Turkey Meatloaf

I've decided to start eating a lot healthier. I've done a great job keeping calories low in the past several months, but I'm still not eating right. The staple of my diet is Lean Cuisine pizza. Sure, it's only 350 calories or so, but it's ridiculously high in sodium. It's also pretty much void of any significant nutritional value. ...and this is one of my better meals. You don't wanna know what I can do with Spaghettios and a packet of cheese from a box of Mac and Cheese.

So this weekend I bought a crockpot and around $200 in groceries. I've actually got fresh vegetables and spices, milk and butter...things I have to actually cut and mix and stir and cook before I can eat.

I sorted through 5 or 6 recipes of things I want to cook in the next week or two. These are all meals that are easy to prepare, very low in sodium, low in fat and high in protein and/or carbs. Then I bought all of the ingredients so that I'll have 'em on hand. So now I have absolutely no more excuses.

Today I made turkey meatloaf. It was fun and delicious. I feel pretty damned accomplished. It took half an hour to make (and around 8 hours to cook), but now I've got food for another 3-4 meals. Click here for the recipe, in case anybody wants to try it. Later this week I'll be making vegetarian chili.

Lifetime Fitness! Woot!

For the past few months, I've been getting the advertisements for the new Lifetime Fitness club that just opened up in Mason, OH. I've ignored them, for the most part, because I thought it would be more than I could afford. I am leery of any polished marketing material that asserts a "low, one-time fee" is required. But when my current gym (Gold's) put a sign up saying that my membership rates will go up once my contract is up, I'd had enough.

So I took a tour this week. The place is gigantic!! The weight room is at least 2-3x the size of my current gym and they have at least 3 or 4 of the most popular machines. Plus all the machines are brand new and of a higher quality than what I'm used to. They also have lots of machines I never knew existed. I've now done a full cycle of training at Lifetime and had some of the best workouts of my life - and I've been working out for almost 20 years. It's also a 24 x 7 club! I can go work out at 9PM and not feel like I'm getting the bum's rush at 9:30.

Lifetime has a restaurant and spa on location, a few indoor swimming pools, an outdoor pool, an indoor soccer field, raquetball courts, 2 full-size basketball courts, a climbing wall and every single amenity I could possibly ask for. I'm not easily impressed and I was blown away by the tour and by the staff. Oh and did I mention I'll be paying less than at my current gym? Happy!!

If you live in/near Mason, check it out. It's truly heads and tails above every other club I've ever joined.

I'm still looking for a workout partner. :P

The Simpsons Movie

I went to see the Simpsons Movie at a midnight showing this past Thursday. In short, it was good!!

I had secret hopes that it would be outstanding. When I went to see South Park: The Movie, I spent nearly the entire time wiping tears from my face because I laughed uncontrollably to the point where it might have been better defined as a "convulsion." I wanted that again. But like I said, it was good - solid.

There was a lot of slap-stick comedy and many laugh-out-loud moments. It was on par with a very good episode of the Simpsons throughout.

By the end though, I really wanted it to end - and how it ended didn't matter (like most Simpson episodes, really). I was full of the Simpsons. And actually, I do have a bone to pick: The way Homer and Bart ride the motorcycle around and up the interior of the dome at the end really offended the physicist in me. If you think this is a spoiler, you're wrong.

If you love the Simpsons TV show, you'll love the movie. I give it a B+.

Han Shot First

In the original theatrical version of Star Wars, there's a scene where Han Solo is seated at a table with a bounty hunter. The bounty hunter has a blaster pointed directly at Han Solo while they discuss a debt that Solo owes Jabba the Hutt. While they're talking, Solo gets his blaster out and shoots the bounty hunter under the table, preemptively.

Some 20-odd-years later, Lucas later revised the scene for the DVD release such that the bounty hunter shoots and misses Solo (at point blank range) and then Solo returns fire and kills him.

For all of the specifics, check out the Wikipedia page devoted to this subject.

This is extremely irritating for (at least) two reasons. (1) I, like many people, believe that films are works of art that shouldn't change after they have been released. (2) The change to this scene implies it is immoral (or at least un-hero-worthy) to kill someone while you have a chance if you're know they're going to kill you.

This is one of many, many "enhancements" that Lucas added to the original Star Wars trilogy. The enhanced version has got fancier explosion, better special effects and bloopers removed. To add insult to injury, until 2006 you couldn't even BUY the original unaltered Star Wars movies on DVD.

Oh and that brings me to what prompted me to post about this. In the photo above, here's Lucas wearing a Han Shot First t-shirt. ...And he's talking to Harrison Ford (Han Solo). I think he's going for irony, but really he just makes me dislike him more. As my friend Wayne put it, he shit all over his sterling legacy by creating the new Star Wars prequel trilogy (the number of errors in continuity between the prequel and original Star Wars is stunning). He forces his fans to endure insult after insult.

If you see me wearing my Han Shot First t-shirt, please don't beat me up. Thanks.

My Simpsons Avatar

So today I finally broke down and decided to get one of those nifty images of me all Simsonified. They didn't have many body types. All they had was Homer-fat and super-buff.

Anyways, here it is. I'm wearing a t-shirt with an atom on it because I feel like being pretentious.

Oh and has anybody seen that show Human Weapon on the History Channel? It's about these two guys (Jason Chambers, a mixed martial artist and Bill Duff, a football player / wrestler) who tour the world examining different country's martial arts.

It was pretty interesting. The first episode was in Thailand and naturally they were studying Muay Thai. Muay Thai is a very practical fighting art - lots of elbows and knees and blood and people shouting "Ouch! My fucking spleen!" in Thai.

The format of the show is a little ....broken. The premise of Human Weapon is that the duo (Jason and Bill) spend the episode training in the week's martial art in order to actually participate in a "real" fight with an expert at the end of the episode.

First of all, I've seen Jason Chambers fight before and he's a competent fighter. I have no idea who Bill Duff is, but he's not a martial artist. I dare say that any good martial artist would take him apart like he's made of Legos. Big and slow (even if strong) = Very Ouchy in the martial arts world.

So at the end of the Thailand episode of Human Weapon, Jason Chambers "fought" a Muay Thai champion - except that it was painfully, painfully obvious that this Muay Thai champion would have annihilated Mr. Chambers if given the permission to go all out. It was embarrassing to watch as the duo and their trainer tried to come up with viable strategies for success and doubly embarrassing to watch the final fight.

I beg you, Human Weapon producers - drop the current fight from the show format. Give Jason Chambers a super hot and super deadly female co-host. Have them train in the art like they do now. Then end each show with an exhibition featuring two experts in the art.