Buyer Beware

For the longest time I've been a huge proponent of actually paying for the music I download. I understand how incredibly stupid that sounds, when at any given time, day, place even the most inept person behind the controls of a computer (hi dad!) can find and download their favorite hits for free.

I've always had the mind set that you get what you pay for. There's a reason why the shitty "on sale" power drill is on sale, and the Makita is 300.00 USD. The same principles can be applied to Wendys and White Castle, Sony and LG, Disneyworld and Busch Gardens.

These things are better, won't break down on you, won't give you horrible spraying shits that coat the bowl is fecal spatter, and won't make your kids wonder why you're such a dead beat. The extra you're paying for is convienence, the ability to be rest assured that things are going to be ok.

So when faced spending 99% of one dollar to download a song, I don't see it as a huge deal. I've always figured that for the price of a dollar I was not paying for a song, but guarenteeing that what I was getting was a quality download of the exact song I wanted, without some dickweed teenager's trojan virus-laced coding within my copy of Busta Rhymes "Pass The Couvousier (remix.)".

But the downside to paying a dollar for a song off of iTunes is that shit adds up quick. Like the proverbial Lays Potato Chip, you can't have just one. I started to look at my credit card receipt (which I use to download music from the iTunes Store) and noticed that the bulk of my purchases from iTunes was hovering around about 10 to 15 bucks a month. And when you're dropping triple that on gas every two weeks, plus groceries, etc, it's quickly realized it's an unneeded expense.

So I started to ask around about free downloading sites or "torrents." Which ones were good, which ones to stay clear of, etc. The Lady turned me on (...) to uTorrent where you get a host of five or six other torrent sites that feed off of each other through one search. She downloaded it to my beleagured Dell laptop (I also trusted her because she was running pretty much the same programme on her beloved iMac book) and started to rob the music industry at mousepoint.

This wasn't my first foray into the world of illegally downloaded music; as mentioned before I had dabbled in this practice well before the days of iTunes. If you're reading this and are under the age of 21, you probably have no clue that Napster at one time used to be 100% free, and spawned warped and horribly virus-ridden children in the form of Morpheus, BearShare, LimeWire, etc, not unsimilar to how Gaea spawned the Greek Gods by slicing open Chronus's ballsack.

These programmes fed off the "Peer2Peer" networking system which allowed you to download files from multiple people or "sources" at once.

Have you ever been to an orgy? I have (hi mom!), and it's not as cool as you'd think it would be (if that's your thing) because it's literally a clusterfuck. People stepping all over each other, not knowing names or even faces, just literally fucking each other over to get what you want. And as we all know, unprotected sex with multiple people - as in transmitting files indiscriminately - can lead to viruses. This has always been a major concern of mine, on both the literal and figurative fronts.

So I left the "free" world of downloading music (and I say "free" with quotes because really, nothing is free, what you skimp on with cost of a download, you pay for with some Asian nerd wiping your harddrive at the price of 65.00 USD an hour) and started to pay for it. Whatever, it's only a dollar.

And there were considerable advantages to paying for the download: It didn't take literally all day (or multiple days) to finishing downloading a song or album. And when the song or album finished, you weren't left with some piss-poor quality, purposely mislabled, recorded-in-a-basement garage band/wanna-be rapper.

Nothing is more irratating than searching for Ice Cube's 1994 album "The Predator" and coming back with some cock-smoker's own personal rendition of "It Was A Good Day."

All in all I've found that using a torrent isn't that bad. I haven't had a lot of issues with the downloads, only that the reception is spotty and it takes, at it's fastest, up to an hour to download some stuff. I do miss the point-click-download-play function that made iTunes so great, along with the album art, because I'm incredibly impatient and have an ever decreasing attention span.

I'm curious to see if with gas prices going up, will iTunes do something to prevent more consumers from jumping ship as I have? Will they recognize that people in their targeted demographic (which would be iPod owners, which is virtually everyone) pass on filling their iPod in leu of filling their tanks? Someone should call up Steve Jobs and present him with this problem so that we (and by "we" I mean, Me. Capitalized. That's right.) can get the best of both worlds. Either start having gas stations hand out free iTunes gift cards with every x amount of gallons pumped, or Apple can start handing out free gas cards with every dollar amount purchased on iTunes.

It'd be win-win for everyone involved.

An Ode To Living Recklessly

I'm a shitbird.

