For All My Male Sisters...

lol - awesome...

"What What (In The Butt)"



That flaming cross in the beginning is my favorite part!

Hey Skybar - perhaps we should add this one to the playlist for future house party dance fests in your living room? Qued up right after Gowan and CRUUUUUUE!

Supersize Me

It’s bloody miserable outside. Snowing and blowing - ack.
I think it’s about time that winter left us alone for another year by now…

Anyways.

I read this article today in the paper, and saw the video piece on it last night on the national news:

Overweight eight-year-old sets off child obesity debate
Wednesday, February 28, 2007

LONDON (AP) -- A mother who feared she might lose custody of her obese eight-year-old son unless he lost weight was allowed to keep the boy after striking a deal Tuesday with social workers to safeguard his welfare.

The case has set off a debate over child obesity and raised questions about whether genetics, junk food or bad parenting is to blame.

Connor McCreaddie, of Wallsend in northeastern England, weighs 218 pounds, four times the weight of a healthy child his age.

Connor and his mother, Nicola McKeown, 35, both attended a child protection meeting Tuesday with North Tyneside Council officials.
Before it began, McKeown, a single mother of two, said she hoped she would not lose custody of her son.

Afterward, the Local Safeguarding Children Board issued a statement saying it "was able to confirm that its hope and ambition is to enable this child to remain with his family. In order to move this matter forward, we have made a formal agreement with the family to safeguard and promote the child's welfare."

The agency provided no details about what Connor or his mother would have to do to fight his obesity.

The hearing was held under the Children Act, which places a duty on the local authority to conduct an inquiry if it has "reasonable cause to suspect that a child ... in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm."

The boy's case attracted national attention after his mother allowed an ITV News crew to film his day-to-day life for a month.

When he was 21/2, Connor was too heavy for his mother to pick him up, and at age five, he weighed more than 126 pounds, said The Journal, a regional newspaper. Now the boy, who is tall for his age at five feet, wears adult clothes, the newspaper said.

Sky TV showed footage of Connor's mother serving him meals of french fries, meat and buttered bread.

"He'll hover around the kitchen for food. He'll continually go in the fridge," McKeown said of her son. "I just keep telling him to get out of the fridge, wait until meal times and stuff. But ... he was born hungry. He has always been hungry."

"Bacon. Mmmm.... That's my favourite. Um ... chicken , steak, sausage," the boy told the camera.
Obesity is essentially caused by eating more calories than you burn. Obese people are sometimes thought to have lower metabolic rates than normal, meaning they need less food to maintain their weight.

Childhood obesity is of particular concern because it greatly increases the risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, skeletal disorders and strokes. Certain cancers are also associated with obesity, and obese children have a higher chance of premature death.

Several genetic conditions also contribute to obesity, such as Prader-Willis syndrome, a rare disease characterized by excessive appetite, problems in the central nervous system and a low IQ. Another rare genetic disease, Bradet-Biedl syndrome, can lead to problems such as vision loss, obesity and being born with extra fingers and toes.

It remained unclear whether doctors had determined whether diet and lifestyle were the only cause of Connor's obesity. -

Here’s a pic of Connor:

This is a horrific story.

I understand that the mother loves her child and wishes to give him what he wants as an expression of her love, but like, come ON lady.

Your kid is 218 pounds at age 8!! Be concerned for his health for crying in the sink.
I mean really.
His heart must be working some serious effen overtime! I bet he has high blood pressure and/or diabetes too.

I’m sure it’s possible that a genetic condition of some kind may be contributing to his predisposition to be overweight, but I suspect diet is the main culprit here.

I was eating my dinner last night when the footage of this child came on, and I totally lost my appetite.
He was devouring the nastiest, greasiest chicken drumstick I've ever seen in one shot, and sucking on the gristle of a shiny, fatty pork chop in the other, professing his love to the food as he inhaled it. “Mmm…I love me pork chops..slurp, narb, hum, blargh, snort, yum...*

Gah. Turned my stomach.

