I have a confession to make. I went to Jack in the Box last week for lunch. I wasn't having a good day and it did make me feel better, at least for a little while. More interestingly (somewhat more), they apparently changed how they give out their food for dining in (at least at this particular establishment). Rather than give and call out a number, the cashier took my name, and he did so by reading off my credit card. However, he did not seem to recognize the name Wesley. While I've always enjoyed that my name is not super common, I was taken aback a bit for it to be wholly new to a grown person.
I haven't really made any exercise reports in a while, so here's one! I ran 2.1 miles on the Saturday before last, last Monday, and last Wednesday. I played softball on Thursday and tweaked something in my leg, so I didn't run over the weekend. Tomorrow I'm definitely going to bike to work, though. The only reason I haven't lately is because I've been waking up late: a poor reason. I need to start keeping track of this sort of stuff so I can just throw it in a table at the bottom rather than wasting this precious space here.
I also have a new project in analyzing my typing. It is not completely new, as I suggested it a while ago, but I am going to commit to it. It is looking into the frequency of characters in my posts. My intent is to see if particular posts were heavy in characters I hadn't typed as much up to that point. Typing a bunch of k's, numbers and other characters in the Kent Hrbek post sort of made me more curious about that. My ultimate goal is to create some sort of difficulty score for my Dvorak typing. Ideally this would smooth out the curve, but as I said before, the infrequency of the posts themselves rather than their content is probably what creates the bumps in the chart. Regardless, I think it would be neat to see the general frequency of the letters I type to compare the keyboard formats. That has probably already been done a bunch by others, but not by me!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
How's my typing? (Call 1-800-TIPTUPTYPE)
As the last post before Fucking Gaetti! was my twentieth that I retyped, I posted a new graph. Since post 10, my progress seems to have been limited. My Dvorak rates had a steady climb over the first ten posts, which was not maintained over the last ten. This most likely can be attributed to my infrequency of posts. I posted the first ten entries within a span of 14 days; the last ten took 43. If I intend to achieve a usable Dvorak typing speed, I need to return to my initial rate of practice. And I will!
The Dvorak zine Adam Cz (z practice!!) posted on P-Boi said that Dvorak's study of his layout claimed that new typists reached a WPM of 40 in 18 hours of training. I have spent a little over 4 hours with Dvorak on this blog and perhaps another hour or two before that and my highest WPM so far has been 22.71. Being a successful QWERTY typer prior to delving into the Dvorak world I would hope I'd top 40 WPM far before 18 hours. Setting goals is a good way to stay motivated so let us set a goal! How about 40 WPM by 10 hours (only including time typing for the blog)? I feel that with consistent postage this is attainable as well as ambitious: a good goal! For every half hour I beat this goal by I will post a picture of something cute. For every half hour over the goal I will post a picture of Fucking Gaetti!
The Dvorak zine Adam Cz (z practice!!) posted on P-Boi said that Dvorak's study of his layout claimed that new typists reached a WPM of 40 in 18 hours of training. I have spent a little over 4 hours with Dvorak on this blog and perhaps another hour or two before that and my highest WPM so far has been 22.71. Being a successful QWERTY typer prior to delving into the Dvorak world I would hope I'd top 40 WPM far before 18 hours. Setting goals is a good way to stay motivated so let us set a goal! How about 40 WPM by 10 hours (only including time typing for the blog)? I feel that with consistent postage this is attainable as well as ambitious: a good goal! For every half hour I beat this goal by I will post a picture of something cute. For every half hour over the goal I will post a picture of Fucking Gaetti!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hrbek and friends
Last night I played D&D. Judge not lest I jump on a table and cleave you in twain! I dubbed my dwarf Hrbek after Kent Hrbek, one time All Star first baseman of the Minnesota Twins in the eighties and early nineties (the beta baseball-reference is pretty sweet). My perception of Kent Hrbek was previously limited to the image of him as an R.B.I. Baseball 4 power hitter.
