Obstacle Courses

Two weeks I ran the Devil Dash, during the run I discovered two things.  1.  I underestimated the run and need to prepare even more for Tough Mudder and 2.  How much I wanted to do this again, as soon as possible.  

Having something to work towards, the spirit of competition, the drive to finish something when you just want to stop.  It was totally my thing.  When I got home I was already looking up other runs I could do before October that wasn’t out of the state.  So far nothing I haven’t found anything.

But now I’m thinking making a road trip of it wouldn’t be so bad.  

Basketball

NBA Playoff basketball the only thing in this world that I’ll rearrange my schedule for.  Go Heat!

Vibrams

My friend Michael she’s an old hand at obstacle running she said getting Vibrams would be a good investment and to get them now so they’re broken in by October.  I was reluctant at first because I have bad knees and using something with that little support for them is trouble waiting for happen.  
But I rearranged my workout routine and spent the money on them.  Totally worth the investment.  It’s like walking barefoot, but safer.  My running in them as gotten increasingly better each time I’ve ran in them.  I’m strongly considering another pair.  So I have one pair for working out and another for casual usage.  We’ll see. 

Capriotti’s Cheesesteaks

Seriously, the best cheesesteaks in Vegas by my count, I’ve been addicted the last couple of weeks. 

Joss Whedon

Won me over with a back to back dose of Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.  I’ve started watching Firefly, it’s kind of a cheapy low budget sci  fi show.  It’s not bad, but probably not good as Buffy, perhaps when I’m done with this one season I’ll be more enamored with him to sit through all those season.  It just may be worth it.

School Grants 

Keeping me in dough, keeping me in school.

Cheese It’s

My favorite snack to munch on when I’m at home watching tv.

The Bad

Parking tickets

So I was supposed to take a summer class this June, but a year of not paying my parking tickets has caught up with me.  Once I pay off my tickets I’m not sure I’ll have the cash to take the class.  In the words of Homer Simpson “D’oh!”

 Summer films (so far)

The Avengers success is 1 part it being a really awesome film and 1 part the lack of quality in the films following it.  Dark Shadows was eh, no one wanted to see Battleship, and MIB3 was only decent.  June seems to pick up I’m still looking forward to Prometheus, and I’m not going to lie, the trailers for Snow White and the Huntsman have won me over, Ted also got moved up to June so that’s something to look forward to. 

Cooking healthy

The last couple of weeks I’ve grown tired of vegetable and chicken breast and I’ve been poorly managing my time and been having to rush cooking a lot lately.  I feel a relapse coming, but I hope I’m wrong. 

The Avengers comes out tonight, it’s been a little over 5 years in the making.  I remember hearing in 2007 when Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Tony Stark, nobody saw it coming or expected it, but it seemed so perfect.  Then the film came out, it was great and then there was that teaser post credits.  A cameo from Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury talking about Tony Stark being apart of a bigger universe, about a thing called the “Avengers Initiative”.  

Cue fan boy glee.  

Then Incredible Hulk kept up the momentum.  Edward Norton, the Hulk, connections to the Super Solider program, Tony Stark telling General Ross they were putting a team together (he should have said assembling.), it was all rising.  

Late 2009- early 2010 the casting search for Thor and Captain America were underway.  Marvel wanted Daniel Craig for Thor, Daniel Craig didn’t want to play another icon.  So they went on a casting search to find their God of Thunder and made Chris Hemsworth a star.  They followed suit with Captain America and after a lengthier search landed with Chris Evans.  

Whom I was preaching needed to be Cap long before they even considered him and even after he already played 4 comic book characters.  So here’s me bragging a bit about that call. :)

Iron Man 2 came out and admittedly it was kind of the best example of when The Avengers was inappropriately marketed at the expense of another film.  All the Avengers related build up in this film felt forced in and detracted from the film.  Even if it was a success.  

In 2011 we were finally given Thor and then Captain America.  Both good entries into the Marvel universe both standalone by themselves and while they did touch on things that came prior and winked at possible things to come, never really disrupted the flow of those films.  

