Wounded ‘Couver

Link

yes, that’s right folks. i got in crazy internet monitoring mode and put a whole bunch of wii-monitoring sites to work for me, and finally was able to score one from toysrus.ca while they were briefly on sale. it got delivered on tuesday and i’ve been rockin it ever since.

i can sum up my experience in two words: “awesome” and “sore”. hopefully the awesome will stay and the sore will go away, but only time will tell. so far i only have wii sports and one controller, so i’m gonna have to go get some other games and accessories to do it up right.

btw, let me know if YOU have a wii and want to trade #s so we can share miis and be bffs.

Ok, it’s been about a month since my money and fat post so I thought I’d give you some updates.

First, on my first rule to only spend $20/day: I am failing miserably. My daily average for January 31 to February 28 was $61.22. Partly this is because of necessary evils, such as going to the vet, getting prescriptions, buying much-needed furniture, Valentine’s day, etc. Partly, though, this is because I’m just not very good at spending only $20/day.

Although there’s obviously lots of room for improvement, I do think I’ve been keeping to the spirit of the rule fairly well. I have been eating out much, much less, and I’ve been thinking fairly carefully about my purchases and trying to limit myself. I think $60/day is probably less than my average would have been without this rule, so it’s not a total failure. Still, for March, I’m gonna try harder to hit that $20 goal.

Ok, next, weighing myself every day (and losing weight): I’ve been weighing myself twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. The graph below shows my progress, with my average daily weight in blue (or purple?) and a trendline in black.

Some stats:

• highest recorded weight: 196.2 lbs
• lowest recorded weight: 185.4 lbs
• average AM/PM difference: 2.5 lbs

So how much did I lose? Based on the trendline it looks like I’m down about 6 lbs. It’s not tremendous for a month, but I’m pretty happy with it - especially considering I haven’t really been exercising (see below). Unfortunately, I’ve started to level out a bit in the last week or so, which I’m thinking means that if I want to see any more losses I’ll probably need to make some more changes (ie exercise).

Finally, my third rule, using the Wii to exercise: total failure, because I still don’t have one. I’ve actually been looking quite a bit, but I haven’t actually gone first thing in the morning to line up before a store opens, which I think might be my only option. I’m going to try that this Saturday.

I just posted a bunch of photos to my Flickr page, my first update since Hallowe’en. There are a few interesting ones hidden amongst all the cat pictures, and I thought I’d point some of them out.

First, and the reason I uploaded the pictures in the first place, the results of me trying to write with my foot:

Last night Caryl and I were watching a documentary called Alison’s Baby about a woman who was born deformed (I think because of Thalidomide) and her child. She had no arms and wrote with her feet, which made me think of how Caryl often laments that my feet are too hand-like and dexterous, so I thought I’d give writing with my feet a try. I thought I was pretty good, until I saw this guy beat Super Mario Bros. with his feet.

Moving on, there are some nice pictures of the city I took (from the comfort of the apartment), including some sunset pictures (two sets: 1, 2) and fog pictures.

There’s a cool picture of another fun New Year’s pyramid:

And finally, because I can’t ignore the cats completely in this post, here’s a picture of Two with crazy eyes.

If none of these pictures did it for you, there are some more up there too, so just go check out the photostream, or some of the other sets I added:

• George Gets His Pants Stuck
• Hangin With Geoff And Anne
• Snow In Vancouver

Ok, so apparently some people do read this blog (namely Sarah and my mom). So here you are guys, a brand new post from me! And, since it’s been awhile, it’ll be a really long one.

I have two problems that are of moderate concern to me. The first is that I don’t seem to have enough money, and the second is that I’m overweight and out of shape. I’ve decided to change some things about my lifestyle to help address both of these concerns; I’d like to outline these changes here, to you, with the idea that if I tell people about them there will be more accountability and more incentive to not fail.

First, some background. In December I flew to LA to go to a couple concerts, and I also flew to Toronto for Christmas. This, combined with normal expenses, Christmas shopping, and some serious lapses in judgment on eBay, led to me racking up quite a lot of debt on my credit card and line of credit. Thankfully the problem is more or less under control now, but it was still frustrating. To help get it under control and ensure that I didn’t make it worse by continuing to spend like crazy, I instituted life change #1.

• Do not spend more than $20 per day.

Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule, and there are exceptions to go along with it. First, that limit does not include paying bills, which is an obvious necessity. Second, I know that sometimes I will go over that limit and that’s not something I need to beat myself up about. Finally, and I think this is the most important, debts and balances are not allowed to be carried over from one day to the next: if I spend $17 on Monday, it does not mean I get to spend $23 on Tuesday. Conversely, If I do spend $23 on Tuesday, I still have $20 to spend on Wednesday. The reason I’ve decided on this particular implentation of the rule is because if I was carrying balances I know I would use the kind of logic that said “Oh, it’s ok to buy this thing, I’ll just spend less tomorrow”. That’s not good, it leads to trouble.

Alright, so this rule has been working out fairly well. I have gone over some days, but there have been plenty of days that I was under my limit too. Most importantly, it forces me to make smarter decisions with what I’m spending money on. It’s in no small part because of this rule that the December/Christmas credit card bill is paid off. It might seem silly, but having the goal is also nice mentally, because when I meet it I have a sense of accomplishment. Yeah for me.

One thing I noticed about this new rule is that it brought on other changes in my lifestyle. I had been eating out a lot and getting a lot of take out, both for lunch and dinner. The new limit put an end to that. I’m eating at home, and I find that I’m going to the grocery store every day or every other day and buying only the food I need because the limit doesn’t allow me to buy a lot of stuff in advance. It also means I’m buying way less junk food and wasting less of the food I do buy. Since the grocery store isn’t super close to where I live, it also means I’m getting out and walking around more. It seems that working towards fixing my financial problems is also helping with my being fat problems. Yeah for me again.

Truth be told, I appear to have lost weight since starting this. But I did not have a scale and I had no way to verify or quantize this. That brings me to life change #2. I have been reading a lot online about lazy fat jerks like myself who sit at a computer all day and do nothing but get fat, and then turn their lives around. They all have various tips, many of which I’m trying to implement, but one stuck out at me. One dude suggested to weigh yourself every day. I know most people tell you to only weigh yourself once a week or something because your weight can fluctuate and it can be disappointing. However, I’ve heard a number of people that have lost weight and kept it off saying to weigh yourself frequently, and I think this every day thing is a good idea. Armed with the knowledge of fluctuation and a spreadsheet to track progress, I think it’ll help me set goals and monitor when problems come up. (As an added geeky bonus I’m also going to keep track of my spending and see if there is a correlation between how much I’m spending and weight gains/losses. Finally, my stats class might come in handy.)

• Weigh myself daily and track progress

Alright, at this point I know either you’ve stopped reading out of sheer boredom, or you’re shouting at the computer “what about exercise, dipshit?!”. Well, since I walk everywhere I go I would argue that I am getting more exercise than a lot of people that spend their whole lives driving everywhere. However, clearly I do not get enough and need to work on this. I’ve always been incredibly unmotivated to exercise and find it really, really boring. I’ve tried listening to music, I’ve tried watching TV. It’s just stupid and boring and I hate it. Then, over Christmas, I tried playing Nintendo’s new Wii console and it was awesome. If you don’t know about it, the controller works by monitoring your motion which means you have to actually move to play it. It comes with a game called Wii Sports that includes boxing, golf, baseball, tennis, and bowling. After playing for a night I woke up sore all over - it turns out it’s actually a pretty good work out. And, the most important thing is that it was really, really fun. I did not feel like I was exercising, I didn’t get bored, and I left wanting more.

Some of you may scoff at the idea of playing a video game to exercise, but I would like you to go read this guy’s story. He was basically an overweight jerk like myself and decided to play his Wii for 30 minutes a day, every day, for 6 weeks to try to lose weight. He did not change anything else about his lifestyle. He still ate shitty and didn’t do any extra exercise. The results are on his page, but basically he lost 9 lbs, improved his Body Mass Index, and lost 3.5″ around his gut. I call that results! So life change #3.

• Exercise with the Nintendo Wii

The main problem with this life change is that I don’t have a Wii. They’re actually really hard to come by right now, so I might have to wait a little while for supply to catch up with demand. When it’s more readily available, though, I will buy one and try my own Wii Experiment.

So that’s it, three things I’m doing to try to change my life around. Let me know what you think in the comments, as long as it’s supportive. (Also, I’d prefer if nobody gives the standard “You’re not fat, you don’t need to lose weight” comments that I hear a lot. I am overweight. I may not be obese, but I am not in shape and do need to lose weight.)

1. I’m pretty sure nobody reads it.
2. I don’t do anything interesting with my life.
3. Updating the blog reminds me of #1 and #2 and makes me sad.

