Man, I really need to stop starting weekend wrap-up posts half way through the week.  The last weekend (plus a few days) has been relatively productive.  I have been doing a lot of reading for school, went out to eat for the first time in 2+ weeks, installed Windows 7, been productive at work, and even painted my kitchen.  Overall though, not too much elaboration is necessary, so I figured I would wrap this post up with a breakdown of diet and my first impressions of Windows 7.

Diet Wrapup—This morning I weighed myself and I weighed 185 for the first time since early last year.  That means that I have lost around 15lbs. over the course of the last 3 weeks.  As of last Friday, the diet is officially over.  I am now focusing on creating healthy eating patterns inspired mainly by the low GI theory—that certain carbs raise blood glucose and insulin levels and contribute to weight gain.    I am hoping to continue to lose weight, but am not going to focus on it.  As for my other goals… last night, I went to the gym and was able to bench 185.  I am pretty confident that over the course of the diet, I have not lost any strength.  So, this helps meet one of my original goals.  Also, I ran a little over a mile last night.  My goal for the diet was to be able to run 2 miles, so I am still a bit short of that goal.  While I have not met that goal, my mile is much faster than it was in the past.  So, I am encouraged by the progress but will need to do some more work to be able to build my stamina.  So, that is it.  Overall, it was a good experience.  I really do not want to do it again, because it was a lot of work and a bit stressful at times.  Hopefully, I can create some lasting change in my dietary habits to allow me to continue to move toward a healthy weight.

Windows 7—Last night I finally got everything in place to be able use Windows 7.  My first impression is Wow.  I remember seeing Vista for the first time in Best Buy and thinking that the OS was cool, but not a huge departure from XP. Windows 7 is completely different. Windows 7 extends on a lot of the eye candy of Vista and actually makes it useful.  The new taskbar combines the simplicity of the OSX dock with the productivity of the Windows environment.  After using it for an hour, it is really  hard to go back to an XP or Vista machine.  So overall, I have been very impressed by the beta.  Now, I just hope I do not have to wait a long time for the full version.

That is about it.  On to another week.

I am back from a two week hiatus.  I have been pretty busy with the start of my final semester of graduate school.  Overall, the last two weeks were pretty normal.  I went to work, did a lot of homework, worked out when I got a chance, played a game of football, and began painting the bottom level of my house.  So, this two week edition of weekend wrap-up will probably be short.  With that said, if I had to apply two themes to my last two weeks, they would be:  the diet and football (more specifically, the Superbowl).  So, without further delay…

The Diet—I have been on the Hoff diet (no carb, multiple servings of vegetables per day, and caffeine prior to working out) for 15 days.  Honestly, the beginning of the diet was pretty tough.  It was hard to break from my regular eating pattern.  I even had periodic headaches for the first day or two.  But, after that everything seemed to shape up.  I have already lost over 10 pounds.  I started between 200 and 205 and now weigh between 188 and 192 (depending on the time of day).  Overall, it has been a positive experience.  I have noticed that I have more energy, fewer stomach issues, and more motivation.  Whether this is related to the diet or is psychological, I cannot say.  But overall it has been a positive experience.

Superbowl—Lets start with the negatives.  If everyone can agree on one thing, it was that the Superbowl was a horribly officiated game.  The missed block in the back on the Harrison run back, the questionable “no-review” of the last play of the game, and not throwing Harrison out of the game for beating down an o-linemen on (inter-)national TV are just a few examples.  Honestly, if any of these calls would have went the Cardinals way, they would have won the game.

Now, on to the positives.  This was a good game.  Two years in a row we have been treated to quality football games.  Both Warner and Roethlisberger played great.  And, the receiver’s duel between Holmes and Fitzgerald was fun to watch.  The great debate on St. Louis radio is whether this game is one of the greatest to date.  While I think this is very subjective, I would have to say no.  Most people will remember the catch, but I think a lot of people (specifically Cardinal fans) will remember the horrible officiating.  That memory probably will not have lasting appeal.

So, that is about it.  On to another week.

This weekend was a bit more social than the lazy weekend last week.   I went out twice.  On Friday, I went to Bar Louie and Subzero in the CWE.  And on Saturday, I went to the Famous Bar in south city.  Both nights were relatively uneventful. I got to hang out with friends and drink some good brews.  With that said, my theory that the amount of time I spend at bars directly offsets the amount of work I get done around the house was once again substantiated, as I accomplished absolutely nothing around the house.

