Television You May Not Be Watching

I watch a lot of television. It's a legitimate artistic medium! And you can stop lamenting the cancellation of Arrested Development and Firefly, because there's plenty to watch this very autumn!

The four comedies I've listed here are the funniest things on television right now. I fear that the newer shows will get cancelled in their prime, due to low viewership.  The other two shows are on seasons five and six, respectively, and still haven't lost their sparkle.

I've also included Smallville, for some reason.

Fun fact: I don't recall any of the shows listed here ever using painfully prolonged cringe humour.

Disclaimer: These programs are rated 14+, as they may contain violence, profanity, and depictions of sexual activity.

Relative Newcomers

Cougar Town 

Wednesday 8:30 (ABC/CITY) - New episode November 17th
The only cougar remaining on this program is a peripheral character. It's the most improved show of last year.

If you watch Modern Family, I implore you to keep the television on for another half-hour. Because, with a name like "Cougar Town", this show needs all the spill-over it can get. More than any show on television right now, Cougar Town gives me the feeling of hanging out with friends and family. It played out the title's appropriateness in the first six episodes or so, but the real premise is a woman who at 42 was never prepared for single life (or for her son to grow up) learning where she can find meaning in her life. Like the next "relative newcomer" on this list, Cougar Town has managed to live up to the promise of its first season. The other feel-good family comedy to share the 8-9 block, Modern Family, deserved it's Best Comedy Emmy last year, but I can't help but feel that it's losing momentum in comparison.
Fun fact: I never see the title card coming. You think it must have passed already, because it is very brief and it's 8:37... then, BAM!, there it is. This season they've made humourous additions to the title screen including "(Still) Cougar Town", "It's not what the show is... Cougar Town" and "Titles are Hard: Cougar Town"


Community
Thursday 8:00 (NBC/CITY) - New episode November 11th
It shares its time slot with The Big Bang Theory, but this show is doing way more interesting things with it.

I've heard this show compared to the early seasons of The Simpsons (yeah, I played that card). The characters are wacky and the situations are surreal, but I must care about the students at Greendale Community College because this show is so gosh diddly-darn heartwarming at times. Setting a show at a community college is a genius idea, because it puts together characters that are so diverse in terms of age, race, faith, political views, family, and interests. It's great to see how they learn to learn from each other AND how they all get sucked into the same craziness. You may have heard of their big concept episodes like "Modern Warfare" (action movie parody), "Contemporary American Poultry" (mafia parody), and  "Epidemiology" (zombie parody), but lower-key episodes like "Accounting for Lawyers" and "Psychology of Letting Go" have a lot of emotion with a good measure of crazy.
Fun Fact: It has the catchiest title sequence I've seen since 30 Rock first came on the air. Also, in a recent episode a main character had an entire plot play out in the background of other scenes, with no commentary.

Stalwarts

30 Rock
Thursday 8:30 (NBC/CITY) - New episode November 11th
It's still got it, even if it looked like it might lose it.

I'm mostly recommending 30 Rock to those who jumped ship because they felt the quality drop. The latter half of Season 4 had over-arcing plots with great returns, namely Liz's "future husband" plot with guest star Michael Sheen and the purchase of NBC by Kabletown. This season had a great premiere, and last week's "Reaganing" used each character really well (even Jenna and Kenneth). Since the premiere also used Jenna well, I'm wondering if there's a correlation there. If you're watching season four, a low tolerance for Julianne Moore's Bostonian impersonation may discourage you.
Fun Fact: I got nothing. I considered doing some research for a fun fact, but you could do that if you wanted to.

American Dad! - New episode tonight!! (November 7th)
Sunday 9:30 (FOX/Global)
It's simply hilarious. It makes me laugh my weird, loud, suffocating-seal laugh -- and more often than most other shows.
 
