Robot Monkey Pants

The image at right is a screencap of a Yahoo News story. It demonstrates the perils of having computers be your photo editor and choosing the accompanying photo based on keywords.

Weight Loss Progress
Well, I’m at the point where I’ll make my weight loss progress public. I mean, I’ve shed around 40 pounds since I started, so I think I’m no longer afraid of “failure”. I put that in quotes, since I already have made lifestyle changes, and will continue to do so, so it’s not quite a “failure” unless I give up. And I don’t intend to.

Wow, okay, that’s a nice bit of psychobabble. In any case, I’ve made good progress, with a recent setback. So, if for no other reason than to journal what I’ve been doing, and why things happened the way they did, I’ll explain where the setbacks came from.

I had hoped to lose 50 lbs before going home to Newfoundland for a visit in June. I came close (40), but work got in the way and killed my routine. It turns out I’m a lot more routine driven than I thought I was, and when work pulled me into all day meetings, weekends spent in a conference room, surrounded by snack food… well, I give in to temptation a lot easier, it seems.

On a normal workday, I can avoid the temptations to snack very easily. But throw me out of that routine, and I’m not as strong as I’d thought I was. Regardless, that’s mostly behind me.

That was in late May and is the reason for the gains in that month. I undid the damage prior to my trip home, and got down to 40 lost.

Now we’re into late July, and I’ve actually put weight on! Granted, 2.4 pounds gained in over a month is not bad considering how off-program I was. I wasn’t tracking my food intake, merely guessing. I wasn’t active (ugh, too hot). It caught up to me.

At first, I was genuinely surprised when I stepped on the scale today and saw I had gained 2 pounds from last week. I didn’t understand it. I’d started working out again, I was very good throughout the week — no snack foods, lots of water. All the things I was supposed to do.

Then, after I got back to my office, I remembered this weekend. I was not a good boy this weekend at all. Friday, I was tired after a stressful afternoon, didn’t want to deal with supper, just wanted to go home and relax. (I did work out at the tail end of the day, so it wasn’t a total loss.) We ordered a pizza.

Now, it’s not that we can’t have a delivery pizza now and again — it’s fine. I just need to have a reasonable amount, and account for it. I did neither.

Then came Saturday. Saturday night we did the Blues and Brews Cruise, an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink beer, food and music party cruise. It was a *blast*. But, yes, I had 5 or 6 beers, easily. And a couple of trips to the Table O’ Pork & Pasta.

And then Sunday. Instead of my ususal low-point breakfast (Egg substitute scramble with Morningstar Farms sausage-substitute mixed in, with toast), we went out to a restaurant where I had me an omelette. Which was a lot bigger than anything I’d make at home. And, to top it off, *another* delivery pizza for supper.

Sigh.

I’m lucky I only gained 2 pounds. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been had I not been working out.

Okay, so back on the horse. I’ve got to erase this for next week. Any loss is good, but it’s important to me to erase the damage I’ve done.

Onwards and upwards (or — downwards, I guess!)

This amuses me. The image at right is a screencap of the Yacht Rock iTunes Essentials list at iTunes. I don’t care for Yacht Rock — I didn’t even know it existed as a genre until the other night when I was destressing by browsing for music. But I totally love the contrast of what the list is *supposed* to have in it, and what it really *does*.

FWIW, I reported this to iTunes, really putting way more effort than I should have in trying to find out how to let them know about this mistake. Alas, the effort is thankless. Or, at least, automated canned response thank-you thankless.

Dear Craig,

Thank you for your email with feedback for improving the content on the iTunes Store. The iTunes Store team recognizes that our best advice comes from our customers and we appreciate the efforts you have made to share this error with us.

Sincerely,

Shawn
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww