Over and Over Again
And so I start over again *lol*
Oh well. At least this time I did putz about in between. I’m going to call that progress 
Anyway, I started a 60-Day program tonight. I expect to have some issues with the holidays, but I’m going to do my best not to miss any of the scheduled days. I think I’m also going to try to do quick workouts on the off days instead of hit the mitts. We’ll see how that goes.
In other news, I finished my first pass through Rise of Nightmares, on the easy level. That means my avatar gets to sport a new T-shirt:
Now I get to play through a level of constantly spawning zombies for an achievement, and then through the storyline again at the harder levels, also for achievements. I like achievements 
But this time I played through the last few levels, and then decided I wanted to go straight into the boss fight. Since I didn’t catch on to the mechanic (>_<) it took way longer than it should have. Actually, I’m surprised it worked at all. Anyway, the main point of this is that I was actually thinking I was going to lose because I was getting too tired to sidestep fast enough. That’s a very weird thought to have while playing a video game
More Fail and Some Geeky Stuff
So, I had the intention of starting my 60-day program this week. That did not happen. I got distracted during the day working on web site stuff, and then had Turkey Shoot in the evening. (It was The Happening, which is even more terrible than I remembered, though the commentary was a lot of fun.) Anyway, by the time I looked up from the computer, I was just able to get in a Hit the Mitts and my minimum daily word count.
And the next two days I just continued to slack off But I have now “unlocked” and tried every Hit the Mitts routine. The later stages have both hooks and elbows, though. Both of these appear to use the same arrow graphic. At least, I can’t tell the difference, which is okay, because the Kinect apparently can’t tell the difference between the moves.
I have been having a lot of fun with Rise of Nightmares, though. So far, the trickiest thing seems to be the movement, since most of the actions seem to be fairly self explanatory. Going forward and backward is simply done by keeping one foot in front or behind the other, though. That seems easy enough, but the Kinect sometimes seems to get confused about where centre is, and where the marks are. A couple of times this has led it to believe I want to go forward when I’m trying to go back (since either foot can be used for the movement, I’m assuming it reorients and uses my “center” foot as the forward instead). That wouldn’t be too bad, except that it happen in the room with the spinning blades down the centre, which means I got chopped in half
Anyway, it isn’t a work out the way the actual work out game is, but there’s something about hacking your way through a room of zombies that keeps you going. There’s a bit of a delay on the reaction times, but overall it’s not enough for more than an occasional swear, and I’m looking forward to more games like this coming out for the Kinect, so I hope this one succeeds.
Other than that, I attempted to play Star Wars: The Old Republic today, as part of their beta test weekend. The game looks great. I think I will enjoy playing it, assuming I can ever more. My lag was insane, to the point of being unable to play. I suffered through as long as I could, but gave up when I got attacked by a room of four droids, and could move reliably enough to run from one to another to take them out. Anyway, this means I have to look into improving my system, and/or improving my internet.
I find the second part of that more annoying, because I’m a little bitter against the drop in service quality from my service provider over the last year. I wish I could prove it was intentional, since it started around the same time they introduced more expensive tiers of service, but whatever. I guess I’ll suck it up. They keep sending me deals to try and tempt me into getting TV again, so I’ll probably take them up on that. Not being able to play during the test was a disappointment, though. Oh well, the game will be out soon enough.
Anyway, NaNo is almost over, and my plan is to start my 60-day program next week. I think I need to switch my off nights from Sun&Wed to Sun&Thurs, though, so I should check it tomorr– tonight, to see if this is when I should start it. That just occurred to me now. Maybe my fail will be shorter than I thought
Yeah, So…
No updates lately, because I’ve had nothing much to say *lol*
I’m still putting NaNo ahead of the workouts, which means nothing much on this front. I’ve still been doing hit the mitts, but that’s about all.
I have learned that “locked” doesn’t seem to mean the same thing as any other game I’ve played, though. Despite being told you’ll open higher levels by playing others (which is how it usually works), it’s possible to play a locked level. After completing it, it unlocks. Which kind of makes the lock pointless. I don’t get it.
Anyway, I have “unlocked” the rest of the medium routines in this way, and will see if I can get at the hard ones when I get bored.
I have some time off this week, though, so I hope to have enough time to get in a real workout again. I’ve also picked up another Kinect game (Rise of Nightmares), which I’ve been looking forward to. That won’t be the same kind of workout, but at least it will get me moving for a little while.
/fail
Yeah, I failed this week
I suspect I may fail the rest of the month. NaNoWriMo has me placing word count about workout in my list of priorities.
We’ll see. I may get my act together and get in both
And Another One Down
I finished the 30-Day Strength program, yay! It ended with some of the exercises I just cannot get to work, though. I’m trying to keep a list of those, so I know what ones I still have to figure out.
