If you’ve ever wanted washboard abs (without having to join a jug band) and battle chronic insomnia, you’re in luck as late night infomercials advertise a broad range of products that will make your lower torso look like Contrapposto sculpture without having to hang upside down to achieve the same results.
[Editor's note: If you do decide to opt for upside down situps, we recommend: a) that the metal bar is properly affixed between the door frames (otherwise you'd look ridiculous) and b) a hockey helmet or a bean bag chair].
The Shark Guys has quickly become a one-stop shop for all your fitness review needs, provided you’ve read the two reviews we’ve done thus far, stopped, and then shopped.
We’ve looked at claims made by the makers of Turbo Jam, which make New World Order conspiracy buff pronouncements seem almost reasonable by comparison and now, because if Turbo Jam hasn’t given you an ab workout that’s felt like eating a bad batch of clams, we turn to another taut torso torture device: The Ab Circle Pro (not to be confused with the Ab Circle Amateur, which involves drawing a sphere free-hand on the stomach with a magic marker, the health claims related to which are currently under FDA review)
This product offers a loss of 10 lbs in two weeks or your money back (your money will be reimbursed to you in three easy payments of $14.95), which is a pretty good deal if you think about it, but not critically.
The Ab Circle Pro turns your flab into ab, not only by dropping the the first two letters, but by employing a “Unique friction-free track which uses the momentum of gravity to target your whole mid section.” The Ab Circle Pro also ‘gets you off the floor” and then asks to imagine ‘losing inches as you watch TV’ (and not by watching porn and then suddenly switching to the Weather Network). If it’s good enough for the anonymous doctor in the clip below, it’s certainly good enough for his anonymous patients.
You can, ‘Take the ride of your life’ (applicable if you’ve been locked in a basement and shielded from natural light) and don’t forget to “ask the operator how you can get the Ab Circle Pro Multi Function computer for faster results”. Actually, it’s probably best not to bother the operator about your own personal fitness goals (especially when the ‘computer’, looks like the illegitimate offspring of a clock radio and an Olympic discus).
Be sure and check out these testimonials:
“I just had a lower back injury and I can’t feel anything back there at all“. Maybe he’s got more serious issues to worry about.
“Going to the gym every day, takes up so much of your time”. This is true, that’s why the makers of Ab Circle Pro claims the average user can benefit from just 3 minutes a day, or roughly 2 and a half minutes longer than it takes to brush your teeth.
“It’s like a ride”. A donkey at the petting zoo is as well, provided you’re 8.
“I’d much rather be on this than do 100 sit ups.” Isn’t there a third option or maybe some common ground, say 2 sit-ups?
“Beats sitting on the couch watching TV any day.” Perhaps not good policy to antagonize your potential target demographic.
If you live in a high rise where cigarette butts and syringes line the stairwell, it’s easy to see the appeal of MTV Cribs. For those who aren’t familiar with the show, Cribs offers a celeb-guided tour inside the stately homes of celebrities real (Hulk Hogan) and imagined (Jacoby Shaddix—he was in some band called Papa Roach and has ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on his hands, which is pretty limiting given the number of four-letter antonyms)
Because it’s Monday and we want to ease you into the working week, here’s an opportunity to make you feel better about your employment prospects and your living situation even if your home does not resemble a Viennese imperial palace and the only German engineering you’re familiar with is when the city bus rolls past your basement apartment. Here then are our Top 7 Things you Won’t Find on MTV Cribs when the celebrity hides all the cocaine in drawers, calls a cab for the half-naked strippers, and invites the producers and cameramen into his entirely un-humble abode.
Books. This does not bode well for us as authors but celebrities don’t read. Their collected holdings would be shamed by the average hospital intensive care ward. Unless they do all their reading on Amazon Kindle, celebrities are clearly not under Gutenberg’s spell (that’s the printing press guy, not the star of Three Men and a Baby and Police Academy, who would not be profiled on Cribs as they don’t do renters unless it’s the Canadian edition). Moby was a standout in that he had an extensive collection of books despite living in a relatively modest New York City apartment, but if you’re distantly related to Herman Mellville you’d be a real ‘dick’ not to have a few first editions lying around.
Food. Much as we expected, celebrities dine out exclusively as the influence of Oprah’s personal chef on her weight has not gone unnoticed in their circles. On Cribs, an open fridge invariably shows an array of sugar-based diet sodas and occasionally booze, so it appears either most celebrities swear off solid foods at home or have personal chefs who are really master mixologists— and have kitchens that are strictly for show or to keep catered food cold for exclusive dinner parties.
