Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Okay, maybe not miles. In an effort at things, I'm trying to work up to that whole "walk 10,000 steps a day" thing. (I know for some of you out there, that's a joke. But for me, who is on a computer all day at work, then on a computer all day after work, it's not ever anything I've even gotten close to.) Apparently you can break that 10,000 steps down into as small of units as you want, so I'm breaking them down into 100 steps at a time. (The goal of this isn't to get your heart rate up, just to not be sedentary.)

Small steps. Not literal small steps. Small steps towards reaching 10,000 steps. Apparently walking in place counts just as much as walking to go somewhere, so I stand next to my computer and do 100 frequently. That's worked so far at home, but tomorrow I go back to the office, so I'm not sure how well that will go there...

And speaking of work, changes are a'brewing...

( Why would a company want to cut its workforce down by so much? )

In gaming news, the MMO I play (FFXIV) has an expansion coming out in June. Today was a four hour long preview of all the changes, all shown by the producer (man who saved the whole game). It was so fun and exciting to watch it all, especially since my whole guild watched it online together. It's such a cool, amazing experience to get excited over stuff with people from around the world. We have one person from Africa, one from South America, a bunch from across Europe, and lots from North America. All of us together, excited over this online thing. :)

All my life, I've wanted to be able to run. As a very heavy person, running even a couple steps was a bad idea. But gonzostar does lots of running now, and instead of just admiring her for it, why can't I try it too? I still haven't gotten the app issue worked out yet, but I figured I could just try it some and see how it goes.

Odd thing #1: It doesn't hurt my knees. It doesn't hurt anything. It doesn't feel at all like running when I was 130+ pounds heavier. :P Duh on me!

Odd thing #2: And, unlike #1, this one really is odd. I don't seem to know how to run. You'd think we could just... run. It must be in our genes. I had to run a couple times for gym class in high school (decades ago), but I haven't run at all since then. I'm 100% sure I'm doing it wrong, as I only land on the balls of my feet and never put the rest of my foot down. Also, perhaps related to that issue, I seem to... bounce? too much. Like I'm not running smoothly, I think I must be going up and down more than other people when they run...

I watched some videos on Youtube, but unsurprisingly there are no "how to run" videos out there. I did learn it's rare to land on the balls of your feet instead of your heels, and that it's safer/better for you to land that way, so go me?

I didn't run for long though, because it just felt so wrong. I have no idea how to force my heels to drop down and touch the ground too, it feels natural to stay up on the balls of my feet if I'm running. I didn't run for long outside, because I worry I look like I'm running oddly, so I ran back and forth in my apartment (I have one long hallway that goes from one end of it to the other).

I have no idea how to figure out how to run right though...

Stardew Valley: I haven't been posting about it much. I'm back into winter again, which is just the worst season of them all. So boring. I'm trying to max out my mining and adventuring ratings (both 9 now), which means I have to keep going into the Skull Dungeon (which I really dislike, it's stressful to me for some reason, I guess maybe because the mobs are so much harder). I wonder if I could max out in the mines or if the XP there is just too low?

Finally, after having a baby for like three weeks, it woke up. I think we can all agree that Haken should not be permitted babies and/or needs some better way to paint the ceiling.


Stop throwing so hard! D:

And lastly, the perfect food for the next time you go to the strip club. Sexy snackfoods? (Work safe on that link? I think?)

I'm suspicious of anything that is sold on an infomercial, so originally I wrote Zumba off. I knew it was being taught in gyms, but that didn't counter my infomercial wariness. However, when I saw a sign up at work for classes, that was finally enough to make me think it might be something real and useful. (I work in Silicon Valley for a big tech company, there's not usually a high level of belief in bunk floating around.)

Unfortunately most DVD Zumba sets are $70, which is way more than the usual price of an exercise tape. Luckily there are ways around that, and I borrowed a copy of a beginner set.

It really is a fun workout -- fun and hard, which is a really good combo. It takes all the good parts of the dance workouts I was already doing (samba, bollywood, bellydancing, hiphop) and puts them into one place. The music was fun and made me want to move (bonus!), and the instructors were good to look at without being distractingly attractive.