Now it’s time… For Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson, me, you, and everyone else who joined this ride in 2008 when Marvel was going to produce it’s own movies to meet up and see this through.  The people who got us here that got lost along the way are invited, the enemies who made the journey all worth while are enemies no longer and even those of you who were with us and jumped off board welcome back…  I’m talking about you Red Skull, Terrence Howard, Jon Favreau, Zebediah Stane, Emil Blonsky, Joe Johnston, Whiplash, Asgardian’s, Nazi’s, Hydra, Peggy Carter, New Mexico and Edward Norton.  All of you take a bow, it was quite an adventure each and every one of you took us on when you got the call. 

But now it’s time for all of us to Assemble.  

The Avengers

I had an advance screening pass on Thursday.  It was awesome.  Do I need to say more?

Okay, what the real deal is, is I was building up next week to get all nostalgic about The Avengers the night of.  I wanted to make a blog, get my Tony Stark ‘stache up to snuff, you know the whole 9 yards of fanboydom.

Then my comic shop gives me these passes.  Boom my day is toast.  I made a quick trip to the gym at 11 am, texting friends who would burden the 4 hour plus wait with me and by 2 pm I was waiting in line in my Iron Man shirt from comic-con 2007. 

No blog, no mass text to friends, no coordinating plans throughout the day.  Just a very erratic and slop tryst.  Like a married couple trying to knock one out before their children get home from soccer practice.  

But yeah.  The Avengers was awesome.  Just try to act surprised when I’m posting like I hadn’t seen it on Thursday or something.  

Devil Dash/ Tough Mudder

So in my never ending quest to eradicate boredom from my consciousness I found the Tough Mudder competition on Facebook.  I was intrigued and depending on how my friends responded, would sign up.  Well, I got more than enough positive feedback so I signed up for the October meet in Beatty, Nevada.  The course looks insane, it reminds me of the crucible in the marine bootcamp, probably a bit more fun though and without the yelling.  I’m going to adjust my workout routine soon, according to my friend who’s done it the last two years you should start training four months in.  I can’t wait, she was telling me about the obstacles and how grueling it was, the muscle failure, the dips in cold water, and the electric shocks… I can’t wait.  I’m looking forward to it so much that I signed up for Devil Dash two weeks from now.

Devil Dash looks like a walk in the park compared to Tough Mudder  a lot of the people running it didn’t even look in shape!  Oh well, it’s something to do, which brings me too…

Rock Climbing

A few weeks back my friend Matt and I went indoor rock climbing, at first, my muscles weren’t used to the movement, but as time progressed I got better.  It was a great workout and lots of fun.  I’m definitely getting the shoes and chalk next time, I could have definitely used the  We’re going again this Saturday and I can’t wait.  Hopefully we’ll get a better turn out this time around.  

 Tacos El Gordo 

My friend Carly recommended the place, my friend Maria took me there.  I’m in love.  I’ve taken my sister, her boyfriend and Richard and they all love it.  

Flash Fact: I’m a sucker for nifty hamburger joints and small mexican restaurants.  

They have this spicy beef that spins on a rack while pineapple marinates on it.  Let me tell you, it will change your life.  

Bad

Screenwriting for Television

I love the fact I’m working on productions, but it’d be nice if you know I actually did some writing this semester.  This semester was supposed to be a return to form, sadly it hasn’t. 

Rice

How do you cut off something that it’s been apart of your meal routine your entire life?  That’s what i’m dealing with right now.   It doesn’t help that there’s always rice in the house. 

Planning ahead

This isn’t really a bad thing, but when there are a lot of questions commitment becomes an issue.  WIll work schedule me around school?  If not, what kind of schedule can I put together to make this easier on myself? Does going back to graveyard help?  What about Comic-Con?  Some of the things I have to think about the next upcoming weeks.  I don’t want to.

I’m at the UNLV website trying to figure out next fall.  I really need to find three classes.  Another Spanish, another science and… Math.  And all I want to do is let out a long annoyed groan.  

I took full time classes before as well as work full time, but now…  I’m just thinking about it, thinking about work, gym, and well all the things that get in the way of those things and I’m wondering if I can do it.  Or more precisely do them well.  

I’m thinking about my job in all it’s soul sucking, mentally draining glory and how difficult it is to keep up with the two classes I have one day a week; and that’s with the minimal homework those classes provide me. 

But Spanish alone, for as long as I’ve been away from it, I’m going to have to get caught back up before the class even starts which means I’ll probably have to start studying this summer.  Same can be said for Math.

And I’m not going to lie, at this point it’s really hard to keep my attention in classes not pertaining to my major anymore so I have to discipline myself all over again.  

