Raven J. Blackbird - Blackbirds are Indestructible (Page 2)

Work It, Bird!

Just another workout log. Because every day is leg day. Date: 30 December 2017 Weight: 245[1] Workout: C25K W1D1 I'm considering signing up for a later incarnation of a race similar to Atacama Crossing; in March 2019 there is a 150-mile ultramarathon in New Zealand which is run (no

General bollocks

Instacart Chicanery, Part 2

In the previous installment of this blog, I commented on Instacart's bullshit pricing model and how I find it entirely sleazy and bordering on dishonest. That was yesterday. Today, I went to cook some of the food that was a part of yesterday's order, and I noticed something that has

General bollocks

Instacart Chicanery

Let me start off by saying that I like Instacart. The ability to open up an app or a web browser, pick out whatever groceries I need to cook some decent food for a few days rather than ordering takeout, and then have it show up on my doorstep within

Workout logs

Making Shit Happen [Workout Log]

It's been awhile since I've posted any training logs or anything at all having to do with working out, but as I mentioned in the previous post, the first item on my list for 2018 is to actually get rid of this extraneous mass, and since that's something that is

Random thoughts

So This Is Chrismas...

And what have you done? Another year over, and a new one just begun.... Or something like that. It was exactly one year ago that I made my predictions for 2017; I already recapped the accuracy thereof in the previous post, so now we're going to make some predictions for

General bollocks

Dear 2017, Go Fuck Yourself

Although there are still two weeks left in the year, I think this is a good time to start the year-in-review blog post cycle, in which we take a look back on the predictions I made at the beginning of the year to see whether I have a future in

General bollocks

The Cake is a Lie

I don't always love my job, but most of the time I like it well enough. There are things which annoy me, or things which I find suboptimal and frustrating, but as a general rule, the work is interesting, the people I work with on a daily basis tend to

General bollocks

Tales From The ACL

Even though it's been one of the bigger things that have happened to me in 2017, I haven't written too much here about my ACL surgery and the subsequent rehab process. Part of that is probably just due to the general lack of desire to write a whole lot, and

Random thoughts

Ready The Invocation Array!

Once again, we have a title that has nothing at all do with the contents of this post; it's just something I felt like saying, kinda like "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!" WTF is an "Invocation Array" you ask? Apparently it's something from World of Warcraft, but

Random thoughts

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

This has nothing to do with my sci-fi "novel" and is more in line with the sorts of things that usually appear in this space. For the longest time, I never used to believe in karma; I always thought it was one of those stupid concepts that was

Writing

Schrödinger's Universe

What is this, you ask? Right now it's the rough and unedited beginning of a story. I have not written any fiction in a long, long time, but I've been kicking around an idea for a few months now, and since I've got a bit of creative doldrums going on

General bollocks

Can't Keep A Good Bird Down

Usually when I write things here, it's because they aren't settled in my mind and I want to rant about them or use this space to think through them, or something along those lines. However, as I'm trying to think about the events of the last 10 days or so

Sometimes You Just Gotta Say "Fuck it."

Blackbird's First Rule of Relationships: I don't chase people. Ever. If someone decides that they don't want to be a part of my life, I let them go, and I don't argue, fight, or otherwise attempt to persuade them of the error of their ways. It doesn't matter what their

Random thoughts

One Broken Blackbird, Coming Right Up.

I'm writing this here because I have to write it somewhere, in the hopes that getting it out will serve as some kind of catharsis, and also because the fact that nobody reads this blog means that I won't have to answer a bunch of stupid questions like "are

Random thoughts

All Your Blackbird R Belong 2 Us

Yeah, so that title really has nothing at all to do with the contents of this post; this is just another generic update about what is or isn't going on in my life. For the most part, there is nothing going on aside from work and rehab for my leg.

Random thoughts

Nope, Still Not Dead

My interest in keeping this blog updated started waning significantly after I dropped out of the race, which I suppose should not be all that surprising given that the race was the original reason for creating it in the first place. However, I told myself that it was still worthwhile

Skiing

Blackbirds: Not So Indestructible After All

Yeah. That title is actually in reference to a couple of things that happened this past weekend, in which yours truly, Raven J. Blackbird, was brought down from the soaring heights to the cold reality of the pavement. Or, in this case, the snow. N and I drove up to

Heavy objects

Workout Log: 29/30 March 2017

I'm somewhat caught up, with only two workouts missing from the current list, so let's get those out of the way and recorded before we move on to more interesting stuff. 29 March 2017 workout type: heavy objects body parts: chest/tris bench: 135x8, 225x5, 250x4, 250x4, 250x4, 250x4, 250x4,

Squat

Workout Log: 27 March 2017

Hey, it's week 2 of the Smolov squat program. This is workout #2, which, fortunately, only consisted of one working set, because I had to struggle to get that final rep, and there was a point where I wasn't sure if it was going to go up or down. But,

Random thoughts

A Quiet Rage Seething Below

This blog entry is not what it was originally going to be. I started off on a rant about one thing, and by the time I got a few paragraphs in decided that I wanted to go in a different direction. So, rather than talking about blowing up the planet

The Flake Files

The Flake Files: Ghostbusters!

Musical selection of the day: The Parity Complex: Flames[1] This post, and any that come after it with a similar title, were inspired by The Douchebag Diaries, which was the title of a blog entry on someone else's blog that I read a few days ago, in which she

General bollocks

All the News That's Fit to Fake

Taking a cue from another blog that I read recently, I thought that it might be time to finally return to the idea of posting something political, as I said I was going to do a few months back. Instead, I've been amusing myself by re-reading my old LiveJournal, circa

General bollocks

The Angry Blackbird Returns

.... and there was much rejoicing! No, the title of this post does not mean that I've reverted to hating everyone and everything. It's a reference to my presence on the old AZInfoline, wherein I would regularly engage forum posters in matters of politics, philosophy, and the like, and generally just

Workout logs

Get in the Gym, Blackbird.

The most recent training-related entry is 01 March, and today is 22 March. What the fuck have I been doing for the last three weeks? I don't know what went down between 01 March and 07 March, except that we re-tested some of my max lifts, and my max squat

Introspection

Bollocks!

Yeah, three more weeks have passed without an update, partially because it seems like every time I think about writing something it's 3:00 in the morning or somesuch and I make the decision to just bag it and go to bed instead of firing up the blog-o-matic. And as