Good News

I like the news.

Evenings in the DFAC they have been showing CNN's "Crossfire", a revitalization of an older CNN show.  I think it is supposed to be two left wing hosts (sorta versus) and two right wing hosts.  Each side gets a female; Sarah Elizabeth (or S.E.; don't know why the initialization) Cupp is the right wing and Stephanie Cutter is the left wing.  It appears that the show quickly devolves into shouting matches.  The other night the topic was Obamacare, the Rev. Cornel West was defending the policies of the program.  At least I think he was; the volume wasn't that loud and I was many rows away.

Reverend Cornel West

I'm not endorsing any of the hosts or the guests, but if you have this host:

I'm calling CNN "Crossfire" from Fox News "Red Eye" an upgrade

...or...

The photographer gave her fair warning this time.

...versus:

Happy face

...I think any message might be muted and/or lost in translation.  Like Russell Brand says, "I'm only flesh and blood; I've got instincts."

So that's what's on the telly in the dining facility.  Like any human with a functional deliciousness center int he brain, my trips to the DFAC, combined with the snacks in my work drawer, have resulted in feasts and, well, smaller feasts.  According to fitday, today I consumed approximately 4,400 calories.  Based on the number of sardine tins and macadamias left, more caloric binges are possible in the next week.  That being said, my goal has been a daily 16 hour fast, meaning from a few hours before I went to sleep until dinner time, no food.  Yeah, yeah: it's easy to not eat when you are sleeping (I don't sleep walk/sleep eat), but by confining my repasts to 8 hour blocks, the goal is to use my body fat as energy during the other hours.  I've lost some weight, but no idea on body fat percentage.

A later post will highlight the three workout strategies I've used while here: Whatever I Felt Like (bad), Confused 5x5 (better) and (almost as prescribed) Stronglifts 5x5 (more better).  Next phase (starting around 21 October): Stronglifts 5x5 with the Whole30 diet.

Men with beards

So I am finally getting into David Sedaris.  The past two nights I've been going to sleep crying as he talks about his sister Amy's nonconformist makeup ("make me look like someone beat the shit out of me") and describing learning French.  It was interesting seeing him interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart...I wouldn't be opposed to reading about Owls.

Tonight I got to play the game "How to understand what Blogger is telling me."  For whatever reason, Google's Blogger, or blogs hosted by such, show up with some of the menu options in Arabic.  I knew there was a way to fix this, but tonight I switched to French, then Spanish, then German then finally American English.

Again, keeping it short and simple, with 5:00 rests in between sets of squats:

Warmup: 6 15lb weight chinups, 6 bar overhead squats
Workout: Squats 5-225, 5-225, 5-230, 5-235, and 5-240
Cooldown: 6 20lb weighed chinups

I switched up my meals today as well, based on the intermittent fasting technique espoused by Martin Berkhan of leangains.com and others.  Basically I skip breakfast (my 4pm walk in the oven to the cafeteria) and eat around 8pm and 3am.  My fasting is while I sleep and for 4ish hours from when I get up till breakfast (at dinner time).  Working so far.

When I was younger, at dinner my dad used to say, "You should thank that cow (or chicken, or turkey or whatever); it gave its life for you."  So tonight, I thank you, dear dead cow, for the 2 inches of stacked roast beef on my plate.

After I ate this I went back and got two more slices.

Here's more alongside the road artwork.

I think this was after Loki took Thor's GI Joe action figures.

This has got to be the Saint of Killers.  After looking at that picture, if it's not the Saint, then I'm Sam Elliott.