Ninja Swirls

Dancing as one would only do in private while holding a box of mozzarella cheese its.. that's what I was doing. Listening to Enter The Ninja by Die Antwoord I spy a Lizard, better known as a green anole peeking around a corner outside my sink window. He's flaring his red throaty sack and I point to him and say "you're a mutherf***in ninnnja!"

Later I was finishing up the dishes and somehow I managed to spurt out a couple of small bubbles from the dish soap. They were maybe the size of my pinky fingernail. One of them floated for a very long time, at least a couple of minutes. It would get close to the counter or a cabinet and then spin around all crazy and fly up and down and zig zag. I was standing still watching this seemingly cognizant micro probe zip around. Finally, it just kind of stayed in place for a few seconds. I got close and looked at the color densities/swirls. None of them were moving. Usually it seems like bubbles are always rotating. Then it slowly came down and landed on the counter to burst. Can't help but have relativistic universe thoughts with this. But seriously, was that an unusual event I wonder? How often do people watch bubbles for minutes at a time?

Close call

I finished The Hunger Games. I have to say it was fun read. Now to see the movie this weekend. I don't think I'll be moving onto the 2nd book though. I also watched the movie preview a couple of times and surfed over to a couple of Letterman shows with Jennifer Lawrence. She is an absolute riot in person! Riding wild horses and being attacked by peanut butter crazy dachsunds..yah go find it on youtube now! She reminds me of Amanda Bynes a little.

Today could've been an astronomically horrible day. I came so very close to running over an old man and his dog. Basically, I'm about to pull out into traffic. When I pulled up to turn, my corners were clear, so I'm looking left at the oncoming traffic. This guy and his dog were walking fast apparently and must have gotten the light to accept a crosswalk immediately. So he just starts crossing. I just happened to let my foot off the break for a second and wham this guy is dead center, what seems like inches from my truck. I don't even think he noticed. He was just looking down. Had I had a clear opening in traffic, I probably would've ran him and his dog over. Ughhh it made me ill for hours afterwards. I know I should always recheck, but damn dude, don't cross when the driver hasn't made eye contact with you.

Syringe Buffet

My bed that I slept on from roughly age 5 to 18 is now in a Buddist Temple. The monk sleeping on my bed was meditating and saw a woman crying on the bed. Perhaps it has something to do with the tons of syringes found at the temple before it was temple. I had another bed, that I experienced poltergeist activity on. The current owners of this bed report no odd incidents, however the owner of the couch I had has heard someone call her name from the room with the couch.

I had a difficult run today. It had been 4 hours since the Thai Buffet, but apparently, that wasn't long enough. So out of breath, too full. Shins not happy. Ughhh

Reading The Hunger Games right now. It's much better than I thought it would be. I should finish it in the next couple of days so Liz and I can go see it this weekend.

I bought yurbuds. I dug out my old Samsung mp3 player. This can only mean one thing.

Strawberry poptarts are guuuuuud!

Hunger Pains

I decided not to do any weights or other workout items yesterday after my run since I knew I'd be helping my friend move into his new home today. Wow! Best decision I've made in a long while. I did not expect to get the workout I did today. My friend has some heavy furniture. Whhhoooo dogggeeee! The gun safe was so heavy, it broke the dolly we had. Just crumpled the wheel and it popped off. Luckily that happened when resting and not moving. I'm gunna be on the motrin wagon for a couple of days!

Everyone and their mamma is either reading or has read The Hunger Games. I'm like what is going on?!!! My friends kids have read it! And thank goodness the movie appears to have been done well with what seem to be positive reviews. I think I might just have to read it too. Yes sir mmhmmmmm.

Zensahhh

So my calves have still been acting up. Tuesday I decided to wear my cheapo calf sleeves while on the treadmill. These are just knee high tube socks cut at the ankles which I normally just wear while asleep if needed. They actually provide a good bit of compression for just cotton. Anyway, after my run with them on, my calves felt better. So I went to the running store, what the hey , and finally got some proper calf sleeves by Zensah. I have to admit, running outside with them on made me feel a little dorky. I'm not sure if it's just me feeling better, but my shins actually felt much fresher after. It's like I could feel when I was compensating with my shins and I could adjust. There's also a certain added heat, that felt good. It was cool outside today though, so that could be a neg in the summer heat.

