Weekend Wrap Up

It must be time for a weekend wrap up post.

I'm going to start with Friday, when I finished watching all my TV shows for the week.  That's right, I didn't have anything I had to watch over the weekend!  That was a first in a long time, although it looks like things will be getting easier as it goes along now since some shows are dropping out for the Fall.  Of course, come February, everything will be back, so I'll have to juggle it all then.

Saturday morning, I did not play ultimate Frisbee.  Instead, I met up with Angelique to see Puss in Boots.  It was fun, but it wasn't a rush out to see type of movie.

I came home and had a couple hours to myself, but then Daniel came over for a round of The Stock Market Game.  I managed to pull off a win, although I didn't think that was going to happen this time around.

Sunday, the choir sang in church.  This was interesting since I've been fighting off the last of a cold.  I had hardly any voice on Saturday until afternoon.  I was able to fake my way through most of the songs all three services, although I was certainly ready to be done by the time we finished.

Then my new friend Chris came over and I introduced him to ultimate Frisbee.  Now, the field we normally play on is often muddy in spots, but I have never seen the field that muddy.  It was more like a swamp.  Now, you know I'm always up for a good mud run, but this went a bit far, even for me.  Anyway, we had a good time.

After he left, I headed over to my nightly TV/movie night with friends.  We're starting to watch Alias, which is new to everyone but me.  I'd forgotten just how good the first season was.

And this was my quiet, stay at home weekend of the month.  Man, it was busy.

Weekly TV Recap for November 12th

Yes, I finished everything on Friday night.  Feels good not to have a bunch of TV to go on a weekend.  And yes, I've taken a couple shows off the list.  I think I'm going to tough it out two more weeks and then things will cut back.  Since some shows won't be back in the Spring, that will help and I don't have to figure things out again until Fall.

See, still the most indecisive person.

The Amazing Race - The brother and sister duo have never been one of my favorites, so I wasn't sorry to see them go.  I didn't feel that great with how they lost, however.  I always feel badly when one member really struggles with something and that is what costs them.  I find it funny that the only team who got U-Turned had already passed the check point.  I can understand the confusion, but it's still funny.  Looks like my team is going to get U-Turned next week.  Hope they can work through it.  And can I just say how stupid it is to use an express pass to win first instead of using it to stay in the race.  Unless it was the last leg I could use the pass, I'd be saving that for some time when I thought I was going home instead of some time when I hoped to get first.

Once Upon a Time - I am so under this show's spell.  I'm wondering who Prince Charming's ex/wife is in the fairytale universe if anyone we've heard before.  Emma's scenes with the mayor are absolutely amazing.  And I'm wondering just how Snow White ruined the Evil Queen's life.

Terra Nova - So, the son is still alive, and somehow the sixers are working with him.  That's an interesting development.  The characters got some development, and I think that was the biggest point of the episode.

The Sing-Off - I wouldn't have called myself a country fan, but I enjoyed those performances more this week than the rock performances that started the show.  I'm quickly losing groups to root for since they seem to be keeping the more urban groups, and I'm not as big a fan of that style.  Yes, even though they'd done it before, I was sorry to see Delilah go this week.

Castle - Considering the build up of Castle and the guys in Atlantic City as an early bachelor party, this episode focused much more on the mystery than I thought it would.  I enjoyed it, although it didn't have the clever twists of last week.

Covert Affairs - Seeing Peter out of the office was fun, although he and Annie sure met up lots if she was trying to keep her covert status hidden.  Interesting show, although not that many twists or turns.  I knew about his past relationship with the asset from the beginning - it was that obvious.  I like how they seem to have repaired Peter and Joan's relationship, however.  It feels like they are working on giving them a good marriage, which I always like to see.

Ringer - The story moved forward, although I think the most interesting development was Bridgette meeting Shoban's new boy toy.  I wonder if she suspects what this means or if she thinks it was all in the past.  I didn't realize he worked for Mr. Martin (blanking on first name), however.  I'm not sure how much more complicated things can get, but it looks like they are about to have some secrets come to light.

Psych - The opening scene was hilarious.  Decent mystery although it seemed a bit all over the place, even for this show.  Still, Shawn and his dad fighting over the call made the entire episode for me.

Survivor - For now, Cochran is okay with the other team.  It'll be interesting to see how that works out for him when the rest of his team is gone.  Ozzy is back on redemption.  In fact, they had two tribal counsels.  I'm ready to see how things go at the challenge next week.  Oh, and I'm so ready for Coach to go now.  I'd love to see someone who hasn't played before win this season.

