I do not yoge. (Although I occasionally drag out the old Lamaze breathing when in pain or otherwise stressed.)
Really I don't do anything that involves flexibility or limberness. I did try a yoga class once, but couldn't approach any of the poses closely enough to even be doing them badly. Every so often the teacher would come by and attempt to shove me into position, under the assumption that I just didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing. I'd howl with pain, and the teacher would wander off, looking defeated.
I do yoga. Actually, lately I've been in the aforementioned work-induced funk, part of which is that I am so boredly lonely during eight hours of the day that it's hard for me to enthuse myself about solitary activities at night, so I haven't been. Maybe I am more evidence for the yoga myth.
However, I can dimly remember being in the yoga zone, and then yoga was one of the best things in my life. Sometimes I would have this feeling of something from deep within my muscles cracking open and flowing out of me, and it was glorious. I would feel stronger and happier and more beautiful and better rooted to the earth when I left. However, yoga made me feel bad about my hips and groin, because they are absurdly inflexible. And then a friend of my aunt's once tried to tell me that the reason I couldn't release my hips was emotional, i.e. that I was sexually repressed, which annoyed me to no end.
Actually, yoga is the best for people who are medium flexible. If you can't even approach the poses, you'd need a super modified class to get you there, but if you're too flexible, you won't get the benefit without lots of modification either. It's all about playing the edge, and finding the place between effort and surrender, which you can't do if it's too hard or too easy.
Interesting. I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. All the times I've taken classes, I'm like "ok, I'm in the pose, now what?" It's fun, but I don't feel that exhilaration (can't think of the right word, that's not it, but close) that other people talk about.
I actually used to do yoga when I was a kid, poses from some book we had laying around the house. I of course, didn't know what i was doing, but I had a mean wheelbarrow at the time.
Actually, lately I've been in the aforementioned work-induced funk,
If it cheers you up any, you're almost certainly adored by the people you work for. The discontent which has you in a funk sounds like a symptom of being cleverer and more competent than lots of career secretaries.
14: I'm not, though. I'm a mere temp and no one gives me anything to do, and I actually become a fairly mediocre secretary when I'm this bored, because I get spacey. I'm okay when I'm just the right amount of busy. Being a secretary is sort of like yoga in that way; you function best when you have a manageable amount of work, but enough to keep your focus. I guess it all relates to flow.
Also, it wouldn't matter how competent I was, because the supervisors in this department are like alcoholic parents, and dole out praise or criticism irrespective of your actual performance. My poor permanent coworker, who's new on the job, has it worse than me, because our boss seems to have taken an irrational dislike to him. She just looked over his shoulder at his email screen, saw that there were unfiled emails in his inbox, and yelled at him for not filing. But in fact he has a folder system for all the emails that need his attention, and he just leaves some that don't, like shipping confirmations, in his inbox. Note that he hadn't actually missed any emails or made any other mistake that merited her scrutiny.
Before you ask, I'm trying to get a permanent job at my university for the tuition remission, and that's why I'm not looking for something better.
It is rather self-centered of me to be hijacking this thread to complain about my job. Please return to your regularly scheduled cock jokes.
Andrew, I have not tried Quorn. I have a not quite rational aversion to eating mushrooms already, so eating some mysterious "less palatable" fungal meat substitute is just straight out.
Kieran, I love ground-up animals, regardless of their age. If we weren't supposed to eat them, they wouldn't be made totally of meat.
Here's the pitch: two young Kansans (I'm thinking apostropher and text for the leads) take a wrong turn and find themselves teetering dangerously on the edge of the earth in Berkeley California. They're taken prisoner by a vegan cult that has murdered all the fast food managers. They worship a deity named "He Who Will Not Eat Anything With a Nose." I'm calling it: Children of the Quorn.
No, it's an entirely different form of exercise, based on strengthing the 'core muscles', roughly the abdominals and back, which I don't do for completely different reasons than I don't do yoga.
I just wrote and then deleted (because it recounted an astonishingly uninteresting story) a fairly long comment about the last time I used the phrase, "brevity is the soul of wit."
I like yoga. I've not done it much, but it was fun and good for relaxation. Not that I was pondering the mysteries of Atman, but more that the sheer concentration it took not to fall over on some poses meant that I couldn't be worrying about anything else.
The dolphin pose, however, gave me the most horrible hip cramps ever. I have no idea why.
It's also good for the posture. I did yoga a lot one summer, and I don't think I'd ever really stood up straight before. A little downward dog is good for waking up in the morning.
