Pay More When Don't Go To The Gym?

Boston Globe - Every year, we resolve to hit the gym more often and get fit. And by the end of January, many of us have missed workouts or given up altogether… According to Yifan Zhang, a 2010 graduate of Harvard College, part of the problem is that customers see gym membership fees as money spent, or “a sunk cost, especially if you pay at the beginning of the year.’’ That prompted the idea for Gym-Pact in Boston, which she created with Harvard classmate Geoff Oberhofer…  Gym-Pact negotiated a group rate with Planet Fitness, then paid the membership fees for participants, who in return for a free membership agreed to work out at least four times per week. If they fail to follow the schedule in any one week, the participants pay $25.

Typical Ivy League overachiever, not enough that she got into Harvard but now she's going to rub it into everyones face that she's healthier and goes to the gym more often than us too.  Thanks alot.  Who are you to critique how often I use my gym membership? Just because I've skipped the gym the last two January's because of all the New Years Resolution phonies doesn't mean I need you running around telling me I should pay more during those months (never mind all the other months in between that I also elected not to go, I just wasn't sure when the resolutions faze was going to end last year so I played it safe and just skipped it all together). 

In all seriousness though I'm shocked that the gyms are going along with this.  I've been to the Planet Fitness in Government Center which is one of the test sites for this little social program.  The place is a dump.  If they me I'd have to pay a $25 fee every time I felt like skipping my work out in squalor like conditions I'd laugh, rip up the contract and never come back.  The place is only $10 a month for a reason.  

I don't skip the gym because I view my fee as a sunk cost, I skip the gym because deep down at heart I'm lazy and would rather chill with a plate of fries watching tv or playing jeopardy than go get my sweat on next to juice heads and fatties wearing yoga pants.  I'd 100% just not sign up for the gym at all if this was the plan option put in front of me. 

You may be a bit smarter than me and in much better shape, but you're not tricking me into that contract.

Office Etiquette- Washing Your Hands At Work

Does my office need to come to this to get guys to wash their hands?

The fact that this is the third hand washing or bathroom related post on this blog is just a sad commentary on the state of hygeine with the men at my work place, but here we are.


We're right in the prime of cold season and that means, that while always gross and disturbing, not washing your hands at this time of the year is even more appalling than usual.  Normally I just consider you a filthy, vial human being, but during flu season? You're a terrorist, you might as well be conducting experiments in Bio-Weaponry. And it's not just the non-washers who draw my attention there are a few subsets of these office vagabonds:


1. The Non-Waher- by far the most disgusting of the bunch.  Lacking self respect and respect for those around you, you've decided that shaking hands with poo and piss particles parading on your palm is an acceptable way of life.  These people should be removed from society.  And don't give me that crap about having sanitizer back at your desk.  By the time you get there you've already touched the door knob and who knows how many other surfaces.


2. The Rinser- Likes to keep up appearances but in reality is just as dirty as The Non-Washer.  That luke warm water you just ran over your hands for 3.2 seconds didn't do squat. Touched upon here, these people bother me the most.  Not only are they filthy but they're liars about it too.  I'm not sure what social defects afflict these cretins so much that they can trick themselves into thinking they're hygenical people, but I'm not sticking around to find out.

3. The Non Hand Dryer- Filthy? No. Gross all the same, Yes.  This person takes all the proper hand washing steps and carries them out to a T, yet struggles to comprehend the concept of paper towels.  I'd understand this stance if we had those useless air drying machines, or old fashion papertowel dispensers that you had to touch.  But we don't. Our office has gone out of it's way to bring us one luxury item, and that item is the magical, hands free paper towel dispenser.  There is no excuse for making your fellow co-workers have to go through the traumitizing experience of opening the door only to find the handle is wet.  I can tell you from experience their is nothing worse than walking back to your desk praying that it was wet from a non hand dryer and not a non-washer or rinser.  Shit is disgusting and will play mind games with you until you can find a sanitizer dispenser.

Breaking News: Ikea Designs Stores as Mazes to Keep Customers In

Daily Mail - If you've ever found yourself hopelessly lost in an Ikea store, you were probably not alone. The home furnishing chain’s mazy layouts are a psychological weapon to part shoppers from their cash, an expert in store design claims. The theory is that while following a zig-zag trail between displays of minimalist Swedish furniture, a disorientated Ikea customer feels ­compelled to pick up a few extra impulse purchases...'In Ikea's case, you have to follow a set path past what is effectively their catalogue in physical form, with furniture placed in different settings which is meant to show you how adaptable it is,' he said.  'By the time you get to the warehouse where you can actually buy the stool or whatever's caught your eye, you're so impressed by how cheap it is that you end up getting it.'

