Door Knockers

Disclaimer: This post is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It contains my personal opinions and interpretations of local ordinances and related issues. I am not a lawyer; nothing here should be considered legal advice. I am not responsible for how you use, misuse, or misinterpret anything written here.

My Fortress of Solitude

My home is my fortress of solitude. It’s not much, but I own it. It’s MINE. It doesn’t belong to the bank, and I don’t pay rent to a Landlord.

It took just under two decades, but I managed to pay off a 30-year subprime loan I couldn’t afford and should never have been qualified for, and I did it twelve years early. The Id crew waded across rivers, heh… well, I fucken crossed a goddamn ocean!

I did because hard work and determination mean something to me. I did it because I believe in the American Dream. I believe in “Fuck You”.

“…You get a house with a 25-year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes, and that’s your base, get me? That’s your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something? Fuck you. Boss pisses you off? Fuck you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don’t drink.”
– John Goodman, The Gambler

I own my house, so that’s one down… the ‘couple of bucks in the bank’ will have to be my pension, social security, and any investments I can squirrel away once I finish my home improvement projects. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved so far, and imagine Big Jim is up there somewhere, looking down at me with that knowing smile, bong in one hand and his yerba mate in the other, nodding in approval, and pointing out that what I really need is a helper primate to feed me tacos… or maybe a live-in Thai ladyboy maid/masseuse with that patented Kung Fu grip!

I like spending time at home, whether working, playing games, making games, or just hanging out with my menagerie. As I sit at my desk, happily working to the clickity-clack of my mechanical das keyböard, daydreaming about being fed little tidbits of chicken satay by my live-in Thai ladyboy, some door-to-door douchebag inevitably decides to interrupt my tranquility, and that pisses me off.

Door-to-Door Douchebaggery

I made a custom sign and posted it on my front door (more on that below). It’s visible from the road and even features a knocking stick figure encapsulated by an anti-symbol for the benefit of those who can’t read.

Nevertheless, some of these determined dipshits remain undeterred and knock anyway. Given how little respect you’d have to have for me and my home, I shouldn’t be surprised by their undue familiarity, treating my private property like a public space, leaning on my railing or walls, their garbage literate in my door, etc. all in an effort to try to sell me something I neither need nor want. I’m not a person to them, I’m a meal ticket, a mark. Sun Tzu knew that in order to thwart your enemy, you have to understand him…

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Why D2D is Still a Thing

To understand why, in 2025, with the advent of social media, hyper-targeted advertising, and robots listening in on your phone and virtual assistant devices, would we need (or even want) some meat-based solution? The answer is simple: money.

Many of these people are 1099 contractors working solely on commission, so there’s almost no risk or overhead to the employer. They don’t have to pay for insurance, an hourly wage, taxes, transportation, or anything else. They often even make these poor bastards pay for their own literature! People who take these jobs fall into two broad categories:

Self-assured, antisocial, high-pressure salespeople (you know the type, the sorta guy who beats off to that Alec Baldwin Scene in Glengarry Glen Ross)
Desperate dregs led on by vague promises of unlimited earning potential

The high-stakes nature of this business model is pretty good at weeding out most reasonable people, leaving only the most, shall we say, “morally flexible.” These jokers have no problem bragging about their alleged exploits, even going so far as to make self-incriminating claims!

In one particularly egregious video titled “How to legally go door to door in no soliciting areas,” the presenter explains that he’s aware that a solicitors’ permit is required in his area but didn’t bother getting one because he believes a good attitude and sunny disposition can overcome local ordinances. He goes on to suggest that ‘no soliciting’ signage actually means…

It’s old and was put up by a previous occupant, inferring that the current one was too lazy to take it down
The occupant is incapable of saying “no” and put it up because they buy everything they’re offered
It doesn’t apply to him because he’s the exception
It’s only a problem if you get the police called on you, but most people are unwilling to go that far

I harbor a special kind of hatred for people who hide behind a guise of helpfulness – like he’s somehow doing you a favor… that he feels sorry for you when you tell him to fuck right off – you are the rude one, you are the problem. You are a pitiable, dumb sack of shit who doesn’t deserve his help! That’s what he believes!

If he was an honest scumbag, he’d admit that he’s really no different than a Nigerian prince scammer… they utilize a shotgun approach to ply their racket, and the only fish they catch are the unsophisticated ones. These sorts are happy to be cussed out on your stoop; it’s a badge of honor! You were never going to buy anyway, so why not pull out all the stops and piss you off as much as possible while they’re at it? Every big dick salesman (and especially big dick saleswomen, let’s not assume be sexist!) knows that you should never take ‘no’ for an answer, and the sale isn’t over until he decides it is!

