Books Lying Open
¤ The Bachman Books, Stephen King
¤ Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
¤ Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, Stephen King

Soul-Devouring Worry:
¤ Accurate measurement.

Answer of the Day:
¤ Because it just tastes fresher.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May your home redecorating plans spin out of control.

he infamous lemonade cleansing diet program is set to begin on Friday (more on this in Sunday's blog) and with a hard date, we've been planning our meals to terminate that day. We're not actually going right on the lemonade mixture then, since you're supposed to ease into it a bit with a day before of no big meals, and ideally no small ones either. We don't eat much lately anyway, but we'll probably go with big Jamba Juices and some other insubstantial stuff. Tomato soup, ramen, fruit, etc. Then, starting Saturday, we'll be on the lemonade only, while chugging late night salt water washes, herbal teas, etc, to help clear out the pipes. So to speak.

The funny thing about this count down is that we know we're eating our last food Thursday, and won't be eating again for a week or more after that. So we've been trying to consume everything perishable in advance, while not doing any shopping. Also, we're still dieting, but with the prospect of no solid food for a while, we're making sure we eat things we really like on these last few days. We got our favorite sandwiches at Claim Jumper for lunch Wednesday, ate half of them (that's all most normal people can eat of their sandwiches) and then had various light leftovers for a late dinner (corn on the cob, fried rice I've been experimenting with lately, ramen, two nectarines, etc).

Thursday we'll probably hit Sweet Tomatoes for a late lunch/early dinner (our first meal of the day, given our sleeping schedules and stuff ourselves on salad, soup, and muffins. Then we'll eat the last halves of our sandwiches late Thursday night, and that'll be that. Smoothies and such Friday, and then lemonade w/ maple syrup and cayenne pepper from then on, for a week+. I'm not hugely excited about it, though I'm curious to see how it goes.

The new bathroom scale we bought Wednesday was a motivator as well. We  bought it so we'd have some way to quantify our anticipated weight loss once we're on the diet/cleansing, and since most people report losing a pound or more per day, mostly from cleaning out the old crap (literally) that's stuck in their lower intestine, it should be entertaining to chart our progress. I hadn't weighed myself in months, and when I hopped on the scale and saw 179lbs, I was a bit surprised. I used to eat everything in sight when I was 16-22 or so, trying to gain weight from my slim 150ish, and was never able to do so. My body just burned it all up. From 23-27 or so I'd fluctuate a bit from time to time, going up to maybe 160 or 165 during the winter when I wasn't getting much exercise, but I'd lose it as soon as I starter work in April, or if I just got out and did some mountain biking or whatever.  Now, in the years since I've been 27, I try to eat less, exercise regularly, and I still find the weight going up. My nearly 180 weight was more of a surprise when I factored in the mild diet I've been on for a couple of weeks, and my estimated 5 pound weight loss during that time.

So yeah, I could certainly stand to drop 10 or 15 on the lemonade cleansing.

In stranger weight and body size news, I talked to my dad Wednesday, and heard a golf story (of course). He'd recently ended up in a foursome with semi-famous ex-baseball player Kevin Mitchell. They had a friendly round, chatted it up, and at some point Kevin talked about an injury he'd had that necessitated his wearing a cast on his leg. Before the injury, he said, his thigh had been 39", which dad found amazing, and I found amazing when dad told me. That's just one leg; far thicker than my entire waist, and Kevin's not a lardball; he's in pretty good shape. He's just really big.

Spurred by that story, I measured my thigh and found it about what I expected. 22 inches, IIRC. Anyway, I moved up and measured my waist, wondering if I'd lost anything on the recent diet, and was shocked that I had a 36" waist. Shocked because all of my pants are 32", and they fit fine. I can't wear my older 30" cargo pants, now, at least not comfortably, but that's why I'm working on a diet.

And no, I don't suck in my stomach and bulge out grotesquely over the waistband; I can easily close the button or snap, and no, they aren't stretch pants. Levi's jeans, 32/32 waist/inseam. Adding to the evidence, I wore some old black slacks to lunch on Wednesday, and wore a belt I've used for about 10 years. I comfortably fit into the 2nd punch hole. The holes are about 1 inch apart, and when I was working at the stadium and in a skinny phase, I had to occasionally go down to the 4th hole, and that was over a tucked in shirt.  I was usually in the 3rd hole though, and I could have used that one yesterday, though it would have been sort of tight. (I can never see how really fat guys strap in and walk around with their guts dangling over the belt; it looks so uncomfortable to be cut in two like that.)

The point of the belt story is that while I'm a bit larger than in the past, I'm not that much different. An inch in the waist at most. I can wear 32" pants easily, and almost 30".  But I measured my waist with an actual cloth measuring tape, and I was 36"! 35 if I sucked it in a bit. How can that be? Are all pants now made several inches larger than their listed measurements, so that the gradually-expanding waistline of the world can still fit into pants they used to wear in the old days? Is this fooling people into thinking they're still at or near their old size, when they are in fact 20 or 30 pounds heavier?