So? Has anyone ever complained about having to go to Ikea? The place is a blast, its like the Caesars Palace of home goods and furniture stores.  Just exciting awesomeness around every corner.  Who cares if it takes me 4 hours, a lunch, a snack, and two bathroom breaks to navigate the entire store? And so what if I went there looking for a wine rack and came home with a rug, more wine glasses for the wine rack I still don't have, a shelf, and an ergonomic chair?  Like the article said, the stuff was dirt cheap, I'd be dumb not to get anything.  

Zig-Zag me all you want.  I'd love to get lost overnight, hell overnight probably wouldn't be enough. I'd need to get locked in there for like a solid week before I could pin down which room plans I liked best.  Probably just make my way around for the first few nights desperately trying to decide between various color schemes and different stylings of modern decor, capping off each night by crushing some Swedish meatballs in the cafe and running through the cool shit in the kids section that I've always wanted to try out but didn't because society would look down on me. 

America's Newest Drug Problem, Bath Salts?

ABC News - Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale...Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in products sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet as bath salts and even plant foods. However, they aren't necessarily being used for the purposes on the label...

Bath Salts? How the hell was this stumbled upon?  I always wonder how normal drugs and addictions take hold, like who first came up with whatever process transforms the coca plant to cocaine, or who the genius was that decided standing around the fire wasn't enough, they had to physically inhale the flame through wrapped paper. But this? This just takes it a step further.

What kind of warped decision making process is going on with the guy that decides huffing the contents of his Grandma's Bath and Body Works Gift Basket sounds like a fun Saturday night?  It's things like this that give me hope and despair for our country all at the same time.

On the one hand we have the kind of visionary minds that can transform every day bathroom products into a marketable item that are adopted at an epidemic like pace.  Obviously the downside being that we're allowing these luminaries of our generation to waste their time, methodically working their way through convenience stores, sniffing, smoking and injecting each product on the shelves.  

I believe its high time (see what I did there) that we give this special subset of gifted minds the funding and tools they need to put these skills to work...I'm sure we can earmark a portion of whatever number stimulus package we're up to these days for this. 

A Quick Intro to the New Site

Welcome back everyone, to the new and improved Alt-Tab.  Pretty exciting day, and I'm glad its finally here.  I've literally been working on getting this done every weekend since November, always thinking it would be done in one more week and wondering if I should alert the readers.  Glad I didn't, I'd have felt like a Bill Simmons follower waiting for his NBA Eastern Conference review that he promised back before Thanksgiving.

When I was finally able to come to grips with the fact that I am not as talented as Mark Zuckerberg, I broke down and contacted a real web designer for some help.  The result is this. Make of it what you will, I like it though.

Overall its a fairly cosmetic change, much like a Hollywood face lift, sure we look better now, but underneath we're still very much the amateurish bloggers just trying to fit in with the rest of the internet crowd.  Up top you'll notice a new navigation row.  You obviously know what home does.  Contributors takes you to the archive pages of The Maestro (1 and 1 this weekend, he's improving folks!) and PennyPacker (a whopping 1 contributions to date), along with the complete list of CW's Office Musings and Advice columns, and finally the Alt-Tab Shoppe (yes we've gone old school English).  The Contact Us button is for Contacting The Alt-Tab. Come people, keep up.

To the right there is a veritable cornucopia of social buttons, I'm personally not sure what half of them do, but I've been assured my trusty Digg button is still in there, along with tweet this and share this on Facebook...not that any of you will. Finally, our amateurish "follow us on Facebook and Twitter buttons have been replaced with adult-contempo designs. 

Well I think that about covers it, you can get back to browsing and slacking off at work.  If  your job happens to pay you especially well feel free to pop over to The Alt-Tab Shoppe and support a poor bloggers dream of one day quitting his desk job (mugs, t-shirts, and stickers thus far).  Any suggestions for new designs or submissions are welcome (Maestro just barely escaped a "Fade the Maestro" inspired line with his win in the early game yesterday).