Here’s What I Did About It…

Door-to-door people hate this one weird trick, but there’s nothing they can do to stop you! Also, there’s more than one trick… but also, it’s not that weird…

Got a “Fuck Off” Sign

For about $30, including shipping, I had a custom 12″x16″ ‘no solicitation’ sign made, and I affixed it on my front door, big enough to be visible from the road:
This design amalgamates other signs I liked with a few added personal touches. In particular, the 80-point font which reads:

DO NOT DISTURB,
DO NOT KNOCK,
DO NOT RING BELL,
LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!

This tells them in no uncertain terms that I don’t want to be bothered. The rest of the language is deliberately chosen to align with my local ordinances.

Where I live, it is illegal to solicit or peddle without a permit from the local police department. The applicant must undergo a background check and pay a non-refundable fee. If issued, it must be visible at all times while conducting their activities. The ordinance further stipulates that they cannot enter or remain on property they have reason to believe they’re unwelcome and specifically mentions ‘no solicitation’ signage. Note that my sign clearly states in big, bold, angry caps letters, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.”While Canvassers, such as your religious and political types, are exempt from the requirement to obtain a permit, the prohibition from “entering or remaining on property they have reason to believe they’re unwelcome” still obtains.

Got a Doorbell Camera

This saves me the trouble of getting up, putting on pants, or even having a meaningful conversation! It’s double-plus good at queering their pitch and chapping their asses. More importantly, it captures evidence of any rat fuckery they attempt to perpetrate should you need to report it to the police should it become necessary.

I Keep Large Doggos

I have three large doggos that lose their fucken minds anytime the doorbell rings or someone knocks on my door. Their trio of barks and howls only add to the confusing, chaotic cacophony the door knocker has unwittingly unleashed on themselves.

I Control the Conversation

By this point, they’ve seen my sign, hear my dogs going apeshit, and are straining to communicate with me through my intercom system. Rather than allow them to make their pitch, I start collecting information from them…What’s your name?

What company do you represent?
Where’s your solicitor’s permit?
Oh, you left it in your truck, did you?
Do you understand that local ordinances require you to have them available upon request?
I need you to get off my property immediately, not come back.

If they don’t answer a question directly at any point, I interrupt them and ask again. Repeated failures to answer my questions result in them being fast-tracked to, “If you won’t tell me who you are, who you’re with, and haven’t registered with the local police office, then I need to get the fuck off my property RIGHT NOW!”

I’d Call Law Enforcement (but Only as a Last Resort)

I’ve never had someone refuse to leave my property when asked – at worst, they might linger in my driveway a bit, so I might have to ask them to leave a second time. Thankfully, I’ve never had to involve law enforcement, and I’d prefer to avoid it if possible. Even so, it may be necessary if said oxygen thief refuses to leave when told.

While it can be fun to fantasize, and I’m sure there are a lot of armchair tough guys out there who talk about what they’d do in that situation, it’s a lot less fun to be arrested. If the door knocker refuses to leave, don’t open the door, don’t threaten them, don’t brandish a weapon, don’t answer the door naked, and for fuck’s sake, don’t get into an altercation! Just [calmly] call the police and ask them to trespass the door knocker off the property when they arrive.

Denouement

Ironically, only one day after I posted this, some little shit decided to step up to my stoop and ring the doorbell despite the posted signage. Naturally, he didn’t have a solicitor’s permit, and when I demanded to see it, he played with his phone while my dogs went apeshit.

Eventually, he held up his phone to display what looked like a QR code and claimed this was his “license.” It did not occur to me at the time that he was lying (the permit is a physical card; there is no digital version), so I pivoted and said,
“Then you’re aware of the local ordinance prohibiting you from entering or remaining on private property where you have reason to believe you’re not welcome.”

I directed him to my sign before telling him to get the fuck off my property. He decided to talk back, telling me to have a blessed day, which only pissed me off further. It took a couple more demands for him to leave, but he eventually did…

###

My current fuck off sign is a vinyl window cling affixed to the inside of my storm door. It sits at eye height and is 12×16″ in size. Unfortunately, my storm door has a bug screen, making the sign a little harder to see…

I’ve been renovating my home (now that it’s paid off), and one of the improvements I’m making is replacing my existing door with a new, improved, deluxe speakeasy door with a badass iron grill and clavos (those big ass knobby rivet-looking fuckers):

I’m purchasing a new security storm door while I’m at it, so I decided to go ahead and splurge ($100) on a classy laminated 18×24″ aluminum sign:

Some of the improvements over the original and include:

The addition of “NO TRESPASSING” and “CANVASSERS” in the header and footer
a QR Code that links to the local ordinances (gives them something to read while they leave my property)
Expanded language about the junk they like leaving on my front door (flyers, menus, cards, or ads).