That being said, I can't say it's worth $70. I'd certainly pay the usual workout tape price ($20-$30) for it, but not more than twice that. (Rereading this and thinking about it more, I'm not sure if this is fair to say. I'm intending to make this my new go-to workout, doing it every day until I get bored of it... can you put a price on an exercise you're okay with doing every day?)

Zumba on wiki, in case you're not familiar with it.

I got a new exercise DVD to try out. African Healing Dance. I've done samba and salsa, Bollywood, belly dancing, hip-hop, modern, so when looking for something new, African seemed a likely step.

On one hand, I like it. The movements were easy and, well, the whole thing was easy. Unfortunately, "easy" is not a good thing for an exercise video to be. It rarely got my heart rate up at all.

The setting of it was beautiful -- looked just like Northern CA! Looked like it could have been recorded in my hometown! The filming of it was really bad though. When the instructor is teaching a new step, a shot from the waist-up is NOT helpful. Yet they did that over and over and over again. I need to see her feet/legs!

The most disturbing thing of the tape was that she didn't shave under her arms. And there were lots of arm-raising movements. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

At the end there was a free-style section: They just played the music and said to do whatever felt right. That was amazingly enjoyable! I wouldn't have guessed that it could be so fun and feel so good. (Seems like something a really little kid would love to do, didn't seem like something grown-up me would.)

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WoW: 4.0.3a appears to be dropping tomorrow for sure. *dither* It should be an exciting, positive time, but I've felt wary of so much Cata-related stuff. (And it doesn't help that all these pre-Cata events are ZERO fun -- doesn't give me much hope for the expansion itself.)

pomr posted good news I hadn't heard: They're changing the Mysterious Egg from the Oracles in Sholazar so that it hatches in 3 days and they're slightly increasing the chance for the mount. THANK YOU. I've been buying those damned eggs for a year now, without the fricking mount. Now, if only they'd do the same for the damned polar bear mount from the angry blue women...

The portals leaving Dal are still my most grumpy thing about this expansion. It was so hard getting ports for the grr Thanksgiving event, I dread to think what it will be like after 4.0.3a. I asked very kindly "Excuse me, if you're not busy may I have a portal to (city). I'll tip." and yet still nine times out of ten I got no reply back. I have friends with mage 80s ( <3 ! ), but we shouldn't HAVE to ask to get around!

{Teleport-Mea} {Can I have it?} 500 gil

Blah. I think I'd be less stressing about Cata if my RL weren't so hellish right now. At least this is a three-day week, though I really need to get grocery shopping today (BLAH).

Blah blah blah.

Edit: "rested XP will reset on cataclysm launch. " *$@&!($&!&

Pre-cooking meat before putting it into the crock pot was a big win. I was worried it wouldn't work at all -- by the time the meat was brown on two sides it was nearly cooked through, plus it didn't seem like enough fat got melted off it, but it turned out darned good. It tasted like actual, cooked meat (not just meat boiled until there was no life or flavor left in it), and there was zero fat for it to swim in.

I'm going to cook chicken for the next few weeks though (and unlikely in the crock pot). I've had quite enough of big chunks of meat.

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Since many of the last batch of exercise DVDs didn't work out, I picked up a couple more. One of them was a nice two-DVD set (for the same price as a single!) of hula dancing. One was straight hula, the other was "hula hip-hip". I do a lot of hip-shaking in other exercises (samba dancing, belly dancing), but this was insane! Ha ha. I couldn't do it for my full time, I had to stop and do something different for the second half of it. I think I pulled something in my back (unsurprising!). Going to have to start slow on that one.

The background of it were amazing. I've never been to Hawaii, but wow, this made me really want to go. So beautiful!

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Stephen King is trying to kill me. Or rather, kill my arms. His latest book(??? Still the latest? I got it in December but only just started reading it now) is more than a thousand pages long. The Dome. Enjoyable enough (though far far from his best, at least 250 pages in), but damn. A hardcover thousand page book is heavy. Every time I pick it up, I think how nice it'd be to have an e-book type thing.

