I'm Only Siding Against the Idiots

I'm not drawing any political lines here, but campaign time gives us the perfect opportunity to see the dumbing down of a large portion of our citizens.

Just like my rants on Chomsky's proposal that sports are a useful tool for calculated government oppression of its citizens through mindless affiliation with particular teams, so true ring the allegiance to Red and Blue. Most people don't seem to care who a representative is as long as they're a Dem or a Republican.

Does that seem like a dumbing down of America or is it just me? Wait, I'll answer that for you; yes, it IS a dumbing down.

God forbid we use our brains to investigate the information that flows to us via email, popular media, the internet or the rumor mill.

Do you even know the individual you're voting for? Actually, neither do LP and I which is why we have to sit down and do some hardcore research on the candidates. Maybe we'll even do presentations for each other on the candidates-- "This is my book report on Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a woman running for president of our Country..." Kicking it all book report style.

But seriously, do folks even care to ask questions? You think Obama is the one Muslim terrorist who infiltrated our network without us knowing it? Does he really refuse to Pledge Allegiance to America? You all about family values and vote Red? Did you know that McCain had an adulterous affair and left his first wife? Did Hillary really waffle on her war stance or lie about being under sniper fire in Bosnia?

I'm gonna roll with the shout outs... I'm so thankful to have a wife and close friends (Danny R., Zack, Kenny, Paul, Carney and Neels to name a few) who will stimulate me to think about these things, to try and find the reality and even call me on the carpet when my opinion is questionable or uneducated.

So here's what Gary Z. is gonna ask of you:
1. Don't assume that what you hear or read is unconditionally the truth. Take some time to research it if it sounds even a little odd and
2. Visit Snopes.com or UrbanLegends.com like it's your job. It'll kill about 90% of that B.S. you receive in your Inbox.

10 Reasons to Turn Off Your Television

I'm about to the boiling point where I want to cut back or terminate wasteful activities in my life. I've done pretty well on TV. Next in the cross-hairs is that damn Wii.

Top 10 Reasons to Turn Off Your TV
By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., About.com

Turning off your television will gain you, on average, about 4 hours per day. Imagine if you took that time to exercise, give your brain a workout and develop strong relationships. Not only would you be adding years to your life, you would become more interesting, energetic, and fun. So take the plunge and try not watching TV for a week. At first it will be strange and awkward, but stick with it and soon you will love all the extra time.

1. Television Eats Your Time
The average U.S. adult watches more than 4 hours of television a day. That's 25 percent of waking time spent every day. Imagine if you suddenly had 25 percent more time -- that's three extra months per year! You could get in all your exercise, cook your meals from scratch and still have time left over to write a novel.
Over a lifetime, an 80-year-old person would have watched 116,800 hours of television, compared to only 98,000 hours of work. As a nation, adults watch 880 million hours of television every day or 321 billion hours per year. Whew! Imagine what could get done if we all just stopped watching TV.

2. Television Makes You Stressed
With the average of four hours a day gone, it's no wonder everyone is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. We put aside paying bills, finishing projects, making phone calls and cleaning our homes to watch TV. We feel overwhelmed because of all the things we should be doing (exercising, spending time with family, eating right) go undone.
And when we feel overwhelmed, tired, and exhausted we don't have energy to anything but -- you guessed it -- watch TV. It is a dreadful cycle. So take a break from TV for a week and see what happens to your life.

3. Television Makes You Overweight
Eating while distracted limits your ability to assess how much you have consumed. According to Eliot Blass at the University of Massachusetts, people eat between 31 and 74 percent more calories while watching TV.
This could add, on average, about 300 calories extra per TV meal. Now consider that at least 40 percent of families watch TV while eating dinner. It becomes clear that TV is a big part of the obesity epidemic in the U.S. and that TV, in fact, makes you gain weight.

4. Television Makes You Uninteresting
Many people have whole conversations that are recaps of TV programs, sporting events and sitcoms. When asked about their real lives, there is little or nothing to report and no stories to tell (except the TV shows they have watched).
Life is too interesting and wonderful to spend your time either watching TV or recapping television to your friends. Find something interesting to do: volunteer, read, paint -- anything but watch more TV.

5. Television Ruins Your Relationships
A television is turned on an average of 7 hours and 40 minutes per day in many U.S. households. With the TV on that much, there is little time for you and your significant other or children to spend time together, share experiences, and develop deeper relationships.
Sitting together and watching TV does not grow a relationship. Turn that TV off and find something to do together -- cooking, exercising, taking a walk, anything.

6. Television is Not Relaxation
TV is the opposite of exercise. If you are watching TV you are usually sitting, reclining or lying down. You are burning as few calories as possible. All that extra food you eat while watching TV does not get burned off. Your brain goes into a lull.
But you are not relaxing -- your mind is still receiving stimuli from the TV, you are processing information and reacting emotionally. Have you ever found yourself thinking about TV characters? Do you ever dream about TV shows? These are signs that the brain is working hard to process all the TV you have been watching.

7. Television Loses Opportunities
If you are sitting and watching TV, nothing new or exciting is going to happen to you. New opportunities and ideas come from being out in the world, talking to people, and reading interesting things.
Watching TV isolates you. Nothing is going to change in your world if you are watching TV. Turn off the TV, go out into the world, talk to people, and see what happens.

8. Television is Addictive
Television can become addictive. Signs of TV addiction include:
• using the TV to calm down
• not being able to control your viewing
• feeling angry or disappointed in how much TV you watched
• feeling on edge if kept from watching
• feeling a loss of control while watching
If the idea of giving up TV for a week is horrifying, you may be addicted to television. Luckily, TV addiction is a habit and not a physical addiction like smoking. You should be able to control it once you are aware of the problem and make a decision to change.

9. Television Makes You Buy Things
By age 65, the average American has seen 2 million commercials. Your knowledge of products and brands comes from these TV commercials. Your perception of what you need also comes from these commercials.
If you didn't know that your iPod could talk to your running shoes, you wouldn't feel like your current shoes are too low-tech. If you didn't know about vacuums that never lose suction, your current vacuum would seem fine. Our perception of need is determined by what we see. Need less by watching less TV.

10. Television Costs Money
A basic cable package costs $43 per month and many packages cost much more than that. That comes to at least $500 a year spent on TV. For that much money you could: buy a membership to every museum or zoo in your town, get a gym membership, buy a nice bicycle, invest it every year for 10 years at 10 percent interest and have more than $10,000.

Punchy Revisited

God bless Danny R. for the good ole days of having to listen to me laugh at Punchy multiple times per day at work.

I just love this guy's tenacity.

A Repost

I hate to have to tell this story over again, so I'm gonna repost from September '05.

I went to Barnes and Noble and while I was chilling watching my shorties read books I got accosted by another renegade Indian fellow. Let's count this as #3 and append it to the end of my stories of 1 and 2......

Shopping online brings me the convenience of browsing for the best price, rapid delivery, free shipping in many cases, avoiding Memphis' outrageous 9.25% sales tax and it can all be done in the comfort of my own home.

However, here's a new reason.

In the past week I have visited my local Barnes and Noble and Borders shopping for books. In both places I have been approached by well-dressed, sufficiently perfumed Indian fellows trying to sell me part-time business opportunities-- get rich quick kinda stuff.

The first encounter was like this (I've snipped so it won't be as long):
Stalker: Lot's of books here, huh?
GaryZ: Uh, yeah. (Is this smooth fellow gay and hitting on me or stupid and not realize that, yes, there are are lots of books in a BOOK STORE).

S: You come here often?
G: No. I mostly shop online. (should I have told him my sign?)

S: I'm from Chicago. I just moved here. I like it.

BULL HOCKEY!!! NO ONE LIKES IT HERE!!! THIS IS MEMPHELL!!! COVER BLOWN!!!

S: What do you do?
G: I'm a software developer.

S: (face brightens) Oh, me too.

But he goes on to tell me that he does online work with BestBuy.com, BN.com, etc. and wants to know if I'm interested in part-time business opportunities, yadda, yadda, yadda.

This all goes on while Anna is in the corner of BN doing her best tail-growing impersonation of Najeh Davenport. So I decline and bolt outta there in a hurry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second encounter (Borders):
Stalker: Lot's of books here, huh?
GaryZ: Yeah. (DAMNIT!! Not again!!!)

S: What do you do?
G: I'm a software developer.

S: (face brightens) Me too.
G: I know. And you do work with BestBuy.com and BN.com and you're gonna help me with some part-time business opportunities.

S: Oh, uh, no, I, uh, work for FedEx. (sulks and walks off)

Yeahs, sucks to you part-time business opportunity stalker!!

I Am So Hot It Hurts

I'll leave this disturbing image with you for the weekend...

Your Wednesday Pics

You ever want LP and me to babysit your kids? Mya Desouza gets a quick intro to life in the Dirty Dova.


When I think of a disability severe enough to get you permanent handicap license plate, the vehicles that come to mind are usually ramp-equipped minivans, not two-tone Accords with 20's. I wish I had sound to capture the killer bass in this ride.


Anna turned 5 last week and got her first "big girl" bike. After the cheap training wheels failed to fit I went to the bike shop and got some trainers strong enough to support the Sequoia.


Last night, I'm dead asleep at 9:15 (you feeling me April?). In the 2 minutes it takes LP to walk through the bedroom, brush her teeth and come back to the bedroom, our dog has gone outside and deposited this monster next to my wife's side of the bed.


This is not in the least bit funny. At all.


Go Tigers Go !


Getting ready for the big game. Two things I have in common with Mya? We love us some Memphis State and we have the same barber

On Tha D

Expanding on Danny's blog-pinion that Memphis deserved to lose Monday night.

Now that the pain from that loss has eased a tad I can look at things a little more logically. Danny and I love to back up many of our hypotheses with some real stats.

So let's drop some knowledge. In Monday's game Memphis shot 63.2% free throws. We won't even focus on Kansas' freakish 93% success rate or Memphis' atrocious 40% from the field.

In sport, as in many things, you have to learn to focus on things you can control. You can't control how big, fast or experienced the other team is. However, you can work on things such as your physical, mental and strategic preparation.

Free throws in basketball. Is there any other situation in sport where you have more control in gaining points? Plz chime in. I'm opening this discussion up. PAT's in football are pretty close but you still have people trying to kill you or obstruct you as you kick; not to mention environmental factors such as rain, wind, snow, kicking surface, etc. Penalty kicks or shots in soccer or hockey? Still gotta worry about a goalie.

Free throws should be a virtual gimme. There is you, the ball and a hoop. That's it. Except for crowd distractions and the potential affects of fatigue, there is nothing else.

I would propose that a collegiate level athlete be able to shoot 80% free-throws while allowing for minor degradations (down to 70%) in performance due to "off games." Holy hell, Joey Dorsey attempted the 3rd most number of free throws for Memphis this season and made 39%. Two players for Memphis made a higher percentage of their 3's than Dorsey did in FTs!!

I can't go say the only reason Memphis lost is because of free throws but when looking at all the ways in which we had to put points on the board, this was the one over which we had the most control.

The Silence Alerted Me of Your Demise

With the doubling of children in our household LP and I didn't start watching the Memphis game until about an hour after tipoff. With that kind of lag you're able to catch up right at the end of the game.

We were pretty stoked during the game. It was quite an exciting one but as the game wore on the silence in our house made us uneasy. Two minutes to go, Memphis up by 9 points and our cell phones had not exploded a single time. We didn't like that. We had too many hardcore friends and family at the game for there to be complete silence. Come on!! Argos, Desouzas, Perrys... send a text, send several texts, DO ANYTHING. Let us know how great it is to witness Memphis' first ever national championship. Let us know how drunk on excitement you are.

But alas, nothing. Even though we had not seen all the game LP and I knew the silence either meant (a) the game had gone to overtime or (b) we had lost. And it could not be just a regular loss. A regular loss would have elicited a phone call or text message from at least one person. It had to be a heartbreaker for none of our friends to peel themselves off the floor and send us some communication.

Sadly, it turned out that every statement in the previous paragraph was true.

So here's where I stand on Tuesday morning. I'm pretty friggin' depressed. And I really don't want to hear any glass half full shat about what a great year it was, how much pride we have, blah blah blah. If that kind of reasoning makes you feel better then you really didn't have your heart in this game or this team. If you woke you woke up today and said "wow, what an awesome season" then you didn't truly feel the heartbreak of last night's game.

If you were a tried and true fan, you don't even have enough energy to pull yourself off the floor and send a text message.

But here's the good thing about being manic-depressive. I'll prolly be in a great mood tomorrow. See y'all later.

In a City Where All That Matters Is Black and White...

Isn't it refreshing to see Memphis unified over the color blue versus divided over black and white?

Man it's great to see folks focused on the Memphis Tigers and their run in the NCAA tourney. Everyone seems a little more chipper these days and if you're wearing blue someone is sure to chat with you.

And Memphis Blue might be the new *hot* color. In fact, I'm headed to Victoria's Secret today to see if I can find some blue lingerie for the LP.

The SuperFriends are in San Antonio for the game tonight and their shorties, Mya and McKayla, are staying with us for a few days. I'll be sure to catch you up on the Zyriek/Desouza merger in a photo blog later on.

So what was your favorite part of the Memphis/UCLA game? Was it Dorsey nearly breaking the backboard on a block near the game's end? How 'bout this? The media has been in love with Kevin Love, the super frosh. Well, beatch, here's how we kick it in thug land... you just made the CDR poster, Kev.



Needless to say, I'm a little excited over the game tonight. I expect to throw up at least once before tip-off. Catch y'all on the back side.

Go, Tigers, Go.

Plugged Back Into the Matrix

I'm back guys. Good to see you again.

Cancun was awesome. Sorry you didn't hear from me but I did literally NOTHING.

The schedule was pretty much...

Sleep Late
Workout
Eat Breakfast
Lay Out by Pool or Beach
Nap
Lay Out by Pool or Beach
Eat Dinner
Go to Bed
Repeat

Here's a teaser for you. This will give you an idea of what I've got on the blogging horizon.

Read this while I load up the shotgun...

Report: Scientists Still Seeking Cure For Obesity