You look like a pauper, but that's incidental.

I don't really have anything exciting or interesting to write about, so I'll just ramble and complain for a bit.

Mainly I wanted to share this article because FINALLY someone said it.

I have been trying to explain to mumsy dearest for YEEEEEEEEEEEEARS why her diet of Special K, FiberOne bars, Activia, and Lean Cuisines is not making her lose weight. Bosslady is on pretty much the same diet and also wonders why she never loses weight. We have the same conversation like three times a day in the office:

Bosslady: "Want some of this [godawful diet food marketed towards women]?"

Mich: "Is one of the first three ingredients sugar?"

Bosslady: [[reads]] "Yes."

Mich: "No, thank you."

Go grab the first "healthy"/"diet" food you can find. One of the first three ingredients is sugar. "Healthy"/"Low fat" salad dressing? I guarantee the ingredients label reads: water, distilled vinegar, sugar.

sugar

sugar

sugar

sugar

sugar

sugar

sugar

sugar 

it's in freaking everything like I go to buy BREAD for the house and the second ingredient is mothertrucking sugar THERE SHOULD NOT BE SUGAR IN BREAD you do not actually need sugar to activate the yeast I promise.

I do not recall precisely when I stopped eating carbs. I did it so that I can maintain my weight whilst also being the laziest person alive, and it seems to be working. At some point, it morphed into kind of my own version of the Paleo diet--I eat mostly protein and green vegetables, and try to stay away from processed crap that is nothing but garbage and sugar disguised as food.

I make allowances for beer, because beer is amazing.

(I live on meat and beer. My family lives in absolute confusion as to why I'm the only one who hardly ever gets sick.)

...In other news....

- There is a giant hole in my kitchen ceiling. Apparently, the morons who built mumsy's condo just left the bathtub sitting in the upstairs bathroom, they did not actually install it. Lil Sis had a bath instead of a shower the other night, and most of the water ended up in the light fixtures in the kitchen, which any rocket scientist could probably tell you is a bad place to put water.

- Yesterday, for no reason other than my own amusement, I went into Bossman's mouse settings and changed it to the slowest possible speed. There was much profanity, and amusement was achieved.

- It's really f**king hot out. Like it's disgusting and it needs to stop.

- Did y'all know the concept of air conditioning was invented in Ancient Egypt?

- This year's father's day card was a masterpiece:

Big Sis#1 with the books, Lil Bro#1 throwing a tantrum, Big Sis#2 flying, and me and Lil Bro#2 setting things on fire. Accurate.

- I have booked the motels for Kentucky at the end of September and I am super excited.

:D :D :D

- Does anyone else watch Defiance?? I refuse to believe I'm the only one because it's the best show on television and I have no one with whom to discuss it. 

The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd.

In a fit of wild optimism, I recently went and purchased myself a left-handed mandolin.

I've gotten fairly decent at the upright bass in a pretty short amount of time, and I'm teaching myself. Since everyone insisted that playing the upright would be nigh impossible, I presumed that since I found it much easier than I thought I would, then I could totally teach myself anything with strings.

you guys

I don't think I like the mandolin.

Going from playing a regular bass guitar--which is pretty large--and another bass that is six feet tall, holding this thing feels absolutely absurd. It feels like it was made for a very small child. Also the freaking thing goes out of tune if I look at it wrong. 

Lil Bro#1 said he'd give me a crash course in mandolin basics, so we shall see how I do.

Lil Bro#1 learned the mandolin four years ago. And by ~"learned"~ I mean he picked up the mandolin he borrowed from his friend, googled how to tune it, tuned it by ear, and then approximately 90 seconds later played a piece of Vivaldi's music perfectly. From memory. 

Lil Bro#2 and I want to set up a youtube channel wherein we blindfold Lil Bro#1 and hand him random instruments, and then take bets on how fast he can master them.