The Muppets Insanity Bracket…

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I don’t really care about sports, so I never really get caught up in all of this bracket mania that seems to occur every spring around this time of year … but this year Disney posted one up for The Muppets in promotion of their new movie coming out on DVD and, well, that’s something that I can really get behind!

But that said, I’m a little curious … is it common for you to pick a bracket and later then find yourselves completely baffled with the final outcome that otherwise just seemed like an absolutely shoe-in to you at the time?! I suppose it’s probably a little different with sports because your teams are actually competing for progress whereas The Muppets Bracket is essentially a vote for our favorite Muppet, but … just look at what happened recently…

Not for nothing, but how in the world did Kermit lose to Beaker?!?!?! Same with Gonzo vs. the Swedish Chef, and then also Miss Piggy! At first glance of this bracket, it kinda seemed a little pointless to me because it seemed like a given that the fab four of Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, and Miss Piggy would sweep, with the boss frog Kermit then taking his rightful throne on top of the pile. But this just doesn’t make ANY sense!!!

I mean, Beaker is cool and all, but he’s not really the very best Muppet ever! Maybe that’s why they’ve dubbed it an insanity bracket … I dunno.  Also, where’s the love for Scooter – my man that actually kept The Muppet Show running doesn’t even make it into the list, but Pepe does?! Blasphemy!

That said, my updated vote is for Animal to take the final round.

But if Beaker somehow manages to beat out Animal, too … INSANITY!!!!!  😆

Thin Post : A 1Q12 Quarterly Statistical Review

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I thought I’d do something a little different this week and take a look back at how things have gone overall in the last three months. I’m kind of a numbers guy, so even though I’d obviously like the pounds lost number to be a bit higher, it still helps my ego to see some of the other stats as high as they are because some of them just seem unfathomable considering how much regularly consistent exercise I was doing this time a year ago…  😉

Total Weight Lost: 10.8 pounds (24% of total weight loss goal for 2012)

Total Days Exercised: 56 days (62% – 91 days total in January-March)

Average Days/Week Exercised: 4 days/week

Cardio (includes some elliptical, but mostly walking the dog at night)

  • Total Days of Cardio: 48 days (86% of total exercise days included cardio)
  • Total Cardio Time: 59 hours
  • Total Cardio Distance: 193.9 miles
  • Average Cardio Distance/Day: 4 miles/day
  • Max. Cardio Distance/Day: 6.2 miles (2/26/2012)

Strength Training (exclusively push-ups via 100 Push-Up Challenge)

  • Total Days of Strength Training: 17 days (30% of total exercise days included strength)
  • Total Push-Ups Completed: 984 push-ups
  • Average Push-Ups/Day: 58 push-ups/day
  • Max. Push-Ups/Day: 80 push-ups (3/3/2012)

Pretty much all of my data comes from Fitocracy, though I had to do some crunching in Excel to get the totals that I wanted. Still, they’re doing some pretty cool things with graphing now and will even let you export a CSV of your daily exercise logs, so that’s neat!

Overall it’s been a big help in keeping me exercising because I look forward to logging points every day, so feel free to follow me and say hello if you’re using it as well!

The Unexpected, Yet Overdue Return of Leisure Suit Larry

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I’ve got to admit that I was a little surprised when I came across this particular Kickstarter campaign to remake the original Leisure Suit Larry game from all the way back in 1987! I was probably in my early teens when I first stumbled upon these great games without my parents’ knowledge … they say you never forget the first set of digitized boobs that you catch an obstructed glimpse at, and Larry was an entertaining romp into that mysterious world of sex and depravity that I’d previously only seen scrambled on the TV at two o’clock in the morning!

