In Which I Experience a Series of Fortunate Events
No book review this week dear reader. I left myself an out last week by protesting the dauntng heft of Stephen King's latest tome. To be honest, it's rather tough sledding, although I'm planning on having a review for you this weekend. In the meanwhile, though, life has been eventful, in a good way.
I'm approaching the end of the "Fat-burner" phase of my year-long weightlifting program. Today I tried the most time-intensive version of the workout - sets of 8 reps with only 30 seconds rest. notjenschiz characterized it as 'nausea-inducing' and since he's one of the fittest guys I know, I was understandably daunted. I guess years of short-duration, high-intensity sports like football have made me used to the demands of these types of workouts, because to be honest, I found the higher-rep workouts with longer rests to be more taxing. Not that this wasn't a challenge, don't get me wrong. But the earlier, higher-rep workouts four weeks ago just seemed tougher. It may just be that my body is adapting to the new workout - which is fine, because after a week of rest next week, we're back to something new. My only regret - the fat burner hasn't really burned much fat that I can tell. I'm still pivoting around 255 pounds. But I have noticed some slight changes in my upper body mass and leg muscle tone that are all to the positive, so there's that.
This weekend was one of the most delightfully geeky in my experience. Saturday I enjoyed richardabecker 's valedictory live game, Lady Eleanor's Symposium, and if he has indeed retired from running live games, he has gone out with a bang, I'll say that! The costuming was outstanding, the roleplaying superb, the plotting tight, suspenseful and imaginative, and the props, oh my, the props! Even with Sir Refrigerator-sized Prop Not Appearing In This LARP stuck back home, our host put together a spectacular display of his many-faceted artistic skills. You can read one perspective of the events from ian_tiberius , who was among the guests along wtih many of the usual suspects, including karteblanche gotham_bound (who despite her brief time with us was spectacularly memorable) graydons ladyeuthanasia and casketgirl in the title role as Lady Eleanor. chartreusekitty helped provide a delicious period tea service. Overall, in terms of setting, company, plotting, accessories, everything you'd want to think of, it was a wonderful event.
Then on Sunday, as I was getting my geek on in Burbank playing D&D with some friends from work, I got a text from keltraine offering my a last minute, front-row ticket to Sunday's JoCo concert at the Largo. Now, a bit of background is in order here. colleenky has been talkng up JoC to me (not that I'm special, she talks up JoCo to everybody, I think) for quite some time. But I'd never really gotten past the sort of "file the name away in in my cultural signifier file" stage until this past Thursday. We caught "Crazy Heart" (described to me as "The Wrestler" with country music, but it turned out to be not really so bleak. It was certainly melancholy at the ending - colleenky called it a 'grownup ending' which I thought was perceptive and apt - and there were some scenes where the theater became somewhat dusty, but not as bluntly despondant as "The Wrestler" ended.) and afterwards she mentioned the weekend's slate of JoCo concerts. I told her she needed to play me some of his stuff if she wanted to sell me on him. So she did. Wow. He had me at "Kennesaw Mountain Landis",but the handful of songs she played me was a revelation. On Saturday, she offered out an extra ticket, but I was going to the LARP, but I lamented with sufficient pathos that when keltraine had a ticket for Sunday's show, he thought of me. Two hours after I got his first text, after spending my healing surges and refreshing my encounter powers, I was at Chilli Addition on La Cienega (amazing red velvet cake ice cream, by the way) meeting up with the group and not an hour after that I was in the front row getting cussed out by Chris Hardwick, who was warming up for Paul and Storm, who were opening for JoCo. I don't think I've laughed and smiled so much at a concert ever in my life. Not a single down minute - the energy was electric! So thanks, colleenky , for being stubborn about your JoCo addiction. Consider me hooked!
Great friends, great weekend. Next weekend - the start of the "40something guys who can't put their glory days behind them" rugby season!
You can read about it all right here...