A total dickhead, scumbag, perverted shit-stain on society.

I love to drive drunk with very little regard for other drivers. Fuck'em: the car load full of kids or the soccer team, or the prom dates.

I love to drink too much and pass out at people's houses whom I don't know.

I love to correct people's grammar in public, with only the most condescending tone.

I drive like an asshole (when I'm not drunk), I seldom wear my seat belt, never use my signals, and expect everyone else around me to abide by the same traffic laws I disregard. I speed and swerve and drive with my windows down in all types of weather.

I like to keep a loaded gun on my person at all times and often pick fights with people I know could kick my ass. I don't give a shit, I have a gun.

I like to fuck without a condom on. I almost never pull out, and if I do, it's to cum on the girl's face or tits. I never hang around after, I just get up and leave.

I bet on sports when I don't have the money. I do the same thing with my bills; I pay my bills with checks that I know will bounce. Same goes for my rent.

I vote Republican in the 21st century.

I sneer at children and wolf whistle at their moms. I grab my crotch in line at the grocery store.

I play with knives, especially when I've been drinking.

I may or may not have children someplace else in the country.

I tell fat women they're fat. To their boyfriend's faces.

I drink Tecate and eat microwave burritos at 3 am on Monday nights.

I wake up hung over for work at 0630 in the morning, when I have to be in the office at 0715. I don't call ahead and I don't give a shit.

I throw things.

I make my roommate do my dishes and scrub my shitty toilet.

I plug in my amp and play horrible guitar at all hours. When the neighbors show up to complain I tell them to go fuck themselves while blowing pot smoke into their faces. When they inevitably send the cops over, I pretend I'm a disabled war vet.

I rent movies and don't watch them. Weeks go by and when the store calls about their movies, I tell them that I just moved into the address and have no idea what they're talking about.

I sleep on park benches. I clean my gun on park benches.

I stroll by high schools and ask the girls walking on the side walk what grade they're in.

I play pool in bars and don't pay for the games. I let my friends buy my drinks for me and never pay for a round.

I demand a buy-back from the bartender. When he cuts me off, I go outside and slash all the tires in the parking lot, hoping I got his.

I eat like shit. Wait, let me rephrase that... I eat shit. My arteries are so clogged with shit that my insides look like an LA Freeway. My doctors yell at me, my girlfriend yells at me, and I don't care. If it tastes good, I'm eating it, whether it's deep fried, bathed in butter or beer battered, I'm going to ingest it until my heart gives out under me. Fuck it.

I smoke cigarettes but I never buy my own pack. I'm that asshole who's hanging outside of the bar bumming smokes off everyone. I never apologize for it either.

I'm inside the bar smoking.

I'm your co-worker who talks too loudly on the phone and ignores your emails.

I'm the dickhead on Facebook who won't return your Friend Request.

I listen to shitty music loudly and at the same time tell you you have no taste in music.

I'm at a rock concert feeling your girlfriend's ass.

I'm doing hits of extacy around black guys and telling them "thanks for not kicking my white ass"

I'm an asshole, a dick, and a douche bag. I'm your neighbor, your brother, your father and your son. I'm your boss and your employee.

I'm You.

Advice For Graduating Seniors...

Jim wrote this about two or three years ago for a graduating high school senior he knew. The information within is still useful today, and since he's struggling with putting out his "Bike Week" article, we here at the office felt we should run this instead. -ed.


You’re about to embark on a journey to higher education. You’re on your way to be an Elite, a member of a society of people who have gone the extra mile and succeeded. But it’s not an easy trip, and there’s lots of things out there that you might come across and have no idea what to expect. I hope this book is helpful, but seeing as I’ve not read it, I will give you some advice/insights from my own college experience (I graduated with a BA from John Jay College in NYC in December) which I hope will help you. Good luck!

-Your High School graduation is a big deal. For about a year. Then you, along with everyone you know – parents included – won’t give two shits. Try to find a nice place to put your high school diploma where it won’t get a soda can ring on it.

-College is mostly about learning to interact with your peers, not so much about what goes on in class. Actually, you should spend as much time not doing anything class related.

-That said, wait til the absolute last second to buy your books. If you decide to at all.

-On the subject of books, they’re overpriced and you will never use them. Just because they package a useless CD-Rom with the book, it automatically will cost you over 100 dollars. And when you go to “sell them back” to the bookstore, you get roughly 5% of what you paid. If you need anything out of a book for a paper, might I suggest Google.

