So, in about a week I'll have finished the three month workout on the EA Sports Active thing, and I'm thinking that I deserve a reward of some kind for sticking it through. Not sure what to get though. Even though I'd like an iPad, I don't think working out for three months is worth the *huge* chunk of cash I'd have to drop to get one. Besides, even if the new iPad came out next week, I'd still want to wait a month for any issues to shake themselves out. I had also heard that the SD slot didn't make it into this version of the iPad. Apparently, they want to make the thing so thin that you can slice bread with it so an SD slot was out of the question, so I may just wait for the next iteration. Maybe I'll treat myself to some pins.
Going into the last week, however, has been rough in terms of exercising. For once thing, I'm pretty sure that the software is not counting things properly for the really fast exercises, like the stride jumps. In that I keep count and it seems to be dropping about 7-10 reps that I do. The slower exercises are more accurate with the reps, but I suppose that's to be expected.
Another aspect of the whole exercise thing that I find less than stellar is the pulse measurement. I'm not sure if I'm wearing the pulse rate unit improperly, but when I run my pulse rate according to the program suddenly drops for no good reason, even though I'm still gasping for air as I exercise. I guess it's how I hold my right arm because experimentation shows that the pulse rate stays high if I leave that arm in a straight up and down position. It's weird.
Finally, I don't feel like I'm improving anymore. The exercises are still rough and I find that the temptation to skip exercises is increasing. I guess I've improved as much as I can with exercise alone and I'm going to have to look at my diet in order to start feeling better again. I suppose the stress could also be a factor, but I don't really know how to relax. I was kind of hoping getting healthier will help with the whole stress thing.
As the title suggests, I'm thinking about getting an iPad. Mostly because there are Disney Comics there and reading them on an iPad makes more sense than reading them on the PSP, which is a horrible and painful way to read comics. Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't just want to read comics on the iPad. I was thinking about getting one to be a sketchbook, a PDA, and an image display. Maybe some games, but considering my huge effing backlog that's less of a concern.
Of course, I'm not going to buy anything until the next iteration of the iPad shows up since it's about a year old and that's usually the time that Apple comes out with a new version. I've heard that the new iPad will have an SD Card slot which will be useful for storing files and expanding memory. Wish they'd have a removable battery, though because I don't want to send off my device to get the stupid thing replaced.
If another tablet comes out with access to Disney Digicomics, however, all bets are off. It may happen if Sony allows PSN content on tablets which could happen since they're allowing PSN stuff on Android phones... kinda... sorta... Disney has also been developing Android apps, but nothing resembling the digicomics app is in the work as far as I know.
Today is St. Valentine's day where we celebrate the patron saint of greeting card companies.
The practice of giving other people hearts on Saint Valentine's comes from the days when people got locked up for treating each other nicely. Some people thought that was mean and give the people locked up hearts to make them feel better. Unfortunately, paper was really expensive at that time so they sent the hearts of their enemies which were more plentiful and therefore cheaper.
As the centuries passed, someone came up with the idea of making bits of paper that held pre-made greetings for people too lazy to write "Hi there" with an actual pen and paper. But the cards did not sell well because the number of people *that* lazy was too few for the business to be profitable. One night Saint Valentine came to a greeting card company owner in a dream and said, "Look. People are doing jack all during my feast day. Why don't you guys use it for something?"
Upon waking the owner remembered the old tradition of giving hearts of enemies to prisoners. The greeting card company owner decided that somehow human suffering needed to be added to that tradition since it fell by the wayside once paper became cheap and killing other people became illegal. Also, most religious events involved human suffering of some kind. And who should suffer more than people who didn't buy his product?
Thus, the Valentine's Day tradition of giving cards written by complete strangers to express intimate feelings to a loved one and the highlighting of the pathetic, lonesome losers who have no one to receive card from or give cards to.
Chinese New Year lasts for about two weeks and I think I'm not supposed to wash or cut my hair for the two weeks for luck. I'm not shaving for one week since I need all the luck I can get these days, but goddamn everything is starting to itch. Of course, there's no rule about not washing so I just lather up with soap and go to town on my body. Still, I don't like not being shaved, which is why I'm just going one week without shaving.
