ye olde brigid’s is apparently the place to be tonight.

is one lesson that 10 years of higher education didn’t really teach me that well.

I REALLY wanted to hate this movie. For whatever reason, the continued match up with Depp and Tim Burton irks me. I had all kinds of clever titles for this, like “I should have taken the blue pill” or “If only I had hit my head harder when I fell in the hole” or many many other pithy and topical references to both the film, the books, and the place in the culture it holds.

But I can’t hate it. I watched it in Matinee this afternoon. I was charmed by its story.

Sure, Alice’s acting was flat, and there were some fairly MAJOR problems with understanding what some of the characters were saying, and Depp’s slip into the scottish accent was kinda stupid, but the story? It was fairly well put together.

I, of course, went to the non-3D version. After seeing the multitude of Disney 3D movies coming out, I’m staging my own little boycott of having to wear stupid looking glasses to look at something I’m only going to remember bits and pieces of later anyway. That, and I’m a cheap bastard. So, in the 2D version, I was much more comfortable with what was going on in the tale, and between characters.

I liked tweedle dee and tweedle dum probably the most out of all the characters…though, as I said, I was charmed by most of them.

All in all it was a good flick.

Which is too bad, because hot damn, that blue pill line above was BRILLIANT.

I really like this bar. I liked it just fine beforehand, with the nice wide selection of beers, and the friendly staff and quick service, but they’ve added wireless.

I’m addicted to the interwebs, and I’ve got a small netbook.

A netbook, I’ll point out, that I’m extremely fond of using when having a beer. Brigid’s allows that. It’s good times. Go here. Trust the Froyd.

The new IAEA chief says Iran not cooperating.

No shit!?

That’s how long it took this time to run through the edits. At least there are a lot fewer of them. Hopefully this is the last round, it’s going in the mail today.

ufffffffffffffff.

So when is it permissible to send a bill to a college? The dissertation office just sent MORE spot checks back on my work. This is getting really intolerable.

It’s been since November 14th, and they’re still going over it. I contacted them today, they said they sent it back on the 16th of February (the 4th iteration), and still no go. Once I get those done, I will be sending a bill to the business office for purposeful delay of degree.

The $500 this term at Kaplan, and the $500 on the next term (since it will take another 4-6 weeks for them to look at it again, putting it at halfway through april before they release the records) is looking at a hefty $1000 bill.

That will be sent to the business office along with the third round of edits. This is just ridiculous.

Why the center for disease control is in charge of tracking birth rates?

Is pregnancy a disease now?

is going to kill me yet.

First things first, I’m a lutheran. Technically I don’t need to practice (take part in?) lent.

However, I do think it’s a good idea to give something up (something that would be a sacrifice) for 40 days to remind yourself that you are you without that thing…and various other religious reasoning as well.

Does that mean I practice other parts of lent? HA! No. Nonono. No meat on fridays? Sucks to be catholics.

Anyhoos, this year I’ve given up dr. pepper. In years past I’ve given up alcohol (a couple times actually), video games, coffee, tea, soda, things of that nature. Basically I’ve not given up essentials, but things that I enjoy that though I’m used to them, I should be able to separate myself from them for a period of time.

I think that’s pretty good for a Lutheran, honestly, even a not-so-good Lutheran like myself.

The $1 tax rebate from california arrived in the mail today.

the jumping up and down is on hiatus for a few days. Threw my back out what with all the moving around.

Replaced the “Dissertation left” section on the sidebar with the current number of daily pa-ran-mari’s. Right now it is at 110, I want to add 10-15 a day until Saturday, and then make the jump to 200.

Next week, start at 200, add 10-15 a day, and then make the jump to 300 next saturday.

And so on and so forth, until 1000.

Now that I’m out of grad school (and into the wonderful world of job applications), I am getting into my goal of getting more active. When I moved out here, I’d go for half hour to 45 minute hikes out in the snow to get the legs moving again. Also to get the lungs used to breathing more.

That lasted for a couple weeks, and then I tried running. That lasted for a couple days. I’ll be honest: I’m not a very good runner.

However, I will also be honest that running was a key component to when I lost about 30 pounds in conjunction with Kumdo. So I’m working on getting back up to that level of running around. The last week or so I’ve been putting on 5-6 miles a day on the stationary bike.

It’s not too bad, I’ll put on a tv show from hulu or netflix to keep my mind occupied. Last Friday I added hand weights to the routine, that I swing around during the biking to work on my arm/shoulder strength. So far so good.

Then this morning, I decided to add pa-ran-mari’s to the routine before and after the bike ride. Basically, these are hops/strikes with the sword. Instead of a sword though (since the ceiling is short in the house) I am using the hand weights in the same motion/position. During Kumdo, the grand master was said to do 1000 of these a day.

I am at 100, two sets of fifty. By the end of the month, I’d like to be doing at least 500. We’ll see how it goes.

I do want to point out that I’m not really in it for weight loss right now, but for mass-loss, and conditioning. I couldn’t care less if I weighed less (though that will come), but I do like to feel the muscles coming out from under the protective layer of fat. And I do like to be able to breath more deeply. Best of all, I like to run up stairs two at a time without getting short of breath. When I moved out here, I couldn’t do that. I could run up stairs, but I’d lose my breath.

That last one is pretty keen, I’ll admit.

Why jake gylenhall is starring in prince of persia and not Oded Fehr?

Y’know, though not Persian, actually comes from that part of the world!?