I hope the mother can get some professional assistance from a dietician or something to change this kid’s diet on the ASAP. As well as her own eating habits no doubt - she does buy the fattening stuff from the grocery store on her own accord.
Maybe she just really doesn’t know any better.

I’d hate to see the family broken apart due to this - a kid in the “system” rarely results in a good outcome.

But I suppose if nothing changes and the mother doesn’t put her foot down by seriously restrcting caloric intake, then a stint away from home for health may be the only answer.

Sweet Christ.
I still can’t even believe he’s only 8!

Busy Makes One Dizzy

Meh…just too effen busy to post these days.

I’ll make a plan for a great post highlighting what kind of shenanigans I got into while hanging out with Sandy and our friends, but by the time I get time to write a post, it’s like 5 days later, and seems like old news.

The majority of my time is work, and I mean like averaging 10-12 hours a day.
That may not sound like much, but I'm ending up with between 50-60 hours on my time card every week! Wtf happened to the good ol' 9-5/40 hrs per week?

I’m involved in a very intense project right now (and for the rest of the year) that is very mentally demanding. By the time I get home, I don’t have much to offer in the brains department unfortunately.

So although I have every intention to post when thoughts pop into my head or a funny thing happened in the course of my days, I just never can when I have the mind for it.

So I do apologize for the lack of posts, but not too much I can do to change the situation right now.

Unless of course I quit my job. AS IF.

Perhaps I should begin trying my luck at the lottery.

Or hanging out at the casino.

Bingo halls?

Some anonymous www angel send me a check for a couple hundred thousand so I can take a much needed break from the corporate zoo and paint for a year or two?

Prolly not gonna happen.

Ah well, such is life.
Just gotta keep chugging along.

Sweet Hay-Zeus

Dear time,

Please slow the fuck down.

Thank you.

Best,

CC

GIDDY up!

lol...

Hunting for Rabbits

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the human condition to search.

To search for happiness, to search for love.
To search for meaning.
To search for satisfaction, to search for validation.
To search for wealth, to search for ways to reach a certain status quo.

To search, to search, to search.

We all do it; it’s part of the human condition.

The more I digest this information and the more I observe my own desire to search for the bigger and the better, it’s becoming clear that WHAT we search for is not the point, and it most probably won’t make us satisfied in the long run.
I think it comes down to WHY we are searching.

What is causing this underlying desire to search? What is missing within US that makes us look for relief from outside sources?

Big question.

I suppose it comes down to self-observation to narrow down our inner desire to search.
Which is no easy feat in this day and age – we are bombarded with information and noise overload 24 hours a day. Doesn’t leave much room for inner reflection I reckon.

But sometimes, if we’re quiet, we can hear and see what precipitates the urge to fill a perceived void. Even if just for a moment.
It’s a bit scary I think, because we get a clear view of what unfinished business we are carrying around inside of ourselves that is causing the unease. The unrest. The discomfort.

If we look at it this way, we must accept that we have some work to do on ourselves.

And that’s tough, right?

Much easier to look for a new pair of shoes, a new lover, a new job, a new investment, whatever does it for you.

Thing is, the temporary satisfaction we get from these outside fillers is just that – temporary. Filler.

And we return to feeling that something’s missing again and again. And in turn, we busy ourselves with outside "distractions" to fill the void again and again.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

I think it takes a lot of courage to face one’s own self. Our faults, our shortcomings, our inner feelings of inadequacy, our fears.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that once we do this, we won’t have a choice but to accept it and deal with it.
The result, naturally, would be a seriously decreased need to search for something we won’t ever fully find in the outside world anyways.

Perhaps then, the things/people/situations that are truly meant for us in this life would come to us? No searching involved.

Sounds good in theory, looks good on paper, but probably one of the hardest things any one of us will ever try and truly master.

There ya go kids.
Stick that in the refrigerator and let it marinate overnight.