Football—On Sunday,  I was able to catch most of both of the football games.  My prediction from last week came true as Kurt Warner led the ex-St. Louis franchise past the Eagles.  And, Big Ben toppled the ex-Cleveland franchise.  Pittsburgh gets the nod for classiest city when their fans booed Limas Sweed for dropping an easy catch.  And, it looks like “the operator” Donovan McNabb got his comeupons for that stunt he pulled last week.  I am actually really looking forward to the Superbowl this year.  It will be fun to watch the high-powered Cardinal offense face off against the Steel curtain (version 2).  In the end, being both a Warner and Cleveland Browns fan,  I will be pulling for the Cardinals.  My prediction:  Arizona 28, Pittsburgh 24.

The Diet—On another note, I have decided to go on a diet.  I have decided on the low-carb route for a number of reasons: (1) I have done it before with pretty good success, (2) I can still eat a good quantity of food on this diet versus low calorie and low fat diets, and (3) I think in the long run, it will lead to better eating habits.  So, this week I am dropping my carb intake to around 20g per day.  Because, it always is important to have goals, here are mine.  By February 18th (about a month from now), I want to:  (1) weigh around 185lbs., (2) be able to bench around 185lbs., and (3) to be able to run 2 miles.  That would require me to lose about 15 lbs., to maintain my current bench press, and to be able to run about 1 mile more than I currently can.  I think that these goals are both modest and achievable, so I will have a go at it.

MBA—As an update, I begin my final class of my MBA this week.  I am really looking forward to being done.   All in all, my degree has taken 4 years and 48 academic hours.  So, this graduation has been a long time coming.

That is about it.  Let me know what you are up to.

“I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be.” Peter Gibbons summed up my weekend perfectly.  After the busy holiday season, this was the first weekend that I did not have anything planned.  So, I took advantage of the weekend by just relaxing and getting stuff done around the house.

I honestly cannot think of anything in particular that I did on Friday night.  I remember sitting around, watching TV, and trying to get Boxee to run on my Ubuntu laptop.  BTW, if Boxee is running slow on your old linux machine, this thread will definitely help.  I will probably write a post on Boxee in the future.  It looks to be a nice solution for running a media center.

After a night of doing nothing, I set out to actually accomplish something on Saturday.  So, I decided to paint my spare bedroom/office.  I went with a light gray color.  I have always wanted a gray room for several reasons:  (1) it is my favorite color (or non-color depending on who you ask), and (2) it is modern and relaxing.  I think the room turned out great.  And, I really owe most of the success to the Shur-line edger.  I picked one of these up at Lowe’s for $3 because I hate doing edge work—it takes forever.  But, this tool made it quite simple.  A couple tips before I move on:  (1) replace the pads when they get fraid and (2) use newer pads for ceiling work to get really nice lines.  Overall, the room turned out pretty good.  Now, that the desk is complete, I plan on posting a how-to on building a built-in desk (what I found on the Internet really sucks).  So, I will throw up some pictures of the gray room if you are interested.

On Sunday, I was feeling kind of Sunday.  So, I watched football most of the day.  Mike and my Dad came by to watch San Diego get beaten down by the Steelers in the second game.  I look forward to next week to see Kurt Warner play “the Operator” Donovan McNabb, and to watch the brawl in Pittsburgh.  My early prediction is the Cardinals (yeah, not really the popular choice) versus the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

I am finally breaking the silence after two full weeks of not writing.  Last week was essentially my finals week.  I had an exam and a team project due that took up most of my free time.  This week I have been working hard to get ahead of a bunch of work coming down the pipe at my job.  So, I have not had too much time to write.  I missed a lot, so lets get started.

KC Trip—Last weekend I was in KC for the Mizzou/Oklahoma Big 12 championship.  The weekend itself was a lot of fun.  KC is really a great little city.  It is clean and has a lot of cool areas to go to.  Our trip included lights on the Plaza, bowling in the Power and Light District, and eating KC barbecue at Jack Stack’s in downtown.  Overall, I think it was a pretty representative KC experience.  The game itself was miserable.  Mizzou got clobbered and we left at the half.  It looks like the next big hurdle for the program (beating one of the big boys from the south) will have to wait another year or so.

BCS—I do think that the BCS got it right this year having Oklahoma play Florida for the National Championship.  With how good the SEC and the Big 12 was this year, it would have been a joke to have a team from another conference play for the championship.  With that said, this year also shows the inherent weakness of the current system.  If Oklahoma wins and Texas wins, can we really declare a champion?  My opinion is that it would have to be shared.

True Blood—I finally finished watching the first season of True Blood.  Overall, I thought it was pretty good.  I like how the show has interwoven the different mythologies.  It also has the required HBO-edge that makes it just a little better than network TV.  Unlike John from Cincinatti, it seems to answer a number of questions while leaving a few more out there to be discussed.  The major outstanding questions are:  what is going on with Tara and Lafayette?  And, who (or what) is that strange lady that took Tara under her wings?  My theory is that she is a shape-shifter that has somehow mastered turning into humans.