Of course, dumbass that I am, I didn’t measure beforehand, and there’s not enough room between my doorbell camera and porch light, so I have to put it on the other side of the door, where it might be harder to see…

All my neighbors have these cutesy little planks that say “WELCOME” on them, so I decided I would get one of my own:

I decided to go with a custom order, replacing the text with:

NO SOLICITORS!
NO CANVASSERS!
YOU WILL HAVE A
HARD TIME
TALKING TO ME
THROUGH MY
DOORBELL CAMERA
WHILST MY ANGRY
DOGGOS HOWL AND
BARK AT YOU.
IF YOU AREN’T A
FRIEND, FAMILY,
OR DELIVERY,
LEAVE NOW!
DON’T MAKE THIS
WIERD…THINK
OF THE DOGGOS

Lastly, I’m putting up a third fuck-off sign in front of my retaining wall next to the driveway (also visible from the street):

At this point, I have zero patience left for these assholes and will have placed three progressively more aggressive warnings, which, if disregarded, will unleash a torrent of profanity from both me and my brood.

Of course, I realize I’m not dealing with reasonable people, and they are trained to ignore these, but I suppose a visit from the cops will change their tune. I just need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy and go straight to the nuclear option (i.e., call the cops and have them trespassed).

Previously-Unpublished Posts

This post was written by Big Jim on August 17, 2015, entitled “The Beginning of Good Things to Come.”

It was the first time Jim had shared the phrase “Pork Circus“ with me, which he later explained over an email exchange:

“…And the Pork Circus comes from an old joke an ex-friend with mental issues use to kid me about. He had 2 or 3 culinary art degrees and always said I should open up a restaurant, the name being “Big Jim’s Pork Circus, Home of the Flying Beef Trapezes”

I can’t recall why this never made it to the site. I suppose it didn’t fit the absurdist humor theme we’d settled on, but now that he’s gone, all I have to remember him by are the words he left behind. So here they are, warts and all…

Pork Circus: The beginning of good things to come.

I am a slacker of the highest order. I was a NEET before there was even a term for people like myself.

I wake up every day in anger and depression and still manage to see the beauty in the world; and more importantly, in humanity. My self-hate is tempered by the people I am lucky enough to meet. Without them, I would truly be a lost soul.

I am starting this blog because people all my life have told me to write. Persons who had no vested interest in whether I lived or died. People who could have walked away from me without a second thought.

I am going to rant, rave, and vent. I am going to hate and work myself into a fit. But I am also going to love what is human about all of us. All of our collective shortcomings. Culture and history are baggage. A giant rucksack of fuck we put on everyday when we leave the door. A burden so great, we don’t even know we bear it.

Thank you, Joe-Jim, for getting me started.

In Memoriam

I received the sad news that Jim passed away this morning, February 17th, 2025, just four days after his 50th birthday. His [sudden] death was a great shock to me, but then again, Jim always had a knack for the unexpected. I’m going to miss him terribly, and so I thought I might revisit how I came to know him and recall some of the good (and bad) times we had.

“Remember me, but forget my fate.”
– Dido’s Lament, Henry Purcell 1688

I first met Jim in late 2014 under equally tragic circumstances. He’d contacted our [MMORPG] Guild to let us know that his brother, Gerald (a guild member), had died in a car accident. We befriended him, took him in, and spent many nights grouping with him. He struggled with alcohol abuse and often said things he’d come to regret later. Eventually, he quit the game, but we maintained contact via email.

When James told me about his troubles, I tried to help him develop a plan and stick with it, anything to get him out of the hell of a nonstop procession of dead-end jobs, and in an effort to encourage his writing skills, I created this website for him.

###

Unfortunately, James was a man with many interests, and those interests changed oftener than most people change their underwear. He’d get really into something for a short time, but after a couple of weeks, he would lose interest and move on. So it was with this website, pursuing his Teaching English and a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification, his degree in Anthropology, and an uncountable number of other things.

His drinking, depression, and the crushing hopelessness of his situation eventually led to him getting into trouble with the law, resulting in him sustaining several gunshot wounds that would cause him constant pain and discomfort for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, this was the wake-up call he needed, and after being released from jail, he eventually retreated to Oaxaca, Mexico.

There, he met his wife, Diana, and had finally found some semblance of peace. He loved the food, enjoyed the [mostly] warm weather, and had easy access to LSD and marijuana, which he used to self-medicate. He’d quit drinking and had gotten himself into the best shape I’d ever seen him in, a svelt 165ish lbs (pictured above), down from the 280 I’d last seen him at (and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Taipan Pete), or the 220ish he was when we first met.

His disability checks went far enough to cover his modest southern Mexican living expenses, and while he didn’t have many luxuries, it ensured that he’d never have to work another dead-end job again. He occasionally threatened to start a small business selling street food, probably biscuits and gravy or some other exotic American fare. I’d always chalk it up to his many passing daydreams, harmless and perhaps even helpful, if only to pass the time.

