Sorry blog and blog readers. I do not ignore you on purpose.

The new Fullmetal Alchemist anime series is currently coming out in Japan. Usually at this point, there would be only one way to watch the show: wait until a somebody puts it online with English subtitles and download it illegally. But not so with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (and some other series). Thanks to FUNimation, we can watch the show streaming from their site whenever we want to as the episodes come out on Japanese television.

I just caught up with the seven episodes available so far and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Aside from catching some episodes out of order on TV, I didn't watch the original. But now that I'm watching this one, I like it a lot. It's a surprisingly mature show considering how much silly antics and immaturity the show also contains.

And not to brag, but I love my viewing experience. I have my old Mac Mini hooked up to my main TV and though it usually collects dust, it's serving quite well as a video streaming machine. The newest Flash player (10 I believe) added full screen video. So to watch anything on FUNimation, Hulu, or other video streaming sites with full screen options, I simply load up the video to watch on a web browser and click to full screen it. Voila. I'm now watching streaming video on my TV. The quality is never as good as a DVD and usually not as good as cable, but it's still not bad, especially for watching things like unreleased anime that simply isn't available otherwise.

As I mentioned in my last post, I injured my back. I've been going to a chiropractor and my treatment is nearly complete. With every visit, I felt a little better and my exercises at the gym are almost back where they were when I first injured myself.

Part of my treatment is correcting my bad behavior. I've identified with my chiropractor several places where I'm positioning myself poorly. Number one is my posture. I'm a bad sloucher. For instance, those ergo chairs people rave about with the lower lumbar support. Means nothing to people like me with horrible posture unless I force myself against the back of it. So I'm correcting my posture as best I can and even have some exercises to help with that. I also sleep in bizarre positions, play drums with poor posture, type and drive with poor posture, etc. These are all places that can be improved and if I do so, my overall back health should improve.

As I've talked to people about my issues, I've seen a lot of different opinions on chiropractic. I wasn't aware there was so much controversy because I've known multiple people who have had their lives improved by chiropractic treatment. I don't really want to get fully into it here, but for me the treatment has definitely helped. It seems that chiropractors weren't always as safe as they are today. But I checked out mine, found no reported problems with him, and he is a certified doctor.

The only other controversy besides safety and effectiveness is whether or not you "have to" go back for appointments "forever." My research there indicates that chiropractors tend to view their services like the dentist. Even if your tooth doesn't hurt, you go back to the dentist for a checkup once or twice a year and if your tooth does hurt, you go in.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do once my treatment is complete, which should be next week. On the one hand, I don't really want to have another doctor to visit once or twice a year. But on the other hand, if I do, I'll be spending $15 and a half hour of my time to do it. But either way, I'm just glad to be better and able to do my full workouts and softball without worry of injuring myself more.

Early last week my back started to hurt. Unlike most people with back pain, it wasn't focused on the lower back or neck area. Instead, it was purely on the left shoulder blade area. As soon as I noticed it, I stopped all upper body exercise at the gym. I just got back from my second chiropractor visit and have news regarding my workouts.

The good news is that I don't have any horrible spinal injury or birth defect. The bad news is that I've had two visits and will have at least three more, all next week. I guess this is standard. They always rope you into a series of visits to fix your issues. The other good news, though, is that I'm allowed to do any exercise I want! Sort of. I have the go-ahead to continue doing upper body exercises at the gym. I have to lower the weights a bit, or potentially a lot. In short, if it hurts, lower the weight. Or skip that exercise until the muscle has recovered enough to do it.

This is great news for me. I don't care that I've already had two weeks of setback from increasing my weight. This is because my goal isn't to become a huge muscle man and because I don't have a specific date I want to be fit by. So I'm just glad I can be consistent and workout at the gym and do softball and anything else I choose to do, as long as it doesn't hurt my back.

Patrick Rothfuss's debut novel tells the story of Kvothe (pronounced Quoth). Kvothe's life is the stuff of legend in the book, which takes place after his stories are now history and Kvothe has retired in secrecy. But when Chronicler, the world's most famous storyteller, finds him, he decides to tell his story.

Kvothe's story is about travels, hardship, magic, and perhaps most of all about love. We learn early on that Kvothe is known as the "bloodless", he's killed a king, fought with creatures and demons. It's basically Rothfuss's way of telling the reader that a lot of cool stuff is coming.