-Your roommate, ideally, should be your best friend. He will only become your enemy. Do not ever trust him, or anyone he brings over, ever.

-“Girls? You’re a freshman, so they’re pretty much off limits.” -Jeremy Piven, PCU. That quote is totally true. However, as incentive to stick with college until you get your degree: the older you are in college, even as a sophomore, impressionable young freshman girls will flock to you. Hence, if you’re a Super Senior, 18 year old frosh chicks will literally sit on your hands and beg to be finger blasted by you on a stained futon in someone’s basement. Who’s basement? Like it matters, brah.

-Of course, there are three things you should never be without, ever. They are, in order of importance… Beer: Have plenty of it, because it makes you cool, girls cute, and your roommate’s shitty taste in music, rock. Condoms: they keep you from having to take trips to the campus clinic, unwanted baby’s mamas, and your pubes from falling out. Bottled Water/Brita Filter: It basically reverses all the side effects of the beer and fucking with a condom on.

-You will be expected to write ten to fifteen page papers on a regular basis. Don’t worry about this. These papers are going to be double spaced to begin with, meaning you’re only writing a 5 to 7 page paper. Also, your professors will NEVER read your papers. So the only things you need to concentrate on are the first paragraph and last paragraph, which will introduce your topic and reiterate your topic. Everything in between should be mindless filler/bullshit. It will never be read, don’t worry. Your grade will be represented by how many multi-syllable words you use in the first and last paragraph.

-If you have TAs (Teaching Assistants) and one in particular happens to be a hot chick, do everything you can to sleep with her. And I mean everything.

-You will gain weight. There’s nothing you can do. Accept it.

-Don’t be that dick that brings 6,541,661,484 DVDs to school with him. Your top 5 should be good enough.
You’ll find that girls in college are apt to make out with each other. This is a good thing.

-Being a freshman, you probably won’t be able to have a car on campus, that sucks, but think of the gas money you’ll save!

-Oh, you’ll shit a lot. A ton. I mean, an actual metric ton of shit will come out of your ass. The story will go around that the cafeteria laces its food with laxatives. This isn’t true; it’s actually the plate of French fries you’ve been eating as a meal for the last four months.

-Along with this, you will be constantly sick. Living in a dorm with a bunch of other guys, who barely bathe and masturbate when their roommates are at class and not washing their hands, will cause you to become ill. You can only kill the germs by drowning them in alcohol. Litre after litre of delicious alcohol.

-NCAA Div 1, 2 or 3 sports won’t mean shit to you, but your Residential Dorm Intramural Wiffle Ball League will be everything to you for five months.

I hope these tips help you out. And of course, best of luck.


j.

An Open Letter To My Girlfriend's Pre-Menstral Cramps:

Hey Cramps,

It's about that time of the month again; where you guys show up, kinda uninvited, but expected, as usual, and make me and my girlfriend's lives a living hell for about a week. Not unsimilar to the in-laws just showing up.

Hey, I for one, love it when you guys come around. It tells me something, it's good to see you, and honestly, it doesn't bother me all that much, not as much as say, The Lady. But then again, she's the one who has to put up with you for a week, while I luckily get to work all week here at the station. She gets to be the mascot for the couple, the face on the packaging, whereas I get to hunker down and wait out the storm far, far away.

But I was wondering if you could do me a favor? While your visiting for the next week or so, could you at least keep it down a little? The Lady has hard enough time getting to sleep at night, so the whole "bloaty, fat and ugly" feeling your giving her, isn't helping that situation much. Also, she won't complain directly to you guys for making her feel like a swollen wallrus, but she'll complain to me, ad nauseum, for the next couple of days - she'll gorge on chocolate and lay dispondently in bed resting her mac book on her uterus as a heating pad.

I don't mean to make light of your stay with us, and like I said, I'm all for you guys being here, especially since we tend to engage in condomless sex all the time, but is there anything you can do to not be such a hard-on to The Lady? Like, ease up a little bit?

When you get down to it, I just don't want to end up like Ritchie in the second season of The Sopranos, and be pumped full of holes by my girlfriend and then chopped up in a butcher shop by a junkie and a zip, never to be heard from again.

Also, not being able to bump uglies for a week is kinda a bummer.

Thanks, and see you next month (hopefully.),
Jim.

...The Wind Knocked Out Of Me...