###

Gaming was one of Jim’s only pleasures, and for a while, he’d been limping along on an old GTX 2060 laptop. I had a good year and decided to do something nice for my old friend. Perhaps this was my way of “paying it forward” for all the help I’d gotten when I was down on my luck. So in early January, about a month before Jim’s birthday, I ordered a GTX 4060 desktop from Amazon, but to my dismay, it had an estimated delivery date of early March! The seller blamed Amazon, Amazon blamed the seller, and I told them both to go to Hell, and I canceled the order.

On a whim, I’d decided to check a boutique shop my wife and I had worked with when we last replaced our aging gaming rigs. They happened to have a ready-to-ship PC that was exactly what I was looking for:

CPU – Intel Core i5-13400F
CPU Cooler – DeepCool AK400 Digital White
Motherboard – PRIME B760M-A AX6 WiFi
RAM – 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000 – White
Storage – 2TB Kingston NV2
GPU – Intel Arc A750 White
Chassis – DeepCool CH370 White
Added Case Fans – (4×) 120mm Pwm ARGB Fans -White
Power Supply – 650-Watt 80+ Gold Rated

I called to inquire if it was still available, and it was! The next challenge was whether or not they were willing to ship to Mexico. They don’t usually ship internationally, but as I was a repeat customer, they agreed to help. On January 16th, I placed the order.

Shipping to Mexico has a number of challenges:

There’s the 20% import tax,
Customs fees, and
The [very real] possibility that a cartel might help themselves to the shipment…

The shipping cost was about a third of what we expected, so I wasn’t very surprised when I saw a banner on the tracking notice with a link to pay the last-minute import taxes and other fees. The last thing I wanted was to saddle Jim with a COD he couldn’t afford, so I hurriedly paid the geld, took a screenshot, and sent it to James as a precaution.

On the 28th, James sent me a picture via WhatsApp to let me know it had arrived safely, and we were both overjoyed! Over the next 20 days, we often gamed, BS’d on Discord, and exchanged memes as we always did. We’d gotten disillusioned with the Early Access MMO we’d been playing and decided to move on to something else. After evaluating our options, we settled on Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning. Initially, we’d intended to play the Destruction side, but Jim stated that none of the races/classes appealed to him and instead made Dwarf Engineer.

