Australia | Weight | YOU KIDS GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!
It's no secret that I like reality TV (of the cooking contest variety, not the stupid people behaving badly kind), but American reality TV is just getting nastier and nastier. I do NOT want to see people screaming at each other, insulting each other, fighting, etc. The Great British Bake Off showed me that I could find what I wanted in reality TV from other countries: That, even if you're competing against each other, people could still be kind, helpful, and friends. That, even if the judges have to make hard choices or eat bad food, they do not need to cut people down.
So, I spent much of Saturday watching season 7 of Australia's Masterchef. I had originally liked US Masterchef, but Americans want screaming and yelling and fighting and insults, so I've been more and more turned off by it. The AU version? Lovely!
I did learn an odd thing though: While I knew that Crocodile Dundee was only a character, I hadn't realized how unrealistic his voice was. (I suppose hearing Steve Irwin reinforced that.) No one on AU Masterchef had much of an accent at all! And the ones who did? I never would have identified as Australian, they just seemed a touch exotic-ish.
The timing of that discovery was amusing, as the day before I was watching some British SciFi show on Netflix, and was wishing for subtitles. The accents were so thick I could hardly understand them!
Season 7 of AU Masterchef is 52 episodes long! So I have a whole lot of watching ahead of me.
Sunday I needed a break from that, so I read a lot more of that epic Harry Potter fanfic I've been reading ( originally posted about here). Each book of the fanfic is longer than the HP book it's based on, and in my opinion is much better written. It's amazing! I'm on only the third book now, and I'm loving it so much.
In weight news: Lose some, panic when I have a week where I stay the same or gain a pound or two, then lose more. Still going generally down, though no where near as fast as I would like.
Amusing weight-thing happened this weekend: It's been a very cool summer so far, but this weekend it warmed up, so I decided I wanted to wear shorts around the house. Found them from last year, stepped into them, pulled them up... and they fell right back down. Ha! They had been quite loose last year, but it was nice to see proof that I have lost weight. I know, on paper, I've lost 100+ pounds, but I swear to god, my body feels 100% the same to me now. Sometimes I'll notice something that lets me know I really did lose it (like I can now slip my watch off over my hand), but mostly I feel exactly the same.
In semi-weight news: Before the surgery, the surgeon had given us a list of foods we'd never be able to eat again. Most of them I was okay with, except popcorn. That's one of my favorite foods in the world, and the idea of never having it again depressed the hell out of me. The vast majority of other people who had this same surgery could eat popcorn again, so why couldn't I? So a week ago I carefully tried it. No problems. So I tried it again and again. I seem to be fine eating it. The down side? I no longer like it much anymore though. :( It just doesn't taste like much of anything, and it doesn't even feel like it fills me up. Oh well.
Wil Wheaton/wilwheaton made an amusing post over the weekend:
I’ve been talking with some friends about the increasing belligerence, toxicity, and general shittiness of the Internet lately. It seems like it’s just exploded in a logarithmic curve in the last week or so, and websites I generally enjoy browsing, like Reddit and Fark, and social networks I’ve always liked, like Tumblr and Twitter, seem to be overrun with real dickwagons.
“It’s like somone pushed a button, and unleashed a horde of … angry … children …” I said, the reality dawning on my as the words came out of my mouth.
“Oh god. It’s summer vacation and the children are online, unsupervised, all day.”
Yeeeep. As any adult MMO player knows, summers get so so so much worse. I know it's not fair or reasonable, but I wish kids (from youngest school-aged to college) had to attend classes and/or work year-round. I haven't had a vacation day since Christmas! Darned kids... Mumble mutter.
But! FFXIV is releasing its first expansion in two weeks, and I took a week off as vacation time to take advantage of Early Access. Unfortunately I play on the biggest population server, so queue times are going to be a nightmare, but nothing much I can do about that. It releases at 2 AM on a Friday, so I'm intending to stay up all night to play. (Sure do wish I was on the east coast -- I'd much rather it drop at 5 AM, I could get a whole night's sleep that way).
So, I spent much of Saturday watching season 7 of Australia's Masterchef. I had originally liked US Masterchef, but Americans want screaming and yelling and fighting and insults, so I've been more and more turned off by it. The AU version? Lovely!
I did learn an odd thing though: While I knew that Crocodile Dundee was only a character, I hadn't realized how unrealistic his voice was. (I suppose hearing Steve Irwin reinforced that.) No one on AU Masterchef had much of an accent at all! And the ones who did? I never would have identified as Australian, they just seemed a touch exotic-ish.
The timing of that discovery was amusing, as the day before I was watching some British SciFi show on Netflix, and was wishing for subtitles. The accents were so thick I could hardly understand them!
Season 7 of AU Masterchef is 52 episodes long! So I have a whole lot of watching ahead of me.
Sunday I needed a break from that, so I read a lot more of that epic Harry Potter fanfic I've been reading ( originally posted about here). Each book of the fanfic is longer than the HP book it's based on, and in my opinion is much better written. It's amazing! I'm on only the third book now, and I'm loving it so much.
In weight news: Lose some, panic when I have a week where I stay the same or gain a pound or two, then lose more. Still going generally down, though no where near as fast as I would like.
Amusing weight-thing happened this weekend: It's been a very cool summer so far, but this weekend it warmed up, so I decided I wanted to wear shorts around the house. Found them from last year, stepped into them, pulled them up... and they fell right back down. Ha! They had been quite loose last year, but it was nice to see proof that I have lost weight. I know, on paper, I've lost 100+ pounds, but I swear to god, my body feels 100% the same to me now. Sometimes I'll notice something that lets me know I really did lose it (like I can now slip my watch off over my hand), but mostly I feel exactly the same.
In semi-weight news: Before the surgery, the surgeon had given us a list of foods we'd never be able to eat again. Most of them I was okay with, except popcorn. That's one of my favorite foods in the world, and the idea of never having it again depressed the hell out of me. The vast majority of other people who had this same surgery could eat popcorn again, so why couldn't I? So a week ago I carefully tried it. No problems. So I tried it again and again. I seem to be fine eating it. The down side? I no longer like it much anymore though. :( It just doesn't taste like much of anything, and it doesn't even feel like it fills me up. Oh well.
Wil Wheaton/wilwheaton made an amusing post over the weekend:
I’ve been talking with some friends about the increasing belligerence, toxicity, and general shittiness of the Internet lately. It seems like it’s just exploded in a logarithmic curve in the last week or so, and websites I generally enjoy browsing, like Reddit and Fark, and social networks I’ve always liked, like Tumblr and Twitter, seem to be overrun with real dickwagons.
“It’s like somone pushed a button, and unleashed a horde of … angry … children …” I said, the reality dawning on my as the words came out of my mouth.
“Oh god. It’s summer vacation and the children are online, unsupervised, all day.”
Yeeeep. As any adult MMO player knows, summers get so so so much worse. I know it's not fair or reasonable, but I wish kids (from youngest school-aged to college) had to attend classes and/or work year-round. I haven't had a vacation day since Christmas! Darned kids... Mumble mutter.
But! FFXIV is releasing its first expansion in two weeks, and I took a week off as vacation time to take advantage of Early Access. Unfortunately I play on the biggest population server, so queue times are going to be a nightmare, but nothing much I can do about that. It releases at 2 AM on a Friday, so I'm intending to stay up all night to play. (Sure do wish I was on the east coast -- I'd much rather it drop at 5 AM, I could get a whole night's sleep that way).