Ever get that feeling, where you're stunned and that feeling where all the air in your body got sucked out with such efficiency that you're left feeling tighter on the insides?

I get that feeling from time to time, especially when I feel like I fucked something up, big time.

I won't go into details, but this wash of horribleness is all over me and I can't shake it. I know things will be ok, and in a sense this is just kind of a test of a person's mettle and commitment, but all in all, I can't help feeling like a total piece of shit.

I'll get over it. It's out there.

Running Mix for the Week of 5/9/08

Here's what I'm listening to as I pound the pavement in my Nikes... in case anyone's interested..

"Don't Stop Believing" Journey
"Gimmie Shelter" The Rolling Stones
"The Game" Disturbed
"Burn My Shadow" UNKLE
"Life Is Beautiful" SIX A.M.
"You" Candlebox
"Freya" The Sword
"Killing In The Name" Rage Against The Machine
"(Rock) Superstar" Cypress Hill
"No Sleep To Brooklyn" The Beastie Boys
"Working For The Weekend" Loverboy
"Umbrella" Rihanna
"I'm Shipping Up To Boston" The Dropkick Murphys
"Smoke'em" The Fun Loving Criminals
"Bombin' The L" The Fun Loving Criminals
"Side 2 Side" 3-6 Mafia
"As You Already Know..." Kool G Rap
"Icky Thump" The White Stripes
"Beat It" Fall Out Boy with John Mayer (Not as gay as you'd think...)
"Speedin'" Rick Ross
"Riot Maker" Tech 9
"The Beast" Tech 9
"Snitch" Obie Trice
"The Trooper" Iron Maiden
"Guns and Roses" Jay-Z
"One Horse Race" Tom Vek
"Needy Girl" Chromeo
"Walcott" Vampire Weekend
"Aerodynamic" Daft Punk

Getting Sick

Christ I think I'm getting sick.

Fuck.

Since I got up to take this watch at 2330 I've felt like total shit: my nose has been running harder than a black guy from a paternity suit, my head feels as swollen as it does normally due to my ego, and I just feel run down as if someone just spent an afternoon beating the shit out of me with a pillowcase filled with sodas.

I hate getting sick, and for the most part I almost never get ill. My immune system is like brigade of super intelligent, hot-shotting-anabolic-steriods-into-their-eyeball old-school Russian troops standing the line at Leningrad, fending off the invading Nazis with their bare fists. So in the rare times that I do get sick, I'm usually taken off my feet with good measure.

What makes matters worse is that I'm at work. Nothing's worse than being sick at work. For the typical person, you slug it out for eight hours and you get to go home, or even better, call out. In m case, I'm at "work" for up to fifty hours at a go. When I'm sick, I like to lay in bed, read, eat crackers, watch tv, jerk off, and nap in that order. It's part of my healing process.

And obviously I can't do that here.

And what compounds this further is the fact that my girlfriend basically doesn't have an immune system of her own. Her's is as frail as the bird's that flew into a sliding glass door. It's bad enough that right now her roommate is dying on a couch in her living room; and now her one safe-haven (my place) is going to be crawling with death and disease as well.

She's going to be pissed. Great.

I think I know how I got sick: We were working on one of the boats tonight, doing some fire-fighting training. I got wet. I wasn't wearing a hat over my skull. I then, being that I was "roasting" in my mustang, stripped down to just my t shirt and the mustang bottoms and walked the quarter mile back to the station from the end of the pier, wet and sweaty, with a light breeze.

I rack out for a few hours to rest up before the mids, and when I wake up my head is congested. I'm sitting up on the side of my bed, letting all the snot drain out of my face, thinking to myself "nice going, kid."

So to The Lady, who will read this in a few hours, "sorry luvy, hopefully I'll be better by Wenesday afternoon..." and to everyone else, go screw. I'm sick and authorized to be slightly more crabby than usual.

On The Road: The Blackberry Chronicles

I'm at this clinic on the outer hook.... I'm waiting next to forever for this sawbones to tap my arm for a blood sample. Overall... The place is slightly classier than a blood bank in Harlem at the same time they were making "Taxi Driver."

If You're A Hack and You Know It, Clap Your Hands...

This article basically started as a comment on a friend's blog about her (fucking) hatred of doctors. And instead of just going hog wild on her comment page, I said to myself "hey Jim, you know what? You have an hour to kill on watch, plus your own blog to write on. Don't steal someone else's thunder." And boosh, here we are.

