Jettisoned Ponderings

Between resting and tripling my intake of Xango this weekend, fortunately whatever I got is pretty much gone now. Not always easy to stay healthy when your spouse works around sick people all day. I’m sure this will affect my lifting tonight, but I need to go anyhow.

I’m up 1% bodyfat today, which I’m attributing to being a bit too high on the carbs. Though some good gains are coming with it, so I can’t complain that much. I did a bit of revising today on my nutrient timing and the macros. Its still a bulk, so I’m not concerned with staying overly lean right now. That 225lb long term goal is looking really appeasing right now. Plus to get the most out of the cycle, it’d be better to err on the side of being too high on the calories. I’ve got about another week on the Bold, then I’ll bridge over into the Tren and HMG. I really wish I wasn’t tapped for funds right now… I’d like to run a cycle of MMA3/TT40 in the near future.
For lifts, I know I’m gonna hate this long term, but I’m not lifting calves for a while in favor of just having 1 day to hit legs. I need to have 2 rest days a week and as hard as I hit legs, they really do need a lot more time to recover. I don’t have the endurance for quite as much leg volume as I do with my upper body. Tonight’s workout though it definitely gonna leave me sore. Works out better to lift late for legs anyhow so I can get a reliable spot from some of the other guys who go late and can go heavy.

When I have some idle time, I enjoy firing up the good ‘ol Xbox. This season has a number of titles I’ve been looking forward to. Fable 2 was one I’d been anticipating for most of this year. Got it earlier this week as a belated birthday present and I am having some really mixed thoughts on it so far.

Likes:
-More detailed graphics and attention to details such as city streets, buildings, etc.
-Addition of pistols and rifles on top of the crossbows
-Decent selection of weapons, though far too easy to buy the best ones early on by spending a little time at the blacksmith
-Takes much more to move your character’s stat sliders (Your character has morality and purty. NPCs have 3 different sliders to affect making it a little more dynamic, though its still easy to get them to sway one way or another)
-Ability to change the colors of your character’s apparel and hair
-Larger world to explore
-Depending how you behave in your childhood "Old Town" will develop differently and with each comes different extra jobs and shops/services.

Dislikes:
-Annoyingly long load times (30+ seconds most of the time, and they’re frequent)
-Sluggish movement and slow camera response
-Only word I can think of to describe the world is "congested". Amen for the Golden Road for assistance to navigate the game until you get more familiar with it after oh, 20 hours or so… Otherwise you’ll get lost quite easily
-Essentially useless battle targeting system (ie, opponent knocked down, targeted, and melee attacks are swinging at the air instead of dealing finishing blows, unless you happen to do flourish attack just right. Easier to finish off with ranged weapon shots or will attack)
-Will attack charge system laggy when trying to change spells. Makes it impossible to immediately cast different spells consecutively. Better off picking just a couple spells and developing them instead of a diverse arsenal.
-Cannot assign items or attacks to D-Pad buttons like in Fable 1
-Your dog’s interaction options always seem to pop up right when I’d rather use a healing potion or some other action
-Apparel has no defense/armor influence? So it strictly for attractiveness statistics… Lame.
-Preview "cards" for hair styles, tattoos, etc. are tiny and difficult to see what they’d look like.

Overall:
The game is fun and for someone who never played Fable 1 it will probably have more appeal. Fable 1’s downfall was that it was too short, and even the later released "Lost Chapers" didn’t add a whole lot. That part has been taken care of. I really am not a fan at all of Fable 2’s battle system. I feel that it pushes me to develop my character toward being a heavier magic user, which I don’t usually like to do. I prefer to develop melee skills first with some magic abilities as support (slowing time, dashing, etc. More non-elemental skills). As for the dog, he’s amusing, but I really wish I could just buy a home and have him be a domestic pet a lot of the time. I don’t feel that he contributes that much to the game. Maybe part of why its more difficult to take out knocked down opponents is because he’s supposed to attack them when they’re down. Its interesting, too, that your dog seems to be the only one in the entire world. Hmmm… As for the length of the game, I don’t know yet because I haven’t beaten it. I’m not totally put off by the game because I do like certain elements of it. However, I feel that it really missed a number of key points that made me really enjoy Fable 1. So, I guess I’m saying that Fable 2 is just an entirely different beast that will probably accumulate a lot of dust on my shelf after 2 play-throughs (once good, once bad).

