Training and Cinephiling

Yup, believe it or not, I ran again. Still fairly pathetic, but better than my last run. I'm running in the Lincoln Half-Marathon this next May, and I have this notion in my head that I'm going to actually train for it and be in decent shape by then. Not an unreachable goal, but one that will take a lot of work and a different mindset than what I currently have. I need to break my junk food diet and actually go running regularly if I want to lose the rubber padding that I've got all around my body. I've lost weight before; then I gain it all back. A vicious cycle. Yes, I've written all of this before so I don't think I need to say anymore about it.



I watched an interesting movie this weekend: Downfall. It's a German film about the last days of Hitler as the Russians close in on Berlin. I'm on a foreign film roll lately, watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last weekend and then Downfall this weekend. It takes a while for me to get used to the subtitles. I always feel like I'm missing everything while I'm busy reading the dialog. I recommend them both. It was hard to watch Dragon Tattoo because I had just finished the book. So I spent the entire time thinking, 'this wasn't in the book,' or 'they left out that whole section!' I'll have to watch it again after I've been removed from the book for a while longer. I'm looking forward to seeing the English version that's coming out soon. Another one that's on the schedule is the latest Sherlock Holmes flick. With a slight bit of Kevin Baconing without any actual Kevin Bacon: Noomi Rapace, who plays Lisbeth Salander in the Dragon movies is in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Should be fun.

All right, enough of this, I'm off to watch the football game.

The Awful Qwest

Just had a terrible experience at the Qwest Fuel in Kearney, Nebraska on the south side of Interstate 80. We pulled in to get gas and the pump was slower than molasses. I should have known something else was going to go wrong. About ten minutes later when our tank was full I released the handle and pulled the nozzle out... and gas kept flowing. I wasn't sure what to do so I juggled the damn thing while trying to catch all the gas that was pouring out. Like I was trying to contain a bottle of ranch that was leaking or something. Dumbass. I finally had enough sense to look for a shutoff button. Not seeing one, I asked Wanda to signal the workers in the building and they finally shut the pump down.

Now my hands reek of gasoline. At least nothing exploded. Lesson? Stay away from Qwest Fuel in Kearney, Nebraska.

Did I Speak Too Soon?

Gizmodo says: Don't buy a french press!

Crap. Maybe I shouldn't buy a french press. Then again, I'm not out to become a coffee guru who intensely analyzes coffee extraction and all the wondrous characteristics of the caffeine I'm about to consume. I also don't want to chew my coffee. I'd be willing to noodle around a bit with a french press and see what I came up with. If my efforts should fail miserably and I'm left with soggy coffee chaw, I can chalk the whole thing up to experience. Onward!

Coffee Coffee!

Just for a brief moment, I'd like to extoll the virtues of Sonic Drive-in's coffee. It's becoming one of my go-to selections for a quick cup of coffee. Slightly alarming, however, is the fact that any time I get a cup it's coming with a sausage croissant sandwich and tater tots. I'm working on my first heart attack, you know.

Anyway, I really enjoy their coffee plain. It's got a nice smooth flavor (no! I'm not talking about cigarettes!) and I'm content to sip it without any milk, creamer, or sugar. It always seems kind of oily to me but that doesn't bother me. Although a pot of coffee brewed with a stick of butter in it may not be a bad idea . . .

The other places around Lincoln that I'll frequent for coffee are:

Scooter's Coffeehouse
The Mill
Starbucks

I'm not a coffee snob by any means. I make no great demands of my coffee or of the places I get it from. I'm sure there's lots of places around here that I can get good coffee from. These are just the venues I go to most of the time.

I would rate coffee from The Mill the highest on the list, even above Sonic. But The Mill is missing one key item: the drive-thru window! Don't get me wrong, I've long been a patron of The Mill and they make good coffee and good coffeeish drink concoctions. But speed is not high on their list of priorities. Also, I often get the feeling when I go in there that I've spoiled their hippie/indie sanctum or interrupted some grand discussion on the benefits of skinny jeans by walking in and asking for a Crowbar.

Scooters coffee is good and they have quite a few drive-thru options here in town. They always have a different flavor of the day but lately I've found myself getting their medium roast. Their coffees are good, but they always tend to have a certain aftertaste to them that I can't quite explain at the moment. I'll have to write down what it reminds me of the next time I go there.

