the squirrel tale joxer

I started swimming again mid-January. My gym is holding an indoor triathlon in April. It's manageable for me. 10 minutes of swimming (lap pool), 10 minute transition, 30 minutes of biking (exercise bike), 5 minute transition, and 20 minutes of running (treadmill). You get points based on each leg of the race, ranked by distance.

I started biking last week. Yesterday, I ran on a treadmill for the first time in my life, and I biked as well. Today, I got running shoes at a place that specializes in running, and based only on fit, and then swam and ran on the treadmill.

The funny thing with the triathlon is that, if the results at other locations, where they held the indoor triathlon earlier are any indication, I will win the swimming, be in the middle of the pack for biking, and be near the bottom at running.

I'm quite excited! I've been wanting to attempt sprint triathlons for years now, and this is a good way to ease myself in. Based on the distances I am likely to reach in the allotted time, this should fall between a sprint triathlon (750m swim, 12.4mi bike, 3.1mi run) and a super-sprint triathlon (400m swim, 6.2mi bike, 1.5mi run). And it has the added benefit of ending after an hour and fifteen minutes, even if I can only walk by the end.

So I'm all signed up. And once I'm done, I'll have to find one of the distance-based triathlons to do. Hopefully, though, I can find one where the swim leg is done in a pool (with staggered start times). I'm really not a fan of open water swimming. I like my good ol' back-and-forth lap swimming. Nah, I love it!

I'm updating -- this must mean that I have a new video game. And I do! I got an Xbox 360 and Rock Band for Christmas! Today was the first day that I was able to spend a significant amount of time playing, and here's what I have to report...

Drumming takes a lot of work! Once I figured out how the drums worked, I started playing through solo tour mode on Medium. I have not yet been able to play more than 3 songs in a row. About halfway through the third song, my leg starts tightening up and I find it difficult to keep paying attention to the notes. I'm definitely going to have to play regularly to get my leg into good bass kicking form. I'm also having to train myself to keep the kick pedal depressed when I'm not kicking -- the Internet tells me there will be much less strain on the leg that way. But I'm having fun and plan to keep at it.

I like the Rock Band guitar better than the Guitar Hero guitar. This is mostly because the strum bar doesn't click incessantly like the GH guitar does. Oh, and I haven't tried out the extra set of fret buttons that allow you to play solos like you are tapping on the frets, but I love the fact that Harmonix added these buttons, which I refer to as the "meedleys," to the guitar.

I've also performed 3 songs as vocalist. So far, the quality of my performance is directly proportional to the number of times I've listened to the song. Blitzkrieg Bop = OK. In Bloom = pretty good. Paranoid = Awesome. Oh, and I love the fact that you set off "Overdrive" (f/k/a "Star Power") by yelling/bantering/etc.

So I've created a vocalist, drummer, and guitarist. I love how customizable the characters are. And it's not just features-for-the-sake-of-features. I mean, if I want a black metal drummer, I've got to be able to do corpse paint! And the blurbs written for each of the clothing items (separated by musical genre) are hilarious too.

Caroline and I have played the multiplayer mode, alternating between drums and guitar. I guess one of these days I'll sing while she plays the guitar. Yeehaw! And then we'll have to find more people in Austin to come over and play so that we can have a complete Rock Band!

Overall, I'm very pleased with the game. It is an interesting gameplay experience. It's hard work, yet still a lot of fun. And I think the work factor helps contribute to the sense of accomplishment I feel when I complete a song. Oh, and Harmonix still make games that feel the way they should and ROCK! And they did it with much much MUCH better graphics than Guitar Hero 3.

If only it didn't take up so much space in the living room.

I'm glad I don't listen to the radio, otherwise, by now, I might hate my new favorite song. And what is that song? Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne! And yes, I've been an Avril Lavigne fan for years... In fact, I listened to the song Let Go a couple of hundred times while studying for finals first year of law school.