There are a number of things that make The Name of the Wind stand out among the crowd, some more unique than others. One, which has been done in some other fantasy novels, is that magic has a sort of scientific feel to it. It's described in a more logical way and there isn't so much of it that fireballs are flung around everywhere and people fly around like birds. Instead, it's mostly quite subtle. There aren't mystical creatures like dragons and elves walking around either. Sure, they are in the story, but few and far between.

The most important unique aspect is that the book starts after the story is over. Kvothe is leading his life in secrecy as an innkeeper in a backwater village and he is telling his life story. The book jumps back and forth between this future setting and the past settings of his life. I suspect from how its written that in later books, some action may take place in the present, but we'll see.

The best I can say to wrap up this review is that this is one of my favorite fantasy books. Patrick Rothfuss did a fantastic first novel and he's set up some great plot hooks for the next two parts of the trilogy. For those that have read it, Rothfuss is already becoming a name you list alongside the Tolkiens of the world. And I suspect that given time many more will love his works as well.

For most of my life, I've felt like a very weak person in a fat person's body. It wasn't like if I worked off some fat that suddenly I'd be where I want to be.

Now things have changed. A month and a half ago I started strength training at Gold's Gym. Things have been going very well. And now I truly feel like I am a strong person trapped in a sheath of fat (which I am steadily working off). The parts of my body that don't store much fat now look defined. I can feel and flex muscles like my abs and pecs that I was being aware existed before.

I'm reading a fitness book that says most people stop working out within two months of starting. It also says that January is the most popular time for gym sign-ups and that by the end of February, most have dropped out no matter how long their membership lasts. So my new short term goal is to make it through a full two months of strength training. Considering I only have about 10 days left to make that happen I'm sure I'll make it no problem. But I'll be able to say I'm not part of the statistic that gave up.

Mulligan's Island is a relatively new golf, mini-golf, and batting cages place in Cranston, RI that my friends and I love to play mini-golf at. For the past few weeks, I've been going there for the batting cages so that I won't suck when I start playing softball next month.

Every time we go there, the batting cage machine gets jammed and our batting is cut short. This may sound negative, but it actually turns into quite a positive. Every time this happens, a technician comes over to fix it and gives you a free token's worth of batting. Because, it gets jammed partway through your previous token, that means you are getting some free pitches.

Today's trip, it once again jammed, this time after 16 of the 20 pitches, and they didn't have a tech on hand so they gave me two tokens and said to try the next machine over. That comes to about 36 pitches I never paid for.

So many thanks to Mulligan's. Their customer service is not only making me return there but helping me hit a few home runs this softball season.

I'll keep this one short. I just have good news and I'd like to talk about it. It's been ten days since my first measurement with the caliper and tape measure. In that time, my weight has not changed. However, I have lost about 0.5% body fat. That comes to almost a pound of fat lost and a little over a pound of muscle gained.

This meets my expectations. I've been getting the protein I need and doing all my strength training which explains the muscle gain. I probably could have lost more fat in that time if I did enough cardio and improved my diet. I will make more effort to do that. Still, if I continue at this rate, I will reach my goal of 15% body fat in January of next year.

I'm all done with my free personal trainer visits. I need to save up money so that I can continue with the training. If money things look well, it's possible I may even sign up for the nutritionist. But for now, not having access to either, I won't have any regular measurements done at the gym.

So I went and purchased a caliper for measuring body fat and a tape measure for doing my body measurements. I'm going to measure myself periodically, at least once a month but more likely at least once a week. I don't care if I can't expect to see that much progress; I like doing measurements.

The body fat caliper is meant to be used in only a single place on the body. You then use the reading and a chart that came with it to determine your body fat. It's supposed to be more accurate than electrical impedance tests, which is what is used at the gym. I'm finding that while it is probably more accurate, it's difficult to get consistent readings. So I do a few readings and just try to get a ballpark because the variance is not a huge amount. Using this technique, it looks like my body fat is about 29%, which is certainly higher than the 23% the device at my gym gave me and puts me back in the obese category. I picked an arbitrary goal of 15% which will put me in the "fit" category. With my current weight at 200, that means I have to lose about 28 pounds of fat.

The body tape I received is also tricky to get an exact measurement. It's designed to make things easy because you press a button and it tightens around the area you are measuring. But it's still tricky, at least by yourself, to ensure you are measuring the exact area every time. However, over time I will still see my progress even if things are perfect.

