Month: April 2005

Knitting Guild

Oh, and guess what else I did on the weekend? I went to my first ever Knitter’s Guild meeting. Yes, I’m joining an honest-to-goodness guild, like I’m some medieval blacksmith or something. The Inner City group seems pretty cool and I didn’t get too much shit for being a yarn store sell-out…

DietBlog

DietBlog: Okay, so I had my first official weigh-in today… and I lost two kilos! Dude, that’s like FIVE POUNDS. That’s insane. I was like, “Are you joking? That’s a lot, right?” And the weigher said it was, but that it was pretty normal and that my body would probably adjust soon so the rate would slow down. I’m still stoked though. I don’t want to sound like a dork, but I really think the “meeting” aspect is what’s going to get me through this. I always liked school stuff. For example, our leader was up there tonight talking about affirmations and visualization, and she kept asking people for examples. But nobody would talk! So I kept saying stuff, because if we’re all just going to sit there staring at each other then it’s just a waste of my time. Right? I might as well get something out of it. I don’t care if they think I’m a kiss-ass; I’m not paying $15/week to screw around. So I asked questions and made comments and generally spoke about 500% more than anybody else. Oh, and since you’re all waiting with breathless anticipation… I got my first Bravo star! She asked if anybody’d made any positive lifestyle changes and I said that I’d walked to work every day for the past week (which is 30 minutes), and on my day off I even walked all the way from the city to Newtown (which took me, like, an hour). Lemme tell ya, it feels pretty damn good to have that star sitting on my little “Progress Trail.”

Overall, I feel pretty positive about how it’s going. I went to our health fund on Friday to see if they offered a rebate and was surprised to discover that I’m eligible for $200 bucks back! So I went ahead and pre-paid for four months’ worth of meetings. (I also splurged on a couple of the “point tracking” books.) Other than that, emotionally Friday was the lowest point of the week. I just felt hungry and irritable all day long. It’s also my day off alone so I didn’t have anybody to talk to and keep me from thinking negative thoughts. I perked up on Saturday though, mostly because I’d saved up enough points to have our usual pancakes and bacon. The Snook’s being amazingly supportive about the whole enterprise, helping me figure out ways to make our favorite foods lower in fat and not complaining too badly about the switch away from “all meat, all the time.” He’s even agreed to my ultimate goal attainment reward: a trip to Warner Brothers Movie World on the Gold Coast!* Only eighteen kilos more to go…

* I totally got that idea from an adolescent fiction book that – strangely enough – I keep thinking about this week. It’s about a fat kid who gets to go to Disney World when he loses the weight at the end. He gets stuck with two pounds to go and gets mad but then discovers that he’s grown two inches, so he still qualifies to go. I can’t remember the title though. Can you? It definitely wasn’t Blubber, since the protagonist of that one is a girl. Hmmm…

Top Secret Formula

Did you know that the formula for calculating Weight Watchers “Points” is actually protected by patent? On one hand that means that WW has a habit of litigating against folks who write Points calculators… but on the other, it means that the formula is publicly available on the patent documents and you can write your own. Which I am doing now.

Superman filming?

How excitement! A customer just called to ask whether it was going to be difficult to get into the shop today, as apparently there’s a movie – Superman! – filming down York Street. I had no idea! I’m going to sneak down at lunch and see if I can get a photo.

Update: Here they are! The two crappiest photos ever. (I only had my mobile and I didn’t want to risk getting too close for fear that I’d get, like, busted or something. I don’t know. I was paranoid.) They’d set up a big crane at Wynyard Station, not far from Krispy Kreme. It was holding a big roof-like structure over the area by the bus stops beside the Menzies Hotel. There were hundreds of people milling around, sitting on the grass and standing at the fences watching. This first shot is from up top in the little park-like area, looking down towards where all the lights were. At one point I heard a voice over a loudspeaker call “Action!” and then I caught a glimpse of a crowd of people start walking around that street. And then “Cut.” Hollywood in action is pretty boring, to tell you the truth. The second shot is down on Wynyard Street looking at the big crane thing. I didn’t see anybody that looked very important, though there were two swanky big motorhomes parked down one of the side streets.

Superman filming     Superman filming

Stupid anecdote: I was sorta disappointed not to see Lois Lane because I read in a magazine yesterday that she was going to be played by Mischa Barton from The O.C., and I had a crazy vision that maybe she’d be wearing yet another big ugly hat and I could yell something amusing at her. But then I got home and looked it up and it turns out that it isn’t her, it’s Kate Bosworth. Damn. That’s what I get for gleaning celebrity information from nine-month-old magazines at the doctor’s office.

Midi karaoke

My sister will love this one: FreeKaraoke.com. They’re karaoke MIDI files! How delightfully low-fi. On my machine they play in Quicktime and the words light up as the song plays. How neat (and by neat, I mean sorta lame too) is that? We may need to have a karaoke MIDI party, methinks. The Snook also reports that there are other sites offering these around the internets too.