LiveJournal Project - July 2004

Mostly workout logs, plus some random commentary. Doesn't seem to be a particularly introspective month.

Date: 2004-07-01 00:16
Subject: phase 2, cycle 3, day 7 - back/hamstrings
i don't really understand this - i went on vacation over the weekend, but i didn't really party all that hard (not like i usually do when going to vegas) and yet i've probably been more drained this week than i'd be if i had consumed all manner of mind-altering substances. so it's been a bit of a slow process to get back in the swing of things as far as lifting and diet are concerned. made it to the gym to lift today, but i'm still not back on the diet and tracking my calories. maybe that'll start tomorrow - but then again, i said that yesterday. =/

Time: 16:05
Subject: skule daze revisited
as of tomorrow, 1st summer session is over, and next week we start the second one. at this point i'm having mixed feelings about taking classes during second summer session - at the start of june, i was pretty happy and excited to be back in school, but by the end of the month i really have stopped giving a shit - probably because the one class that i still have left to finish is so ridiculously easy that there's no point in showing up except to take the exams anyway, but i think i'm also tired of getting up early in the morning. i'm scheduled for 6 more credits next session - POS 305 (politics and film) and POS 300 (contemporary global controversies) - 300 is an internet class, and the course requirements are pretty minor - write 10 1-page essays. 305 meets three days a week for three hours at a time, and that's not really something i'm looking forward to, but it fulfills two separate requirements at ASU so it's a good class to take. i'll probably stop in the bookstore tomorrow and see what the texts are and then make a decision from there.

in other news... saw fahrenheit 9/11 on tuesday with re_aug and _purpleglitter_ - i'm not going to say too much about the film, other than to urge everyone, even those who aren't the biggest supporters of michael moore (i'm not) to go check it out. is it biased? of course. to think or expect otherwise would be foolish. are there a few parts which seem to stretch the facts or make leaps of logic that might be questionable? yes. there are also a couple of minor things that he says which are completely untrue. however, those sorts of criticisms fall victim to a "forest for the trees" sort of response, because they miss the overall point of the movie - which is to say that the people currently in office need to go, and they need to go now. that's the bottom line. i don't know if the movie will change anyone's mind; for those of you who already think that bush is a rat-bastard, you'll just be more convinced upon seeing this movie. for those of you that support bush, chances are you'll leave the movie still supporting him - politics is funny like that - people never seem to change their minds, and when they do, they like to say that it was of their own free will, and not the result of some external force providing new information. as for people on the fence who aren't sure what to think about bush and friends? it's hard to say. i'd like to think that, at the very least, they'll walk out of the theatre and want to check up on some of moore's facts - and when they do, they'll be able to draw their own conclusions - and hopefully those conclusions will lead them to push the lever next to "democrat" come this november - not so much because they like john kerry (i don't) - but because he's the best of the worst, and we really, really need a change.

just say "no" to dubya.

Date: 2004-07-02 02:48
Subject: phase 2, cycle 4, day 1 - chest/biceps
an ok workout. it's really strange how some of my lifts seem to improve from week to week and others really don't seem to be going anywhere. i don't know if this is a lack-of-protein issue or if it's because the lifts that tend to improve are at the beginning of the workout, leaving less energy to complete stuff towards the end. i need to figure out a way to force myself to consume extra protein - i've been saying this for the last month now, i know, but i probably wouldn't still be saying it if i'd been doing it, too. =/

Date: 2004-07-07 10:39
Subject: phase 2, cycle 4, day 2 - quads/calves/forearms
i'm a little late in getting this posted - leg day actually took place on saturday the 3rd, but i've been busy with other shit. anyway, this was the leg day from hell - mainly because my lower back decided to seriously tighten up after it was all over; here we are 4 days later and there's still some residual pain in there - probably will last, i'm guessing, another day or two. at least it doesn't feel like any kind of injury, although i'll know for sure when i get around to back / hamstrings day.