Watchmen, the movie, is being given "mixed reviews" as they say. I'll explain the mix:

One type of review/viewer doesn't understand it at all. They aren't happy with the characters, the ending, the depressing tone, the politics, or really much of anything. Because they don't understand it, they describe it as pseudo-intellectual, boring, too long, etc. You can ignore these people.

Another type gets it, but thinks the movie interpreted the book too literally. They think the Watchmen story simply doesn't work as a movie. This happened for 300 as well, among other movies. I don't think the creators of the movie need apologize to anybody for sticking to the source material. You can ignore these people as well.

Then there's everybody else, those who recognize that not only does Watchmen make for a good movie, but it's unlikely that much could have been done to make it work better. I suspect that the director's cut will cover most small things that feel missing from the movie. As for the other changes, in most cases they were necessary. Watchmen, the comic, is quite unique. I cover many reasons it's unique in my mini-review. Those don't translate to film, so the film version has to be its own work. And in that, it does a great job.

It's hard to talk about Watchmen, a graphic novel by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. As with some of the other books I've talked about, it seems like everything worth saying has already been said. And all everybody really wants to talk about right now is the movie. But I did finish reading Watchmen recently and I'm committed to writing something about everything I read, so I'll give it a shot.

The first thing I should mention is that this post will be spoiler free. I've spent a long time thinking about the types of things I'd like to say about Watchmen and much of it involves spoilers. In fact, much of it is more approaching a critical analysis of the work rather than my standard mini-review. So those who haven't read it yet don't need to worry about me ruining anything.

The best thing I can say about Watchmen is that if you haven't read it, you should do so. And with the movie coming, you should do so as soon as possible. It's that good and it's that important. It's won countless awards and critical praise and is generally considered to be one of the best graphic novels ever written.

Watchmen is an alternate history graphic novel telling the story of several decades of superheroes and their adventures. In particular, it mostly tells the story in the past of the Minutemen, the first organized group of costumed crime fighters, and the Crimebusters, a name representing the few remaining superheroes of modern day in the story. Somebody is out killing the remaining Crimebusters and Rorschach, one of said heroes, is investigating to find out who is responsible.

Along the way, there are many revelations for the reader. These revelations are about the heroes of the past, the heroes of today, and about what it really means to be a masked crime fighter, what it means to be a superhero. Only a single person in the entire story has any form of actual powers and only one other person seems to have the technical expertise to be a Batman-type character with unlimited resources. So the heroes in Watchmen are not heroes by default. When you look at comics like X-Men or Spider-Man, it seems that simply earning powers will put you into one of two categories: good guy or bad guy. It's black and white. Only one character fits into that mold in Watchmen. Everybody else is painted with many shades of gray, or at least a moving inkblot like on Rorschach's costume.

There are a number of things worth noting about Watchmen that are unique besides the very human nature of its characters. After every chapter except the last is supplementary material. This includes book excerpts from one of the characters, letters, and other things that help to flesh out the world. They aren't as entertaining to read as the comic itself, but they really help in understanding everything that goes on. There's also a comic within a comic that one of the characters reads. It's a pirate story, very simple on the surface. It can actually seems distracting in several spots. But it is important to the story on multiple levels. Lastly, the time line tends to jump around a lot. It doesn't tell the story of one hero or set of heroes. It tells the story of several decades of events. It's not a fluff piece with crazy powers and goofy villains, not that I don't love those to death as well.

To leave things off, I'll simply say that Watchmen is really worth reading even if you don't read most comics. Many feel it starts off slow and still others lament the lack of action that's in traditional comics. But it's a great read that will be well worth your time.

My first appointment with my personal trainer went well, but it was mostly Q&A. He found out about me and my goals and gave me a basic circuit training routine to follow until we met a week later. That routine was a great workout but I had no idea what was to come.

Our second appointment was the real deal. Greg kept a couple exercises from the circuit training routine but everything else was new. Rather than being simply out on the machines, I was put for most of my workout back in the trenches with some much larger machines that I find hard to describe. One simply assists you in using a bar. A couple others look more like torture devices, but they work.

I was able to make it through about 75% of that workout before I was simply out of energy. It wasn't that my muscles hurt too much to do any more lifting--though that was partially true--it was that I was running on empty. I haven't felt that physically exhausted in as long as I can remember.

