Whew.

Friday: 19m55s 2 mile run. All exercises at 3 sets of 10 reps:

Military Press 50 lbs
Shoulder Fly 8 lbs
Barbell Front row45 lbs
Squat 70 lbs
Stiff Legged Deadlift 80 lbs
Calf Raise 45 lbs

I'm working my butt off so I'll spare you too much verbiage. I did notice that I have a fondness for cute, fuzzy, and sociopathic animals when it comes to comic strips. Sluggy Freelance has the malevolent Bun-Bun, the miniature lop-eared rabbit. Here is one famous exploit, but for sheer brutality this is my favorite.

While he's nowhere near as Evil (with a capital E), I am also very fond of Bucky Katt from Get Fuzzy. He has his own style.

Ah, it was great to sleep late. For me; 5am is late.

Everyone is writing about freedom - now there's an abused word. I have always defined it as the condition of not being coerced. Threats and abuse seem to be the big tools for coercion.

Some people look at freedom and responsibility as some sort of yin and yang; I think they are more like a Chang and Eng.

Say I was on a deserted island, I'd be perfectly free. No one there to point a gun to my head to take what I worked for or tell me to pick coconuts for him. I would be 100% responsible for whatever happened to me, too. I'd be responsible for food, clothing, shelter, and my own safety. Oh, sure, a hurricane could come along and wash me out to sea, but that would be my problem and only mine.

Now take this society: I am forced to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes - by the same token my responsibility to prepare for old age is lessened (only if I'm an idiot, really). But many people don't pay attention to retirement because they don't think they have to. Since my taxes pay for police, firemen, army, etc. I am less responsible for my own safety (HAHAHAHAHA oh, sorry).

So if I was perfectly coerced, I'd be a slave and pretty much responsible for nothing. If I were raped, most of the right to life people would agree that I could get an abortion even if the laws were set to their standards. Note I said "most"; some would want to force me to carry the child to term.

People are always going to disagree about freedom and responsibility. Everyone pretty much agrees you don't have the freedom to kill. Some people will add: "unless you have been directed to do so by your government" but not all. Many people think it's okay to kill someone who is trying to hurt or kill you, but not everyone. Some people think it's not okay to kill animals and want the government to prevent people from killing animals. Some people think it's okay to go interfere in other country's business; some people think it's okay for some meat-packing dictator to abuse his people as long as he doesn't pose a threat to us.

Some people think homosexuality is okay, some people don't. Is incest okay? What if it's between two consenting adults? Is bestiality okay? If animals don't have rights and can be owned, what's the difference between owning a chicken and owning a blow-up sex toy?

Coercion has been monopolized almost completely by governments and criminals. And sometimes family members. Is coercion 'for your own good' a good thing? What if it's done in the name of the good of society? What about the children?

Sometimes I get the idea that people don't want freedom at all. They don't want to be treated bad, but that responsibility twin scares them. I get the idea sometimes that the vast majority of people would want what happened in the movie the Abyss to happen. Come to think of it, this was The Day the Earth Stood Still too. Every time I see The Abyss I think of that old Porno for Pyros song:

Will there be another race
To come along and take over for us?
Maybe martians could do
Better than we've done
We'll make great pets!

My friend says we're like the dinosaurs
Only we are doing ourselves in
Much faster than they ever did
We'll make great pets!

Me, I hope I can talk them into giving me a deserted island. Preferably one in the Caribbean with a nice beach.

The best thing about today is I don't have to wake up early tomorrow to go to the gym. Hooray!

I ran 2 miles in 1m57s. FYI my treadmill habit is to run at a decent pace then go balls to the wall near the end of the run.

Chest and Triceps day: (3 sets of 10 reps each)
Bench Press 85 pounds. That's 5 more than last week, which was my mistake. However, I completed the sets with no problem so I'll keep the increase in weight.
Incline Dumbell Press This is actually a photo of a decline dumbell press; I alternate declines and inclines every week. 20 lbs.
Dumbell Fly 10 lbs
Machine-assisted Dip 60 lbs. When I say 60 pounds on this one, it doesn't mean I dip me plus 60 pounds (I wish), it means I'm using 60 pounds as a counter-balance, making the dips easier for me.
Flat Bar Pushdown I was calling these pulldowns before, but they really are pushdowns. 60 pounds.
I also do a triceps exercise on the same type of machine with a rope - similar to this one except I pull the rope to my sides. I couldn't find a picture of that one.

Last night I watched Dr. Strangelove. Despite the fact that I have seen every Stanley Kubrick movie he made between Spartacus (which I loved) and Eyes Wide Shut (which was silly and boring), I'm not a big fan of his movies.

Even though I sometimes get the urge to feed my inner sociopath, Kubrick's coldness and dislike of people gets to me. When I am feeling down with people, I prefer humor or horror as an outlet. Kubrick's touch on horror was of course The Shining which I did not like. I think it boils down to his characters. They seem so far away to downright unlikeable. Even the most horrendously cynical story can be saved in my eyes if there's someone to root for. I didn't *care* about anyone in The Shining.

Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick's entry into the humor listing, I found to be okay but a little dated. It had its funny moments, thanks to Peter Sellers, predominantly. And I finally found out where the phrase "polluting our precious bodily fluids" comes from (a mad Air Force General tries to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union apparently because he dislikes flouridation. Really).

Part of me wants to blame one of the scriptwriters, Terry Southern. He wrote a bunch of hip, ironic crap in the 60's and the 70's and being hip doesn't age well. Neither does irony. If you don't believe me, try to watch Casino Royale. I have also read interesting reviews on Candy and the Magic Christian. Okay, he wrote Barbarella. Enough said about dated hipness and irony.

So in Dr. Strangelove, you had a huge glop of Kubrick's precision trying to mix with Southern's wit (General Jack D. Ripper, President Merkin Muffley, Colonel Bat Guano, funny stuff, yeah).

Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket is a funnier movie but now that I think of it, it's only because of R. Lee Ermey's amazing vocabulary.

Tuesday!

That means Back and Biceps at the gym. I ran 2 miles in 20 minutes which just proves to me that yesterday’s lackluster run was due to a lack of sleep.

And just so people will know what I’m talking about, this is what I did at the gym today replete with urls (all exercises are done with 3 sets of 20 repetitions unless noted otherwise):

Lat Pulldown 80 lbs
Seated Cable Row 70 lbs.
Back Fly 10 lbs - or more properly rear lateral raise, which is NOT a back exercise.

Preacher Curl 50 lbs
wrist curl 8lbs 3 sets of 15 reps
Barbell curl 45 lbs – except I’m not using an EZ bar like in the picture; I’m using a flat bar.

I also did Back Hyperextensions (15 lbs) but I haven’t found a good photo of that yet.



James Lileks writes a funny, interesting blog. Who is he? I don’t know but I found him through other blogger’s websites. He’s responsible for composing that remix of Howard Dean’s “YHEEARG!” speech. Hey, I was reading him before his 20 minutes of internet fame.

His site has more than this bleats; I especially hurt myself reading/looking at his collection of truly awful men’s fashions: The Dorcus Collection.

Blech. I’m tired.

