No, not the hit series. Some fat.
Lost 2.8 lbs last week, 4.2 total in 2 weeks. Wheee! I may hit my goal of 10 lbs gone by 8/23, the day we leave for Burning Man. Most of all, I'll be a lot stronger from getting way more exercise than I have done for a year.
I gotta say, I love Weight Watchers, and I especially love our fearless leader, Jen. She is funky, funny, smart, and inspiring. Oh, and I love 2-Point Bars.
I love DVB for being so supportive and helping me eat good foods in right amounts. Slender rod that he is, he is trying to lose 5 lbs to see what it feels like to eat thoughtfully. So far, I'm doing better than him. ;-)
So, we're getting our television from a wider variety of sources than ever nowadays. DVDs, iTunes, streaming video, and IPTV have all invaded our livingroom (and iPhones and Macs). Not much of it originates from the American networks or cable channels, especially during the Summer.
A recent discovery is one of ABC's new shows. That's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, by the way, not to be confused with the American Bradcasting Corporation or ABC, Martin Fry's pop band from the '80s. You see, unlike the American Broadcasting Corporation, the Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation makes their program streams availaible internationally (in Singapore at any rate).
That new show is called The Hollowmen, not to be confused with T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" or the short-lived sketch comedy show The Hollow Men from Comedy Central.
The Hollowmen is a sort of a combination of The West Wing, The Office and Flight of the Conchords with a dash of Mad Men and a nod to Office Space. It's not as overtly preachy as The West Wing, not as cringey as The Office, not as surreal as Conchords, and not as stylish as Mad Men, but has some of the better qualities of each.
The show is about the folks who make the Austrailian PM and his policies look good and polish them for public consumption. As an American, much of it feels familiar, but foreign at the same time...more so than English shows and less so than Canadian. The production value, acting and writing are excellent and is making me curious what other gems of Austrailan TV I've missed.
Anyhow, each week's episode is up on ABC's website and they are only half an hour long. Try one and see what you think. They make for nice Summer viewing...er, I mean Winter viewing.
Once upon a time, Harold McGee wrote a book called "The Curious Cook", regretfully out of print. In it, he's got a great chapter on fruit ices, for making granitas or sorbets or whatever. There are a handful of incredibly useful charts that you can use to make pretty much anything into a nice frozen dessert.
I've finally transcribed these charts at http://www.re.org/eric/fruitices/ for your freezing pleasure.
The basic recipe is easy: fruit juice + sugar + lemon juice + water. The chart tells you how much of each. Medium-sweet water ices are usually best for sorbet. Mix ingredients until sugar is dissolved, then freeze in your ice cream freezer.
Easy and delicious!
Dag, what a disappointment.
However, let that not discourage you from feasting your eyes on del Toro's monstrous visions and gearhead fetishism. It's a perfect movie to watch with the sound off.
Review of Hellboy 2 to come! Going to the midnight show tonight.
No secrets here! That's my starting weight. About what I thought it was.
Lately, I have not recognized the person I see in photographs. I wonder how the me I see in the mirror looks so much different than the person I see in most recent photographs. Really scary, how subjective visual perception is.
This is about my tenth time on Weight Watchers. The good part is: I've reached my goal about three of those times (and am a Lifetime member), and gotten damn close a few more. And seriously, WW is the best. Not a diet. So many choices. Actually, it's fun to track and plan meals.
So many times, I've felt like "this is it, I'm really doing it this time." And despite not being successful those times, I remain optimistic that I can get back to my good ol' healthy 155. But more than that, regain some of the muscle mass I have lost this past year from lack of exercise. Which means, of course, daily bike rides and visits to the UCSC Wellness Center.
My mini-goal? 10 lbs gone by Burning Man.
Wish me luck!
When I was wee, the 4th of July was packed with "safe and sane" fireworks. Everybody had them. They were fun! Fountains, flowers, sparklers, snakes, whistling things, the usual stuff. I don't remember anything that flew or went boom.
Now, 4th of July sounds like a war zone. Since the "safe and sane" are illegal too, everyone who has fireworks seems to get things that fly and go boom, or just go big-badda-boom.
Is this really better than those old "safe and sane" fireworks?
Last night I had my first non-work-related public appearance in Singapore at Pecha Kucha Singapore #2.
The concept of Pecha Kucha Night is based on an exercise devised by designers in Japan to facilitate sharing ideas efficiently. Pecha Kucha Nights are made up of creative folks delivering Powerpoint/Keynote presentations with the following restriction: exactly 20 slides for 20 seconds each. My new friend Graham Perkins explained the Pecha Kucha introduced me to the idea and asked if I'd be interested in participating in an upcoming event (and acting as the official American on the bill, in honor of 4th of July). It sounded like a fun challenge, so I signed up.
Delivering presentations is not a problem for me, I've been doing it professionally for years now. But I'm used to blathering about a subject for three hours at a pop. But, doing so for 6 minutes 40 seconds is hard. Every slide the same length is hard.
I chose to present the challenge that filmakers face (unlike painters, for instance) in having only three basic aspect ration to choose from when creating their images. Ask my students, my normal aspect ratio lecture is 2-3 hours long. I liked the idea of dicussing one of the limiting factors of shot design in a format that is itself limiting. I *heart* meta communication.
I didn't have as much time to prepare my Keynote stack as I would have liked, but all things considered it went well. I did feel like I was on a quiz show, however, complete with giant digital clock counting down next to me on the stage. Not having control of my own slides was kinda weird, but liberating too.
The other presenters were all interesting and most stuck to the original intent of the format by presenting their own artwork. Beca and I agreed that our favorite presenter of the evening was ZXEROKOOL. His designs were really great and his delivery and presence were fantastic.
I'm already thinking about the next one in three months as well as ways to get more folks involved. Check out the links below and see if your city has Pecha Kucha nights coming up! I saw events this month in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu...
Okay, enough of the negative posting!
David and I are leaving Sunday for a week in Arkansas with my family. Summer in Arkansas is fun! Hot, humid, occasional thunderstorms. War Eagle Caverns and Mills (stereotypically beautiful Ozarks setting); the Museum of Earth History in Eureka Springs (stereotypically Bible Belt Ozarks); July 4 on Beaver Lake (which was completed the very same year my Okie family started spending summer weekends in NW Arkansas, and now my brother and his wife live there).
For all of that, this is a family vacation, and I'm grateful beyond words that David wants to go. Besides the tourist traps listed above, I've promised him loads of polytime, at skating rinks and internet cafes. We are staying in a funky motel about five miles from my mom, called Boonslick Lodge. We plan to break fast most mornings either with my mom and sister, or at the Jane Cafe in Jane, MO (it's got a smoking section! How quaint!).
On top of it all, I'm officiating my third wedding ceremony on July 5! My niece Jennifer is marrying a very nice man named Sean -- hopefully this will be the poor girl's lasting marriage (it's her fourth -- two of those to the same guy). I don't know if performing a ceremony in front of my family makes me feel more, or less, nervous than usual. Guess I'll know when I'm standing there ;-)
