Junky Table, Cute Cat

101 Goals in 1001 Days - Week Three Update

There's not much to say about this week. Winter can be a slow time for me since I loathe going out into the cold. I mostly just made more progress on the goals that will take a long time (health, gaming, etc.) I did get a lucky break in getting one of the goals done. My mother received free tickets to "Fame: The Musical" playing at Mystic Lake Casino in February. It's not the musical I would have picked but it'll do. I'm about halfway through my second book. I'm still unsure whether I'll finish it. It's a fantasy/action novel. Honestly, it feels like one of those terrible movies on the Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to call it the SyFy Channel.)

Also, I'm changing the "Post blog entry 3x/week" goal to "Post 300 blog entries". Since the winter is so slow, I have less to write about.

101 Goals in 1001 Days - Week Two Update

Week two of the 101 goals challenge is done. Not much of it was very interesting to the outsider. I mostly just worked on some of the health and gaming goals. Trying to drink 64 ounces of water and eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables is extremely annoying. Today was the first day I actually hit the target of 5 servings.

I also watched my first movie in my "Watch 101 movies" goal. "Overnight Delivery" was a romantic comedy which is probably my least favorite movie genre. Honestly, I only finished watching it for the sake of the list and because it happened to be on Comedy Central at the right time. Still, it was one of the better movies in that genre. I won't give a full review because you can find tons of those on Amazon and IMDB.

I Love My Wii

I love my Wii. Of course, there are debates over which console is better: Xbox, Playstation, or Wii. I don’t listen much to the arguments because the Wii is completely different. The Xbox and Playstation are, I’ll admit, much better for traditional games. The graphics on most of the new Xbox and PS games are unbelievable and the gameplay usually goes much deeper. The Wii, however, made sports and fitness games fun. Until the Wii came along, I thought playing sports games on a computer or console was the most ridiculous thing ever. Why not just go out and play baseball at the park? Granted, that argument could be used with many of the sports games on the Wii. Until you remember…Wii Boxing. I don’t want anything to do with real-life boxing. Ouch.

Fitness Games I Have

We Cheer (5/5)

We Cheer is awesome. In We Cheer, you follow along with the cheerleader and try to copy the cheer. I feel like a complete dork playing it since I was never the cheerleader type (though I do respect the athleticism required to be a top-notch cheerleader). The only problem I have with it is how long the loading screens take. Also, in the story mode, a dialogue screen comes up before and after each song. One of those dialogue screens features a male sports player. If you fail the cheer, he basically blames you for his crappy performance. Excuse me? Maybe you should stop watching the cheerleaders and play the damn game.

Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 (3/5)

Meh. It’s a decent game, I guess. Maybe I just hate it because I’m absolutely awful at it. I could describe it but why bother? It’s one of the most well-known sports games.

Wii Sports (3/5)

The disc that comes with every Wii system. It has tennis, boxing, bowling, golf, and baseball. After the initial thrill of playing it, I grew bored. Occasionally, I’ll pull it out and play baseball or boxing but it mostly collects dust.

EA Sports Active (4/5)

I wasn’t going to buy this one but, after Christmas, Gamestop had it on for sale for $29.99. Normally, it’s $60. This isn’t technically a game. It’s more like a fitness DVD. It comes with two accessories. One is a leg strap that you put the nunchuk in. The Wii remote and nunchuk register your movements to make sure you’re doing the exercises correctly. The other accessory is a resistance band to make the upper body exercises more challenging. Many reviews on Amazon say the resistance band is flimsy. I’ll take their word for it since I’ve never used a resistance band until trying this game.

My Fitness Coach (4/5)

Another disc that is more like a fitness DVD than a game. It doesn’t use the controllers to register your movements at all. You just follow along with the onscreen fitness instructor. However, it is better than a fitness DVD because the workouts change from day to day. Also, you can fill out a fitness profile and track your weight and measurements.

Games I Kinda Want

Walk it Out

It sounds silly, a game about walking. What intrigues me is that you’re able to walk through an ingame world and modify it. Sure, I could walk through the real world but it’s January and I’m in Minnesota. It’s cold out there. Also, you can use the DDR pad to track your steps. Maybe I’ll get some use out of it again.

Wii Fit Plus

I’m not that interested in the game that comes with it. I suspect it’ll be like Wii Sports and I’ll quickly get bored with it. Having the balance board would be nice though.