He hit 20 home runs in 1991! Although you could play as playoff teams from the eighties, I guess I never connected one of the best years of his career, 1987, to my general conception of him because I've erroneously likened his career to a flash in the pan sort of guy like, say, Brad Wilkerson. After browsing through his numbers, though, I found that he actually had a pretty consistent 14 year career (1981-1994): all but his initial year (only 24 games) as the Twins primary first baseman and a fixture in the middle of their order with Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti. He had 293 dingers and a respectable slash line of .282/.367/.481. Not bad, Kent Hrbek, not bad.
Speaking of Gaetti [known to my family as "Fucking Gaetti!" I believe because of his 3-run homer against the Padres in the 1996 ALDS (also because he's fucking ugly)], when I quickly looked at his numbers something stuck out to me; in 1984 he played in 162 games, had 588 at bats, and only had 5 home runs. He had 117.6 at bats per home runs that year while his career rate was 24.7 and the next highest season rate he put up was 38.0. None of his other stats that year are very out of the ordinary for him. Weird!
Looking further at the rest of Hrbek's 1987 World Champion Twins teammates, they all have some pretty inspiring names: Gaetti, Blyleven, Gladden, Larkin, Reardon... Presuming I continue rolling the dice (pretty sure I am), I believe I'll continue to name my characters after members of the 1987 Twins.
He hit 20 home runs in 1991! Although you could play as playoff teams from the eighties, I guess I never connected one of the best years of his career, 1987, to my general conception of him because I've erroneously likened his career to a flash in the pan sort of guy like, say, Brad Wilkerson. After browsing through his numbers, though, I found that he actually had a pretty consistent 14 year career (1981-1994): all but his initial year (only 24 games) as the Twins primary first baseman and a fixture in the middle of their order with Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti. He had 293 dingers and a respectable slash line of .282/.367/.481. Not bad, Kent Hrbek, not bad.
Speaking of Gaetti [known to my family as "Fucking Gaetti!" I believe because of his 3-run homer against the Padres in the 1996 ALDS (also because he's fucking ugly)], when I quickly looked at his numbers something stuck out to me; in 1984 he played in 162 games, had 588 at bats, and only had 5 home runs. He had 117.6 at bats per home runs that year while his career rate was 24.7 and the next highest season rate he put up was 38.0. None of his other stats that year are very out of the ordinary for him. Weird!
Looking further at the rest of Hrbek's 1987 World Champion Twins teammates, they all have some pretty inspiring names: Gaetti, Blyleven, Gladden, Larkin, Reardon... Presuming I continue rolling the dice (pretty sure I am), I believe I'll continue to name my characters after members of the 1987 Twins.
Monday, March 16, 2009
It is all good.
I still didn't get in motion this weekend, but I went for a run today. Previously, my calves wouldn't let me get past two laps around my apartment complex (one lap is seven tenths of a mile according to Google). Today I made that elusive third lap and that second mile. Hooray! Let's do some pushups!
...
Twenty four. Eh...
My typing hasn't been doing too well lately, either. My Point Break post was rather daunting and took me a while to take the time to type it in Dvorak, which was quite a chore. My DWPM had been steadily climbing until that break. I probably should stick to short posts to continue steadily practicing. However, I probably need some more interesting topics. There's nothing like retyping your writing a couple times to realize how drab it is. I may need to make a fifth goal: to improve the quality of my writing. I don't know a good way to measure my progress in achieving that, though.
...
Twenty four. Eh...
My typing hasn't been doing too well lately, either. My Point Break post was rather daunting and took me a while to take the time to type it in Dvorak, which was quite a chore. My DWPM had been steadily climbing until that break. I probably should stick to short posts to continue steadily practicing. However, I probably need some more interesting topics. There's nothing like retyping your writing a couple times to realize how drab it is. I may need to make a fifth goal: to improve the quality of my writing. I don't know a good way to measure my progress in achieving that, though.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Vacation all I ever wanted.
