I haven't hit any PRs since losing over 15 lbs, but I just managed to hit a one-rep record with 315 lbs for 16 in the deadlift. I'm feeling it today; my traps are so sore I can barely move my neck, and my ass and hamstrings are toast. Still, it's nice to hit a PR again. Middle-age is coming for me, brother, but I'm trying to be prepared.
I walk up to the butcher. He's a middle-aged bald guy with a ragged beard. His fingernails are that bruised sort of blue that comes from repeated injury or poor hygiene. He sort of looks like a serial killer. "Can I help yah?" he mutters, and I order my meats. While I'm waiting, an old fucker with considerable jowls (he resembles the Gungan King from The Phantom Menace) meanders up to the counter and asks "Did you watch your girlfriend last night? Cam-al-a?"
"I didn't even bother," says the butcher.
"You know it was a coup, don't yah?"
"It wasn't very democratic, her replacing Biden. That's what gets my goat."
"You know the military's gonna put Trump back in?"
They talk about election conspiracy theories too stupid to comprehend. I take my meat and flee.
The store is full of the elderly and people who seems to be operating at a frequency well-below optimal. Their movements are lugubrious, ponderous. They take the steps of people who do not plan to step much longer. I try to keep my impatience in check, but it is a real struggle not to swerve past every old biddy that stares vacantly down the aisle, blocking my path as her CPU stalls, no longer capable of multi-threaded operations.
In the check out line, I ask for paper bags. The bagger sighs and says "I guess. They always rip."
"Don't overload them," says the cashier.
He overloads the bags to prove his point, and they do rip, as he predicted.
I pay the cashier in fives. She miscounts them three times. In my impatience, I correct her on the third try, and she gives me a dirty look.
"That's how they try to get you. By interrupting your count. I used to work at the casino. I don't care, I just count it as many times as it takes."
"Is that what they do?" I say. She still hasn't counted the money right, but she shoves it in the drawer all the same. I briefly contemplate going on a tirade about how she's caught me red-handed, that I'm trying to quick change her and save five dollars, but I don't, because there's no reason to argue with stupid people, and I'm trying not to be an asshole.
The parking lot is full of pickup trucks so humongous that if they ran you over, they'd never realize it until they pulled up in their driveway and found the splattered giblets of your mortal form. What the fuck am I doing at this place? Isn't there somewhere else to be?
Aldi's? Wal-Mart?
I shudder at the thought. At least no one dropped a deuce in the aisles.
After slimming down from about 200 lbs to 185 lbs, I've got a couple months of training under my belt at my new weight. Here's what I've learned:
I've lost a lot of strength--I've went from bench pressing 250 lbs for 8 reps to benching 250 lbs for 2 reps. I've yet to deadlift 405, although I did do 315 for 10 last Friday, so I think that's in the bag. As far as the squat goes, I've been squatting utilizing a high bar beltless style which is the hardest way to back squat, so any prospective strength loss in that lift hasn't really been noticed. I'm still trying to increase my main lifts, but I'm also doing a lot of bodybuilding work, and I've really been paying attention to my squat form, which means using pretty light weights. Just don't expect to lose weight and maintain strength.
I feel a lot better being lighter. I recover better. I move better. I sleep better. This is why I'll probably stay at this weight. The health benefits are undeniable--my blood pressure is in the 110's now. It's also nice seeing my abs, I'll admit.
Maintaining my weight is easier than losing it was. I went on a pretty strict diet for my initial weight loss. Tried to stay away from processed carbs, cut out snacks, hardly drank any alcohol. I've really loosened up on this now. I've been keeping my alcohol consumption closer to 7 drinks a week as opposed to the 4 I aimed for at the start, and I'll enjoy a junk food snack every now and then. I'll still have good days where I'll eat only about three meals or so and not drink, but there are less of those days than there are ones where I indulge. My high activity level probably helps a lot, since I'm in the middle of my harvest season.
Bodybuilding training is more sustainable. Although I did perform that 315 for 10 deadlift set last week (A PR attempt--17 is my record for 315), I've mostly been sticking in the rep range of 8 to 12, with one day for the squat and deadlift where I'll work up to a heavy double or single. Just using a weight and smashing out clean reps in a lift, like say 135 lbs for two sets of 12 in the barbell row, results in hypertrophy without excessive soreness or fatigue. I'm 39 now, not 29. Although recovery has improved since my weight loss, I can't do the marathon heavy training sessions anymore, due to my age and lightness.
