Undecideds Are Stupid

So the focus on last night's presidential debate was in part on the "undecided" voters who were part of the present question askers. I won't get into it completely now - I'll save it for a longer post - but man, if you are not decided by now, you MUST be a moron. I'd be shocked if even Nader would claim that McCain and Obama are even remotely the same choice. So what's holding you up?
If you haven't decided by now, perhaps you should just give it up. Your opinions are useless anyway.

I have included an image in my left column showing the most current electoral college tallies for the November races based on polls and the analysis from Electoral Vote. Last "election" I was glued to this site for days before the election. It ended up being wrong, but that only goes further to proving that the election was a hoax anyway. Even Zogby, the night before the election called it for Kerry (I should provide a source huh - but really, who cares... he lost a lot of credibility).

I'll likely remove the image after the election of Obama. Yeah, I am calling it. Because a vote for McCain is a vote for Bush and a vote for Palin is a vote for the local beauty queen dufus, and even delusional evangelicals MUST be smarter than those options.

Torbrand the Sneaksy Hobbit

If case you didn't know, I play Lord of the Rings Online. I love most things Tolkien related and being able to role play IN actual Middle Earth (well, you know... a computer representation of) is amazingly cool. I believe a lot of WoW player think it's stupid and lacks features, but they are tools who appear to miss the point. Better for the rest of us I suppose.
I don't play very often as it is a role playing game essentially and requires a decent amount of time for each session to accomplish anything, so I tend to try to play for chunks of no less than 3 hours and a few times have squeezed in about 8+ hours. With my job and the requirement of getting to work early, the essentially means I play during vacations or some long weekend. I even put together a special computer specifically for this game - only had to buy a new CPU, additional ram and a kick ass video card to do it. I'm also a lifer, so I never have to pay for my time again after the initial $199 I paid for play time. This means I'm good until the game dies away. I just hope it sticks around for a good long time. I'd been waiting for this since Sierra originally started to develop a version around 10 years ago.

I played this summer connected to a video projector. I'm not sure there's a better way to play a video game (or do anything video related), but it sure was a pain in the ass to set up each time. Finally though I figured out how to get it to diosplay on the TV. It's only a 36" CRT, but it does fine. I don't run at a super high resolution anyway, not wanting to risk the nice framerates and turned up graphics effects - man, seeing the tall grass swaying in the wind while I'm running through it is just cool as anything. That doesn't mean I play more - school has started, so I haven't actually played in over a month, but soon... soon!
Mines of Moria, the first pay for expansion comes out shortly. I'm not going to get it right away. I know I can get it now for a deal (I think), but I believe it's really for higher level characters and my primary character (see below) is only level 19 right now. Like I said, no rush. It's Middle Earth for crying out loud... enjoy it or leave. :)

I got an email this morning from the peeps at LotRO about the new ability to have sigs for the forums with dtat blocks for out characters, and those also include a "likeness". Still very cool - though I don't post in the forums much. Even cooler, I can post an image of the sig stat block elsewhere... so it made for a good excuse to create another entry here and show off my Hobbit Burglar.

If I know you and you are interested in playing, let me know. You can play a trial of it, but if I hook you up with an invite, and you buy, I get a 30 day free play time cert... which I don't need (lifetime membership, remember?) but I can transfer... thus adding a month to your play time, unless you go lifetime as well. I'd say you could come watch the game in action, but well... hey, if you are interested in that, perhaps something could be worked out. If I don't know you - wow, thanks for reading. Check youtube or summat, I'm sure there are lots of videos posted. I tried to capture some video while playing and it didn't go well. If you are already playing, tell me during gameplay that you read this :)... then come help me on a quest.

