Being back at the gym all the time on top of three nights a week of physical therapy leaves me very little free time to do goddamn near anything else.

I like being back at the gym because it’s a massive stress reliever, but it kills an extra hour to hour and a half out of every day I go.

That hour to hour and a half gets killed out of every other day by physical therapy, so with four days a week at the gym and three at PT, plus minimum 10-12 hours a day at work, there ain’t much left.

I find it ironic that in order to get in shape to enjoy life, I have to pretty much commit to not having one.

Because either way, it’s true:

Barry Bonds Home-Run Scandal Somehow Becomes Feel-Good Sports Story Of Summer

SAN FRANCISCO—Although Barry Bonds remains the target of criticism over his possible—some say almost certain—use of performance-enhancing substances, the fact that Bonds has not been implicated in dogfighting, nightclub…

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Best quote?

“Bonds is not exactly my hero,” said Braves fan Bradley Hanson, who flew to San Francisco for Monday night’s Braves game in order to pointedly not boo Bonds. “But he’s a reminder that in these troubled times for sports, there are still players whose crimes are simple, pure, and only tarnish our beloved sport and everything it stands for without killing anybody.”

So I’m finally back out of the boot, which is good. Walking around in regular shoes for the first time in a couple of months is a bit weird.

What’s really weird is that my physical therapist wants me to wear sneakers. I’ve worn nothing but hiking boots for the last several years, so trying to wear sneakers, I feel like my ankles are constantly in danger of turning over.

My foot is healing at an okay pace, although I still have a pretty decent limp. The best piece of news is that I’ve finally gotten cleared to start hitting the gym again.

The bad news is, now I have no excuse not to go to the gym.

Oh well. At least I can start hacking away at the giant stack of magazines that started piling back up again while I wasn’t going.

A photo essay, starring Felina, my neighbor’s cat:

Felina now is just about as tired of my camera as Chaplin is. Although I did get Chap to do this, which amuses me to no end.

You are not the same neighbor over-alarming his 1989 Nissan. You live in the building across the alley from mine, and you park in a spot under your building that’s not walled in, directly across the alley from my window.

You have a new car, but you have purchased a very similar but infinitely louder alarm to the one has already caused me much consternation. You have not figured out how to use your new alarm. The goddamn thing goes off every five minutes.

The sound echoes through the alley, and becomes unbelievably loud in this apartment, to the point of actually being painful when I’m in the bedroom.

I am tired, I am cranky and hormonal, and I am in pain. I need sleep more than anything right now, and you, my dear neighbor, are preventing me from getting it.

If you do not learn to use your alarm properly, I may have to come across the alley and duct tape you to the hood of your car so that you can hear exactly how annoying it is.

That is all.

I saw three movies in various theaters this weekend, the first movies I’d seen in theaters since Christmas. I quickly remembered why I generally wait for things to hit Netflix or HBO. The movies were:

Movie #1: Knocked Up, at the Zanuck Theater on the Fox Lot. Free.
Movie #2: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at the Mann Criterion in Santa Monica. $10.75 + $3 to park.
Movie #3: Ratatouille, at the AMC in Marina del Rey. $9.75, since their matinee prices stop at 4pm.

The differences were instructive. #1, as it was shown at the studio, was great: No previews, no commercials, started exactly on time, had a polite audience (of entertainment professionals, so that might be biased) and had no technical issues.

But it was basically like going over to a friend’s house, if that friend had a ridiculously huge home theater and refused to pause the movie when you had to go to the bathroom.

#2 was, theater-wise, the worst experience. Half an hour of intrusive commercials before the 8+ previews for Harry Potter ripoffs, which I would have resented if I was trying to carry on a conversation with someone. Which I wasn’t because I’m a doofus and went alone because everyone else I knew who wanted to see it saw it Wednesday.

People constantly running up and down the stairs for more overpriced food, desperately searching for their friends in the dark when they returned. A crying baby at a show that was scheduled to get out after 11pm. For the love of god, get a sitter.