It has the wild, manic energy of that other Seth MacFarlane show, except there are no cut-away gags. The humour happens right there, when the characters are interacting with each other. It can be pretty violent, risqué, and off-colour, just like Family Guy, but here the character relationships aren't sacrificed to service the offensiveness. The only real relationship left in Family Guy is between Brian and Stewie, but on American Dad! great episodes have come from the relationships between all five leads. I'd say "passionate" describes each of the Smith family members, but "obsessive" and "delusional" also work.
Fun fact: As of last year, all events depicted in this program may be an elaborate illusion.

Surprising comeback?

Smallville
Friday 8:00, Saturday 5:00 (SPACE)
It's still on the air. I was surprised too. This season, we might actually see some blue tights and the return of Lex.

I have high hopes for Smallville's last season (season ten). The last two seasons had to do without the series' best villains, Lex and Lionel Luthor. It was dark times. They had replacements, but Doomsday was dull and Tess Mercer (female Luthor surrogate) is still all over the place. Even worse, the show devoted way too much time to Green Arrow's melodrama. But the first few episodes of this season teased the viewers with a satisfying conclusion to the series. A disturbed Lex clone is rapidly aging from childhood, Lois and Clark are on the same page, and Clark is getting pressured to be a more public figure. As long as Tess avoids sleeping with every new male character, Green Arrow remains seen and not heard, and Tess avoids being part of every secret organization, this season should turn out great.

Fun fact: Oh god, what am I saying? How about you don't watch Smallville, and I just tell you which episodes are worth it.  Last night's wasn't. If you liked Smallville years ago and forgot about it after the writer's strike, this is a good time to pick it back up.

I Watch, But I Don't Feel Strongly About Recommending

If you didn't like these shows before, you still won't like them.  Some are really good shows, but are so hyped that I don't think they need my endorsement. Some have consistency issues.

The Simpsons, Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, The Office

But seriously. Arrested Development was starting to get weird near the end, and was on long enough to tell some really great stories, but Firefly barely had a chance! There was so much left unexplored!

Communication is a tricky thing

I recently condensed my life's purpose into a sixteen-word sentence (thirteen if you don't count articles and conjunctions - yeah, that's right, separate and not equal).  It took cooperation, focus, deep thought, a sense of language, and several hours of work, all told. I shared the sentence with my father, who said it was "pith", which I took to mean "glib, empty words" by the tone of his voice. After consulting a dictionary, I realized that "pith" and "glib, empty words" have nearly perfectly opposite meanings. He wasn't dismissing my sentence, no matter his tone; he actually expressed appreciation for my accomplishment. But in that moment of misunderstanding, I inferred from his reaction that pithy words may have volumes of meaning for one person, yet would require significant unpacking to be understood by someone else.  When I read my life purpose sentence, its three verbs, two prepositions, four nouns, four adjectives, one article and two conjunctions evoke all my accomplishments, past and future. When someone else reads it, it could just be sixteen words, taken at face value. In most cases, people will attribute some of their own baggage to every statement ("He's lying", "I agree", "I like this", "This reminds me...", "What's his agenda?").  The chances that two people will read the same words the same way are infinitesimal.

So what's my point? That last statement is common enough knowledge, even without having to give it much thought. I believe the thought part is interesting enough on its own merit!  I'm not posting my sixteen-word sentence here because it's so pithy that it would take pages of explanation to do justice to the work I put into it. And it's pretty personal. But I am temporarily fascinated with the concept of communication, which is a topic that everyone can enjoy!

I want to communicate my thought processes more than my opinions, because I believe it's more interesting and more informative. I dare to dream that it will inspire original thought on your end as well.

So, if everyone's baggage adds a little personal flair to whatever they hear, then I can see why political messages often gloss over facts to make the emotional message as striking as possible. If people are going to react emotionally to the facts anyway, it makes sense to make the preferable emotion part of the message too. The alternative method of reigning in emotion is taking the voting public step-by-step through the background of each issue before making a point, which is hard to do in a thirty second television spot.  The public doesn't have time anyway.