Time: 11:00
Subject: score one for the blackbird.
1st summer session final grades were posted today, and as expected, i got an A in POS101 - the class was ridiculously easy to the point where i didn't even need to take the final exam. what was not so expected, however, is that i also got an A in the religion class i was taking, which, as some of you may recall, i spent a good bit of time bitching about a few weeks ago. i was expecting a B - i needed to get an 87 on the final exam in order to keep an A, and upon walking out of class after taking the final, i really wasn't sure whether or not i'd pulled it off, especially considering how little i'd paid attention in that class all month and how much i'd hated it. woo, go me.

anyway, by 9pm tonight i need to decide what i'm doing about second summer session. i got ahold of the syllabus for politics and film, and the course requirements look pretty straightforward - watch 5 movies, write a 2-page review on each one. class itself is going to consist of watching more movies two days per week, plus discussion. that's it - oh, and a final exam of some sort. doesn't sound like a whole lot, but as mentioned previously i don't know if i'm going to have the patience to sit in a 3-hour class three days per week, particularly when i have a shitload of other stuff that needs to get done, and also when i'm scheduled for 17 hours in the fall semester. the thing i'm most afraid of is getting burned out - i'm really close to graduation, and there's a part of me that wants to go balls to the wall and bust it all out as quickly as possible, but given that i've been an undergraduate off-and-on now for almost 11 years and i'm sick of ASU like you wouldn't believe, i wonder if my chances of actually getting through all this shit would be better if i pared it back a little (only one class during second summer session).

blah - it's almost 11:00 - class stars in an hour. i should probably go shower and head down there and at least see if i think the class is going to be interesting, or i should say fuck it and head down the hall to my office and get to work on the various other piles of shit that need to be done.

Time: 12:57
Subject: taken from gymrats
the fatkins diet

Date: 2004-07-08 02:12
Subject: phase 2, cycle 4, day 6 - shoulders/triceps
a pretty good workout overall - didn't have any trouble with my lower back tightening up, so i should be good to go for back day tomorrow. i was kinda surprised that i didn't get all the reps on the overhead press, but my protein intake has been somewhat lacking these last few days, so perhaps that might explain it.

Time: 07:23
Subject: why does the timing of this announcement not surprise me?
lifted from cnn.com... "Homeland Security Secretary Ridge to warn that al Qaeda is in "operational or planning phase of an attack" on U.S. before November election, administration official tells CNN."

yup, here it comes... it's hard not to be a conspiracy buff when only two days after kerry picks edwards and spooks the hell out of dubya, we see the terr'r flags going up. of course, if osama really is planning an attack, i think he'd do well to decide if he really wants to deal with four more years of meddling in the middle east by our current asshole - because i think it's highly likely that a terror attack on the US close to the elections will probably throw things over to bush. perhaps if something were to happen now or during the next month, people might question whether or not dubya's policies are effective and they'd vote him out, but if it happens towards the end of october, i think the results would be different.

oh yeah, and let's all enjoy those civil liberties while we can. never know when asscroft is going to come a-knocking.

my personal opinion is that nothing is going to happen, and that this is just more scare tactics on the part of the administration to keep people off-balance without any concrete information. after all, it's been awhile since we've gone to code orange, and perhaps people have forgotten that they're supposed to be afraid, so herr fuhrer dubya needs to remind them.

you know what i'd like to see? a cage match between dubya and osama. if dubya wins, osama and his top deputies commit ritual suicide and disband al qaeda, and if osama wins, the US pulls its troops out of the middle east and stops supporting israel. wouldn't it be great if world leaders actually settled disputes like men, instead of being scared little boys who have to send others off to do their dirty work for them?

Date: 2004-07-09 04:08
Subject: phase 2, cycle 4, day 7 - back/hamstrings
no problems with lower-back stiffness. all is again right with the world.

Date: 2004-07-11 05:58
Subject: inspired by recent haiku postings from spacekadette
heavy objects move
lift them up to put them down
if no pain, no gain.

there ya go, folks, my first original poem in three years. =/
(and yes, i did just get home from the gym)

Time: 06:13
Subject: phase 2, cycle 5, day 1 - chest/biceps
not a whole lot of change from last week. i increased the weight on a couple of exercises, but overall i don't feel like much progress has been made. i've got two more weeks of this 5x5 stuff, and then i think i'll be only too happy to change it up to something else. i don't think this program has really suited me all that well.