My friend, who shall remain nameless, has a medical history that reads like something out of a Discovery Health documentary: Kidney infections, rhuematoid arthritis, fibriomaligia, and so on, plus she's a recovering addict, all at the age of 23. Needless to say she spends a lot of time with doctors to get her shit sorted out.

She's a swell girl, extremely intelligent and cuttingly witty, charming, a touch daft but in a good way, not to mention great knockers. There's no reason why her tiny, 110lbs frame has to endure what it does, nor her fragile mentality have to deal with the likes of a total douchington in a white lab coat taking guesses at what's ailing her or how to treat it.

Face the facts: Doctors don't do shit except drive Porsches and play golf. Sure, they'll cut you open and stuff a fucking camera on a stick inside of you for the price of a small jet or in-ground swimming pool, but more often than not, it's the nurses who are doing all the heavy lifting. The doc just shows up, blabbers on about whatever he THINKS is wrong with you, will advise to get tests, etc...

The nameless subject above mentioned explained her latest run in with her doctor and it went something like this:

"So I found out today that I can't walk. The arthritis in my knees was so bad that they swelled up to the size of grapefruits. I went to the doctors and asked if there was anything they can do for me, and he said he'd write me a 'script for Percocets... mother fucker, I can't have that, it's a narcotic!"

And if the doctor had spent as much time reading through her medical file as he did trying to figure out this morning's Soduku in the paper, he probably would've caught that.

So she spent two days in bed before the doctor could see her again to drain the puss out of her knees, which is easily the hottest thought I've had since Saturday night.

Next case: My mother was on her death bed this past fall right before I left for boot camp. To say she was "sick" would be like me saying that a fatal car accident was a "fender bender." My mother was seriously fucking deathly ill, so my dad finally drags her to the ER where they make her wait forever, and when they do see her, the doctor takes all of two and a half minutes to suggest she take some tylenol to break her fever. My mother insisted that it was beyond the normal flu-like symptoms and the doctor just waved it off.

So fast forward two weeks and my mom is basically a dust cloud and I'm seriously having to conisder exiting basic to come home because my dad thinks "this is it." She goes to the ER one more time and the SAME FUCKING INFECTED UREATHRA OF A DOCTOR tells her there's nothing they can do. A nurse then suggests that they take a blood sample to the lab, where, ta-da, they discover she has a rare strain of the measels. So rare they actually had to call in the CDC to identify which strain it was. At 52 year old, my mother has contracted the fucking measels... the polio of the latter half of the 20th century... for the third time in her life. They treat it, and within a week, mom was back at work, filing deeds.

Then you have my case, when I was in college. I was suffering from a rough case of the flu. I was shitting and puking my brains out for a week solid, doing everything I could just to keep something inside of my body, because it sure as hell wasn't wanting to stay in... I go to the local ER where a doctor FLIPS THROUGH A FUCKING MEDICAL REFERENCE BOOK and comes up with "oh you have gastro-intestinal infection, let me give you some antibiotics and it should clear up in a few days," and I take the script to the pharmacist and get it filled.

Turns out I'm allergic to just about every known form of anti-biotics. Awesome.

So now I'm sick AND poisioned, and drag my corpse of a body back to the ER, where the doc, oops! states that his first diagnosis was wrong and I just seem to be suffering from the flu.

Thanks doc...

Listen, I know that doctors are humans and make mistakes, but for what we pay in health insurance (if you're lucky enough to have it at all) is ridiculous compared to the level of care we receive. There's literally people who will die in the hospital without even seeing a board certified physician. What outrages me more is that nothing can be done to change the situation, because doctors sort've have a monopoly on the whole "getting sick" thing.

Bastards.

What It's Like To Be A Woman

This all starts early yesterday when I fielded a call from my recruiter. I'm less than a week away from going off to Basic Training and he wants to touch base with me and see how I'm doing.

"So uh, you've been staying out of trouble, huh? No problems with Johnny Law, right?" He says. I haven't had any trouble with the Man, in fact I haven't even so much as sped on the highway in the last month. I back my car down when it touches 75 mph, which is super out of character for me. "Good good, and you've been staying safe, no stupid injuries or anything like that?" And he goes on to tell me about how another recruit that was supposed to be leaving with my group smashed his fingers all to shit while moving boxes, so he's a no go. I don't dare tell him about my bum hip/thigh and figure I'll fuel up on pills before and after work outs if necessary.