I haven't updated in a while, and Caroline told me to follow her lead and fill out this survey/meme. So here we go...

List 10 musical artists you like, in no specific order (do this before reading the questions below)
1. Dark Tranquillity
2. Bloodbath
3. Novembers Doom
4. Symphony X
5. Agalloch
6. The Gathering
7. Katatonia
8. Amorphis
9. Immortal
10. Sepultura

( and the questions... )

So last night, I decided to check the football scores (I check the scores even though I don't watch the games... I guess my love of numbers outweighs my general dislike of football...) and saw that Oklahoma had just gone up on Boise State 35-28. There were 30 seconds left. I turned on the TV and started watching.

Of course I wanted Boise State to win. They're the underdogs. When you don't care much about a sport, you usually want the underdogs to win. As time ran down, I figured it was over. Then the QB throws a huge pass, which is caught and then lateral passed, and they score a touchdown on a dive into the end-zone. Amazing.

I got a little distracted then and next noticed that Oklahoma was up 42-35 in overtime. I figure they're probably not going to overcome this one. Then they bust out another trick play and a guy who's not the quarterback throws a touchdown pass. Wow.

And then, in an fake-out I maybe would have expected playing nerf football in 5th grade, Boise State scored a 2-point conversion to win the game. (Oh, and the guy who scored the conversion then proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend.)

If you haven't seen footage of those plays, turn on the TV or go to espn.com or YouTube and find the footage. It's beautiful.

I have several other recipes I intend to post over the next week, but for now, I just wanted to write a short Wii Sports post.

My current "ratings" on Wii Sports:
Tennis - ~950
Baseball - ~1080
Bowling - ~930
Golf - ~450

Other accomplishments in training mode:
8 home runs (~4250 feet)
49 of 50 balls returned
a score of >500 on the golf target practice

I still play this game at least 30 minutes each day -- pretty good for a "tech demo" -- and maybe I'll get back to playing Zelda in the coming week. I'm still only ~6 hours into the game.

I almost forgot to post the yogurt sauce recipe for the Biryani.

1 cup whole milk or low-fat plain yogurt
1 medium clove garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 teaspoon)
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh mint leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper

Combine first four ingredients in small bowl; season to taste with salt and pepper. Let stand at least 30 minutes to blend flavors.

--

Note: I just mixed it all up right after setting the pot (with all the biryani ingredients) to cook for 30 minutes. That way, the timing was just about right.

A few weeks after first making the chana masala, I watched an episode of America's Test Kitchen entitled A Passage to India. They presented a recipe for chicken biryani, one of Caroline's favorite dishes. And so, I figured that since the chana masala went so well, I would make the biryani for Caroline's birthday!

( Recipe & comments follow... )

For many years, I had been wanting to make some Chana Masala... I loved eating it, but was always intimidated by the number of unfamiliar spices that were included in the recipes I read. But over the last few years, I got used to using cumin and cardamom in dishes, and one day, I was sitting around with a 28 oz can of chickpeas and decided to give it a whirl.

I found the following recipe on a blog at http://orangette.blogspot.com/2006/02/public-display-of-chickpeas.html.

( The recipe & my comments... )

Because I am absolutely insane, at about 4:30pm central time, I took the results from this page http://sbe.virginiainteractive.org/nov2006/l_02.htm copied them into word, used a series of macros to trim them down to tab-delimited text with only a 4-letter abbreviation of the county, percentage of votes in that county cast for Allen, percentage of votes in that county cast for Webb, total votes cast, and precinct reporting %, then imported that into an excel spreadsheet.

I then used this data to make a prediction based on that information as to what the total number of additional votes Allen and Webb were likely to get from the unreported precincts in each county/municipality (assuming each precinct has the same number of voters, and that the percentage voting for each candidate would remain the same in the precinct).

After adding it all up, here are the final vote totals I have:
Allen - 1,227,992
Webb - 1,228,465

So that's a 573 vote difference, which I am sure is very well within the margin of error for my precinct estimations.

