Naked for everyone to see

On a whim of cleverosity (is that even a word?), I've decided to publish my In The Groove 2 stats online.

It's really fun. The challenge is fun. DDR Supernova didn't get here soon enough. And with 5 songs for $1, it's the second best deal in town.

The first best deal is Pump It Up, 3 songs for 25 cents. But, if you get at least an A on the 3rd song, you'll get a 4th. I'd like to go there too and switch it up a bit since I can easily say I havn't MASTERED PIU (or even DDR, for that matter), but, damnit, stats are real useful for my current goals.

Here's a widget of information: the body burns about 1200-1300 calories a day doing NOTHING. If you layed in bed all day, that's what you'd burn. The body consumes that much to keep itself alive.

ANOTHER widget: A pound of human fat stores 3500 calories. So, to burn a pound of fat, you need to burn an additional 3500 calories over what you burn being alive, walking places, talking, being alert, things like that.

Please wish me well on my quest.

(and, perhaps someday, abs)

...

Oh, and, quit starin' at my balls.

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Crickets

I havn't written much of anything in a while. I can't blame it on Tetris DS, although I SHOULD. I'm not going to get any more games for any system: I've already got three DS games floating around because I figured I'd want to play with them instead of having the huge ordeal of trying to fish them out of a packed storage closet. Now, DS games are TINY. If I have any more I'm afraid I might lose one.

So far fitness-land is proving to be... ah... a little of this, a little of that. I havn't done anything magical, this, coming onto my 2nd week.

When I did Atkins, less than two weeks into it I was already 12 pounds lighter and I could certainly feel it. Clothes felt more loose, I felt "faster" when I move around... eventually I felt really weak. Weak? Yeah, when I was thinner I realized how much I use my weight as a pivot to get things done. I don't open doors so much as I swing off them and they just open. Moving an object? Just push against it at just the right place with your weight. Lifting? Yeah, that's sort of tough. But once it's up, you can use your weight as a counterbalance. See? Nothing to it. Without the extra weight, these weight-reliant techniques just don't work.

But, no, I still feel slow and "able to move mountains". So that's a negatory.

On the upside, I'm sleeping a whole lot better. Yesterday night was just a fluke, I just layed awake thinking about stuff, frankly, I shouldn't be thinking about. No, you don't get to know what it is. Not yet, anyway. But, overall, I wake up after an amazing 7.5 hours feeling refreshed and ready to go. THIS, boys and girls, pre-ops and post-ops, is GOLD. Just eat right, cut the sugar, cut the caffeine (if I, King of Killer Koffee, can do it, so can J00), cut the fast food and replace it with real food. And I've got steady energy so that when I DO get my ass kicked in the gym, at least I don't wimp out early. Oh, I still wimp out, but that's just because my muscles are weak and timid.

...

I've had sushi 8 times in the last 2 weeks. It's healthy(-ish, heavy on the sodium but I drink more than enough water to compensate), it's not a compromised sandwich (hurr, I'll turn down that philly cheese steak on Italian asiago-cheese-encrusted bread for your 330 calorie half-a-chicken-breast and onions on cardboard), and it leaves a lovely flavor in my mouth.

Make a joke about me just wanting something fishy near my mouth and I'll make you watch Anus Magillicutty.

So, really, that's all that's going on right now. I swear. And that bit about not telling you yet? Well, it's only because I don't want to have my balls cut off. Ahhh... look, d00ders, the night before last I had a really frightening dream. Well, frightening and, frankly, kind of hot.

Ok ok ok

I've been feeling kind of submissive lately. At least I "think" it's submissive. I've never really felt this way before. To be more specific:

I want to perform services -- with all my effort -- for a harsh mistress who will push me to the limits and reward me well (very well) for doing so. I want to put 100% faith in someone that she will not let true harm come to me. I want her to call my shots and make me her toy.

There, specific enough for you? They say, or at least they say they say, that the pendulum swings both ways. If I've spent a lot of time just being of the "dominant" persuasion, is it conceivable that it's backing up and going the other way now? Odd, I suppose. I *am* a digital boy, after all, so it'd make sense that it'd be either-or, but never at the same time. A "xor", if you will.

(xor = Exclusive Or, plebian. Read a damn book.)

But right now I can't really think too much about that. I've got 3 weeks to go before The Fucks, as I am now affectionately referring to my mental state for a few months after I have sex with the realization that I can't have more anytime soon, go away. My feelings of health(ier) live have helped my libido slightly, even though it was pretty high to begin with. AND with spring having sprung, rising sap is threatening to push it beyond 3 weeks. So I must get it together.

Get it together.

Get it together.

Get it together.

Get it together.

And, wouldn't you know it, I FINALLY saw all of FLCL. Damnit.

FITNESS!

Saturday I kissed my prior life goodbye. Goodbye, coffee. Goodbye, clever drinks.

Bye, McDonald. See ya, Arby. Don't cry, Wendy. I've become emancipated, BK. The bell shant toll for me today, Taco. (ok, that last one was a stretch)

BUT, more importantly, Goodbye ELEVATORS. Goodbye, their retarded cousins ESCALATORS. Goodbye closest parking spot. Goodbye, saturday evenings.