I had intended to write about the small meals diet plan in last night's post, but forgot. When I went back to do it, I saw the post was kinda long as-is, do decided to just wait until another day to post about it. Today's another day!

Long story short: I really don't like the small meals idea. On top of the issues I've previously written about (too much time spent thinking about food, too much time making it, eating it, etc), there's a new one: I feel like I'm eating a lot more food... and yet I'm hungry all the time.

With the small meals, I never get full. I get "not hungry", which is not the same as full. I'm not sure if I'm normal or not, but I like being full. Being "not hungry" is not the same, and is not a satisfying/settling feeling. I guess that makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, since your body wants you to eat as much as you can whenever food is available...

Anyway. After a small meal I'm not hungry, but that doesn't last long and soon I'm hungry again and watching the clock. All of my small meals have some kind of protein, some kind of plant, and sometimes something bread-y.

Saturday I did small meals and was generally unhappy all day. Sunday I ate "normal" and was generally happy. Hmmm!

Exercise! When I had seen my doctor, she said something like "Doesn't exercise make you feel good!". I kind of went "Um, yeah, sure..." while in my head thinking that she was insane. This morning something clicked. I had been dragging my feet, not wanting to go back to work, whining endlessly... but after exercise I felt totally different. Ready to take on the world, to be cliche about it.

Hope that feeling continues!

Another bust in the exercise DVD pile: Dance off the Inches: Hip Hop Party -- learn hip hop from a bunch of middle-aged white women to elevator music. BORING.

I'm starting to enjoy writing reviews on Amazon. Not sure why I hadn't done it before now.

PS: Still loving Amazon Prime. Free two day shipping! LOVE LOVE LOVE.

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WoW: *delete delete* Was writing up about how bad a pug was yesterday, but meh! The good part of it was: I got a blue protodrake! Woo! And I flew around in the Underbelly on him! (Is that screenshot really dark for people? Looks fine at home, looks awful at work.) I was hovering over the well outside the Dalaran bank while on the phone, and somehow fell through it into the Underbelly and didn't get dismounted! Was muchly fun.

Very happy I got him! I've always wanted a protodrake, they look so cool.

Man, and I really posting less than once a week now? It's been ten days since my last update! Perhaps good news on that front: The random LJ image sites have started working again! Woo woo! Perhaps I'll find some wild and wacky stuff to post.

Exercise: Dance Fitness for Beginners with MaDonna Grimes: Urban Street Heat isn't exactly what I thought it would be. Picture hiphop taught by your mother, set to the most bland and inoffensive music possible, with background dancers who the most rural midwestern farmer wouldn't glance twice at.

That being said, it's embarrassing that I can't keep up with the instructor. She must be nearly 50, but she moves so fast! Ha ha. ...hmmmm, maybe her name was supposed to be a clue as to her age. "MaDonna", Ma Donna?

Hopefully the other urban dance DVD will be better. (I've done the samba one twice now, I love that one!)

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In WoW world, I've started doing instances! After "hating" them for as long as I've been playing WoW, I've actually been having fun doing them. And by "hating" I mean my usual "I've never (tried|done|eaten) that, but I know I hate it!". They're so nice and short compared to things like FFXI Dynamis (heh, I had to google to make sure I spelled that right!). I've only done them with friends so far, I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to try it with randoms. WoW culture is so different, it still shocks and hurts me when some random stranger I've never before spoken to /whispers that my armor sucks. I just so totally don't understand how that's an okay thing to do... (Plus, I'm mostly in purples (and not even PvP purples!), so I'm not sure why it sucks. Sure lots of things could be improved, and my trinkets and one ring are still green, but "sucks" seems kind of harsh...).

Last night we did HoR with the Lich King chasing us. That was great fun! :D Especially since ICly my character wants to go back to him... Luckily we were doing the run OOCly, otherwise it would have been dooooooom.

