Month: June 2019

Friday workout, not bad so far

Started the “workout” by mowing the lawn. Since I have a Fitbit now I usually track mowing as a “workout” activity out of general curiosity. I forgot to start the tracker for the first part of the lawn, up until I filled the grass-clippings bag the first time. Apparently from that point when I started the tracker it took me about 16 minutes to finish mowing and I burned around 162 calories. Probably not that many calories burned in actuality though. Wonder how many calories the lawnmower burned…

Did the 2 sets each chinups/dips/hamstring curls, got an additional 2 reps on set two of each! Feeling really good about that.

Later, two sets each foot-elevated bodyweight rows/pushups, back to normal on the rows, did two extra clean pushups on the second set then hit failure on the third extra. I don’t actually remember the last time I did a set of pushups to a proper failure. Felt good though, pushing the boundary. Still got the ab-wheel rollouts to do, gonna hit it *lotato though.

*Tater-later, potato-lotato *chortle*

EDIT: finished the ab-wheel rollouts, did two sets but noticed a tweaked feeling as if my lower-right back was slightly out of alignment, didn’t want to push it so I stopped once I finished the normal sets.

Got Coffee?

I know I do!

The whole coffee/protein shake business this morning really put me off. It didn’t taste very good and made me feel a bit nauseous, not to mention it wasn’t very enticing to the nose nor satisfying to the tongue. Plus, it didn’t really help to wake me up, just got me kinda, ugh. So I went out and got some coffee grounds, enjoying a fresh cuppa right now. Ahhh! Now that’s more like it!

Also got some smooth peanut butter for the morning protein shake ritual because eating chunks of stuff suspended or otherwise immersed in a liquid should only happen in a soup.

у меня нет кофе

I forgot to get coffee grounds yesterday so I couldn’t brew myself a *cuppa (coffee, that is) this morning. Instead, in the spirit of trying something new, I added a heaping teaspoon of instant coffee crystals to my morning protein shake. Of course, if you add the crystals to cold liquid they won’t dissolve and you get these little bursts of bitterness, so I added them to about one ounce of milk and warmed it in the microwave for 11 seconds to get the crystals to dissolve, then just threw it in there. Not too bad, still would rather have a normal cuppa joe though.

Also, accidentally got chunky peanut butter instead of creamy. As one of my shake ingredients it’s a bit disconcerting to have chunks of, well, anything really, in the liquid shake and, unfortunately, unlike coffee crystals, peanut crystals don’t dissolve in heat.

*I hope Her Majesty The Queen won’t have me hanged from a yardarm on the flagship of the Royal Navy for misappropriating “cuppa” to refer to coffee rather than a more civilized beverage.

Higher gravity today

Did someone turn up the gravity today? Doing my Wednesday workout, completed the 2 each chinup/dip sets and sliding hamstring curls, these went ok but the row/pushup sets were more difficult than they were last Monday. I feel heavier. Wasn’t able to match the same clean rep numbers but still achieved my goals for the day. Ab-wheel rollouts went ok, but still not as easy as Monday. Now that I’ve completed the session I feel more “fatigue” than “post-workout”. Some days are like that though.

Night ride

Took a night ride last night, first night ride of the year. A little more than 20ish miles, there-and-back-again on mostly bike trails from home to the Walmart on the highway then back home again. The dynamo-hub-powered Busch & Müller Lumotec IQ Cyo Premium (bit of a mouthful, that) headlight worked admirably as always. This light and the Shimano DH-3N72 dynamo hub that powers it are perhaps the best bike-related things I’ve ever bought, the pair being second only to the bike itself.

The legs felt strong and good the whole ride. Finally to the point in the year where a 20-miler is pretty easy, though the speed was slow.

At one point I saw a leaf on the ground that looked like giant pickle. It reminded me that I haven’t had a pickle for a long time which led to me having an intense craving for pickle juice. I think there should be pickle-flavored Gatorade, how refreshing would that be?! ?PICKLE POWER!! ?

Saw what I suspect was Jupiter, very bright in the sky. Haven’t kept up with astronomy lately so forgot to check the visible planet schedule. The planet was so remarkably bright at first I thought it was an aircraft, then perhaps a satellite flare but it remained in position throughout the ride.

Saw the first fireflies of the year on the west side of Holmes lake dam. Nice spread of them, twinkling like a galaxy of little stars in the grass. Later, on the ride back, I got hit by some kind of giant flying beetle on the west side of Holmes lake dam, which scared me straight out of any poetic notions of galaxies or stars or grass.

I really like night riding in general, it’s cooler than the day, there’s generally less traffic and it’s quiet and peaceful. Having a good set of dynamo-powered lights means not having to worry about battery charge levels and such, I can just get my bike, top off the tires with some air, ABC-Quick-Check then go. Maybe later this week I’ll do a night-time gravel ride to Conestoga lake, that’s always a nice ride. Especially when that one train always haunts me on the ride back.