Alt-Tabs of the Week

Kevjumba is a Heterosexual Bear Wrestler -  When your YouTube channel has more than a million subscribers and you have close to 300,000 fans on Facebook, you can sort of own the Internet for a little while. The above explains why the phrase "Is Kevjumba a heterosexual bear wrestler" was the most-searched thing on Google for a few hours Thursday night (Jan. 20). It's in response to the YouTube star and former "Amazing Race" contestant's latest video.  In the video -- after he apologizes for a relative lack of new posts and does a bit with his dad -- Kev (real name: Kevin Wu) explains that he's noticed if you type "Is Kevjumba" into Google's search bar, the auto-complete suggests "Is Kevjumba gay" (although that was only the second suggestion when we tried it; "Is Kevjumba a jerk" came up first). He wants to project more of a tough-guy image, so he suggests that his fans type "Is Kevjumba a heterosexual bear wrestler" instead. Thus is a meme born Although we would've been more convinced if there had actually been some bear wrestling in the video.

Woke up this morning to see "Is Kevjumba a Heterosexual Bear Wrestler" as the top google search of the day. Immediately I thought, well that's silly, is there any other kind of bear wrestler? After my initial curiosity faded and I searched around I thought, God damnit, why didn't we think of that.  Owning the internet for a little while is this sites mission statement (if we were to have one anyway).   Is it really as simple as coming up with an outrageous title and hoping it spreads? If you google The Alt-Tab right now we're still not the top choice and we're over 300 posts in.  This is frigen embarrassing.  I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend thinking of a title for Mondays  first post.  We're going viral or I'm dying trying.
More after the break

Online Poker Player Owes $150 Million in Taxes

LetItFlow - Sometimes it doesn’t pay off to attract attention to yourself. Viktor Blom – aka Isildur1 – is learning that lesson the hard way as he faces a $150 million tax bill.  The identity of online poker star Isildur1 was officially revealed by PokerStars earlier this month, finally letting the public in one of the worst-kept secrets in the online poker world in 2010.  According to the newspaper, Isildur1 played for around $4.5 billion in total on FullTilt and could end up owing the Swedish government as much as $150 million in taxes if they decide to pursue the case.

Wait, people actually win in online poker? I honestly gave up a few years ago when I started assuming robots were winning.  Just me, but I don't like admitting defeat to robots, I had to move on.    And 4 Billion Dollars? Dude was cheating, right? Like taxes are the worst of his worries?

4 Billion! Come on man, you didn't think someone would notice missing taxes on billions of dollars.  I know rich people set up tax shelters and hide their money but where the hell did you plan on stashing that? That's the GDP of a few 3rd world countries.  Thats Scrooge McDuck swimming around in a pool of gold coins for shits and giggles kind of money.  I must be missing something here, I wouldn't have even assumed 4 billion dollars worth of money was even being gambled in total on online poker sites.  My mind is figuratively blown.

Penny Packers Financial Advice: This May Be A Successful Blog Entry: Sources say

The CW recently alerted me that his loyal readers are in grave need of financial advice. I am not sure what has changed in the recent future that has lightened the pockets of Alt-Tab readers, but I may have a hunch. As the Alt-Tab’s resident financial analyst, I volunteered my services to help bring the readers back to prosperity through regular investing related blog entries (or any topic I see fit).

Side note & Disclaimer: since my day job does not require or include financial analysis of any kind, I fit the bill perfectly as I am the only “analyst” whose compensation demands fall perfectly into CW’s budget. You may wonder why you would take financial advice from someone with no experience and no prospects; well I was wondering the same thing (apart from the obvious fact that it’s better than the alternative Alt-Tab financial guru: The Maestro. That was, until I was researching my upcoming blog series regarding my investment picks and stumbled upon some cutting edge analysis.

Pop Inside for More.

Reader Submission: Does your office have heat? Mine doesn’t

Guest blog from loyal reader Milosh:

I know there is nothing CW enjoys more than a good rant, so I’m going to give this my best shot.  The last 3 mornings I have come into work there has been no heat in my office.  The only thing colder than my office right now is the Maestro’s picks (Zing!).  I’ve had to go down to the lobby each day and ask them to turn the heat on, and it usually takes all morning for them to do this.  I know, I know you guys are probably saying “Hey Milosh, put a jacket on and suck it up!”  I’m sorry but there are certain things that I expect my office building to provide me:  heat, electricity, and running water.  That’s all really.  While CW’s biggest issue today is deciding what candy bar he’s going to get from the vending machine, I’m trying to figure out ways to stay warm. 

I feel like Costanza in his office at Play Now, except instead of Mr. Tomasulo trying to sweat me out he’s trying to freeze me out.  You’re an office building, you need to be able to heat your building!  Each day I’ve gone down there they’ve said something along the lines of “Oh we forgot to turn the heat on for that wing of the building”.  What?!?!  Turn the F’ing heat on for the whole F’ing building! 

I will leave the ranting to CW from now on.