There’s a part of me that wants to quit my job and work some crap part time job for 24 - 32 hours  a week this fall just to help myself get other this hump.  That means saving up now so I can get through those 4-5 lean months I’ll be working through.  

I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but it’s an idea.  

How the hell did I manage this before? 

Films I haven’t seen, but plan on seeing.  Mandate: They can’t be made within the last ten years…

The Birds

God Father 2

Godfather 3

Lawrence of Arabia

THX

Dial M for Murder

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Empire of the Sun

Lost Highway 

Dune 

Elephant Man

Network

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Bonnie and Clyde

Things you know or plan on NEVER doing.

GO!

Never eat a meat that looks the same way it did when it was alive.

Own a cat

Live somewhere far from a big city.

Date someone more than ten years older than me. Or a Pilipino woman for that matter.

Eat black licorice

Drink gin straight from the bottle.

Go a year without pizza.

Swim in a lake.

Be an organ donor.

Drink prune juice

Root for any NY, Boston, or LA related sports teams.

Ask a truck driver to hitch a ride.

I haven’t been on here, but that doesn’t mean I’m slacking.  I’ve just been really busy as of late and it’s really cut into my blogging, tumbling, twittering, and video game playing time.  What have I been up too? Here’s a few things to name a few.  

New Workout plan

Once I finished the duration of my diet challenge, Riley gave me a new workout plan to follow.  It keeps me at the gym about an hour longer than I was before.  It’s designed more to develop strength which is fine, but it require’s more break times and more sets.  

Boxing

Another development that emerged from my new workout routine.  I train in boxing every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour.  I’m not trying to become a boxer and I’m not looking for a fight.  But after knowing so many people involved in boxing/mma related sports I have an appreciation for how they train.  

Age of Apocalypse 

It was an X-Men storyline from the 90’s.  Probably my favorite, I picked up as many as I could living on a 13 year olds allowance and enjoyed everyone of them.  However the story line involved several titles spanning four months so I never read them all.  I found several of them on sale at my comic shop a few weeks ago for a sale at a cheap price.  I bought the series’ that I didn’t read and spent a few days in nostalgic bliss. :)  I would say that as far as alternate reality/timelines go.  X-Men and Batman have always been the best at coming up with new and refreshing interpretations.

Image Comics

The last month alone brought The Manhattan Projects, Saga, and Thief of Thieves.  Include January’s Fatale and Image is really making a push at being the leading alternative for non-superhero’s books, and while they’ll never beat the Big 2 in terms of sales.  Image can definitely make a case for being the leader in quality.

Film Class

With the exception of this week I’ve been helping out on several student films.  I wish I had something to show you.  I acted in two of them and haven’t seen any cuts of the shorts yet.  They’re not the best student films ever, but they were fun to do and when I haven’t been required to act I’ve taken learning sound as my personal challenge this semester.  

Work.

Obvious, I know.  But what if I told you it also sucks?  Now are you surprised?  

Steak

Honestly, I’ve only had a steak once in the last ohhhh seven months.  But my dad took me to a dinner he was invited too at a steakhouse a few Friday’s ago.  I ordered one of the most expensive steaks on the menu (It was comp’ed by the casino) and loved every bite of it. 
 
Okay, that last one wasn’t really that necessary or relevant to time consuming activities.  But it was a really good steak and felt like it needed to be known. :)   

Yesterday marked the end of my diet.   While it does mean an end to those annoying diet posts and me talking about my health it doesn’t mean I can go back to cheeseburgers and french fries every other day.  

Today I’m going to take my body fat test and continue the next phase of my diet alone.  Thanks for putting up with me these last few weeks.  The first week or so it really helped, putting my actions under a microscope of scrutiny.  But after that first week I was fully vested.  

I think I have it from here thanks.  Wish me luck.  

Now back to your regular scheduled program.  

Breakfast

2 1/2 servings toast

2 eggs

5 strips bacon

1 serving vegetables

2nd meal

One cup whey w/ 16 oz water

1 serving almonds

1 serving crackers

20 oz water

Lunch

1 peanut butter/ jelly sandwich

2 servings vegetables

Applesauce

20 oz water

4th meal

One serving tuna

Mixed fruit

20 oz water

Exercise

13 minutes biking

20 minutes weight lifting

One and a half hours yoga

5th meal

2 servings black beans

3 oz chicken

20 oz water