I did go to the gym this morning. It took me 23 minutes to do my 2 miles. I only did leg work for lifting, but the exercises I did were the big ones: Stiff-Legged deadlift (3 sets 15 reps 75lbs) and Squats (3 Sets 15 reps 70lbs).

I’m about ready to hurl after those babies. I still need to work on my grip some time during the week because I think I could easily handle more weight on the deadlift.

I also tested my chin-ups and I can’t get past 2 good ones.

Anyways:

I haven’t been a skydiving instructor for long; I received my rating last May.

My official rating is Accelerated Freefall Instructor.

The word ‘accelerated’ simply means the students (allegedly) learn at an accelerated rate as opposed to the old static-line method which is still used and quite popular in smaller drop zones. Accelerated Freefall (AFF) can be completed in as little as 7 jumps while static line can take 20 jumps. AFF is not less expensive, however.

The AFF instructor’s course was grueling. It consists of two parts: groundwork – which involves learning how to teach on the ground, and skydive work – which involves helping students during the skydive itself. ‘Helping’ includes giving the student hand signals to correct his body position, stabilizing the student should he need it, and even opening the student’s parachute should he need it.

Our instructor, Billy, insisted that students would do things to us that we wouldn’t dream of when we complained about how hard the skydive part of the testing was. He also showed us plenty of highly entertaining video to back up his claim.

My first Student from Hell was a very nice elderly gentleman who was simply not physically fit enough nor mentally ‘there’ enough to do an Accelerated Freefall skydive for his first jump. He was the poster child for tandem rides. He had a difficult time with the basic body position, called an ‘arch’ (hips down, legs out at 45 degree angle and bent at knees 45 degree angle, arms spread in lazy w even w/ head, eyes on the horizon). I worked with him individually many times trying to teach him the first skydive – all AFF skydives are practiced on the ground repeatedly until the student knows the jump inside and out. He constantly had problems with the dive flow.

The first jump is technically very easy – for the instructors. We simply hang on; one hand gripping the student’s leg strap, the other one gripping the arm of the student’s jump suit. Once this formation is out the door and stable we can let go of the arm to throw hand signals in the student’s face.

So my husband and I are the instructors on this jump. I am very comfortable when doing an AFF jump with him because he has a great deal more experience than I have. On this particular jump, he was on the left side of the student, I was on the right. The instructor on the left is closest to the reserve parachute handle; the instructor on the right is closest to the main parachute handle.

The exit is not so great but we wrestled the poor man into position. His arch was completely messed up. He had his arms and knees down, like he was crouching on the floor on all fours. I let go of his arm to give him an arch signal bit I immediately had to retake my grip because he would have flipped over. My husband was having similar problems, but he was able to position himself in such a way that he could throw signals.

Surprisingly, at the bottom of the skydive, this man was aware enough to pull for himself. My job as the main side jumpmaster is to pull the main handle if the student doesn’t. Once the handle is pulled (and in this case, the handle is a small pilot chute, which is thrown into the air and pulls open the main parachute), I can’t do anything else so I release the student and book out of there.

The reserve side’s job is to assist the student should something go wrong at that moment in time. The student is literally ripped out of his hands once the parachute starts opening.

We saw it on video afterwards. I saw the pilot chute extracted; I left. The student didn’t let it go right away, and he tilted on his side. Finally he lets go, has a horrible opening, but it does open.

Just not all the way.

When I leave, I wait a few seconds then open my own parachute. Once it’s open, I look for the student to make sure everything is okay. I don’t see him. I do a slow circle, then I see him below me.

A student should be open by 4500 feet. I normally open at 3500 -2500 feet. See the problem?

I get closer to him and I realize his parachute is only partially inflated; I can’t make out why. This problem explains the altitude discrepancy; he doesn’t have the square footage overhead to slow him all the way down.

He seems to be struggling with something but I can’t tell. I’m yelling ‘cut away!’ at the top of my voice but he has to be a good 500 feet off. Finally, to my relief, at about 1500 feet above the ground, he does get rid of his malfunctioning main canopy and open his reserve.

I am still above him and getting closer, and I notice something strange. He is flying backwards!

I get close enough to see the lines of his parachute: he has line twists. If you have ever sat in a swing then twisted yourself around, you get out of line twists the same way. He never tries to kick out of them.

He is thankfully not trying to steer, but he is not trying anything else, either. He is headed past the drop zone, past all of the nice, flat pasture that makes up the northern end of the airport, and obliviously heading towards a ravine and trees. Me? I’m finally getting lower than him and have to all of a sudden decide where I’m going to land.

I figured I could follow his path of flight to the ground, but I decided screw that. If I busted my head I wasn’t going to do him any good anyhow. I landed in a fenced-in cow pasture and by the time I got my helmet off, he had gone behind some trees.

I only lost visual contact with him for about 3 minutes. Those were 3 long minutes. I remember what was going through my mind at the time: “Oh, god what if he’s dead? Oh shit please don’t let me have a dead student oh damn this sucks –bunny!- oh shit oh no….”

I’m serious; I’m gathering up my parachute and making a beeline for a gate when all of a sudden a huge fluffy bunny rabbit jumps past me. Okay, so I’m easily distracted.

One thing I like about Cullman, Alabama; whenever people have landed off the drop zone the local residents have been great about getting us home. A couple of nice guys in a pickup helped me over the fence and helped me find my student.

He had a scraped nose, but other than that he was fine.

Saturday was nice - overcast but at a high altitude; high enough to jump. After three weeks of no jumping it was nice to get my knees in the breeze. I only did 2 jumps then I had to go to Lowe's to get some deadbolts: one of our employees decided to steal from us.

We feel betrayed - this kid was a hard worker but managed to get a hold of some keys to the drop zone and broke in Tuesday night and stole our Playstation II. My husband found the keys in the kid's car and with the help of one of Cullman's Finest, confronted him with it. Turns out he's been using the keys to help himself to the beer fridge, as well. A VCR is missing from the airport's FBO. (fixed base of operations), as well.

What a stupid kid. He had a good thing going - everybody liked him and we paid him well. One time he had a problem with his car and we passed the hat at the D.Z. to help him get it fixed.

Everyone out there take note: do not shit where you eat.

We woke up Sunday to pouring rain so I came home and finished The Dam Busters. The copy I had was atrocious, but it was not censored. I had a case of the uncomfortable giggles, but after a few scenes with the badly-named Labrador, I had no problem bleeping over the offending name. You know, if I have to put up with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence referring to everyone and their uncle Bob by that term of endearment I don't know why everyone gets all uptight about a bunch of English men using the phrase. *Sigh* I know it all has to do with 'context'.

The movie, by the way, is fantastic. The special effects are not great, but the movie was made in 1954. And anybody who has sat through the original 'Star Wars' will thrill to a bunch of scenes that Lucas ripped off for the bombing run on the Death Star.

I would love to see it get remade. As for the poor choice of pet names, any modern-day screenwriter could successfully leave the dog sub-plot out of the movie and only hard-core purists would object. Just keep Micheal Bay away from it, please.

Another week of pain finished. Too bad; I’m adding a fourth workout day Monday.

Shoulders and legs day: Cardio was a bitch because I forgot my Albuterol (for athsma) before I climbed on the treadmill.

