Eclecticism...

Go ahead, tell me that chart doesn't reflect eclecticism. And more is on the way.

On the gaming front, I picked up DDR Universe 2 yesterday and gave it some play. My initial reaction is that I have a strong dislike for the controller pad. For some reason I don't tend to be able to hit the back arrow pad very effectively, but maybe with practice I'll learn to hit it.

I'll give a nod to Caduceus, kweenie and Bleed on the 2Old2PlayFitness boards for pointing out the possible fitness angle on this game. Once I get some practice and get out the Gaming Lite area I'll have more fun and get more burn.

Due to some inclement weather, namely a cold front moving through, I had to find some alternative fitness methods. Nothing like +20mph winds and temps 20 degrees lower than normal to convince one to stay indoors. Laugh, but I've nothing to deal with exercising in temps that are lower than the mid-60s. And with a average speed of 11.5 mph, a +20mph head-wind will have me going maybe 5mph. Joggers will pass, point and laugh.

Listing the alternatives exercises...DDRU2 was one, time on the elliptical trainer is two, three will be trying some dusty fitness DVDs I found, and the fourth and last will be using the stationary/trainer-stand bike (once it is repaired, again).

Meanwhile the diet continues. I've figured out with exercise my body only needs around 1250 to 1350 calories per day to both live and maintain/lose weight. That figure seems pretty low to me, but it is working so I guess I'll continue.

My digestive tract isn't so sure of the new diet and has given me two days of squirts to give a substantially differing opinion. Fortunately it only affects my mornings and I still get a 3 minute point-burn warning before things break loose.

Still reading? Good!

So another Democratic Presidential Debate took place the other night. I managed to catch parts of it. For reasons that are not entirely clear, my condo association does not want to approve MSNBC on our cable system, so I was forced to use the web-cast. I've done the web-cast before and it is usually cool. This time it wasn't cool at all.

I don't know that MSNBC did their web-cast servers on debate night, but whatever it was, it sucked. Hard. Within 10 minutes the web-cast was unwatchable. Glitching and sputtering every 2 to 5 seconds. I tried to reconnect and got nothing. Several times.

I finally found WKYC.com was also doing a web-cast so I was finally able to watch the remainder. And it was good. I thought Obama did a good job of fending off the Clinton and moderator attacks & jabs. Clinton continued digging herself into a hole.

Take this as a rant, but this whole incident is something that gets my figurative panties in a twist. Why in hell does the government let private companies strangle the flow of crucial election information by locking it up so it can only be viewed when & how the private company wishes? Within a few hours of this event it should have been available, fully unedited and without DRM, from the MSNBC website with explicit permission to redistribute (without editing) to other sites.

Movie recommendation...Rendition - drama/triller - An Egyptian-born man, suspected of being a terrorist, 'vanishes' from an international flight, leaving his US family to desparately try to locate & help him. That is one of the major plots in the twisted-timelines in the great movie. Highly recommended.

Avoid-unless-in-need-of-sleep movie - The Darjeeling Limited - Drama/comedy/adventure - I have really got to start ignoring movies by Wes Anderson, because they all just miss all the marks for me. Martin Scorsese may think Wes is the next Martin Scorsese, but I think Wes is the next Woody Allen. At any rate, I found the movie was not funny, nor particularly interesting. The music score was probably the highlight. Stay way unless you like Wes Anderson/Woody Allen movies.