Curious, I got out my Levi's jeans, laid them on the ground, and actually measured them. The inseam first, which is from the joining point at the crotch down to the cuff. It was exact, exactly 32 inches.  And since the waist was 32" as well, I should have been able to wrap the leg around my waist, if I kept the inseam straight, right? Not a chance; I came up about 3 inches short.

I then measured around the inside of the waist of the jeans, taking advantage of the flexible ruler to keep it tight against the denim. Results? 35.5 inches.

To recap:

• My actual naked waist, without squeezing: 36 inches.

• My Levi's jeans listed measurements: 32/32 inches.

• Jeans inseam actual measurement: 32 inches.

• Jeans waist actual measurement: 35.5 inches.

I didn't actually measure all of them, but I own 4 or 5 other pairs of jeans, from all different manufacturers, and all of them are 32", and all of them fit. The same goes for half a dozen pairs of slacks, though those don't compound the lie with a listed inseam measurement.

So yes, there is some universal hoax in the clothing industry. Inseam measurements are accurate, since no one lies about how long their legs are, or gets longer legs as they age. But when it comes to waist measurements, every pair of pants and shorts I own tell a lie. They all list a number, 30 or 31 or 32, that's 3-4 inches smaller than they actually are.  We all know that clothes vary a great deal in size; I've got jeans that are loose and jeans that are tight when both say 32", and women's sizes are notorious for their overlap and inaccuracy. But this is not just a small variance in size, this is a consistent, universal agreement to undercut waist sizes by several inches.

What I really wonder is what tailors do. They measure your waist, inseam, etc. They know the actual inches measurement, and they must know that all manufactured clothing lie about the waist circumference. So if I went in and got measured for some dress slacks and told them I always wear 32/32, would the guy measure me, see 36, nod his head, and make me some 36" pants, while telling me they were 32"? Or would he put 36 on them, and confuse me terribly when I put them on and they fit fine?

More over, how did this come about? Does every measurement lie equally? Or is it just adult clothing, since kids aren't as fat (usually) and aren't vain about their waist measurements?  Would a kid who was full grown at 14 go from wearing 35" kids pants to 32" adult pants?

It all has me terribly confused. Go measure your own waist, and then some of your pants, if you want to check it yourself. I'm perfectly confident in my analysis.

With that out of the way, here's a bunch of misc news items and other tidbits, followed by some kitty talk and photos.

¤ Maybe the most amazing steering I've ever seen demonstrated in real life, from a road rally race. The live action is amazing, and then you see the replay and how the guy saves it from going over twice, and then steers into it the third time to stay upright, while heading straight towards the cliff and the running photographer... You can not watch this without a "daaaaaamn!" coming from your mouth.  Just go watch it, it's .wmv so the download is a quick one.

¤ I posted a site with a real doll vs. love doll comparison the other day, and said it was disturbing. This one is even worse. It's a Real Doll repair guide, which features dozens of very clear, large, full color pictures of silicone love dolls in various states of destruction and repair. The creepiness of it comes from the dolls looking essentially human, sometimes more so than your average Hollywood starlet, while major portions of their bodies are ripped open, split from pressure, or missing entirely. It actually reminded me of some of the sickest anime, where they've got women cut into cubes or sewn up as quadruple amputees. I'm not going to hunt up a link to that stuff, but I will say that I got both real doll stories, and various other funny celebrity photos and sex-related stuff (like these two truly depressing photos of the formerly-attractive and now white-trash Britney Spears) from a few of odd blogs I've recently discovered.

Check out The Superficial, Fleshbot, and Daze Reader. Daze Reader has a blogroll with about 100 other sexblogs, none of which I've checked out myself, so no recommendations there. I hardly have time to keep up with the sites I like now; much less risk finding more to haunt.  Also, all three of these are more or less safe for work on their title pages, but all have links to every sort of porn and other weirdness, so don't say I didn't warn you. 

Just wanted to point out that actually Spidey 2 did open up worldwide, at least to my knowledge it did o_O i saw it a few days ago at the theater, and overall it's a pretty good improvement over the first. I enjoyed it a lot, although there were the usual "*snort* that so would not happen even to a super hero" scenes and such. All the actors did very well, although I'm not a real big fan of Kristin Dunst (Kristen? not sure). as my friend likes to put it which gets a giggle out of me whenever she says it, "go home please and PUT ON A BRA!"

Overall it's a pretty good movie and I would recommend it. I'm a tad biased since I really enjoyed Dr Oct and his very well done mechanical arms (given an serpentine/"alive" quality to them by the CG effects coordinators and such), but i think it's worth seeing in theater, and if not then definitely for a DVD/VHS popcorny experience.