Ogged, one thing I think I have learned in my short time here is that no one really owns the interpretations of their own dirty jokes. You can try to hold on to the belief that you have a real TiVo, but eventually your TiVo becomes a palimpsest of comment laid upon comment, and the "truth" of the TiVo (is it my concept of a real TiVo? Or others' perception of my metaphorical TiVo?) becomes multiple.
Well, alright Ogged, it's your blog, so I guess I have to play by your rules. However, my cable box once remained unplugged for a year and half, so I do know something about the issue.
The best bit is picturing, when circumstances render it necessary, ogged leaping out of bed to fumble with his home entertainment center, while a hypothetical partner looks on in bemusement.
I like Quorn, at least the fake chicken patty kind I tried. It tastes exactly like the school lunch chicken patties I had when I was a kid--bad, but in a way you kind of miss, and so track down to eat anyway (I also miss the really fatty polish sausages that they served us, but I haven't managed to find an acceptable substitue). I would call Quorn the best meat substitute product I've tried (facon--teh suxxor).
So wait, resetting your Tivo actually requires not only moving in with someone, but with some who's got a land-line, and who will let you busify it periodically with your video recordamajig?
I was so confused. I did a web search, and came to the conclusion that there was only one I could find, and he'd probably be pretty expensive to obtain.
In any case, Ogged hasn't approved the rule yet, so I'm going to remain relaxed for the moment, unless someone needs a nut cracked.
As I understand it, a TiVo is just a Linux box with a TV tuner and some specialized software. Shouldn't you have Wolfson (or Becks, I think) whip up some code to display an automatically updating TiVo counter on the front page? Just for the humor value?
My pseudonymity is so far compromised at this point. Most of my friends know about the site, I've met several commenters, and even Unf's future father-in-law reads it. I never should have told anyone.
79: Someone once did, but only because Wolfson, a philosophy grad student, appropriated the work of The Fonz, a motorcycle rider, and published it under his name.
Berkeley had a McVegan's for a while but I think they either went out of business or were forced to change their name. (Or maybe it was just discussed as a joke.) I suspect the vegans I knew in high school would relish playing those roles, but in real life they were nice people.
does doing yoda impressions count?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 09-29-05 8:57 PM
count it does, yeeees.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 09-29-05 8:57 PM
Yoga is the squishy white substance that gets turned into Gardenburgers, right?
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 09-29-05 9:47 PM
No, that's smegma.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 12:25 AM
Mmmmm.... Smegmaburger.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 12:36 AM
Smegmaburgers are still more appealing than Quorn - even the Gruyère Quorn Cutlet.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 1:19 AM
Is Quorn really that bad? It _sounds_ gross, but have you tried it? (I have not.)
Posted by andrew | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 2:37 AM
It _sounds_ gross
Much more gross than cold ground-up parts of force-fed baby animals, I'm sure.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:11 AM
I do not yoge. (Although I occasionally drag out the old Lamaze breathing when in pain or otherwise stressed.)
Really I don't do anything that involves flexibility or limberness. I did try a yoga class once, but couldn't approach any of the poses closely enough to even be doing them badly. Every so often the teacher would come by and attempt to shove me into position, under the assumption that I just didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing. I'd howl with pain, and the teacher would wander off, looking defeated.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:30 AM
I do yoga. Actually, lately I've been in the aforementioned work-induced funk, part of which is that I am so boredly lonely during eight hours of the day that it's hard for me to enthuse myself about solitary activities at night, so I haven't been. Maybe I am more evidence for the yoga myth.
However, I can dimly remember being in the yoga zone, and then yoga was one of the best things in my life. Sometimes I would have this feeling of something from deep within my muscles cracking open and flowing out of me, and it was glorious. I would feel stronger and happier and more beautiful and better rooted to the earth when I left. However, yoga made me feel bad about my hips and groin, because they are absurdly inflexible. And then a friend of my aunt's once tried to tell me that the reason I couldn't release my hips was emotional, i.e. that I was sexually repressed, which annoyed me to no end.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:49 AM
I always thought I would like yoga since I'm very flexible, but I think it's kind of 'eh.' I still do it occasionally, but I prefer kickboxing.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:50 AM
Actually, yoga is the best for people who are medium flexible. If you can't even approach the poses, you'd need a super modified class to get you there, but if you're too flexible, you won't get the benefit without lots of modification either. It's all about playing the edge, and finding the place between effort and surrender, which you can't do if it's too hard or too easy.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:53 AM
Interesting. I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. All the times I've taken classes, I'm like "ok, I'm in the pose, now what?" It's fun, but I don't feel that exhilaration (can't think of the right word, that's not it, but close) that other people talk about.
