Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

7th Day; 7 Words

How do you think the movie ends?

(link)

Leave your seven words in the comments.  

Homework Help: Powerpoint Project

For the record, I would like to point out that I have continued to resist commenting on The One's State of the Union Speech.

Speaking of tragedies, here's the next assignment:

• Discuss the concept of "tragedy" from its beginnings with the early Greeks to the Renaissance.
• What makes a play a tragedy?
• What terminology is associated with tragedy?
• What "rules" does tragedy have?
• How has the genre evolved over time?
• Do Shakespeare's tragedies fit the classical format?

I have to put all this information into a Powerpoint presentation, including a "works cited" page.  I'm actually giving you more time than usual to point me in the right direction.  How weird is that?

One thing I'm working on for this semester is being a little more organized.  Obviously, carrying less than half the credit load of last semester is going to help in this.  Last semester, it seemed like I was coming in barely under the wire and wasn't giving you all much time to help out.  I'm trying to be a bit more proactive this semester.

If you have sites that you think are good reference sites for the topic, I'd appreciate it.  The Internets is a great resource but you could certainly shorten up my research by pointing me toward trusted sources of information, saving me vetting time.

I am always interested in the information you're storing in your brains too.  I want to hear about what your perspective is on the topics I present.  The more different viewpoints, the better.

I'll be reading Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, if that helps in any way.

So, tell me what you know about tragedies.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook

Hello? Blog?

I'm calling in sick to my blog today.

 

Make sure you give your feedback on yesterday's post.  The assignment has to be submitted today.

Homework Help: First Draft

 

Prithee listen now to my mickle plight.
Dare you not to think me to be a geck.
Resisted I this fate with all my might
Tho ne'er able refuse I her beck.
Perchance at times she leaves me chop-fallen,
She the flirt-gill and I feeling bootless.
Yet run to her when to me she's callin'
Her cursing and vexing my soul fineless.
How can a malkin be so emulous?
Wherefore her words leave me baffled and raw
Wends she my mind manner so cautelous
Attacking my thoughts with her clawing maw.
Hark, she beckons to me and I must shog
For master of my heart and soul is my blog

Alright all you English/Poetry/Shakespeare people, give me some feedback.  I left out one of the rules for the assignment when I explained it before:  It has to show that I read over the vocabulary lists provided to me.  With that in mind, tell me how to clean this thing up, please.

State of the Union

So,

I missed the big sales pitch.  How's the country doing?  Good, I hope.

Fitness Journal - Day #33

I can't believe it's been 33 days already. 

This week was a step backwards as far as weight goes.  I gained a couple of pounds.  I'm not eating enough that I would think that I would gain anything so maybe a rebound from all the water lost the week before.  Who knows.  I'm not going to worry about it for now.  Just keep working my plan.  The path is going to zig-zag.  So here's what my weight graph looks like this week:

 It still puts me in line with my goal.  The straight part after the last dot only shows that I haven't weighed in a couple of days so it flat lines until you weigh again. If I can lose 1.4 pounds this week, I should still be on target.  That's what Fitday.com said I need to lose each week to make my target weight on the target date.  1.4 pounds.  .2 pounds a day.  700 calories deficit per day.  In a perfect world.

Mark was asking about eating before and after exercise and whether one is better than the other.

The before part is very individualistic.  Many people (including me) don't like to eat for at least 2 hours before exercise.  This is especially true for my "toss yer cookies" workouts.  I've eaten close to exercise time and I've heaved.  Other than the bonus ab work, it's not a fun thing to do.

That being said, long distance runners and bodybuilders frequently eat before andduring exercise.  The trick is to work out at an intensity that doesn't upset your stomach and find food that is easy on the digestion.  Runners use gels, little pieces of energy bars, gummi bears, and anything else that will fuel their legs without shunting a lot of blood away from the legs into the stomach for digestion.

Bodybuilders routinely use shakes with different blends of proteins and carbs.

Most trainers agree on the after part of eating and exercise.  It's time to start the healing so you should eat something within an hour or so of finishing.  Some people say you should eat immediately after but I'm the kind of guy that likes to get in the shower first.  The current recommendation is some kind of blend of food where 1/3rd comes from protein and 2/3rds comes from carbs.  You can mix and match food for this like peanut butter on apple slices or you can buy a recovery drink that's formulated in those portions.  A lot of people just drink chocolate milk because it has the right ratios and is cheaper than supplements.

The best advice that I can give on this is to try different times and types of food for your preworkout nutrition.  What's going to give you the energy you need without upsetting your stomach?  Your muscles need fuel to function but they also need blood and they'll pull it from your stomach if things get intense.  You have to find that balance for yourself.

Regardless of what you do for your preworkout fuel, you should help your body repair and recover after exercise by eating something.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook

Diverging Trends

There are a couple of related trends occurring right now that I think should be getting much more press time than they are getting so here I am doing my part.

The first trend is something that I've already discussed at length and that's the fact that the US government is continuing everything that it's doing that people don't like.  Blatant corruption, power grabs, taking over private sectors, and the obvious lack of representation all have people irritable.  Ron Paul recently echoed what I have been saying for years.  Continuing down this path is going to lead to violence.  In Paul's latest video, he outlines 3 major stages that the country will go through:

1. Economic distress (and he agrees with me that we are still right in the middle of it).
2. To "solve" the problem, the government will actually cause monetary distress where the dollar is destroyed.
3. Once that happens, the social distress will erupt and it will most likely be violent.

There's that trend.