Burn Notice - So, we're a step closer to taking down the second half's big bad.  The question is, will Michael be unable to undo the damage once they do.  Or will that be the plot line for season six?  The story about taking down the friend's killer was fine, but it wasn't one of their better episodes.

Charlie's Angels - And I think that's all she wrote.  Once again, I enjoyed the episode.  It wasn't great television, but it was entertaining and had a couple of twists to it I enjoyed.  RIP, Angels.  I'll miss you.

The Big Bang Theory - Hilarious.  Neither story line was unexpected, but the way they played out was very funny.  Penny and Leonard going at it, getting all their annoyances off the table, Sheldon suddenly loving that bird.  Played absolutely wonderfully by all concerned.

Nikita - I'm glad they are doing more with Michael and his son.  Never expected that she was really British intelligence.  And Nikita breaking up with him was so hard to watch.  A great thing I really respect, but so hard to watch.  So, now that the one guardian has been brought up for his secondary mission, what is he going to do?

Chuck - I am so going to miss these characters when the show is over.  They'd better give them a happy ending.  Anything else would not be in the spirit of the show.  Casey trying to date Gertrude is absolutely hilarious.  Their fight scene was brilliant.  And then Morgan dodging those darts Matrix style was perfect.  I'm glad they got him back to normal.  And Jeff acting normal, too?  I'm normally not a Buy More fan, but this has real potential.  But I think my favorite thing tonight was Sarah working hardest to get Morgan back because she knew what that friendship means to Chuck.  That's a sign of how far she's grown as a character.

Wednesday's Bowling

I believe I've mentioned that one of my roommates has started organizing a bowling night on his day off.  One of the local bowling alleys has a deal where for $10 you get three hours of bowling and your shoe rental - minimum three people per lane.  It's a fun way to hang out with friends and rather cheap, too.

This last week, for the first time that I've gone, we only had three of us - my roommate Spencer, my former roommate Daniel, and myself.  All three of us are around the same level of play, and we try to get as many games in as we can.

We managed to get 8 games in, although I think they let us go a couple minutes past closing.  They sure shut it down the instant our 8th game was over.

To show how evenly matched we are, Daniel and I won three games each, and Spencer won the other two.

And Daniel and I broke 1000 points by the end of the last game.  Not by much.  I was the point leader for the night, and I hit 1045.

I realize that the 130.6 average isn't that big a deal to those who bowl regularly, but we were all happy with it.  Now, we just need to increase our scores so we can crack 1000 on normal nights when we play 5 or 6 games.

FIR Question #7

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for another Fall Into Reading Question.  Actually, we get two this week.

Is there a book that has had a tremendous impact on your life? One that made you look at life in a whole new way, or caused you to completely change something in your life?

As a Christian, the easy answer is the Bible.  And it has made me reexamine my life at various times when I have run across a passage that convicted me of something I was doing wrong or encouraged me that I was right about something.

However, that seems to easy for me.  Then again, I'm not sure about any book I've read that really changed my life that much.  That is one downside of reading mostly fiction, I guess.

And now, for the bonus question.

How is your Fall Into Reading coming along? Are you on track? Ahead of schedule? Falling behind?

It's funny this came up today (we're about half way through the season, although it feels like winter out there).  I had 20 books on my original list, and I've made it through 9 of them, so I'm not too far off track.  However, I've read a couple of books that weren't on my list originally, so I've read 11 so far.  Granted, both of those books were very short, but I'm still counting them.  I have some longer books on my list still, so we'll see how I did in the second half of fall.  I'm hoping to at least get the books from Spring read.

Word Association for November 8th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Distress :: Upset
2. White lie :: Still a Lie
3. Costume :: Actor
4. Stampede :: Cowboy
5. Unappealing :: Ugly
6. Idtiot :: Stupid
7. Correction :: Fact
8. Resignation :: Job
9. Insipid :: Bad
10. Celebration :: Happy

Running the ROC Race

This weekend was the ROC race.  That's Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge.  I ran it with Sanjay, whom I hadn't seen since May.  And we had a blast.

This techincally wasn't a mud run.  Having said that, there were some definitely muddy spots, and a couple of them were designed that way.  But they were never more than a few inches deep and we didn't have to crawl through any of them.