That said, I will try to come up with a post later today.

yesterday caryl and i bought a pumpkin to carve for hallowe’en. we fucking rocked it. see pictures here. that last sentence should say “see a video of us making it here”, but when i got out my video camera to try and tape the process, i discovered it was broken.

i am pretty pissed about this. i can’t afford to get it fixed right now, nor do i want to. i shouldn’t have to. there was no sign of this coming - it worked fine a couple weeks ago when we went to vancouver island. it’s pretty damned frustrating.

about an hour ago i had another technical problem - a cd got stuck inside my damned computer. when i tried to eject it the imac made all sorts of loud ejection-type noises, then the cd didn’t come out and it remounted on the computer. it turns out 99.9% of the advice on the web for people with cds stuck in there their computer is related to software malfunction. this was a hardware problem - the cd was physically stuck. apple was also not helpful when i phoned applecare. when they realized it was a hardware problem they basically told me to take it in for service.

luckily, i found one brilliant suggestion online that worked. i will reprint it here for anybody else who has an imac with a stuck cd:

1. lay your imac face down on your desk. be careful, this is slightly more difficult than you might expect if you forget that the head swivels on the base. you don’t want to drop it.

2. wait a second.

3. hit the eject button on your keyboard.

for some reason the different position and associated gravitational pulls helps the cd realign itself and come out smoothly. so there you go, one broken video camera and one fixed imac.

please tell me what you think of my bitchin pumpkin in the comments.

I just got the new Beck album - “The Information” - and I’m trying to get all four of the sticker sets. Every sticker sheet has a catalog number printed on it that ends in either “A”, “B”, “C” or “D”. I have doubles of the “C” set and the “D” set and I need the “B” set. If anybody wants to trade, give me a shout.

E-mail me at dnewton@whiskeyclone.net.

As many of you know, I am interested in movies and making movies. I recently went out and bought myself a 16mm film camera from the 1950s. When I bought the camera there was some used film in there. So, like anybody with a sense of curiosity would, I took it to get developed hoping there was something that was both awesome and not crazy creepy/illegal on there. I just got a phone call telling me that they accidentally destroyed it, though. Note - don’t bring film to those guys anymore.

When I went home for Vanessa’s wedding I got a regular 8mm film camera. So now I have two film cameras. Sweet.

Problem 1: I know nothing about shooting film. I don’t know about light, emulsion, ASA, or any shit like that. Time to get learnin.

Problem 2: The film is expensive and hard to come by. I haven’t been able to find anywhere that has regular 8mm film, and my 16mm camera takes film in these weird, seldom-used, no-longer-produced cartridges. I was able to find a store with a couple of the cartridges, and I bought one even though the film technically expired in 1985. It was about $40 for 50 ft. of film, which will be about 75 seconds of shooting time at 24 fps. My other option for the 16mm film is to buy normal, readily available, non-expired film and try to load it into the cartridge myself. This is actually pretty difficult, and if I fuck up the film, potentially very expensive.

Problem 3: I don’t know what to shoot. I have no ideas right now. Anybody have any suggestions for 75 seconds of awesomeness?

To help me overcome the first problem I tried to go to this “Stop by and shoot film” thing Kodak was having for 16mm cameras. Unfortunately, I found out about it the day before and it was all full when I contacted them. Sucky.

Sorry this post was a bit rambly, I’m tired and have no time for editing/rereading.

This weekend was pretty fun.

Saturday evening Caryl’s friend Kerry came downtown from Whistler/Squamish and we hung out with her and her friend Erin. We had all-you-can-eat sushi, which was better than the ayce sushi I had in Mississauga. Unfortunately the service was terrible. I also got suckered into going back to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, which is this amazing chocolate store on Robson. Here are some pictures of candy apples that I took there the other day.

Sunday I went to a record show for a number of hours, which was good. The problem with record shows and a lot of record stores is that for 95% of the people there, the world stopped in 1988. It’s almost impossible to find any “new” (post-1988) records, or anything that’s not classic rock. I was still able to pick up a few things, but I tried to limit myself since I don’t actually have a record player here. To get there and back I rode the SkyTrain for the first time and was very impressed with it. Although the signage could have been a bit better, I really enjoyed the experience. The honor system was nice and easy (like the GO Train), the train was automated and came frequently (like the Disney Monorail), and it only cost $2.25 (like Mississauga Transit). Sunday was also Caryl’s birthday, so once she got home from her class we went to dinner at Milestone’s (we both had really good prime rib) and then came home for Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

I’m going to Toronto tomorrow (or Wednesday, I can’t remember) for Vanessa’s wedding. Should be fun.