Shoulders:
Military Press 50lbs 10X3, Shoulder Flyes 8 lbs 12X3, Shoulder Rows 50 lbs 10X3
Legs:
Squat: 65 lbs 14X3, Stiff-Legged Deadlift 65 lbs 14X3, Seated Calf Raises 45lb 10X3

Ooh! A guy at the gym, a hardcore lifter, complimented me on my squat form. Made my day! No, he was not hitting on me because my husband was right there.

Whew. I was exhausted after this workout. I think it is primarily because we worked out the day before; it could also have been the Buffalo wings and beer bust Jon and I had last night.

Every once in a while I fry up a batch o wings and we tear through them accompanied by a six pack. We rationalize that it’s legal because it’s low-carb beer.

Not only is it good for stress, it’s good for roto-rootering your system which is good for you if you’re on a low-carb diet and want to stay away from laxatives.

That was probably WTMI.

We also watch a movie and last night’s feature was Down With Love with Renee Zellweger and Ewan “Free Willy” MacGregor.

The bad news is Ewan doesn’t free his willy, but he does have his normal accent (yay!) with the exception of a few times where he deliberately uses a really awful southern accent.

The movie is a riff on 60’s comedies, resplendent with the fashion senses from Hell, shellacked hairdo’s (we are talking Devo-style), and an annoying constant soundtrack. Zellweger and MacGregor have a battle of the sexes and because I saw some of those movies I knew they’d fall in love.

It was okay; had some funny moments; and if you didn’t get enough of Ewan’s singing in Moulin Rouge stick around for the credits.

Speaking of Ewan I had a couple of random thoughts while watching this movie:

1) If he isn’t careful he’ll be developing love handles soon.
2) I like him better as a blonde.
3) He has an evil smile. Which I like.
4) Does he really have chest hair or is that a hairpiece?
5) If it is chest hair, my god, they dyed it too.

Jon made a comment after listening to his accent – he thinks MacGregor would make an excellent James Bond.

I almost spewed my beer, and then I thought about how much money I would pay to hear him say, “Bond. James Bond”.

Another tangent: I genuinely liked The Bourne Identity. Why? Because it wasn’t filled with big stunts or pyrotechnics. The action was more reasonable (within the context of spy/adventure movies). Plus Matt Damon is as cute as a button. And it had Chris Cooper. Speaking of, I loved Lone Star.

Hooray! I ran 2 miles in 20 minutes at the gym today. I recovered pretty quickly, too.
Back and Biceps today; everything at 3 sets of 10 reps:
Back: Lat Pulldown 80 lbs, Machine row 70 lbs, Back Flyes 10 lbs.
Biceps: Preacher EZ Curl 50 lbs, barbell curl 50 lbs.
I also did wrist curls w/ 8 pound dumbbells; 4 sets of 15.

I hinted that I was a Dungeons and Dragons geek when I was younger. Indeed, I played fairly constantly from the ages of 16 to 32. I spent a great deal of that time being a dungeon master. I truly hated that term.

Some of my players were all for calling me ‘dungeon mistress’, but I nixed that. ‘DM’ was just fine. I joked that Game Operations Director was acceptable, but I stole that idea from someone.

I was 32 when I started skydiving. My players got all upset when I sold all of my carefully hand-painted miniatures (I had about a thousand of them) to buy a new rig.

I still play but only on the computer: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and the new Temple of Elemental Evil are based on the actual Dungeons and Dragons rules. Many other games for Fantasy Role-Playing have been implemented and I have pretty much played them all.

I have played them all with the exception of Multi-User games, like Ultima Online or Everquest. I don’t have the time to spend 14 hours a day on line building up a character, like the adolescent boys who normally play these games do.

Sometimes I miss real gaming – in other words spending Friday night at someone’s house, maybe for 6 to 10 hours, bullshitting, drinking Coke, eating pizza and Doritos, and rolling dice to kill monsters.

That will teach me to get a life.

The all-time computer game that chewed up most of my time was Civilization II, a turn-based strategy game where you took a stone-age village into a civilization capable of colonizing space. You had to get brutal on your (computer A.I.) opponents though or they would stomp all over you. There is nothing like going to war with Mahatma Gandhi or Eleanor Roosevelt because you didn’t want to fork over some hard-gained tech to him or her. Power-hungry bastards.

I played Civ II so much I gave the cd to a friend to hide from me. After three months, he gave it back and I went right back to playing from the moment I got home from work to whenever I got tired.

Jon and I watched Starship Troopers last night. This silly movie has an unreasonably high entertainment value to me for some reason. It would have been better if the people who made the movie hadn’t tried to hammer the fascist elements of the story over our heads. Heinlein would have been perturbed.

Nonetheless, any movie with both Michael Ironsides and Clancy Brown can’t be all bad.

We didn’t go to the gym this morning; Jon wanted to sleep in. Again, I was slightly irritated with a change in routine, but then I went and slept for another 2 hours.

My dieting has stalled out; I will wait until the weekend to see if I remain stalled. If I do, I will do something no one recommends – a 24 hour fast. For some reason it helps me, and I only do it on a rare occasion.

I have found a new favorite TV show: Good Eats on the Food Network. The host, Alton Brown, has a funny, breezy style (and is it just me, or does he look like Thomas Dolby’s slightly more stable younger brother?). Instead of the normal cooking show formula of “This is what we’re cooking today here are the ingredients mix them this way voila!” Brown always goes into the history and philosophy of what he’s cooking. He had one show dedicated to the perfect Macaroni and Cheese dish. Hell, I enjoyed a recent show on nothing but Butternut frosting.

He is not a purist; if frozen vegetables work for a dish Brown is not afraid to say so. He is more likely to visit a hardware store for a specific kitchen tool as a specialty shop. He freely admits that a cake from a store-bought mix is tastier and moister than what you can whip up in the kitchen from scratch. I draw the line at putting store-bought ice cubes in brewing wort, but if it works for him, I won’t knock it.

I can’t help but like a man who has flames painted on his KitchenAid mixer.

For some reason my husband wanted to do chest and triceps today at the gym. Any change in routine always upsets me until I think about it. It’s no big deal.

I ran a bit better – 1.96 miles in 20 minutes.

I increased weight on everything and am doing 3 sets of 10 reps:
Bench Press – 80 lbs, decline dumbbell press – 20 lbs, chest fly – 10 lbs.
Assisted Dip w/ 60lbs assistance, tricep pulldown 45 lbs, tricep Flat bar pulldown 60 lbs.

Jon and I closed on a new house in Hartselle Friday afternoon. We will move at the end of the month. I just want it to be over with!

I read up more on INTP’s. Here are some amusing excerpts:

Indeed, most primary interests of an INTP are things which he cannot fully understand, usually because they are highly complex or have some exotic, mystical element that does not yield to analysis. This is the real reason why INTPs are drawn to complexity: anything simple is too quickly understood and cannot hold the fascination for long.

Yep, that’s me. Thoroughly explore something nifty then move on.

INTPs hate to think of themselves being in any way inadequate, at least in areas that are important to them. So, as soon as he puts himself behind some task, then he must achieve competency. But that is as far as it goes.

Guilty as charged.

INTP's put great weight on being individuals and essentially different from other people, who they often view as being too alike and too interdependent.

Mea culpa.