We did, however, have to navigate some water.  I completely failed the monkey bars, and that meant some water.  There was a slip and slide at one point.  They were using hoses to wet us down at another.  And there were water pits under a rope bridge and a rope swing, the final two obstacles.

I was ridiculously pleased with how well I did climbing up a few things that were rather steep and had a rope to help us climb over.  I'm wondering if I gave up too soon on the wall at the Gladiator Rock n Run.

One of my favorite obstacles was the giant inflatable slide.  Yeah, this was run with some obstacles like that.

Then again, they took advantage of the cold snap we had over the weekend to put some ice/snow on the tire mountain and in the tubes we had to crawl through.  That was very cold.  Ironically enough, the polar plunge was warmer than I expected.

Fortunately, we caught a break in the weather and it was sunny and warm enough for the wetness.

As I said, it was lots of fun.  There were about 20 obstacles over the 5K, so it wasn't a road race with a few obstacles.  There were definitely lots of obstacles.  Plus it was at the LA County fairgrounds.  I've never been to the fair, and I enjoyed watching all of that.

And since it wasn't a mud run, just rinsed off my shoes and hands after the race and we were good to go.  It had been warm while we were running, but I think trying to clean off at the end would have been too cold!

Weekly TV Recap for November 6th

So, you'll notice that I'm a day late with this post.  That's because I just finished watching TV for the week.  I've got to figure out a way to cut out some shows.  If I have the nerve to do anything other than watch TV, I fall this far behind.  It's not good.

Anyway, here's what I did watch this week.

The Amazing Race - I'm so glad it was a non-elimination leg, although to be honest, there's really only one or two teams I want to see go.  I want the snowboarders to win, but I still like most of the teams and hate to see anyone go.  I'm just glad the grandparents didn't wind up having to leave because they didn't pay their driver.  I would hate to have anyone go out that way.

Once Upon a Time - It's official, I love this show.  And this is coming from the guy who didn't want to get caught up in another serialized show.  I just hope that these guys are show runners do a better job than their bosses did on Lost of telling a complete story.  The scenes between the Mayor and Emma were electric.  I hope Emma has indeed come around, although that's probably too early.  And I'm wondering who remembers what from their old lives.  I think that Mr. Gold knows, but I'm still wondering about the Mayor.

The Sing-Off - The team saved from the bottom two last week is gone this week.  I hope that Urban whatever the rest of their name is goes next.  I'm really not a fan of their style of music.  It was fun to see Committed again.  But I really got a kick out of the group that did Queen's music tonight, especially since they did "Somebody to Love."  One of the lead singers in downhere, a band I love, has done a YouTube cover of that song that has gone viral, so it was fun for me to hear someone else cover it.

Terra Nova - Yes, a mystery.  You know I have to critic that.  It was actually okay.  Not the best mystery I've ever seen, but still pretty decent.  I was glad the married couple wound up being innocent and living happily ever after.

Castle - Sooner or later, every cop show seems to think they need to do the main character held hostage in a bank episode.  And this one had some of the same predictable plot points, although I fell for it just like I do every time.  The actors made those moments so real that I believe them.  The ultimate reason behind the bank robbery was wonderfully put together.  I never would have guessed that.  It redeemed a cliched plot and made it feel wonderfully creative.  And it was fun seeing the robbers using TV doctors as their code names, too.

Dancing with the Stars - I've hardly given this show much time this season, but I think I'll be giving it less.  David was the only reason I was "watching."  I'm not saying it wasn't his time to go, but I'm not that attached to anyone else at this point.

Covert Affairs - Jai suddenly seems to be a man of manipulation.  His whole sub-plot getting the new assignment is going to be very interesting.  Using his friend and then his dad, however, doesn't win him points with me.  I felt sorry for Annie innocently making a friend and then having to use him to get more information.  That whole thing was pretty hard to watch.

Ringer - So Gemma is indeed dead.  Yet the new sponsor is actually the killer?  Yikes!  And since when did Shabaan go from Bridget is ruining everything to wanting Bridget's secret safe.  Meanwhile, with the old sponsor in New York, will the truth come out?  And now everyone is going to know that Bridget isn't pregnant, especially after that scene about how much the baby means to the husband.  This just gets more complicated every week.

Psych - The scene with Mantis fighting in the warehouse with all the Batman words was hysterical.  As were both Shawn and Gus' superheroes.  Also didn't see the final twist coming.  All in all, it was another fun episode.