The other trend is one that just makes me want to shake my head and wonder what the average IQ of politicians is.  Of course, with statements like, "This recovery is a jobless recovery," much of the guess work is taken out of IQ investigation.  Mr. President, out here in the real world, we call "jobless recovery" the continuation of the recession.

Anyway, in Sunday's post, I included a link to a Google search results page for "police lay offs".  I realize that the way I normally format my posts on Sundays, many people probably missed it and I'll make sure that I point out links in the future that occur on Sundays.  If you were to click on it, you would see that police departments all over the country are laying off officers.  So are fire departments and public schools, in case you care (and you should).

Yesterday, Mish did a post about how many small police departments are just disbanding.  They are turning law enforcement duties over to the county sheriff's office.  Some departments say that property taxes paid to the county cover the cost of law enforcement and some are contracting with their local sheriffs.  Contracting for law enforcement is cheaper than covering all the costs themselves . . . for now.

Today, I received notice that New York City is looking to cut 3,150 police officers, 1,050 firefighters, 900 correction officers, and 8,500 teachers.

When I said on Sunday that things are going to get worse, I was pointing out that this is the beginning of the trend.  Cities and states are trying to figure out how to keep from going bankrupt.  To do that, they are cutting services.  Small towns are getting rid of law enforcement, bigger cities are aiming for a 7-10% reduction, and some are going as high as 20%. 

Can the government keep the people content with bread and circuses (or in the current time-frame, subsidized corn and reality TV) until the trend reverses?

Many of the bloggers that I read try to make a prediction as to when it's all going to hit the fan.  Some doom and gloomers say that it will happen in 5 years, some say 10 years, and the really optimistic (or exceptionally pessimistic about coach potatoes getting up from the couch) say 15 years.  As much as I like looking into my crystal ball, there are way too many factors involved for me to take a stab at guessing the number.

I can tell you this though.  Drastically reducing the police force in the nation is going to lower that number.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook

Homework Help: Wordplay

The college semester has started and so has the Homework Help blog posts and Facebook status updates.  I'll be looking more closely at my syllabi today to see what's in store for me but there are a couple of things that you can help me with already.

First, the ongoing assignment.  At least (and I never aim for least) once a week, I need to post to the discussion board something I have noticed (or that you have brought to my attention - wink, wink) about words and wordplay.  Here's the exact wording of the assignment:

"So They Say.  Here, post any interesting, amusing, or outrageous tidbits you find or dream up about language."

That's it.  I've had this instructor before and she does these open-ended assignments hoping that we'll explore.  I'll post any tweaks from feedback on the discussion board but my thinking is that just about anything to do with words and wordplay is going to be accepted.

The example that she gave was a look at a current term versus a past term where there seemed to be some parallels.  Rake and ho(e).  Both gardening tools and both terms for licentious people, the difference between the two being in gender and era.

I think that just about anything that we come up with will be fitting.  Be on the lookout for any wordplay that you come across and zip me an email, comment, or Facebook-thingy with the example, your thoughts, and a link if applicable. 

Next topic. 

I have to write a poem about an Islamic Parking Meter or some such.  It has to be 15 to 20 lines long (although I've been told 14 lines would be more proper) and be something from my life.  Oh yeah, Iambic Pentameter not Parking Meter.  Anyway, I don't know that there is much that you can do to help me with this other than point me toward examples of this form of poetry so that I can try to get a handle on it.  It has to be written using words that Shakespeare would use.  New words, new format, and it needs to be done by this Friday.  Luckily, the instructor said that the poem can be pure shite and still earn full credit if we follow the rules.

Got all that?  The wordplay is an ongoing assignment so fire off anything you find or think of in the next 3 months.  I need to turn in something every week.  There was no restriction on sources so I'll take news articles, blog posts, and anything else out there.

I truly appreciated all the help that I got last semester and am looking forward to doing it again this semester. 

***

Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook

7th Day; 7 Words

 

It's going to get worse.  Much worse.

Leave your seven words in the comments. 

Real Transparency

To ensure that this year's election is going to be interesting, the Supreme Court has decided that corporations can spend as much money as they want on political campaigns.  They can't give it to the politician but they can do all the advertising for the campaign as they want, and (more concerning for everyone that I have read so far) they can spend as much money destroying any opposing candidate.

The quick and dirty of this, and Mr. Hope and Change even agrees, is that unless you have sold your soul to a corporation, you ain't gonna be elected.  Me personally, I don't see how this changes much but I did have a funny image.

In the casino, I get to see the post-game shows for the different sports.  There's no sound so I have no idea what they are talking about but when they have the coaches or the big players on, they sit in front of a backdrop that has the team colors and a checkerboard of the team logo and a corporate sponsor.  You know, it might have the Ravens bird head alternating with a Pepsi symbol or something.  Seems to me that we can now openly do the same thing for political candidates.

Imagine Palin sitting in front of a red, white, and blue backdrop with a checkerboard of little elephants and Goldman Sachs logos.  She could give a speech about how she's a rogue and if she's elected, it won't be business as usual in Washington and there won't be any more bailing out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. 

On the other side, Obama could have the same red, white, and blue background (because all politicians are red-blooded patriotic Americans by gawd) with little donkeys interspersed amongst the famous blue diamonds of Viagra.  He could give a speech about how if he gets a second chance, he'll finally bring down the cost of health care in America because all Americans deserve affordable health care.

Corporate media will turn a blind eye (because they will be getting most of those advertising dollars, you know).

I think this ruling is going to be a big step toward political transparency in this country.  Don't you?

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook