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pyrian's LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | | 10:09 pm |
| | Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 10:01 pm |
| | Friday, November 13th, 2009 | | 8:05 pm |
Sick :(
I've had a sore throat, productive cough, and tiredness pretty much since I got back from Baltimore. Yuck! | | Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | | 9:07 am |
| | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | | 9:48 pm |
| | 8:35 pm |
FaerieCon and D.C. Recollections
Right now I feel like I got run over by a train. I hope I'm not getting sick. Partied a little too hardy, I guess. My throat is unhappy, but that tends to happen after whooping it up a lot. I slept 12 hours last night and I'm still tired, but then I didn't get much sleep this weekend. (I blame Tink.) (...Not like that.) Tink: You can only eat things that aren't spicy, and I only like food that is spicy. Me: Yeah, my friends call me Captain Bland. Tink: They must've never seen you dance! Me: =D I decided it would be wise to get a GPS navigator this trip. We still got pretty lost a couple of times, usually not so much despite the navigator as because of it. "In 0.3 miles, stay left, then stay left." "Turn right." Aaargh... Then there were streets labeled differently from what the GPS said, and some that just weren't labeled very well at all. Also, it's practically impossible to have it search for something that isn't nearby; we had to have it search in Washington D.C. just to find "United States Capitol". :P When you miss a turn it says, "Recalculating," but its snooty British accent (think Batman's butler) makes it sound exactly like "You Dumbass". Finally, it won't do U-Turns, which once had us go way out of our way when we could have just turned around. Overall it was quite nifty once I got used to its quirks, but I do recommend trying them out in known areas before throwing yourself on their mercy far from home. We did drive right into the National Mall on Saturday, and it found us a pretty decent parking garage which turned out to be behind the Smithsonian information Castle, which was a great place to start. It has an enormous map of the area! We basically walked the National Mall, hitting some memorials and museums as we went. We got to see the Hope Diamond and that giant squid that the Japanese pulled up. On the way back, it turned out that the hotel we'd parked under had a fire alarm! "Why are all these hotel employees walking away? And what's that ringing sound?" We had to wait for the fire department to show up, clear the area, check it out, and finally sound the all-clear before we could go find the car and head back. FaerieCon was cool. We didn't get as involved as we might have; did some shopping and chatting and then hit the masquerade balls. I bought a couple prints, a T, and a Josephine Wall art book (she did the giant embellished giclee on my right-hand wall). Tink tried on some corsets and decided that real corsets were simply a bad idea for her. The Masquerade Balls were terrific. 8) Lots of gorgeous faeries and beautiful music (though the feedback goblins were interfering pretty heavily for a while). These east-coasters don't dance nearly as much as the west-coasters, sadly. I basically gave the last of my energy Saturday night; Tink taunted me as being a lot older than her when I started to falter, and I couldn't let that stand! Sunday night we met Zeb and Alarra and their tyke. =D Pictures to follow when I get some time. There's over 160 of them to sort through... | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 11:34 pm |
Two Unconnected Observations
I like the new Krypteria album, My Fatal Kiss. You can listen to most of it at their site. Pity I can apparently only buy it from Germany... :P How does Windows Media Player manage to be so pathetic? All I ask of it is to play an entirely ordinary DVD, and it plays no sound, and I can't fix it, despite installing every codec available and browsing through numerous settings buried in the most unlikely places. No other player has these sorts of problems. It's a (largely) standardized technology! | | Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | | 10:22 pm |
Self-Directed Grumblings
I hate getting my hair cut, yet I'm mystified as to why. It really takes an effort of will to get myself to go. And, it's only gotten slightly better over the years. I've been demotivated lately. No energy for much of anything, really. I swear, I just went through a solid month of nothing, just putting off every single thing I ought to be doing. I think I'm coming out of it now, or maybe it's just the fact that deadlines are looming. But I'm not even clear on why I went into it. I'm currently procrastinating on doing knee exercises I really ought to be doing. And I've been putting this off for weeks. I know I don't like any sort of strength training but this is just getting silly. | | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | | 9:48 pm |
| | Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | | 10:10 pm |
| | Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | | 9:51 pm |
"The Tyranny of the Night" by Glen Cook
I just read the first novel in Glen Cook's new series ( The Black Company being all wrapped up). It's, um, definitely a Glen Cook book. I ate it up, once I got over laughing at the first sentence (melodramatic much, Mr. Cook!?). A bit of action, a bit of intrigue, a bit of mysticism, and a fair dollop of chaos. I like the fact that I never really know what's going to happen next or even who's going to live through it (Cook is famously ruthless to major characters, though he doesn't give off that sense of "decency must be punished" that George R. R. Martin seems to push). There's a sense of adventure in that; some characters lived that I expected to die, some characters died that I expected to live, and at least one character lived through things I expected to kill him only to die unexpectedly soon thereafter. It takes a while to get the hang of what's going on and there are enough characters that it is at times difficult to keep track of who's who. Certain plotlines are dropped so unceremoniously that I really have to wonder why they were ever developed in the first place. And occasionally the writing seemed to be trying to act as a "fog of war" of its own, which annoys me in the same way that shaky-cam annoys me. | | Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 | | 7:40 pm |
Tie #2
