Raz's Domain

Spore

2009-12-24T03:41:04Z

Yep. Got spore. EA finally fixed a problem with new spore accounts about 1 month after my initial purchase, too. Just before X-mas!

Mass Effect 2: Not Much Longer

2009-12-18T19:48:39Z

Shared via AddThis

God I hope my machine can handle this game. It handled Dragon Age and the first Mass Effect so... yeah, I'm good...

... right!?

Averages: Pain in the Ass to Fix

2009-12-11T19:26:50Z

Finally broke the 3 (out of 4) GPA range after a full year of mostly As and a few Bs, up from a low 2.xx at the beginning of my return from school. A single A made my GPA go from 2.98 to 3.03. Pretty much not gonna get better at this point, it seems.

Bugs Turn Me Into a Kid Again

2009-10-30T07:48:33Z

Whenever we've got a visitor or I come across and interesting bug I don't just ignore them like most people might. At most, I think, people will quickly evaluate whether they should feel threatened and then don't pay any more mind.

Not me, though!

Even at age 28, I still get a kick out of bugs and worms and animals and will go out of my way to interact with them. I'll follow the squirrel around the tree a little while and get a laugh at how he tries to stay on the exact opposite side of the trunk, or I'll bend over and watch the 3 inch slugs we have out here ooze their way across the sidewalk. There was a 5 inch sucker I came across on a hike that I even plopped down a ruler I had next to it and photographed it.

Tonight I found myself being yelled at by Nerf, who had discovered a little invader that she wanted me to retrieve for her: a black jumping spider with a neat red spot on the abdomen. Out of all spiders, jumping spiders are my faves. When I was a little kid and I found a jumping spider I'd bug the hell out of them because, unlike most spiders, they actually SEE you. Wave your finger at them and they'll react to it, unlike just about any other bug. Jumping spiders turn and look at you or at your hand and sometimes you can even get them to strike a ninja pose that might seem threatening when done by other spiders. They're also fuzzy and have two big eyes, which is how they see you so well.

All that being said, this 28 year old man has just spent a good 10-15 minutes of this evening playing with a fuzzy jumping spider and getting a laugh out of the reactions he was able to elicit from it by waving his fingers or moving his hand around like a very large spider (which worked very well and made him actually back away as if in fear). No ninja pose, though. I actually got a jumping spider surprise in the mailbox yesterday and was able to get the pose from that one. This might even be the same one, unwittingly carried into the house with the mail by my arachnophobic wife.

My hair!

2009-10-06T21:53:39Z

Got a haircut. No big deal.

Till I really looked at it while I combed it this morning and I realized that my scalp is a lot more visible than it was the last time it was cut. My hair is thinning and I'm not even 30 years old!

Not a lot of baldness in the family, so I probably won't be going majorly bald, but one side has a hairline that's pretty high on the head and the other one was a little bit worse.

Hopefully it proceeds a little slower than my grey hair. I really like my grey hair but I'm not too keen on possibly losing hair, especially so soon...

Using SFML and Eclipse C++ Development Tool (CDT)

2009-08-06T20:30:13Z

There is a woeful dearth of tutorials for a variety of things you can do with SFML in general, and there are a woeful dearth of helpful guides for Eclipse's CDT. This is an attempt to plug at least two holes with one stone... if that clumsy modification to the metaphor can work.

The specific Eclipse version is Galileo and the SFML version is 1.5, but the process will probably not change significantly if you are using an older or newer version of either of these. This tutorial is also presented primarily for a Windows audience, but Eclipse runs the same (as I understand it) in graphical Linux exactly the same way, so the only real difference should be the directories shown in screenshots.

Installing SFML

You install SFML like you would with any other IDE. Download the appropriate development files or the whole SDK for your development environment, and extract the files to the directory of your choice. The SFML Development Files have been set up for a variety of operating systems and with some particular IDEs in mind already.

Once you've got the files on your hard drive, you need to tell Eclipse where to look for them.

Setup Eclipse CDT so it Can Find the Headers Libraries

Go to Project menu (or right click your project directly), and choose "Properties"
Expand C/C Build (click the plus), and select "Settings"
Under GCC C Compiler select "Directories" and click "Add..." and find the SFML Include directory (example: C:\SFML-1.5-sdk\SFML-1.5\include). Click OK
Under MinGW C Linker, click Libraries and click "Add..." next to Library Search Path. Find the SFML library directory (example: C:\SFML-1.5-sdk\SFML-1.5\lib\mingw). Click OK.
Expand C/C General, select Path and Symbols.
On the Includes tab, select GNU C and make sure the include directory is listed. If not, added it manually. It should be there already!

