmas.

One of the great gifts my family got me for Christmas is The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye. This book contains the first six issues of a great comic book series about a group of normal people trying to survive the end of the world.

An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.

The black and white art work is amazing. I went back over the pages I read to marvel at the scenes that were created – a hospital waiting room full of zombies, a destroyed Atlanta, or a pitched night time battle with a group of ghouls that is lit by a campfire.

As great as the art work is the the story itself is probably the best of the zombie genre. I know the story description above sounds like the typical zombie fare, but the human element drives the plot. I feel like you could basically substitute the zombies with any modern disaster (as we have seen, hurricanes can create real life horror-survivor stories) and the plot would still stand up.

This is also one of the first zombie stories I have seen that features kids as main characters. One of the things I like about zombie stories is the what would you do element of it all. Could I survive? Where would I go? Throwing children into the mix raises the stakes and makes it that much scarier. Now you have to add how would I protect my family into the what if scenario.

If you are interested you can read the first issue of the series on Image Comics’ website. I think you may really dig it even if you are not a zombie fan. I was so into it that I read the first volume on Christmas day and then used a gift card to snag the next three volumes.

P.S. You can also check out the cover art for a bunch of the issues online. I had already bookmarked this link in del.icio.us so it may be a repeat to those that subscribe to the Short Fat Kid RSS feed but I thought it was worth mentioning again.

Limping through the holidays.

Christmas was great with the exception of a trip to the emergency vet. Our dog was so excited about the holiday celebrations that he somehow pulled a nail out of his back foot while running around the house.

So on a rainy Christmas day I headed to the emergency vet center to get my dog bandaged up. The vets were really great and they had my dog all fixed up and we where on our way in no time.

The picture to the right is after the visit to the vet. He looks so sad, but don’t worry by the end of the night he was back to his old self – stealing food and ripping up toys.

The only other snag to Christmas was the countless number of twisty ties I had to remove from all the toys my son got. I hate those damn things!

I hope you all had an uneventful and happy holiday!

Why satellite radio rawks.

Orbicast, a blog about all things satellite radio, quotes an LA Times article on the awesomeness of satellite radio …

The Los Angeles Times featured an amazing article yesterday about a single man’s experience with his new satellite radio. The entire article revolves around a single aspect that he discovered with his new present:

“The first surprise about satellite radio is the return of surprise.”

It’s a key differentiator from the iPod: the element of surprise. You’ve already heard the songs on your iPod, you’ve heard them over and over again. There’s nothing new. The article’s writer said it perfectly: “even if you collect 1,000 iTunes they all finish uploading with the same empty thunk.”

With satellite radio, the chance to discover (or rediscover) music is an opportunity constantly presented to the listener. It’s not your entire personal collection in your pocket like the iPod – music from satellite radio is a chance relinquish control and enjoy music for what it is. For the first time, you’re actually listening again.

I couldn’t agree more. I love XM and it’s mostly because of the gobs of music. I even purchased a new XM receiver after my Shuffle crapped out (it didn’t take long). The new receiver records XM content and lets you mix it with your own MP3s, but I haven’t even done this yet.

I set the little bugger to record music every night and then listen to the new stuff at work or during my commute. I can save songs I like, skip the ones I don’t, and trash songs I’m tired of. It’s like a constantly evolving mix tape.

I got used to the idea of not “owning” all of my music. I asked myself do I really need to own Wind it Up? Its fun to listen to now but after the thousandth time I probably wont want to hear it ever again.

This doesn’t mean that I will never buy new music though. My wish list of new tunes to grab is ever growing because of XM (e.g. ex-lead of Soul Coughing, Mike Doughty has some most excellent tunes that I shall gaffle ASAP).

It’s fun to listen to music again.

Monkey + poop = funny.

I made a t-shirt over at innerTee, a site that lets you make your own t-shirts from an existing catalog of cool art. My t-shirt features two of the funniest things in the world together on one shirt: monkeys and poop. All that for only 13 bucks, what a bargain!

Via tcritic.com

Nothing says Christmas like a robotic reindeer.

Is is just me or do those animatronic reindeer lighted lawn decoration thingys give you the creeps? They look like sinister deer skeletons to me.

They remind me of that scene in Westworld where Yul Brynner’s face is ripped off to reveal his true robotic face. Or maybe the Terminator without its skin.

I was walking my dog early this morning and I passed a house with a pair of robo-deers in its yard. In the early morning quite I could clearly hear the sound of their little motors whirring as they repeated the same motion over and over again. I swear that as I passed them they stopped for a moment to look at me with their dead Christmas light eyes. Shudder.

Anywhoo, hope you have a happy holiday!

The second type of movie talker.

I knew that I shouldn’t have gone to the movies after writing this post about teens talking during a flick. I knew it would come back to haunt me. Call it karma, irony, or whatever you want but when I went to see Casino Royale last night I sat right in front of some talkers.

But these talkers weren’t teens, they were adults. And adult talkers are worse then teen talkers. Adult movie talkers are describers or explainers. They basically tell the whole movie to their companions. For example, during one scene a villain  sprinkles some powder into James Bond’s martini and what does the talker behind me state with a knowing tone “Oh she just put poison in his drink.” Darn, and I was thinking it was ruffies!

I looked back a couple times thinking that one of the talkers may be blind and that their friend was doing them a favor by describing the visual portion of the flick. But there was no dark sunglasses or seeing eye dog so I was left with but one explanation: they were not disabled just annoying.

With movie prices nearing ten bucks a ticket and the break down of public social skills on the rise I think I’m gonna stick to DVDs from now on.

Now I know I’m turning into to a curmudgeon.

The Beastie Boys get busy for you.

Here is a little music from the Beastie Boys to start off your weekend. The tune is called Now Get Busy.

Check out more Creative Commons tunes. Enjoy!