Ash-tastic Wednesday

So today starts the first day of Lent. By now you know I'm not overly religious (unless by "overly religious," you mean "crazy atheistic"). But I did go to Catholic school for four years and am aware that there are 40 days of Lent follow Fat Tuesday. Now I've heard stories of what my devout (and not so devout) Catholic friends have given up for Lent - alcohol, sugar, etc.

And while I'm not overly Catholic (see above definition), I am pretty strong-willed and believe I could give up almost anything for 40 days. However, my inspiration for such would be in the form of a wager -- not some sort of divine penance.

Alcohol? Television? Junk food? Not a problem.

But despite my braggadocio, there are definitely a few things that I wouldn't be able to give up for 40 days:

1) Caffeine. I've tried it a couple of times and the closest I've been able to get is to give up coffee but not sodas (or vice versa). The first time I tried it I was moving in slow motion, like I was swimming in a sea of honey, and my head felt like it was full of wool. I would sooner give up breathing for 40 days than give up caffeine cold turkey.

2) YouTube. I'm not going to lie, my work productivity would probably be markedly improved if I had no access to YouTube. But then I would have less filler for this blog and I wouldn't be able to post great finds such as this:



3) Meat and Dairy. So I was working out at my insane gym the other night when I spotted a guy with a long ponytail wearing a white t-shirt with a hand-drawn message "Eat Vegan: Ask Me Why?." He was also sporting a "Meat is Murder" button which I found ironic since he was wearing leather shoes. Putting aside his tool-like hypocrisy, I asked myself the question "Could I give up all meat and dairy for thirty days?" and the answer was a resounding "no fucking way." Seriously, 96% of my diet probably falls within the broad category of meat and dairy. What's let? Legumes and tofu? Hmmm, I wonder what the best way is to prepare barley?

4) Britney Spears. Look, it's not like I want to learn anything more about America's favorite celebrity trainwreck, it's simply that you can't surf the Internet without seeing reading about her. Seriously, I dare folks to try. So unless I'm going to give up the Internet for 40 days, this one is simply unavoidable.

Let me know what's on your "oh hell no" list.

September Statistics

September flew by for me, so here's a quick summary of how I spent my month:

26: Number of Rugby World Cup (RWC) games I have watched.
6: Number of RWC games I have yet to watch in order to be fully caught up (if I stay up all night tonight, I can get caught up I think).
7: Number of wineries that I went wine tasting to last Friday (no, I wasn't driving).
24: Number of days that my sister came out to do research in California.
40: Approximate number of bottles of wine that were consumed during said visit (this is a conservative number).
1: Number of wine glasses broken.
1,035: Number of expletives uttered (again, this is a conservative number).
8.35: Average hours of sleep my sister gets (seriously, who sleeps 8 hours a day?).
10: Number of episodes of "Arrested Development" which we watched over the past week.
0: Number of times that I dreaded her visit and wished she were home already.

We had a really nice visit, she heads back on Saturday and I'm a little sad. It was a good trip (although my memory might be distorted a bit by the wine), but it will be nice to get my house back to normal. For now, I think I will console myself with the New Zealand vs. Scotland rugby match and 8 hours of sleep (whatever that is).