Douchebags

Rhiannon's Law #22. You can't lie to yourself, so don't bother trying. Doing so only multiplies your douchebag level to the umpteenth power and confirms what others have been saying for years - that you are an idiot.

J.A. SAARE

I admit that "douchebag" is an impolite term, but I don't know of another word that fits. The douchebag is where vanity and stupidity meet. I find douchebags irritating and annoying, but I also admit that self-awareness will always elude them. Douchebags have a special type of narcissism where insults only feed their pride.

My neighbor is a douchebag. He plays Nickelback and bro country too loudly because it is not enough to listen to music. You have to listen to bad music and force others to listen to it, too. This music gets drowned out as the douchebag cranks his loud pickup truck with the douchebag rims 20 times per day. He doesn't go anywhere. He just cranks the truck and revs the motor. Otherwise, this douchebag has nothing to do and all day to do it.

Virtually everything this guy does is for the sake of vanity. He is always messing with some toy like a muscle car or a boat. He doesn't actually fix these things like a real mechanic but makes them louder with glasspack mufflers and changes out the rims. That's it. Then, he gets bored and switches to some new toy. It is a profound waste of a life, but this is what idiots do when they are bored.

I have never been a douchebag. I have dressed in some slobby outfits, but I am a decade removed from wearing cargo shorts and T-shirts. Douchebags actually dress a bit nicer than this but not by much. Their favorite thing to wear is a tank top shirt to show off their arms and chest paired with some sort of jewelry and a ear ring. Additionally, facial hair has to be a love brush under the bottom lip or a chin brush. Douchebags have to split the difference between being clean shaven and having a full beard. As for the hair, it has to have gel if the head is not shaved.

Douchebags exist because today's man has lost all role models for manliness. Instead, they emulate professional athletes, rappers, and characters from The Fast And The Furious film franchise. Then, there is the phenomenon known as Andrew Tate who has inspired thousands of men worldwide to go full douchebag with their lives.

Now, I am an old man in his fifth decade of life. You might expect me to look to Randolph Scott and John Wayne as proper role models for manliness, but I don't. These men were actors. Role models need to be real flesh and blood human beings. I also do not look to professional athletes as very few have the dignity of true manhood. For me, my role models came from old men that I knew in my youth who worked blue collar jobs and dressed the part. These men were about work and not much else.

If I had to pick a popular culture depiction of douchebags and classy old men, I would select The Karate Kid. In the movie, the Cobra Kai sensei, John Kreese, represents the douchebag while the handyman Mr. Miyagi represents the humble but classy old man. Kreese is toxic masculinity. Miyagi is non-toxic masculinity. The film is a great story about the clash of these two ways of manliness. Ultimately, Kreese is not manly at all. His lack of honor and decency cost him the respect of his own pupils.

The best path is wisdom and humility. Miyagi has both. Kreese has neither. Don't be a douchebag.

Stages Of Life

The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years. But if in the strong they be fourscore years: and what is more of them is labour and sorrow. For mildness is come upon us: and we shall be corrected.

PSALM 89:10 DOUAY-RHEIMS

I begin this post on a sad note because one of the YouTubers I have followed for years has contracted Stage 4 cancer in his bladder at age 72. I contrast this with the lady in our parish who died of a bacterial heart infection at age 38. Then, there is the young man who was 8 years old who died from liver cancer. Virtually everyone dies too young in the opinion of someone. I take issue with this.

One day, I sat down and mapped out what I refer to now as "stages of life." It is a handy guide to know where you fall on the age issue. It is based on 20 year increments.

1. YOUTH 0-20

Youth is from the time you were born to the time your parents can kick you out of the house. This is a time of innocence which turns into arrogance and ignorance by the teen years. The only valuable thing gained from these years is a basic academic understanding of the world.

2. YOUNG ADULTHOOD 20-40

The next stage is considered the prime of life when you are young and fit. This is the best time of life to start a career and start a family. The downside is that you don't know everything yet and learn bitter lessons along the way.

3. MIDDLE AGE 40-60

Middle age is when you gather wisdom and wealth. You are young enough to keep working and smart enough to not make the same mistakes you made in youth. But your body begins to slow down at this stage. This is why most professional athletes retire at 40 and move to something like coaching or on air analysis.