In hindsight, those games were actually pretty tame compared to what I could’ve been keeping beneath my mattress, and frankly that’s what made them so much fun because you never quite knew what kind of risque, yet harmless trouble the inept Larry Laffer was going to stumble himself into next. The dialog fell right into line with all of the rest of the great Sierra games that I was in love with at the time, not to mention the stories themselves … what can I say, Al Lowe is a hilariously twisted genius, to say the very least! We actually interviewed him for Just Laugh a while back and he was really fun to talk to – you can see it in the videos on Kickstarter, too – so it’s great to see that he’s on board and getting a chance to become reacquainted with such a classic character of his all over again, too…  😀

Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see how this progresses, especially given the incredible success that Double Fine saw with their fundraising efforts about a month ago – Al & Co aren’t asking for nearly as much, but they’re also not offering a new game, either … this will simply be a remake (of a remake) of the original LSL1, although there are numerous suggestions that if this title goes well, they’d like to continue remaking the others in the series as well and eventually even make a brand new one that actually stays true to the source material for a change! While it doesn’t sound like they’ve entirely bought the rights back for the franchise, it sounds like they were able to license remake rights for the first title with the hopes of reintroducing the brand and thus providing a reason for the actual owners to let them do the same with some of the others.

I guess we might as well take whatever we can get – a lot of those great, old Sierra titles went every which way during that period where the company was being sold to another conglomerate who didn’t give two shits about their legacy before then handing them off again, so if there’s enough of a fan base to wrestle those dusty floppies out from software purgatory to give ’em another shot to make nostalgic fans like me chuckle, then why not?

Besides, $15 for an enhanced copy of Larry 1 on my iPhone?! I spend more than that on real porn every month these days!  😯

Good, old reliable karma…

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I didn’t really blog about it at the time because we had enough going on, but about a year ago when we first moved into the house where we lived now, I found myself really frustrated with the previous tenants because they kind of left us in a bind on a number of things when they moved out at the last minute. We ended up having to change the locks because they forgot to give us all of the keys back and then couldn’t be bothered to come back to hand them over later because “they didn’t even know which ones they were,” then I had to pay disposal fees for a couple of bigger items that they wanted thrown out, but the trash wouldn’t actually take. There were a lot of loose ends to clean up like mending the relationship with the lawn guy because they had stopped paying him, and a bunch of other nonsense that just seemed to drag on and on and on.

Anyways…

So fast forward a year when a very obvious envelope showed up in their name today. From the IRS. An envelope shaped precisely like what one’s federal tax refund tends to look like in its traditional check form.

Let’s just say that it was incredibly rewarding to scribble RETURN TO SENDER – NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS!!! on the outside of that envelope and pop it back in the mailbox.  :mrgreen:

It’s not like I have any way of getting a hold of those jerks anyways…

a preview of Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure!

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Admittedly I was a little skeptical about the idea of an entire theme park area devoted to the Cars franchise, but seeing some previews of the actual completed work out at Disney’s California Adventure makes it look pretty cool! And don’t get me wrong – I actually really enjoyed the first movie (#2 sucked, though), but I just wasn’t sure if it had enough staying power to hold a whole land on its own … really, not a lot of single movies do, which is why the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland use more generic themes like Fantasyland and Tomorrowland that movies can be dropped into, but not dominated by.

Also just for the record, while I’m looking forward to venturing back out west in a few years again to see the final product, despite any success I still hope that they keep these new attractions exclusive to DCA and we don’t catch them razing Lights, Motors, Action! anytime soon to give Hollywood Studios its own Cars Land … but that’s really an overarching philosophy that has nothing to do with Cars and more to do with believing that Disney’s parks should provide unique, not cookie-cutter experiences around the world…

Anyways, check out the video … I’ll bet Radiator Springs looks pretty darned sweet with all of that neon lit up at night! 😮

ACTUAL Dragon Warrior!

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Yeah, yeah – tons of work to do and only got a fraction, but what can I say … adventure called!