Shake It Up

I'm doing P90X to get myself back into a more athletic shape. I started this past June and will be ending in two weeks (had to restart the penultimate week because I was dead tired and sore after the first week back to school - this past week). One important thing I learned this time around was the importance of protein. Last summer during fitquest I didn't supplement my running and other workouts with protein, so I lost a lot of weight (~25 pounds), but didn't really gain much muscle. So this time I hooked up with protein drink mix. Gold Standard 100% Whey is what I eneded up going with after asking questions and checking the ingredients. I mostly have the Double Rich Chocolate flavor. It's actually quite good, but has an aroma that isn't all pleasant to all. In fact, my breath afterward usually makes the wife cringe. Wanting to be able to mix with other thins than water (I didn't tend to mix with milk) I later got the Strawberry-Banana flavor. Not too bad either. No great, but certainly passable. Smells a little better too - though the wife does not like bananas, so I can't really win now can I? :)

The first two phases of the program limit carbs a lot and all phases limit fruit in the diet as well. Well, I didn't follow the diet too clasely. If I did, I'd have definitely lost more fat, but I think I did pretty well so far. I'll be posting the pre and post pix when I'm officially done. I did avoid a lot of fruits, which is hard for me, but I stil lfind it hard to get in a ton of veggies - they are expensive to buy fresh and we don't like most frozen options - or the fresh go bad before we finish. I did try tyo eat a lot of cucumbers and lettuce from our garden.

3rd phase, however, more carbs are needed. Not sure it really factors in, but I decided to turn my drink into a shake. It allows me to turn an 8oz protein drink into about a 20 ouce mini meal after my workout. Mmm-mm. It's some good stuff, and here's my recipe. Nothing special, I'm sure there are a ton out there just like it, but hey here's my take:

Chris' Choco-Banana-Protein Shake
1 scoop of Gold Standard 100% Whey - Double Rich Chocolate
1/2 scoop of Gold Standard 100% Whey - Strawberry Banana
1 Medium banana (best if frozen first)
8 oz Milk (skim)
2 Tbps Dark Chocolate Dreams (brand All natural Peanut Butter & Co.)
6 Ice Cubes

In a blender, add the first 5 indredients and blend until smooth. You might need to stop it once to push down any ingredients that got stuck to the sides of the blender.
Keeping the blender running, drop in once ice cube at a time and continue to blend on high until you don't hear any chunky sounds, perhaps doing a few sustained pulses to chop up any last ice chunks.

Pour into a tall glass and drink as is or use a straw.

Nutritional info:
538 Calories
Fat 15g
Saturated 3.5g
Protein 51.5g
Carbohydrates 55.6g
Fiber 5.1g
Starch 6.3g
Sugars 35.4g

Try it and post comments on how you feel about it. Unfortunately, you can't just buy a couple scoops of the Whey mix, but you might be able to get sample packs at the local vitamin shoppe or gnc or somewhere. You could also use a similar powder mix of a different brand. I'm certain it won't be too different, though the nutritional info would likely be different. The kicks Nutella's ass. It's different, but common. I did make this with Nutella and it tasted just great as well, so you could substitute that as well. I have also done it with just peanut butter. I use Simply Jif because it has less sugar and salt and less of the additives or others.

Are You Training for a Marathon?

