What do you think Jared is like when he’s not creepily staring us down with his condescending sandwich stare?  I mean, his whole adult life has revolved around Subway.  He has got to have some serious issues by now.

You know he’s got sub shaped slippers.  Probably Subway-logo jammies.  And when he gets his freak on, he covers his women with fresh lettuce, tomato, olives and banana peppers.  I bet he asks them how many calories they are before he ‘eats out.’   I’m sure his likes those buns toasted, so he makes them lay on a heating blanket before he does the deed.  That’s sick.  Jared, you’re sick.

You think he has wet dreams about the Hamburglar?  Yeah, probably.  Jared and the Hamburglar, making out on top a pile of nasty, greasy burgers.  You know he wants the grease.  You know he misses it.   What do you want to bet, actually, that when Jared hits that mid-life crisis, he’s going to storm into a McDonald’s with a semi and a semi-automatic, diving into an orgasm of food as he eats enough Big Macs to kill an elephant.  His screams of pent-up rage and joy will be unleashed simultaneously.  He’ll grow to five times his size, like Weird Al in his Fat video.  Then he’ll go from fast food joint to fast food joint on a killing/eating spree, leaving blood and burger wrappers in his wake.  He’ll finally be brought down by Ronald McDonald and his Grimace-sized tranquilizer gun.  The nation will be scarred forever.  And it’s all because Subway inflated the ego of one sad sap who had nothing better to do than go on a diet.

Way to fuck it up for all of us, Jared.

THIS IS REALLY WHAT HAPPINESS LOOKS LIKE TO JARED

So, I’m at Subway the other day, and I see big ol’ Jared up on the damn SIGN. The SIGN with pictures of sandwiches is HEADED by a big smiling picture of Jared, which is strange, of course, because when Jared smiles it looks more like a wince or like he’s trying to move something with his mind. And I got to thinking, like, aren’t we past this? We get it. Fat, not fat, used Subway. Can we get a new spokesmodel?

How much do we really care that this horse-gummed man lost some weight by eating vegetables on bread? I would much rather some strong, tan, attractive person lie to me that Subway’s Meatball Hoagie gives me the power of flight. Really? I’ll have three, man, just don’t make me look at Jared anymore.

Like, how long ago did this even happen? I think it’s time for us as a country to move on.

Why is it a 5k anyway?  Didn’t the communists try that back in 1975?  Converting us to the metric system?  Last time i checked, i still waste gas by the miles per gallon.  If i beat my wife, i do it within inches of her life, not centimeters.  So why does it all suddenly change when you’re running down the road?  Isn’t it enough that you’re disrupting traffic?  Isn’t it enough that you’ve burdened tens of people with setting up countless cones, barricades, and water stands?  Do you really have to drudge up bad history and relive the metric conversion all over again?

Was it just that marathons were the weakest link?  The one thing metric communists could take over?  Was that their foothold?  Perhaps they thought each marathon runner would then go on to observe the kilometers?  Maybe they thought it would sow the seed that would blossom into a standard measurement-choking ivy plant?

If you love America, foot long hot dogs, Subway sandwiches, or inchworms, do your duty.  Protect your country. Attend a 5k marathon and shout against the metric system.  Throw rocks at the runners!  Measure things using a yardstick!  Do not let them take us!  Do not submit!  Do not go quietly into that good night!

So I signed up for a 5K. Why? Because a friend of mine said she wanted to, but her boyfriend refused to help her train, and she was damned if she was gonna haul her ass 3.1 miles down a road alone for virtually no reason at all. And, really, it’s *no* reason. We’re not raising money. We’re not donating proceeds of sweat to a charity. I guess she wants to lose weight, but there are easier ways to do that that DON’T require me to pay money to participate.

Did you know that it’s costing us $35 to run down the street? True. If you do the full marathon, it’s 75 damn dollars. “Hey, pay us to do exercise in public!” I feel like going on craigslist and asking people to try and lift my car for, like 20 bucks a pop. If they do it, I’ll charge them an extra $10. Hey, man, I let you exercise.

My old joke was that I get winded *driving* 3.1 miles, so you can imagine how much fun my training is going. Because apparently the 3.1 miles isn’t enough. No, you have to build up to it, running 1, 2, and 3 miles over the course of several weeks. I guess to you marathoners out there, this is fairly obvious, but it sucks ass! I thought marathons were supposed to be, like, the pinacle of athletic achievement, not just a regular Sunday. Why should I be proud of something I did a week ago? Is it because I got a t-shirt? It is, isn’t it? Well, that’s actually the main reason I’m doing it.

The sad part is, I spend my entire day dreading going running. I talk myself out of it constantly. “I just ate. ‘Bridezillas’ is on, and I don’t feel like wasting DVR space. I already showered today, and I don’t want to waste water.” I suddenly am very concerned with wasting things. But I have actually kept to my schedule pretty well, and after 16 hours of straight excuses, I drag my ass outside and run around my neighborhood.

While I’m running, I hate everything. I hate my lungs, I hate my legs, I hate the music playing on my ipod. I hate the faster joggers running past me, I hate the bikers who never nod thanks to me when I run in the gravel to give them more space, the ungrateful bastards. I hate the world, and I try to convince myself not to veer headfirst into traffic.

I also sprint the last quarter mile because I am a masochist. And it makes happier when I get back to my super-buff roommie, all red-faced and sweaty. But as soon as stop outside the condo door, stretching my back and legs on the stairwell handrail, I feel great. For the next 5 or 10 minutes, my brain is fucking pumped. “That wasn’t so bad! I kind of feel great. Why did I dread this all day? This is health! I am a superhero!”