But thinking this doesn't make it any more bearable to watch. Blatant emotional ploys (superiority, fear, sympathy) make me feel dirty when I agree with the point being made and offended when I disagree. I like sober reasoning.

Whoa! When did this get all political? Ha ha. No worries, friends. That's as political as I'm going to get in the foreseeable future. I guess opinions are unavoidable.  Communication is a tricky thing.


This is nice. I finally liked a post enough to finish it and display it. More to come...?

I like a lot of things.

I like trashy romance novels, and almond related pastries, and carnivals, and mountains, and really loud concerts, and listening to disco on trains, and the internet, and about a million other things.

But sometimes I think that while I probably like all of these things equally, there are a few things that I enjoy doing/ eating/ watching/ etc. that really make me feel most like myself. For example, when I listen to Celtic music (or anything that incorporates a lot of bagpipes), I feel most like Tara. This isn't to say that I like that music any more than I like listening to show tunes or metal or anything else in my music library, in fact I can go months at a time without feeling the need to pop in a Gaelic Storm CD, but when I do it just seems to get under my skin a little more than any other kind of sound.

Lately a few things in life have conspired to leave me feeling a little off kilter, and last night I quite accidentally had an evening that seemed tailor designed to make me feel more like myself. When Grant and I lived in Kingston our most recent apartment was right over a Vietnamese restaurant, which is basically one of my all time favorite kinds of food. I don't think I've had Vietnamese food since the last time I was hungover in Kingston, so when my parents suggested we try a local place, I was pretty excited to indulge in the Jersey version of the #34 that I always used to order. Afterwards we went home and ended up watching a documentary that I've been wanting to see for some time, 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, which if you like music or non-linear storytelling, go watch it immediately!

It sounds kind of douche-y and pretentious to say that Vietnamese food and an avant-garde Canadian documentary clicked me into feeling a little more like myself, but who are you to judge? Grant, you've been quiet for a few weeks, I challenge you to a topical blog post: what activities/ sounds/ sights/ tastes make you feel most like yourself?

Words, words, words!

I've been thinking about the intersections between vocabulary and geography lot lately.

An example. The other night at practice I forgot to bring a water bottle. There was an empty one in my car, and so I wanted to determine if there was a water fountain anywhere in our practice space or if I was just going to have to suck it up/ pass out from dehydration.

"Is there a drinking fountain around here?" I managed to ask that night's practice leader between asthmatic pants.

"A what?"

This is where I paused. Either the nice tall man hadn't heard me over the sounds of chatter and velcro, or he was also from Wisconsin. I took a leap of faith.

"A bubbler*?" I ventured.

He shrugged and went into the hallway to look, while the girl sitting next to me took a sudden interest. "You did not just say 'bubbler!?!" She looked amused. I somewhat sheepishly admitted that I had grown up in Wisconsin, and she told me that her husband is from Rhode Island, where the term is apparently also used.

Another girl gave me her extra bottle of water and practice continued on, but my mind lingered on my hopeful attempt at regionalism.

I was born in Massachusetts and until I was about seven I had a fairly awesome little New England accent. Then we moved to Wisconsin, where I was made fun of for saying things like caw instead of car (or key-ar, if you're going to be Midwestern about it) and eventually my accent faded into something that was no longer "posh" New England, but definitely not a character from Fargo either. Despite the fact that my accent seemed fairly impervious to Wisconsin, after just three and a half years of living in Ontario, I've noticed that my lately my vowels are more rounded, and my bosses tease me when I mention "clocking out."