Aug 20th was a changed day. We were supposed to be gaming that night - moving gaming back to Wednesday nights after a summer of Monday night gaming - we're dangerous like that. ;) Anyway, it meant less pressure to get my act together for gaming, and since Violin lessons are now on Tuesdays, I wasn't too worried about making sure to get a practice session in the day before a lesson as usual. I also didn't feel like doing my Kenpo X workout (oh, I never mentioned here I'm doing P90X - saving it up for the final report :) ) so I decided to go for a run. My normal run is about an hour - run down to the bike path and keep going until I get to about 30 minutes then turn back. Great plan for forcing the full hour and usually MORE, as the return home has a nasty uphill: battery park. Ugh!
The weather was perfect. Perfect!
At the 30 minute mark I actually ran (not literally) into my violin teacher walking the opposite direction. I stopped and we chatted for a bit and I continued. I figured I'd go for another 5-10 minutes... then about 5-10 minutes later I realized "hey I feel pretty good", so I decided to try to run to the Burlington-Colchester line, which is about the middle of the bridge over the Winooski River on the bike path.
Well, as I was about as mile away from there, I started to wander in the mind again. I realized I was pushing my luck - well, pushing my muscles. It still felt good, but I knew I had to run back home, so I started to worry, or more so wonder, "what if?" OK, I could turn back now. Nah. I'm to OC for that, I'd feel like I didn't try. That happens nearly every year when we hike the White Mountains. I'll be feeling like I just want to get to the next hut and bypass some side-hikes that either get me up a peak that "counts" or to some neat views. This year I didn't do that. If it had a geographical name and it was in my way, I climbed it. It only ended up adding perhaps an extra half-to-full mile, none easy, and more time, but it was worth it.
So, not continuing on the run was out of the question. Then I thought "hey, I could just keep running until I couldn't any longer. I've neve done that before. I have NO idea how long that would be. I joked in my mind that I'd end up in Canada. Hahaha. Then I'd just call Karen for a ride home. Well, turns out that would have been a bad idea . I didn't have my phone and didn't have money or well, anything besides my clothes, mp3 player and a house key. So I set the bridge as my goal, thinking "hey, round trip, that'll be close to a half marathon.

I ran. By about 58 minutes, I got to the bridge just as what appeared to be a larger group of young girl soccer players out with their coach on a bike ride coming the opposite direction. I stopped to rest for a minute to let them pass. I didn't realize they would stop on the bridge next to me. I was feeling like I might block other traffic, so I turned and started running again. I just barely passed the lead and they started up again, slowly all passing me by. I kept going. It was my thing, typically, unlike most activities, when I'm running I don't care too much about who passes me. I was passed a couple times by the same woman who was running with her two dogs. She looked older than me, but she looked more fit and was wearing what appeared to be a commemorative t-shirt for some running race or marathon. I know I can't compete with a competative distance runner. I'm a sprinter at heart.

At about 1:30 into the run, I realized my ass was really starting to hurt. My legs were sore too, but nothing like my ass. I noticed I was running with a straighter leg stride. I decided to run with my knees up some more. All the while I was trying to keep my heartrate within the range my polar HR watch was telling me to keep it - 164BPM being the top it set for optimum performance. Well, that wasn't going well. I was more hovering around 167-172. The knees up did allevieate the butt pain, but it did tire me out a little more. I kept it up to stretch out the glutes and then went back.
Something extremely annoying about the bike path - no water fountains on the path. At least not on the part I was on. WTF is that all about? Encourage people to get out their and be active, but don't give them an easy way to hydrate?!?! I don't carry water on me when I run because I can't satand having a bottle bouncing around on me and I don't have a decent secure way to strap it on anyway. I see some people carry their bottles. No way. Not for me. I need to be able to loosen up my hands when I run. It promotes better running form.

Anyway, I'm convinced I was dehydrated and that caused a lot of the muscle pain and fatigue. I had to drop down to a fast walk for about 30 seconds 3 times on the bike path. I was burnt. When I got to the pain park at the foot of college street I could finally get to a fountain. I stopped the timer and got some water. Whew... that was good.
Then starts the rough part. Up the hill to Battery St and then up the Battery Park path. Uh, I could run TO the path, but I had to walk up the path. It was just way too much, if I wanted to make it home in one peice. Keep in mind, my knees aren't so great and I always worry about weakening them to the point that they just give out.

I got up the hill and ran back to the base of my block, at which time I ran harder - as much of a sprint as I could muster - to the end, where I live. Done. Stretch time and some moments to reflect on accomplishing the longest run I have ever done, both distance and time-wise. I spent a good 10 minutes stretching outside the front door then went in for my protein drink. All said and done it was just over 11.5 miles. Not quite the half marathon I thought it was, but still... easily 3 miles more than normal for me. I do suspect that the measurement of the run is off though, but what can I say? I believe I used to typically run 8 miles in about 1:20 or so. It's all iffy.