Fantasy Football Playoffs—It turns out that I am the regular season champion of both my leagues this year. So, congrats to smith.taculo.us and the smithfactory.  Now, it is time to enter the playoffs.  I really do think the idea of playoffs is flawed in fantasy sports because it happens at the end of the year when a lot of teams are resting players and a lot of teams have nothing to play for.  I would much rather decide the champion on record at the end of the season than on a few arbitrary matchups at the end.  But, given that I have spent only the better part of an hour on the season, I don’t have room to complain too much.

I am a little late this week with the weekend wrap-up.  No excuses, just been busy.  So here it is.

Reality Football—I got so use to playing fantasy football that I forgot how tough it was to actually play football.  On Saturday, Eric arranged a game of football.  Being that we are all in our late twenties, we played touch to help cut down on the injuries.  We had about 16 people and played for 4 hours.  It was a good day.  If we were keeping stats, it would have been a pretty good fantasy day for Matthew Smith.  I had a couple touchdown catches and even threw for a touchdown late in the game.  I did not get any interceptions, but that was because I really wasn’t covering anyone.  Some may call it lazy, I call it a match-up zone.  The end result of the day was that I have been pretty sore for 2 days straight.  Eric called me out on this, but I think if he would have actually caught a few passes, he would have been sore too.  Just kidding, of course.

Fantasy Football—It was another dominating week in fantasy football for me.  Although, I have not seen the final score yet, it looks like I will have win my games in both my work and my friend leagues.  This would put me second and first in these leagues respectively.  Given that I have not yet watched an entire NFL game the whole year (short attention span), I think this a pretty good showing through twelve weeks.

TV—Given my limited mobility over the last couple days, I have gotten to watch a fair amount of TV.  On Sunday, I watched the first three episodes of “True Blood”.  So far, so good.  It looks like I am going to commit my long Thanksgiving weekend to catching up on that show.

Last week of school—Well, maybe I will not commit the whole Thanksgiving weekend to TV.  Next week is my last week of school.  I have a test on Monday and a project due on Thursday and I am rushing to get both of those done.  After next week, I will just have a single class left until I complete my MBA.

I know I am missing a few things here and there.  I got to see Mike’s new pad and checked out a bar in Lafayette Square.  But, hey, I got some trash talking in, so I am calling this post complete.

In St. Louis, there is an ongoing debate about whether dish or cable is better.  You see it on billboards, tv commercials, and on company bulletin boards.  I have now been on both sides of the fence.  I have had Charter and I have recently switched to Dish Network.  And, I can tell you that the grass is definitely greener on the other side of the fence.  Here is a quick rundown of my experience.

HD Programming—When I switched from Charter to Dish, the amount of HD channels was the first thing I noticed.  At Charter, I had a maximum of 20 HD channels.  At Dish, I over over 40 channels.  This includes CBS and multiple HBO channels.  And, more importantly the quality is the same between the two providers.  HD was one of my top reasons for switching and I am completely satisfied.

DVR—At Charter, I had the now dead Moxi DVR.  The Moxi DVR was probably the best experience I have ever had with a set top box.  It was intuitive and the interface was amazing.  But at times, it was like playing with fire, literally.  The box ran really hot and I had one overheat leaving my house smelling like burnt coffee. Does the Dish DVR live up to the Moxi Box?  Yes and No.  The experience is equivalent but it is not amazing.  If I could choose between the two, I would go with Moxi.  But, that is really no longer an option unless you already have the Moxi box at Charter.  And, I hear the new box is really not that good.  So overall, the Dish DVR is serviceable and I don’t really fear it catching my house on fire (knock on wood).

On-demand—I did enjoy the on-demand features at Charter.  And, honestly that is one thing that I miss.  Apparently, Dish offers 1080p on-demand through broadband but I have yet to hook it up because my receiver is no where near my broadband router.  And my VIP box does not have wireless built in.  Honestly though, I have had no time to work on networking, so I will leave this as an unresolved point.  Charter on-demand works out-of-the-box, so if this is a big feature for you, Dish might not be a good solution.  I will follow up once I work on getting on-demand working on Dish.

Billing—This was a big reason I left Charter.  Every year, my promotional package would expire and they would raise my rates between 30 and 40%.  I was then forced to call and renegotiate my rates every year.  This was extremely annoying.  I am a busy man and I really don’t want to spend 45 minutes on the phone just to keep business as usual.  With Dish, billing seems to be pretty straight forward.  And, their rates are clearly listed on their site, so I really have no worries.  Have fun trying to find that on Charter’s site.  And when you do, I bet you will see something like this under the price “Promotion term 6 months”.

