The eXercise Files: Season 1, Pilot

I have struggled with maintaining an active enough lifestyle to balance out my diet since high school.  In high school, we were required to take some sort of exercise-requiring class every semester.  I made it onto the cross country skiing team in junior year, by nature of showing up and buying the necessary equipment, but mostly I took classes like Archery, Conditioning, Ultimate Frisbee, and Introduction to the Outdoors.  Looking back, it seems like I was training for the Hunger Games.

I like the freedom that biking allows me, I can bike to Mount Vernon from my apartment with only about 100-150 yards of street biking.  I can bike up to see my brother and his family in posh Bethesda.  DC has a few neighborhoods with decent access to bike paths, and I'm lucky to live in one.  I also like the freedom to eat whatever I damn please and douse it in butter that being fit allows me.  That may not be completely medically accurate, but it is close enough for horseshoes and heart attacks.

During the winter, biking is horrible so I set up my bike on an old stationary setup my dad gave me.  Staring at a wall while biking gets pretty old pretty fast, but with modern technology I can watch just about anything I want with my unlimited data cellular plan.  I bent a metal hanger into a cradle for my phone, and I can bike until I can't anymore.  I have a few goals for this fitness adventure: I want to watch the X-Files from start to finish because I missed a lot of episodes over the years and this is better than just sitting on my ass watching...hundreds? of hours of phelevision,* I want to be ripped again like I was when I was on the cross country skiing team and like when I had to chop wood for four hours a day to heat my house, I want to fit into the suits my father gave me that he had tailored for himself in Romania when he was in his mid to late forties, and I want to be able to ride RAGBRAI without collapsing at the end of every day's ride.

That's the background on what I'm hoping I'll have the endurance to complete as a series on exercising and science fiction.

After watching season 4 of Continuum, most of The Clone Wars, some of Lost Girl, and a couple movies, I decided that The X-Files would be my next exercise show.  While discussing the new X-Files with my ladyfriend, I realized that I couldn't remember much of The Conspiracy, or anything about the seasons involving their kid.  Mostly because I kinda stopped watching in the second half of college.  I don't think I could be more primed to watch this show with the new series, and the amount of X-Com: Enemy Within (Long War) that I've been playing over the last week or so.

Pilot: On Monday, I watched the Pilot while pedaling away, and I was struck by a couple things: they look so young, and you can do a lot with a dessicated ape corpse.  I remember watching this show in high school, and I only remember two impressions: redheads would forever be on my mind, and you can be pretty scary/creepy if you stand around frowning at people without saying anything.  Clearly, the plot was not necessarily what kept me watching, but the combination of these two might lead you to think that I was a pretty creepy kid.  You might not be wrong, I always a bit of an odd little rock.

Knowing now what I know of Scully and Mulder's characters, it was almost comforting to see that they were pretty exactly that way from the beginning. Some pilots are still working out how things are going to work in the show, but Scully and Mulder, and even the plot, were pretty much exactly the same as they were when they showed up in the first episode of the resurrected series, skeptic and believer with all of their evidence on fire.  The Conspiracy gets off to a slow burn of a start, but it is the right kind of start, the Smoking Man is mysterious, and the Pentagon Vault is also mysterious.  JJ Abrams could learn a lot about setting up a story from Chris Carter. 

Biggest question: Why the hell did they back down when the Sheriff threatened them off the crime scene?  As I understood it, the FBI had jurisdiction and he had a gruff voice, they should have forced him off.

Favorite scene: the autopsy of the dessicated ape corpse.  Why? Scully gets tired of Mulder's blatant unprofessionalism, she's curious and proceeding scientifically, and he's acting like a sugar-high kid.  I suspect this is a recurring dynamic.

How does it fit in with the new series: the pilot does not contradict the new series at all, the identities and motives of the abductors remain unknown.  I have developed a convoluted explanation for how the revelations of the new series fits in with the old series, but I will refrain from discussing that until after this season of the new series has finished airing.

Scully's suit: Grey plaid is not a good look for her.

Mulder's hair: Almost sported a pompadour in one scene, skirting the edge of acceptability for a representative of the FBI, agent.

Final thoughts: So when are they restarting Space: Above and Beyond?

* That's mine, I made it up just now and you have to credit me when you use it.

My Birthday is Less Than Twelve Months Away

But you can still buy me one of these for an early gift.*

* Early birthday gift giving does not exempt you from the Annual End-of-Year Gift Tithing.

Geek Dating Guide: Lessons In Flirting

Geeks, listen up, there is only one thing you have to know about flirting: courage. You need courage to say the clever things you think up with conviction and clarity. A mumbled flirt is just mumbling (you mumblecore morons can fuck off, thank you) and gets lost in any flirt situation. Most of the time you only have a quick moment to get the witticism delivered that gets you that all important look. You need to think fast and speak faster, but without speaking so fast you are misunderstood.