I have been slacking on my goals mostly due to my recent illness, but also because I went to Phoenix for some Spring Training games over the weekend and took a little vacation from them. I had a soda at every ballgame and it was wonderful. We went to a nice restaurant on Saturday and my Dr. Pepper came in a bottle and had cane sugar: yum!
On Thursday we saw the Rangers play the Padres. The Padres were down the whole game. They tried to come back, but alas they went down 4-3. We were only a few rows back from the Padres dugout, which is always cool. I only took two pictures the entire trip, as I left the photography to my mom; they were both of David Eckstein running to first on walks. Scrappiness knows no exhibition! Also of note was Josh Hamilton. I've heard scouts say the sound when he makes contact is just different, and they were right. He stroked a nice double to the gap and the crack was indescribable.
On Friday we saw the Dodgers and Cubs play. I don't really remember anything noteworthy from this game. Before the game we went to see the Padres' batting practice. My mom got Chris Young's autograph. Bud Black told my brother he would sign soon as he still had a little more work to do. He went into the cages and when he came out he gave the same line to some other dude.
We went to the Dodgers' new park on Saturday, which had much more energy than any other Spring Training facility I've been to. There were a ton of Dodgers fans there way before the game started and there was a steel drum band playing. Every other Spring Training stadium is just chill. It's an exhibition and it is treated that way, which I always liked. Their park had music between at bats and beats and stuff to try to get the crowd cheering. It all seemed unnecessary. Also the diamond faces to the southeast, which is just wrong. Silly Dodgers... To cap it off, the Mariners came back to beat them 8-7 in the ninth. Ha!
Sunday we saw the Giants and Angels play. The Angels brought their A-team minus Vlad, while the Giants had the wrong side of a Split Squad. I think Eugenio Velez and Rich Aurilia were probably the only guys who will make the Opening Day roster. Needless to say the Angels dominated.
All in all, it was a very nice little break, but I've got to get back in routine. I went running yesterday and just felt pooped. I took a nap when I got home from work today, so hopefully I can get back on track tomorrow.
On Thursday we saw the Rangers play the Padres. The Padres were down the whole game. They tried to come back, but alas they went down 4-3. We were only a few rows back from the Padres dugout, which is always cool. I only took two pictures the entire trip, as I left the photography to my mom; they were both of David Eckstein running to first on walks. Scrappiness knows no exhibition! Also of note was Josh Hamilton. I've heard scouts say the sound when he makes contact is just different, and they were right. He stroked a nice double to the gap and the crack was indescribable.
On Friday we saw the Dodgers and Cubs play. I don't really remember anything noteworthy from this game. Before the game we went to see the Padres' batting practice. My mom got Chris Young's autograph. Bud Black told my brother he would sign soon as he still had a little more work to do. He went into the cages and when he came out he gave the same line to some other dude.
We went to the Dodgers' new park on Saturday, which had much more energy than any other Spring Training facility I've been to. There were a ton of Dodgers fans there way before the game started and there was a steel drum band playing. Every other Spring Training stadium is just chill. It's an exhibition and it is treated that way, which I always liked. Their park had music between at bats and beats and stuff to try to get the crowd cheering. It all seemed unnecessary. Also the diamond faces to the southeast, which is just wrong. Silly Dodgers... To cap it off, the Mariners came back to beat them 8-7 in the ninth. Ha!
Sunday we saw the Giants and Angels play. The Angels brought their A-team minus Vlad, while the Giants had the wrong side of a Split Squad. I think Eugenio Velez and Rich Aurilia were probably the only guys who will make the Opening Day roster. Needless to say the Angels dominated.
All in all, it was a very nice little break, but I've got to get back in routine. I went running yesterday and just felt pooped. I took a nap when I got home from work today, so hopefully I can get back on track tomorrow.
Monday, March 2, 2009
STILL SICK (and overanalyzing Point Break)
Today was not the hooky day I wanted it to be. I still didn't feel well. What a drag. Dude.
So what did I do? What anyone who is sick and has some movie channels would do: I watched Point Break. Anyone who doesn't have movie channels would watch Bob Ross. Watching Bob Ross when you're sick is close to achieving nirvana. Watching Point Break when you're sick makes you question how your life got to this point (break).