All opinions must get filtered through an analysis procedure to test for viability. No title or claim of being an "expert" carries any weight with an INTP. All people, big or small, are subject to an identical scrutiny. The INTP sees himself as the independent arbiter, whether a fair claim or not. However, when someone has proved his credentials through having sensible opinions, he will be afforded great respect by the INTP. Most respected of all are those who are not only sensible but also innovative. Intelligence is above all highly prized.

Mea maxima culpa.

Independence, derived primarily from strongly introverted Thinking, leads to perhaps the most difficult aspect (for others) of the INTP, namely stubbornness.

Ha ha ha ha! Just ask my husband.

The preference for intuitive perception means that INTPs dislike having their lives planned. They feel a distinct unease before most fixed appointments and cannot fully relax until the scheduled event is over, or at least in progress.

Sheesh! I feel like someone pegged me to a wall. Some aspects of this analysis ring more strongly than others, but it more or less is accurate.

Anyhow. I didn’t watch anything special yesterday; Jon and I finished watching the Sci-Fi Network production of Dune. Well, it was better than David Lynch’s fiasco, but even in the miniseries format too much information was glossed over. I spent way too much time explaining things to Jon and I only knew them because I read the book 20 times when I was a kid.

I didn’t much like the lead. I don’t remember Paul Atreides being such a whiny jerk. I may need to reread the book. At least he didn’t have Kyle McLachlan’s 80’s hair.

I kind of miss the loopyness of Lynch’s epic. The very nature of the story provided some cheesy goodness, but this new version just wasn’t as entertaining. I’m sure I’m not the only one during the fight between Paul and Feyd Harkonnen who shouted out “I WILL kill him!” at the top of my lungs.

Hell. And I enjoyed the hell out of the SciFi network’s Battlestar Galactica remake.

Ooh! My brother lent me his copy of The Gamers, a short low-budget film suitable only for people who spent their Friday nights in the dorms rolling dice with their buddies. I am sorry to say I laughed my ass off. Highly recommended to any Dungeons and Dragons geek; all other avoid.

The Dead Gentlemen are now producing a full length film : The Gamers, 2nd Edition. Argh!

My friend's blog had a listing of some of those on-line personality quizes. I took the Myers-Briggs Personality test again; this time I scored INTP (Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceptive).

I have to admit this description is fairly close - this passage especially: "INTPs and Logic -- One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic -- apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context. "

The Reason I Watch Movies, or, Why You Will Never Hear Me Slam Jurassic Park:

The day Jurassic Park came out in the theaters, I was canned from my job. It was a joke of a job, doing returns in a warehouse, but I had never been fired before. I was let go because the company was losing money, not because I did a bad job, but it was a blow to my ego. So, when my brother and his friends called me up that Friday to go see JP, I was feeling rather shitty and tried to beg off. Fortunately, they dragged me along. And this is why I will never slam Jurassic Park: from the start of the movie until the credits rolled, I NEVER ONCE thought about my problems. I did NOT think about money, jobs, or the fact that I cried in front of my boss. I came out of the theater happy.

Perhaps for me, the difference between "I liked it" and "I loved it" is how well the story holds up in my mind after the lights come back on; how well it stands up to the nitpicky part of me. People nitpicked JP especially about the characters, but as far as I was concerned, Steven Spielberg took characters who weren't well-defined in the first place and cast distinct, likeable (to me, anyway) actors to play the parts. The characters in Jurassic Park were good enough for me. I love Jurassic Park.

Other than watching lots and lots of movies over the years, the only thing I have done above and beyond to learn about movies is read a textbook on "Narrative Film". I learned the difference between 'montage' and 'mise en scene'. Big deal.

My favorite movie: Aliens

Please note, I did not say it was the best movie of all time! I'm not about to try to take a stab at guessing that. It is my favorite movie. Period. Seen it dozens of time.

Since we're kind of sort of on the subject of James Cameron, I adored Terminator, liked the Abyss and Terminator 2, and I enjoyed Titanic when it was focusing on the disaster and not the hackneyed romance and 1-dimensional villains (although it was a joy to see David Warner again - where the hell have you been?).

The old insult, "there's no accounting for taste" is nonsense; if you dig deep enough, you can find out why you like what you like. A good example for me is the fact that I do not like country music. I will, however, listen to Patsy Kline. A friend of mine has a good singing voice. She has, over the years, recommended female singers for me to listen to. I remember her putting on an old tape of 'I fall to pieces', and I really listened to her voice for the first time. Doing so was important to my friend, so I obliged. Patsy Kline's voice is haunting. That experience stuck and is part of my 'taste' in music (most of which normally lies in the techno/industial arena).

So why do I mostly prefer mostly genre movies? Probably because I read way too much as a kid, and a great deal of it was Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, as well as folks who wrote adventure stories like Robb White and Alistair MacLean. Yeah, but why did I read those?

Both my mom and dad are readers; and one of my earliest memories was my mom reading The Lord of the Rings to my sister and me when we were kids ( when I first saw the short trailer for the movies - just watching Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn and Boromir walk by was enough to put my heart in my throat). That event certainly accounts for a great deal of my attraction to genre stories.

I hate it when the characters are boring or poorly acted, or I am drawn in by the characters and possibilities in front of me then I notice a plot hole that jars me out of the experience. It's a slap in the face. I suppose that watching bad movies and yelling at the screen is the moral equivalent of slapping back (And a lot of fun!).

This post went nowhere. Eh.

Oh. My. God.

Saturday and Sunday are rest days, especially during the winter. Once the weather turns nicer I'm busy at the drop zone; especially now that I'm an instructor.

But it's winter here in the Southeast and it has rained this weekend so I have had a rare opportunity to goof off.

I watched a war movie from 1952 - The Red Ball Express which is about the truckers who kept General Patton's tanks and troops supplied with gasoline, ammo, and other neccessities.

The movie is formulaic: As the unit forms we find out that the Lieutenant and the First Sargeant have some bad blood between them stemming from an incident in their civilian lives. Geez, will they resolve this and become bestest of friends by the time the credits roll? We also have a likeable, wisecracking ne'er-do-well who falls in love with a saucy french blonde.

What is different about this movie is it features three Black soldiers (Sidney Poitier is one of them). I thought it was a little odd to have an integrated unit in a World War II movie; 1952 is a little early for political correctness (I am forever amused by Force 10 from Navarrone and how it managed to sneak Carl Weathers on the team).

As it turns out, most of the truckers on the real Red Ball Express were black; they were not used in combat units in World War II. So the movie cheats out by making most of them white but I think context is important when trying to make some kind of moral judgement on this movie. At least they had some blacks and did try to bring up something of the uneasiness at the integration. This movie could have been a lot more whitewashed than it was.

The formula stuff got to me, though. In an amused way.

Speaking of context, I am in the middle of watching The Dam Busters a british movie about the development of bouncing bombs. I will refer you to Liz Kingsley's review for more information about what I mean about context. One of the officers in the movie has a pet dog which he named Nigger. In context, this was not a malicious slur. More modern audiences have a tough time handling this hence it is tough to get an uncensored copy of this movie, or even find one.

I would say instead of censoring it, if the distributors have a tough time with it, why not put a post script explaining the context? Pretending it never happened doesn't mean it didn't.

