Ruh-roh

Got up this morning, and the car won't start. Called AAA and jump started the car. Since I didn't leave the lights on or the door open, it's clear that the current battery is dead. It has been two years since it was last replaced, and it was around two years before, when Mitsubishi replaced it under warranty because they found the original to be running low during a scheduled maintenance.

Sure enough, come lunch time, the car won't start again. So I asked J.J. to give my car a jump, and drove to Pep Boys to get myself a new battery. This one has a 72 month warranty. I doubt it will last that long.

Invisible

Every once in a while, a scene from a movie pops into my thoughts. This time, it's the movie Memoirs of an Invisible Man. It's an interesting take on what it would be like to be invisible.

One of the scenes that always stayed with me is when Chevy Chase's character tries to eat for the first time after he became invisible. Apparently, he had trouble getting the food into his mouth, because he couldn't see himself. It's a shining example of what the film tried to do with the aspect of being invisible--a lot of people often think, "what if" or "wouldn't it be cool"; this, and other examples from the film says, "it's not all it's cracked up to me."

Which is a good point. But that particular scene is just wrong. If I can see the spoon, that's all I need to get it into my mouth. I don't need to see any part of myself to deliver it properly into my mouth--I can't see my mouth in normal circumstances, anyway.


But it also got me thinking... If one were invisible, it would be difficult to sleep, 'cause even if you close your eyes, you can still see everything, since your eyelids are also invisible. But then, you would probably have trouble seeing things, anyway... Your irides (iris) and pupils are invisible, letting light in from all over, plus.. What "in"? Everything is invisible. Where would the image focus for the brain to see? The invisible man would probably go blind a few hours after he becomes invisible.

Seems to be working

Interesting. The active ingredients in both Robitussin and Sudafed seem to be the same as far as coughs are concerned, yet Sudafed seems to work better for me..

Dextromethorphan HBr 10 mg (cough suppressant)
Guaifenesin 100 mg (expectorant)

Sudafed does have two more active ingredients, which I don't supposedly need:

Acetaminophen 250 mg (pain reliever/fever reducer)
Pseudoephedrine HCI 30 mg (nasal decongestant)


At any rate, I'm coughing less, which is good.

^%#$% Cough

So I've had this cough (presumably from a cold) for about a week now, and have been trying different things to get rid of it.

First, I took NyQuil. It's pretty good for most of the other cold symptoms I've had in the past, but in the area of coughs, it never did much for me. And this time was no different. So aside from the usual more water, cough drops, and chicken soup, I went out and got Robitussin.

Still didn't do much. I just got Sudafed, so I guess I'll find out if that works or not soon.

Wireless Router

Looks like I may have to replace my wireless router soon... I've been having to reset it far too many times in the last 24 hours.... though not as many times as I had to for the one at work that we replaced two weeks ago. I think I'll place an order from work tomorrow, since it's cheaper to get it online than to get it from Fry's.

RSS on MSN

I noticed last night that MSN said that they had some new features, and after checking it out, the new feature is that it can now add RSS feeds as "new content" on the MSN page.

So I tried it with Victoria's blog RSS. No go.

Tried again today with AnimeSuki's RSS feed. Finally got it to work. Now it works with Victoria's blog. I wonder what was wrong with it before.

Fog light

My driver-side fog light burned out. Good thing I've got a pair of spares handy in the trunk.

The Village

Picked this up from Target. Was contemplating on whether or not I should get the special edition of The Fifth Element, and decided not to at this time.

The Village was much better than I thought it would be, but with lots of people slamming it, my expectations couldn't have been very high. I think I would have liked it better if one of the major plotlines hadn't been spoiled for me.

Storm = Power out

I think it's a foregone conclusion that the current storm has caused a power-out or two here at the office during the weekend. When I tried to connect to the newly installed SQL server (which was not yet behind an UPS) over the weekend, I was unable to do so. Then, when I came in today, I find that my development server is off.

Strange, I thought I had it set on always boot when power is restored.


Anyway, the power-out, coupled with the pre-existing RAID error, seems to have caused the SQL server to go haywire, as its repond time is now really slow. Going into the RAID controller, it seems that the fourth disk is not connected. I'm left with no choice but to reinstall everything on the server. So if the setup and boot time is the same as the other new one we just got, and which is also undergoing the installation process, then I can chalk up the errors to the power-out. Otherwise, it would appear that we have a bad HD on our hands.


Today's measurements:

Weight: 146.1 lbs.
Body fat: 11.2%
Body water: 64.5%

Watch wristband... Part 2

After much fanangling and a couple of bruises later, I've got the larger wristband (16mm) onto the Brookstone watch. It looks better than the other one, though still a bit out of place. I was also able to get the old wristband from the Casio off, so I could put the small wristband (13mm) on it. This one went it quite easily, and as the watch itself was originally metalic, looks much better overall. I could do without the gold trimming, though.

All done while watching the season premiere of 24. Not too shabby.