Directory Setting Picture...

Linker setting picture....

Compiling Your First Program

If you've gotten this far, you've got your new C Project created and waiting for some files. Time to make a quick program to see that everything is working!

Create a new Source file and fill it with the following code...

#include <SFML/System.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    sf::Clock Clock;
    while (Clock.GetElapsedTime() < 5.f)
    {
        std::cout << Clock.GetElapsedTime() << std::endl;
        sf::Sleep(0.5f);
    }

    return 0;
}

Before you compile using a library you need to be sure to set the libraries appropriately in your Project's linker settings. We are using System.hpp, so we need to be sure the linker looks for the sfml-system library.

Go to your project properties again, and return to the linker settings as described earlier. Click "Add..." next to libraries and type the library we want. In this case, it will be sfml-system.

Now this small program should compile and run!

Note about libraries....

For more complicated projects, the library setting can be the root cause of many problems when you are attempting to build your project. Order matters, and there is a bit of a heiarchy to the libraries; System is at the top and includes everything else.

If you include Graphics.cpp or Window.cpp, you're going to need to include the sfml-graphics and sfml-window libraries. It might vary depending on what linker you use (MinGW's gcc linker is Eclipse CDT standard), but generally you will have those two at the top of the list, and have sfml-system very last.

The libraries come in a variety of flavors. The default one relies on .DLLs, but if you want to rely on the static versions make sure to include -s at the end of the library name. Debug versions should run using the libraries with -d appended to the end because behavior will is undefined and errors might occur. For example, sfml-window-s or sfml-window-s-d.

If you use the dynamic libraries, you must place the DLLs in your executable's folder or to a directory in the PATH environmental variable.

You'll also, if you link to the dynamic libraries, need to define a preprocessor macro: SFML_DYNAMIC

If you are using the Audio package, you must also copy the DLLs of the external libraries needed by it, which are libsndfile-1.dll, and OpenAL32.dll.
These files can be found in the extlibs\bin directory of the package that you downloaded (SDK or development files).

All of these settings can be set differently for your Build and Debug configurations, so if you're switching your configuration make sure you update your properties for the new build!

Straight A's for Spring 2009

2009-06-17T16:48:46Z

Well, this is (maybe surprisingly for some friends and family) the first time it has ever happened: I got straight A's across all my classes this term! Getting good grades was not really an interest of mine in school, and if it ever happened it was because the teachers fudged my grades because they knew I was smart and they knew I probably already knew the material before they even taught it. One of my early elementary school teachers told my mother that I'd start doing homework someday and that she shouldn't stress it too much.

Well, that never became true. I really only did homework because I was about to fail a class completely. I spent high school tuning out in class most of the time, doing fabulously on tests (most of the time), and then barely scraping by because I never did homework. Even the accelerated classes were boring, but there was even MORE homework in those classes so I did even worse. Once I got moved down to "normal" classes school got even easier and I got my C average. Barely. I had to take an extra term after graduation to get one class re-done.

Even my visit to college for a year and a half in 2003 didn't go much better, where my grades went south enough in the last two terms that I got disqualified from receiving financial aid. Somewhere along the way, though, something changed and here I am with a term that, if I could take it by itself and ignore the 2003-2004 flailing about, would be about 3.77 (on a 0-4 scale). Two terms on the PCC Dean's List and this term on the President's List. I don't really know what has changed. I don't really care much more about my grades now than I ever did the rest of my life, but I guess I take the fact that I'm wracking up thousands of dollars of debt a little more seriously this time around. Maybe? I don't know...

Uh...I made a Firefox Extension... yeah

2009-06-09T22:37:44Z

Some folks on a very popular awful forum "jokingly" asked someone to make a Firefox extension to put "side animals" into their posts for them so they didn't have to type out all the IMG tags. Side animals are random images of animals that the forum puts next to the banner ads at the top of the page.

So that's what I did. BYOB Side Animal Tool arrived on the scene a month ago. It's a pretty simple thing to do so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn how FF extensions are made. I've never really done Javascript, never made an extension, never really had to know the HTML DOM and how to use it... so there was a bit of learning to do.