At the running store, I had a brief discussion with they guy working there. He said, if nothing else has changed, it's gotta be your shoes. Dude, don't give me an excuse to buy new shoes! I told him I actually keep logs on how many miles I have on all 6 pairs of shoes I run in and only one pair is approaching the wear out limit. He didn't think I was crazy though. We talked about hydration issues, and he suggested I try coconut water at my local grocer. I don't think I've ever seen such a thing. Is it fattening? haha I'll give it a shot though. Why not! I also got to try out some new massaging tools from a company called Moji. gomoji.com and you can see these crazy little steel ball things that look like S&M tools.

As for the Zensah sleeves, I expected them to be much tighter. They do have a nice smoothness slipping on. And like I said, I felt them compressing my shins more, which may be a function of me and not the sleeves. I will continue to wear them for a while.

Foggy Pace

Was in Kohl's the other evening and I ended up talking to an older guy in the clearance section for a good 15 minutes. I thought he was just making conversation, but in fact, he was looking for people to work with 'his business" whatever it was. Was kind of odd really.

I was on a foggy track on base this morning at 720am. I was there to pace Liz for her 1.5 mile run for her PT test( which didn't happen for an hour later). 6 laps around the track was all that it took. It's just so weird to run on a track with other people running for time and having guys call times when you pass the blue cones. It's insanely boring and yet 1 mile seems to happen in no time at all. 4 laps already? That's it? Hmph. I always manage to lose count at some point.

Being out in the morning FL air in the pines and wet weeds brought me flashes of my childhood elementary school mornings, waiting for the bus, or walking to school and playing tag for never long enough. All the spider webs were visible from the dew and the water tower was like a giant tripod just emerging from the fog. It was slightly chilly too which made it just right. It's easy to envision the looming oppressive humidity blanketing me. Sticky McYucky!

My calves have still been sore though now during my runs for the last week. It's never really bad, but it's enough that I'm trying to compensate and my shins end up feeling tweeked as well. I'm not really sure what it is. Though I'm considering buying a STICK for some quick massage action. Foam roller on the shins is not only painful but an ab workout. I guess I need to stretch more or something. I feel fine afterwards though.

Are you seeing this?

3 new trailers for Prometheous this weekend. An IMAX trailer, the US full trailer and the UK trailer, each with unique footage. Exciting! Supposedly, there was a piece of unique footage on a tv spot on Walking Dead tonight. I've yet to see that one uploaded.

Ridley says in an interview Q&A period when asked if there will be anything as nasty as the chestburster from Alien, "ooooh yes indeed!" Ridley says he's actually kinda of embarrassed by its nastiness. hmmmm!!!

Bought patio furniture this weekend. Yikes!

Got my swim on today! Felt good!

Trailerception

So far there has only been a teaser trailer for the movie Prometheous. Earlier this week they released another teaser trailer for the full length trailer coming out this weekend. This was met with a lot of "are you serious?!!" on the forums. It's the new thing apparently. I like the reference to Inception. They call it trailerception : a trailer of a teaser, of a trailer of a trailer!! Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the full length trailer as my hopes for this movie move back and forth.

Earlier this week a supposed fake script for Prometheous was put online. I read it. It was horrible in every way. If I saw that movie, I would never again say Ridley's name. Later in the day, it was deleted from imdb for unknown reasons. Who knows what that means. Then this morning a few pages from a supposed early draft of the screenplay got posted. Better, but still not good. Official writers tweeted that in fact it was fake.

Interestingly, I was watching a snippet of Alien behind the scenes stuff. Long story short, Jerry Goldsmith was none too happy with how his music ended up in the film from 79. He tells the story of spending all day composing a piece for the opening title sequence to which the execs gave the thumbs down. So he went back and gave them what they wanted, creepy, weirdd, and strange. He still gets praise for it to this day and he says it's just all wrong! It took 5 minutes to write that and...well I imagine he thinks it's garbage. Just another case of an artist whose praised for work that he has no love for.

In other bizness, I ran today and my calves and shins have been sore during my run from the getgo for the last 3 days. It doesn't increase in pain and goes away after I'm done. It's annoying. Not sure what is it yet, if anything.

I finally swam today in the pool. It's still cold, but just warm enough to bully myself in. I've been cleaning this damn thing all winter thanks to the trees in my neighbors yard. I'm swimming in this mofo every day damn it!

Hotness

It's officially getting hot. My AC turned on yesterday for the first time in months. I've gotten some bug bites. My run today was feeeking hot! Sweat stinging my eye and feeling like it's constantly pooling on the side of my nostrils. It's only going to get more intense too. Time to get my poolwater up to spec cuz I'm going to need some serious refreshment.