Time: 08:56
Subject: anyone? anyone: bueller?
just a shot-in-the-dark question... is anyone out there reading this going to defcon?

Time: 13:09
Subject: thanks to t3knomanser for the "we're really fucked now" story of the day
U.S. Mulling How to Delay Nov. Vote in Case of Attack

Date: 2004-07-12 06:56
Subject: the possible delay of november elections, revisited
i thought about this a bit more yesterday, specifically to try to determine whether or not it would be constitutionally permitted, and as far as i can tell, the answer is yes, with one caveat. article II of the constitution says that congress may specify the date on which states choose the electors, and that said date must be the same for every state. since when we go to the polls come november, we're actually voting for the electors assigned to our chosen candidate, i don't see any restriction preventing congress from changing this date.

HOWEVER - what i don't think would be possible is for the bush administration to use this tactic to remain in power past january 20th, due to a different provision in article II - namely, that the president and vice-president are to serve four-year terms. once january 20th comes and goes, those 4 years are up, no matter how you interpret the constitution and no matter what laws congress tries to pass, and on january 21st, bush and co. would have zero constitutional authority to do anything. of course, whether or not bush would actually follow the rules should a situation like this arise remains another matter, but if he didn't, then i'd see either a: instant grounds for impeachment, or b: a serious constitutional crisis which could well undermine the structure of american government.

i think it was lenin who said that anyone wishing to live a quiet life had done badly to be born in the twentieth century - one can only imagine what he'd have to say about the 21st.

Time: 08:41
Subject: one for mccain, one for kyl, and one for hayworth.
this is the first time in as long as i can remember that i've ever been so pissed off that i've actually written a letter to a member of congress. i don't hold any illusions that this will do any good, but until the revolution starts, at least it's something. thanks to t3knomanser for the absentee-ballot idea.

Dear XXXXX:

It is with considerable anger that I write this letter to you today, prompted by my reading of the various news stories which suggest that the federal government is looking into the possibility of postponing the November elections in the case of a terrorist attack. Such a proposal, should it ever reach the Congressional floor, must be stamped "dead on arrival" as an unconscionable abrogation of the democratic process..

• The holding of free and fair elections on a regular basis is a cornerstone of Western democracy which is simply too important to meddle with. When Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992, despite the devastation, elections were still held. In Spain, despite the terrorist attack, elections were strill held as scheduled. In Israel, where terrorist attacks are more commonplace than anywhere else in the world, elections continue to be held as scheduled. The nation has been at war in the past, against powers which sought to conquer or destroy it, and elections were held as scheduled. This must continue.
• Terrorists act with the intention of bringing about changes in the policies of the governments which they target. President Bush has repeatedly told the nation that we should not be swayed by terrorists, that we should be vigilant but not afraid. To postpone the November elections in the event of an attack is to give reward to their actions and to encourage future attacks. This is clearly unacceptable.
• Postponing the election would not solve the real problem; election precincts, by their very nature, are simply insecurable. They are many, they are public, and they are "soft targets" - and no amount of postponement nor even a National Guard detail at every polling place would remedy this problem. The real issue is fear - real or imagined - and fear may well skew our voting; people may not go to the polls out of fear, or they may vote for a choice they do not support out of fear, and so on.

If there is a clear threat to our national elections, a threat that makes democracy itself a victim, we absolutelhy must allow the elections to continue - from the privacy of our own homes. I propose that the federal government mandates that all local elections commissions to distribute absentee ballots to all registered voters. This will delay election results, but create a decentralized election process immune to terrorist threat. The only down side is the larger amount of labor involved in tallying the results, but this is a small price indeed for safe, secure elections.

Date: 2004-07-13 14:29
Subject: phase 2, cycle 5, day 2 - quads/calves/forearms
not too shabby - although on the last set of squats i think i placed the bar in a weird spot, because as i was going down on the first rep, i felt some middle-back pain - different from the problems i was having last week. from a leg perspective i think i could've done all 5 reps, but it started to feel a bit odd so i racked it after 2. everything else went about as expected.