"Ok, great, good to hear everything's on the up and up. Oh, and how's the weight?" And it starts. Now I know what it's like to be a woman.

Let me explain the whole "weight thing." See, in order to be admitted to basic training, you have to meet a certain weight limit based on your height, neck size, wrist size, shoe size, whatever they do. I'm about 199 right now as I write this article, which is three pounds over my limit, based on those previously mentioned parameters. It's gotten to the point where I'm obsessing like a woman about my figure.

I was weighed twice before and barely made weight the first time and the second time got under the wire by three pounds by starving myself for a weekend. I don't want to have to do that again. It's madness. So what I've been doing, along with my daily hour-plus work outs is consuming about twelve fluid ounces of pure grapefruit juice and drinking tons of water through the day. Also, I've tried cutting back on carbs. Actually I've cut back on eating all together.

I'm eating like a chick basically.

So fast forward a couple of hours later and I'm having lunch with one of my friends. We're sitting in a pub in Portsmouth looking over the lunch menus and I'm complaining about what I can and can't eat. The roast beef, turkey and bacon club sandwich looks great, especially with a side of waffle fries, but my dining partner suggests I try a bed of greens with grilled chicken. I look at her from over my menu with a look that probably could cut a glacier, like out of a scene from "Sex and the City."

I order the club with the fries. I'm my own worst enemy.

I didn't get to the gym either yesterday which frustrates me. The whole day I feel fat and slobbish and have to keep reminding myself that I'm a dude, I should feel fine in my own skin. So what if I have a little beer belly, so what if I like to eat crap, I'm a guy, there's no societal rules established that say I have to be trim and sexy.

I can think of all sorts of stereotypical archetypes of grossly fat dudes with hot wives, based on sitcom television: Kevin James, Jim Belushi, Homer Simpson, Jackie Gleason, Bill Clinton (though his wife isn't all that hot, he can score top shelf pussy at will), Peter Griffin, etc. Granted these people's lives are all based on pure fiction, society regularly agrees that fat funny dudes score smoking hot wives.

So why am I obsessing about my weight like a chick? ...Oh, because I have to go to boot camp.

At Basic it's often said you'll drop (and keep off) at least twenty pounds. As I write that last sentence, I'm thinking of myself at a trim 185. Then I snap out of it and hate myself a little more.

Fast forward again yesterday, and I've left my friend at the pub and met up with another friend at the mall. We're in the GAP and I'm trying on jeans. I put on a pair of 35/32s, standard fit. They fit fine, but I can't get a good look at my backside so I step out of the dressing room where my friend is waiting and turn around.

"How does it look?"

"How does what look?" They ask.

"...My ass.... how does it look?"

"What? I'm not looking at your ass dude."

"C'mooonnnnn..." I catch myself wining. My skin bristles. "I can't see how it looks back there. Just tell me if my wallet sticks out too much."

"Dude." He stops himself. "It's fine, really, can we go?" I frown and shuffle back into the dressing room to change back. I buy the jeans hoping my ass will look hot in them.

Ugh.

I think this is why women are so fucking crazy. They starve themselves and obsess about standards set by Hollywood and society. Every time they turn around, there's another picture of some chick modeling jeans or a coat or whatever, looking stick-thin. I mean, that plus they bleed from their crotches every couple of weeks is enough to send anyone off the deep end. Of course they don't care about sports or which friend can drink the most beer without puking into a 50 gallon drum outside of a sketchy night club, they've got way too much pressure on them to fit into a frame that easily 1/1000 maybe fit into.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to eat this pile of leaves.

Etiquette Enforcement: The Gym

I've been spending an inordinate amount of time at the gym lately. I've probably mentioned this about a hundred times in the last few posts, so I'll spare you the details on how much time exactly I've been lifting. However, as I'm lifting, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't observing human interaction and behavior. So for you, the reader, I've broken out some rules that may or may not be in existence, to help facilitate a more productive and comfortable self-improvement session at your local trendy gymnasium.

1. Don't Be A Dick:
I can't stress this enough. No one likes a dick, not even the most semen stained pornstars. What people like a lot less is the dick at the gym. The dick is the guy wearing the tight Underarmor t shirt and leggings, bench pressing too much weight without a spot and letting everyone know in earshot because he'll be grunting through his hernia. He slams weights, yells and never wipes down benches and equipment when he's done, leaving a sweaty puddle/hand print every where he goes. When he's resting between sets, he's giving "pointers" to other gym goers on how their technique is off. He knows all about "isolating" certain muscle groups, and even though you've got earbuds in, he still talks to you in the middle of your set. The dick is no one's friend.