Universe Stuff

I meant to post these a while back. Many of us have seen Cosmos and know when Carl Sagan talks about "star stuff" and how were made out of it. This video is astrophysicist Neil degrasse Tyson talking about the same thing. I really like the music and visuals in this video though. I'm fairly certain that the sunset at the end is on Mars.




This link is also somewhat Universe related. I'd seen something like this done before, but not to the ultimate extremes as this one. If it doesn't blow your mind, you might as least think, "what the heck is that?!"

http://htwins.net/scale/

The Mysterious Island

I've run 7 days in a row! Woah. Ok Friday was kinda not really running, more like walking with some falling down here and there for 1.5 miles. I felt awful for some reason. Allergies? I really don't know. I had chills and said this ain't working. So I went right home and ate some avocado goodness and drank a Yuengling.

Ate home made pizza tonight. Liz makes the dough and it is so so good. Turkey crumbles, pineapple, and plenty of real cheese. Yumomomo.

Ok, so I'm going to give you my review of The Mysterious Island. You prolly don't care about this book, and that's ok. After I read a book, I like to read a bunch of reviews on it, both good and bad and then process it in my head, so this is kind of a brain dump item. But only read this if you have read the book, or intend on never reading it.

The Mysterious Island was written in 1874 by Jules Verne. It's considered a classic, and it seems that reviewers on Amazon who have read all his material, many pick this story as their fave over 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or Around The World in 80 Days.

The basic story is about 5 men who are Northerners trapped in a Southern prison in the Civil War (and a dog) who escape via hot air balloon. They get sucked up in a hurricane and travel thousands of miles to a deserted island.

And here's a fun thought, choose any five people you can think of, whether they be friend, family, or celebrity...to be stuck with on a deserted island. You could be logical and maybe pick people who'd be highly skilled in survival, or you could pick close friends who work well together. Or pick a combo of both. I'd prolly choose the latter, since 5 experts usually don't work well together at all.

At any rate, I think Verne wants to be very realistic in his telling of this story. He gives a thick helping of detail, often scientific about the island geography, fauna, and the procedures used to figure out engineering issues and chemistry reductions. However, the ease of which these men work together just seems to go 'too' well. Rarely do they bicker or argue and if they do, it ends up with one saying please don't, and the other saying, we'll just agree to disagree.

Now it could be argued that psychologically men were different back in the 1800s. You know probably less likely to whine about petty shit, and just get what needs to be done, DONE without griping. It's hard for that idea to hold though, because when you have lost everything and you're stressed out by having no food or comfort, you are probably not going to discuss things like you were at a table with Plato with a calmness and fullness of logic. Maybe the intellectual awakening of men was like that though as bravado was not yet unleashed.

It also rather annoys me that these men over time make glass, nitroglycerine, create dams, make clothes, tame animals, grow huge crops from just a couple of seeds, make a windmill, a watermill, a telegraph with 5 miles of wire, bridges, a boat, a canoe, bows and arrows, forge metal tools, and they do them without ever running into much problems other than a lotta elbow grease and time. I mean, somedays I feel like I can't even change a lightbulb without running into some technical difficulty. So that hyper real thing should be taken with a grain of salt. One little item that bugged the mess out of me, oh I made a funny, ppfttt nevermind. Ok, serisouly, you land on one the most bio-diverse islands ever which is a stretch really, and the one thing thats missing. Bugs! Those guys would've been crawling with nasty stinging, pesky biting, blood sucking hungry fly in your nose for fun bugs. Bzzzzzzzz! That's the wrong answer button going off.

Interestingly, the attention to detail in the story is a plus for many readers and big negative for others. I've taken in my fair share of survival shows/books and even I have to say that some of the book read like a boring diary. Like this blog! Seriously, like woke up, killed bird, ate it and it tasted good, chopped wood, wondered where my pants went too, fell asleep by ocean, listened to dog growl at rocks?!. The good thing that does come out of this dullness though, is that it creates a sense of being trapped in the book and that sort of carries over to the story of hey, I've been on this damn island for 3 years! It kinda feels like it sometimes. It's an mood thing though, it sets up stuff for the last 4th of the book. You've spent so much time in your head trying to envision these rivers and cliffs and bays, that when they all go kaplooey, their destruction seems very real.