What I'm getting at with all of this rambling, is that I don't really sound like I'm from anywhere particular. I just sound like I'm from North America, generally. So while some people can answer "where are you from?" just by the way they say "ya'll" or "caw" I tend to look toward regional vocabulary if I want to add some flavor to my indistinct intonations. This also means that when I say "bubbler" or unthinkingly slip an "eh" at the end of my sentence I get raised eyebrows or made fun of for trying to be Canadian. But to me these words are like little badges, showing where I've been and which places have left an impact on who I am. If accents are like vocal landmarks, I sometimes feel like I'm left surreptitiously building little trails signs out of my vocabulary. Your ears might just skim right past the "bubbler" in my sentence the same way you might not notice that someone arranged a few sticks just so while walking in the woods. But its there. And, as I fumble to explain that I'm only living in South Jersey, no I'm not really from here, these words are a comfort, inconspicuously pointing towards home.


__________________________________

*A definition according to Wikipedia:

The 'bubbler' was developed in 1888 by the then-small Kohler Water Works (now Kohler Company) in Kohler, Wisconsin, which was already well-known for its faucet production. While Harlan Huckleby is credited with the actual design, it was Kohler who patented it and trademarked the name. The original bubbler shot water one inch straight into the air, creating a bubbling texture, and the excess water ran back down over the sides of the nozzle. It was several years later before the bubbler adapted the arc projection, which allowed the drinker to partake more easily.

And now you know!

In Which I Originally Forgot to Title this Post

Happy belated Labor Day! I kept wanting/ meaning to post over the weekend, but since both my sister and J-beau were visiting, I didn't have a whole lot of time to compose my days into pithy anecdotes.

Truthfully, the weekend wasn't particularly exciting anyway. My family went to the Amish market for fresh pretzels and delicious meats. J-beau and I went wine tasting (please take a moment to laugh at how ridiculous the idea of fine New Jersey wine sounds), and then on the way home stopped by a race track and took in some drag racing. Wine + race cars = classiest, most random date ever.

The fun stuff all happened today, and that was what I was saving up my blogging powers for. Today involved driving way into Pennsylvania to get some footage of an installation for my company, and then driving into another section of Pennsylvania for my first ever roller derby practice!

I haven't been on roller skates since I was 17 and it was a part of high school gym curriculum. Still, I do have vague memories of being the best at roller blading on my block, circa age 6. I also like ice skating. These were pretty much my qualifications going into practice. I was the least expereienced of the rookies, but I had a lot of fun learning to stop and fall and block. I think that the sport will be a good outlet for my aggression, plus I don't think that I've played a legitimate, organized team sport (non gym class related) since... the fifth grade during an ill-fated attempt at the basketball team? Before that it was soccer in grade 2... which is another childhood trauma for another blog post.

Plus, I'm answering Grant's challenge from his last post, however indirectly. I haven't been back to the gaming store yet (too busy to fight the last boss!), but I have joined a team sport, which has to count for something - especially when its as cool as derby.

Grant makes a saving throw to end "drudgery"

I'm still not sure what this wonderblog is about. There's no real theme, except for "items of interest".  I imagined I would play off Tara's entires more, and vice-versa, but so far our entries have not had any relation.  I've decided to just let "it" happen, whatever "it" is.

And as fortune would have it, I have a continuation on the theme of Tara's Why Can' t We Be Friends? post. I went to bed Monday night feeling irritable and bored. I tried eating, music, cartwheels, whooping, walking, singing, conversation and hugs, but nothing made me feel better. I'll skip the internal monologue (which, incidentally has a neat Wikipedia page) which led to my diagnosis: I had nothing to look forward to. Without something enjoyable and reliable to fill my calendar, my foreseeable future was a grey haze of daily drudgery.

So I left the house Tuesday morning intent on finding a RPG group to join, specifically Dungeons & Dragons (What's an RPG you ask? I found a great RPG podcast, Fear The Boot, which dedicated Episode 115 to explaining RPGs for the layman). I've been meaning to start playing for a year now.  It was surprisingly easy. By the time I got home Tuesday evening, I had managed to find not one, but two groups to join (one of them completely by accident). I'm considering joining both groups too. It's more than the game, it's being able to hang out with some like-minded people. It's nice to know that I still have the capacity to make friends. I hung out with the first group as they smote some undead, and within an hour I felt so welcomed and totally at ease. They even took some time out to help me create my very first character.  I bought some new multicoloured dice, and I can't wait to break them out.  I am seriously nerding out you guys.

