Out of The PIT

Something I forgot to mention about from a couple of weeks ago. While I was playing with FF in the pool, she pulled the WEML on me. For one, I had not seen it for a few years, and secondly, the last (and first) person to use it on me was ten years old. For one, I was surprised that the meme survived this long, but considering that it seems to be some sort of tweenish meme, perhaps it survives the same way as children's games and songs survive by getting passed down to the next cohort as each group ages. In any case, I'll keep my eyes open in case my nieces and nephews start using it on me in a few years time..

A number of years ago, I had tried out the 100 push up challenge but stopped because I did not balance out the muscle growth with any of the counterbalancing muscle groups. My joints started behaving a little funny and I lost power with a number of my lifts. I'm not sure if it was because my muscles got too tense, or something else. I figured the easiest way to get back to normal was to stop the challenge after a few weeks. Now that I've picked up archery again, my back muscles are being worked on without corresponding work on my chest muscles. I figured that I should try starting on the challenge again. Let's see what my initial test looks like..

I went to For the Win Cafe to try out some board gaming with Laz and AK. I got there early with Laz and I wanted to try out "Game of Thones" which I discovered was a 3+ player game which I didn't realize because I got it mixed up with "Battles of Westeros" which was a two player game. After getting it fetched, we discovered that the game was too complex to complete in an hour so we switched to "A Few Acres of Snow" which seemed a lot simpler and quicker to play, but AK arrived while we were setting up and we switched to "Boggle" so that AK would get to win something. After we had our fill of being clobbered by AK at "Boggle" we tried out "Ghost Blitz 2", which was a fun fairly mindless game. Then finally "Crappy Birthday" which was very much like "Cards against Humanity". Even though it was a 4+ player game, we got around it by allowing each player to place two cards down instead of one. The food ther

I stayed up a little later than I normally would have liked last night and right now I am paying for it. I got that feeling at the back of your eyes telling you that, despite waking up before your alarm, you are not actually awake. You may think you are, but this is just an illusion. Your brain is very much on autopilot. I am sure I will be up late tonight as well which bodes poorly for catching up on sleep, but I think it was worth it. It was nice catching up, and it was the perfect opportunity to ask those unasked questions that have been bothering me for years even though most of the answers were "I don't remember". Ah well, we have questions for another missing member who we will accost at another time.

Uh.. my dad got a letter from Rogers telling him that illegal downloading was traced to his IP address. He asked me about it and wondered what he should do. I told him it was probably my fault and told him to keep the e-mail. I recall reading about people getting these e-mails a little while back. I've generally been good but I had a bit of a catch up blitz this past weekend that must've triggered their radar. I knew I should have spread everything out a bit and perhaps not uploaded as much.

Part of me is worried about fatherhood. Not the parts about dealing with pee, or poop, or puke, or those types of things (although I do think I will be losing a few lunches over the years), it's when the kids are in the tweens or teenage years. By then I will definitely not be a spring chicken. Would I be able to keep up with the constant demands and requirements of being a parent of children who are not quite ready to be left on their own, but may require more attention and effort than I can handle? On Saturday I spent a few hours with one and ended up pulling both of my calf muscles and dealing with more sass than a beauty pageant full of valley girls. I have no problem dealing with it once a year, or even monthly. I can see it wearing thin weekly. How about daily? Hourly? I believe that I will be able to handle it. I've been trying to stay healthy most of my life and I know I can physically keep up. I've been trying to keep sharp so I know that I can mentally keep up

I have been collecting a bunch of links in my inbox that people have been sending me but haven't had time time to really go through them all, or have gone through them and wanted to keep them for reference. I figure that instead of clogging up my inbox, I'll post them here, although it should be more than easy enough to just archive the e-mail and search that way. In any case, there's an article from Laz about foreigners and crazy NY real estate prices from a year ago. He also sent IT War Stories and Acts of Gord . Maggie had a link for TPL e-books ,  what to do with your pension if you quit early , what happens to your debts if you die suddenly , a Portuguese bakery , a book titled The Third Rail: Confronting Our Pension Failures, a lecture titled Cities by the Water: Postcolonial History and Participation by Newcomers, and free online courses from Coursera . Hrm, lots more links in my inbox I'm afraid. Maybe I should actually check them out instead.

See, every few years I have another Squishy sighting. This time it was on the VIA train on the way to Ottawa. I would have to admit that this Coburg Squishy looks less squishy than the real Squishy, but I think age may have something to do with that. Gosh we're getting old..

I went arching last night. It has definitely been a while. The beginner session on the 23rd was only a taste as I only got to shoot twelve arrows due to the lesson and time restrictions I had. This time, we were given full range to do whatever we wanted, and I went through a least a hundred arrows. That practice, plus the instruction helped me get back into the groove. However, the tab and arm guard also helped a lot. I got the tab because my fingers were starting to hurt - although it seems that if I was holding the arrow at my second knuckles instead of the first, I would not have been hurting my fingers as much. Secondly, once I got the tab I started to hit my arm repeatedly on the same spot, so the arm guard helped with flinching. I have a nice little welt right now on my arm. Yes, I know that you are supposed to rotate your arm. I'm not hitting the elbow or upper forearm - I'm hitting the middle of my forearm. There were actually two other guys there who started the clas