Character wise, in some ways the whole bunch of them were kind of bland but their interaction which was so often discussed as a group that it made all 5 of them like one character. The colony was the character with the dog and orangutan being separate. I think certainly Pencoft stood out the most for me as a character I became vested in. Who doesn't like a salty dog sailor, who wants to eat bacon, smoke a pipe, and get shit done, all the while making jokes on everyone else? Again seriously, he's a tough old guy that is probably cliche, but I liked him and when I see big tough guys cry, it gets to me. It's like watching Admiral Adama cry, it just gets to you.

It's interesting though that animals like the dog and orangutan can become likable characters with little backstory. It's as if we already have their characters ready in our heads and it says “yup they are just, noble, and loving creatures”. When Verne tells how the Orangutan named Master Jup (Jupiter) liked to play with the pigs' tails, that just cracked me up. BAM! Instant likability! I really kinda felt bad when he died later too. Poor Master Jup. You should've died fighting pirates as falling into a crack in the ground in the darkness of night to be crushed to death and drowned seems cruel.

Overall the book was decent. Can't beat the kindle price for zero dollars either! I think the 'mystery' of the island is a bit of a let down considering all the build up to it. It does work perfectly though. You see, someone or something kept saving them at the last moment and helping them in small odd ways. You start thinking that something supernatural is going on. You start praying its not someones dream. Then you find out! This was my response:
“What! No Way. Captain Fucking Nemo! You've got to be shitting me.” Such a potty mouth I know. The end of the book after Nemo reveals himself is a bit predictable though, but the descriptions of the volcanic destruction in the last chapters was well done. It would make for some wonderful special effects if done right.

And that's it!

Asteroids

Well this post was supposed to go up like Tuesday but it never made it, so I'm gunna just slap it up there.

Saturday - it rained and rained and rained some more. Ahh Forrest! I decided to run outside as it seemed to have stopped. The treadmill room seemed so dark and murky. Not even 8 min into my run and it started pouring on me. I had the Brooks LSD jacket on, which kept me warm enough, but I had no hat. It really didn't bother me after a while. Needless to say I got soaked. The streets were flooded and in a moment of childhood frenzy I decided to just go puddle stomping for a while. It was great watching my feet splash over and over in the water. I mean think how many times you get to see that? But it was kinda chilly out and soon my toes were getting cold. Another good run in the rain though. I recommend!

Sunday - went to my daughter's classmates birthday part. A few of the fathers there were EOD or explosive ordinance disposal. I asked one guy kiddingly if sandals were good for clearing mine fields. The look on his face was great. He says, "uh no, we have blast proof boots for that!" We briefly talked about the amount of robotics training that is required and the high drop rate for the field due to stringent testing both physically and mentally. I asked if dragonskin had made it to the field yet. Dragonskin is a hi tech armor that deflects fast moving particles. Apparently they had some issues with it being compromised in the armor due to glue. Back to R&D I guess. Most of the time I just watched my girl jump around in the bouncy house and listened to the guys talk about how screwed up the program is right now. It doesn't matter where you work, it's messed up! Interestingly, I was listening to the wives talk about the upcoming Ball for them at the end of the month. One woman said how sad it gets during the night when you start honoring all the fallen, see all the men in wheelchairs, missing legs and arms, and everyone crying. EOD, and intense field of work for sure.

Monday - sitting in the parking lot of Publix. I was actually just in the truck reading my book. How goofy is that! I had bought a couple of chicken tenders cuz you know protein is guuud for you. At one point I was sitting there eating a tender and listening to Underworld's Heal song, which is the theme for the movie Sunshine (which is awful no matter what you say). It then occurred to me how cool it would be if the sky was suddenly filled with falling asteroids. You know, big burning flaming ones. Kind of apocalyptic if you will, but it just struck me as an awesome image. The beauty of it is, no matter where you are this visual adds a kick to the moment. Next time you're running and you go to that dark place of pain and struggle, look up and see the asteroids raining down you. Next time you're eating Taco Bell , look out the window and take a bite of your burrito and think, damn! ASTEROIDS!!!

Tuesday - a friends dream. A good friend told me about his dream and it made me laugh so I'm going to recount it for you and change names. I really don't think he'll mind anyway.
TBC!!

Dugong

Waffle House is saying goodbye to the Tbone steaks. Go get one. Or not, I mean who wants to eat a steak there? They are signing up with some free range chicken company too. Cruel Free meat is a good thing.

Top three shows to watch per the days WH staff:
1. Sons of Guns
2. Breaking Bad
3. Walking Dead

Isn't it funny when waitresses put a little heart next to their name when they leave the check?

Do you know what a Dugong is? Watch this video to find out!