Survivor - So, Ozzy gets back in the game only to have Cochran turn his back on everyone and switch sides.  I am interested to see how he is going to try to spin this.  But the real question is, will everyone now be gunning for him, or will the other side take him on their team, at least until they get down to seven.  I think he's just cut his own throat, but we'll see.

The Big Bang Theory - Amy has some weird ideas on things, but this was a pretty funny episode.  I'm just wondering what they are saying about Leonard behind his back.

Burn Notice - If I didn't trust the writers in this show to come up with a way for Michael to defeat this latest big bad, I might actually be worried.  Until then, I'm going to enjoy watching him squirm as the stakes have never been hirer for him.  I am wondering how this will lead into next year.  And so many great lines in the episode.  I just love this show.

Charlie's Angels - I think my biggest disappointment with the fact that this show has been canceled is the fact that we will never know what secret they were hinting at with Charlie.  That certainly intrigues me along with the fun of the individual episodes.

Chuck - I was very confused when Morgan didn't recognize the Indy reference since I was thinking it myself.  But then they made it a plot point.  Wow, Morgan is definitely changing, and not for the better.  Again, I trust the writers and I think they will fix things by the end.  (At least I hope they will.  Some of those interviews make it sound like they want to end things at least somewhat badly.  But that's never been the show.  It's always been about fun.)

Nikita - I knew it!  I knew that Ryan couldn't really be dead.  How his working with Amanda to take down Oversight is going to work out, however, I have no clue.  Meanwhile, the writers, who I assume are here in So Cal, need to learn that Camp Pendleton is a Marine base, not a Navy base (although I'm sure there could be overlap).  And Alex basically a prisoner of Division even if they are "protecting" her?  This season has officially gotten very good.

Grimm - This is an easy cut for me to make from my watch list.  After two episodes, I'm not really that engage either with the characters or the story they are trying to tell.  I'm curious how they will continue to build on fairytales for each episode, but not enough to watch week after week.

Concentration - That Is Key

Tuesday, I said I hadn't been able to concentrate much.  Then, I was blaming a sugar hangover from the candy I ate Monday night.  Tonight, I have no excuse, yet here I am unable to concentrate on much of anything.  It's been that bad almost all week, and I'm not sure what is causing it.

It might be my lack of sleep that is making me jittery.  I've been going to bed late, even for me, almost all week.  Tuesday and Thursday, I got up and went for a run before work in spite of all that, too.

I definitely think it is partically adrenelin from waiting to hear if a new friend will sign up for Tough Mudder with me.  I so want to do that race with someone else.  And we're even thinking of trying to talk some members of a band we both like to join us.  That prospect is really making me jittery.  I am finding myself checking every few minutes to see if he's responded, even though his responses are pretty consistent and come in like clockwork once a day.  Yeah, a guy can hope, can't he?

And I've got the ROC race this weekend.  That's Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge.  The weather's supposed to barely hit 60, so it will be a little cooler than I want, but it looks like so much fun. I can't wait.

Plus I'm trying to decide what to cut from my TV list while still trying to watch everything I am recording.  I can't keep it up much longer.  I know that I've got a few weeks until some of my shows end for the season (they're only fall shows), but I don't know if I can wait that long to cut back.

This will be interesting tonight since I have choir.  Will I be able to concentrate for two hours.  Plus, to add to the nervousness, I think I am going to audition for one of the solos.  I've been praciting hard for the last couple of days for it.

Here's hoping I actually go to bed and feel more like myself tomorrow.  I have too much work I need to do to go on like this.

Fall Into Reading Question Six

It's time for this week's Fall Into Reading Question. 

When it comes to fiction, are you more of a “plot person” or a “character person”? If you had to choose, which concept would win out when it comes to picking and loving a book: plot or character?

I am finding that I truly do enjoy great characters.  In fact, spending time with interesting characters has helped some slow plots be more palitable to me.  However, eventually, you'd better have an interesting plot or I will zone out and struggle to finish the book.

So ultimately I am a plot person, but I can be distracted by fun, well drawn characters through the slow parts.

Word Association for November 1st

Since I have the attention span of...What's that?...tonight, let's do this week's word association.

1. Class :: School
2. Shopping :: Bag
3. Bitchy :: Unplesant
4. Consulting :: Job
5. Texts :: Phone
6. Sigh :: Long
7. Office :: Work
8. Develop :: Pictures
9. Boardwalk :: Monopoly
10. Prime :: Rib