Read Liz's review, anyway. She does a fantastic job of detailing the difference between British and American World War II movies.

And speaking of, The Battle of Britain is next on my queue. The cast alone is enough to get me excited.

Why did I start skydiving? I'll try to refrain from too much bullshit. I have always been jealous that men get to do all these cool things and I couldn't. Well that *is* bullshit because ultimately I can do what I want (I just better be prepared to pay for it). I dated a man in who was airborne-qualified and I saw his army unit jump once. That jealousy thing kicked in - he got to jump out of planes and run around in the woods and camp out and shit. Anyway, the opportunity to try a jump came up much later in life (12 years later) and I did it. Scared the hell out of me until I got out the door - then the only word I can use is euphoric. I was doing it! I was stable and falling through the air at 120 miles an hour - my jumpmasters were beside me, smiling and nodding as I got through the skydive. Then I opened my parachute and sailed to the ground. I knew I would have to do it again. The second time I did it I was hooked. Here was something I could do finally that was fairly unique, here was something I did that took bravery.

And skydivers (as much as I complain about them) are pretty simplistic about their rules - if you skydive, welcome to the club. I am shy but I have always had an easier time of going to a drop zone and meeting people ( the 7:1 ratio of men to women probably doesn't hurt, either). I met my husband about 3 months after I started skydiving.

A side note - That jealousy thing is a sore spot and something I'm embarrassed about. I know the truth - the truth is society can give you shit about something but it can't really stop you from doing what you want. I am my limits.

What I like about skydiving: I do like the people - I was once on a 4-way skydive and realized I was in the air with a fireman, an astronaut, and a chicken farmer. Nothing matters except we all like leaving airplanes in mid-flight. I like the freedom - we don't get out there and flail about -all of our movements are controlled and we can do what we want (with a little practice). With this ultimate freedom comes the ultimate responsibility- we can never forget that there's a planet coming toward us at about 120 miles an hour. But then comes the other fun thing about skydiving: the canopy ride.

Modern-day parachutes are more like airfoils than umbrellas. I find the canopy ride relaxing, and I have seen some incredible sights suspended under a canopy 1000 feet in the air. An incoming thunderstorm, for one. It was a ways off, but I could see it moving and the lightning flashing underneath the thunderhead and the rain patterns between the clouds and the ground. From the ground a thunderstorm is clouds and rain and noise. From the air it is a majestic, malevolent entity. I often see nearby hawks soaring on thermals, hunting for lunch. Seeing a sunset on the last load of the day. Getting near to a cloud and feeling that rare sense of movement that you only get when you are close to the ground. Getting over a cloud and landing on and going through my shadow.

I'll bitch about skydiving a lot. Once I get out the door I remember why I do it.

Friday is shoulder and legs day.

First off, I ran 1.92 miles in 20 minutes. Yes, I do cardio before I weight lift, even on leg days. I’m well aware I could probably do more weight if I didn’t, but I don’t so I’m not. So there.

Again, the sets are 3 sets of 12 reps.
Shoulders: Seated Military Press at 45 lbs, Shoulder Fly at 8 lbs, and Flat Bar Shoulder Row at 45 lbs.
Legs: Squat at 65 lbs, Stiff-legged Deadlift at 75 lbs, and seated calf raises at 40 lbs.

By the end of the squat sets I’m grunting like a wounded seal. I hope everyone in the gym appreciates it.

I’m on a war movie kick of all things. I watched Too Late the Hero last night, with Cliff Robertson and Michael Caine. It also featured Denholm Elliot and Takakura Ken, who were both nice surprises.

The movie was okay and a little ahead of its time. It was a cynical movie about World War II; about as out of place as The Green Berets was (a Vietnam War movie with patriotic, gung-ho attitudes).

Robertson plays an American Navy Lieutenant sent to a small Pacific Island to assist a small English military outpost. A group of the English soldiers have been tasked to trek all the way to the northern end of their island where a small Japanese observation outpost exists and blow up their transmitter so that the Japanese can’t inform their high command of an American Navy convoy that will be passing by in a few days. Someone who speaks Japanese is to tag along so they can make a fake transmission before destroying the transmitter to buy the convoy more time. That’s where Robertson fits in.

Sounds contrived? I think so. If there’s a small outpost on an island, why not just bomb the crap out if it? One of the actors tagged to be Exposition Boy had explained there were no natives on the island (as if that mattered).

Robertson’s Lieutenant doesn’t want to do the mission any more than the English assigned to do it. All of the English were lousy soldiers. The Japanese come off as more humane and enlightened, which amused me about a movie made in 1970.

Watch this one only if you are bored on a Sunday afternoon.

What the hell is a DZO?
Drop Zone Owner.
What the hell is a Drop Zone?
It's a place, usually an airport or an airstrip, where people pay to jump out of airplanes. It has a different connotation in the military.

I've been skydiving for over 7 years and I have 926 jumps. My husband and I opened a DZ in the southeast about 4 years ago. I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea; there's an age-old joke in the skydiving community: How do you make a small fortune in skydiving? Start with a large fortune and open a drop zone.

Oh, my sides. Here's another skydiving joke for you (bad language ahoy!): A guy had gone to do his first jump one day and was telling a friend about it afterwards. "Yeah, I was real nervous", he said, "The jumpmaster told me to climb out and I told him no. So he told me again to climb out and I said, 'no'. He then got all in my face and said 'Goddammit, if you don't climb out I'm going to fuck you up the ass!'"
His friend said, "So, did you jump?"
"A little, at first."

Oh, my sides!
Anyway, what I kind of hoped would peter out has turned from a Cessna operation (a Cessna is an airplane that holds 4 skydivers) to a King Air (holds 12 -14).

So, do we make our living off of the drop zone? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, sorry. No, my husband runs the dz full time but I have a day job. I am a software analyst (A software analyst does what a developer does, but doesn't get paid as much). I'm not really gritching, the company I work for hired me even though my degree is in Anthropology (you want fries with that?).

As a dzo, the worst thing I can think of is to have someone die. You know what? It's going to happen. Most non-skydivers think that we are playing a wierd game of Russian Roulette. The truth is people get injured or die skydiving for the same reason people get injured or die doing anything, especially anything high-risk: they fail to follow proper procedure. Or, if an emergency situation occurs, they fail to follow proper emergency procedures. Anybody can greatly reduce (but not eliminate) their risks of injury or death by knowing and practicing proper procedures.

Have I seen people get hurt? Yes. We had one injury last year and we thought we were going to lose him. He landed on his head, on the tarmac. He's alive, and he might get to the point where he can have a normal life. God, I hope so. He's a good guy.

Have I seen anybody die? No, and I hope I never will. Do I know anybody who has died? Two. One was a bit of a spaz, a good kid who for some reason only known to him, walked into the spinning prop of an airplane. Another *dove* into the spinning prop of an airplane. You know, there aren't that many Cuisinart deaths in skydiving. They are intensely rare as compared to hook-turn/low turn deaths. Just one of those statistical anomalies.


