Lance Armstrong is afraid of looking like a wuss
Faced with the need to take some load off my joints, I’m trying to lose 20 lbs or so. So I am using a calorie-counting application on my iPod, or “iPad Nano” as I like to call it.
Anyway, at the end of each day you look at your totals and think; “Holy crap, where did all the calories even come from?” And you look at the food log like a shopper standing in the parking lot at Wal-Mart incredulous that all those little items added up to eighty bucks when you only went in for some envelopes. But sure enough, they do.
I’m kinda stuck at 214 right now. My goal is to lose one pound a week for twenty weeks. To do that, you have to knock down your calorie total by 500 each day. They’re really kilocalories, which derives from “kilotons”, which is what you feel like you weigh when you get older and are still carrying extra weight.
It’s a depressing exercise, even speaking as someone who likes to exercise. You have to watch like a hawk for self-deception, which isn’t easy because it’s you who is doing the watching. And your favorite foods (I promise it will be the foods you like) all go through a process where underpaid, exploited workers carefully fold the calories and wedge them into the food sideways to run up the total.
The calorie-counting app I’m using is from Lance Armstrong, who according to people I’ve mentioned this to, is apparently either highly admired or a big fat cheater. Whatever; it was the first app on the list when I searched for one. But I was annoyed by his ad on the back of this week’s Parade magazine, in which he points at the camera and gave this stern advice:
“Men over 30 shouldn’t use emoticons. Period. That means no smiley faces, semicolon hotwinks or carrot noses. The Shack and I are just looking out for your best mobile interests here.”
Bite me, Lance. What’s the matter, are emoticons too girlie for you? I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the insecure type. 
Oh, he’s insecure … :-*
I have yet to figure out why “celebrities” whether athletes, actors, or criminals, think they are pundits with ideas worth listening to.
Like anyone else, celebrities are worth listening to on subjects they know something about. When Lance Armstrong talks about surviving cancer, he’s worth listening to. Kevin Costner has invested millions of dollars and considerable study in oil-separating technology, and apparently the system he favors works pretty well.
The breaking point is where personal experience alone is confused with expertise on a subject. Jenny McCarthy has a kid with autism, so she thinks that makes her an expert on vaccines. Um… not so much. You have to think about what personal experience is good for, and what it isn’t.
For example, my personal experience of the Earth is that it’s pretty much flat. Can’t see that eight inches of curvature per mile.
Of course in this case, Armstrong is just shilling for Radio Shack, which is now called “The Shack”. I think I’ll put on “The Shirt” and go have “The Coffee”. Then maybe get to “The Work”.
Mr. Armstrong doubtless knows something about testicular cancer from a patient’s point of view, and something about physical conditioning and training from an athlete’s point of view.
I don’t really care what he has to say about anything else, and, really, about the two subjects I mentioned.
I’ll revert here to my usual boring rant: If I want to watch a bike race (Armstrong) or a movie (Costner), then I will. There is absolutely nothing else I want to hear from those folks, or know about them.
Am I the only one thinking Lance also knows something about performance boosts?
No, but I have to balance that against the question of whether I’d have ever made it through college without caffeine and nicotine.
Gerry – I try not to know much about actors for the selfish reason that it interferes with my enjoyment of the movies they make. It’s hard for me to forget that actor xyz is a racist or Scientologist or whatever. I’d rather just not know.
But like everything else I do, I’m inconsistent about it. For example I very much enjoyed Ed Begley Jr.‘s talk here a few months ago.
To which I reply, Fuck you Lance.
I hate the sporty jock stereotype that as a boy, teen, man, or whatever you are supposed to do this and act this way. I enjoy the occasional sport and like hearing other people talk about them as if they have some real world implication. The bullshit macho male image can go. Lets just enjoy our 21st century gladiator spectacle.