I'm now under the complete physical training of my brother, Mike Lalane. :P

That day I went with him to the gym and saw what he could do. I was stunned. He lifted 110 pounds, 55 in each hand, up and over his head no fewer than 30 times. He did 12 - 15 pullups, unassisted, on a free bar. I, on the other hand, did 30 reps of 40 pounds, 20 each, and did 10 pullups on the Gravitron... at 30% my body weight. ;_;

There was more to it and it was pretty unnerving. I mean, there was nobody there but I still felt like I was being watched. And of all the "tests" I went through, I didn't leave any of them feeing proud or good about it. Yeah, I felt the "pump" and the "burn" and stuff, but, yeesh, God, throw me a friggin' bone here. Does EVERY muscle in my body gotta be a squinty bitch?

Well, it just boils down to be weight, also. The muscles in my legs, for instance, to do what I do, near 300 pounds pivoting on a compass leg, are probably good, but they're just at capacity lifting my fat ass up, let alone lifting anything else.

I had sweat a lot. I was sore for 3 days. I had caffeine withdrawl for the same 3 days. Both combined did not leave me a happy camper.

So far I've been "commanded" to eat no less than 5 times a day. Yeah, 5 times, maybe that works out for you, but I've got a steady job and I only get ONE lunch break. And, isn't that counter intuitive? Well, no. 5 small meals. All with green veggies, loaded with protein, and containing complex carbs. It's a sacrifice all right. I like to eat as un-frequently as possible. It's a hassle. Give me one, maybe two BIG meals and I'm happy. I can't live perpetually thinking about my next meal.

But, I want to. I guess. I want to because I'm supposed to want to.

I thought I was going to be dead in a month. But now that I know I'm going to live, I have to put thought back into my future. 5 years. 10 years. Hell, 5 weeks from now. "Living the rest of my life alone" all of a sudden turned from "Enduring the last 5 weeks alive alone" into "Enduring X number of YEARS etc etc etc."

And it's not even just that. I mean, yeah, I'd like to have sex again sometime in the future, but it's more than just that. I played In The Groove for the second time and I felt just god-awful tired in the middle of my third song. The sweat started to pour minutes after I STOPPED. My shins HURT. A lot. They still hurt. I should be kicking ass and taking names. I mean, if I had continued the way I did two years ago I'd be Julio by now, right?

But my clothes don't fit right. My bed creaks. Chairs creak. It's just, BLAH.

Maybe it's nature's way, you know? The way fat people are supposed to have shorter life spans. Like, "Oh well, look at how big you are, fatty. Don't worry, I won't prolong your social, physical, and emotional suffering."

At least I'm doing something about it. But I know it won't solve everything. It won't give me everything I want. That's what lead me to let myself go, after all. Because, in the end, it didn't matter.

Sometimes, I wonder, what's the point, then? Work hard for WHAT?

Just like you, I am allowed to lose my faith too, ok?

Misnomers and Fitness

Why do they call it a "twin" bed when there's no way in hell two people can comfortably sleep in one?

Don't get excited. It's not a smile on my face. It's a nervous twitch. It's a good thing I can fake being asleep... just minus the snoring. I got a good 30 - 45 minutes. Can't beat that. Oh, wait, yes you can. WITH A HEALTHY 8 HOURS.

Bah. Who needs to be healthy?

I DO

Gawd I'm such a fatass. I've got this wooden base on my bed that's been cracked for years. Just crawling into it raised high hell. And it's time to do something about it.

STARVATION AND BULEMIA! Choice of a new generation.

Well, maybe not bulemia. I've got bad enough heartburn as it is. But I've eaten fewer meals than there have been days in the past week. Jenny is right: after a the initial hunger pains, your body just gets used to it and it doesn't feel so bad. How horrible.

But I can't stand it. Everything I grab is poison. I wanted to have cheerios this morning and I think of how much sugar is in milk, even skim milk. And while skim milk is ok, it tastes HORRIBLE. Then I considered grabbing a handful of o's and munching on them, but I was afraid I would just overeat because without the liquid I might get too much of it. The amount it would take to make me feel full would be embarassingly big. For that I might as well eat steak and eggs. And with that I just give up.

When I decide to eat, boy do I ever. I'm hoping it makes me feel good and full for at least a little of the time, and overrall it's just less intake than I ordinarily do. Atkins Nutritional Approach this is NOT.

And today is my first trip to the gym. My brother (who has newly found muscles... bah, if I didn't know better I'd say he was juicing) wants to put me on his plan. He's gonna kick my ass.

No pain no gain. I guess that's the point of it all. If you don't suffer as part of the path, you don't gain anything. That's crap, by the way. Why not take the path of least resistance to gain what you want if it's the same thing? But in the fitness world, it is what it is.

The other night Juan showed me a cell phone pic of me from two years ago. Wearing a shirt I sometimes wear now (except it has holes where I've stretched it). And it's sad: really really sad. How'd I get from point A to point B? Is it just useless struggle against the inner fat jolly guy?

