New Study Shows Blogging Causes Weight Gain August 29, 2007

There’s a new study that just came out that shows that blogging causes significant weight gain. It was published just two minutes ago, in my head, and had a sample size of one. It demonstrated conclusively that one summer of blogging caused the participant to gain fifteen pounds.

———————————————————————————————————–

In this study, the participant utilized a laptop and wireless internet connection to create a blog. The participant spent most of the time on the sofa, often with strawberry Pocky nearby. Despite an average of one hour of swimming laps or walking per day, and the frenzied activity of phalanges typing posts into WordPress and passwords into social networking sites, the overall inactivity exhibited by the participant caused a metabolic decline of approximately three Pocky sticks per hour. The participant had this to say in her interview with the author of the study:

They say that your butt becomes ‘one with the couch’. I say that my butt became a couch.

The ethics of this study were questionable. The participant found that she had to buy a new wardrobe for work, which negated any earnings from her blog. She is also suffering from Pocky withdrawal, in addition to withdrawal from all other refined carbohydrates. She also has registered complaints about having to go to the gym during the busy period after work, which means that all of the treadmills with the television screens are taken, causing the participant to suffer from extreme boredom.

The implications of the study are twofold. First, bloggers must consider that for each hour spent online, caloric intake must be adjusted and brought into alignment with the caloric requirements of an individual who is in a state of REM sleep. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to blog must become more easily integrated into activities that create a higher ratio of Pocky/lean muscle tissue.

This can be accomplished by implementing some of the following recommendations:

1. Bloggers can utilize voice recognition software, thus enabling them to blog while driving, cleaning the house, and having sex. It is entirely possible that live sex blogging may create increased caloric burn while simultaneously creating more ad revenue.

2. Blogging tools, such as a large monitor and ergonomic keyboard, should be widely available. Shopping carts are a good example of how blogging could authentically enter the public domain. This would also increase user satisfaction by giving bloggers the ability to blog in real-time about store specials or the inherent evil of Wal-mart.

3. Bloggers should meet each other and have sex, which burns 150 calories per 14.9 minutes. The social aspect of blogging and weight gain should not be discounted. The participant found that her propensity to eat Pocky decreased directly in proportion to the distance of an attractive male. The participant noted that attractive males were a rarity in the vicinity of her couch, which perhaps accounted for some of the increase in adipose tissue.

The study was cut short by a period of three days, when upon weighing herself, the participant used her lower extremities to inflict blunt force trauma on the weighing device, causing its components to break into small pieces on a tile floor.

Difficult Coworkers: Coping When You Work With Mr. Sir August 28, 2007

I work with Mr. Sir. Mr. Sir is vastly more difficult to behaviorally “manage” than all of the students put together. Friday, when Mr. Sir found out that I was going to be doing some after-school tutoring, he told me a story about his days on the oil fields, concluding with, “…and those hands what did extra for the boss, we called ’suckasses’”.

We were in an in-service at the time, and Mr. Sir had been telling his little story under his breath.

“So what are you trying to say there, Mr. Sir?” I said a bit too loudly. “Are you saying that that people who work harder are suckasses?”

I gave him my best cheesy grin. The other folks in the room glanced over, smiled, and chuckled. Mr. Sir and I have been at it ever since I accepted this position last year.

So what do you do when you work with those, um, difficult people? Here is a short list.

1. Maintain your sense of humor at all times.

I can honestly say that I get a kick out of yanking Mr. Sir’s chain. He started it, but that no longer matters. He now tries to get me back on a continual basis, but it never works because I think most things are funny and he doesn’t think anything is funny. Believe me, I have the upper hand here. Of course this aggravates him even more, because he can’t figure out why. But what’s he gonna do?

2. Focus on the positive.

Last year, one of the teacher’s aides became very angry at me. She was so mad that she was screaming, “I don’t care if you do have a Ph.D., I don’t have to do a damn thing that you say!”

Immediately after hearing the word “Ph.D.”, every word she said sounded like the teacher in the Charlie Brown specials…”Wa waa, wa waa wa waa…”

Cool! She thinks I have a Ph.D.! I got the props without doing the work!

3. Lift some weights. and

4. Be creative.

Another strong personality we have at my school did not want the extra responsibility of working with a student known to have caused bodily injury to prior teachers. The student was fresh out of Texas Youth Corrections, and annoyingly, his probation officer was insisting that he come to school. This teacher, who has a military background, suggested that I do that bit of extra duty. I, being reasonable, didn’t want to.

