SleepPhones Giveaway Winner

The Random Number Generator has chosen the winner of our SleepPhones giveaway contest (details and SleepPhones review here). And the winner is: The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Delle!

So Delle, please email us at Crabby McSlacker @ gmail dot com to claim your prize by Saturday night, June 13th.

Oh, and besides your name and mailing address, we'll be asking for your headband size (see how to determine over at the SleepPhones site). And if you have a color preference between gray and lavender, let us know, though it's possible offerings may depend on availability.

Congrats!

And to those who didn't win, two things to keep in mind:

We have some more giveaways coming up, stay tuned!

And you can buy your own pair. The SleepPhones people have offered Cranky Fitness readers a code for free shipping good until June 17th:

It's Cranky1716.

Thanks for playing and for all your awesome comments, some were quite hilarious!

Advice for Graduates, CF style

Photo courtesy Beard Papa

It's that time of year.

People are graduating left and right, and you need to send cards, presents, or -- the favorite thing to give, at least it was in my college days -- lots of advice.


Since we at Cranky Fitness love to give out advice being helpful, I'll pass on to you the very last piece of good advice that I received before I walked down the aisle in that funny black robe. What I was told was this:

Vegetables start to lose their nutrients within 20 minutes of being picked.

(This advice is not as weird as it sounds; the woman behind me in line to graduate was an organic farmer.)

Since I've started picking weeds harvesting useful vegetables in my yard each morning before I head off to work, I've noticed a definite improvement from the point of view of my taste buds. I do not love vegetables -- we're not even "just good friends" -- but even I can taste the difference between leafy greens that I picked an hour ago and leafy greens that I buy in the store, which were picked days ago and driven/flown in from somewhere a long ways away.

They tell me that frozen vegetables are full of fresh vegetable goodness and nutrient-ness, and they may well be right. Froz. veggies are just not as crisp. Maybe they'd qualify for the runner-up position if you can't find a local source of really fresh veggies.

How to find a local vegetable?

Farmers Markets and CSAs

This link helps you to find a local farmers market or CSA (In this case, "local" means somewhere in the continental US/lower Canada, and "somewhere" means not too close to a desert.)

No, CSA is not the name of a government organization concerned with covert or indeed overt operations. In this case, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Somebody else grows the food and picks it, but instead of driving it to the store so that it can sit on the shelf for a few weeks having Muzak played at it, the food can be delivered straight to your door. (And what you choose to do with your food in the privacy of your own home is really none of my business. Really. I don't want to know.)

Get a window box

Grow vegetables in containers

If all else fails, you can always raid your neighbor's vegetable garden.
Worked for Peter Rabbit.



Fancy and local

Oh all right. If you're too honest for that (or if you read about What Happens to Bad Bunnies), then try an upscale grocery store. They're getting quite proud of carrying local produce. (Unless you live in a desert, in which case you might want to go back to growing stuff indoors near a sunny window. Deserts get loads of sunshine.)

I realize that we can't get fresh veggies year around (unless "we" live in California or somewhere of similar climate). But that's all the more reason to go for the gusto green beans while you can!

If your graduate isn't satisfied with this advice, this would be a good time to tell them about how much harder things were in your day. Uphill through the snow to school... both ways... and having to live in the dark ages before cable TV, back when twitter was something birds did, you young whippersnappers don't know what it was like...

Oh all right. Do you know any good ways to get fresh vegetables without going out and plowing the back 40?

Photo credit: Futurilla

Birthdays: Love 'Em or Hate Em?

Cartoon courtesy of someecards

Yep, it's that time of the year again for 'ol Crabby McSlacker.

With increasing emphasis on the 'ol.

I used to think it was pathetic that people would get so whiny about birthdays. Birthdays are fun! And it's just a number, right? It's not like you actually age an entire year in a day. You age the same amount every day, which is 24 hours.

(OK, so that's not entirely true. When you get that letter from the IRS saying you've been selected for an audit, or the airplane you're flying on hits major turbulence and plummets a few hundred feet, or when you find out how many calories are in that peppermint mocha "coffee drink" you've been getting at Starbucks--those are the kind of days you might actually age a year.)

But even though I used to think birthday whiners were being silly, I too began to have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think it has something to do with reaching those "how they hell did I get this old" years.

And it's really unfair; you try to adjust to a new preposterous, clearly-there's-some-mistake number, and then ... wham! About three weeks later, the number's bigger again.

However, despite the whining, there are a number of reasons I still love my birthday!

1. Attention.

I know some people HATE for others to know it's their birthday. They don't like the idea of people making a fuss over them.

And I'm a shy person, so you'd think I'd be one of those "oh please don't tell anyone" people.

But I'm not! I love it when people say "happy birthday," it's like getting compliments, only you don't have to do anything to deserve them but stay alive. And so far: mission accomplished!

On the other hand, I do NOT like the everybody-sing-happy-birthday thing, especially at restaurants. Does anyone actually enjoy that? Has anyone ever heard that song rendered entirely on key? And isn't it kind of a lame song to begin with? You know no-one wants to be singing to you, they just feel like they have to or they'll look mean, or maybe they're a waitperson and it's their job and they'll be fired if they don't. However, I don't like being the reason for forced, faux-cheerful singing. It does not make me feel festive, it makes me feel icky.

Though I will of course happily endure the ritual if some sort of free dessert is involved!

2. Cake

This needs no explanation. I could eat birthday cake every night.

3. Presents

Some say 'tis better to give than to receive. That's a great notion! And I think people who like to say that should just give me all their birthday presents--that's a win-win for everyone.

4. Indulgence

My favorite treat in the world is a massage, and I always get one on my birthday. This is like birthday cake for the whole body!

5. Indolence.

I try to work out extra the day before and take care of chores in advance, because I love to laze around a bit on my birthday. And as you can tell from this brief and non-health related blog post, I'm definitely in slothful birthday mode!

6. Spoiling

The Lobster manages to find ways to spoil me all year round, but she goes all out on my birthday. It's really hard to resent that extra year when I get an annual reminder of how amazingly lucky I am!

So what do you folks like or hate about birthdays?

Got Sleep? No? Cranky Fitness SleepPhones Giveaway!

One, two, three....Oh crap. There's just too damn many.
Photo: natala007

I am lucky not to suffer from chronic insomnia. From what I hear, it's an extremely frustrating affliction. Sure, some nights I'll be excited or worried about something, and it will take a little longer to settle down, but generally, I'm one of those lucky folks who reliably drifts off to sleep within 10 minutes or so after I go to bed.

Unless...

Some stupid @$#%&*%@ jerk is out there making noise when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Well yeah, it's true that on summer nights we do love to leave our windows open. Oh, and we tend to go to bed early. And there happens to be a big ol' condo complex right behind us.

And so inevitably some selfish, obnoxious oblivious louts will get very drunk and yell and scream and sing and blast their music in the middle of the night. They are clearly jerks. But then so are chirping birds, crying babies, barking dogs, or even otherwise nice neighbors who dare to converse outdoors anytime after, say, 9 p.m.

When I'm trying to sleep my definition of jerkitude gets very expansive. I too am sometimes a noisy jerk, but somehow this never occurs to me at the time.

Anyway, so how does one deal with noisy jerks, or with insomnia problems generally?

Well, please follow me to our Review and Giveaway Page where we can discuss some options! One of these is a product called SleepPhones, which I've gotten to try and will tell you all about. Plus, you'll get the chance to win some SleepPhones of your own!

(Read the rest of the post and enter the contest here.)

Which Exercise Is Right For You?

Good Lord, what are earth are you doing here? Sorry, you made a mistake.

You were looking for the post right below this one, with its 3,378,087 comments. Which just proves that you All Love Crabby Better. That's fine. Just fine.

Don't mind me. This just means no one will notice if I don't put up an actual post here.


see more dog and puppy pictures

Oh crap, you're still reading this, aren't you. Well fine. I'll publish a whole post then.

The Trouble With Californians

You know what's wrong with being from California? No, I mean besides the fact that people in 49 other states snigger when you tell them where you're from. I mean the fact that you can't adjust to other people's friggin' climate. (San Franciscans are tolerant about everything -- except for rotten weather.) It is waaaayyy too hot in Oregon right now. And too humid. They should fix their weather.

The point that I was meandering toward was that it's too damn hot to read a serious well-researched post. Hot weather = frivolous posts. It's a law.

So I've decided it's time to write a post for people who like the idea of exercise, but can't decide which one to chose.

Not sure what kind of workout to do today? Cranky Fitness can help.

If you're not sure whether you should get up and get those workout clothes sweaty, consult the Cranky Fitness Workout Quick Ref Guide. On the other hand, if you know you want to work out but can't decide what kind of exercise is right for you, we can help with that too.


Here is the Cranky Fitness Exercise Decision Facilitator^TM.

Prerequisites:

• A printer
• A set of darts
• The ability to throw in a sorta straight line (or the ability to clear the place out before starting)

Warning: Do not throw the darts at your computer screen. Unless you're having a really, really bad day at work. And want to get laid off. Then it might be okay.

To play facilitate a synergized exercise routine:

1. Print out the Cranky Fitness Exercise Facilitator (CFEF).
2. Post the CFEF an appropriate distance away (for beginners, suggested distance of 2 feet).
3. Throw darts. If possible, throw them in the direction of the CFEF.
4. Examine where they landed on the graphic and follow that goal for the day.

Notes:

• If the darts land on the frig, that does not mean you can eat whatever's in the fridge and doesn't have someone else's name on it.
• Darts that land on the floor are not meant to suggest that you should lie down and take a nap.
• If your dart lands on "clean," that does not apply to the lunchroom refrigerator. Unless you work from home, in which case it does. Sorry.

Hey, I'll go back to researching health and fitness studies soon. As soon as I get air conditioning in here. Or a working laptop. One of the two.

Are you able to work -- or work out -- in hot, muggy weather?

I'm thinking I need a laptop that works while I'm in a pool. (Then I'll just have to get a pool, and life will be good.)