It was worth it, though. I enjoyed learning all that shit, except for trying to figure out the correct things to put into a specific file. Not only is the official documentation of pretty much everything about Mozilla absent, a great deal of the documentation out there is produced by developers in a semi-Wiki style method and is often out of date, contradicts other information, or are written by people that are clearly not experienced technical communicators.

So it took about 5 hours of research and trial and error but I got a very basic version done in a single evening, so there's something. I've fiddled with it several times since then, re-wrote everything so the source is a lot easier to follow and follows some standards, and I finally got around to fixing one last bug last evening. Now, it's officially complete, and has a pretty steady 50-60 daily users and has been around 10 weekly downloads for a month.

FedEx Failure (again) - Electronics + Rain = Good Delivery

2009-04-03T20:11:45Z

We've had perishable foods left in summer heat and direct sunlight by FedEx guys before, and this time I've been waiting patiently to hear the doorbell or knocking to announce that FedEx had delivered our Digital Converter Box.

I randomly checked tracking to find that it WAS delivered! The kind FedEx driver left our parcel sitting out on the porch. In the pouring rain.

Jury Duty

2009-03-24T22:49:18Z

Yep. My time to shine has arrived! I'll be jurying it up like a motherfucka!

This Is My Milwaukee Update Nov 24th

2008-11-24T20:00:52Z

HTML comment added to the front page..

...
</body>
</html>
<!-- http://www.youtube.com/14251612181818198HD -->

The user profile at that URL is pretty borked up and provides no info but this video posted by that account continues the theme of the flax seed bulb and has a code at the end.

This Is My Milwaukee - New ARG?

2008-11-21T20:44:04Z

I'm a big fan of ARGs and feel they're an awesome and creative approach to marketing something.

Visit This is My Milwaukee and watch the video! It could be just someone having fun and trying to get their production company noticed (ala-Lasagna Cat) but the addition of legitimate e-mail addresses and a phone number you can call (with live people on the other end) is very similar to previous ARGs.

No idea what the heck an ARG is? Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

Or, alternately, click these links to read about specific ARGs you may or may not have heard about...

The Beast - (for the movie A.I.) Sort of where it all began
Art of the Heist - (for the car Audi A3) Also see a presentation from the creator: http://www.mckinney.com/A3_H3ist/
I Love Bees - (for the videogame Halo 2) Considered an example of a hugely successful ARG

Let's Play: Xenosaga II

2008-11-09T01:31:18Z

I've tried going through Xenosaga II several times, but ultimately I can only handle so much of the combat before I finally quit. Not to mention the incredibly long boss fights. A game with great presentation and a pretty interesting story bogged down by terrible fundamental game mechanics.

Fortunately, someone else already did it for me on an internet forum! Thanks to Zutaten at the Somethingawful Forums.

This is mostly for the wife, but this is something you'll probably want to look through if you're like me and wanted to see how it all turned out.

This was done on a web forum and the links are to specific posts. Most of the chapters included videos of cutscenes, which I've linked to as well. Descriptions of the vids aren't mine. Lots of fun annotation on the videos, too!

Let's Play: Xenosaga Episode II (first post in the thread, will give a good intro)

Chatper 1
Introduction - 11:00; | Vimeo ,
chaos and Canaan discuss their mission. - 1:49s; | Vimeo ,
Canaan and chaos are beset by enemies, but a mysterious swordsman comes to their aid. - 6:00 ; Stage6 | Vimeo ,
Jin reveals what he knows about the root of the Miltian conflict, we meet a familiar face, there's a boss battle, and then one of the coolest scenes ever. - 12:08; | Vimeo

Chapter 2 -
Part I: Canaan finishes his maintenance and reports his findings to Representative Helmer. -3:27; | Vimeo
Part II: We're introduced to Patriarch Sergius XVII, head of the Immigrant Fleet. - Five minutes; | Vimeo
Part III: Shion and her new voice actress arrive on the scene! All good things must come to an end, I suppose, and my Shion-less game is no exception. - Six minutes, fifteen seconds; | Vimeo
Coolest thing ever, right here. - Three minutes, thirty one seconds; | Vimeo
A giant robot is chasing me down a street! - Twenty seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 3 -
Boss battle with O-88 Libra! - Three minutes, ten seconds; | Vimeo
Boss battle with Pilum and Scutum. - Six minutes, fifteen seconds; | Vimeo
The first of the long videos. The aftermath of the battle, Pellegri arrives on the scene, and a friend from the past shows up. Also, Shion. More Shion. - Fifteen minutes, seven seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 4 - No vids, pretty much all GS quests (sidequests)