Commander Adama Eating Noodles

As promised on November 26, 2018, here is Commander Adama eating noodles. From the reboot Battlestar Galactica Premier Miniseries, timestamp 2:53:24, original airdate December 8, 2003.

Even at my most ravenous I don’t think I’ve ever eaten noodles with such precision and vigor.

EDIT: Now I know what you’re thinking, “what would it look like if I could watch that video in reverse?” Well, have I got a treat for you, then!

A might bit peckish

It would seem the hour had arrived to victualize somewhat on a repast of dainty viands.

Or, as one might say “it’s about time for dinner” in the archaic English spirit of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s translation of 1001 Nights, where the protagonist is always “victualizing” “somewhat” of “dainty viands”.

I always thought “Dainty Viands” sounds like it should be a type of *Friskies® cat food that contains nuggets of fish, poultry and veal in the corresponding shape of the animal from which the meat ostensibly derived. The label could have a glamorous, long-hair cat wearing a bejeweled collar and comfortably situated on a divan of delicate fabrics, with the fancy repast laid out in fine tableware in the style of a multi-course dinner. And doilies. Strangely, it turns out “Viand” is already a brand of pet food, though one far less highfalutin than the name should suggest. Missed trademark opportunity on the part of Friskies® if you ask me.

Since I still don’t know precisely what a “dainty viand” is, and whether or not I’ve ever eaten somewhat of one, I suppose a dinner of chicken, box scalloped potatoes and broccoli will have to do.

*I know what you’re thinking, “Dainty Viands” sounds more like a “Fancy Feast® Gourmet Cat Food” kind of branding but in my mind Friskies® beat them to the trademark office. Take that, Nestlé Purina PetCare!

Monday Workout

Monday workout: 2 sets each chinups, dips, foot-elevated bodyweight rows, pushups, sliding hamstring curls and ab-wheel rollouts. On the second sets I managed to get an additional clean rep of chinups and dips, two additional pushups and three more ab-wheel rollouts. Not too shabby if I say so myself. It’s still my intention to gradually increase the volume and variety of exercises each week or so, this week I’m adding the hamstring curls to my workouts whether I ride the bike that day or not.

Babylon 5 season 3 DVD set sitting on a laptop computer
DVD Decrypter ripping Babylon 5 season 3 disc 6 on the same laptop running the boioioing.org VPS.

Went to the library and got the Babylon 5 season 3 DVD set. My method of watching DVDs is a bit convoluted: my main PC doesn’t have a DVD drive and my laptop’s screen is too small to see from my bed so I have to rip the DVDs onto the laptop HDD, then transfer the ripped files to the main PC over the gigabit ethernet dingle-dangle-dongle you see coming out of the right side of the laptop, then I can use VLC or whatnot to view the decrypted and ripped DVDs on the PC with its larger screen and better audio output.

Probably be easier to just spend $25 or so and get a DVD drive for the PC.

Anyway, I’ve been watching the series before bed again recently, sorta skipping some episodes, not necessarily paying close attention to others, and falling asleep through yet other episodes. I’ve already seen the series straight through on maybe four or five occasions by now so I pretty much know what’s gonna happen and when. At this point, the show is just very comfortable, something I can turn on and it requires just enough of my attention to distract my brain from itself but not so much attention so as to require a mental investment which would cause restlessness.

Diving for Donuts

Rendered image of a donut on a plate on a table next to a cup of coffee
Hours of fun with Blender

There should be a gameshow called “Diving for Donuts” where contestants are invited to be blindfolded and dive into a pool of water, using only their mouths to retrieve donuts from the bottom. But the joke is really on them because the donuts would get all soggy and fall apart and the contestant would get a mouthful of mushy, gooey sludge.

Matrix ][ Trance Mix

This tune. First found it on a CD of free .mp3 files that came with a spindle of, IIRC, Memorex CDR discs sometime in 2000.

This was one of the first legitimate .mp3 tunes (as opposed to downloading from e.g. Napster) that I actually listened to, used to have it in my “computer stuff” playlist so it would pop up when I’d be programming or something. I don’t usually like electronica so this tune is not something I’d normally find appealing but the part of this tune starting at 1:46 reminded me of a good friend I’ll never see again.

So I had this tune on the CD and it was laying around for years but somehow got lost at some point. Then the memory of the tune existing got lost. Occasionally I’d remember something vague about it but not enough to find it again so it became something of an intermittent white whale of mine. That is until sometime late last year when I happened upon some old .mp3 files that I thought had gone missing and painstakingly went through them until I found my whale.

So here it is, Matrix ][ Trance Mix by The Cynic Project