There's also something about not throwing things out for luck as well. Who the hell decided these things are luck rules? I know that "Fa" sound like both "luck" and "hair" so the cutting of the hair is considered cutting off one's luck, but the cleaning thing... Really? Who the hell decided that? I guess "dust" is pronounced like a lucky word so when you sweep out the dust, you sweep out the "luck" or something.
So I am now in possession of some sourdough starter from my mom. While I have tried to make sourdough in the past, they never really took properly and "old dough" bread I made from previously saved pieces of dough never really had the oomph needed to properly leaven a loaf. I am going to do a little experimenting with the starter that I do have, like making some sourdough pancakes this week. Good thing I bought some syrup a few weeks ago.
Still, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with a cup of starter I'm going to be left with every week when I feed the starter. Previously, I would just store it and use it when I bake bread so the flour and water doesn't go to waste, but if I generate a cup a week I'm going to run out of places to store the stuff. I also cannot eat a loaf a bread a week. It's just not possible for me.
I will try to keep up with the starter as best as I can. I am looking forward to those pancakes later this week.
I've been exercising using EA Sports Active 2 for my PS3 as part of my whole "getting in shape". I must say that I do like exercising using this rather than my exercise bike because it's a little more efficient than me biking for five minutes while watching TV and then getting up to be distracted for a couple of hours.
The programs comes with a set of tracking sensors, a USB stick, and a resistance band. Putting everything on is pretty easy, although I do worry about if I'm putting thing on right. I guess I would like to know how the program "sees" me and if it matches what I'm doing properly. As it stands, the sensors work well enough, but it's a good thing this isn't an input method for a game because there are a lot of times that I do something and the sensors either mis-interpret what I'm doing or don't seem to register the movement at all.
The program also tracks my pulse through the sensors which is good I guess and I've been working out in pretty high pulse zones and I've been working out in pretty high zones. Still, I'm not sure if I'm making any progress with my getting in shape. Every week there's a workout test, but I can't tell if I'm doing better or worse from the results. I don't feel like I have more energy, but it could be that I'm still "starting out" so the benefits of the exercise have yet to show themselves.
I like the usage of the resistance band as it give me the option to get a stronger one if I so choose. The some of the exercises are not fun, but they are over pretty quickly so I don't get bored. I do hate Foot Fires, however. There are some "game" thing going on like "boxing" things, basketball and soccer drills, and there's a mountain boarding game that can pretty much go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Of course, I just finished the first phase. I may decide to throw the game out the window if the second phase is a lot harder.
One of the worst thing that happens while cleaning is that I find things. Things that I was looking for a while ago will appear now that I'm actually not looking for them. This past week, I found a pile of comics in my room. Even worse, I'm finding piles of comics in places I didn't even know I had comics. So now I have a gigantic pile of comics that I need to organize and I need to figure out where all the comics that I have read go.
All this re-organization also made me realize that even if I never buy another piece of media for the rest of my life, I will never finish "consuming" the stuff I already do have. The DVDs, the games, the comics, the books, the friggin' tapes... I'm never going to finish watching and playing them, even if it's all I do for the rest of my life. And yet, I will never stop buying the things. Even now I have three DVD sets that I plan on purchasing at some point in the future. And they will sit on my shelf, unwatched until the end of time.
I'm wondering if I have some sort of bizarre mental disease. I mean, other than the ones that I already have.
Well, I went to see this movie this morning and I found it was pretty good. A fairly interesting story although how people "fight" in OZ is a little perplexing. I did object to the fact that none of the written Japanese was translated. Some of that stuff seems important like there was something in a few word bubbles directed at King Kazma that I could only read because I know katakana. I knew the letter was for the family because I recognized the kanji for "family" because I know some Chinese. There was also the user who was asking for something in German because I know "Bitte" was the German word for please. If the Blu-ray doesn't have these things properly translated in some fore, I may skip it. Another thing that got lost in translation (although you'd probably need to know a little Japanese in order for this to be noticeable), is the fact that "koi" can mean "love". If you see the movie you'll understand the significance of the word.
Aside from the lack of signage translation, it was a pretty good movie. Lots of character development. It seems that the four characters that got the most development got it in reverse order of their introduction. The characters were pretty likable and the fact that the family seems pretty qwirky was appreciated. I liked the style of the drawings. I'm definitely getting some Miyazaki vibes from the artwork and it was pretty fluid. Of course, I'm not really that much of a critic. I can't do things like examine camera shots in one sit through but nothing seemed cinematicly wrong.
