Logo for my G33kwatch Fantasy football team.

My team is the Thresher Maws. Now I have a awesome logo!

How does every Thursday sound?

That is my plan. Revisit this every Thursday. I was pretty solid for awhile then I totally lost it. Sometimes this helps to keep me in perspective as I see and re read whats going through my head.

I was going to write about how much of a funk I have been in lately. Try and give myself the motivation to do something I know I would enjoy. As I looked over what I had written I thought "Wow I sound like a cry baby". So I got up to think about it and ended up watching "Shade".

 The last time I watched Shade was years ago. I had just started trying to learn magic and had found out a childhood friend of mine had started as well. He had come across it while living in Philadelphia and had been entranced by the opening sequence with Jason Englands hands doing card moves. I had barely heard of Dai Vernon so I got that reference but not the "Professor" one. Watching everything unfold kept me interested and I had never been interested in Mob type movies. I liked the scam part. To see the plan come to fruition. We both agreed that who ever handled the cards was the greatest gambler on earth and maybe actually supernatural.

Recently I had the pleasure to meet Mr. England and watch him lecture. I still find him to be jaw dropping amazing. But better than that was him as a person. I hadn't expected him to be mean or anything. It was just refreshing to see how nice he actually was.

 Getting back on track. Tonight I re-watched Shade. It was better than I had remembered. Better because I have grown and I have learned, little by little, about the magical community. There are so many name drops in that movie. After the first quarter of the movie I could only wonder if I should be looking up every name I did not recognize. Then the cameos and little things. Magicians everywhere and some actors I hadn't remembered were in the film. But by far my favorite giggle was the Magic castle scene. With the guys sitting at the Professor's table. I don't know the person he tells off in the scene. I should look into that. But the cut and later the card trick had me busting up laughing. Especially since Jason England was doing the card trick. He Blows you away in the opening credits with amazing sleight of hand but in that scene his impressive trick is one thats often learned in grade school. It's funny, really. Watch it on Netflix.

Oil changes and riffle shuffling

I love having a weekday off. I can clean the house while watching B-movies on Netflix. Grocery shop and take care of appointments. Today is oil change day. Unless you get a rental car your stuck waiting for your car watching daytime TV. I like the yoddler on the price is right and that's about it for daytime TV. So I always bring a book or my PSP. Today I brought "The Royal Road to Card Magic" and "Three Stylin".

I love learning magic. But I hardly every practice anything consistently. My goal when I started this blog was to work through "Card College". It worked out Ok. At some point. in time I realized that no matter what I learn, no matter how awesome the routine may be, it's going to feel and look clunky. Until I learn to work my personality/persona into the routine the performance will always be my second best. So my plan is to learn and rework "Three Stylin" to my personality. Through patter mainly.

Strat-O-Spheres Informercial - DAY 45 of 365

And here is the Pitch!

Reworking the Me

So I had a "Duh" moment today. I have been doing The 4-Hour Body diet and reading through the book. I like it. It's simple. So simple I made it complicated!

No dairy is one of the rules. I don't drink milk normally and before this I made myself oatmeal in the mornings so I didn't usually have any milk for cereal. But I eat yogurt all the time. Now yogurt day is Sunday because thats my cheat day. Homemade lunches consist of a microwave vegetable steamer bag, Chicken breast, and Lentils or beans. Last week I overslept a bit and figured I would eat out. Mexican food works great so I got the Adobada and had them hold the rice and give me more lettuce. I happily ate it without once thinking "Hey, isn't that cheese covering those refried beans?". Then I was out shopping on the weekend and stopped into Carl's Jr where I knew they had a low carb cheese burger, Lettuce wrapped instead of buns. This morning I am checking the authors blog and see a post on typos links and questions about the 4 Hour Body book. As I am reading the whole cheese thing hit me. I hadn't even realized I was eating stuff I shouldn't. I panicked about screwing everything up for a second, remembered the weight bump from last week, and visualized my Google Health weight chart.

 I Have lost 6 Lbs. In almost 3 weeks. Thats not too shabby. I fit into my clothes better. I have been working out and I can actually see a difference. I did not take a start picture and I am kicking myself for not doing that. My "Binge", "Cheat", or "Reverse Lent" days haven't been to crazy and I've followed his advice for how to lesson the impact it has on my fat and weight gain. Three weeks! I really need to take "before" pictures. Right now I weigh myself every night around 9PM. Every Tuesday I take my arm, thigh, hips (widest part below my waist), and waist (at the navel) measurements. I have lost nothing on my waist or hips, left bicep, and right thigh. I gained half a inch on my left thigh and lost half a inch on my right bicep. More than likely I just measure badly so I purchased a Orbitape Body Mass Tape Measure. My next steps are going to be seeing if my insurance will cover a BodPod bodyfat test and to see a doctor. I haven't seen a doctor in over 20 years so maybe a checkup is due.

On other topics I have been playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. I love it, my girlfriend loves it and so does her sister. Get it. I have Dead Space 2 coming so I need to finish the first one. I purchased a gaming mouse to use for WoW so my brother and I could do PVP arenas. I have a headset on the way so I can be heard on Steam during Left 4 Dead 2. I could go on and on but all the links might be annoying. Next time I will try to talk magic a bit also.

Trying this again ...

OK, I haven't posted in over a year. So many games since then. A few magic experiments and a transition to a smart phone. Let's see if doing this from my phone and desktop helps.

Day 8 or 365 - Epic Neocube Feat! (Ipod touch giveaway!)

This one just about made me Gag, but so far each day has been good.