So I put my elbow on the table and challenged her to a bit of arm wrestling. I proposed that the loser get to spend the time alone in the room tutoring the student. She, being as cocky as me, took me up on it. Now, I didn’t think for a second that I would win. I am no match for military training in arm wrestling. I just wasn’t going to go down without a fight. With my principal’s encouragement, we went for it. And I won! Now when I go to the gym, I am inspired to lift extra weights, because it wasn’t easy, and she is just waiting for a chance to get me good.

I do have to admit that this may have been a bad idea, though, since it is really the winner who would have had a better chance of defending themselves against an angry student if it came down to brass tacks. Fortunately, no one thought of that.

5. Be silly.

Ironically, this is the most serious suggestion that I have to offer. I work in an environment that has a very difficult time with employee retention, and that attracts people who have, shall we say, intense, personalities. And yeah, I’m one of them. The only way I have found to deal with this is by being a goof. You can “kill ‘em with kindness” all day, and I do, but when push comes to shove, silliness works every time. Walking around with a fake roach taped to the bodice of your shirt will take your coworkers’ minds off of their problems immediately, guaranteed.

You may be thinking, but what if I don’t work in an environment that encourages creativity and humor?

I am so sorry…

Creativity 101: 5 Ways You Can Make Your Blogging Groooovy August 26, 2007

Sitting around at home writing in your underwear is a pretty low-stress gig, but sometimes it can be too much of a good thing. Writing is a solitary pursuit, which can ironically leave you without the ideas that got you started writing in the first place. If you end up with severe brain drain, try one of these creative writing techniques to get your writing groove on.

1. Grab a trashy magazine and check out the headlines.

There are great ideas both on the cover and inside. I like to use this “creativity exercise” as an excuse to grab a Maxim and check out whats going on in men’s heads. It scares me. I digress. At any rate, headlines such as How They Did It: Five Women Lose 100 Pounds in Five Months can be morphed into How They Did It: Five Bloggers Get 1000 RSS Subscribers in Record Time . If you’re the serious sort, instead of grabbing a trashy magazine, use The Economist.

2. Play cards with yourself.

Get three different colored markers and 15 index cards. Divide the index cards into three piles of five. On the first pile of index cards, write subjects from your niche. If you have a money blog, it might look like this:

• Saving
• Investing
• Making $ Online
• Frugality
• Career Advice

Then, using a different colored marker, write down five formats on the next five cards. For example:

• List
• Photo Essay
• Long Informative
• Link List
• Review

Finally, with the last marker and set of index cards, list some random things that come to your mind. You may want to add some more index cards at this point.

• breeds of cats
• personality types
• musical instruments
• fish
• tools

Now mix up the cards. You may end up with something like a list of ways to be frugal with illustrations of a Persian and alley cat next to one another. If you don’t like what you get, mix it up again. Eventually you’ll come up with something. Just don’t do what I did and include “underwear” in your last set of cards!

By the way, if you like to play cards, consider winning the $50 in my Strip Poker Contest. It’s easy, but there is only a week left!

3. Lie awake at night and stare at the ceiling.

Eventually you will drift into a alpha state where you think of all sorts of odd ideas, some of which might even be good. Keep a notebook and pencil next to you, because, believe me, you are not going to remember this stuff when you wake up. In the morning, review what you have written. The ratio of nonsense to brilliance typically runs about 99:1, but that’s okay, because that one percent pays off. Good ways to induce insomnia include having a teenager, drinking coffee too late, contemplating the nature of consciousness and owning a cat who enjoys “making biscuits” on your head with its extremely sharp claws at two in the morning.

4. Copy other bloggers.

Look at the structure of articles you enjoy and duplicate it using your own content. This is how I got the idea for 11 Mistakes Your Blog Makes in Bed. Likewise, if you see some content out there that you can do better, go for it. You can put your own spin on anything. Ultimately, it is your voice and perspective that make your blog unique more than anything else.

5.Read books.

Make a habit of keeping some Post-it notes next to you whenever you are reading a book. Whenever you get to a passage that relates in some way to your blog, however vaguely, stick a Post-it on the page. You’ll find that a single well-written book can spawn a dozen posts. Don’t disregard fiction–you never know when you’ll run across a quote, story or character that will spark a completely unique post.

Subscribe. It’s fun to waste time on the Internet.