The Wikipedia article for Point Break suggests the possibility of a sequel (with VH1's I Love the 90's as the source). Since the movie ends with Bodhi vanishing into his perfect wave without emerging, the audience is supposedly left wondering if he dies. This was a question I never asked myself. I always assumed he died. He has no need to go on. With his extreme lifestyle, his chances of surviving until the next 50 year storm are not very good. Even if he did, he probably would not be fit to even attempt to ride such a wave as a 70-80 year old man (Johnny Utah and Bodhi meeting up again on the beach as old fogies would be kind of neat, though). Also, he recently lost everyone he cares about. He really has nothing to live for except this wave. To him this is the ultimate experience and he seems like a guy who would want to die doing what he loved (ie go out on top: catch a wave and you are sitting on top of the world). Also, he would face near-certain incarceration if he was to live, but obviously a sequel would occur with the assumption that he is not caught (Point Break 2: Behind Bars doesn't sound very exciting).
Regardless, there would be nothing to add with a sequel. I could only see it as being pretty much the same movie: Johnny Utah trying to catch Bodhi. Of course, there is the problem that Utah threw his badge into the ocean at the end. That really only leaves one feasible plot for the sequel: Utah is your everyday guy who starts noticing a string of robberies very reminiscent of the Ex-Presidents' thefts and comes to realize Bodhi survived and is behind it. It then would just become the cat-and-mouse sort of movie the first one was and not worth a new movie in my opinion. You could say Bodhi finds Utah and convinces Utah to join him in sticking it to the man with a crime spree, but I don't think Utah's character lends itself to being corrupted. He did let Bodhi get away twice: once firing his gun into the air and yelling "aaaaaaahhh!!" and finally to let him have his last wave. Both weren't necessarily cases of lawlessness, though. In the first instance he just didn't want to kill Bodhi, and in the other he figured letting him go out in that storm would... kill him. Utah does show he is willing to kill as he shoots a number of others in the film, but he does see Bodhi as a friend and would rather give him a chance in jail than kill him. I suppose you could also count the time he has a gun to Bodhi's head while skydiving, but I believe he still needs Bodhi to save Tyler at that point, so love got in the way. Utah does go to great lengths to try to catch Bodhi, though, showing his strong desire to uphold the law. Even if something happened in his life to crumble his law-abiding spirit, it would be too disconnected from the first movie and I think an original movie would make more sense than a sequel of that sort. What's the use of digging up old characters if you are going to change their values right at the start?
What I do think might be an interesting movie would be a prequel to Point Break. What made Bodhi the way he was? When the other Ex-Presidents want to cash in their clams and paddle into the sunset, he reminds them that the money doesn’t matter. They are in it to rage against the machine and it doesn’t matter the outcome (gotta live your life). Where did he get this attitude? He must have an interesting background to get such a viewpoint and to become such an uncompromisingly dangerous character. Also, Johnny Utah was a quarterback at The Ohio State University and was a star in the Rose Bowl. He busts his knee and decides to go into law and become an FBI agent. While not quite as interesting as Bodhi's character, there does seem to be a bit of a story to tell there. Regardless, I think the main problem with a prequel would be an ending that would be a suitable transition into the first one.
In the end, Point Break stands on its own as a pretty complete story. The characters are fairly interesting and the action is packed in tight. Unfortunately, Keanu Reeves.
Note: I actually don't mind KR in this role too much, but that seems the best way to end this.
So what did I do? What anyone who is sick and has some movie channels would do: I watched Point Break. Anyone who doesn't have movie channels would watch Bob Ross. Watching Bob Ross when you're sick is close to achieving nirvana. Watching Point Break when you're sick makes you question how your life got to this point (break).
