Author Archives: Dennis

Another Gym Annoyance – Power Plates

I don’t know if you’re completely familiar with the concept of a Power Plate, but basically it’s a vibrating slab on which you stand and the vibrations send impulses to your muscles to make them contract and expand rapidly. It’s supposed to be a good work out, and it won’t take you that much time and/or effort. It’s the newest thing in our gym, and a lot of people are doing it. I however, am not one of them.

You see, I think it like an easy way out. You do little and your supposed to get a lot, there’s something wrong with that deal although I haven’t figured out what it is yet. However, my major gripe is that the people who do need that work out, are encouraged to take the easy way out. Do we really want to encourage these people to be lazy?

What’s Up With People in Gyms?

I frequent a gym, it used to be to supplement my Kung Fu exercises so I could keep eating all the junk that I’m eating. Now that I have more time I also do it to get into better shape since I can’t opt for more Kung Fu lessons. I don’t particularly enjoy going to the gym for a couple of reasons. One of which is because a lot of emphasis is put on muscle building and muscle toning. While I don’t mind the latter much, it’s incredibly boring. I do like cardio work, especially aerobics-ee things.

But the real reason I don’t like to go is because I don’t fit in with the crowd very well. Although contemporary sociologists would have a field day studying the mating rituals of the patrons of a gym, and contemporary linguists would have a field day try to figure out the language of the new breed of idiot that hangs around the gym, but it’s the socialite mentality that ruins it all for me.

Do you remember when Rocky Balboa got creamed by Clubber Lang [My favourite; Mr. T!] because he was getting too decadent in his work outs? Well, if you don’t…he did get his ass creamed, and he needed to be instructed by Apollo Creed in a gritty, back-to-basic environment where there were no photo-ops, no freshly squeezed lemon juice and where there was only sweat, pain and adrenaline.

Well, my gym is none of the “sweet, pain and adrenaline.” It’s more like a social club, where bored house wives come to do about 25 minutes on the StairMaster while idly looking at their favourite soap opera being played on one of the many televisions above, or where muscular guys walk around in brightly coloured, tight fitting shirts, making sure that all the female attention is firmly focussed on them.

But that’s not the worst of it…oh no…

…the worst of it is when I get to a machine that I want to abuse to loose my saddle-bags, and some fucknut has put his towel on it, claiming it as his own. “Where is said fucknut,” you’re wondering? I am wondering the same thing. I look around and see a guy, mid-fourties, pretending to be tired and in desperate need of a sip of whatever it is in his Adidas canister. He’s strolling along only to return to the machine that I wanted to use about 6 minutes later – a time in which I would’ve done my 3 sets of 15 and moved on to the next contraption – to do another set of 10.

I think I am going to have to stop writing before I kill someone. Thank you all for listening.

They’re Eating Out

I was told that the following poem, written by Margaret Atwood in 1971 is very close to my own writing style. I wouldn’t be able to say that it is, or isn’t. You decide…

Quote:
They Eat Out – by Margaret Atwood, 1971

In restaurants we argue
over which of us will pay for your funeral

though the real question is
whether or not I will make you immortal.

At the moment only I
can do it and so

I raise the magic fork
over the plate of beef fried rice

and plunge it into your heart.
There is a faint pop, a sizzle

and through your own split head
you rise up glowing;

the ceiling opens
a voice sings Love Is A Many

Splendoured Thing
you hang suspended above the city

in blue tights and a red cape,
your eyes flashing in unison.

The other diners regard you
some with awe, some only with boredom:

they cannot decide if you are a new weapon
or only a new advertisement.

As for me, I continue eating;
I liked you better the way you were,
but you were always ambitious.

In love…

I don’t know if it’s the weather, the season, my hormones or just plain ole chemistry, but I’ve managed to find myself in that familiar jam again; I’m in love.

I just spent the last five days with the most beautiful woman I can imagine, having the most interesting and stimulating conversations, experiencing the most wonderful moments and making the most exciting plans. And this time I didn’t have to drag her bound and gagged into my sound proof basement either.

I love you, Moulsari.

Jobless

So, I lost my job. The company are required, by law, to give me a three month notice, which they have very generously given off so I can look for another job. So I have three months off work, with full pay, including my company car, company gas card, company phone and company computer. After that they give me a “fuck off bonus” of about another month’s salary.

I’m contemplating the Royal Dutch Airforce as a next employer, either piloting Apache helicopters or F-16’s, or finding a job with Airforce Intelligence, the latter of which is more easy to get into and is more in tune with my background. The pilot position is very hard to get into – only 1 out of every 2000 applicants make the bar – but definitely worth a shot.

I’ll keep people updated.