4. OLD AGE 60-80

Old age is when your body rapidly deteriorates, and you should be preparing to die. No one wants to hear this, but it is the truth. Life ends, and it usually ends sometime after 70 for most people. I am watching that now with many people I know. If you make it to 70, you can't say that you died young.

5. BONUS TIME 80-100+

There are some individuals who are outliers and live beyond the average life expectancy. This is not a blessing as these advanced years will be the most miserable that you ever endured. I think dying at 60 from a heart attack is better than dying from Alzheimer's at 80. The recent death of Gene Hackman showed to me how heartbreaking that disease can be.

I don't think this life has very much to offer. My life has been mostly misery with a few pleasures here and there. The only real joy I find in my life comes from my wife and from my Roman Catholic faith. I don't understand how people can expend so much time, money, and energy chasing after the vanities of this life. As for dying young, the only thing that matters is dying in a state of grace and going to Heaven one day. It is better to die at 8 as a saint than at 80 as some self indulgent boomer chasing an end of life vacation. As for me, I am 54 at the time of this writing, and I feel old. If I die, no one should ever claim that I died young.

Bodywork

DISCLAIMER: I am not a physician, physical therapist, personal trainer or anything remotely related to being a healthcare worker. As always, consult with professionals on your exercise program and do your own research. This is just my personal experience.

It is the pain that makes the pain go away.

ALEC BALDWIN

Alec Baldwin uttered this line in regard to getting a second hip replacement. It has stuck with me because we often endure short term pain for the sake of eliminating long term pain. I thought the line captures the essence of bodywork. It is the pain that makes the pain go away.

"Bodywork" is the catch all term I use for the battery of strengthening, stretching, and isometric exercises I have to do to keep myself moving without injury. Sad to say, I neglected those bodywork exercises and gave myself a bad case of IT band syndrome and peroneal tendinitis. It also didn't help walking on shoes that were past their mileage. That was dumb. The result was a bitter lesson, and bitter lessons are not soon forgotten.

I believe strength is the foundation of fitness. People pit strength vs. cardio, but the outcome of the contest is clear. Strength training is more important because it allows you to do the cardio training. I believe in both, but the most important element is strength training.

The goal of strength training is injury prevention and resistance. You want to build for yourself a bulletproof body. Those bodywork exercises can be tedious at times and not always pleasant. But as Mr. Baldwin put it, "it is the pain that makes the pain go away." I say that to myself before every bodywork session.

My bodywork hero is the ultrarunner Dean Karnazes who has run thousands of miles without a single overuse injury. Compare Karno to Anton Krupicka who has had his career wrecked by overuse injuries. I do not recommend ultrarunning, but these two are "lab rats" for comparing running with bodywork versus running without bodywork. Dean Karnazes proves the value of strength training for injury prevention.

I first learned this lesson from watching basketball in the nineties as NBA players started hitting the weight room. I could understand football players doing this but not basketball players. But those NBA players discovered that the strength training made them resilient to injury. Now, you see everyone from baseball players to tennis players to golfers doing strength training. That training is indispensable.

Believing in something is not the same as doing something. As the Good Book says, "Faith without works is dead." This IT band injury and peroneal tendinitis has made me get religion on bodywork, and I have vowed to not have this happen to me again. Consequently, bodywork is a daily part of my program, and I have no excuses for not doing them. I can do them rain or shine.

I post this piece on bodywork as a companion to all my posts on fitness walking. I have a book published by Prevention magazine on walking, but it is mostly chapters on these bodywork exercises. I think fitness walking is a great exercise, but it cannot be walking alone. Bodywork is a must. Let this be a warning to the Gentle Reader from someone who learned the hard way.

Annoying Things 2

Rap is just to me very annoying.

JAMES HETFIELD

Rap is very annoying to me, too. Here are some other things I find annoying.

1. Batman+

Batman is the only superhero I care about. I can't get into the other ones. This is why I hate when they put Batman in a movie with another superhero like Superman or the Justice League or SuperFriends or whatever. I want Gotham City, Batman, Alfred, Commisoner Gordon, and some classic supervillain like the Joker. I don't care for Robin or Batgirl and prefer their absence.

2. Boomers with smartphone holsters

I am a dumbphone enthusiast. so it irks me when older people walk around with a fat iPhone strapped to the hip. Boomers are worse than kids when it comes to smartphones and smartphone addiction. I figured that geriatric Boomers would be natural allies on this front, but Gen Z are the only ones who want dumbphones now.

