LW and whatever else I can come up with

We'll start with my Literary Wednesday entry for today.....



War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells.

Now, it's not that this book moved me or was highly inspirational, it's just what I've last read (as with all of my LW entries).

This book was truly captivating. I saw the piece of crap they called a movie with Tom Cruise based on this book, and the book just blows it away. If you haven't seen the movie, don't. Read the book. Wells does such a good job in describing how the character feels, what he is going through, his confusion and amazement about what is going on. It's not a terribly deep book, but it is greatly entertaining. Well, I suppose you could go on that it is a deep book, with Darwinism and things like that. I really try not to get that involved with stories. It's hard to believe that this was written in 1898.


As far as running with my strap on (oh! and again!), it was.. different. I bought a strap that appears to have been designed for "below the knee" rather than above, as you would normally use for ITBS. Due to my uber-awesomely muscularly legs, it was a tight fit, but it did fit. I found that after about 3/4s of a mile, I'd need to stop and slide it up and re-adjust.

I *think* running was easier with it on, but I'm viewing this as a stopgap solution. I can't fart around with this forever. I'm going to stretch and do some rolling (of my leg, of course), and hope that gets it all fixed up. I wound up doing 2 miles and shutting it down. Today it's not too bad, so I'm "cautiously optimistic" about my running.



The whole stopping to readjust thing worked out well, because I got a little break too. I've also come to find that where my hamstring attaches to my azz is probably the crankiest part of my body right now, too. That whole 'Moons over my Hammy' of Denny's is the spot.


Lesse.. what else? Oh, I cleaned up part of the DVR by finishing off what was left of a TV series... The ol' 'Prison Break' show is no more. About fricken time, as it jumped the shark 3 seasons ago. :) Really, it would have been awesome as a mini-series, even a long mini-series. But nooooo... we had to go get the 'government conspiracy' plot line out.

Good series, interesting idea. The ending, well, it was OK. Not sure what I wanted, but they pretty much punted and wrapped everything up in a package in 10 minutes. Now, I'm down to 3 shows that I watch.

- Rescue Me
- Stargate (on hiatus, until the new series comes out)
- Doctor Who (also on hiatus)

That's it! I've been cutting back on my TV watching, and it's starting to pay off. I basically have a rule "no new shows", and as they drop off, I'm good to go.

Alright all.. you know the drill. Keep on rockin'

Doctor Who?

Sigh. Just read an article that the Doctor is leaving. No more David Tennant.

It took me a bit to get used to him, but I really like him. I always tell my wife that you shouldn't get attached to the characters, because they come and go, but it always throws me when The Doctor goes.

Argh!

A run and a break

Did a solo run last night.. a little over 3 miles.. say, 3.25. Nothing too bad. Legs were tired, but I'm not sore today, at least. The weather was really nice last night. It was cool and not raining (it had rained most of the day, off and on pretty hard).

Hoping to go out again tonight. My running buddy may be free as well, so that'd be cool.

Afterward, I finally got around to watching the season premiere of 'Prison Break'. If you haven't watched it, skip the rest of this post.

I've watched this series from the beginning. I absolutely loved Season 1. Season 2, well, it felt like it was lost. It was a "Crap! We don't know what to write about! We'll take 'The Fugitive' and add in a big government conspiracy". Thankfully, it ended.

Season 3 was good. Of course, it was about a prison break again. They didn't have the luxury of the prison schematics as a tattoo any more, though.

This season.. well. I watched the intro episode, and I'm skeptical.

Very skeptical.


We're going to watch the remaining original characters take down this huge rogue government group. OK. Whatever. We added this weird hacker guy, with this amazing hacking device.
Let's explore that, shall we?

Something the size of a cell phone that can dump the contents of any electronic device just by being within 10 feet of it. If used at a gas station, it can pick up all of the credit cards. It can apparently dump MP3 players and TIVOs.

Really?

How pray tell is it doing that? Have you tried pairing a Bluetooth headset with a cell phone? There's a couple of steps involved. You don't just wave it nearby. Same with a wireless network. If there's any encryption on it, there's even more steps.