It also doesn't help that for the first time in years I got heckled from a moving car about my weight. :/ The ol' "FATTIE!" being shout out some frat boy's car. I only wish my water bottle would have gone through the open window and splashed open when I threw it at them instead of harmlessly bouncing off the quarterpanel. It would have been interesting if they would have stopped and gotten out of the car to lay some beatdown.

3 day waiting period? But I'm angry NOW.

The STATS

So now that I'm gonna live, I'm looking towards the future. And, somehow, I don't know how, but one of the things that presented itself as something I can't continue to live a future without is an AirPort Express. Yes, welcome to 2004. How come I never heard of this? I would have easily gotten this before my ipod.

If you don't feel like clicking the link (and I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I could click with the power of my mind alone), I'll explain it to you. It's like a really convenient tiny computer. You plug it into the wall for power and it becomes wireless enabled. It comes out of the box making its own wireless hotspot, which is pretty cool, although it breaks the tradition of all wireless hotspots shipping from the factory hotspot OFF so you have to plug it in and it'll just work. I don't like setting up wireless systems without wires first. It feels like putting the cart before the horse, or like masturbating before sex, or appetizers. Er, the whole concept of appetizers, not, um, maturbating before sex or appetizers. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just not in mixed company.

*cough*

Anyway, this box can be wired into your broadband modem and start broadcasting a hotspot based on it. I don't know if you can plug it directly into the fibre... I'm guessing no but I didn't feel like ripping apart my home network to find out. But, so what? Instant hotspots aren't too rare to find. And it's only got ONE wired connection so if you want a desktop to connect to it the machine needs a wireless card. I'm sorry, but standalone machines and wireless cards simply don't belong. It's the principle of the thing. Laptops I understand: they're supposed to be portable. But desktops? It doesn't move: you don't have any excuse to NOT wire it in. Especially with Gigabit around.

Um, for the record, I don't have my home network built off Gigabit. I'm using all Cat-5e cabling, which should work. But real gigabit doesn't exist on PCs within a good price reach. Either the gigabit NIC sticks itself in a PCI slot (which lacks the bandwidth to actually do anything on the order of gigabit speeds), or the gigabit is built into the motherboard using a crossbar to the CPU, which can go full speed but at the cost of CPU cycles. I thought we SETTLED this SOFT-MODEM bullshit 10 years ago.

I don't think it's likely to get any better. Nobody's going to put dedicated autonomous HARDWARE gigabit on a motherboard. And server gigabit cards that use PCI-X or something like that just aren't going to be in the reach of consumers, and even then they'd probably rather put video cards in there. I've always been in favor of a DEDICATED video card slot. SLI is a ripoff, too. The money you spend on two identical cards can be pooled to buy one better card that can run circles around both of them. It only works out if you have two of the highest end $650 video cards at a lovely $1300.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Kittens.

The neat thing it also does is serve print jobs. I can plug my USB printer into it, stick the printer somewhere nice and wirelessly print to it. Instant network printer. I like network printers but they always cost a whole lot more than standard printers. But, realisticly, you only need a print server if you share a printer among lots of people. I'm going to be alone in the future. So much for that feature.

No, friends, this is what makes it. Plug your stereo system into it, either 1/8" stereo plug or mini-toslink optical. Well, technically, all you really need is an amplifier and speakers. And you can open up iTunes on any computer that can reach the AirPort and pipe audio to it. Can you say, JAWESOME?!

I think it would totally rock. Have a dedicated music server in a closet somewhere piping mood music to my hip (panty-peeling) batchelor pad.

...

Hmm... now that I write it... it doesn't seem all that useful. I suppose it's just kinda cool. For some reason this little device speaks to me.

It says, "Thank you, Daddy, for buying me."

When I peeled off the plastic, it smelled like a Magic card, too. I love that smell.

...

AS YOU CAN TELL, I can't sleep. PLEASE GOD PLEASE LET ME SLEEP TONIGHT. That is all.

V stands for, um, something.

First, the news that was forefront on my lobe. (Brain, not, bah, nevermind.) I'm expected to LIVE. w00t! They gotta monitor me with the same bi-weekly blood tests for the next three months just to be sure it wasn't a one-time decline. And the good news is that the doctor's office has been waiving the copayments for a while now.

Other than that, I guess the rest of my life must press forward. Since I'm working in an entirely different location now it makes little sense to get a place north. BUT, it's only temporary and ultimately I don't really know how long it could be. Could be months.

I hate indeterminite things. But you already know that.

On everything else, things are calm. I've been stressing over that one thing for too long. And it's been affecting my other stresses. I've got tax issues that I was considering just letting it be and not paying it. Now I sort of have to. I was kind of playing along with Jenny that I'd visit her this summer... now I sort of have to.

More on that last point on a different day since I've gotta run to work. Bah, I hate writing when I can't devote the time to it. ><

BREAKAWAY

I'm convinced that if ytmnd wasn't on the fritz today that this one would be in the top 10 by now. So far it's my highest acclaimed.

...

And I've never even TRIED pot.

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