3. Donald Trump's hair

The Donald likes to do the combover colored with that orange hair spray he uses. The result is a bird nest desperately trying to cover male pattern baldness. I believe that shaving your head is the better option. It is probably too late for Trump to go down this path, and that is a real shame.

4. Dumbphones that aren't dumb

I follow the dumbphone reddit, and it irks me when people ask for a dumbphone with all of the smartphone features. These people have no clue that this defeats the whole purpose of having a dumbphone. I really can't stand seeing a Nokia dumbphone with the Facebook app preloaded on the thing. For me, the whole point of rocking a dumbphone is to eliminate distractions especially from social media.

5. Treadmills

I am not a treadmill fan. I like walking for fitness, but the treadmill is a nightmare for me because I am clumsy and prone to falling. I prefer a stationary recumbent bike to a treadmill. You can't fall off of one of those things. I might buy one in the future.

6. Fake teeth that are perfect

This comes up repeatedly on the unpopular opinion reddit. When someone smiles with a row of perfect teeth, it creeps me out. They are obviously fake. I find comfort in imperfect teeth like you see on people in the UK. My teeth are very imperfect and resemble a picket fence. I am too old to care now. If I ever get dentures, I want them to be imperfect. I don't know if they make them that way, but I don't want that creepy smile on my face.

7. Boutique workwear

I have always been a fan of Dickies and Carhartt workwear, and I am not above buying used work uniforms and gear from Goodwill. I am not a fan of expensive workwear from brands like 1620 and Truewerk with their $200 work pants. I also don't care for $300 work boots. I don't know who wears this high dollar gear or who can afford it. I know that it isn't me.

8. Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter into X

I escaped Twitter years ago, so this social media platform can go up in flames for all that I care. But as an observer of business, I think renaming it "X" was colossal stupidity on the part of Musk. The new name itself is ridiculous. As for Twitter, I guarantee that people still "tweet" on X the same way they still "google" stuff on Bing or DuckDuckGo. Podcasts are still called podcasts even though the iPod is history now. One of the things I have learned in life is to not make dramatic or drastic changes to what is already there. It took a lot of effort to build it in the first place. It makes no sense to be hasty in destroying it.

9. The overgearification of the outdoors

Going outside is essentially free, but this has not stopped companies from trying to make bank off of the outdoors. This has made the whole outdoors thing expensive and ridiculous. It also doesn't help when some overgeared outdoor gatekeeper narcissist makes fun of your dad shoes and Walmart camping equipment. It doesn't cost much to get outside, and it shouldn't. Keep it cheap and simple.

The DARK SIDE of the Outdoor Clothing Industry

https://youtu.be/oW8eKHOPriA?si=6RffLniDEBIpUTRb

10. Flannel

I am supposed to like flannel, and I want to like flannel. Unfortunately, my experience with flannel has been bad. The first problem is that flannel shirts shrink after you wash them. The second problem is that flannel is not durable. I learned this after busting the crotch in a pair of flannel pajamas. Now, some wise guy will say that I was not wearing "real" flannel. I have no clue what that is. I suspect that it is just expensive flannel. I am off the flannel train.

11. Political apparel

I am not a fan of wearing my politics on my clothing. I follow the Gray Man strategy of keeping a low profile when I am in public, and I don't see the point in causing unnecessary controversy. There is a time and a place for everything which is why I constrain my political opinions to this blog. When I go to the grocery store, I am there to buy food and not start a fight.

12. Receiving a phone call

I cringe whenever my phone rings. It is either a spam caller, a robo caller, or some needy extrovert who wants to chat. I have one contact who responds to my text with a phone call. I don't text him anymore. The sad truth is that I don't like talking to people especially people on the phone. Because I write, I like texting. People who can't write prefer talking. I can't talk.

13. People who turn everything into a game, sport, competition, or rivalry

I am not an athlete. When I walk for fitness, I just walk. I don't turn it into a race or post stats for comparison on the internet. I also never fell for the "competitions" at work that the company would do to make us work harder or faster. These schemes usually result in that other aspect of competition known as "cheating." I remember one worker who was incredibly fast in completing his route except everyone else had to go behind him and fix his mistakes. He ended up costing the company more money than he was making for them. This is dumb.