The Wikipedia article for Point Break suggests the possibility of a sequel (with VH1's I Love the 90's as the source). Since the movie ends with Bodhi vanishing into his perfect wave without emerging, the audience is supposedly left wondering if he dies. This was a question I never asked myself. I always assumed he died. He has no need to go on. With his extreme lifestyle, his chances of surviving until the next 50 year storm are not very good. Even if he did, he probably would not be fit to even attempt to ride such a wave as a 70-80 year old man (Johnny Utah and Bodhi meeting up again on the beach as old fogies would be kind of neat, though). Also, he recently lost everyone he cares about. He really has nothing to live for except this wave. To him this is the ultimate experience and he seems like a guy who would want to die doing what he loved (ie go out on top: catch a wave and you are sitting on top of the world). Also, he would face near-certain incarceration if he was to live, but obviously a sequel would occur with the assumption that he is not caught (Point Break 2: Behind Bars doesn't sound very exciting).
Regardless, there would be nothing to add with a sequel. I could only see it as being pretty much the same movie: Johnny Utah trying to catch Bodhi. Of course, there is the problem that Utah threw his badge into the ocean at the end. That really only leaves one feasible plot for the sequel: Utah is your everyday guy who starts noticing a string of robberies very reminiscent of the Ex-Presidents' thefts and comes to realize Bodhi survived and is behind it. It then would just become the cat-and-mouse sort of movie the first one was and not worth a new movie in my opinion. You could say Bodhi finds Utah and convinces Utah to join him in sticking it to the man with a crime spree, but I don't think Utah's character lends itself to being corrupted. He did let Bodhi get away twice: once firing his gun into the air and yelling "aaaaaaahhh!!" and finally to let him have his last wave. Both weren't necessarily cases of lawlessness, though. In the first instance he just didn't want to kill Bodhi, and in the other he figured letting him go out in that storm would... kill him. Utah does show he is willing to kill as he shoots a number of others in the film, but he does see Bodhi as a friend and would rather give him a chance in jail than kill him. I suppose you could also count the time he has a gun to Bodhi's head while skydiving, but I believe he still needs Bodhi to save Tyler at that point, so love got in the way. Utah does go to great lengths to try to catch Bodhi, though, showing his strong desire to uphold the law. Even if something happened in his life to crumble his law-abiding spirit, it would be too disconnected from the first movie and I think an original movie would make more sense than a sequel of that sort. What's the use of digging up old characters if you are going to change their values right at the start?
What I do think might be an interesting movie would be a prequel to Point Break. What made Bodhi the way he was? When the other Ex-Presidents want to cash in their clams and paddle into the sunset, he reminds them that the money doesn’t matter. They are in it to rage against the machine and it doesn’t matter the outcome (gotta live your life). Where did he get this attitude? He must have an interesting background to get such a viewpoint and to become such an uncompromisingly dangerous character. Also, Johnny Utah was a quarterback at The Ohio State University and was a star in the Rose Bowl. He busts his knee and decides to go into law and become an FBI agent. While not quite as interesting as Bodhi's character, there does seem to be a bit of a story to tell there. Regardless, I think the main problem with a prequel would be an ending that would be a suitable transition into the first one.
In the end, Point Break stands on its own as a pretty complete story. The characters are fairly interesting and the action is packed in tight. Unfortunately, Keanu Reeves.
Note: I actually don't mind KR in this role too much, but that seems the best way to end this.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sick
Lisa got sick on Thursday. My throat tickled Friday and I was full blown sick all yesterday. I spent the day switching off sleeping and reading Watchmen. I finished it this morning; it was my first comic book experience. It was probably one of the best times being sick I can imagine: especially since I got it out of the way before going to Phoenix next weekend for Spring Training. I have been sick on a plane before and that is definitely one of the worst times being sick I can imagine.
I feel a lot better today and I think I would be able to work tomorrow, but I've decided I'm going to take the day off regardless. With my flight on Thursday, that makes it a two day week, which is pretty awesome.
I feel a lot better today and I think I would be able to work tomorrow, but I've decided I'm going to take the day off regardless. With my flight on Thursday, that makes it a two day week, which is pretty awesome.
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