Never mind that my credit card isn't broadcasting anything. I could maybe give them a MP3 player dump, with the Apple line of iPods and such. A Tivo?

OK. Forget these devices used as examples.

The uber-secret government card is just there to be dumped too? You can read it from 10 feet away? There's no encryption on this thing? Why would it be transmitting anything?

Ah, forget it.

Then, there's the tattoo. I'm glad that it's not going to be a plot point anymore, as the times it was used in the second season were a stretch.
But, he just went and got it zapped off by lasers overnight, and he just gritted through the pain? And he's as good as new now?
C'mon.

And everyone got arrested at the same time at different points in the country (and in different countries), but the government found out and brought them all together within hours? Streeeeeetch.


I did love the line about eating some "bad Mexican". My wife wasn't too amused, but that probably was the high point of it.

We'll see how the rest of the season shakes out. My wife has given up, apparently.

Doctor Who

I recently cleaned up my DVR, and finished up the season of Doctor Who in the process.

It's been a while, so hopefully anyone who cares has already watched the season in it's entirety.
If not, some spoilers may exist below... I warned you..





My thought on the season & series. You could really tell that in this finale, the goal was to tie everything together. I do my best not to hit spoilers on the Internet, so I don't know what is coming.

I don't watch Torchwood or the Sarah Jane Adventures. (Mainly because I just don't want another TV show). I've been a big Doctor Who fan for a very long time.

So... the finale. Well, I knew something was going to happen with Donna.. all of the Doctor-Donna references that had been made during the season. I was glad they didn't kill her off. That would have been unnecessary.

I was truly impressed with the writing, and how stuff over the past few seasons all tied in together. Little clues that you saw a couple of years ago suddenly appeared in a flashback, and everything was linked.

I'm not one for the whole soap opera thing going on between Rose & The Doctor. Blah. My wife was happy that they wound up together, after a fashion.

I think most of the plot lines of the past few years were tied up. The only one I can think of right off that wasn't is that whole "Doctor's Daughter" thing, which I'm not a fan of anyways.

Plus, K-9 had an appearance in the finale! Any episode with him is just awesome.


Looking to the future, it appears there's going to be 4 or 5 mini specials in 2009, as David Tennant has other acting obligations right now. The current writer, Russell T. Davies, is also ending his run, phasing out his writing over the 2009 "season".

Sigh.

The thing about Doctor Who is that with the regeneration of The Doctor, the show can go on and on (although, the regeneration limit of 12 times seems to have been dropped, as no one remarks on that any more). I remember how crushed I was when Tom Baker's run came to an end. I grew to like Peter Davidson after some time.. That has happened with each regeneration. Each Doctor has their own personality and gift they take to the role. Maybe David Tennant will stay on.. we'll see.

Rockin W4D1

I completed Day 1 of Week 4 of the 100 pushup challenge. Woot! My final max was at 30, 3 over the min. All of my pushups were 'good form', as well. I took a bit longer between the sets, but that is a-OK in my book.

Went for a slow 3 mile run as well. My running buddy called me up and asked if I wanted to go.. who was I to say no? It's amazing what a day of rest will do for your legs.. They felt good before, during, and after the run. Awesome. We did the 3 miles in 31 minutes, a very leisurely time. At least we got out there. My running buddy had a snack of pasta that seemed to be bothering her for the last mile of the run.

I'm fighting off a head cold.. been doing this for almost a week now. Bleh.

Last night, in an effort to unwind, I watched a movie off of my DVR... Saw II. Not as good as the original, IMHO. I was able to figure out the plot points and twists in advance.. The original snuck a few past me. I'll have to see what III and IV have to offer at some point.
The acting was pretty decent, and it wasn't a bad movie, especially for that genre. It just fell short of the original, as sequels often do. (Nothing as bad as the Matrix sequels, which couldn't even see the original from the spot they fell to).

I was also flipping around the TV and saw that there were new episodes of the Twilight Zone. Like, full color with modern actors and everything. When did that happen? What sort of cave am I living in? I started watching one, but my wife came home and I DVRed the end of it.