Date: 2004-07-15 13:34
Subject: phase 2, cycle 5, day 5 - shoulders/triceps
not a whole lot to report. w00.

Date: 2004-07-16 13:04
Subject: phase 2, cycle 5, day 6 - back/hamstrings

Date: 2004-07-17 12:49
Subject: because i have nothing better to do
azcentral.com has a story today about the increased demand being seen by charm schools around the nation, and they provide this sample listing of 10 etiquette rules. since i'm procrastinating my essay on whether or not government-ordered assassination is acceptable, i thought i'd share these rules with y'all.

1. Butter a dinner roll one bite-size piece at a time.
   fuck that. i'd rather spend my time at the dinner table eating my roll, not picking up a knife and saying "please, sir, can i have some more?" every time i need a little bit of butter. besides, following this advice could well mean that two people at the table take a shot at the butter simultaneously, thus increasing the chances that someone gets stabbed in the hand. what do these manners mavens suggest we do about blood spots on the tablecloth?

2. Spoon soup from front to back instead of shoveling it.
   who the hell came up with this bright idea? pick up a spoon and try making the front-to-back motion - it's ridiculous. the goal is to eat the soup, not to watch half of it fall back into the bowl.

3. Pass food counterclockwise at the dinner table.
   obviously, the person that came up with this one was not italian. when i was growing up, we passed in both directions. why do you think human beings have two hands?

4. Lay your napkin on your chair when temporarily leaving the table. Set it to the right of your plate when the meal is over.
   somebody gives the general public too much credit for short-term memory. i can see it now - joe blow comes back from the bathroom, sits down at his chair, and begins to eat, only to end up with a mound of sauce around his mouth. as he searches in vain for his napkin, which he dutifully placed on his chair, the sauce inevitably dribbles off and on to his brand new white shirt, never to be removed. remember "out of sight, out of mind" and keep your napkin where you'll see it upon returning to the table. besidess, wouldn't you be embarassed if your napkin already has a bunch of sauce on it, and then you sit down on it, leaving a nice stain on your ass?

5. When you meet people, make eye contact, shake their hands and repeat their names.
   why, are they going to forget their names if you don't remind them?

6. The only makeup acceptable to put on in front of others is lipstick.
   the problem with these rules is that they're like things you hear in church - nobody bothers to explain WHY.

7. If you invite, you should pay.
   if i call you up and say "hey, let's go get some lunch" you'd better not expect me to pay. it's not like i'm expecting you to put out or something.

8. Never go to a party empty-handed. Take the host a gift, such as a candle, stationery or plant.
   please, don't bring me any of those things. a bag of M&Ms will be just fine, thanks.

9. After receiving a gift, send a "thank you" note that is specific and at least four sentences long.
   four sentences to say "thanks for the gift"? brevity is the soul of wit.

10. Always identify yourself when you call someone's home.
    two words for you. caller ID.

Date: 2004-07-18 17:20
Subject: as requested by ryanjamieson
a little background info on this-- for my POS 300 class, we're required to take 10 out of the 19 issues in our textbook, each of which has a pro and a con essay associated with it, read those essays, and then write a 1-page position paper in which we discuss the authors' viewpoints and formulate our own. there are a few other criteria we have to cover which i think are rather asinine, but hey, if you want the grade, you gotta do what the prof wants.

Issue 14: Is Government-Ordered Assassination Sometimes Acceptable?

Beginning in 1976 with an Executive Order signed by President Ford, it has been the stated policy of the United States not to engage in government-sanctioned assassination. However, recent moves on the part of the Bush administration, such as the declaration that Osama bin Laden would be found "dead or alive" or the "decapitation" strike against Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the official start of Operation Iraqi Freedom suggest a possible departure from that policy which may have significant political and security implications, and thus it is important to examine the issue in greater detail. Bruce Berkowitz notes that there are few prohibitions, at least in terms of international treaties and conventions, against the practice, and he argues that while it sometimes has unintended consequences and may be difficult to achieve, "the nature of the threats we face today will likely require us to target specific individuals." Margot Patterson, on the other hand, disagrees both on judicial as well as practical grounds. She maintains that not only is it an illegitimate killing of an individual without formal assessment of guilt, it is counterproductive and unlikely to achieve the desired goals. I agree with this conclusion; government-ordered assassination is neither a practical nor a legitimate tool of statecraft.

