Eat Well, Stay Fit, and Die Anyway

I think I have a button that says that… (up in the title).  I’ll have to check.  It used to be my mantra, back when I was young and bulletproof.  OK… now too.

I saw this thing online yesterday, that totally messed with my head.  It was an article about the various things you can to do add to or subtract time from your life.  I pretty much knew I was in trouble before I even investigated.  You’ll never see me as a poster boy for healthy living, unless there are major breakthroughs in the fields of watching TV and eating bacon.

So these are the kind of things that affect our longevity:

OK, let’s see what I’m looking at here… First, on the “Plus” side…

+ 30 min - Drinking 1 alcoholic beverage.  I think I can find a loophole here.

Jules’s “Big Carl,” from “Cougartown.”

+ 30 min – Drinking 2-3 cups of coffee.  Seriously?  I thought it was good for you to kick coffee, like I did a few years back.  I used to drink 2 cups each weekend day, from grade school through several years ago.  So that’s… let’s see… 1 hour a week times 52 weeks, times 29 years equals 1508 hours or 62 days.  Hah!  Two months in the bank, just for having coffee breath.

+ 1 hour – The first 20 minutes of cardio.  Uh oh.  Can you break it up?  I probably walk 10 minutes from the subway to work and then 8 hours later, 10 minutes back every day.  Probably doesn't count.

+ 30 min – The next 40 minutes of cardio.  Yeah, right.  Who do they think I am, Cassie?

+ 2 hours – Eat 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables.  Sure, I probably get 5 servings a year.  What?  Five servings a day?  What am I, some kind of hippie?  Crap.

OK, I’m not racking up much in the way of bonus time.  Now let’s check the “Minus” side…

-15 min – For every alcoholic drink after the first.  If they don’t count the Big Carl loophole, I’m in trouble.  What’s the point of drinking anything, if you can’t have more than one?

-30 min – Watching 2 hours of TV.  Seriously?  I work all day and I can’t even take a load off for some prime time TV?  Or one hockey game?  I don’t know about this one.  How can sitting still for 2 hours cost you one quarter of that time off your life?  And what about sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day?  Man, I am so screwed.

-30 min – Eating one portion of red meat.  Per what?  Every time?  I never saw that disclaimer on my Wendy’s bacon double cheeseburger.  I guess I’m going to have to hold onto the notion of “quality of life,” because if I can’t eat a bacon cheeseburger, why go on?

-2 hours – Just for being male.  Now they’re just being spiteful.  Since they already dock me for watching TV, drinking and eating meat, isn’t that double-dipping?

-5 hours – Smoking one pack of cigarettes.  Finally!  I vice I don’t have to worry about!

OK, some more quick calculations, and voila, it looks like my number will be up… some time next week.  It’ll be a shame to miss the Pittsburgh trip in April.  At least now if you see an absence of blog updates, you’ll know what happened.

You know, I do worry about what would happen to my blog if I were to snuff it.  I mean, how would you know?  How many of us have blogs listed in our blogrolls that stop getting updated?  I know after a couple of months of inactivity, I usually delete them.  What if the blogger died?   Deleting their blog from the blogroll would be like adding insult to injury.

What I ought to do is leave detailed instructions for Pinky on how to update my blog, should I unexpectedly shuffle off this mortal coil.  In fact, I could probably prepare a draft… a Last Blog and Testament, if you will.

I would feel terrible if I kicked it and you didn’t know what happened.  I mean, I can’t count on any nationwide news coverage of my passing, unless something snaps and I take a Bushmaster rifle down to the Ratbird stadium.  Or repeatedly run over some schmo who doesn’t use his turn signal.  So the only way to blog my death would be to set it up in advance.

Maybe I can do some sort of check-box system, or fill-in-the-blanks.  Leave it to me to turn my expiration into a series of Mad-Libs.

Anyway, if this blog ever goes inactive, I think you can just assume I died.  Because otherwise, you know I’d update you on whatever was going on.

“Hi guys.  Just wanted to let you know I got hit by the Ravens’ team bus yesterday.  I’m pretty sure it was because I was wearing a Steelers jacket and hat.  In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have stood in the road, flipping them off. 

In my absence, I’d appreciate it if you would vote democratic, give to Planned Parenthood, and every so often, make fun of Cassie for being both Super Mom and a snot-nosed kid.  I’ll miss you all.  Gotta go now… I see this light and I feel like I should go check it out.

No wait, never mind… it’s just the operating room light.  Why can’t they just let me rest in peace?”

Found it.

Director’s DVD Commentary: My last post was about my angst over watching the Ratbirds win the Super Bowl last weekend.  Even if you've seen it, you should check back to see the comment from Misty, one of the few Baltimoreans that reads this site.  It’s worth the trip.