The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

It’s always funny until someone pokes an eye out.

Over a year ago Wrestling guru Vince McMahon launched the XFL, a fledgling football league that failed miserably mostly due to unrealistic goals. The football as pretty bad, but a number of good things did happen as a result of the XFL. The NFL adopted additional camera angles and on-field gimmicks to bring the game “into your living room.” QB Tommy Maddox played in the XFL with the Los Angeles eXtreme, taking them to the championship, winning the game and landing himself a place as QB for the Pittsburgh Steelers after years of trying to make it in the NFL. A number of other great stories along those lines took place as well.

Mike and I took in the first XFL game in Los Angeles and we had an absolutely amazing time. Briefly, the game started out good, then the visiting team (can’t recall who they were right now) began to womp us hard. Then it just got damn boring. No problem, because once the game got boring, the fans got interesting! Random fights would break out between absolute morons or a woman would flash the audience. Over the course of the second and third quarter screams of “Fight!” or “Tits!” or “Fight/Tits!” were heard very regularly, with parents of 10 year old boys doing their best to shield their offspring from this base display. Two 11 year old kids, picking up on the craziness in the stands, performed a mock fight themselves which landed them on the jumbo tron with enthusiastic cheers from the audience! It was a very rowdy, very fun game.

With about two minutes left in the fourth and a seemingly insurmountable lead by the opposition, Mike and I decided to make our way to the exit. Then Tommy Maddox happened. Somehow he brought the eXtreme back, tied the game and won it for LA in overtime. The place went wild because it actually became an amazing game!

Now, I share this story with you for the following reason. Today my sister Liz sent me the following image in e-mail. It’s one of those that’s making the rounds right now, so you may have seen it already. But, if you ask me, this image really says it all when it comes to professional sports. THIS is what it’s all about. Click the thumbnail to the right to see what I mean.

They talk about the benefits sports brings to a young persons life. Proof positive that is true.

For those of you who’ve visited here before (and you sad bastards should identify yourselves if you have), you know of my love for everything at HomeStarRunner.com. I consider it to be the most creative and funniest Web site on all the Planet Earth. Well, so far it’s the best one I’ve found. Steve told me about it three months ago or so and I can’t get enough of Strong Bad.

Apparently a number of other people have discovered HSR in the past weeks and slowly but surely the site’s been getting slower and slower, especially on Mondays when they release the latest Strong Bad E-Mail. This week the site was so slammed with traffic you just couldn’t get on. Constant 404 errors since Monday. It’s been completely buggered.

As of today it looks like they got everything fixed and they poked fun at their server problems in this hillarious bit of flash animation.

I’ll say this for Strong Bad and Homestar, they don’t have to worry about the links from this page driving too much traffic to their site. I think 2 people visited this J-dub.interneto in the past 7 weeks.

Around December 15th or so I stopped doing the weight training I had been doing pretty regularly for the previous two months. Basically, I pulled all my Christmas crap out of my second room which holds my weights and weight bench and made a complete mess of the area. Empty boxes and Christmas crap was strewn in all directions, which made it impossible to room to work out. So I stopped.

In the 30 or so days since I’ve been on five 30 minute walks and that’s it. The exercise really tapered off. Yesterday I went for a walk and today I got the room cleaned up and started using the weights again. It’s amazing how in 30 short days just how much progress you can loose. While I didn’t lower the weight on any of my exercises, I had to come down anywhere from 15 – 30 reps per exercise. When I stopped a month ago I was able to do 100 crunches, 3 sets of 35 or so. Today I was able to do 3 sets of 20, a total of 60. While I was working out frustration came over me big time, thinking about how if I had really kept at it for the past 30 days I’d be much further along.

The good news is that in the last 30 days I haven’t gained any of the weight back I lost. I’m currently at 218 pounds and would really like to be down below 200. I’m going to get back to a routine of 3 days a week weight training and 2 days a week of cross-training (mostly hard walking, light weights on those days). The only bit of bad news is that my arms kill tonight. Probably over did it a bit in upper body, but we’ll know better tomorrow, won’t we?

Every time I hear one of those news reports about how America is a nation of fat asses it upsets me that I’m in that group. I’ve come down 20 pounds since November of 2001 and I plan on being at least another 20 pounds lighter by November of 2003.

For all of you putting off the weight training, force yourself. Don’t force yourself to over do it, but force yourself to get off your ass and walk, job, lift, climb, whatever. Start out slow and keep to it.

The Daily Bit
Weight: 218 lbs.
Song: “Belfast” by Orbital
Book: “Ham on Rye” by Charles Bukowski
Oil: Mobil One Syntetic Oil
Preferred Species of Monkey: Rhesus

In America today we celebrate the memory of Civil Rights activist/leader Martin Luther King Jr.. There’s nothing I could say that could really pay proper tribute to the man and his accomplisments, especially in light of everything else that’s ever been said about the man, but as I read coverage of the celebrations today an odd memory occurred to me.

When I was in sixth grade I had to write a report on MLK. I knew a little about him before I did the report, but not much. Once I was done with the report I was fascinated by the man. I recall after finishing the report saying to my parents that when I grew up I wanted to be just like MLK and wanted to have the same kind of job. Looking back at that innocent comment I can imagine my parents thinking, “Uhmmmmm … Okay!” While innocence is something that must be appreciated and embraced, it’s also amusing how completely ignorant it is.

For more on King and his milestones, read this CNN story.

Anyone who’s known me for longer than five minutes knows my love of TiVo is pure. Since I picked up my TiVo I’ve personally convinced at least 8 people to join the TiVolution. It may sound strange to a non-TiVo owner when I say it’s one of the most important purchases I’ve ever made, but it really is. It’s simplified my life while allowing me to enjoy my love of dramatic television the way I like it. When I meet another TiVo owner, inevitably there will be at least a 10 minute conversation about the benefits membership has. Today I’ve met the FCC Chairman. In this article the chariman of the Federal Mother Fucking Communications Commission has recently joined the TiVolution. So, for all of you who haven’t joined yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

I’ve written of my love of Home Star Runner and all things Strong Bad, but this week’s e-mail is worth mentioning. It’s a bit longer than some, but there is absolutely nothing that sucks about this episode. I hate when people say, “Do yourself the favor and go do this or that,” but seriously, it applies right now. Go watch it. Go. Do it. Watch. Why you stalling? What you waitin’ for? Now, fucker. Revel in the majesty that is Trog Dor!