Wow.

Edit: Well, now, for some reason, the main page that links to the link above, http://sbe.virginiainteractive.org/, has the exact same layout as this page - http://www.sbe.vipnet.org/. However, the second one says that all precincts have reported... But lists the same vote tallies as the first link. But the virginiainteractive site is the one that is linked from the Virginia State Board of Elections website. I'm confused.

EditAgain: And now, both pages are once again saying that only 2462 of 2599 precincts have reported. Greaaat.

1) I'm a bit obsessed with Last.fm. It's fun. (Caroline says, "Remember when I was obsessed with Last.fm? I guess it wasn't cool enough for you then, huh?") I was so anxious for my first week's worth of data to be processed so that I could have "neighbors"! So now, I check about every 20 minutes to see what my neighbors are listening to. I haven't discovered any new music via Last.fm yet, but I figure that will come.

2) I made a lemon meringue pie this evening. Tomorrow morning, I will make another. I was intending the first one to be a test since I wanted to make sure I had a perfect one for my mom for her birthday this weekend. And it's a good thing I did the test-run. It turns out that Alton Brown's recipe from the episode "I Pie" is a bit lacking. What I baked today was delicious, but the lemon part ended up kinda runny. I hear that you need to cook the cornstarch/sugar/water mixture for 3 minutes, rather than just 1 minute, and that once you get the egg yolks mixed in, you need to cook for another 2-3 minutes, rather than just 1, and keep the heat on as you mix in the lemon juice & zest. And so that's what I'll do tomorrow!

3) Oh, and yeah, I got out of my funk. Nicer weather + 100 free tracks from eMusic.com really helped to raise my spirit. If only that highly-anticipated Decapitated album (Organic Hallucinosis) had lived up to my expectations. I ended up with 10 new albums (well, 9 + an EP) at no cost to me, so that made me happy. Oh, and Cy, eMusic.com does let you re-download songs you have previously purchased, and places no DRM on the music files. I think they're ~192kbps VBR MP3s. The only time you'll run into a problem is if a label decides to stop selling the tracks on eMusic, like Metal Blade Records did a while back. In that case, the song isn't available for you to re-download.

I just wanted to post to express my disbelief, disgust, and at the same time, love of this line in Queensryche's Suite Sister Mary from the album Operation: Mindcrime...

Too much bloodshed / We're being used and fed / Like rats in experiments

I wish I could convey to you how absurd it sounds in the actual recording. The melody there is just fabulously odd, but somehow Geoff Tate gets away with it. In fact, Geoff Tate gets away with a lot of melodies that most singers have no business attempting. I guess that's part of what makes good Queensryche so good.

And now, I'm off to modify some Privacy Policies and Terms of Use!

After the finish of today's stage of the Tour de France, I must say that Floyd Landis has twice the balls that Lance Armstrong has.

I happened upon a 5 year old entry I wrote. It amused me:

but on another note.. Indie will become Pop. I have predicted it.. and if it comes true, then I'll be able to say "On July 3rd, 2001, I predicted this." And when it does happen, what will happen to all the journalling teens out there?

So I'm up at 3:42am watching "Dish Dogs" - what a terrible movie - and I've discovered the latest trend in adult entertainment... "Text Flirting"

So now, you can (presumably) pay to text message people with nasty messages! It's phone sex crossed with anonymously messaging others via craigslist... and even more lame!

Well, now that I think about it, it does have one feature that will appeal to some (but makes it even creepier). I guess now, you can get your illicit erotic conversational fix throughout the day, when you're out with friends, even at meetings at work, so long as you can text message in these situations.

And now I see what the audience is for this kind of service. And, in the immortal words of Detective Odafin Tutuola, "That's messed up!"

Since we are recipe copycats, tonight we decided to make the cheesecake recipe that simplyjeska posted about earlier today. We purchased the necessary ingredients at Jewel this afternoon (after returning from purchasing a City of Chicago Vehicle Sticker *bah*) and started preparing the cheesecake as our Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Apples and Onions finished cooking in the oven. Yes, the tenderloin was delicious as well, but that's another show!