Just Dance

I’m not sure about this one. It gets very good reviews on Amazon but I’m afraid it’ll end up like DDR, something that other people like but I have no interest in.

EA Sports Active: More Workouts

The sequel to EA Sports Active. It has new exercises and, supposedly, added warm-up and cool-down sections.

101 Goals in 1001 Days - Week One Update

Technically, week one ended a few days ago but I like the thought of ending the week on Saturday. I looked over my list again and decided to nix a few of the goals. 'Take a photo everyday' and two of the private goals seemed tedious and offered no financial, social, or health benefits so they've been replaced by:

*Limit calorie intake to 1200 calories/day for 30 days (0/30)

*Visit Duluth, MN (and, possibly, the North Shore) (0/1)

*(Still trying to come up with an interesting one)

I worked on a few of the goals over the week. After replacing my Wii, I had to restart the EA Active challenge I was working on. No big deal, though. I was only a week and a half into it. I also finished reading the first book in my "Read 75 books" goal. "Pop Salvation" by Lance Reynald was a quick, easy read, partly because I adored the characters. Usually, I'm more of a horror and science fiction fan and look for plot-driven novels but this novel has become one of my new favorites. Trying to drink 64 ounces of water and eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day is difficult but I expected that. Even though I haven't been doing it as much as I should, I've been eating and drinking more than I normally would though so it's a great goal to keep around.

And, finally, I tried the first drink on my "Try 20 different beverages" goal. Very Vanilla soymilk. The first time I tried soymilk, it was the chocolate flavor by the same company. I gagged when I first drank it and never finished the half-gallon I bought. It tasted awful. This flavor, however, is great. I'm going to try to work a glass or two into my daily diet since it has the protein, calcium, and vitamin B12 I'm probably missing in my daily meals.

Book List

(You can ignore this if you're in Google Reader. It's just my list of 75 books.)

1. "Pop Salvation" by Lance Reynald

January 4 and 5 Photos

The colors never come out right on this camera in low light settings.

Even the dog dresses up for winter

The Day I Caused Bunny Death

Last night, I ran a few errands. Thanks to my father, I didn't have to walk through the frigid cold spell that Minnesota (and most of the country) is in. Nothing really exciting. A quick trip to the library to get new books and a quick trip to Target to replace my Wii (It was not the 'My Fitness Coach' disc that was acting up. It was the console itself.) and get new socks. I didn't really think about the socks I bought until I got home. For those who don't know, I'm vegan for animal rights reasons. I make every attempt to not buy any products that are made from animals. That includes leather, wool, and, of course, fur. It wasn't until I got home that I looked at the label. "Angora Knee High Socks".

'Wait,' I thought. 'Isn't angora wool?'

I flipped the label over and read. Rayon. Nylon. Polyester.

'Ah, crap. Wool.' And, then, my eyes rested on the final ingredient. 15% rabbit hair.

"Ah, crap!" I yelled. "I'm helping to torture bunnies. Cute, fuzzy bunnies!"

Sorry, bunnies. :(

The Disappearing Dog

My dog and one of my cats hate having their pictures taken. As soon as the camera comes out, they run in the other direction. Hey, I didn't say the '1 photo a day' had to be good.

Hopefully, the enthusiasm and motivation that naturally occurs when you start a project like the 101 Goals in 1001 Days challenge stays. These days, most video games have achievements or trophies that you can accomplish once you've fulfilled certain tasks. I'm looking at this as though it were a game.

I worked on some of my goals yesterday, mostly health and exercise related ones. And I can already see that some of them may need to be slightly altered. Walking 100 miles (in 3 years) is probably way too easy. I changed the "Eat 5+ servings of fruits or vegetables a day" to "Eat 3500 servings of fruits or vegetables" because 3 servings in a day should count for something. And I ran into a glitch when I attempted to do a yoga session. The only resource I currently have for yoga is my copy of "My Fitness Coach". When I put the disc into the Wii, it wasn't reading it. So, either I have to buy a yoga DVD or get a copy of "My Fitness Coach 2" when it comes out. Or change the goal to something completely different. I could take a community education class in it but the thought of scheduling anything exercise-related has always bothered me. I prefer to do that sort of thing as the opportunity pops up.