Smallish update regarding the diet, since everybody else is doing it…
I direct your attention to the graph over on the right. The first six weeks or so, I was doing pretty well. I hit the
same plateau I hit last year at about 180, but whatever.
The Ottawa trip really threw me off, though. And the last couple weeks, I’ve been slacking enough that I haven’t really
got things back on track. Not an incredibly huge setback, but enough that I’m probably gonna have to be careful with the
con over the weekend, and rein in the restaurant visits (or at least the amount I’m eating during restaurant visits…).
The yellow line, incidentally, is the straight-line path from the start of the diet to my goal weight of 160lbs come May
1st. I’m falling a bit behind. I could still catch up, but my current thinking is bumping things up to 2lbs/week isn’t
really worth it. I can either re-evaluate the goal or push it out a couple weeks.
The actual goal is under 169, which is when my BMI finally gets under the magic 25. I’m shooting for 160 just to have a
bit of a buffer.
Even with the setback, though, I still averaged just shy of 1lb/week over February. January was closer to my target
rate of 1.5lbs/week. So on the whole, it’ll take a little work the next couple weeks to get back on track, but I’m still
doing okay.
I had a bunch of highly pontificational (spell check says that isn’t a word, but I’m using it anyway) things I was
thinking about writing a post about today. I was saving it all up till after work when I had time to dedicate to the
writing process. They were good too. I had some really good arguments I wanted to make. It would’ve been interesting,
challenging and informative.
Too bad I forgot all about all of them.
I should probably write these things down. Oh well.
I’ll leave you to dream about what the world might have been like if those posts had been posted. It would be a
different place, you mark my words.
Ad Astra’s this weekend. I was only planning on going the Saturday, but for one happy reason or another, it looks like
I’ll be there all weekend. Which is fine. If I get bored, I can probably find a Cory Doctorow thing to drop in on, which
should be neat. I might even ninja. Seeing as I never really do anything useful during masqs, this is probably a good
idea.
I was looking over the pre-schedule schedule… Along with pretty much all the Cory Doctorow stuff which is probably
interesting on their own, there’s also some Julie Czerneda things which are usually fun… And there’s a NaNoWriMo
panel, but it’s very early some morning. And, of course, there’s all the stuff friends are doing. So I think I should be
able to find enough things to fill the weekend.
I’ll bring the laptop. I might even liveblog the con. 'Cuz, you know, I can…
(Seriously… those would’ve been some awesome posts…)
I’ve pretty much stopped using the PSP for podcasts. I still really like the automatic downloads over WiFi. However,
I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. The automatic downloads don’t work when you’ve got a game
running. And when you’re playing a game on the PSP, you’ve got it running all the time. You just put it to sleep when
you’re not playing to save the nasty UMD load times. Switching in and out of games on the PSP doesn’t work so well.
So I’ve switched over to using the iTunes+iPod combo. It makes me feel dirty. I still want to switch over
to iPod Linux (or Rockbox; I haven’t decided). The
thing I like about iPod+iTunes, honestly, is the listen count. There’s a little blue dot beside the episodes I haven’t
listened to (not, admittedly, started listening to, but usually if I’ve stopped, I didn’t really want to listen to it).
So it’s easy to tell at a glance whether there’s new content there.
But whatever. Here are a few more podcasts I’ve taken to listening to… Let’s get the TWiT stuff out of the way
first…
Macbreak Weekly : Okay, they spend way too much time talking about iPods and crap,
but Merlinn Mann is funny. The episodes with him and Leo on are the best. They also point
out nifty Mac software, which I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. That’s one thing I have to hand to the Mac: it’s
got a rich shareware ecosystem. Freeware/FOSS, not as much, sadly, but there’s lots of cool shareware.
Windows Weekly : In the interest of balance… It’s actually pretty good. Not as fun as MBW,
maybe, since it’s just Paul and Leo chatting about what Microsoft did this week. Still, Paul isn’t a Microsoft shill,
and they talk about interesting stuff sometimes. And iPods. Even on Windows Weekly. I don’t know why everybody always
talks about iPods.
FLOSS Weekly : Just started up again this week. It really needs to find its groove, but one
thing I think I want to get out of podcasts is listening to developers talking about development. And this touches on
that. Speaking of which…
The Command Line : Just a guy with a microphone talking about hackerish stuff. He’s at
his best when he’s talking about his own experiences and observations. Those parts are really good to listen to. He
spends maybe a little too much time essentially going over Slashdot headlines. That’s… well, okay I guess. I’ve never
been a huge fan of Slashdot.
Big Ideas : TVO’s lecture series is also available
as a podcast. I don’t listen every week… Sometimes it’s boring. Sometimes it’s someone just droning at the front of
the room, just like back in school. Sometimes they start off with “Webster’s dictionary defines _____ as…” and I hit
the skip button. Sometimes it pisses me off with logical fallacies and sloppy thinking. But sometimes… sometimes it’s
brilliant. Like the one a couple weeks ago that still has me thinking about
stuff: the one about the guy who invented the stethoscope.
It starts off like a boring lecture, but everything comes together in the end. And it’s fascinating.