One of my favorite Queens of the Stone Age tunes. I'm going to see them in the natty in October, and I'm pretty psyched.
Sick Again
A brief respite
From the common cold
has finally ended
and now
I am stuffy,
fuzzy of tongue
and tooth.
I wake up
At five in the morning
and refuse to go
Back to sleep.
In the morning
I down coffee
and read stories
About reincarnation
and wonder if we’re all
in a video game
or just the same souls
spliced together
over and over again.
What was I doing?
Blowing my nose
With a paper towel?
...
Creed
Divorced from time and place
From the standards of taste
And decency
Can you judge a piece of art?
If the cultural context
In which art was made
is lost
What can we say about it?
What it meant back then
Is gone; What it means now
Is completely different.
What I’m saying is
Creed is good now
and will be grouped
With their early nineties predecessors
Like Nirvana and Pearl Jam
And while that might have given
Kurt a heartattack,
He didn’t live long enough
To let his brain develop.
Lemme tell you, man
Your perspective shifts
When you get close to 40.
You realize that art
has only the integrity
You bring to it,
and that we’re all
gonna die anyway.
Might as well rock-out
To Higher.
A garage rocker with some serious vibes, brotha. What that means, I don't know, but maybe you can figure it out? My Strat through the T-57 tubescreamer sounds pretty good on this one. Lo-fi for the win.
Neon White is a 2022 speedrunning FPS-platformer developed by Angel Matrix, which is, from what I gather, a loose collective of independent developers. With an anime artstyle featuring Cowboy Bebop voice actor Steve Blum, Neon White is focused on getting the player obsessed with running each of its small levels as fast as possible. You play as Neon White, a soul taken from Hell to help Heaven with its demon problem. White has little memory of his past life, and his relationships with other Neons form a sort of social game in-between missions. Red is the femme fatal, Violet a sociopathic opportunist, Yellow a himbo. It's all very anime, but I found the plot to be rather charming. White gets his missions from a cigar-chomping cat named Mikey, who is actually an angel whose appearance is different for every Neon viewing him (Yellow sees John Cena). While some of the dialogue is a little cringey, I found it to be mostly humorous. What really motivates you in Neon White is mastering all of its different abilities in order to blitz through its numerous levels. Instead of weapons, you have gun cards that have specific movement abilities you can use. For example, the machine gun shoots rapidly, but you can burn it to utilize a ground pound that destroys enemies while launching you toward the earth at top speed. My favorite is the shotgun, which allows you to transform into a flaming ball that can travel upward. The sniper rifle has a dash ability, the pistol has a double jump, and the assault rifle's secondary fire shoots an explosive grenade that you can use to blast through doors or propel yourself higher. The levels are heavenly mazes full of drops through the clouds, propelling pathways of water, and occasional traps that you have to trigger at full speed. Each run-through awards you with either a bronze, silver, gold, or ace medal depending on how fast you completed the level.
The thrill of mastering a level kept me playing Neon White longer and longer each session. I've never been a fan of conventional platformers, but the first-person perspective and movement mechanics taken from shooters like Unreal Tournament and Doom Eternal really clicked for me. I love this game, and I think it will really appeal to fans of retro shooters, even though the shooting is perfunctory and not the focus. It's well-worth the fifteen bucks or so it is on Steam, but I played through it on Game Pass. So far Neon White is my game of the year (even though it's from 2022).
I haven't played Call of Duty since the original Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare 3 just got added to Game Pass, so I thought I'd give it a try. Call of Duty is like three different multiplayer games now. There's the traditional Counterstrike deathmatch, a zombie-killing scavenger hunt, and Warzone, which I guess is a battle royale like Fortnite. Only the OG interests me, and I found it to be pretty fun, provided you play in a big-enough map. Departures is great and has plenty of space to move around, while many of the other maps are little deathtraps that remind me of Pool Day in Counter-Strike. Get a kill, die, respawn, die again, get a kill, die, etc... It also doesn't help that many Call of Duty players don't play the objective. The community also hasn't improved since the days of yesteryear. As gaming junk-food, I think Call of Duty is perfectly serviceable. I don't know about playing 70 bucks for a "new" game every year, however.
Black Myth:Wukong is this year's Jedi Survivor. It's a souls-lite with stunning graphics and compelling exploration that'll ch...