Once upon a time, skydivers used modified surplus military equipment. Thanks to the Great God Bill Booth and some other innovators, modern skydiving equipment is safer and more reliable and deaths due to malfunctioning equipment have decreased dramatically. Most skydivers nowadays die under perfectly good canopies (one way you can tell a skydiver from a whuffo. We call parachutes canopies) because they make some radical turn too close to the ground and they smack into the dirt. Some do it deliberately (a hook-turn. It looks kewl), some do it because they panic and are trying to avoid landing down-wind or to avoid an obstacle. Some just jump canopies that are too small for their skill level. The latter reason has put three or four people in the hospital at our drop zone. We're tired of it so now we have to play safety nazi on the people who jump because they are too fucking stupid to realize that jumping a handkerchief can kill them.

Hey, it's my blog and I'll vent if I want to.

Oh, yeah; whuffo: a non-skydiver. Someone who says "whuffo you jump outta that aeroplane?"

I realize I made it sound bad. Most skydiving injuries involve a busted limb. It happened to me - I came in for a landing on a bumpy day, knew I was going to have a hard landing, and instead of keeping my feet and knees together, I pulled my feet up underneath me and literally sat on my ankle. I heard a crunching noise and I had two thoughts: "Oh, shit, I broke it!" and "I'm never gonna hear the end of this at work!"

It turned out to be a sprain and I was jumping again in two weeks. As for work, a co-worker had been thrown from her horse and punctured a lung that same weekend so that took the heat off me.

There's a proper procedure for landing and everyone is taught it. People bust things because they fail to do a proper Parachute Landing Fall. What am I getting at? When people die/get hurt in skydiving, it's their fault 99.9% of the time. The woman who died diving into a prop - it wasn't her fault.

Do you feel like skydiving now? You either want to or you don't - nothing I write here is going to sway you one way or the other. Just do yourself a favor - if you are a skydiver and/or you feel like opening a drop zone, for the love of God, man! Are you out of your mind?

Thursday are rest days for me. I clocked in at 130 pounds this morning and that makes me happy. That means I'm not too far from where I left off when the Holiday Madness started (129.5). My goal for January is 128.

Rest days, incidentally, are as least as important as weight training and eating right. You will not make gains if you do not train and you will not make gains if you do not get enough rest between training sessions. misc.fitness.weights, one of the few groups I read constantly, always seems to have a thread about some yo-yo who trains 7 days a week and doesn't understand why he or she feels beat all the time and can't lift as much as he or she used to.

I'm not as big into scuba diving as some things, but if I could move to the Caribbean I'm sure I would dive a hell of a lot more.

Jon and I learned to scuba dive only because we were going on vacation to St. John in the U.S Virgin Islands. I would gladly trade skydiving for scuba diving if I could dive in waters that clear and warm, and teeming with cool critters, every day.

Unfortunately Northern Alabama only has a few rock quarries for dive spots.

I used to live in the Caribbean; specifically Isla Verde in Puerto Rico. My family lived there from 1967 - 1977. I was very young and as usual, youth is wasted on children. I did not appreciate that I literally had a beach for a back yard.

Two years ago Jon and I got out of credit card debt and paid off our cars. We started saving up all the money we all of a sudden weren't spending and decided to celebrate by going on a real vacation. I chose St. John because I remembered going there several times when I was younger. I remember I loved it.

How the hell did people plan vacations before the web? We picked out a villa to rent and lucked into a really nice one called French Cap. Villa rentals are the way to go as far as we're concerned. Hotels suck and are only options when you are trying to save money. For that matter, you will not save money if you stay at the Westin or Caneel Bay, the big hotels on the island. You can save at some of the smaller guesthouses, especially the ones in town, because you will not have to rent a jeep. All the good beaches are on the north shore and available by taxi.

We did have to rent a jeep because St. John is hilly. Actually it's one big hill. Our villa was a 10 minute drive out of town. The cars have the steering on the left and everyone drives on the left like they were British or something. Driving is not as intimidating as it sounds once you get used to it. Besides, it's almost impossible to drive over 30 miles an hour so even though the island is only something like 9 miles at its widest point, it still takes 30 minutes to drive from the west side to the east.

It is also almost impossible to find parking space in Cruz Bay. If you go, find a jeep rental place that will let you park in their lot.

St. John is a great place to go even if you don't scuba dive; I highly recommend at least learning how to snorkel. My favorite snorkeling spots are Cinnamon Bay, and Waterlemon Cay when the currents are not strong. On the recommendations of some friends, we dove with Low-Key Watersports. We have enjoyed (that's too weak a word) diving with this outfit both times we have been to St. John.

The first time we visited one of our dives was the R.M.S Rhone. I was worried at first because the first part of the dive was in 80 feet of water and Jon and I had just gotten our certification. When I entered the water I lost my regulator for a second because my jaw dropped. The water is so clear there that even in 80 feet I could clearly see the entire wreck on the bottom; I could see the groups of divers swimming around it.

On both trips and several dives (including the Rhone), Jon and I encountered Steve Simonsen, a photographer who lives on the island. His site has beautiful pictures plus some nifty wallpapers. While the boat was clearing customs (the Rhone is located in the British Virgin Islands), Steve kept all of us divers in thrall as he told us the story of the Rhone as well as the history of the pirates who used Tortola as their lair.

You could say my passion isn't scuba diving, but St. John.

Today at the gym: Chest and triceps. Again, these exercises are at 12 reps 3 sets: Bench Press 80lbs, Dumbell press 20lbs, chest flyes 8lbs. I do dips on the Gravitron machine, a nifty gadget that has counterweights so girly girls like me can do dips and chin-ups. I did 3 sets of 12 dips with 70lbs of help. Then Tricep pulldowns on a cable machine at 40 pounds then tricep flatbar pulldowns on a cable machine at 55 pounds. I then did stiff-legged deadlifts with 95 pounds. Yikes, those were heavy. I need to ease off just a little (maybe just 80-85 pounds), do more reps, then work up. Really my form is good - I'm more worried about my grip. I don't like wrist wraps.

I ran a bit better: 1.87 miles in 20 minutes. My personal best is 2 miles in 19 minutes. I'd like to get 2 miles in 18 minutes - that would beat my best time in the military which was almost 20 years ago. Hey, with my athsma and stubby little legs I'm happy I can run at all.


Since I spent the majority of yesterday blathering about my movie watching habits, I'll spend today yammering about another of my interests.

My interests, by the way, are watching movies, cooking, weightlifting, skydiving, and scuba diving. Not neccessarily in that order. Today I choose cooking.

Top Ten Food Staples at My House

Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs: When the grocery store has these I stock up because it's a pain to bone and skin them myself. Chicken thigh meat tastes better than chicken breast and it's almost impossible to overcook. Sure it has a few more calories but big deal.

Tuna, Eggs, Cottage Cheese: Yes, I should list these separately, but this is the holy trinity of the standard dieter. All are low in fat and high on protein. I bounce between these three all the time for breakfast/lunch foods. I do not use mayonnaise for Tuna, by the way. Mayo was invented by some French guy who wanted to see just how much oil he could whisk into a raw egg. It turns out to be quite a bit. Any ways, this sounds gross, but two tablespoons of Pace Medium Salsa added to a can of light tuna makes a tasty lunch for me.

