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I've started using MyFitnessPal again. I started it like 2 years ago, used it for a bit, then stopped. After my latest doctor's appointment, I felt inspired to go back to it. I really need to lose weight. I barely recognize myself anymore! Usually when I think of dieting, I get really discouraged because it seems like some far away goal, I won't see results right away, it'll take years do undo what I've done, etc. But right now I am on a "lose 1 pound a week" plan on MFP, and I realized that that meant if I really stuck to it, I could be close to my goal weight by the end of the year! An actual, real day that's within sight! So I'm giving it a shot. I have terrible self control, so we'll see. I keep telling myself that I did it before so I can do it again, but back then I had more things going for me -- I lived in a neighborhood where I could safely take long walks, I wasn't running a food blog (there's a certain amount of pressure to, you know, be making/consuming good food when you run a food blog), and I had good distractions... namely, World of Warcraft. >.>
It's made me want to play WoW again. I know, losing weight through playing WoW is like the antithesis of the image people usually think of when they think of video gamers (see South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft"). But for me it worked. In order to have fun, you have to interact with the game. Your hands are kept busy. I often ate only a bit of my dinner before I'd get distracted playing, and then I felt full. It's the opposite of watching TV for me -- when watching TV, I like to be doing something else, and eating is perfect. So I just eat and eat. Portion control is very difficult when I'm watching TV -- I don't eat until I'm no longer hungry; I eat until I'm stuffed.
So I'm going to try. Keeping the fitness diary really helps because 1) seeing how many calories something is, is really an eye opener; 2) I don't want to have to add stuff to the diary; and 3) it helps me realize what '1 serving' really amounts to. Last time I cut out, like, everything that was 'bad' -- ice cream, chips, fried foods, bacon, other junk food. I'm not going to do that this time because I think it was so restrictive that I had to fall off the wagon at some point, and I want something I can keep up with long term. Then again, last time I did it not to lose weight, but to improve my cholesterol. That seems under control now (at least so says the physical that I got in September), because I've generally been eating better (just too much of it).
I want to be able to wear all those nice jeans I've unearthed in my closet! LOL.
But speaking of bacon and TV... >.> Today is the last day I'll be curing my bacon. I had enough dry cure to cure it for 6 days, so I'm stopping here. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (the British "meat guru" whose advice I'm taking) says that a 5-day cure is perfect for breakfast slices. Longer cures allow the bacon to last for months, but become unpalatably salty (you have to boil away some of the salt before using). I obviously don't have some drafty shed in which to hang my bacon, so I'll just have to use his alternate suggestion and keep it wrapped in cheesecloth in the fridge. I've also been reading other food blogs about homemade bacon, and there's this ultra simple method of doing it (even simpler than what I did, which was already pretty darn easy), where you just keep it in a plastic bag the whole time with the cure and flip it over every other day to redistribute the liquid (because it does release a lot of liquid). Since I had two slabs of pork belly I probably should have tried one of each method to test which was better, but oh well.
American Horror Story
This series started with a bang and ended with a whimper. The first few episodes were so scary and creepy, exactly as a show like this should be. The more it went on, however, the sillier it got. There were simply too many characters, too many "inhabitants" of the house. The interesting story was about the Harmons, Constance, and maybe Moira. But they kept introducing more and more of the victims, which not only made the place really crowded, but also begged the question -- why didn't we see them all right from the start, since apparently the ghosts in that house can interact with humans?
Tate as a character never made any sense, other than to be a catch-all for evil doings (I have to commend Evan Peters for his performance, however. Any sympathy you feel for the character is purely from his acting). Jessica Lange was fantastic... WAY better than a show like this deserved. Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott were both good too, though at some point you just get done with how stupid their characters were not to just fucking leave the house/keep allowing themselves to get sucked back in.
There's no reason for Moira to look like Frances Conroy, at the end. In real life she looked like Alexandra Breckenridge! I really liked the idea of her looking one way to men and another way to women, but all the other ghosts look like themselves -- why does she look like FC as her "real" self?? She looked like AB when she died! That was who she was! Makes no sense.
Ugh, and the ending was SO CHEESY. WTF was that last episode?! Seriously, the ghosts live happily ever after? That's the conclusion for a series called American Horror Story? Frankly, most of the ghosts were happier dead than alive! That doesn't make for a freaking scary story! Especially the Harmons -- they were all together at the end, and happier than they ever were, alive. Mena Suvari and Travis were both happier to be "famous" once they died. So why should anyone fear death or that house, if you end up happier than you started? So. lame. OMG and the way Vivian and Ben "killed" each other in front of the new family was so Beetlejuice/XF's "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas." So until the Harmons, no one else wanted to help the new inhabitants? They just go around looking scary? Why do some of the ghosts look how they looked when they died, and others look perfectly normal? Shouldn't Ben have bruises around his neck, maggots be crawling out of Violet's mouth, Vivian bleeding profusely between her legs? I mean, if you're going to make a horror show, MAKE IT HORRIFIC. Yeah... so, so disgusted (and not in a good way) by the ending.