I actually used to do yoga when I was a kid, poses from some book we had laying around the house. I of course, didn't know what i was doing, but I had a mean wheelbarrow at the time.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 7:59 AM
Actually, lately I've been in the aforementioned work-induced funk,
If it cheers you up any, you're almost certainly adored by the people you work for. The discontent which has you in a funk sounds like a symptom of being cleverer and more competent than lots of career secretaries.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 8:01 AM
14: I'm not, though. I'm a mere temp and no one gives me anything to do, and I actually become a fairly mediocre secretary when I'm this bored, because I get spacey. I'm okay when I'm just the right amount of busy. Being a secretary is sort of like yoga in that way; you function best when you have a manageable amount of work, but enough to keep your focus. I guess it all relates to flow.
Also, it wouldn't matter how competent I was, because the supervisors in this department are like alcoholic parents, and dole out praise or criticism irrespective of your actual performance. My poor permanent coworker, who's new on the job, has it worse than me, because our boss seems to have taken an irrational dislike to him. She just looked over his shoulder at his email screen, saw that there were unfiled emails in his inbox, and yelled at him for not filing. But in fact he has a folder system for all the emails that need his attention, and he just leaves some that don't, like shipping confirmations, in his inbox. Note that he hadn't actually missed any emails or made any other mistake that merited her scrutiny.
Before you ask, I'm trying to get a permanent job at my university for the tuition remission, and that's why I'm not looking for something better.
It is rather self-centered of me to be hijacking this thread to complain about my job. Please return to your regularly scheduled cock jokes.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 8:21 AM
Andrew, I have not tried Quorn. I have a not quite rational aversion to eating mushrooms already, so eating some mysterious "less palatable" fungal meat substitute is just straight out.
Kieran, I love ground-up animals, regardless of their age. If we weren't supposed to eat them, they wouldn't be made totally of meat.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 8:40 AM
Here's the pitch: two young Kansans (I'm thinking apostropher and text for the leads) take a wrong turn and find themselves teetering dangerously on the edge of the earth in Berkeley California. They're taken prisoner by a vegan cult that has murdered all the fast food managers. They worship a deity named "He Who Will Not Eat Anything With a Nose." I'm calling it: Children of the Quorn.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:11 AM
I'm in. If you give me a nice trailer.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:14 AM
He Who Will Not Eat Anything With a Nose
Does this mean shellfish are still okay?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:16 AM
Yes, ya big goy.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:18 AM
Oops, that was me.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:21 AM
Is Pilates Yoga?
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:29 AM
No.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:30 AM
No, it's an entirely different form of exercise, based on strengthing the 'core muscles', roughly the abdominals and back, which I don't do for completely different reasons than I don't do yoga.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:32 AM
Brevity is the soul of wit, LB.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:34 AM
Yeah, that's what you said the last time a girl saw your TiVo, too.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:39 AM
I just wrote and then deleted (because it recounted an astonishingly uninteresting story) a fairly long comment about the last time I used the phrase, "brevity is the soul of wit."
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:39 AM
Much like the source of the phrase, w/d.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:40 AM
Tia, my Tivo is real, not metaphorical.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:41 AM
I like yoga. I've not done it much, but it was fun and good for relaxation. Not that I was pondering the mysteries of Atman, but more that the sheer concentration it took not to fall over on some poses meant that I couldn't be worrying about anything else.
The dolphin pose, however, gave me the most horrible hip cramps ever. I have no idea why.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:43 AM
Kieran, I love ground-up animals, regardless of their age. If we weren't supposed to eat them, they wouldn't be made totally of meat.
They aren't made totally of meat, though.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:46 AM
It's also good for the posture. I did yoga a lot one summer, and I don't think I'd ever really stood up straight before. A little downward dog is good for waking up in the morning.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:47 AM
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:51 AM
it is.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:52 AM
They aren't made totally of meat, though.
Don't you try to oppress me with your limited bourgeios notions of meat, Wolfson.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:55 AM
Ogged, one thing I think I have learned in my short time here is that no one really owns the interpretations of their own dirty jokes. You can try to hold on to the belief that you have a real TiVo, but eventually your TiVo becomes a palimpsest of comment laid upon comment, and the "truth" of the TiVo (is it my concept of a real TiVo? Or others' perception of my metaphorical TiVo?) becomes multiple.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:55 AM
That's a nice try, Tia, but the Tivo thing isn't even a joke; just a sad truth of my existence.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 9:58 AM
Oh sure. Ogged finds it three minutes faster 'cause it's his blog.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:02 AM
Ogged "owns" a TiVo the way Homer "wrote" The Odyssey.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:03 AM
Can't it both be a sad truth of your existence, and a joke? I mean, I accept that it's true, but that doesn't make it not funny.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:05 AM
Well, it's a funny sad truth, but "Tivo" actually has to mean "Tivo" in this instance.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:07 AM
Well, alright Ogged, it's your blog, so I guess I have to play by your rules. However, my cable box once remained unplugged for a year and half, so I do know something about the issue.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:14 AM
The best bit is picturing, when circumstances render it necessary, ogged leaping out of bed to fumble with his home entertainment center, while a hypothetical partner looks on in bemusement.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:16 AM
Well, alright Ogged, it's your blog, so I guess I have to play by your rules.