It may have been a little too hard. I think my trainer is more used to people who stop before they need to. I've done a little lifting before and am good at pushing myself so I know some of my limits. We went just a little beyond them and I wasn't ready to work out again the following Wednesday. But after plenty of rest and a couple cardio-only workouts, I am back on schedule and doing great with my new routine. I have another workout tonight and I'm looking forward to potentially increasing the weight on a couple of my exercises that went rather well last time.

So far so good. I only have one free appointment and that's coming up a week from today. I don't have much money to spare on training but I am planning on having more sessions at some point.

Yesterday I had an appointment with Greg, my personal trainer at Gold's Gym. It was mostly him gathering information about me and my goals and then getting my measurements. He's going to use all that information to customize a program for me that I'll be getting next Monday. In the meantime, I have a pretty intense workout I'm supposed to do between now and then.

The appointment went really well. Everybody at Gold's is nice and helpful. I'm still somewhat shocked at the size of some of the hulking men in there, but I don't like it bother me.

One of the major surprises for me is that my body fat is only 23.2%. They use some electronic device that I can't remember the name of. I think it was biometric impedance or something like that. It sends shocks through you to get your body fat percentage. I could have sworn my percentage would be higher. Because of that measurement, I am officially no longer obese. When I make an appointment with the nutritionist, I will be getting an even more accurate measurement of my body fat percentage which will hopefully confirm that.

I begin my major workouts--which consist of cardio and resistance training--tomorrow, doing them three days a week. If I have the time and can fit in other workouts, I'm supposed to do an hour of pure cardio with no resistance training. I'm pretty psyched. The goal set by my trainer is to lose 3% body fat by the second week in March and I intend to do it.

I've made many attempts at becoming fit through exercise over the years. When I was in school, I had plenty of activities like soccer and karate. When I hit high school, I used my dad's weights for some basic lifting. After graduating, a friend and I joined a gym for the Summer, which worked rather well but I couldn't motivate myself to go there much.

Since that time, I've tried a number of things, many of which you've heard about on this blog. I've done push-ups, gotten a recumbent bike, gotten my own free weights, done some running. They've all helped, but none have been perfect. Running is great, but I find it difficult to do it in the cold months; before and after work are too dark and I don't like running for lunch time like my coworkers. The free weights and doing programs like 100 push-ups are good, but I don't have any expert helping me develop a program that maximizes my potential. And the bike I have is great for getting a little extra workout in while watching TV, but it isn't a truly rigorous workout that will produce major results.

So a few days ago I joined Gold's Gym. Growing up I always heard it was the place where giant muscle men hang out and to join smaller gyms where you can feel more comfortable. But I gave it a chance for a couple reasons. First, it's in a perfect location, only a few minutes from my house, on the way to/from work, and right next to a grocery store. Second, I get a deal there because I work at APC.

Sure enough, there really are some giant muscle men there, but there are also plenty of out of shape people like me. And Gold's has plenty of options for getting fit, many more than I even need. As part of joining, I get three free personal trainer sessions which will help me learn what will be the most effective workout for my goals. My first is on Monday and I can't wait.

So far, Gold's has been great. I've done one workout there, just some running on a treadmill. I haven't run in a while so it was a bit tough. I did 5 minutes walking (3mph), 10 minutes running (4.2 mph), and finished with 5 minutes walking for a total of 1.2 miles. It's nothing spectacular but it was a great experience.

If anybody decides to check out Gold's Gym themselves and gets a membership, you can do me a huge favor by putting me as your referrer. I won't beg for this too much, but I think it's worth mentioning at least once because I'll get a free month of membership if you do.

I've been keeping myself too busy to blog, but I did successfully do my push-ups and crunches during this time. My week 3, day 2 push-ups sets were 10, 12, 8, 8, and I maxed out at 13, 1 above the minimum. My crunches sets were 21, 24, 18, 18, and I maxed out at 34, 7 above the minimum. Both of the workouts were a little difficult but I succeeded in both, so I'm happy. Plus, I have some other workout related news to be happy about which I'll put in my next blog post.

My totals for these workouts were 51 push-ups and 115 crunches. My most recent weigh-in was 200 pounds. It's a new plateau I've been stuck at since reaching it. The compliments about my appearance continue to come in and they are the highlight of my day. Thanks to everybody who has noticed!