I’m not sure if it’s actually legal to even admit this, or maybe I just can’t post the link to where I downloaded “the stuff”, but instead of digging out an NES that no amount of cartridge blowing in the world will fix at this point anyways, I ended up just downloading a copy of the ROM and firing up an emulator to revisit the original Dragon Warrior that I first got back in 1990 as a free gift for being a loyal subscriber to Nintendo Power! I think it can safely be said that this was the very first RPG that I ever played, even prior to the original Final Fantasy … well, something like Wizardry on our old Apple II clone might’ve predated it, but not by much…

Anyways, it’s kind of amusing to go back and revisit this one … and realize just how mind-numbingly repetitive it actually was! I mean, you literally start out fighting Slimes for 1 XP and 1 gold a piece, and you’re trying to raise enough money to buy a sword that costs 180 gold! Woof – and I’m not necessarily saying that it made me give up again after only a few minutes of play or anything because as you can see, I’m now Level 6 and am trying to earn enough for the next really expensive piece of equipment, but it’s interesting to see how far things have come since then. Leveling via random encounters is very much the majority of the entire game – I’ve been using a walkthrough to remind me where I need to go, and a typical chapter is – “Go north to XYZ Town, fight in the surrounding area until you can buy Slightly Better Sword, then travel east to Yet Another Town…” – rinse and repeat.  😯

I guess maybe I was just easily amused back when I was 10, but I suppose we had to start somewhere! Actually, the only other one I’ve even played in this series was Dragon Quest VIII a year or so ago … maybe I can use this experience as a gateway RPG to start digging into the rest starting from the very beginning once I figure out how to beat the Dragonlord or whatever the heck the point of this first one actually is…  :mrgreen:

*cough* Also once I get some more work done, of course! *cough*

Thin Post : Sweating It All Out

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It’s starting to get warmer out at night, and as much as that’s also kind of a tedious thing, I’m also somewhat banking on it also being a positive thing as far as boosting my progress for weight loss as we get into the summer months.

Most of my exercise is walking our dog in the evening hours, and I’ve noticed that maybe in the last couple of weeks, the average temperature when we walk anywhere between, say 9pm – midnight, has been hovering in the mid-70s, whereas in the months past in fell more in the 60s (or lower, though I try not to go if it’s much below 60). Usually we’re out for maybe 1-1.5 hours, clearing between 3.5 and 5 miles a night, and as you might expected, it seems like I’m sweating a little more than usual as the temps are getting warmer, so as gross as this might be, what I’m curious to see is if this will also correlate with an increase in calories burned the more I sweat, too!

On one hand, it’s really going to be a bear when we get to June/July/August and the nighttime temperatures could still be up in the 80s, but at the same time if it somehow helps to give an extra boost to my weight loss efforts, well frankly at this point I’ll take just about all the help I can get. 😉 Granted, I’m probably going to be regretting that statement in about four months, and I don’t really have anything to compare to because that time a year ago Cleo was still barely more than a puppy and we hadn’t really started with our regular walks yet…

Hmmmm – I’ve still got a long ways to go, so probably had better take whatever I can get.  😕

Google Fools Day!

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Wow – so I haven’t seen much from anybody else, but Google sure seems to be into April Fools’ Day this year! Me likey…  :mrgreen:

Gmail Revisits the Days of Morse Code with Gmail Tap…

Google Innovates a Very Different Kind of Fiber…

Google Partners with NASCAR for the First Automated Race Car

The Magic of YouTube DVD Collection…

And of course, the VERY COOL Google Maps 8-Bit Version That I Blogged About the Other Day…

Any other good April Fools’ Day pranks out there online that I missed this year???

Google Maps, 8-Bit Version – this is so cool!

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It looks like we’re getting an early sneak peek at Google’s April Fools’ Day project for this year, and it’s pretty freaking sweet!  Below is a quick route of the adventure before me the next time I want to take a trip over to Disney World … I hear the Wyverns along I-4 are pretty bad this time of year, too…

The video really sealed it for me – especially right around the 0:50 mark! Almost makes me feel like digging out my old Dragon Warrior NES cartridge, even though I know the chances of it still working are less than slim to none!