From a practical perspective, the use of assassination has two major flaws. First, it is difficult to accomplish. Despite vast improvements in technology, from spy satellites to precision-guided weaponry, it remains a substantial challenge to obtain the exact whereabouts of a particular person at a specific point in time and to be able to deliver a strike on that target before the information becomes invalid. Indeed, Berkowitz admits that "every US effort to kill a high-ranking official since World War II outside a full-scale war has failed." Second, assassination is unlikely to promote any strategic goals. Even the Israelis, who openly maintain a policy of targeted killing, appear to derive no benefit from it. As Patterson observes, there is "no evidence that Israel's resort to extrajudicial executions has made life any more secure for Israelis." From the US perspective, there is no guarantee that the elimination of Osama bin Laden would be a debilitating blow to Al Qaeda; his death may catalyze an influx of new recruits, and successor may be even more virulently anti-American. This is not an idle concern; Berkowitz cites several examples, including the murders of Mohandas Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, where "successful" assassinations did, in fact, make matters worse for their sponsors.

Furthermore, the practice of assassination, which John Steinbruner refers to as "a summary execution with no semblance of legal due process - no disputable presentation of evidence, no equivalent of an impartial judge or jury," raises serious questions of legitimacy, and undermines any claim to the moral high ground that the US may stake. Benjamin Netanyahu claims that in order to defeat terrorism "we must first have moral clarity" yet it is difficult, if not impossible for the US to distinguish itself from terrorists when it employs the same tactics that the terrorists themselves use. As Steinbruner correctly observes, "[o]ne cannot defend legal order by violating its central principles."

Undoubtedly there will be times when assassination will seem to be a viable option, whether to satiate the public's desire for retribution or merely as the result of short-sighted analysis. In the end, however, even if the difficulties involved in carrying out an assassination can be successfully overcome, it is unlikely to produce any tangible benefits, and may instead cause the situation to deteriorate even further, and should therefore not be considered as an acceptable tool of statecraft.

Date: 2004-07-19 01:01
Subject: phase 2, cycle 6, day 1 - chest/biceps
wow. this was the WORST workout i've had in weeks. i don't know if it's due to insufficient protein intake, the fact that i went to the gym at the end of the day, or if i'm starting to get into an overtrained state and need to take a week off to do absolutely nothing. maybe some combination of all three. i went up one rep on a couple of things, but in general, all of my numbers are in the shitcan compared to last week.

Mood: crappy

Date: 2004-07-20 02:36
Subject: blah blah blah
inspiration and motivation seem to come at the oddest hours. 30 minutes ago i was in bed, attempting to sleep, and now i find myself awake and working on a project. i guess i'm feeling guilty that i didn't go to the gym today, so instead i'm working on my gymrat program - a website i've been slowly developing to track my workouts and (eventually) suggest new ones. go me.
Music: Frequency Surfer - Respect - 08 Lucifero
Mood: productive

Date: 2004-07-21 01:38
Subject: phase 2, cycle 6, day 2 - quads/calves/forearms
now that's what i'm talkin' about. makes me feel better after the shitty workout i had on sunday night. i'm pretty sure that if i went for a 1-rep max i could probably squat at least 400 - when cory gets back from her trip back east, we'll find out. going to be doing 1RM testing for the big 3 (bench, squat, deadlift) to see where i'm at and then to design the next 6 week program. i need to add some speed work to my routine - probably some speed bench and some power cleans. also, i completed a gym notebook - the little blue notebook that i bring to the gym to record my workouts is now full - 7 months of workouts logged. time to start a new one.