Now I'll be able to alternate watches, and use the Casio one when wearing more formal attire.

Watch wristband

The wristband on my Brookstone watch broke today. I drove over to Walmart in the hopes of finding a replacement, but the lady there suggested that I go to Home Depot, which she says has a larger selection. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything there. So I drove to Target to see what they had. The first one I got seemed too large, so I decided to go back and get two more smaller ones, one for the Brookstone watch, the other for the Casio I've had for a long time, and for which the wristband broke a long time ago.

It looks like only the smallest one I got was able to fit the Brookstone watch, and I couldn't get the old band off the Casio. So now I have two extra bands, and one that doesn't really fit the look of my Brookstone watch. Oh well. At least this one should last much longer.


Today's measurements:

Weight: 145.0 lbs.
Body fat: 10.9%
Boyd water: 65.0%

Not as much as I wanted

Apparently PC Club didn't even have 1GB memory sticks. And their prices weren't very good, either. So I stopped by Best Buy on the way back, in the hopes that they might have Tsukihime or Puni Puni. While there, I checked out their memory section. Their 1GB RAM is from Kingston, and costs $250. So I opted for their 512 MB instead, from PNY, for $80 with a $30 rebate.

As I suspected, they also did not have the anime titles I wanted. So I will have to order online.

I decided to pick up Gwen Stefani's album.

Almost one week

By tomorrow, I will have one week's worth of data on my weight/body fat as measured by the Sharper Image scale. Then I can have a more accurate average of my current weight.

Today:

Weight: 146.6 lbs.
Body fat: 11.5%
Body water: 64.6%

More memory

So the trip to Fry's was a bust. Not only did they not have good prices on memory, they still do not have a copy of the second volume of Tsukihime in yet. Of course, it would be too much to expect them to have Puni Puni Poemy in stock, since I couldn't find it the last several times I was there.

I think I'll drop by PC Club during the day and see if they have any good prices on memory, or resort to ordering online for generic memory--which has not been good for me historically: the last time I bought generic memory online, it ended up crashing my system, and then I had to pony up for some name-brand memory to get my system stable again.

As for Tsukihime and Puni Puni Poemy, I guess I'll have to order them online.

Here comes the rain again

Like the weather man predicted, it's raining again. And it looks like it's finally pouring more consistently. I'm so sick of having to drive on wet roads even though there's barely a drizzle in the air.

Looks like the bigger meal at lunch yesterday has kept up with me today. I wonder how much more I'll weigh after the shabu-shabu on Saturday night.


Weight: 148.0 lbs
Body fat: 11.9%
Body water: 64.3%

Hmm. Odd.

It seems that the blogger's clock is still set to Daylight Saving Time, as my watch and computer shows 12:56AM right now, and blogger's time is 1:56AM.

Sleepy....

I think I'll go to bed earlier than usual tonight... Probably didn't get enough sleep last night, 'cause I'm feeling rather sleepy right now.

Today's ramblings

Picked up four movies yesterday: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Little Black Book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Troy. I wathced Harold & Kumar last night, and found it to be quite funny. The menu was a nice touch. Reminds me of one of the Excel Saga DVD menus... which reminds me, I should try to get Puni Puni Poemy at some point, though I wasn't able to find it at Fry's, nor was I able to find the second volume of Tsukihime, which should have been released at the end of last month.

Speaking of Fry's, I think I'll stop by tomorrow after work to see what their prices are for 1 gigabyte of RAM, and decide if I should get it from them, or order online.


And the measurements from this morning are...

Weight: 146.2 lbs.
Body fat: 11.2%
Body water: 64.8%

Quick notes

I forgot to pick up some of the new DVDs that came out yesterday. Should remember to go during today's lunch break.

This morning's measurements:

Weight: 145.6 lbs.
Body fat: 11.2%
Body water: 64.8%


Hmm. I thought I had more for dinner last night than I did for Monday. Oh well.

Mesures du jour

Weight: 146.4 lbs
Body fat: 11.4%
Body water: 64.6%

Morning measurements

Measurements from this morning:

Weight: 147.4 lbs.
Body fat: 11.8%
Body water: 64.3%

Bought a scale

I finally went to Sharper Image and bought their electronic scale + body fat monitor.

I hope this scale is accurate. I was about 6 pounds lighter on this thing than when I measured on Peg's scale. Though that extra weight might be attributed to the semi-large dinner I'd just had at her place the day after New Year's.

Anyway, it looks like I'm averaging at around 150 lbs. The keys, change, etc. I had in my pants add 3 pounds of extra weight, which also throws off the body fat percentage a bit.

I toook a pic earlier for Club3G (there's this thread about posting pics of something only you have in the forum), which measured my body fat percentage at 12.3%.



A final measure before bed yielded the following results:

Weight: 148.2 lbs.
Body fat: 12.0%
Body water: 64.2%

The manual says I'm supposed to measure "first thing in the morning and at the same time each day," so I guess I'll see if the measurement is any different tomorrow morning.