- Sprawls
- Front Speed Hurdle Hops
- Side to Side Hurdle Hops
- Bicycle Crunches
Sprawls lose me at some point, no matter where I put the sensor, both types of hurdle hops work part of the time and then stop about half-way through, and the bicycle crunches only respond to some of the movements.
The hops I think is probably something changing in how I’m doing them, probably getting tired and sloppy 
But I can’t really tell, as jumping is not one of my strong skills. I may have to use a custom routine to troubleshoot or something. The crunches are probably a form things, too, since it only seems to be responding to one motion by one leg, when there’s two different types of arrows. I did spend one night slowing that one down to try and figure it out, but not luck yet.
I’m considering moving furniture again I might be able to arrange things so I don’t have to move the sensor, but it might mean keeping my desk/table clear, as I’ll have to fold one of the flaps down. That annoyance might be worth skipping the sensor annoyance, though.
The other thing I’m toying with is adding another exercise routine. I don’t get winded quite as easy, but that’s about the only result I’ve seen. I don’t have a lot of time, though, which means the program routine is all I’m doing. That’s probably not enough to see significant change.
My problem is that the only time I can think of to add requires waking up early. I suspect my father is either scoffing or laughing, and rightful so Getting up early is not likely; saying I’m not a morning person is understating by quite a bit. I’m going to think about that so more.
Build Strength, Week Three
There are times when coincidence makes me think my technology is alive
I complain about the repetition in the workout, I get new routines based around my least favourite exercises, and ups the number of sets each night. Then I have a night where I’m on a time limit, and it gives me a long routine instead of a shorter one, and picks every waste of time in between thing in its repertoire.
Jerk.
Anyway, other than the string of hated exercises, not a bad week. Greg Jackson showed up one day, and has convinced me that I’m still not going to be able take on the 30 day lose weight program. I’d either quit or it’d kill me, neither of which are good outcomes.
My plan right now is to take on one of the 60 day programs next, though I’m not sure which one. I’ll figure it out after I get through the last week of this one.
At some point, I will get the “all three 30 day programs” achievement
Build Strength, Week Two
So, pretty much more of the same. I think if they hadn’t switched trainers, I might not even have noticed I’d picked a different focus
That’s not entirely true. I think you hit the core and the cardio a lot earlier and a lot faster in the Build Strength program, but since they’d already been folded into the endurance one by the end, yeah.
The last week or so also seems to have pulled the exact same routiene for all of my “long” days (really, they’re not that long), and that’s hitting one of the two problems I have with maintaining exercise. The first is, of course, that it’s exercise I’m still doing okay on that score, though. But my second problem is boredom. The same thing every time begins to lose my focus, so it’s not hard to see why my luck with DVD workouts is abysmal. Until now, that hasn’t been a problem for this. Even if the same exercises show up, they’re usually in a different order, or at the very least they don’t show up in the same order more than once in a week or two.
But I’m hoping that’s an anomaly. Monday’s will be different, and even though it includes T push-ups which I hate, it’s got more of the arm exercises, which enjoy. I guess this week I’m building patience more than strength
Build Strength, Week One
This week has kinda blurred together for me
Anyway, I did manage to get my workouts in every day, yay! For the most part, these are routines that I saw during the Build Endurance program, but I think I’m into ones now that didn’t show up in the other program until the middle. I think I’ve also done all the easy hit the mitts routines now, so the next one I get should be a medium level. If I remember right, I’ve opened the first two medium ones, so I should get a new one soon.
That’ll be fun, since I’ve turned off the tutorials, and won’t know what the new stuff is if they add something that wasn’t included in any of the easy ones.
I’ve also finally told the game that I’m using hand weights on some exercises. I didn’t turn that setting on earlier, because I didn’t want to have to deal with them on other ones. Turns out I can still decide not to use weight on all exercises, which is nice. But I have to tell it what weight I’m using every freaking time, which is not so much. I understand why, since I have switched up on a few and did that in the middle of a routine once, but given I’m pretty much repeating sets, I’d like the ability to set it once for the whole night, at least.
There’s already a lot of tedious confirmation already (yes, I am on the ground for push-ups, yes I am standing now they’re over, yes I’m still here even though I had to move the damn sensor to get this one exercise to work) so adding more really wasn’t needed.
But, still doing good, and being able to move up a weight set felt good, even though they’re still really small weights.
And, Program Two!
I was home in time to start my new program this Thursday, so I have the right schedule from the get go. It looks like I was right about Javier Mendez teaching the Build Strength program, though the first few routines are pretty much the same as what started off the Endurance one. It looks like they try to start you off easy, regardless of program.
A bonus to that is being able to turn off the tutorials. I can skip through them with voice commands (the novelty of which has yet to wear off), but it seems to respond best to a “just work damn it” tone, which is somewhat frustrating. At least the frustration helps to get the tone right
Anyway, 30 days, take two!