I challenge you, Tara: have you asked those fine gentlemen to be your friends?

Na na na na Na na na na

DC Comics is releasing a 75th Anniversary Collection of their most prized theme songs, which will have to wait for it's chance at my wallet until after I've bought a couch, a bookshelf, D&D Essentials, and Metroid: Other M (read: after Christmas). The compilation has some glaring omissions - for example, the failure to acknowledge anyone in satin tights, fighting for her rights.  Also missing is the theme song from Batman: The Animated Series, one of my all time favourite cartoons.

For those who haven't seen the show, it was heavily influenced by Tim Burton's Batman films from 1989/92. The portrayals of Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) and The Joker (Mark Hamill) here are still considered the standard by many fans, myself included. Several elements from the show even made their way into the comics, including new characterization for Mr. Freeze and the completely new character, Harley Quinn.

If you're a fan of the show already, I recommend this audio recording of the show's composer, Shirley Walker, as she walks us through the music from the show. It gets the blood pumping. Near the end of the clip, she touches on the similarity between the themes of the cartoon and the films.  I may be the only one that sees the need to have both themes in the Anniversary Collection, since 1) I think the show is gangbusters and 2) Batman Returns is one of my top three favourite movies.

Ah, this show is one of those children's programs that's even better as an adult. I watched it when I was a kid of course. I was mesmerized by the grotesque villains like Baby Doll, The Ventriloquist, and Clayface. And the heroes... Nightwing was one of my first TV crushes, though at the time I didn't know why I got so excited when he showed up. 

Incidentally, I've just recently gotten into comic books, and I'm hoping some readers could suggest a good story arc that showcases Dick Grayson being awesome.

Hel-lo, Mister Mullet.

As I explored the music of Batman: The Animated Series on YouTube, I came across several recommendations for Batman: The Brave and the Bold. It's the current animated Batman series. Whereas the 90's cartoon took the noir approach to Batman, the new show takes the classic camp approach. I've seen a couple episodes, and it seems like a lot of fun. A lot more promising than The Batman from a few years ago.

Offices and Autos

Yesterday I started my first semi grown up job.

Afterward I got hit by a car.

A metaphor maybe?

***

I'd go on and on about the specifics of my new job and new co workers, but since the job is fairly internet heavy, it seems prudent to be vague. I can say that so far, based on two days of a sort of orientation, I'm really enjoying it. Nice people, fun atmosphere, and, best of all, I have my own office.

Let me repeat that, I have an office. I can say, "please, step into my office." I can invite people to have a seat. I can find a small table for my office bar, Mad Men style. Never mind that the room is a little bigger than a closet and was filled with boxes, and old ink cartridges, and packing materials, and for some reason an old drum kit this morning, it is an office, and it is mine. There is even a really nice desk! With a whiteboard!

I'm glad that Grant and I are blogging now, because years from now, if apes haven't taken over and the rapture (or other religious apocalyptic event) hasn't struck, I think it will amuse me to look back and read about my giddiness over a little room with a desk and a lot of boxes in it.

---

The other part of my news, of course, was getting hit by a car. Thankfully, as far as accidents go it was minor, and I was more mentally stunned than physically hurt. The woman who slammed her car into mine was a nurse, and felt awful about it, especially since my rear end/ trunk was dented and she didn't have so much as a scratch. Having once rear ended someone many years ago, I understood how she terrible felt, and she kept apologizing over and over. She had just gotten off of a really long shift at a nearby hospital and probably didn't need a car accident to add to her long day. Happily we were both insured.

This is not a particularly dramatic or exciting story, but it seemed like the sort of thing a person would blog about, so here I am.

...