Here is the map of my run if you wanna see it's glory. The masochist in me thinks I should try to do this perhaps once a week. Eventually it'll become a lot easier and perhaps I'll build it longer. I'd love to be able to run a solid marathon one day. I might try to make a team to do the Vermone City Marathon next year, so that's a good start. Watching the olympians do it in the under 3 hour time makes me shiver knowing that I'd be lucky in my current level to finish in 5 hours.

In any event, it was a run in the right direction and proof that my fitness level is not too bad.

The X Factor

So, I just finished watching Xanadu for the first time in possibly 10 years or more. Not sure for sure how long it's been. This movie has been a favorite of mine (when I remember) since I was 10 or 11. Obviously Olivia Newton John (1) was the primary reason at the time but E.L.O. supplying the bulk of the soundtrack was also a big thing which also fed a little of my inspriation in the electronic side of music through the years.

Anyway, is it weird that a cheesy ass movie like Xanadu could still have the same effect on a 36 year old dude that it had when he was 11? Sad movies don't make me cry - or they RARELY do. Movies with needfully happy endings do choke me up.

So, have your laughs at my expense - just remember I did share. And I still hold that I did not like when OLJ got all tight and leathery in Grease. To this day I still like the innocent and angelic look.

All that said - the movie is pretty lame. Most musicals are lame. All the added feature songs and stuff to showcase "talent" and embellish the stories. Yuk. Not my thing. However, I will watch it again, and likely numerous times before I drop dead.

I Thought Vermont Was Friendly

"I thought Vermont was friendly"

Believe it or not, I was told that quote yesterday by someone from (I'm guessing) Florida. I'm guessing Florida because that was where the license plate on her car was from. Her car that was parked behind our cars blocking them in the driveway. Which we only noticed when we needed to get out to pick up our Wings.

Yeah, we walk out to get a move on, guessing another 10 minutes for them to be ready and about a 5-10 minute drive.

As you can see in the image, nicely recreated if I may say so myself, there are 3! empty spots in the lot. If anyone can point out ANY logic for why one would even remotely think her parking where she did was the right thing, or even reasonable.
But what followed was even more strangely stupid.
After we walked around to the other people's who share the parking lot apartments to see if it was of their friends, to no avail, we called the towing company (scumbags in their own rights) to tow the car away. As Karen was on the phone, a girl came out of the apartment with a gaggle of other students and walked toward the car.
I asked "is this your car?" She said yes. I then sorta laid into her, "are you insane? Why would you park blocking us in like that. There are open spots and you chose to park behind two cars blocking them in?!"
"I'm sorry" she said. But frankly, I wanted to her to feel stupid and ridiculed, or at least embarrassed. She didn't. She had NO conscience about it.
"I figured you could just parallel park out of the spot."
Say what?!? We were parked about 6 inches from our front car and she was about 1.5 feet behind us. Perhaps I could have made it just fine - I'm not so great at the parallel parking. But who is this moron to tell me I have to do such an extreme thing just to get out of MY space???

"I'm trying to be nice." She said. As if I did something to her and she was doing me a favor. In sane. Followed by "I though Vermont was friendly" and even "I thought Vermont was nice" while I was still trying to get her to understand that I didn't understand why she would choose to park behind us when there were open spots - not to mention it is a private lot where she had no right to be parked in in the first place.

It's funny. People give me a strange look when I comment that I'm more or less a misanthrope, but people like this and situations like this only prove that people are stupid and can only really be trusted to do the most selfish things in the end. I feel like I need to track her parents down and slap them silly then ask them if they feel comfortable having raised such a stupid child. Then find out which college she goes to so I can make sure I never recommend that anyone ever apply to a place that would accept such an idiot into their student body. Yet another case of entitlement strikes again.

If you are a parent, please teach your child/ren than they are not infact the only important people around and that they are not exempt from some common decency and that if they pull this kind of crap on me, I will lay into them like you apparently never did.

