Friday. I have been on this diet since Sunday, the 2nd of November, so I've been on it for 13 days. How do I feel? Tired. I've been waking up a lot at 1-2 in the morning and not really been able to fall asleep. I tend to doze off at work. I'm not sure what to do about this; it is not doing anything really but just sapping any desire to work.

Notebooks are useful for tracking trends. I'm looking back at the beginning of this year. Looks like from January 27th through February 22 I lost 9 pounds ( 137.5 - 128.0). I'm pretty sure that was straightforwards Atkins diet - no calorie counting whatsoever. I pretty much went up and down until the beginning of March, the 7th, I weighed 127. March the 19th I weighed 125. I stopped dieting around then. So I dieted more or less for 52 days and I lost 12.5 pounds. I blame stress and beer for not sticking to my guns. I'd like to match the time (don't know about the weight loss).

Yep! Says I was back to 132.5 on June 6th.

I tried to start over on the 14th of July at 137 and stopped on the 15th of august at 128. How depressing. I went wild until Novemver 1st and popped to over 140. Bleah.

What I'm watching: Actually I'm watching three things right now, The Sopranos, The Forsyte Saga, and Band of Brothers. I've seen BoB before, first time for the other 2 which I'm renting from Netflix. I bought BoB on DVD because it is a damn great piece of HBO programming.

I won't comment on BoB; go to Television Without Pity and read Heathen's recap/critique. She's more critical of the first few eps, but I can't argue with the criticism (hard to tell everyone apart, mainly). She slowly but surely warms up to the show, and she falls madly in love with Major Richard Winters. I sympathize. Yow, what a man!

And like Heathen, I became totally smitten by the actor who plays him (Damian Lewis). Never had a thing for a redhead before. Anyway, I mentioned on a message board what I thought of Richard Winters the character, and one person responded that that was fairly gross because Lewis had played a really creepy bastard in some BBC production called the Forsyte Saga. That's why I'm watching that show. Yep, he is a major creepy bastard. Soames Forsyte is 180 degrees different from Winters. Kudos to any actor who can play such diverse people so convincingly.

The Forsyte Saga is about an English family. For such a reputedly repressed bunch, they sure do like to boink around a lot. That's not a criticism, just an observation. Soames Forsyte is the apotheosis of repressed. He also has no social skills, and he judges everything in terms of posession. Deep in his creepy, shallow, heart, however, he just wants to be loved. Ick.

Naturally, he falls in love with the exact wrong woman, Irene, who is an icy bitch. She marries Soames and then doesn't even pretend to try to love him. Soames needs someone who is as hardheaded and practical as he is. That way they could treat their marriage w/ negotiation -"Ok, honeybunches. I want a ruby necklace and a couple of new dresses and I'll have sex with you every three days for the next two weeks". "Sweetiepie, if I give you a ruby necklace, I want sex every day for at least a month". "Three weeks, every other night". "Okay, deal!"

Oh, yeah, there's a bunch about the rest of the family, but this is the story line that's holding my attention, repulsive as Soames is. Besides, Welsh hottie Ioan Gruffudd shows up to play Bosinney the architect, whom Irene is making googly eyes at. Bitch. Wanker. Yeah, yeah, Soames is a git so they all suck. Still, two hotties are worth the price of rental.

Speaking of families and boinking around, that brings me to the Sopranos. I would like this series better if there was someone whom I could genuinely like (or maybe a good-looking Brit or two). I do enjoy it; I love mob movies, but I have a lot of time invested with these characters and none of them show any morality. Well, there was one scene where Tony's wife goes to a therapist and the therapist bluntly tells her to get out of a marriage with a gangster. The therapist's clear-cut stand on what is right and what is wrong was a refreshing and shocking change of pace. She doesn't listen (or hasn't, so far). We're in the middle of the third year.

One ep depressed the hell out of me - one about strippers at the club Tony Soprano and his crew run/hang out at. One girl is brutally killed by her mobster boyfriend and out of all of them only Tony shows any remorse at the poor girl's death. The rest are just pissed at the boyfriend for making a mess and causing a potential situation. I'm glad the writers allow Tony the occasional glimpse of humanity because the rest of the time he's a pig and the show would be unwatchable if he was one full-time.