Before ending this post of awkward transitions, I wanted to apologize to Grant. I told him that I would post this last night and then after playing Bananagrams (soooo fun) with my mom I ended up falling asleep earlier than expected. Be annoyed if you want, Grant, but I will play the "just got hit by a car" card, and try not to let it happen again.

The Assassin

DEATH!

It's only everywhere!

The bedroom in my new pad has a saloon style door.  Each side swings both ways. The other night as I lay myself to sleep, I noticed that I'd left one panel swung open. I motioned to get out of bed to close it, but I stopped. I figured if an assassin came to kill me while I slept, I didn't want the sound of the door to wake me. I closed my eyes, comforted by the knowledge that, should I die, I wouldn't see it coming.

In the light of day, I laughed at how insane I had been. Closing the door was the best course of action. Firstly, any assassin sent to kill me wouldn't be hindered by a closed door. And should a bumbling assassin be sent for whatever reason, any warning would give me a chance to subdue the hapless intruder.

I get anxious about death sometimes. When my mind goes blank, such as during the clip packages on So You Think You Can Dance Canada, my mind wanders to all the ways my neck might get snapped by accident.  Movies make snapping necks look so easy.  I should remind myself that it's usually very strong, muscular men who do most of the neck-snapping on film.  I wonder if the assassin might break into my room to snuggle? I hope the closed door isn't discouraging.

Interestingly, I was offended by my dad's suggestion that a someone might hire a discount assassin to kill me, yet I'm perfectly happy with the notion that killing me takes slightly less skill that opening a door silently.

"People die all the time, just like that. [snap] Why, you could 

wake up dead tomorrow. Well, goodnight!" - Homer Simpson

In Which My Mother Tries to Buy Paint Rollers

Since I'm starting a semi-adult job on Tuesday, I figured that I was in need some some semi-adult clothing to wear to it, which could mean only one thing - a trip to Goodwill. My family is a big fan of thrift stores - I don't know if we go more for the prices or the feel of hunting for treasure (or seeing who can find the ugliest use of sequins), but whatever it is that draws us in, its one of our favorite family activities.

Yesterday my parents and I went off to local thrift store, in search of skirts (me), professorial jackets (dad), and various sundries (mom). After about forty minutes of rummaging, and several skirts later, I decided I had had just about enough and went to find my mother in the knick knacks section. She was holding a bag of paint rollers looking very pleased with herself.

"Look what I found!" she exclaimed.

"Paint rollers?"

"No, look under them!"

And I did. Underneath the paint rollers was a plastic, pearly, obviously phallic object.

Horror.

"Is that a...?" I am in complete horror.

"Its a vibrator!" She said cheerfully.

In fact it was a couple of paint rollers AND a "wedding night package" that included a vibrator, several little bottles of massage oils, and some bath beads. All unopened. All, for some reason, packaged together at a thrift store.

Of course she bought them.

Things the make me cry/laugh

Emotional parent-child scenes in dramas always make me cry real tears. The Lion King. Stepmom. The Family Stone. Everwood. Heck, even Valentine's Day caught me off guard with a mother-son scene, though I was too jaded by the rest of the film to actually cry.

Similarly, I have a weakness for absurd humour. I like it best when the creators surprise you with something that makes perfect nonsense. It's why I heartily enjoyed Drawn Together's episode "Charlotte's Web of Lies" from season 3, where the famous spider kills Boba Fett and leaves emotionally unbalanced messages around the house. Also, Roadrunner cartoons.

"I will not be ignored!" - Charlotte

On the other hand, poop is not funny.

In that spirit, I give you Episode 10 of Blamimation by Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz. It is basically one extended conversation about taking a dump, but I still find it hilarious.

Seeing and hearing poop is not a joke. It's just gross. However, exploring attitudes and reactions toward poop can be funny. Writers of The Drawn Together Movie, take notes.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

I have an awkward conundrum.