Starbucks. Oh, Starbucks. I love Starbucks but I never go there for their plain ol' coffee. Espresso drinks? Yes. Coffee? No. I've always found it to be extremely bitter and no amount of doctoring has been able to save a cup of their joe for me. But, some people love their coffee. To each their own.

I've heard that a french press is one of the best ways to experience coffee so I would like to try that someday. We've been employing our trusty and drippy Mr. Coffee at home for a few years now and he's done his job admirably. Perhaps it's time to give him a tag-team partner and pick up a french press. Until we win the lottery and can buy a Keurig machine. :-)

The Fat Will Rule the Earth

Yup. It's that time again. Time for me to blog about running, getting in shape, losing weight, blah blah blah. I've done it before, I'm doing it now, and I'll probably do it in the future.

I am fat. Obese. Working on my first heart attack and trying my damnedest to shut down my pancreas. I seriously need to lose weight or I'm going to be reaping the bitter fruit of my life of excess eating and sparse exercise plan. I've been a yo-yo dieter with Weight Watchers for about four years now. I'll get motivated and work really hard for a week or two and then I lose it. I blow up like Oprah and it sucks.

Anyway, I went for a run tonight, as you can see below. It was cold outside. And my run still looks pitiful.

Reading More With an E-Reader?

Are Tablets and E-Readers Responsible for a Rebirth of Reading?

This is an article from Gizmodo (one of my more frequent tech news haunts) responding to a presentation from The Economist. I haven't viewed the presentation yet (shame on me!) but I just wanted to share a thought about reading. Also, I haven't posted on here in a long time, so it's about time I put something up!

My wife reads a lot. She has for as long as I've known her. We recently got her a Kindle Fire and she loves it. She's been reserving and checking out e-books like crazy from our local library's digital collection (Lincoln City Libraries). Owning a tablet/e-reader hasn't made her read more. I think she's still reading about the same amount that she used to.

I, on the other hand, do not read a lot. I used to, back when I was a kid. But that was before the Internet and before I became more immersed in video games, TV, and watching sports. Sure, back in the day we had a couple Tandy computers (with my favorite game, Red Storm Rising, which was awesome), network television, a Sega Genesis, and a Super Nintendo. But I read voraciously. Through high school I still read a lot, but my intake was tapering. I've been on a steady decline since then. Now, I'm lucky to read one or two books a year. I still haven't finished The Lord of the Rings and I started that my senior year in high school! Well, I've stopped and restarted a couple times since then, but I'm still mired in the dreck of Sam and Frodo plodding towards Mordor. I will finish! One day, I will finish. I think I'm on about the fifth or sixth Harry Potter book. I've been working on that series since 2008. Dracula is another book I've been on for about two-and-a-half years. But there is still hope for me.

Enter, the iPad. I just finished my first exclusively e-read book-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I hammered it out in two weeks. I read a little bit on one Friday afternoon, and then I finished the book the following weekend. I'm hooked on reading on my iPad. Perhaps I should give a little background: I've always been a little hesitant to read on an e-reader/tablet. Even though I've turned into a terribly lazy reader, I long held to the belief that I could never get into a book on an e-reader because it wouldn't be the same experience as reading a physical book. True, I'm not holding a book or turning the pages, but this last book converted me. After a little adjusting, I have no problem reading on my tablet. So, I guess you could say that I have been reading a bit more lately because of my e-reader/tablet. I don't think my iPad has caused me to read more. I think it's a combination of the convenience of constantly having the iPad with me and a desire to start reading more. A team effort. It's much easier to carry your library books with you on a slim tablet then it is to lug around physical books. The ease of access and use has certainly contributed to the uptick in my literary consumption.

So there you have it. As a bonus, here's the list of the books I've read this year and the book I'm currently reading:

Freakonomics
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Time Machine

Nook Color: In No Man's Land

This is my first post from my recently rooted Nook Color. It's been a fun (and fairly easy) process so far. I've ironed out a few things but as with all unofficial technology ventures, things aren't going to work just like they should. Even official, unrooted devices have plenty of problems. I'm having a lot of fun with it so far and I'm hoping to get Honeycomb to run on it soon. Out.