Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Glad to hear my transformation is being appreciated. though i do hope you managed to avoid drenching anything. I owe my shiny new look to a deep tanning booth and cocoa butter.

A Little Bit of Freak

It is said that myths are mankind’s way of explaining what they cannot logically explain and so are made palatable to the common man by way of divine providence. For this very reason, the Gods do not have to explain how or why something occurs. To them it just does and requires no explanation, only acceptance. It is perhaps for this same reason that bodybuilders accept the common figures around the gym that defy logical explanation. They’re legends in themselves. A folklore passed from one generation of bodybuilder to the next that is often heard about but rarely seen.

As the contestants of the Pro/Am competition and bodybuilders everywhere can attest, they’ve heard these age-old stories over and over again. Sometimes in the gym, sometimes in the changing room and sometimes, on the bodybuilding.com message boards. Every so often, during one of our workouts, we come into contact with a character so polarized in one unique characteristic trait that they have become a legend unto themselves.

For example, there’s the screamer who will insist on releasing a supersonic burst of raw vocal energy so loud that Whitney Houston would have trouble making herself heard while singing a rendition of the sonically loud “I Will Always Love You” if they shared a room. Then there is the workout stripper-bunny who will firstly insist on annexing the cardio machines, then proceed to exclusively work out on it whilst removing select articles of clothing every five minutes until all she has are a two-piece bikini set. She will then start flirting with the nearest male trainer for the next forty-five minutes. Then there’s the always-grinning muscle-dwarf who proceeds to clang every 10lb dumbbell so loudly on the racks every time he finishes a rep that you’d think he was going for the power lifting world record despite his dubious lifting stats which begs the question, what is it that is so compelling about these people that we’ve immortalized them in drunken banter in between pots of the local beer on tap or between the top and bottom gaps of the shower room cubicles? Do we regale our captive audience with these tales as a way to pass the time, or is there a deeper meaning behind our reverent religious adherence to the accurate portrayal of their contentiously charming quirks?

Freak as a term has a multi-dimensional meaning. It can mean someone is exceptionally huge; for example, “Check out Adrian climb the wall using only his arms! He’s nature’s freak!” or conversely it can have the meaning that causes us to raise one eyebrow, a move which I can only do if I wink my right eye at the same time. In reference to the latter, while it is easy to secretly grin and categorically place our aforementioned stereotypes into the freak category who once upon a time, people paid good money for to see in a circus, one must begin to question, “Do we all have a little bit of freak in us?”

As a personal discovery, I had stumbled upon possibly one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century, disabled toilets. They are without doubt the cleanest, experience low traffic, and posses extra amenities conveniently often neglected in public access toilets and showers. Shamelessly, I use these rooms to my advantage every time I finish a workout, for not only do they provide me with protection from the sight of old men who insist on partaking in the sport of naked shaving, the floors are eternally dry, a rare phenomenon that only occurs when swimmers don’t change in the same area as people who visit the gym.

One day, I discovered post-workout that someone had caught onto my idea of using these excellent hideaways as their own changing room. It was with chagrin that I walked to the public changing area, fuming that someone could have taken the area I had unofficially categorically labelled as my own. Gentlemanly that I am, I waited outside so I could deliver a heartfelt public lashing and make my practical claim on this area. In actual reality, far away from a dream land called fantasy, I had forgotten to take with me one of my sweaters which I had left up on the shower railings so I waited outside the disabled toilets despite the strange looks I was getting from people as they walked in and out of the changing rooms.

More recently, I paid a late visit to the gym on one occasion and with whilst taking my obligatory post workout shower in my secret room, the pleasant sound of a female staff/trainer rang out, “We’re closing gentlemen. Hurry up please.” With this statement, she proceeded to turn off the lights in the changing room. Night time with no lights in a dark room trying to have a shower equates to no fun. Frantically grabbing anything I could find in the dark, I was a sight to behold running out of the gym changing rooms, my hair in 60 different angles and undried with wet clothes haphazardly thrown on inside out in all sorts of strange and wonderful positions.

Some stories are so outrageous that we don’t know whether or not to believe them, but never so outrageous to be considered untrue, for in every story, there is a slight ounce of truth, an identifying mark that we connect with that reminds us, hang on a second, this could just have easily been us. At the end of the day, maybe we’re all just looking for a common freakishness that identifies with us and is able to communicate with us on a broad level. For if someone at my gym can come up with this quirky limerick at the suggestions board, then maybe his freakish ability for rhyme has benefited mankind after all.