Danish Chris and I were reluctant to abandon the characters we were already playing, given Jim’s fickle nature, but after he assured us that he would stick with it, we agreed to make it a trio and join him in Dwarven fun. To Jim’s credit (and my surprise), he really enjoyed his character and played whether we were on or not, and for once, we were the ones struggling to keep pace instead of the other way around! We were all about three-quarters of the way through progression, and within another week or two, we would have reached the maximum PVE level, but fate had other plans.

~~~

On Sunday, February 16th, we played together, spoke on Discord, and exchanged memes. While waiting for Jim to get on Monday morning, our friend Danish Chris received a message from “DecidingChicken,” another RL buddy of Jim’s, stating that something had happened to him. My mind began racing through the possibilities – perhaps he got sick or hurt himself? As we anxiously waited, I messaged Jim on WhatsApp and asked him if he was okay. A few minutes later, DecidingChicken joined us on Discord to announce, “James was gone. He died.”

He went on to explain that it was heart-related and that he must have passed this morning in his sleep.

###

Shock gave way to guilt. I wondered if I could have been a better friend to him. I poured over the emails, Discord chats, WhatsApp, and text messages we’d exchanged over the years and concluded that I did all I could for him.

James was a free spirit, and he once joked that he wanted to be reincarnated as a dog that belonged to a cute hippy chick. I saw him as a stray dog who roamed from place to place, friendly but not housebroken. He was intelligent but stubborn. He’d been hurt too many times and had trouble trusting people. Thankfully, in the end, he did find his “forever home” and could focus on healing the physical and psychological wounds he suffered over his life.

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”
– Robert A. Heinlein

It goes to show that Ferris Beuller was right; life does move pretty fast, and if you don’t look around once in a while, you could miss it! What that spoiled little shit from Northbrook neglected to tell me was that Death moves pretty fast, too. As Heinlein once observed, “The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”

I don’t know where he is now, but I hope he’s finally found the peace that eluded him in life. When I close my eyes, I can see his wry, knowing smile and imagine some offbeat nonsequitur remark. When I think about you, I will remind myself that life is short and that it’s best not to take it too seriously.

Epilogue

I originally started this post on Monday, February 17th, as a means to cope with the news of James’ passing. Over the coming days and weeks, I made several additions, deletions, and revisions. I’m reasonably happy with it (for now) and feel it accurately reflects my 10-year-long friendship with him.

I can’t say what the future holds for Pork Circus, but I will continue to maintain the site as long as I’m able as a means to honor James’ memory.

TikTok-O-War

Here We Go Again…

All I ever knew about TikTok was that it was the app of choice for Adderall-popping zoomers to post their lipsyncing videos, videos reacting to lipsyncing videos, or videos of themselves “dancing” while lipsyncing to reaction videos.

These activities don’t interest me, and I’m especially not interested in sharing my mobile device’s photos and videos, browsing history, IMEI, Public IP, or any other information with the CCP.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received an email notification letting me know that my username had changed to [Redacted]x69. Of course, it would end in “x69”! What could be cooler and edgier than that?

Seeing how someone so thoughtfully decided to create an account for me using MY email address…again… I decided to log on. I didn’t remember the password, so I just used that handy little “Forgot Password” link and got myself logged back into my account.

It Just Keeps Getting Worse…

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t let me delete my account as I couldn’t provide the One-Time Password (OTP), which went to a mobile number I didn’t have access to. So, I decided to see what I could do on my account in the meantime!

To my surprise (and annoyance), someone had taken the time to upload many selfie lipsync videos. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t my bag, so it all had to go. I could change some settings, such as changing the account from private to public, setting screen time limits for myself, and changing my profile pic and description. Here’s what I chose as my TikTok avatar, my “TikTokitar,” if you will:

This picture comes from a video of a talented barber with a penchant for setting his customers’ (victims?) hair on fire… I chose this because his facial expressions captured the gestalt and indescribable angst I feel when someone uses my email address to sign up for services because they can’t be bothered to spend 2-3 minutes creating their own.

I then uploaded things I was interested in, such as stock videos of grocery store meat, seafood, and fish markets.

Push Me, Shove You! Oh Yeah, Says Who?

Unfortunately, the fun didn’t last, and my anonymous benefactor decided to remove these videos and set my account back to ‘private.’ Although I could not unlink their mobile number from my account, I could (and did) change the associated email address.

For whatever reason, email address change OTPs go to the registered email address instead of the account’s linked phone number. Problem solved!

Epilogue

A few days later, I tried logging on but found my account locked! It was probably the result of an impersonation report I filed a few days earlier. Just as well, I was getting tired of this TikTok Tug-O-War… Tik-Tug-O-War?

The good news is that my email address is no longer associated with that (or any) TikTok account anymore, so that’s a win in my book!

Being Less of a Porker: Part 1

The Good Ol’ Days

“I guess there is no situation so bad but what it can get worse.”
– Robert Heinlein, Farham’s Freehold, 1964

Hindsight is 20/20, we never appreciate what we have until we don’t, and there is no situation so bad but what it can get worse.

I’d been slim for almost half my life. As a kid, I worried about being too skinny. I wanted to be stronger, more flexible, and muscular, but I was otherwise happy with my appearance (if not my wardrobe, haircut, or severe acne).