2. Don't Rest On The Equipment:
Even I do this, and I really try not to. Resting on the equipment, especially when you're at the gym during busy hours, is like being the selfish three-year old at day care hogging the 'good' blocks. If you notice someone hovering around, and they may not be right on top of you, get up and stretch. If they come over and ask to work in, let them. So what? You're going to rest between sets anyway, might as well let someone else get their work out done in a timely manner.

3. Change Back Settings:
If someone does allow you to work in between their sets, be the cool kid and set their weight and seat settings back to where they were at before you sat down. The seat settings might be tricky, but if you change them drastically, try to put it back as close as possible. Take note of what weight they were using, and set it back to that weight when you're done your set. They'll be sure to set yours back for you in return.

4. Wipe Down The Equipment:
As aforementioned, no one likes to sit in someone else's sweaty leavings. Nothing is less attractive than grabbing a handhold or bar or whatever, and seeing a big sweaty paw print on it. No one likes to climb up on the treadmill and see it soaked in your spray. So take a few seconds, get a towel, and wipe it down before the next guy uses it.

5. Be a Good Spotter:
If someone asks you to spot them, be a good spotter by being attentive and encouraging. Someone's trusting you to make sure they don't get hurt, so in the very least pull the plugs out of your ears and be focused on them. It's ok to give them encouragement as well, but watch what you say. Acceptable words or phrases would be "c'mon up", "go, push", or "almost there." Unacceptable words or phrases would be something like "Yeah baby, push it up there" and "Mmm yeah feel it, dig deep" because you'd sound like a total fag.

6. Eye Contact:
Don't make it with anyone. Ever. Especially if you're spotting them.

7. The Opposite Sex:
In 2007, chicks go to the gym too. It's usually considered poor taste to try to flirt with someone at the gym because we're all supposed to be there to be working out, not hooking up. But if someone does catch your eye (and on that, don't stare. A casual glance is acceptable), either if you're a guy or a girl, it's ok to talk to them in a non-threatening way. Bring up something about the excersise you're doing and ask how you can improve on it - ask for tips. Do not try to inform them of what they're doing. No one likes unsolicited advice. And wait until their done their set. If the other party is receptive, then take it from there as you normally would. If they kinda brush you off, because they're at a gym and not at a bar, walk away and get back to work.

Remember guys, you're basically looking at a chick as she would appear during rough doggystyle sex. Be a gentleman and try not to point that out as an ice breaker.

8. Cell Phones:
Most gyms today have policies restricting cell phone use on their property, so adhere to this. If your gym doesn't have a policy in place, do not, and I repeat, do not use your phone in the gym area. If you have to make/take a call do it outside. It's annoying for one, to have to listen to someone on the phone while you're working out, two how do I know you're not taking a picture of me while I look like I'm engaging in rough doggystyle sex? I don't.

9. Know your limits:
Don't push it. Grunting isn't sexy nor is leaving the gym on a stretcher because you've blown your testicles through your scrotum. No one likes to have to stop in mid set to save your ass because you had too much pride to ask for a spot. Also, no one likes to have to slow down their set to watch you struggle with weight that's too much for you to handle, in case you drop a bench bar across your throat. My tip for picking the best weight to work out with: Go up to an easy weight, where it's no problem for you to do ten reps, then simply add five to ten pounds to that weight. You'll have just enough resistance to build muscle without looking like a jackass who's trying too hard. No one's impressed, because no one's looking at you. Trust me.

10. Being a Regular:
If you find yourself at the gym more than three times a week, it's safe to say you've established yourself as a regular. Being a regular is nice because you get to know the people at the gym. But don't let it go to your head and turn you into a dick. Gyms are public places, open to whoever want to join. Remember, you were once the new guy that people wondered about too. If you notice someone new and they seem to be lost or confused by the equipment, no one says you can't walk up and introduce yourself. Ask if there's anything they need help with, or just offer a spot if they need one later. Having a friend at the gym is helpful and prevents you from looking like a total tool who lifts too much.

I hope these tips help give you some insight into behavior, acceptable and unacceptable, at your local gym. I can only educate, it's up to you guys to put it into practice.