So I'm currently living in a suburban area with zero friends nearby, and a job that doesn't force me to interact with people in my age group on a regular basis. Being young and friendly, I'm finding the adjustment from university town life where everyone was close in age, proximity, and willingess to par-tay to this strange social wasteland where my middle aged neighbors rarely leave their houses.

I've never been in the situation where I've had to try and make friends without the aid of a pre-existing institution, be it a school, a summer camp, or even the randomly chosen roommates from my exchange program, and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult. I can't decide if this difficulty is society's fault or mine. With so many news reports and accounts (fictional and non) of rapists and murderers and kidnappers and smugglers and pirates and evil overlords permeating the media pop culture, is it any wonder that something as simple as making eye contact in public can be considered creepy? Why did that guy just smile at me in the produce aisle? Is he making fun of me? Is he going to sue me? Is he going to kidnap me and sell me into some sort of sick underground drug/slavery/concubine ring? I should probably pretend I need something from the dairy counter and RUN NOW.

I find myself frequently caught between this kind of irrational paranoia and, on the flip side, trying to overcompensate by forcing myself to be overfriendly, which probably causes other people to think that I'm going to murder them and turn them into home furnishings. So far my twin approaches of total mistrust and giant friendly smiles have yet to win me the friendship of random strangers, and I'm trying to figure out a new approach.

One idea, which I'm gathering the courage to try, is to randomly give my phone number to the nerdy guys who work at the local video game store. The last time I was there picking up Super Paper Mario (because I am crap at video games that aren't Paper Mario related) I struck up some good banter with the guys behind the counter. Joking about speaking German and how impressive their disc de-scratch-ifying machine was (super impressive!), I was struck by the urge to give them my number and ask if they'd ever like to grab a beer or engage in some good old fashioned nerdiness (D&D? Seeing Scott Pilgrim? I'm not picky!) but chickened out when I figured that they would consider my forwardness creepy, or misconstrue it thinking I was trying to get into their khaki cargo pants.

It reminds me a little of romantic comedies; gestures that seem really cute and thoughtful on paper but that suddenly seem more like grounds for a restraining order in real life. Not that I'm planning on sitting out side of the gaming store with a boom box, John Cusack style, but it does seem like there's more room for error than I'm normally comfortable with in my social interactions. Still, nothing lost and nothing gained. So when I finish Super Paper Mario within the next few weeks and have an excuse to see if they sell the old-timey Game Cube controllers, I think I might just be giving out my digits and hoping for the best.

(Poor Peach clearly did not get away from the guy in the produce section quickly enough.)

One Hundred Push-Ups

...or I'll just go ahead anyway.

I forgot to eat dinner again. I usually end up eating dinner around 8 or 9pm because I get distracted by a productivity streak or Tara's request that I set up our blog.

My body type is what I call "skinny bitch" (Are we cursing in this blog, Tara? Answer your phone so we can discuss this!). I get defensive when the subject of anorexia comes up, since I have a very healthy attitude towards eating.  I just happen to be a distracted young man with a fire-burning metabolism.

The skin-and-bone look isn't really working for me, so I'm trying to get fit. I'm not bothering to bulk up, since my metabolism should slow down eventually. Just working on strength and flexibility. I'm focusing on arms and core right now, with the help of a delightful website: http://www.hundredpushups.com/. It's great for several reasons:

1. There are plenty of options for different fitness levels.
2. Commitment of time, effort, and resources is basically nil.
3. The results are measurable.

I'm on Week 3 of the program, though it's really Week 8, since I've done each week twice and took some breaks. But I've gone from collapsing before five push-ups to doing five sets of ten push-ups.  My biggest obstacle is wrist pain; I suspect that comes from playing video games and using a touchpad -- working on a solution for it. 

One might suggest a better, more effective program for me, but this one makes me feel great.  I can't wait to see how different I look and feel when I hit 100.

Grant

Under Construction

This coauthored blog will commence once the coauthors lay down some ground rules with each other.