Oh and I haven't even touched on Michael. I know he's supposed to be the antichrist and all, but it was so not scary. It was reminiscent of like, so many other horror genre endings.
After seeing the show, it makes sense why they'd want to do a whole new storyline every season. Though after this experience, I probably won't be tuning in unless reviews are phenomenal.
Downton Abbey S2, through ep 4
- Mary is much more likable this season. It helps that she's not an evil bitch 90% of the time. She's definitely still flawed, but I'm okay with (and even prefer) flawed characters. It was just that in S1 she was a really reprehensible person that I could not empathize with at all, and all her problems were of her own making.
- Sybil is not as interesting this season. They haven't spent much time on her, and what we see of her, she's just this do-gooder making beds and talking to Branson. I want to be more into her/Branson than I am, but they haven't given me enough! Why exactly are we supposed to believe that she might be in love with him? They don't really interact all that much, not enough for me to see her falling for him (or why he'd be worth falling for). They did a better job of it in S1, and I suppose they're using that to try and carry us through these new developments. Well, it's not working for me.
- I wish they'd spent more time developing Sybil/Branson than all the time they've spent on Anna/Bates. I like Anna and I like Bates, and I'm fine with them together, but the whole thing about his evil ex-wife and Bates martyring himself (AGAIN), and leaving then coming back, etc., is all so uninteresting.
- Ditto the new maid. Ep 4 ended with her telling Mrs. Hughes that she was pregnant. SO? Why is it anyone's problem other than your own that you're a stupid slut?? I disliked her from the beginning and nothing she's done since then has made me like her one iota more.
- I have a problem with O'Brien's soft spot for Lang. She's such a cold, cynical woman that I find it hard to believe she'd feel such empathy toward someone who was useless in the house (and actually made more work for everyone), given her behavior toward Bates. Yes, I know that her brother supposedly suffered from the same thing Lang did, but to me that doesn't really make sense of the total about face she does with regard to Lang, in comparison to how horribly she treated Bates. I do like that she's a staunch defender of Cora now, after what she did to cause Cora's miscarriage.
- I'm waffling about Edith. I despised her when she kissed that farmer, with zero thought to her position, to his wife, etc. She just seemed like such a selfish creature. But then she got to be all useful with the soldiers, and now she was nice to Mary by telling her about Matthew's disappearance in a helpful way, to the point where I'm now okay with her and even could feel sympathy toward her as the oft-overlooked middle child, if they continue in this vein.
- Speaking of Matthew... I feel like he's gotten the shaft, much as Sybil has this season. We don't see much of him, being that he's off at war, and what we have seen of him, I haven't felt the same kind of affection toward him that I felt in S1. This is primarily because he's enacted the stupid, nearly unforgivable plot device of getting engaged to another woman off screen. I HATE THAT PLOT DEVICE. It never goes well. Either the woman turns out to be a two-dimensional character who's actually a bad person (in which case, I can't forgive the hero for having the bad taste to pursue a relationship with her in the first place), or she's a decent person who's unfairly caught up in another couple's love affair, which makes me hate the hero and heroine. IT'S ALWAYS BAD FOR THE HERO. I do not know why they go there. Can't he just have a girlfriend or whatever, and not get engaged?! Maybe even a series of women he's considering to be his wife, but not one special one? That is much more easily forgiven!
- Even though I still think Matthew is best paired with Sybil, I like Mary enough now that I'm not opposed to her and Matthew being together. (In fact, Mary is being very decent about his fiancee, which I feel they did deliberately in order to make her more sympathetic.) Which makes me really dislike what's her name, his fiancee, because she's in the way and is just kind of milquetoast and not the sort of woman you really want to see become the new Lady Grantham.
- I can't believe Mary's beau is Jorah Mormont, btw. LOL. I recognized his voice, but not his face, AT ALL. He looks completely different without facial hair! I much prefer him looking like Jorah. I hope she knows that when he's not some big mogul in the publishing world he's romancing khaleesis halfway around the world.
- I don't know who Daisy thinks she is. She's so plain and boring, and she has a sweet, adorable man like William to dote on her, and she's like, unsure? Who the hell else does she think she should get? Thomas? Lulz.
- Speaking of Thomas... god he's despicable. Other than that one moment of weakness when he seemed to care about that one blind soldier who killed himself, he's like, just unrepentantly an asshole. Together, he and O'Brien seem to form an evil duo that's eviler together than apart.