However, I will note that the picture was incredible. That was the first time I’ve seen something digitally projected, and it does live up to the hype. The sound was loud enough to stun a rhino, but that’s pretty standard at this point.

#3 was at least better than #2, but another argument for just staying at home. The price was under $10 for a non-matinee, but that’s only because the theater hasn’t been renovated in years. It’s like an early-90′s time capsule, with falling-apart seats that bear the imprints of a thousand asses.

There were focus issues on a couple reels, and one reel had a bunch of hairs caught in the film for a few very distracting minutes. And of course, since it was an afternoon show of a kids’ movie, there were several small crying and/or very loud and excited children.

I try not to be annoyed with that (as I was with the bawling baby at an 8:30pm show of a PG-13 movie), since it’s part of what you learn to expect at a screening like that, but it reminded me why I prefer to watch movies in the comfort of my own home.

That, and how goddamn much it costs. Seriously, two movies for $21.50? That’s more than I pay for a MONTH of Netflix’s 3-at-a-time plan. It would have been over $30 had I seen Knocked Up in a real theater instead of through work.

Movie theater owners wonder why movie attendance is way down. It’s pretty fucking simple: You pay way more than it costs to watch at home for an infinitely less pleasant experience. This is not rocket science.

I can’t tell what the hell is going on anymore with these ridiculous bug bites I’m getting.

I keep getting these horrid, hive-like things all over myself, and if I hadn’t had chicken pox when I was three, I’d be concerned I had it now.

Most of the time these itches flare up at the office, but the timing is weird enough that I can’t quite narrow down what’s happening and where, though I’m convinced it’s bugs of one sort or another.

The itching is making me absolutely insane, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I’m apparently getting bitten by every bug that could potentially bite humans.

All I know is that I’m increasingly covered in itchy red welts and/or scabs, and I really am reaching the end of my rope in terms of how on earth to continue coping with this without losing my mind.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bathe in calamine lotion.

Will It Blend? is a hysterically awesome series of two-minute-ish videos produced by a company that makes industrial-strength blenders for the home.

They take all sorts of shit (everything from a fruit smoothie to a rake to a bunch of old cellphones), toss it in one of their blenders, then ask the simple question, “Will it blend?”

Generally, the answer is yes, though you often don’t want to breathe in the smoke created during the blending process, as it carries a slight risk of…well, fatality.

So of course, I knew they would inevitably blend and iPhone. The only question was when. The answer? Today:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI]

They also have a great recent one of some Transformers, where the guy talks about his 25(!) grandkids and how much they enjoy watching grandpa pulverize stuff with his blender.

I love a category of internet flotsam that could loosely be described as Weird News. The bizarre, the hilarious, and the truly ridiculous things that happen across the globe on a daily basis. The things that give Fark a reason to exist.

There is a story today that just really hits it out of the park in terms of the elements of a truly great weird news story. This one has four key elements:

1. Stupid and/or crazy Criminals.
2. Situations that lend themselves to multiple puns.
3. Inexplicable costumes, preferably including duct tape.
4. Someone with a hilarious name commenting on the story.

I speak, of course, of the story of the New Hampshire man who decided to dress as a tree and rob a branch (har!) of a bank. That story has a picture of the lunatic gentleman involved, and his…unusual getup.

That story (from the Manchester Union-Leader, whose reporters must be grateful to have such an amusing break from covering the Presidential Primaries) has both merciless use of puns and two hilarious details.

First, the branch that was robbed bears the address of 1550 Elm Street. Secondly, and far more hilariously, the Manchester police captain commenting on the story is named Dick Tracy.

Reading that name, I find it difficult to believe the reporter didn’t laugh and say, “No, seriously,” when the good captain introduced himself.

Monday I sent a complaint to my landlord about the fact that a fence got torn out and while it had been replaced with some bamboo, it wasn’t exactly secure.

Last night, I came home to find a three ton dumpster that had previously been in a vacant parking space now sitting in my parking space.

Coincidence? Or just the maintenance guys being dumbasses?