Rating so far: 6/10

For breakfast today I’m having something I haven’t done since back in 6th grade… Grape Nuts served hot! I know this may seem odd, but I really like it. Plus, when I’m looking to bulk I want to find things that are more calorie dense don’t swell in my stomach so much. All you need is:

1 cup Post Grape Nuts Cereal
1 cup Milk
2 tbsp Peanut Butter

Put together and microwave for 2-2.5 minutes, allow to cool. They’ll come out soft like your oats, but still a bit of a crunch texture (especially with chunky peanut butter). For a sweeter taste, try adding some honey, cinnamon, splenda, etc.

This morning I used skim milk and smart balance natural omega peanut butter. With that, the nutritional profile came to:
686 Calories, 28g Protein, 113g Carbs, 19g Fat

Legs took quite a beating yesterday. Unlike last leg workout, this time I did my warm-up on the bike and started much lighter on the leg press warm-up sets. Working sets ended up being the following:

Close Stance Leg Press: 4×8-12 450 495 540 585 (x10)
Neutral Stance Smith Front Squats: 4×8-12 50 60 70 80
Leg Extensions: 7×8-15 100 100 90 80 60 50 40
Standing Calf Raises: 4×10-12 180 190 200 220
Seated Calf Raises: 4×15-20 100 105 110 115

My knees were the main reason for lightening up so much on the extensions. It felt good in a way, but they were sure letting me know they’d be worked. Calves were cramping, so doing 7s wasn’t necessary (and probably won’t be later this week either). The big thing I’m happy about is the leg press. All sets and reps I had my knees coming all the way back to my chest, so they were clean and deep. It’ll be good to work up to being over 600lbs on it again. If I’m lucky, I’d like to be doing 700+ for reps by the end of the year…

Well, decorations are already popping up, lights on the trees, so I figure everyone can go ahead and enjoy a bit more upbeat variation of the ‘ol holiday classic…

I try to go when the gym’s least crowded and workout body parts that people don’t typically workout on that day (ie arms or chest always seems to be a Monday thing). Lately I keep getting the person on the machine I want to use that takes way too long of rest periods, then I finally get my turn. I finish my sets and find the same person on the next machine I want! This has to be some conspiracy to keep me off machines or something…

Strength is up this week quite noticeably. Gonna chalk that up to the extra rest last week and the addition of the MMA3 to the stack. Diet’s been getting back to where it needs to be, but my body’s schedule has been all thrown off since the time change. You know what, in 3 months can we just bump our clocks ahead 30 minutes and then never mess with them again? I’m very much one to function when the sun rises and sets, so this helps me get up early, but getting dark at 5pm is killing me. My internal clock is all messed up and I haven’t made an on time AM workout for a while now. I’m hoping that’ll change tomorrow with the alarm reset.

As for training, I’m still very much loving the FST-7! There is still continual refinement being done on the daily workouts. Next week I’m changing up the order the days fall. Leg workouts are shortened on their respective days for quads and hams while calves are moved to those leg days. The other days calves fell on just got to be too long.

For now, I need some good rest to try to get my internal clock back in working order.

Giving ACL’s MMA3 (Bold) a shot my itself alone this time. Starting out at 400mg/day for now and seeing how that works. Diet is just under 3900 calories for now. Trying to see if that’s enough, which it should be going off the general rule of 20 cals/1lb bodyweight (3860 as of this morning’s weight). Hope it works out…

We all have things we’d like to improve with our physiques. Sometimes, I wonder what our pets think though while we all have those "mirror moments". So, next time, before you have a posing session with yourself (or take a crappy phone cam adonis shot to try and make Top 6), remember to shield your pets’ eyes or else something like this may happen…

I never got around to posting this a couple months ago. We’ve all seen the commercials for Axe spray, but you never hear about those less ideal times. A while back I got a gift box of Axe and it had a couple of the smaller mini canisters in it. Perfect for gym bag use, right? Well, I gave one to a friend and he forgot about it. The bag sat in the back of his car for a while and we had a few hot days. Of all things, while driving down the highway there was an abrupt "BANG!" followed by the panic of, "Gunshot!? Engine!? Tire blowout!?….. What’s that smell…?"

Yeah, the Axe canister blew up. Pretty impressive force, too, as it blasted a hole through the pocket of his gym bag, too!

So, the lesson learned here? "Stick to Stick"