Monday, June 05, 2006

Ab Exercise Equipment

Every day in the morning at around five am, I crawl out of my comfortable bed to head to the gym. Don’t get me wrong. I love going to the gym as much as the other guy! Especially since it gives me the opportunity to shed all those calories that I gain guzzling bear with friends! And the glances from the girls are an added incentive. I enjoy the warm up sessions, the treadmill and most of all the weights and the multi station.

Doing bench presses with my buddy is one of the highs of my day. But if there is one piece of equipment I cannot stand, it is the ab exercise equipment. I have a theory that this particularly nefarious invention was the by product of an evil mind. A mind that was intent on torturing the fellow human being! As any ardent gym goer will tell you, weights are fun and push ups bearable, but using the ab exercise equipment is pure hell!

To be honest, I’ve tried my best. I really have! I go to the ab exerciser equipment each day, with a certain amount of dread no doubt, and submit myself to the excruciating agony of doing ab crunches. I don’t know if there is anything wrong with me or with the particular brand of ab exercise equipment in my gym, but I can never seem to get beyond two, or if I stretch myself, three sets. And even then, I find myself pooped, breathless and writing in agony at the end of the session.

Since using the ab exercise equipment in the gym was getting me nowhere, I decided to try and buy some other ab exercise equipment that I could use in the privacy of my home. At least then, my fellow gymmers would not have cramps from laughing so hard, seeing me struggle with the ab exercise equipment at the gym! So, I went and got myself this nifty little piece of ab exercise equipment called the ‘tummy trimmer’. Basically, it is a cardio-based ad exercise equipment that uses tension of springs to help the ab muscles work out. I brought it home with great glee, switched on my favorite exercise music, got into my track suit and gave it a try. If anything, it was much worse and a whole lot more painful than using the ab exercise equipment in the gym. During the first session with my own ab exercise equipment, I managed to sprain my back, pull a ligament or two and even pinch the flesh on my thighs with the high tensile springs!

It was worse than being wounded. Wounds I can understand. It was more like being mutilated by my own piece of machinery! I had never imagine that using home based ab exercise equipment could be so hazardous to my health! But the scars that first session left me with, forced me to believe that it was true. So it was back to the good old ab exercise equipment in the gym. While I’ve still not managed to get beyond three sets, at least I’m not being mauled by the equipment. And if my buddies can get a few laughs in the process, why not?

27 Inch Television

I tell you, getting that 27 inch television was the biggest inconvenience of the last year. Oh sure, everyone wants to keep up with the other families, everyone wants a bigger and better screen, some wide screen 42 inch tv. But to fit in just the 27 inch television, I had to virtually redesign my whole apartment.

First of all, I had to get not just a new tv table, but a whole new entertainment center. The entertainment center that I had owned for the past 6 years had plenty of room for a stereo, receiver, record player, record and cd collections, and dvds to boot. Not to mention, the well placed platform which had always comfortable accommodated my 16 inch television.

But once I got the 27 inch television, that all changed. You see, it was good for – I kid you not – 25 and a half inches of television storage, but that extra inch and a half killed it. Just like that, I had to get a whole new entertainment system. Oh, I know. I could have kept the old one and just put the 27 inch television on a tv table. But you see, that would have killed the whole layout of the room. There is no point in getting a 27 inch television and then making your living room look like junk.

It turns out that the only entertainment system that I could find that would fit my 27 inch television and all of my other gear was almost twice as wide, and cost a pretty penny as well. So, after dishing out $175 dollars, I had do re-arrange my living room. You see, with the 27 inch television and the greater size of the home entertainment system, everything was proportioned wrong. It looked like all of the chairs were sitting right on top of the tv.

But while re-arranging the living room to fit in the 27 inch television, I ran into a problem. The couch simply wouldn't do anymore. I had been planning on getting rid of it for a while – it was ripped up and oversized and such – but I hadn't come anywhere near getting around to it yet, with all of the other stuff to take care of. But now, it was all down to the line because the whole living room looked terrible. And besides, I was moving everything around already, so what the hell.