- I was really glad when Cora told off Isobel and spurred her departure. I've always found Isobel rather annoying, even though I wanted to like her for being smart, in the know about medicine, and saving that one man's life. Ever after that, however, I've found her to be seriously tiresome, particularly her need to be in control, and unwillingness to compromise even though Downton is freaking the Crawleys' home. You're not the mother of the earl yet lady, and with this war going on and Matthew enlisted, you might never be!
How awesome does the new season of Game of Thrones look?! The trailer (thank you,akscully):
Also,ropo found this for me. We'll stop by the next time we're in Vegas. In fact, I think I saw this place the last time I was there!
It's made me want to play WoW again. I know, losing weight through playing WoW is like the antithesis of the image people usually think of when they think of video gamers (see South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft"). But for me it worked. In order to have fun, you have to interact with the game. Your hands are kept busy. I often ate only a bit of my dinner before I'd get distracted playing, and then I felt full. It's the opposite of watching TV for me -- when watching TV, I like to be doing something else, and eating is perfect. So I just eat and eat. Portion control is very difficult when I'm watching TV -- I don't eat until I'm no longer hungry; I eat until I'm stuffed.
So I'm going to try. Keeping the fitness diary really helps because 1) seeing how many calories something is, is really an eye opener; 2) I don't want to have to add stuff to the diary; and 3) it helps me realize what '1 serving' really amounts to. Last time I cut out, like, everything that was 'bad' -- ice cream, chips, fried foods, bacon, other junk food. I'm not going to do that this time because I think it was so restrictive that I had to fall off the wagon at some point, and I want something I can keep up with long term. Then again, last time I did it not to lose weight, but to improve my cholesterol. That seems under control now (at least so says the physical that I got in September), because I've generally been eating better (just too much of it).
I want to be able to wear all those nice jeans I've unearthed in my closet! LOL.
But speaking of bacon and TV... >.> Today is the last day I'll be curing my bacon. I had enough dry cure to cure it for 6 days, so I'm stopping here. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (the British "meat guru" whose advice I'm taking) says that a 5-day cure is perfect for breakfast slices. Longer cures allow the bacon to last for months, but become unpalatably salty (you have to boil away some of the salt before using). I obviously don't have some drafty shed in which to hang my bacon, so I'll just have to use his alternate suggestion and keep it wrapped in cheesecloth in the fridge. I've also been reading other food blogs about homemade bacon, and there's this ultra simple method of doing it (even simpler than what I did, which was already pretty darn easy), where you just keep it in a plastic bag the whole time with the cure and flip it over every other day to redistribute the liquid (because it does release a lot of liquid). Since I had two slabs of pork belly I probably should have tried one of each method to test which was better, but oh well.
American Horror Story
This series started with a bang and ended with a whimper. The first few episodes were so scary and creepy, exactly as a show like this should be. The more it went on, however, the sillier it got. There were simply too many characters, too many "inhabitants" of the house. The interesting story was about the Harmons, Constance, and maybe Moira. But they kept introducing more and more of the victims, which not only made the place really crowded, but also begged the question -- why didn't we see them all right from the start, since apparently the ghosts in that house can interact with humans?
Tate as a character never made any sense, other than to be a catch-all for evil doings (I have to commend Evan Peters for his performance, however. Any sympathy you feel for the character is purely from his acting). Jessica Lange was fantastic... WAY better than a show like this deserved. Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott were both good too, though at some point you just get done with how stupid their characters were not to just fucking leave the house/keep allowing themselves to get sucked back in.
There's no reason for Moira to look like Frances Conroy, at the end. In real life she looked like Alexandra Breckenridge! I really liked the idea of her looking one way to men and another way to women, but all the other ghosts look like themselves -- why does she look like FC as her "real" self?? She looked like AB when she died! That was who she was! Makes no sense.
Ugh, and the ending was SO CHEESY. WTF was that last episode?! Seriously, the ghosts live happily ever after? That's the conclusion for a series called American Horror Story? Frankly, most of the ghosts were happier dead than alive! That doesn't make for a freaking scary story! Especially the Harmons -- they were all together at the end, and happier than they ever were, alive. Mena Suvari and Travis were both happier to be "famous" once they died. So why should anyone fear death or that house, if you end up happier than you started? So. lame. OMG and the way Vivian and Ben "killed" each other in front of the new family was so Beetlejuice/XF's "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas." So until the Harmons, no one else wanted to help the new inhabitants? They just go around looking scary? Why do some of the ghosts look how they looked when they died, and others look perfectly normal? Shouldn't Ben have bruises around his neck, maggots be crawling out of Violet's mouth, Vivian bleeding profusely between her legs? I mean, if you're going to make a horror show, MAKE IT HORRIFIC. Yeah... so, so disgusted (and not in a good way) by the ending.
Oh and I haven't even touched on Michael. I know he's supposed to be the antichrist and all, but it was so not scary. It was reminiscent of like, so many other horror genre endings.