This is probably my favorite of the new ties, as it's so playful. That being said, it was hard to match, as it includes all my favorite colors and then some. Flat white would be okay, but not great; I decided it needed to go with a pattern with cool colors. Something that accents, rather than contrasts. Ultimately, I think I did a pretty good job with it, though when all's said and done there's only so much you can do with such a blatantly silly tie. Most observers said I looked like a schoolteacher. ( Wearing Tie #2! )The rest of this "project" is on hold until Gary returns to work (my condolences on your loss), as there isn't much point in showcasing the ties he gave me while he's gone. | | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 8:53 pm |
Tie #1
This tie was so reviled amongst my friends that there was only one possible solution (besides seppuku). Their solution was to acquire new ties for me and give them to me for my birthday. So far, this sounds reasonable. However, the goal was not to give me good ties. Oh, no. The goal was to give me ties so horrible that they make the aforementioned "strip torn off my grandmother's couch" look good in comparison. Interestingly, when these new ties were unveiled at my 36th birthday party, the effort was roundly concluded to be a failure. They did their absolute worst, and still could not beat the floral purple tie for horribleness. Now, I wouldn't want to insult the giver by not wearing the ties they gave me. No, wait, that's backwards. I want to rub in their failure by wearing their gift ties and making them look good. ("You know what the difference between us is? I make this look good.") My first effort is behind the cut. This tie is iridescent and rather art deco. It's too busy to work with anything else busy, but as a centerpiece to black and navy, it's not too shabby, and manages to not quite overwhelm the rest of the look. The hat was, of course, a necessary accessory, as I pretty much had to throw as much black as possible at that tie to drown out its painfulness. ( Wearing Tie #1! ) | | Sunday, September 13th, 2009 | | 7:39 pm |
Nutritional Information
I'm not quite sure how to feel about this. Pick-Up Stix has been more or less a staple of my diet for maybe a decade now, it's a rare week I don't drop by there once and more likely twice. They've long resisted releasing calorie information, so I made my own estimates, and then replaced those estimates with some third party figures when they became available. I've been using such numbers for years. Well, Pick-Up Stix, ensnared in California's new law regarding chain restaurants, has been forced to release calorie estimates. And it looks like my weekly calorie counts - the numbers I've been using to successfully shed thirty pounds - are basically fiction. A basic meal which other sources placed at 556 calories is, per the official source, 1420. 1420. I've been eating something like 2,000 calories per week more than I'd thought. Rather than revise my eating habits I think I need to revise my calorie targets (as I've essentially stabilized at a respectable 206.4). Or some combination. | | 7:01 pm |
Productivity, of a Sort
There's practically an endless amount of things I really ought to be doing with my time this weekend. Instead, I'm painting Warhammer 40,000 miniatures. At least it's something sort of productive. Hey, I'll be eligible for a painting score this league for the first time in years! (Eligibility for painting awards goes to people with painted models OR people who paint some of their models during the league, to encourage at least token effort. Like mine.) | | Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 | | 8:46 pm |
Diet Results & Switching to Maintenance Mode
So, I finally made it, and just before my 36th birthday. :D Now it'll be interesting to see how long I can buck the odds against keeping the weight off. I'm easing up on my calorie targets - up to 2400 from 2000 - but I'm going to keep my exercise targets as they are (10 hours/week). I'd like to up my strength training, too; I've definitely lost some muscle mass in all this, and bulking up a bit in that department would probably help my appearance at least as much as trimming down did. Also, I won't be obsessively weighing myself twice every day and posting result graphs every week... ( Trimmed Torso... ) | | Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 | | 5:17 am |
Goal!!!!
I finally, actually, made it. :) I've reached my target weight - 205 pounds - as of this morning.  | | Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 | | 8:10 pm |
Little Yellow Pad of Paper
Way back on May 13th, 2007 I bought my bathroom scale and started recording weights and measurements on a small yellow legal pad. Today, I retired that pad, having filled it, and started a new one. I feel oddly sentimental about this; all the mighty struggles recorded on those pages! (Well, and on my Excel spreadsheet, and its backups...) It's kind of sad that I've dropped to within a single pound of my target weight, yet had to retire that pad before it ever recorded a weight of less than 206. Silly anthropomorphization of an inanimate object, I know. But I can't bring myself to just toss it; it's a momento of sorts. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. | | Sunday, August 16th, 2009 | | 6:54 pm |
Wardrobe Update!
I've found two more jeans and seven(!) slacks that fit me well now. :) I've had to retire four jeans and two slacks on account of them being too loose. I have four slacks which are still too narrow, despite being nominally the same size as most of what I'm currently wearing. Also, I have one set of miracle slacks with a particularly stretchy band that have been wearable (and periodically worn) throughout this entire set of waistlines. ...It seems highly dubious that anybody other than me cares about these facts, but they're in your blogroll now so you're stuck with 'em. ;) | | 10:49 am |
Just Two More
So I had breakthrough weight-loss during this week where I didn't do much exercise because I tried to stay off my knee as much as possible. I'm guessing this weight loss is something called muscle atrophication. ;) Oh, well, I'll recover. I did make my calorie target. Now I'm less than two weeks from my birthday but just two pounds away from my target weight! I think I just might do this after all. :D Oh, and my waistline is solidly below my original target, now. I'm going to check to see how much of my old wardrobe fits me now. Also, I'm actually starting to retire my "fat" clothes - stuffing them away in the same dark corner where my "thin" clothes rested for so long.  |
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