Splenda: The greatest culinary contribution from Canada since rapeseed oil (called "Canola Oil" because no one thought anyone would want to buy something called "Rapeseed Oil". Probably a good move). Splenda is the market name for Sucralose, a sugar substitute. I like it's taste a thousand times better than nutrasweet and a bazillion times better than saccharine. And unlike Nutrasweet, I can cook with it. I will also add to this category DaVinci Syrups, who make syrups based on Sucralose. I'm especially addicted to their vanilla syrup which Wal-Mart carries. You can order from the ir site, just be aware they do carry sugar based syrups as well.

Paul Newman Dressings: These dressings are consistently made with low carb counts, natural ingredients, AND he gives all his profits to charity. As close to guilt-free eating as you will ever get. I put these dressings on Romaine lettuce salads. Romaine just tastes better than Iceberg.

Butter: Nothing beats the taste of real butter. Nothing! Most people don't realize this, but margarine only offers one benefit over butter: it's cheaper. It's not healthier, it's not lower in calories, and it certainly doesn't taste better.

Cheese: In the whirlwind of arguments pro and con about the various diets, when the dust clears and only truth remains on the battlefield, I am on a low-carb diet because I can finally eat cheese again. In my house, Edam, Gouda, Cheddar and Pepper Jack are commonly found. I also buy mozarella string cheese for my husband. His favorite is Borden's.

Turkey Italian Sausage: I don't know why, but these have become a favorite. A few sausage links, a cup of cooked spaghetti squash, and Alfredo sauce. Yum!

Hodgson Mill Oat Bran: It's what's for breakfast on Gym days. I mentioned I was doing a Targeted Ketogenic Diet. This diet is simply eating a few more carbs before working out. It helps increase my endurance some. Oat bran also has plenty of fiber; getting enough is always a problem on a ketogenic diet. Cook some up - add a pat of butter and a packet of splenda.

Other meats: Including pork chops, ribeye steaks, chicken leg quarters, corned beef, and whatever I can grab on sale. This leads to:

A varied spice rack: I have said it before and I'll say it again. Other spices exist apart from chili powder. Oregano, cumin, cayenne, and thyme get the biggest workout in my kitchen, as well as chili powder and curry powder. I also use cilantro, parsely, and basil which I buy fresh.

Garlic: Hey! This is number 11! But how could I leave out garlic, the god of tasty foods and bad breath?

I should also list the most common vegetables: Romaine lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, sugar snap peas, celery, bell pepper and onion. My husband is not a big vegetable fan so I don't experiment with vegetables nearly as often as I'd like.

Out of everything here, this constitutes pretty much my entire diet. I keep trying to find new recipes, like yesterday I made tandoori chicken. Interesting spices for the tandoori: onion, garlic, cinnamon, allspice, cumin, and turmeric. Also a little cream, olive oil, and lemon juice. I tasted it after it was done and thought something was missing: I added some cayenne and it was dead-on. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I should mention this: how ever did I get along before I bought a George Foreman grill?

Ahg.

I believe in rewards - I bought Jon and me a six-pack of Michelob Ultra last night. 3 beers (okay, pseudo beer) is moderate. But a combo of the beer (dehydrating), a ketogenic diet (dehydrating), and the pseudoephedrine (dehydrating) I have been taking because of the lingering effects of a cold means I woke up with a hangover. Not bad but I still feel bleah.

I felt better after I got out of the gym - 20 minutes of cardio (running - at the top of my game I can run over 2 miles, but today I only did 1.8 ) and back and biceps. The back exercises are machine lat pulldowns (70 lb), Machine rows (60 lb), and dumbell back flyes (8 lbs).

Biceps are preacher EZ curls (45 lbs, assuming the EZ bar is 25 pounds. I need to find out) and flat bar curls (35 lbs, assuming the short bar (standard?) is 25 pounds). I got rid of one of the bicep exercises - with all the compound stuff I do I don't see the point - and now am doing dumbell wrist curls (8 lbs). The wrist curls help other exercises - I used to wear a brace on my left wrist due to tendonitis (a beer accident - brewing, not drinking go figure). I haven't had to wear it since the end of last summer.

All exercises, by the way, are 12 reps, 3 sets. Yep, I'm at the low weight high rep end of a periodization cycle. I'm doing a 14-15 week cycle and I should eventually be doing 3 sets of 4 reps at some ungodly weight levels (ungodly for me). The week before my birthday I want to test my 1 rep maxes on the big 3: Bench Press, Squat, and Deadlift.

Anything else to yammer about? I started writing again upon being inspired by my friend Nancy's blog. She said she'd link to mine so I am returning the favor.

I'm listening to music at work - it seems to help me concentrate and get work done. I'm a software developer. I won't fill you in with the details - software development is as boring as it sounds, although it can be mentally stimulating and financially rewarding. I do have an unreasonable love of the movie Office Space like many cubicle denizens. I hinted around to many of my loved ones that I wanted a red Swingline stapler for Christmas, but no luck.

Top Ten Favorite Actors:

How do I judge how much I like an actor? By this formula: "Hey, X is in this movie. I gotta watch it!" Sexual attraction has little to do with it. Okay, that's not true for many of them. But all of them can act.

This list is not in any particular order.

Damian Lewis: As you might have read, he is definitely my du jour. As much as adore Major Winters in Band of Brothers and loathe Soames in The Forsyte Saga, I finally realized I was having impure thoughts of him when I watched Dreamcatcher on Halloween.

Lord, that movie was not good, but I like it more than most people did. It was a waste of a good cast (Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Morgan Freeman); the cast was why I rented it in the first place. There is nothing special about Lewis' character - he plays a college history professor (and he plays it well! I think I had him for a few classes). There is good chemistry between him and Jane, Lee and Olyphant at the beginning of the movie. All four do a great job coming across as old friends. Too bad about the shit weasels. Lewis has great chemistry with just about anyone he works with - I loved the scenes between him and Ron Livingstone in BoB.

One other thing - most British actors learn American accents to get more roles. I can't blame them but it's a shame they have to hide their true accents. Lewis, on the other hand, has a fantastic American accent and I actually prefer him as an American.

Jason Isaacs: Another Brit. I first saw him in the not-so-good Event Horizon but I didn't really notice him until Armageddon. *Heh*. Armageddon is indeed a bad movie, but it's a favorite bad movie. I almost love it as much as I love The Swarm. Armageddon is another collection of wasted actors. Like Lewis, Isaacs could play opposite a cinder block and have great chemistry.

Ewan MacGregor: Who knew Obi-wan Kenobi was so hot when he was young? MacGregor has a great smile, nice bod, and isn't afraid to display his tackle. God, I love the British! His American accent, unlike Lewis or Isaacs, is a little off. I haven't watched Down With Love yet so maybe he's worked on it.

Eric Bana: Australian comedian - something of a body builder. I noticed him while watching Black Hawk Down, a movie with a great deal of good actors including the aforementioned MacGregor and Isaacs. He as a convincing American accent. He has been in a limited amount of movies, including the highly recommended Chopper and the not-as-recommended but I still liked it Hulk.

Christian Bale: Welsh hottie, flawless American accent. I finally took notice when two separate friends whose movie instincts I trust urged me to rent Equillibrium. I can't wait to see how he does a the new Batman.I loved American Psycho too. God, that was funny! Like Bana, he's a bit of a bodybuilder. Both actors will manipulate their body shape to fit the role. Bana got fat for Chopper; Bale got intensely thin - we're talking Holocaust victim thin - for the as yet unreleased The Machinist.