Overall, Dish has better HD programming, a comparable DVR, and much better billing policies.  I still have not figured on-demand out, so I think Charter as an advantage here.  But, overall for my money, the experience has been much better on Dish Network.

What has been your experience?

This is kind of my equivalent of Eric’s Thoughts of the Day.  So, here you go.

Zune—The Zune Marketplace today announced that with their $15/month plan you can now keep 10 songs of your choice (presumably DRM-free).  I have been listening to a lot more music lately (must be the cold), so this announcement might be enough to get me to sign back up to the service.  We will see.  If it was $10, I would be onboard immediately.

Xbox—I am really looking forward to going home and firing up the Xbox 360 to get the dashboard update.  Even though I do not get the Netflix service, I think a change will be welcomed.  I was a big fan of the blades, so we will see if this is better.  Now, I think Xbox needs to focus on tighter integration with the Zune Marketplace and maybe opening this thing up to third-party apps.

Blackberry Storm—Engadget gave the new Storm a less than glowing review today.  But, I think I am going to reserve judgement until I see this thing in person.  I think that the new Blackberry interface (on both the Storm and the Bold) looks awesome.  I am a big fan of their new home screen.  The white icons against a transparent gray background give the device a simple and modern appeal.  It is a pretty big departure from the iPhone’s color explosion.  But, it personally suits my tastes much better.  I am still leaning toward the Bold as my future smartphone of choice, but I think the technology in the Storm (and the fact that is not on AT&T) make it an interesting second choice.

7800—It looks like the Dow might hit 7800 today.  When it broke below 10,000, one my teacher’s said that a finance professor told him that the bottom was 7800 (confusing, right?).  So, it looks like his prediction will hold true for at least today.  For some interesting reading on what is going on, check out Greg Mankiw’s Blog.  He has been posting some must-reads on the auto industry bailout.

Update: 7550. Wow.

This weekend was pretty laid back.  I did some home improvements, played some NASCAR, and watched some football.

Home Improvements—This weekend I decided to stay in and get some home improvement stuff out of the way.  So, most of the weekend was spent building a built-in desk for my upstairs office (and spare bedroom).  I am going to dedicate a whole post to the construction a little later in the week, so I will just move on.

NASCAR 09—I probably spent about 3 hours playing the NASCAR 09 game that I bought on Friday.  My verdict is still out on whether I like the game or not.  The visuals are great, but I am not sure 10 laps is a good representation of a race.  And, I am not sure that I could race more than 10 laps without getting tired of making left turns.  Also, I feel like the game is either easy or extremely difficult depending on which setting you pick.  I do not think I want to invest the next 6 months trying to perfect NASCAR racing, so, honestly, the game might not be for me.  I will play it a few more times in the coming weeks to get a better feeling for the game.

College Football—This weekend I only caught the Mizzou game and the Alabama game.  And, both of these games were pretty boring.  The next couple weeks in college football are going to be pretty good, so I am going to let this weekend slide.

That was about it.  It was a lazy, but constructive weekend.

This weekend was pretty relaxed as a few of my friends were out of town and I really did not feel like doing much.  So, I watched some football, went to see Madagascar 2, and did a little bit of home improvement.

Big 12 Football—On Saturday, I watched both the Mizzou game and the Texas Tech game.  As expected, Mizzou trounced K-State.  For some reason, the announcers spent most of the night heralding Josh Freeman to be a big NFL prospect.  But, I do not buy it.  He is a big quarterback with good mobility, but I think that his tendency to throw the ball to the other team might be a huge drawback when draft time comes around. Maclin continues to impress.  I hope to see him in a Mizzou or Rams jersey next year.

Texas Tech looked good, but that game means absolutely nothing if they cannot get by Oklahoma next week.  In a showdown of two schools I dislike, there is no winner for me.  I am still leaning toward TT because they are the underdog.

The Rams—WTF was that?

Madagascar 2—This was the first movie I have gone to in awhile.  I had a great time.  Chris Rock was hilarious as always.  And, the penguins really make the movie.  Memorable quotes include “It’s more fun when you raise your arms up like this, ah ha ha ha!”, “Who said penguins couldn’t fly?”, and “This is first class.  It is nothing personal.  It’s just that we are better than you.”.  There are a lot more, but that is all I could find on the Internet.

Home Improvement—This winter is going to be all about home improvements for me.  I want to paint the majority of my townhouse, change out the stock sockets and switches, and build a built-in desk for my niche in my spare bedroom.  So, I began this list by painting my bathroom in my master bedroom.  I used an Oxford Blue to compliment the chocolate in my bedroom.  It turned out pretty good, but I am still learning how to do the edging.  So, if anyone has any tips let me know.