Despite not owning a springform pan, we decided to attempt the cheesecake. We used a 9-inch round cake pan... and that caused a little bit of trouble, hehe.

You see, we may have used a bit too much ricotta (once I get a scale, I'll actually start measuring this stuff)... After all, we just scooped approximately half from a 32-oz container. I think it was this guestimation that resulted in the excess of batter nearly overflowed the cake pan. Undeterred, I decided to stick the it in the oven!

Unfortunately, we also don't have many vessels large enough for the waterbath. I tried to use an aluminum foil pan that was previously purchased for stuffing and other such recipes. It wasn't really big enough for the cake pan. And batter spilled into the waterbath. And water spilled into the cheesecake pan. Disaster!

I calmly pulled both the whole contraption from the oven, spilling water/batter mixture in the oven and on the floor. Then I poured enough of the mixture out of the waterbath so that I could reach in and pull out the cake pan without burning myself. After a little cleanup, I was able to save the cheesecake left in the pan, but now I needed a new waterbath!

So I filled up my largest saucepan with as hot water as possible, stuck in my cakepan (the sides of which stuck out just enough that it wouldn't drop into the saucepan), spilled a little more water, and then stuck it into the oven.

Tragedy was thusly averted. And near-tragedy is delicious.

Now I just can't wait to have cheesecake for breakfast tomorrow! Yaay!

No, my favorite team didn't get eliminated or anything. I was just sitting around wanting to watch some games this morning while I did some work... But we don't have cable, so the only games I've been able to watch so far are the few that end up on ABC on the weekends. But I realized today, "Hey! I bet Univision has the games on! And surely I can use either my HDTV receiver or my TV+antenna to pick it up!"

I checked online listings, and sure enough, Univision is airing the games. I fired up my Media Center tuner and tried to get channel 66-1 working. No luck. I found out that it broadcasts from the Hancock tower like many of the other DTV stations in Chicago, but for some reason, it still wasn't coming in properly. So I figure I'll try good ol' analog TV.

I hooked my antenna directly into my TV, aimed it at the Hancock Building, and got a picture! Unfortunately, the picture was fuzzy and ghosted. This might have been OK if I could rely on the commentators to understand what was going on. But this being Univision, they were speaking 100mph Spanish, and the only time I could tell what was going on was when there was a shot on goal.

And so I gave up. I guess I'll just have to go work out at 2pm today so that I can watch the first half of the Mexico - Angola match on the TV in the workout room. At least I can watch one match tomorrow and record the US - Italy match to watch after I return from Praire Home Companion at Ravinia.

So far today, I've watched the French Open Men's Final, the Iran-Mexico World Cup match and the Reds-Cubs game. During that time, I also managed to take a shower and get groceries. Since the Reds-Cubs game ended, I've been keeping an eye on the LPGA Championship leaderboard. If I got the Golf Channel, I'd probably be watching it too. And tonight, I'll likely watch the NBA Finals game.

I don't know how many times in my life I've spent this much time during the day watching sports, but it may be zero. In fact, the last time I can really think of that I've watched this much sporting on television was when Caroline was out of town last summer and I got up early to watch entire stages of the Tour de France.

No, I don't know that this means anything significant about me or my personality. Well, except maybe that I don't discriminate against most sports in my tv-viewing habits. Really, I just felt like sharing. Wee!

Yes, yes, I knew every German word in the finals of the Spelling Bee. And some of the others too! Aren't you proud of me? I am! Now if only I remembered to spend some time each day reading German websites, I'd get back to being nearly conversational in German.

I have now beaten every level of every world in New Super Mario Brothers. I haven't unlocked every cannon or gotten & spent every star coin yet, but I've accomplished at least one milestone since beating the final boss a few days ago. Wee!