14. Chunky watches

I wear a G-Shock as a fitness watch, but I prefer to wear the slim F91W the rest of the time. The appeal of the F91W comes down to that low profile that fits well under long sleeves and coat sleeves. Chunky watches become annoying fairly quickly which is why I don't collect G-Shocks. One is enough.

15. People who think you are a dupe for being nice to them

I am nice and charitable to people because I am a Christian and generally agreeable. Naturally, people mistake my kindness for stupidity which leads me to becoming very unpleasant and unkind. I lead with the nice, but I can go to the nasty in a heartbeat. I am a nice guy, but I am not a fool. Be innocent as doves and wise as serpents.

16. Discounted rotten produce

When food goes to rot, a store shouldn't cut the price to try and sell it. They should throw it away.

17. Carnivore dieters in denial

A meat only diet sounds dangerous. This is because it is dangerous. Trust me, I would love it if bacon and beef were health foods because they taste delicious. But they are not good for you. I know because they weren't good for me. Yet, you get serious denial by the meatheads who insist that meat is good and bad health is caused by "seed oils." Whatever. These people are total idiots. Only flatearthers are dumber than carnivore dieters.

Dr Shawn Baker Ignores ANOTHER Carnivore Diet Heart Attack

https://youtu.be/GYEhsY9zE3g?si=_8U9sdkHmLO9qBI3

18. Head fakers

Head fakers are people who declare they are going to do something positive for their lives like convert to Catholicism, switch to a dumbphone, take up fitness walking, or quit meat except they don't. I know that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, so I don't believe anything anybody says they are going to do. I know better. I diminish my expectations on these things. I will believe it when I see it.

19. Roman numerals

I despise Roman numerals except when they come in a name like Henry IV. The Super Bowl people like using Roman numerals. The movie credits people love Roman numerals. Watchmakers love Roman numerals. Why? Why make it more difficult? Arabic numerals are the way to go.

20. Puffer jackets

These jackets are hideous to look at. I think a black trash bag might be better. These jackets are also not durable. The slightest abrasion will have them bleeding out down everywhere. And the repair amounts to patching the holes with duct tape. Get a duck canvas or wool coat instead.

21. The Internet of Things

For some reason, every company wants to connect every device to the internet. Once this is complete, they want you to pay subscription fees to keep those devices running until they brick them forcing you to buy a new internet connected device. These devices are called "smart devices." It is smart for them and dumb for you. This innovation is known as a scam, and I am not buying it. Unfortunately, they are going to force it by removing all other options.

22. My cellphone company's chronic pitches for me to upgrade to a smartphone

I get these pitches in my email and on my cellphone. I am a flip phone user who purchased his device back in 2019. I am supremely happy with this device. For some odd reason, Verizon thinks I am not happy and considers me a prime sales target. I just delete these offers. One day, I will delete Verizon.

23. Hard candy that turns into a razor blade that cuts your tongue and mouth.

My Google search says this happens when there are micro air bubbles in the candy. It has made me give up hard candy completely. I will stick with chewy candy like Sour Patch Kids.

24. Inflation.

Inflation is when the government orders up more printed money from the Federal Reserve and spends it. This debases the currency which drives up prices on goods and services. Essentially, inflation is taxation. This makes life suck for everyone else. Companies will resort to "shrinkflation" and "shitflation" in vain attempts to get money and still turn a profit. The result is smaller portions of products declining in quality. No one is fooled by any of this.

25. GMRS users throwing shade on CB radio.

I don't have enough information about GMRS radio to have an opinion for or against the service. What I do take issue with is the slam on CB radio that amounts to saying that no one uses CB radio because there are too many people talking on CB radio. (Yogi Berra would be proud of that one.) Apparently, certain GMRS users don't want the ham users to have all of the fun bagging on CB radio. At the end of the day, if you buy a GMRS radio, you will hear a lot of nothing. You can talk with someone if you decide on a channel and a privacy code beforehand which means probably calling them with your cellphone first. Or, you can just use your cellphone and skip all of that radio crap. As GMRS users are fond of pointing out, the service is designed for two-way communication. Why would I use the GMRS radio if my cellphone already does that?

This is the end of my second edition of annoying things. Will there be a third edition? You know it!