-Elsha 

Elsha had a few other comments on the movie that I've snipped here, since the last paragraph wraps things up pretty well. And, as she/he points out (I never know what gender anyone is anymore, with everyone using online aliases) Spider Man 2 has opened in many countries around the world, including Korea. It's only pulled in $44m so far, but that's in just a week, and it hasn't even opened in Germany, the UK, and Japan, all countries in the top ten in worldwide box office. I thought it hadn't since I didn't see any international grosses listed online; forgetting that foreign box office returns usually take a week to tabulate and get posted.

Speaking of movie box office issues (and when am I not?), I speculated that King Arthur wouldn't be much of a hit, coming out the week after Spider Man 2 and starring no proven box office draws.  The fact that it's getting bad reviews (29% out of 96 reviews on RT) doesn't help either. We won't know for a few days yet, but the usually-accurate Box Office Guru's prediction is not a strong one. He says $32m for five days (since it's opening Wednesday) and $22m for the weekend. For a comparison, The Chronicles of Riddick opened to $24m, dropped quickly, and is going to end up under $60m, which is pretty much a disaster for a $100m+ film. Also, Riddick basically sucked, so it seems to have something else in common with King Arthur.

We saw Riddick despite the bad reviews, and basically regretted it. Dunno if we'll be seeing King Arthur yet, but I was never that interested and Malaya seems to have lost much of her interest with the bad reviews. I suppose it depends just how we feel next week, when we'll have been on our upcoming lemonade-only diet for several days. We might be desperate to get out of the house, find amusement, and smell the food other people are eating. Though really, if we decide to go for an action movie matinee, wouldn't we be pretty stupid to go to 29% positive King Arthur when we could opt for 95% positive Spider Man 2?

I bring up the cats since we just got a bathroom scale (even though it's not in the bathroom at this point) Wednesday afternoon ($9.95 at BBB, and we had a 20% off coupon), and with that new weighing technology, a tally of the cats had to commence.

We didn't own a scale previously, and hadn't weighed the cats since they got their vet check up last September, when Jinx was still little more than a glorified kitten. At that time, Dusty weighed in at a strapping 15 pounds, while Jinx was a fierce but tiny 2.4 pounds. Most of it fur. (Not that that's changed much.)  Dusty was a bit porky at 15 pounds, with a pronounced belly that waggled from side to side when he trotted, which wasn't something he did a lot of.

Now? The bathroom scale isn't that accurate to individual pounds (mostly since the slashes are so close together on the dial) but as best we can tell, Dusty has slimmed down to 11 pounds, and Jinx has filled out to 7 pounds. She's still substantially smaller than him, when we see them side by side. Especially when she's curled up like a real cat, rather than sprawled out like a hound dog.

One of our goals/hopes in getting a second cat was that the seldom-active Dusty would play more and get more exercise, and since he's had the same food as always, yet has lost 33% of his body weight in less than a year, it would seem that our hope has come true. There's no telling how big Jinx will get, since she's less than a year old and still growing, but she's very sturdy and muscular from all of her leaping/running/tackling, not to mention the fact that she wears a solid 2-3 inches of fur over her entire body, which has to weigh somewhat more than Dusty's much shorter fur. The irony will be if they stop playing/chasing/bear-hugging while kicking furiously enough to disembowel each other if we didn't keep their claws trimmed, and pork up again. And then we need to get another kitten, young enough to be playful and get the two older ones active again.

And yes, that's how those old ladies start out, and pretty soon the health department has to condemn their home, take away their 137 cats, and use a bulldozer to remove the seven tons of cat shit from their house.

Just to be fair, here are a couple of recent shots of Dusty, when he was slumbering in the purple chair and doing "the tongue thing."  It's about his cutest trick, so naturally is something he does very seldom, and entirely unintentionally. He basically forgets to tuck his tongue entirely back into his mouth, and then sits or lies there, unaware that this pink point is protruding past his kill-a-man teeth. It's pretty sad, really, not that that stops us from laughing hysterically as he poses, then looks very quizzical as the humans laugh and point at him. Which, of course, only makes us laugh harder.

Cats must think humans are very easily entertained.

In other cat news, here's Jinxie's new trick. It's pretty cute, at least so far. How well it will age remains to be seen.

That's the bathroom sink, and that's Jinx, and yes, she gets awful thirsty. She used to be content drinking from the tub, especially the metal sliding shower door assembly. Then she started leaping up into the bathroom sink (we let her get up there, but not on the kitchen counters) and lapping up the puddles in the sink. From there it wasn't a big leap to turn on the water, just a trickle, to see what she'd do.

At first she was afraid, and would back up and just watch it for a while. It didn't take her long to get over her fear, and start sniffing at the water up close. She'd even bite at it or paw it, and then shake her face or paw to get the nasty water off. It was all very confusing to her peanut brain.

It took her a while to get it right; at first she'd lean in so the water was hitting her cheek and streaming down past her nose. She could lick it, but she got wet, and water got in her nose. We enjoyed that, but she wasn't too pleased by it. Cat snorts are damn cute.