Bill Paxton: I have been a fan of his since Aliens, and developed a good-sized crush sometime after Apollo 13. His accent is of course flawless, because he's a Texan. Finally, I list an American! Since I've booted Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson off he has logged the longest running time on the list. Unlike Gibson or Ford, Paxton is still turning out movies worth watching. I enjoyed Frailty. We'll see about Thunderbirds and Club Dread both of which I'll see but I'm kind of fearing.

Frances McDormand: This woman is a goddess, dammit! Talk about underappreciated. I have always liked her, but she became a member of the list when she played Sheriff Marge Gunderson in Fargo.

Michelle Yeoh: Kicks ass! I want to be her when I grow up. If you haven't seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon why not? The scenes between her and Chow Yun-Fat are devastating. Her best Hong Kong work, as far as I'm concerned, is Wing Chun.

Guy Pearce: Another Australian. Hot, great American accent, Memento and L.A. Confidential. May fall off the list because he's been MIA. I have not seen The Hard Word yet, though.

Ralph Fiennes: Another Brit. Decent American accent. I can't remember what I saw him in first but I've loved him since Quiz Show. He's at his most gorgeous in The English Patient. He is second after Paxton for most time on the list. I still haven't seen some of his later projects, but I did like his turn as Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon. I saw him in a stage production of Hamlet in London in 1995. I had myself a good laugh when I was researching Damian Lewis' career: he played Laertes. I do remember a severely redheaded actor in the cast.

Honorable Mention: Gibson and Ford are gone and I haven't been able to trust Willem Dafoe in years (although Spiderman was a great start back in the right direction). I don't really have anyone else to list. But I also like Michelle Rodriguez and Luke Wilson. Oh, yeah! I really like Matt Damon. He has taken some chances which impresses me. I think there's so few American actors on the list because they don't take chances (Do you hear me Mr. Affleck? You're cute as a button but come on!).

I wouldn't kick Thomas Jane out of bed for eating crackers, but other than *61 which was a damn fine baseball movie, he has a habit of choosing bad projects. He does decent work, but damn there's only so much punishment I can take. Pun very much intended.

Let's see. At the end of November I weighed 131. How much do I weigh now?

131.

I'll just wuss out and say the Holidays got to me. Yeah, that's it. So what now? I still want to get my bodyfat percentage to 20%. I may have quit the diet, but I did not quit going to the gym. Except for 2 weeks when I had a buttload of time off and was too lazy to do anything.

One thing I did notice: I liked how I felt when I went 3 weeks without any alcohol. This might be WTMI but my sex drive came back. Note to myself: beer and sex don't mix. Funny, they did in college.

So what happened in December? Besides the holidays. Well, got to see the family of course. My sister got me the Wiseguy story arc on DVD with Kevin Spacey in it for a Christmas present. I loved that arc. I used to like Spacey, too. What the hell happened? I thought he'd rank up there with Bill Paxton and William Fichtner for best damn character actor but he took the Tommy Lee Jones route (just say 'no' to bad scripts, guys, especially if you're in the position to pick and choose!).

Sorry - I digress. Jon and I rented a 172 and flew into a Cobb County airport. General Aviation rules! One day I need to get my private pilot's license. We stayed at my brother's house and drove with him to my sister's on Christmas day. Andrea married a good guy. He's a hell of a cook, too. Anyway, mom and her husband were there, with 2 sets of his relations, and old friends Hector and Victor (Hector has lost weight!). Spent a good amount of time discussing weightlifting with them. We watched Bad Boys II which sucked. Michael Bay needs to be guilliotined. Or at least pilloried.

The New Year's party at the drop zone was a blast. I drank too much. My friend Jeff did his thousandth jump. He got pied for it - old skydiver tradition. I have 926 jumps. I want my thousand before my 40th birthday (May 17th of this year) I bet I can do it barring a catastrophe or a busted ankle.

I have started with stiff-legged deadlifts at the gym. I'm doing three sets of 12 reps at 85 pounds. Man I can feel that in my glutes big time. It's a nice complement to squats, which I feel mainly in my quads. I'm still shying away from heavy loads - ironically I can bench more than I squat (my max on the bench press is about 100 pounds). As for the deadlifts - like a lot of people the weight I can handle is limited more by my grip than my glutes. Time to add a Farmer's walk to the mix.

Anyway, I'm back on the wagon and back on the plan. I read a great book on Ketogenic diets called 'The Ketogenic Diet' by Lyle MacDonald. It's available at his website Body Recomposition.

What I've watched: Finished the Sopranos. I'm so glad Carmella finally threw the cheating bastard out! Finally someone I can cheer for.I've also finished the first 3 seasons of Angel (thank you, TNT). I don't like it as much as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it has its moments. Favorite: Lorne.

I finished the Forsyte Saga (part 1): Bossinney (the ninny) died in a carriage accident, Irene left Soames (which made me like her a lot more than I did), Soames is still a creep, but after some time (and a good deal of stalking) he finally divorced Irene and got involved with a woman who would tolerate having his child. It took a damn long time, but I finally felt something for Soames when he cried while bonding with his baby daughter.
The End.

Part 2 will air on PBS later on in February. Part 2 has (or so I have heard) Soames' grown-up daughter falling in love with young Jolyon Forsyte (Soames' cousin) and Irene's son (she had him near the end of part one). Hm. Second cousins. And people make fun of us folks in Alabama.

PBS is showing part 1 again right now so I set TiVO up to record it. TiVO is nifty - I can set it up to record things by actors so it is currently set up to record anything Damian Lewis, Christian Bale, Eric Bana, Ewan MacGregor, and Jason Isaacs is in. Of course it's not very discriminating so I accidentally caught part of Sweet November and nearly had to claw my eyes out when I saw Isaacs in drag. Jason I love you but you were just not made to wear dresses.

I saw Return of the King, of course. Loved it. The movie that affected me the most recently was 24 Hour Party People - loosely based on Tony Wilson, Factory Records, and the Manchester music scene from the late 70's to the early 90's.

I rented it because I owned quite a few Factory records back in the days of vinyl, and I was wondering what kind of mention they would give to one of my favorite bands: Joy Division. To my surprise and wonderment, they had a big chunk of the movie. The fellow who played Ian Curtis did a bang-up job - got the epileptic robot dance style down and everything. This movie was supposed to be a comedy, but I was in tears by the end of it. Era gone by, and all that. I have put some more Michael Winterbottom (director) movies on my Netflix queue.

I was also very sad because I had not known that Martin Hannett had died. He was very much a genius music producer. He was played in the movie by Andy Serkis (Gollum in Lord of the Rings).

I worship Michelle Yeoh as a Goddess; I saw 'Yes Madam' last night and it pissed me off. It also had Cynthia Rothrock in it -with that cast you would expect a lot of asskicking but nooooo. Most of the movie centered on these three thieves who bumbled around a lot. Dammit, if Michelle Yeoh is in a movie, I expect someone's ass to be kicked at least once every 10
minutes! It came across as a comedy, but the only thing that made me laugh were the 80's clothes and hairstyles. Rent Wing Chun instead.