Chapter 5 -
Juli Mizrahi is a horrible mother. That's basically the entire point of this video. - Two minutes, thirteen seconds; | Vimeo
Juli Mizrahi, still a terrible mother, but this time with new and improved feelings. - Two minutes, forty eight seconds; | Vimeo
Could this be the beginning of a very disturbing relationship? - Four minutes; | Vimeo
Catastrophic failure. Looks like somebody forgot what Albedo said at the end of the last game. - Ten minutes, forty seconds; | Vimeo
Galactic politics! Also a very cliche action movie scene starring Jin and Helmer. - Six minutes, thirty seconds; | Vimeo
Jr. explains the truth behind Sakura Mizrahi and U-DO, and the group dives into MOMO's mind. - Eight minutes, twenty five seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 6 -
Rubedo and the gang meet Sakura Mizrahi for the first time. - Two minutes, thirty one seconds; | Vimeo
"She said 'Please tell my mother... Please tell my mother that I love her.'" - Two minutes, twenty seconds; | Vimeo
Sakura and Rubedo: True Love Forever. (Don't you dare post fanart or fanfics. If you do, you're a pedophile.) - Three minutes, twenty seven seconds; | Vimeo
Li'l Albedo is a tough guy! A real tough guy! - One minute, nineteen seconds; | Vimeo
At long last, the missing number is introduced. U.R.T.V Unit 668, Citrine. - One minute, twenty nine seconds; | Vimeo
Let's dive into Sakura's mind INSIDE MOMO's mind. There's some fundamental flaw in this, but my brain hurts too much to see it. - Two minutes, forty six seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 7 -

The waves are coming! - One minute, sixteen seconds; Stage6 | Vimeo
The end of the dungeon and the resulting boss battle. - Four minutes, seventeen seconds; | Vimeo
This one? It's this one, isn't it? I love this scene. - Two minutes, five seconds; | Vimeo
Our heroes wax poetic on the curse of eternal life, and we learn of Rubedo and Albedo's birth - Two minutes, forty six seconds; | Vimeo
Back into the Encephalon inside the Encephalon - One minute, thirty three seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 8 -
"Rubedo's a monster too! Hah hah hah!" and a boss battle - Twelve minutes, thirty five seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 9 -
The introduction to Disc 2 and the events of the past several weeks, as narrated by Shion - Seven minutes, nine seconds; | Vimeo
Save my sisters, Shion. You know, that thing you were supposed to be doing. Don't tell me you forgot! - Two minutes, forty eight seconds; | Vimeo
Another cutscene. Man, this game has a lot of these. - Three minutes, forty five seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 10 -
It's all part of being a man! And the power of love! - Eight minutes, twenty two seconds; | Vimeo

Chapter 11 - Lots of GS Quests, no vids

Chapter 12 -
Welcome to this holy confessional. Now kindly die at the hands of my multiple personalities. Boss battle with Orgulla. - Nine minutes, twenty three seconds; ~~Stage6~~ | Vimeo
Not so fast, gang. There's a frigid bitch in a giant robot blocking our path. Boss battle, E.S. Issachar - Eight minutes, twenty four seconds; ~~Stage6~~ | Vimeo
Hey Gaignun, how's it going? Oh... _oh... - Three minutes, twenty seven seconds; ~~Stage6~~ | Vimeo

Chapter 13 - Sidequests

Chapter 14 -
Well, honestly. Who didn't see this one coming? - Three minutes, fifteen seconds; Vimeo
WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?! DO I AMUSE YOU?! - Seven minutes, four seconds; Vimeo

Chapter 15 -
Answers. Honest, I mean it this time. There are actual answers in this scene. - Five minutes, forty four seconds; Vimeo
A reunion, a boss battle, and the coolest damn thing I have ever seen in a video game. Very long video - Twenty one minutes, twenty nine seconds; Vimeo