Case in point.

Who cares if she is married or living with some dude, it is still a good one. Or a lesbian, whatever, either way it isn't any of my business.

Holiday versus Chrismas, Channukah, Ramadan, and Kwanzaa

I don't fucking care. I only just found out about Dennis "Hastur Hastur" Hastert and Trent "Huge Fucking Cobag" Lott resigning. The only thing I want from any gift giver is proof connecting either to some massive scandal that will result in justified imprisonment. That would rock my face off.

I would have heard about this earlier, but the weekend was spent in an orgy of leveling and the Daily Show isn't on and I don't read the news at home.

In other holiday news, I am assembling my 40K scale Phantom Titan this week. I have decided that I really ought to indulge in more than two geek outlets again. To further this goal, I have called in some reinforcements for my beleagured Legion of the Damned army which finally won it's first game last Saturday. These reinforcements might enable me to field an Apocalypse force, but probably for Blood Angels and not the Legion.

My opponent on Saturday was a good sport but the look on his face when his Leman Russ tank blew up in my second turn of shooting was a look of pure shock. His battle plan was sound, but hampered a bit by his deployment which depended on his tank holding the center and killing every one of my anchoring models. Other than that, we were evenly matched and I barely pulled out the win in the last turn. I hope to face him again in a week or two.

The Last Few Seconds of This Clip

Sum up my feelings about the world, VERY VERY NSFW:



Rent it and watch the whole thing. It is more full of win than a ten-toon Molten Core run.

Just One Question

Sure it flies, but how well does it land?

Trekkers vs Furries: Unfortunately Non-Violent Bowling

Via Dandrobium:

Where are the flying leg kicks to the tribblenuts?

Extra linkery: New technology promises to raise rates of hand dismemberment in carjackings.

Eureka?

The iPod Touch is here. So basically, it is an iPhone with no antenna? But it has wireless internet connectivity. And a headphone jack. Hmmm.

Can I use VOIP on an iPod Touch? If so, why the fuck would I spend another hundred dollars or so on an iPhone when I could talk over Skype without paying a monthly phone bill in excess of $90? Maybe I'll buy one.

Did Steve Jobs just pull one over on himself? In the words of my super-intelligent nephew, I think he did.

In other news, this story linked by Lesley in a 3Bulls! is frigging awesome. Nature is going to kill us all and it won't end with a bang, but with a quietly struggling person muffled by layers of webbing being slowly digested by an enzymatic acid.

Lately, I have discovered a new way to entertain myself while I hid behind the mountain of paper at work: trying to confuse Pandora. My Man Man experiment was not a huge success, but Animal Collective radio has potential. Blonde Redhead radio seems to be a flop from the start.

Admit Defeat Before You Embarass Yourself

The Pretentious Bastard is engaged in a geek off with Shannon of See Glass Run. She just poked the bear.

If we are just listing our creds on our sleeves, mine would be forty fucking feet long, toots.

I spent my birthday at a screening of The Thing From Another World. +1 Geek.
The screening was outside. -1 Geek.
I am serially single. +0 Geek.
I ask a woman out at least once a month. -2 Geek.
I read webcomics. +1 Geek.
I read more than 10 webcomics. +1 Geek.
I spread the love of said comics to others. +1 Geek.
I have more than 2 game systems. +1 Geek.
I have more than 3 games per system. +1 Geek.
I have downloaded emulators to play games that are more than 10 years old. +3 Geek.
I have spread an MMORPG to another. +1 Geek.
I own and play pen and paper RPGs. +1 Geek.
I own more than 2 pen and paper RPGs. +1 Geek.
I have bought RPG sourcebooks knowing that I will never play the game. +2 Geek.
I am currently the Dungeon Master of one campaign and participating in one other. +2 Geek.
I can fix my own computer. +1 Geek.
Most of the time. -1 Geek.
I get into wild debates regarding the minutiae of movie adaptations of my favorite childhood TV shows, comic books and video games. +1 Geek.
With myself. +2 Geek.
I relax by baking noobcakes in PVP combat. +2 Geek.
I read stacks of science fiction novels. +1 Geek.
I hacked my phone to unlock hidden capabilities. +2 Geek.
I communicate almost exclusively through email. +0 Geek.
My last date came from the internet. +1 Geek.
We met through blogging. +2 Geek.
I have a system for taking notes. +1 Geek.
I am a music snob. +1 Geek.

With a score of 26 I could go on, but you are already standing in a smoking crater, Shannon. Don't make me pull back and nuke your blog from orbit, even if it is the only way to be sure.

This is Not Me

Some people collect stamps. Some people collect other stuff. The only advice I have is for the guy. GO BUY A RING AND MARRY HER, YOU DUMB MORON. Any woman willing to move in with you and not throw away your stuff when you go to work is an amazing woman and you will never be able to display the devotion she has, just by agreeing to move in with you.