I sense some hott new rules coming on any second now.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:16 AM
Indeed! Now taking submissions for rules for Tia to abide by...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:18 AM
I like Quorn, at least the fake chicken patty kind I tried. It tastes exactly like the school lunch chicken patties I had when I was a kid--bad, but in a way you kind of miss, and so track down to eat anyway (I also miss the really fatty polish sausages that they served us, but I haven't managed to find an acceptable substitue). I would call Quorn the best meat substitute product I've tried (facon--teh suxxor).
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:18 AM
5 kagels for every comment posted!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:19 AM
I think that's "kegel."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:20 AM
So wait, resetting your Tivo actually requires not only moving in with someone, but with some who's got a land-line, and who will let you busify it periodically with your video recordamajig?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:21 AM
one
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:21 AM
No one said it was going to be easy, slol.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:22 AM
I was so confused. I did a web search, and came to the conclusion that there was only one I could find, and he'd probably be pretty expensive to obtain.
In any case, Ogged hasn't approved the rule yet, so I'm going to remain relaxed for the moment, unless someone needs a nut cracked.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:24 AM
No one said it'd be this hard.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:27 AM
...unless someone needs a nut cracked
You really know how to tee them up, don't you?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:28 AM
Now that sounds painful.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:30 AM
I recommend kugel exercises before you serve it to company.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:35 AM
I'll get you a landline when we buy our house.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:35 AM
Thanks, Becks! I'll call you from the den!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:41 AM
That could occasion the most depressing post ever! ("I reset my TiVo today. No, just the TiVo.")
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:41 AM
By the way, it's at 596 now.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:43 AM
wow.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:47 AM
59 was awesome, LB
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:51 AM
I think 1000 is doable.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:51 AM
Now taking submissions for rules for Tia
I can't believe nobody has followed up on that cleverly appropriate double entendre.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 10:58 AM
You mean as in 47, 48, 52, and 54-56?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:00 AM
He means the "submissions" bit.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:01 AM
Perhaps the higher the branch, the sweeter the fruit...
at Banana Lofts
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:02 AM
63 - Now, what would be hysterical is your TiVo hit 1024 and then reverted to 1.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:13 AM
That would be worth waiting for, maybe.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:16 AM
That would be Sunday, December 3, 2006.
Party at Ogged's house!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:24 AM
Ogged:
As I understand it, a TiVo is just a Linux box with a TV tuner and some specialized software. Shouldn't you have Wolfson (or Becks, I think) whip up some code to display an automatically updating TiVo counter on the front page? Just for the humor value?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:30 AM
You want me to put a "days since I had sex" counter on the front page of the blog? I have my limits.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:34 AM
Really?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:35 AM
isn't that what pseudonymous blogging is really all about?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:36 AM
My pseudonymity is so far compromised at this point. Most of my friends know about the site, I've met several commenters, and even Unf's future father-in-law reads it. I never should have told anyone.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:38 AM
Just don't get yourself dooced.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:41 AM
That would require inviting Wolfson to the office, I think.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:43 AM
well, i don't know who you are. i feel left out. i wanna be a cool kid, like Wolfson.
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:48 AM
I don't think anybody, anywhere, has ever said or thought the above statement before.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 11:56 AM
You want me to put a "days since I had sex" counter on the front page of the blog? I have my limits.
Caring is sharing, ogged. And you're not actually obligated to tie the TiVo to your return to life.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 12:10 PM
79: Someone once did, but only because Wolfson, a philosophy grad student, appropriated the work of The Fonz, a motorcycle rider, and published it under his name.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 12:25 PM
wolfson has jumped the shark?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 12:32 PM
re: 17
Berkeley had a McVegan's for a while but I think they either went out of business or were forced to change their name. (Or maybe it was just discussed as a joke.) I suspect the vegans I knew in high school would relish playing those roles, but in real life they were nice people.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-30-05 3:23 PM
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Posted by Nathan Baker | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 4:27 AM