I remember maturing during the summer just before I started high school. I was extremely active, full of hormones, and starting to develop muscles I never knew I had (coupled with hair in funny places)…

We lived in the country, which suited me well as I hated cities. I learned how to build fences, pound nails, swing an axe, butcher a chicken, and a thousand other things children today (including man-children) will never experience.

After high school, I did a lot of construction, and the hard work was great for my body. Even though I often felt ashamed of having to do manual labor (I was too smart to dig ditches for a living), I was in the best shape of my life. At 18, I looked and felt better than ever, but this didn’t last (does anything?)…

The End of an Era

Within the span of three years, a high-stress, sedentary desk job coupled with too much fast and processed food (e.g., McDonald’s and Hamburger Helper, I gained about 60 lbs. I remember looking in the mirror one day and realizing I was out of shape… My belly protruded, and I had to buy new clothes as my old ones no longer fit me. I knew I needed to do something about this, but I didn’t know what, so I did nothing. Analysis paralysis!

Lesson 1: Have a Plan, and Follow It!

A few years later, I got a fresh start, returned to school, and tried working out and walking daily. I didn’t know anything about exercise or nutrition. Smartphones were still a few years off, and I didn’t understand the basic laws of thermogoddamnics.

I was cast adrift in a sea of confusion. I had no plan, no structure, and no way to know if I was on track or what (if any) progress I was making… In time, I grew bored of this and stopped doing it…

Lesson 2: Weight Loss is Mostly Diet

“You can’t outrun a fork…” – Some guy on the internet

Fast-forward a few years to my first major breakthrough in early 2012. That year, I lost about 30 lbs in three months by eating mail-order cardboard food – you know, the one on late-night television that claims you can “eat great and still lose weight!”

This worked because it restricted my caloric intake to roughly ~1200-1500 calories daily. The food was preservative-laden cardboard, barely palatable, and got old quickly.

In addition to this, I worked out regularly with my Wii, starting with the training program for Wii Sports and then upgrading to Wii Fit. When I started, I could barely keep up and would be pouring with sweat by the time I finished.

Over several weeks, I became more adept at the exercises and eventually outgrew the flimsy resistance bands it came with. I bought a second-hand elliptical machine and started using that instead.

I was doing fine until I was rear-ended on my commute to work, which put the kibosh on my exercise. At the time, I’d gotten down to about 194 lbs. Unable to exercise due to being in physical therapy and having gotten sick of eating disgusting food, I eventually fell off the bandwagon, shooting back up to the 225-230 range by the end of the year.

Although exercise helped, diet and nutrition had the biggest impact on my weight loss (~80%).

Lesson 3: Remove Temptations

In December 2012, I flew to Sand Land to look for my next career opportunity. I ended up getting stuck there for reasons I won’t go into, and it would be seven months before I could return home in mid-2013.

At first, my living situation was such that I did not have ready access to food and sometimes missed meals altogether. Other times, I didn’t like the food I was offered and refused to eat it (e.g., boiled, bone-in chicken wings with overcooked macaroni – shit I wouldn’t even feed to my dogs). This went on for about 4 or 5 months, but I eventually was able to strike out on my own.

Almost every weekend, I went camping and hiking in the desert. Soon, I found myself fasting during the day to keep up with provincial norms and lost more weight as a consequence.

In the evenings, I cooked for myself, ate wholesome meals, and did not keep soda, cookies, candy, or other junk food in the house. As a result, I wasn’t tempted to eat it. I allowed myself a little juice but always cut it with 80% tap water since it was too hard to drink on its own (it reminded me of well water, but worse).

I once again dropped below 200 lbs. Eventually, my significant other joined me, and I found myself giving in to things that made her more comfortable but were bad for me. Instead of cooking a meal and eating leftovers for the next 3-4 days, we’d go out to eat to get her out of the house. When we went shopping, she’d ask for pastries, cookies, and other sweets, and I’d give in…

Lesson 4: Your Diet Must Be Sustainable!

Within three years, the suits I bought when I was 195 lbs. no longer fit, and I’d ballooned up to the mid-240 lbs again. After watching a movie about an Aussie who lost a lot of weight drinking juice, I made the mistake of giving that a try, and after a day and a half of this, I wanted to snuff it.

It was a terrible experience. Losing weight is like making a diamond. It takes time and pressure; there are no shortcuts.

Lesson 5: Don’t Overdo It

About a year later, I returned home. Travel always stresses me out and wears me down, and I was about 235 lbs again when I started counting calories and lifting free weights using the 5×5 StrongLifts method.

This consists of two exercise routines:

Five sets of 5 Squats and Overhead Press, 5 Deadlifts
Five sets of 5 Squats, Bench Presses, and Bentover Rows

Between the two, I saw some progress, and after about 6 or 7 weeks, I’d dropped about 10 lbs and lost 3″ off my waist, but I had stalled in the mid-220s.

Eventually, I managed to throw my back out, putting an end to my training. Again, my progress was stalled, followed predictably by gaining it all back.

Lesson 6: Don’t Do Fad Diets!

After a year out of work, I eventually obtained gainful employment again. Once again, I started feeling the aches and pains of being overweight, and once again, I decided to do something stupid…

“…If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working? Heh. Potatoes. You’ve got to be poor to eat potatoes. Really poor…I’m rich, but I’m lonely.” – Tuco Ramirez

I recall reading somewhere that Penn Jillette and others lost significant weight on a “mono diet,” eating nothing but potatoes. I decided to give this a try. I lasted longer than my foray into juicing but ended with the same result; I never felt satiated and was sick of eating the same thing daily…

