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April 11, 2005
The effects of visual stimulus on aerobic activity
Tired, so I'll keep this moderately short.
The last several trips to the gym, I've had trouble maintaining my focus. Tonight, I had an excellent workout. The difference?
The eye-level LCDs on each elliptical machine are always on, and default to a lackluster local station that lost its'network affiliation. As a result, KRON is reduced to airing prime-time blocks of Fear Factor reruns. Honestly, I'd rather watch this.
Do you have any idea how dispiriting it is to chug away at 138 strides per minute, starting to believe that you're really blowing the plaque out of your arteries -- that you're extending your life a little with each step, each electronic valley and peak -- and you look up to see an anorexic model with oversized implants gagging down a platter of pickled horse anuses?
I always flip my screen down so I'm not distracted. Of course, there are 30 other monitors in the room.
Tonight, I was spared the spectacle of a leering Joe Rogan and his bevy of undistinguished, fame-obsessed whores willing to bathe themselves in cockroaches. I got to the gym a little earlier than usual, you see. I covered 5.20 miles, sez the machine.
Anyway, here's your reward for reading the ramblings of a dehydrated man -- an article that examines the disparate ways black and white parents in California name their children. I'll admit that the statistics surprised me, and I'm fairly aware of the cultural gulf between people of different hues.
If you're not interested in reading the whole article, just read the Top 20 whitest and blackest names for girls and boys. I sighed frequently when I read the names most frequently shared by black and white children. Apparently, California parents aspire for their kid to grow up to be either a stripper or the star of a teen soap on the WB.
Posted by Your Protagonist at April 11, 2005 11:56 PM