Chapter 16 - Video update only
Murder, treason, and crying girls. - Nine minutes, twenty one seconds; Vimeo

Chapter 17 - GS Sidequests
Chapter 18 - GS Sidequests

Chapter 19 - No vids

Chapter 20 -
A short scene in which it is revealed that Jr. probably has ADD, and the battle versus the strangest boss I have probably ever seen, the Cathedral! - Five minutes, twenty eight seconds; Gamevee | Viddler
The Final Battle! SPACE POOOOOOOOPE! There is a cutscene before and after the battle. For those of you who aren't partial to watching the battle videos, please make sure you watch both the cutscenes. And this battle's pretty cool too. - Fifteen minutes, thirty nine seconds; Gamevee | Viddler
The token "before the end of the game" pep talks and scenes. - Eight minutes, twenty eight seconds; Gamevee | Viddler

Chapter 21 -
There's no use pretending... You're scared... - One minute, ten seconds; Gamevee | Viddler
I'm making graves for Rubedo and Nigredo. - Fifty seven seconds; Gamevee(N/A) | Viddler
Say something, you mannequin! - Two minutes, one second; Gamevee | Viddler\
Hurry up and kill me! - One minute, forty six seconds; Gamevee | Viddler
The red horse carries War, the white horse carries Conquest. - Thirteen minutes, nine seconds; Gamevee | Viddler
The End - Ten minutes, thirty six seconds; Gamevee | Viddler

McCain Choo-Chooing on the Racist Train

2008-10-10T06:37:58Z

It's pretty disgusting how low McCain is continuing to go in order to get elected. I honestly didn't think he'd ever bring it to the level of racism and racist code speech, thinking it would be more of a problem with 3rd parties trying to get him elected...

I guess I was wrong!

Now that McCain has decided to cash in on the "Obama, Osama? Hmmm!" and "Barack HUSSEIN!" and my favorite "there's just something I don't like about it (not racist!)" racist code speak with this Ayers bullshit, I can't imagine how much worse he can go. Absolutely disgusting.

Blizzard No Longer Game Cinematic King?

2008-09-14T03:19:12Z

Blizzard Entertainment has, for quite a while, had its place towards the top of the heap as far as developer effort into CGI cinematics go. Although like every CGI effort they become pretty dated looking in a few years down the road, they always seemed to be pretty much "the best" when it came to it. Especially during the Diablo 2 days and the Warcraft 3 days.

Then I recently watched the Warhammer Online Cinematic and had my socks knocked off. It's pretty friggin good and, I daresay, better than what Blizzard has brought to the table lately.

Give it time to load, but definitely give the Warhammer Online Trailer a watch! The individual characters aren't quite as lifelike as Blizzard's "cartoon is real" art direction, but it's still mighty impressive.

Large Hadron Collider Turns on Soon

2008-09-10T06:42:37Z

About 20 minutes to go! Watch the webcast live at...

http://webcast.cern.ch/

Turns on around Midnight tonight, Pacific time.

Adrogyny Ho!

2008-09-02T00:55:04Z

"Have a nice day, ladies," said the old man bagging in the next line over at Safeway. Said to my wife and I.

I guess this speaks more to my progress in losing weight than anything. I'm no longer an obviously fat man, now I'm back to a fat woman size! Time to get a haircut!

Boner Driven Advertising Failure Example : What Cell Phone?

2008-08-26T02:21:10Z

Sex sells. Boobs sell. Women in general, sell. That's why all those salespeople pushing Dead Sea Salt crapola were attractive (Israeli?) women with charming foreign accents when I was at Vegas last year.

Then you have stuff like this! Thanks goes to my friend and colleague Katrina Plam for this wonderful waste of advertising money (click for big).

It's pretty attention grabbing. Kudos to What Mobile. Unfortunately, until I actually paid attention I didn't know what the hell was being advertised other than a cellphone. In fact, I thought the text was "What cell phone?" until today. Not only are my eyes mostly lingering on (surgically enhanced, no doubt) female flesh being revealed in satisfying amounts and NOT on the white text, the text is as far away from her as possible and guarantees I won't read it. I understand completely why it's all the way over there, as her huge knockers would make the whole image fall on its side if it wasn't there, but it completely botches any gains produced by said cleavage.