About two and a half weeks in, I developed a terrible craving for meat. I finally broke down and started eating steak at the behest of my dear friend Jim, and I felt a lot better. I tried to eat mostly meat and vegetables but wasn’t tracking how much of each, and while I had some short-term losses, it was not sustainable as I didn’t have a plan (see lesson 1).

My Most Recent Relapse

I’ve been overweight for the better part of 24 years, and while I’ve dipped below 200 lbs a few times, I’ve always gained it back and then some. As I started my new job last year, I weighed in at an all-time high of about 267. The prior year, I worked three jobs, ate out every day, and didn’t track my weight, caloric intake, or anything else, as my sole focus was getting out of debt.

Out of the blue, an old friend made me aware of a job opening. It didn’t pay amazingly well, but it had a pension, and for the first time in my life, I finally had a way out of the corporate rat race. I applied, was interviewed, got an offer, rejected it, got a better offer, and started my new job in January of 2023.

No one I work with eats out for lunch, and there are no good places to eat nearby. Consequently, I stopped eating lunch, thus cutting out about 700-1,000 calories a day from my diet without changing anything else (and getting to leave work an hour early).

I started off strong and averaged about ~1.6 lbs. of weight loss a week, but I wasn’t getting enough protein, and while I was losing weight, I eventually dropped to 215 lbs. and plateaued.

Almost a year ago, on June 1, 2023, while cooking up a London broil without a shirt on, some of the grease splattered on my chest when I went to flip it. The following day, while on my evening walk, the skin on my chest started to burn, and when I got home, I noticed some red marks across my sternum and left ribs – I assumed this was the burn, and it would go away after a day or so, it didn’t.

The pain got to be so unbearable that I ended up going to an emergency clinic and was diagnosed with shingles. Within three days, the red patches blistered and scabbed over. Any movement was painful during this time, so I stopped exercising. I let myself break discipline and go back to eating out at night because I was in too much pain to cook for myself…

At the beginning of July 2023, I completed my first 180 days at work and was allowed to work remotely 95% of the time; being home all day meant that I had ready access to food and could graze all day, and I did. I had a difficult professional certification I needed to complete by the end of the year, and the stress of the encroaching deadline took my attention away from taking care of myself.

Over the remainder of 2023, I gained about half the weight I’d lost, and by April 2024, I was back in the mid-250s. Once again, I decided to climb back on the wagon. I must implement the lessons I learned to ensure success and codify good habits, which brings me to…

Lesson 7: Stay the Course

“Let’s say you are fat. I was fat! So I talk about it. Go ahead and say something, motherfucker, I was fat, too! And it was hard as fuck every fuckin’ day to get up. I know what it feels like, when you roll your fat ass out of bed and all you want is some fucken damn cinnamon buns and shit. And fuckin’ chocolate milkshake. I know what it is…I know exactly what it is…but I can’t want it more than you.

And so many people just want it the easy way, I’m sorry man, it’s not! So what they start to do is they build this narrative of, ‘It’s okay,’ when their narative should be, ‘You need to fuckin’ work harder. You need to fuckin’ discipline your mind better.’

We need to help more than just saying it’s okay. It’s okay that you’re not willing to fuckin’ help yourself out, it’s not okay! It’s not okay! It’s not acceptable. Even though it’s your life, if that’s acceptable, it’s unacceptable. And there’s a lot of people in this world, me included, that if I accepted that, I wouldn’t be anywhere.”
– David Goggins

Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without sacrifice. So, you decided to take the first step. Great! Good for you. Stand up and take a bow, that is, if you can bend at the waist without lower back pain… never mind, you’ve started.

Starting is easy! I should know. I’ve done it dozens of times, and there’s nothing hard about it. The hard part is staying the course, not making excuses, not quitting when shit happens, not getting complacent with yourself, and saying, “This is good enough.”

“I’ll be happy when…”

The question is, why? Why is this time going to be different? Why can’t I stay disciplined for more than 3-6 months? Why do I keep giving up short of my goals? Why!?

I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately. The only answer I can offer is a lack of discipline and accountability. I cannot abdicate that to anyone else. Even If I had a personal trainer, coach, or personal David Goggins bot who lived with me and followed me around 24/7/365 to bully and cajole me into doing the right things, I have to want it for myself.

I should also have a backup plan. Shit doesn’t always go the way we want it to, and I need to come to grips with the fact that no matter how perfectly I try to stick to my plan, things can and WILL happen. Motherfuckin’ Mr. Murphy will see to that. But I can’t let this derail all the hard work I’m putting in daily. Instead, I need to be prepared to make adjustments and do whatever it is I can do. Not let myself get complacent, not let myself succumb to self-pity and give up short of my goals.

If I can’t exercise, I will stick to eating right. If I have to go out to eat, I will make sensible choices.

[Another] Fresh Start

Eating Clean: First, I threw away my junk food and started buying meat, vegetables, eggs, plain yogurt, cottage cheese, and fruit every week. More importantly, NO FUCKEN SUGAR (and all its permutations).
Tracking Caloric Intake: After a week of eating clean, I started tracking my caloric intake again, and now I plan out my meals in advance, every day, and stick to the plan. Moreover, I am paying close attention to my macros, prioritizing protein (at least 170-200g).
Daily Walks: I got off my ass and resumed my daily 3-mile walk (8 pm, ~1 hour in duration) – it was excruciating, but I made it. I did it again the next night, the next night, and the next… as of today, I’m on the 29th consecutive day of walking 3 miles a day. Last year, my longest streak was 26 days, which I beat last week. The hilly walk includes long, alternating inclines and declines (as much as 30%). Incorporating daily posture exercises and stretches before and after has helped a lot.