We have no idea who this is, but he looks like a test candidate for a higher voltage Taser
Art. We’re not going to include a bronzed self-portrait atop a horse as art, Cupid whizzing Grey Goose into a pool of drunk Koi fish or a guitar hanging on the wall signed by David Geffen. Yes, the phrase “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like”, can be amended to, “I don’t know much about art but can break up the monotony of bare white walls with at least a dozen flat screens instead”.
Fewer than 5 Cars. While Diddy has scaled back—recently complaining that the costs associated with being ferried around on his private jet are taxing his bottom line—terrestrial travel has not been as adversely affected. On Cribs, a garage with airplane hangar-sized doors will house at least 3 Lexus, 2 Maybach Benz models, some sort of SUV that looks like it could drive over landmines in Kandahar and for weekends, a Ferrari for kicking up dust at the state police who can be bought off with an autographed picture, unless you’re Shaun White. [Editor’s note: Who? Other editor’s note: Exactly]
A remark other than “This is where the magic happens”, when the cameras go into the bedroom, the implications of which can be objectionable indeed if we’re talking about Chyna or Boy George (and the only ‘magic’ you’d want to see happen would be a disappearance for anyone unlucky enough to be coerced into bed with either)
A reporter. The only voice you ever hear is the celebrity’s, so there’s never a ’so, this must’ve set you back quite a bit, huh?’, ‘would you mind if I test out your hot-tub?’ or ‘can I use the bathroom? Number 1, I swear.’
A remark other than something convivial when MTV has to leave. The celebrity always says, “it’s time for you to ‘get the hell out of here’ and nearly slams the door in the face of the viewer like they’re trying to sell them centrally installed vacuums or introduce them to Seventh Day Adventism. The celeb really should be saying, ‘thank you for spending your valuable time gazing at my profligate, taste-free abode, that should be segmented into Habitat for Humanity apartments or set fire to for the insurance money.
Here’s a look inside Lil’ Wayne’s crib in New Orleans. Warning: never will you see anyone so dismissive of 30 grand worth of kitchen granite
Authors of a controversial study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health offered some good news to pregnant women who may want to continue on in the lifestyle that got them in that condition in the first place when they said that it might be OK for expectant mothers to binge drink on occasion without harming their unborn.
This goes against orthodox thinking on the subject and will come as a surprise to those who have lost major points with the missus when suggesting during a lull in Lamaze class that everybody repair to the local bar because “this is all just a big money-grab anyway”.
But before you and your mates and a yummy mummy of your acquaintance toast the baby by gently tapping the outside of the womb with your can of Michelob Light and rubbing it for luck, keep in mind that the study was limited to the effects of the occasional binge enjoyed by someone who was not a chronic alcoholic. A number of studies have linked heavy drinking during pregnancy to stunted growth, birth defects and abnormal neural development – in short, the conditions that plague the starting line-up of your company’s softball team.
After an examination of thousands of research papers and more brow-furrowing than goes on at the cue-card prepping session at the Miss World pageant, the study’s authors concluded that there was almost no conclusive evidence linking binge drinking, which they pegged at five drinks in one session (low, but we’ll let it pass given the context) and such birth maladies as fetal alcohol syndrome.
The study did find a minor connection between a mother binge drinking and the issue of her loins ending up with a lower verbal IQ, learning problems, a predilection towards delinquency, and – pure speculation on our part here – an increased likelihood that PTA mailings concerning the child’s schooling will need to be delivered to the neighborhood pub.
For those of you who take your medical advice from us – not recommended, though we will gladly dispense with recommendations on patent medicines that can treat all sorts of ailments – the study was inconclusive and its authors recommended that women not binge drink “just to be safe”. [That said, the authors also say that those who do go out to tilt the odd half-dozen in celebration of the blessed event, or to drown their sorrows as they bemoan how unreliable birth control is, should not feel too bad because as of right now the evidence is minimal that it will do any harm.]
The new book “Preggatinis: Mixology for the Mom-to-Be”, should come as welcome news to those for whom the prospect of 9 dry months is a less than compelling proposition. Author Natalie Bovis-Nelsen offers an array of ‘mocktails’ (so named because they’re easy to make fun of in every context other than during pregnancy) for the mom-to-be.
According to a Washington Post source, “Preggatinis” presents drinks for those preparing to be pregnant (think milk thistle and antioxidants such as blueberries) and for combating morning sickness (Editor’s note: which presumably also work for the non-pregnant binge drinker).
Now you can say with conviction, “Make it a double, she’s drinking for two!”
If you’ve ever wanted washboard abs (without having to join a jug band) and battle chronic insomnia, you’re in luck as late night infomercials advertise a broad range of products that will make your lower torso look like Contrapposto sculpture without having to hang upside down to achieve the same results.