After seeing the show, it makes sense why they'd want to do a whole new storyline every season. Though after this experience, I probably won't be tuning in unless reviews are phenomenal.
Downton Abbey S2, through ep 4
- Mary is much more likable this season. It helps that she's not an evil bitch 90% of the time. She's definitely still flawed, but I'm okay with (and even prefer) flawed characters. It was just that in S1 she was a really reprehensible person that I could not empathize with at all, and all her problems were of her own making.
- Sybil is not as interesting this season. They haven't spent much time on her, and what we see of her, she's just this do-gooder making beds and talking to Branson. I want to be more into her/Branson than I am, but they haven't given me enough! Why exactly are we supposed to believe that she might be in love with him? They don't really interact all that much, not enough for me to see her falling for him (or why he'd be worth falling for). They did a better job of it in S1, and I suppose they're using that to try and carry us through these new developments. Well, it's not working for me.
- I wish they'd spent more time developing Sybil/Branson than all the time they've spent on Anna/Bates. I like Anna and I like Bates, and I'm fine with them together, but the whole thing about his evil ex-wife and Bates martyring himself (AGAIN), and leaving then coming back, etc., is all so uninteresting.
- Ditto the new maid. Ep 4 ended with her telling Mrs. Hughes that she was pregnant. SO? Why is it anyone's problem other than your own that you're a stupid slut?? I disliked her from the beginning and nothing she's done since then has made me like her one iota more.
- I have a problem with O'Brien's soft spot for Lang. She's such a cold, cynical woman that I find it hard to believe she'd feel such empathy toward someone who was useless in the house (and actually made more work for everyone), given her behavior toward Bates. Yes, I know that her brother supposedly suffered from the same thing Lang did, but to me that doesn't really make sense of the total about face she does with regard to Lang, in comparison to how horribly she treated Bates. I do like that she's a staunch defender of Cora now, after what she did to cause Cora's miscarriage.
- I'm waffling about Edith. I despised her when she kissed that farmer, with zero thought to her position, to his wife, etc. She just seemed like such a selfish creature. But then she got to be all useful with the soldiers, and now she was nice to Mary by telling her about Matthew's disappearance in a helpful way, to the point where I'm now okay with her and even could feel sympathy toward her as the oft-overlooked middle child, if they continue in this vein.
- Speaking of Matthew... I feel like he's gotten the shaft, much as Sybil has this season. We don't see much of him, being that he's off at war, and what we have seen of him, I haven't felt the same kind of affection toward him that I felt in S1. This is primarily because he's enacted the stupid, nearly unforgivable plot device of getting engaged to another woman off screen. I HATE THAT PLOT DEVICE. It never goes well. Either the woman turns out to be a two-dimensional character who's actually a bad person (in which case, I can't forgive the hero for having the bad taste to pursue a relationship with her in the first place), or she's a decent person who's unfairly caught up in another couple's love affair, which makes me hate the hero and heroine. IT'S ALWAYS BAD FOR THE HERO. I do not know why they go there. Can't he just have a girlfriend or whatever, and not get engaged?! Maybe even a series of women he's considering to be his wife, but not one special one? That is much more easily forgiven!
- Even though I still think Matthew is best paired with Sybil, I like Mary enough now that I'm not opposed to her and Matthew being together. (In fact, Mary is being very decent about his fiancee, which I feel they did deliberately in order to make her more sympathetic.) Which makes me really dislike what's her name, his fiancee, because she's in the way and is just kind of milquetoast and not the sort of woman you really want to see become the new Lady Grantham.
- I can't believe Mary's beau is Jorah Mormont, btw. LOL. I recognized his voice, but not his face, AT ALL. He looks completely different without facial hair! I much prefer him looking like Jorah. I hope she knows that when he's not some big mogul in the publishing world he's romancing khaleesis halfway around the world.
- I don't know who Daisy thinks she is. She's so plain and boring, and she has a sweet, adorable man like William to dote on her, and she's like, unsure? Who the hell else does she think she should get? Thomas? Lulz.
- Speaking of Thomas... god he's despicable. Other than that one moment of weakness when he seemed to care about that one blind soldier who killed himself, he's like, just unrepentantly an asshole. Together, he and O'Brien seem to form an evil duo that's eviler together than apart.
- I was really glad when Cora told off Isobel and spurred her departure. I've always found Isobel rather annoying, even though I wanted to like her for being smart, in the know about medicine, and saving that one man's life. Ever after that, however, I've found her to be seriously tiresome, particularly her need to be in control, and unwillingness to compromise even though Downton is freaking the Crawleys' home. You're not the mother of the earl yet lady, and with this war going on and Matthew enlisted, you might never be!
How awesome does the new season of Game of Thrones look?! The trailer (thank you,
akscully):Also,
ropo found this for me. We'll stop by the next time we're in Vegas. In fact, I think I saw this place the last time I was there!