Time: 02:40
Subject: things that make ya go hmm...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/20/cnna.pdiddy.voter.drive/index.html

i'm not a fan of puffy-p.diddy-sean-combs-whatever-the-hell-his-name is now, and i think his music sucks donkey dick, but i have to give the man a lot of credit for this one. maybe he's only doing it as a PR move, but even so, it's nice to see somebody with cash flowing out of his ass and at least a modicum of street cred doing something political other than just running off his mouth in support of some issue that he knows nothing about. i have no idea if he'll be successful in getting young people motivated, but if it gets people off their asses to vote that fuckwit bush out of office, i'm all for it.

and in other news... "i,robot" = "i, blah" -- as an action movie with great special effects, it's a winner, but otherwise, i think i'll just go buy the book.

Date: 2004-07-22 19:45
Subject: firewire? snailwire is more like it.
last week it was decided that ryanjamieson would borrow my external firewire drive which contained my mp3 collection, copy it onto his system, and then load his collection on before bringing it back. unfortunately, said plan failed to execute because when he hooked up the drive to his laptop, it wasn't recognized as anything more than a firewire device (not a disk). this was due, of course, to the fact that i'd previously had this thing hooked up to my linux box and had formatted it as ext2 or some other non-microsquish-compatible FS. ok, no problem, he gave me the drive back, i picked up a $6.99 big-1394 to small-1394 adaptor, and i've got the drive plugged into my laptop which i am currently typing on. it's recognized by windows' disk management - all i need to do is reformat it.

that was 4 hours ago. it's STILL formatting.

i shudder to think at how long it's going to take to transfer 14,000 mp3s onto this thing.

Date: 2007-07-23 16:34
Subject: phase 2, cycle 6, day 4 - shoulders/triceps
one more day of this shit and then i'll get to start a new program. i'm so sick of 5x5 it's not even funny.

Time: 20:40
i've often said that the best way for me to stay motivated with something is to combine multiple fields that i'm interested in; so while i was out driving to pick up some pizza (seems that pizza fuels many of my better ideas) i started thinking about AI and poker. i've been dabbling with AI (mostly GA stuff) since the late 90s, and as i become more interested in poker, it seems natural to want to combine the two. my eventual goal - to enter a computer player in the world series of poker. this is probably a long way off, even longer given all the other shit i have going on - and i know there are some things i'm going to need to research in more depth before i have all the knowledge necessary to get very far with this project, but that's the whole point of new projects anyway.

obviously, AI for games is nothing new, but from the research i've done so far, it appears that the field is still pretty wide open, and nobody has yet developed something capable of playing a good game of n-person texas hold-em.

now, if only i could learn how not to need sleep.

Date: 2004-07-25 00:17
Subject: phase 2, cycle 6, cycle 6 - back/hamstrings. phase 2 complete
that's all, folks, for this infernal 5x5 program. i'm going to go light for the next week, i think, particularly since i'm planning to be in vegas this coming weekend and working out is likely to be the last thing on my mind. i've got a rough idea of the program i'll be using for phase 3 - going to focus more on speed/power. to quote some dude on bodybuilding.com... "if you bench slow, you'll always bench low." oh yeah... walking lunges SUCK ASS - i think i'd rather squat.

Date: 2004-07-26 05:45
Subject: phase 2.5, day 1
i got sick of writing code so i decided to just go to the gym and do some stuff to change things up a little bit - a basic pyramid-up routine then followed by a drop-set - pretty much the same scheme for each exercise. start at 10 reps, go up in weight until i can only do 2, and then go back down again, but with no rest between sets on the way down.

Date: 2004-07-28 03:03
Subject: phase 2.5, day 2
the problem with going to the gym when you don't really have a set program or a workout planned in advance is that you end up dicking around. that's sorta what tonight was. the only high point of the evening is that i almost managed to deadlift 415. i had it about 3/4 of the way up and then i started losing my grip - need to use my thinner gloves. oh well - next week when i go for my 1RMs i'll get it. i think overall my goals will be.. bench:300, squat:400, deadlift:415 - this'll be the first time that my deadlift has ever surpassed my squat, assuming i get all of those. we'll see.

The synchronicities with what is going on in my life right now as I do this project are absolutely mind-blowing. The etiquette class entry is particularly gobsmacking, but there are some things that I guess I just will never be. I don't say that negatively; not everybody can be everything all the time.