Firefox Lightweights

Yeah, been a while since last post. That'll be fixed soon.
Anyway, Firefox 3 officially came out as the final stable release a couple weeks ago. I had been waiting MADLY for it for a long time. Seriously! My Firefox 2 would consistently, after being open for a couple days use up approaching 850 MB of memory. Almost a gig. That was a year ago or so. I got fed up and instead of reinstalling my system (come on, next to moving, I rate reinstalling my systems up there as the worst activities) I bought more ram. I jumped the lappy from 1GB to 2GB. I figured that would help. It sorta did, but frankly, it just gave the old FF2 extra headroom to pillage. Eventually, by late may, it would be eating up 1.2GB or memory.

In all this time, if I wanted to play a game (mainly Lord of the Rings Online - I'm usually Torband [Hobbit Burlgar] on the Elendilmir server, I have great screenshots to post) I'd shut down Firefox altogether to free up resources.

Blah blah blah. So FF3 came out and I was excited. I had already downlaoded beta 5 or so, but installed it seperately so I could maintain FF2 and just test. First, FF3 didn't seem to have a working version of the Session Manager etxtension. Errp. Game over. I live by that extension. You'll understand when I get to my point. The truth is that I believe it did at the time work, but I didn't dig deep enough or look properly. So I waited. I practically live in my web browser, so putting a beta in place is not my way any longer. I did back in the days. I would happily install the latest Netscape and Mozilla versions and jumped on Firefox as soon as it was publicly available. Anything to not us Internet Exploder.

Now I've had Firefox 3 installed for a couple weeks and have to say I like it and I'm happy. My system does run better now and my memory use is back down to something I'd consider acceptible. I just read a review on FF3 that isn't a bad one, but doesn't glow. I don't care about that. To each his/her own, really. What cought my eyes for real though was that he was commenting on running 4 tabs. Um... what's that? 4 Tabs???? What kind of web user is that? Am I really just way the hell out there? Let me explain. I currently have 37 Firefox windows open and a total count of 144 tabs. Yes, you read that right. 144 tabs. I believe the most I've had Firefox 3 take up memory-wise has been in the 550MB range. That's still a lot, but I'm also not a moron. I expect it will take a lot, but that's less than half of previous, and frankly, previously, I'd try to stay under 34 windows and about 130 tabs. I have noticed that CPU use is a bigger bottleneck, but my system still runs better with Firefox 3 than previously.

What's the real problem? All the jackasses who design web sites with unimportant java and flash content. All the tools who have to embed multiple youtube videos into the pages. I have some of those things on sites I make, but frankly, I'm just not like all the idiots on MySpace who actually think that using every tool at your disposal on your page makes you look cooler or like you know what the hell you're doing - because ... wait for it, you don't have a friggin clue. Just because there is more bandwidth doesn't mean every visitor wants your lame-ass example of design or layout. Ahem - I'm getting off topic.

I suppose the point of this was to point out that in my opinion, if your idea of surfing the web is having a couple windows open and a few tabs, you are in no position to really talk about the efficiency of th software. The original overhead of the software is always getting higher and higher. My first PC - an IBM PS/2 Model 55 - has (I still have it) a 40 megabyte drive. That's one long mp3 song and certainly couldn't fit most operating systems - barely even any modern linux distros. The fact that his 4 tab Firefox 3 experience chokes up 150MB of ram or so when my 37 window/144 tab instance is currently using **485,292KB (485MB) shows that is scales up well and has certainly solved the memory leak issue, and frankly, that's almost good enough a reason to upgrade.

In case you're still one of those people who are still using Internet Explorer, get over it and just get Firefox 3. I gain nothing from it other than one more person not being lazy and sticking with the default browser or M$ fanboy (only a little better than an Apple fanboy) who always claims "Microsoft just makes software that works" (hahavistahahaha). Of course, I also highly advocate to those Windows (and even OSX posers) out there with an extra machine or older laptop to install linux on it and give it a serious try. Try to not put it on an already broken system, because then you'll just blame linux and that's stupid.

**the memory useage will go up, and possibly down from time to time, but I've fun it for 5 day without a restart and it didn't go above 550MB or so.