“I find it a little bit strange
When I finish gym and go change
The shower doors won’t lock
Other men see my (censored)
Please fix if you could arrange.” - Anonymous

If people are really that interesting at a gym, maybe i should start going to one. entertainment!

Yeah it's really funny haha. Once there was this guy that did squats.. and he use to scream on every rep. I kept dropping my weights every time he screamed.

We Can be Heroes

Sitting alone in bed at night with my trusted sidekick Big Ted, a name I shamelessly ripped of Play School when I was only 30cm tall, I question again runs HITTingly through my mind; why do we submit ourselves to “torture” (pleasure to some) to sculpting the perfect body? More specifically, I wonder whether bodybuilding is our vice, our poison, as a means to provide meaning in a world that continues to demonstrate no stability. Are we turning to bodybuilding as a means to provide some form of control in our lives to make us more secure, to make us feel like we’re in the driver’s seat, and to make us feel that despite being manipulated by a little string in the grand scheme of an unavoidable destiny, we steadfastly refuse to conform to the status quo, stubbornly raising our heads in defiance with a logic that defies all reason?

After all, if our goal in life is to reproduce, what is the point of working out long after we snare our women (or men) and start making devilishly cute children with the combined genes of our perfect partner? Is there another reason, despite the logical health benefits, that come from working out? After all, any sane person would suggest that subjecting ourselves to pain over and over again is not a pleasurable way to spend our limited leisure time in a society that increasingly demands more and more quality production from a decreasingly available time allotment.

Sure, we can suggest that those who work out are long term thinkers, visionary philosophers, who understand that the short time pain will pay exponential dividends later on, but like most people in this world, we expect short term benefits along the way to assure us that we are on the right track as evidenced by my undeniable urges to seek validation that my column musings are improving the lives of people everywhere.

Or could it be that we do so, for the prevention of the “what-if” scenario? What if one day, we found ourselves in the position that the only way to survive a maniacal bank robber shooting was to hurdle over 10 queue barriers Olympic style to tackle would-be robber while simultaneously saving an old lady’s cat from an oak tree while dialling 911 on the telephone to alert the local police department of current events; a feat that can only be performed by those who consider themselves Sparta?

While females are generally regarded to as the fairer sex, the classic male, discounting the relatively modern phenomena of the SNAG (sensitive new age guy) and metrosexual (someone who has sex on trains), is stoic. He is strong and he is the protector of the herd and he doesn’t take an insult to his damsel in distress lying down. He would sooner bleed to protect her honour than utter mumblings of apology and believes that pain is simply weakness leaving the body. He is, in other words, Sparta; the epitome of male alphaness who reeks of manliness so much that the world trembles in his presence. He also doesn’t believe in deodorant.

My theory is that as males, even in ancient civilizations and contemporary society, we grow up exposed to what the ideal male should be. Magazines, television shows and movies all portray men with the 6-pack abs and more recently, a natural 12-pack sported by Gerard Butler who played the role of King Leonidas in the movie “300”, a movie about Spartan King Leonidas who lead his army of 300 soldiers against the invading Persian army during the Battle of Thermopylae. If we grow up believing that the ideal male sports pectoral muscles that subliminally communicate to the opposite sex, “Here, let me hold that large TV set for you,” and arms that promise the ability to sweep a woman off her feet, our emotional development can only be severely lacking due to the constant messages of bigger pectorals, lower body fat percentages and heavier squats, bench presses and deadlifts, compound exercises that every bodybuilder should be well versed with.

In a world that demands our continual development, is our focus on the physicality merely because our emotional selves are severely kittens and thusly too hard to develop when easier gains can be made with our measuring tapes? Or do we believe that if we can control our body, we are grounded and sure of ourselves that it instils in us acknowledge that if we can change our own bodies, we can effect change in the wider community and then the world?

I like to think we fall somewhere in this medium, for if we, a race notorious for its procrastination, can discipline ourselves three times a week on a constant ritual homage to the Gods of discipline, this dedication and steadfast resolve to never miss a workout can be transferred to everything else we do in our lives; the dishes for mum, becoming top executives, and finally, saving the world. Yes gentlemen and ladies, we too, can be heroes.