These are the primary areas where sex sells: online banner ads/pop-ups (probably guaranteed clicks), magazine covers (guaranteed look, if not leaf-through at the stand). That's it. Unless you're literally selling sex, I can't think of any other logical reason for advertising this blatant. If you use the ad agency that produced this ad, you really need to find someone who knows what they're doing.

"Paris Hilton's Vagina Infects Entire Prison Population"

2008-08-25T02:39:47Z

"Paris Hilton's Release Monday, Neighbors Brace for Impact"
"Paris Hilton Gets Religion, Says She is Saved While in Prison"

What the heck, spammers? What the heck? These subject lines and more found in my junk mail folder!

Wet Women in White Bikinis

2008-08-21T03:44:33Z

US versus China in the Gold Medal Match.

Our ladies are wearing white bikinis. It is raining. Ratings are through the roof.

Apparently the commentators took notice, too, accidentally saying "clit" instead of "Chris" as well as "hot" instead of "had"

My Cookie Has a Special Ingredient: The Tears of a Child

2008-08-07T02:43:29Z

Decided to grab a cookie for Deb and I while I was at a store, and a kid came running towards me before getting called away by his mom. I didn't think much of it, kids run around and get in trouble all the time. I nabbed two cookies from the bakery section, tossed them in a bag, and then strode away.

Then I realized the boy was crying and the mom was reassuring him that she'd ask if they had more anywhere and that she'd find some cookies for him.

I took his cookies. They were the last two M&M cookies.

They were... delicious.

NCSoft Tries a New Confusing Game Card System

2008-07-31T03:03:39Z

NCSoft is trying something "different" in the MMORPG field by introducing a NCSoft Game Card to retail shelves. It doesn't sound very different does it? They've had Time Cards in stores that allowed you to add subscription time to your games without having to give your credit card info only, so what's so new?

These Game Cards are too easily confused with the existing Time Card system most MMO players are familiar with by now. Unlike Time Cards, which allow you to add 30 days' worth of gametime to an existing account, these Game Cards allow someone who doesn't even have an account to play for 30 days. The City of Heroes cards run for $5 more than a normal subscription do and give you access to the game without subscribing (kind of like a pre-paid cell phone) as well as access to a handy little travel power. The Tabula Rasa cards are cheaper and give you some kind of rocket.

Unfortunately I don't think people are going to "get it." There's going to be too much confusion between Game Cards and Time Cards for it to work, I think. People will see the cards on the shelves and, despite packaging that says otherwise, will assume they're Time Cards for an existing subscriber.

Still, from a business perspective it seems like a potentially profitable way to go and I'd probably try it if I was in their shoes. In CoH's case, you could potentially get $20 out of someone every month rather than the pennies off the retail box and the $15 standard monthly subscription (not to mention the free 30 days that comes with a box purchase). Plus, existing subscribers could use them just to get access to the exclusive power that comes with the cards. There's definitely some $$$$ potential there, no doubt about it, but I just don't see it working because of the high potential for consumer confusion.

NYPD is at it again, woot

2008-07-29T04:47:53Z

Just like the Los Angeles PD and the Chicago PD, the NYPD has its share of complete douchebags. Here's one crosschecking a cyclist for no good reason during a Critical Mass event.

IMPORTANT: I am Brillaint

2008-07-28T22:38:34Z

Putting the world on notice.

Nordic Track is Just Another Waste of Space... right?

2008-07-26T03:24:55Z

We just inherited an older Nordic Trac from Itanya's bosslady and I had some misgivings about it initially. The Nordic Trac I remembered was gigantic and took up a lot of space and I don't think the person who owned it really ever used it. Which is the typical fate of just about every weight loss tool that hucksters are selling during Infomercials.

So far, though, I've liked it. So has my wife! We needed a low-impact workout because our weight really makes high impact things like jogging dangerous. I can barely do squats without any weight without knee pain, for instance. Knee pain is bad!

I've been doing some pretty good speeds on it this week, for ten minutes at a time every evening. It's killing me and really driving home how out of shape I am but it's a nice exhaustion to experience. Doing some cooldown walking and then hopping right into weights tonight really felt nice, too. Exhausting, but nice.

It's only been a week, but I'm already feeling positive about this Nordic Trac thing. So far we've used the heck out of it, and it's a lot more convenient right now than stuffing my bike in the car and driving down to the 40 mile loop. Maybe when we finally get around to buying a bike rack for the car.