Then I stumble inside and collapse in a sweaty puddle on my roommate’s nice carpet, and the cycle begins anew.

Wish me luck!

Not having a job isn’t very funny, but being a Negative Nancy all day long doesn’t solve anything. By which I mean it bores me. Listen, I’ve been unemployed, and while it certainly wasn’t my favorite part of my life, I tried to adhere strictly to a few rules to keep my sanity. Let’s go over some of the happier things about being sacked in the form of a Do/Don’t List!

DO take advantage of your newfound comically out-turned pockets by neglecting to eat major meals. I once ate cucumber sandwiches for a week! The weight just flies off!

DON’T eat cucumber sandwiches for a month. You will have to buy all new clothes at Costco, and they will not be very fashionable.

DO make use of your new free time by catching up on all those video games you’ve had to neglect by preparing presentations for The Big Client! No one can apply to jobs all day. Relax! Go to it! Play a violent video game! Make up elaborate backstories for background characters in Grand Theft Auto, then, when you grow weary of their story arc, shoot a rocket launcher into their fancy car!

DON’T go crazy and kill your whole family and then yourself. Too soon? Too soon.

DO find a creative outlet for your pent-up frustrations. I joined an Improv Class, where I frequently assumed the character of a charming, witty person with a job!
1 out of 3 ain’t bad!

DON’T video blog smug CNN i-Report articles where you radically confuse “dancing like a muppet and talking fast without enunciating” with “making good points.”

Okay, well, that wasn’t too many, but I’m sure you’ve heard enough media douchebags starting sentences with “In this economy, you’ve got to…” that you want to start naming GTA characters after them, and I don’t blame you. But $5,000 rocket launchers aren’t really available on every street block, so all we can do is try to make the best of our situations. Not me, of course, I have a job, and I will hopefully continue to…at least as long as people keep wanting fries with that.

Are you unemployed?  If not, studies probably show that you more than likely will be at some point in the near future, before Obama magically solves all of our problems.  Since i like to appear educated, i Wikipediaed unemployment and skimmed the page.  Here are my findings:

A really long paragraph insists that everyone who has come up with a cause for unemployment has been called a dickhead by other people with different ideas.  The moral here is that no one knows, and even if you do figure it out, you’ll be ridiculed until you wind up in a dark closet listening to The Cure and cutting yourself.

There’s different kinds of unemployment.  Let’s see which category you do (or will) fall into.

Classical Unemployment - this occurs when the worker has become too old, or ‘a classic.’  Classics are cool when they’re a car, or something that’s played on the radio.  Classics are great to listen to if you do have a job - put on some Zeppelin or Floyd while you’re doing the daily chores and your day may go a little faster.  But what are the members of Pink Floyd doing today? Not working!  If they’re even still alive, the one thing they’re not doing is cooking my dinner or joining my conference call.  Finish your crossword puzzle, Pops, and keep your old man hands away from my job.

Structural Unemployment - that’s when a company has ‘restructured,’ and they don’t have a place for your position anymore.  Remember that Thanksgiving when the seating was ‘restructured’ and you had to sit at the kid’s table?  This is really just a passive aggressive way of saying, ‘hey Billy, you’re creepy and you have a weird odor, so get the fuck out.’

Frictional Unemployment - i’m pretty sure this is where someone is fired because they jack off in the bathroom at work too often.

Keynesian Unemployment - i didn’t quite get this one, but it did kinda make me want a nice big box of nuggets from Chik-fil-a, with that awesome Polynesian sauce.  I always wondered why they didn’t just call it sweet & sour, because that’s really what it is.  Granted, it’s better than what you’d get anywhere else, but, that’s just a stupid name for a sauce.  Polynesian?  Does Polynesia even exist anymore?

Now what to do you once you’re actually unemployed? 
Collect unemployment!  People like to spin it down, and say, ‘oh no, you only get 75% of your pay.’  But imagine you had a job, and one day someone said to you that they would pay you 25% less than what you make now, but you’d be able to sleep in and sit on your ass all day.  Who would say no to that?  Retarded people.  Ok, ok, it’s only for 6 months, but hey, miracles don’t last forever.

Tease those poor saps who do have to work!  Walk by an office building wearing pajamas.  Stretch out in a store somewhere and take a nap - just because you can.  You’ve got no timesheet to fill out now, baby!  Ask someone what time it is, then quickly reply that it doesn’t matter, you’ve got nowhere to be.

Get ahead of the game!  Most people wait until they’ve got a foot in the ground before they make or follow through on a bucket list.  Do it now!  Make a list of shit you want to do before you have to get a stupid job again.  Be creative with it!  Watch Jackass while you’re making it!  Years down the road, when it’s time to die, you can be first in line.  No shit to catch up on.  Lucky for you, you were unemployed!

Learn a skill.  And i don’t mean a bullshit skill, like using pivot tables or maintaining a budget.  I mean like fishing with a knife and a net, or building a shelter out of trees.  You’ll have the upper hand if the economy continues to take a nosedive and our society crumbles into a post-apocalyptic dystopia.  What’s Jenny from Accounting going to do when dinner is running through the forest?  Create an Excel formula to detereminte how many days it’ll take her to starve to death?  Not you!  Spear yourself some food and be thankful for the time you had to develop yourself due to unemployment. 
So what did we learn?  Don’t get old, or smell bad.  Get yourself some Chik-fil-a.  If you do lose your job, don’t sweat it, because it could save your life.