2006.06.07
Watched the movie "Drumline" last night. For the most part it's by the numbers young man from the streets triumphing over adversity stuff, but the drumline duel at the end is worth the price of admission, and the Deleted Scenes had an additional cadence round for each of the two lines.
I don't miss marching band so much, because it was a lot of work and a lot of pressure not to screw up. Still, it was a lot of camaraderie. My high school band had a bit of the same "play cool popular music vs educate the students and the masses" tension... or rather, it was cool the years I was there, but then, just like in the movie, when the previous second-in-command gets the helm, it's all classical and other pretentious stuff. Terrible, terrible move, save that for the damn Wind Ensemble and let the Marching Band jam.
Youtube.com has some drumline videos. I'd love to get a CD with the coolest, most bassdrum heavy cadences.
Diet of the Moment
One guy is trying to eat Nuthin' but Monkey Chow. A work in progress, with videos! The first one when he finds out what the stuff actually tastes like, and how bad the week is going to be is pretty funny. (thanks FoSO)
In other dieting news, I was starting to read this BoingBoing entry about a guy who lost 50 pounds and thought... huh, sounds like the Hacker's Diet... and sure enough it was. It looks like over the next week or so he'll be posting more and more simplified explanation of the diet (admittedly the Hacker's Diet webpage goes on and on about some topics, like computing weighted averages, when all most people really need is to use the provided tools.)
I've hit my first plateau the past few days, with (what I think is) weight loss less than the plus/minus error of my scale. Also last night with my UU Covenant Group, for the most part I ate pretty well (couscous, a few small drumsticks, green salad, and strawberries) but the calories are more guesswork than I like.
Now that I have some quantified estimates of calorie intake and strict daily weight measurement, I should be able to test if my theory that a day's eating's impact is felt a few days later is true.
The one thing about calorie monitoring is for the first time some conventional wisdom makes sense to me. If, on average (and I think that was the sticking point, because I think people's intake varies widely) you're eating 500 more calories than you burn, you're going to gain a pound a week. And while 2000-2200 seems like a lot of wiggle room to eat with, the day is long with a lot of opportunities to snack, and you're probably not noticing how often you're grabbing just a little something...
#1 side effect of early dieting: I can't stop thinking about, and sometimes boring others with, being on a diet.