The other WoW thing I've been wanting to write about is the inscription profession. As I wanted my latest character to be herbalism (for my other character's alchemy), it seemed a logical choice to make inscription his second profession. (PS: WRONG! Having two professions which requires tons of herbs sucks.) Anyway, I did a crapton of research, got all the addons set up to do mass-glyph-making, did everything "right". All these sites claim that people make a thousand gold a day (with no effort!) making glyphs. I've had friends who said they made a ton of gold that way, too. Someone somewhere is smoking crack, and it's not me. I have a number of professions I make good money on, one of them DOES make more than a thousand gold a day, but it sure as hell is not inscription. In the work:profit ratio, inscription is far and away the very worst.

I should give up on making money from it (it's not like I need the gold anyway), but it annoys me that I took it this far and the money's just not there. It really is a crapton of work too, even with addons to auto-cancel things when you're undercut, find the most profitable ones to make, etc.

Speaking of addons! Part of why I like instancing now is DBM. I really, really don't understand how that isn't cheating ("MOVE! RIGHT NOW! YOU'RE STANDING IN POISON!" "TURN AROUND! GAZE-ATTACK COMING!"), but it sure does make things easy. Part of why I hadn't wanted to instance was that I knew I'd end up standing in fire or something, but man... no one worries about that? Everyone has this addon telling them what to do? I should have gotten it sooner!

Even though I had four different exercise-type things to do, I was getting bored of them. I've come to hate my TaeBo DVD, so that's really one less. (The instructor is annoying, and even though he's been doing exercise DVDs for 20 or so years now, he still does not do the "mirroring" thing -- when he calls out to go right, he goes to his right, so to the viewer it looks like when he calls right we should go left. On top of that (I suspect because he's so religious and that comes across in the DVD), the background exercisers are... shall we say... less than inspiring. Could they cover any more skin? Could they look any less sexy? I'm not saying that an exercise video should be porn, but if I actively don't want to look at the background people, there's something wrong.)

So! Hitting up Amazon, I went crazy and bought four new DVDs to use. They just arrived yesterday, so I did the first one this morning: The Samba Reggae Workout! What crazy, fun exercise! Check out a sample video of it: sexy women and live drums!

The cover image on that link must be heavily photoshopped, she's not that skinny. I have no idea how to correctly describe her, in my head I used "thick" -- I'm not sure if it's all muscles or just how she's made (or probably both). Such a satisfying thing, not having a stick-thin instructor! She's sexy as hell, but not a twig.

Her background dancers make me drool. Seriously.

The live drums in the background are the best thing ever! So exciting to watch and listen! So interesting!

I'm happy I did the Bollywood dancing stuff first, because that made me see that yeah, I'm totally not going to get these moves the first time through. Or the tenth time. But eventually I should mostly generally get it! And what fun moves this DVD has! (But, again, so happy no one can see me doing them...)

The other DVDs I got were a hip hop dancing-for-exercise one, an "Urban Street" one (hope it's not redundant with the hip hop one), and a guilty pleasure: So You Think You Can Dance Get Fit: Cardio Funk. No clue if the last one will be good or not, but I love So You Think You Can Dance, so I had to get it to try it out!

These DVDs are surprisingly cheap (generally $9.99 each), so if I get bored with these in a couple months it'll be easy enough to get more!

Either Taebo has changed or I forgot how it had been. I finally used the DVD (ordered a week or so ago), and I don't remember it being so religious. "Thank you Jesus for the strenght to be able to throw this punch!" Stop giving Jesus my credit, dude. If I'm strong enough to throw it, it's my doing, not anyone else's.

Also, sadly, it seems like it's less about boxing/martial arts now and more about aerobics. Hey, exercise is exercise, but I do miss being taught the proper way to throw a punch or a kick without hurting yourself, now it's more like moving your arms in something that might resemble a punch while bouncing around like a bunny on crack.

Also, don't know what's up with their production standards now, but all the white people looked grey. Oddest things ever, it was like the instructor (black) was showing a bunch of zombies how to do aerobics.

So, thumbs down on the DVD, but I'll be keeping it in my exercise mix anyway. It's nice to have such a variety of things I can do (bollywood dancing, tae bo, boxing/outdoor life, wii dancing), but I think I'll keep my eyes open for one or two more things to add to the mix.