Intermittent Fasting: I decided to try intermittent fasting. I can comfortably do a 16-hour fast with an 8-hour eating window (2 pm to 10 pm). Provided that I eat enough protein, I tend to feel full, and while I still get hunger pangs, I find that just having a glass of water or coffee tends to alleviate that. During my window, I start with a big meal (800-1,000 calories) at 2 pm. Sometime between 4-6 pm, I’ll eat dinner, usually another 800 or so calories. My last meal is a yogurt and frozen fruit shake with some collagen peptide powder for extra protein to help recover from the walk.
Strength Training: This week, I will resume my 5×5 training, starting slowly and carefully so as not to overdo it. My focus will be on reps and form. I will do this three times a week in addition to my daily walks.

To be continued…

Incorrigible Quotes

“You think you’re so great because you have boats!”
– Napoleon Bonaparte (according to Ridley Scott)

But also…

“Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well,
shut the fuck up then.”
– Ridley Scott

Why Me and Adam Ragusea Can’t Be Friends Anymore

“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?”
– Roger Waters

Meatless chili is an abomination. There. I said it. I’m not sorry!

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It’s been unseasonably cold this spring. Greta says it’s because of Global Warming, but I think the Cetacean Nation is at it again. As everybody knows, a good bowl of chili is proof against dolphin-based climate hexes, so we gathered together the following components:

Floor Beef
Rotel tomatoes and green chilies
Spicy V8
Can O’ Beans (chili, kidney, and pinto)
Six Demon Bag (also known as William’s Original Chili Seasoning)

I was feeling saucy, so I chucked in some beef paste purported to be better than a bullion. The result was a potent concoction that was fit for both bowl and dog alike.

As I waited for it to reach peak flavor, I scrolled through the YerbaTube and landed on this…

Adam starts off strong, showing off his vegetable wins-without-a-knife kung fu, then breaks out the ox tail. At this point, I’m starting to get intrigued, but then he brushes it aside and utters maybe the most blasphemous thing I’ve ever heard, “Who needs more beef in their diet!”

I do, Adam. I do!

Meatless chili isn’t chili! It’s beans in spicy tomato sauce. You know what we call that, Adam? Beans in spicy, fucken, tomato sauce!

You can make meat chili without beans, but not bean chili without meat. Then it’s just…beans…as in, “boring as beans.”

Have you ever heard anyone say “Boring as chili meat”?

No, you haven’t. Checkmate, Vegemites!

The bassist of Waters knew that you couldn’t have any pudding if you didn’t eat your meat, and so did the Chili Queens of antiquity (probably…cetacean needed). Not even a Ragusea can stand up to that cast iron-clad logic!

Don’t get me wrong—I like beans as much as the next person, but that doesn’t mean they can evolve like pokemens into a final, meatless chili form. That’s not how it works. If you’re a beans, the rules is different.

Contemplate this on the tree of woe.

Impossible Quotes

Big Jim: “…Fuckin’ rational exponents. I wish I still had the slide rules my grandfather gave me…”

Joe Jim: “If God wanted us to do maths, he wouldn’t have not existed, forcing mankind to invent the calculator…probably…”

God: “#ProveMeWrong”

Priorities

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out alive.”
– Robert Heinlein

“My life’s greatest aspiration isn’t to live heroically; but rather not to die in an embarrassing way.”
– Joe Jim

Although I grew up poor, I’d say I had a pretty good education…of the many things I was taught, the ones that spring to mind amidst the recent tragedies are these:

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
Don’t play in the streets.
Look both ways before crossing the road.
The world owes you nothing.
Don’t show your dogs unless they’re barking.
Life isn’t fair.

Because of this, the chances of me getting hit by a car while attempting to block traffic on a busy highway are slim to none. It would also be virtually impossible for me to get pulled under the dolly axle of a double-trailer semi truck because I know better than to attempt to board a 40-ton moving vehicle while it’s in motion, and I can’t imagine a world where I’d be shot while illegally detaining someone at gunpoint during an unlawful gathering in the middle of the goddamn street.

This is because I have priorities. I have people that depend on me to stay alive, earn a living, keep a roof over our heads, and put food on the table.

“…We say, ‘hey now, this is America’
We got some time to kill, and we need a thrill
So we die doing the dumbest of shit…”
– Father John Misty

Perhaps if these fools had some sense of self-preservation, or failing that, some notion of their own mortality, they wouldn’t have died doing the dumbest of shit…

When A Stranger Emails, Part II: Dots Don’t Care About Your Feelings

Since my last post on the subject, people have continued to use my email address to register for various services.

Yesterday, I received a notice from Snapchat that an account had been created successfully…using (you guessed it) my email address!

“Great!” I thought, “I always wanted to be a snappy chatter.”

So, I used the link to access my new account. At that point, I noticed that the email address slightly differed from mine because it had a dot (period) between my first and last name.

Most email providers will treat this as two separate addresses (e.g., something@nowhere.com is a different address than some.thing@nowhere.com), but not Gmail!

Instead, it ignores any and all dots in the prefix (i.e., something@nowhere.com = somet.hing@nowhere.com = s.o.m.e.t.h.i.n.g@nowhere.com, etc.)…

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At that point, I decided that I’d gotten this far in life without being able to chat snappily and that perhaps I didn’t need (nor want) this account, so I deleted it.

But the Snappiest of Chatting Services was not done with me yet, for it wanted to wait 30 days just to be sure I knew what I was doing. Within a few minutes, the serial email borrower decided to reactivate the account, so I went ahead and deleted it again.

We went back and forth like this about a half dozen times until finally, about 25 days later, I got a message letting me know the account was finally being deleted. Thank fuck, and let that be a lesson to them. Except we both know it won’t…