Sorry no blog yesterday. My wife had a rough day, and wanted some company, since she rented Saw III. She has seen a combined 47 minutes of the three Saw movies, since she watches them with her eyes half-covered, or hiding behind the couch. You can compare that to her 23 viewed minutes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (fell asleep on three different theatre viewings), and no minutes of six Star Wars films. The wife's not a genre fan, particularly.
Anyway, I've been up since four, and I had to go to the doctor after work. Toe fungus, a little souvenir from my last gym membership--along with a bitch of a bill. Gym contracts are for chumps, kids! But, even as a chump I shouldn't complain, since that's about the biggest health problem I've had since fifth grade. And the doctor was rather amused at the utter grossness of my toenails, which he had to clip samples of, to grow a culture. (And an aside to my doctor: goggles, sir, goggles. I thought you were going to put your eye out when that nail came flying at you.) Then, we'll see if I get Lamasil or something, which will amuse my son no end; he thinks those ads and "Dad's wooden toe" are funny as hell.
I did get weighed though, which sucked: 217, a good twelve over my usual weight, and 27 above where I'd like to be. Is there a more horrible feeling than to see your weight, know it's too high, all while you're starving? I feel fat, I have the nice deathlike pallor of a computer user that hasn't seen the sun for three months, and I miss biking to work; especially since that probably covered some of the damage done by my sketchy eating habits.
Which brings us to the vaguely comic related portion of my insane ramblings! Lots of other bloggers have pointed out the unrealistic female body images and BMI numbers--basically, your comic book females with huge breasts, tiny waists, and a rough weight of 110 pounds. I saw the link over at When Fangirls Attack! but have no idea on the actual post. Sorry, especially since I think it involved, you know, actual research and hard numbers; but BMI is for girls. There's only one thing I could possibly base my target weight on...
Yes, damaging body image isn't just for the ladies! Now, fellas, just by flipping through the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, you too can feel like a lazy slob! Let's take a look at issue two of the original, 1983 series. We've got Captain America, 6'2'', 240 pounds. Yeah, but he's Captain freaking America, and I know you don't carry a twelve pound shield around with you all day. Let's go on...I'm six feet even, and so are Bullseye (pre-adamantium bones) and Black Panther, and they each weigh 185 pounds. Excuse me just a moment.
Yeah, sorry, I just had to start my new exercise program. It's a strict regiment of squat thrusts and vomiting.
God, I'm trying to tell myself those are 1983 numbers, before twenty-some years of steroid injected hamburger and Flintstones vitamins. I need some pro athlete weights to consider, since now I'm wondering if Mark Mcquire would be beefier than Cap.
I probably should do some research or something, since I have no clue if that's a viable weight for that height and body mass--both the Knight and Bullseye are probably Olympic level athletes--or if they're completely pulled out of the air. I just want to fit in my jeans, be able to run with the dog, and wrestle the kids down without having a stroke.
I'm only half-kidding the exercise program: I was half-watching some anime, girl wrestlers in powered armor...yes, I'm aware of how that sounds, and know that description doesn't exactly narrow it down. The girls are trying to get an old coach to come out of his retirement/drunken stupor to train them, and he tells them until they can do a thousand squat thrusts not to waste his time. Sounds dumb, but I'm serious, I barely got up to a hundred, and that took me a couple weeks to work up to.
Anyway: working out more and blogging shouldn't be mutually exclusive...I think. I doubt I'm gonna get anywhere the Handbook numbers, but we'll see. Anyone have any real-world BMI/weight numbers, or comic workout tips, let me know.
(Black Knight page art by Kerry Gammill, head writer Mark Gruenwald. Blue panel--his name, not his color--from Pirate Corp$! #1, written and drawn by Evan Dorkin.)
I don't think the guys who write those things really understand that muscle weighs more than fat. They seem to be looking at a doctor's chart rather than a football game program for their sizes and weights. While 6'2"/240 sounds right for a bruiser like Cap, most of the time they have their male characters much too light to be as powerful as they appear to be. I'd guess Black Panther at about 210.
ReplyDeleteAnd they seem to think that any woman who weighs more than 100 pounds looks like Etta Candy. Jessica Biel, for example, probably weighs about 130.
Tall people can carry a lot of weight before they start looking tubby, especially if they are muscular.
I once had a blind date with a woman who had been told (correctly) that I weighed 250. She told me she was expecting someone who looked like John Goodman. She was pleased to see that I'm 6'5" and have a 34 inch waist.