Doctor’s Appointment and More Stomach Fun

Nothing much came of the doctors appointment. I have to make a couple of follow ups and I’ll be getting an MRI at some point. I’ve been crazy busy at work so I haven’t had a chance to make any of the calls I need to make.

I got home with a few minutes to spare before punching into work, but as soon as I did things got crazy busy. I tried to sneak in some lunch and I ate too fast and my stomach rebelled in a big way. It took two hours to calm down but I did get through my lunch. Granted, lunch stretched out almost all the way to dinner time but what can you do.

I’m drastically behind on both my water and protein goals right now. I’ll make it for both today, but I’m annoyed with myself, especially after I had such a good start this morning before going to see the doctor.

Change of subject: I need to do car music. We’re running out of days in March and I have to finish Record Every Month. I have three songs in the pipeline but I’ll probably only get to two. I am planning to do another album in a month this spring, but it depends on guitar gear. I’ve mentioned that I am about to come to the end of the Analog Man King of Tone waiting list. The first full month after I get my mitts on one of those suckers I will do an album in a month using it on every guitar track. That’s the plan at least. Will it be April? Will it be May? Kinda hope it will be April, but that seems highly unlikely.

What else… Star Trek Picard was good today. The whole gang is back on the show. All we need now is Tasha. Good stuff. The show has been fantastic this season. I really need it to keep up the good work and stick the landing. On the other side of the Trek/Wars coin, I started re-watching The Bad Batch over the weekend. I’m still not sure why, but I will finish the first season tonight (I think) and the second season is going to end next Wednesday, I think. Am I right about that? There are two episodes left but they will both be released next week? I head that somewhere.

I’m tired. I’ve had such a stressful week health wise. Between multiple stomach issues and yet another migraine… I need a nap. A long, comfy nap.

Six minutes left until quittin’ time. I’ll make dinner after I finish work, but I will probably be too full from lunch to eat it right away. We’ll see. 16 ounces of liquid left to go. A whopping 37 grams of protein left to go. I’ll make it to both goals, and then some. It’s just going to take some extra time tonight, I think.

Okay. Signing off. I’ll likely post again later. Yesterday was the lowest page view day I’ve had on this page in over four years. I blame the migraines, but I’ll try to write something interesting that will bring the folks by… or not. Probably not.

Ahmed Best: Redeemed

Redeemed isn’t the right word, but it’s sort of right.

Did you see today’s new episode of The Mandalorian? Veteran Star Wars actor Ahmed Best plays a roll. You know who he played before, right? Right. Jar Jar Fucking Binks. The nadir or all Star Wars writing. The nadir of George Lucas’ career. The worst thing about any Star Wars story… Jar Jar Fucking Binks. Ahmed Best did the motion capture acting and the voice acting for Jar Jar in all three prequels.

Jar Jar being terrible was not Ahmed Best’s fault. He did the best he could with the terrible character he was given. I put all the blame on Lucas. Still, Mr Best has taken an ocean of abuse over the roll and it’s all unfairly as far as I can tell. Ahmed Best does not need to be redeemed. Jar Jar does, but shouldn’t ever. Ahmed Best is fine just being himself.

Having said that… his brief appearance in today’s episode gave him the opportunity to KICK ALL KINDS OF ASS. His new character is an utter bad ass. I looked him up online and apparently he’s been playing this character for a long time on a Star Wars themed kids game show. He plays the roll of a teacher teaching kids Jedi skills that they use in competitive games. I have never seen the show. I have never even heard of the show. All I know is that his character made the jump to a dramatic roll in completely heroic fashion.

So welcome back to the flagship, Sir. Welcome back to the Star Wars. Here’s hoping you get more screen time soon. There’s still more story there to be told (no spoilers). Good to have you on the team.

I Feel Let Down

I just signed up for ChatGPT. I wanted to have it write a blog post for me. I asked it to write something about the Bruins clinching a playoff spot yesterday. It wrote one, but all the facts were wrong. I feel like AI let me down in a big way. Well… by
“big way” I really mean “totally insignificant way.”

The Bruins clinched a playoff spot yesterday with a month still to go in the season. They are so far ahead of the pack that it’s unprecedented. Unfortunately this level of insane regular season success often doesn’t translate to playoff success. We can’t get overly confident this year.

I was hoping ChatGPT would write this up for me but of course it didn’t. Stupid artificial intelligence.

Change of subject.

We had all sorts of problems with our Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions yesterday. Our passwords suddenly didn’t work. We changed them all and then they didn’t work again. It was annoying. Jen straightened it out this morning so I am celebrating by watching Star Wars TV shows. I started by rewatching Wednesday’s Mandalorian episode, which then inspired me to find a list of Bo Katan episodes across all of the various shows. I’m up to the end of the final season of The Clone Wars now. So I am basically now watching the alternate view of Episode III.

Okay, for now I’m going to watch another episode, then I am going to make some lunch. I might make some for Harry too, if he wants.

Go Bruins.

NHL Trade Deadline

I was 100% sure that today was the NHL trade deadline. I was going to write a post about today being christmas-esque with both the trade deadline and the premier of season three of The Mandalorian.

Nope, the trade deadline is Friday March 3, 2023.

How could I be so wrong? How could I have been so sure I was right and still be wrong?

I am a failure as a hockey fan.

YouTube is Helpful

I’ve watched at least 10 videos on YouTube that walk through Nikon Z5 settings and menus. There was one question I had that none of them answered. How do you set the camera so that you can use the little joystick to set your focus point. While doing today’s faux-jog (pronounced faux-yog, with a soft “J”) I watched this one, which I think answered the question. I’ll check once my legs start working again.

Ever since the camera obsession was reborn back in June, YouTube has been a huge help to me, a source of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (what is this medium format of which you speak?), and it’s more or less replaced my constant television streaming. 95% of what I’ve watched is film related, but there are a bunch of digital folks that I have obsessed over too.

Of course January will bring us a new Star Wars show (The Bad Batch season two) and a new HBO show that I can already tell is going to be appointment viewing (The Last of Us), and there is more Star Wars and Marvel (I think?) and Walking Dead not too far behind that. TV will take back a lot of my time during faux-jog (pronounced faux-yog, with a soft “J”), but I think photography YouTube might be here to stay for a while.

For now though, let’s go see if the autofocus joy stick thingie can be switched on via the back display screen.


ADDENDUM: Okay, so I can’t embed the video. Sigh. You get the idea anyway, right? Here’s a link.

Andor Season One Finale: Spoiler Free Review

The season finale of Andor was released over night. It is 6:52am and I am watching the end credits roll by. Season one is complete. Here is my spoiler free review of both the episode and the entire 12 episode season:

YES!!! YES YES YES YES THAT WAS SO FRIGGIN’ GOOD, YES YES!!! I WANT SEASON TWO RIGHT FRICKEN’ NOW!

There you have it, my season one finale, spoiler free review.

Wordle Stats

The first time I got the Wordle word in three tries I got all proud and stuff and posted it to Twitter. The first time I got it in two tries I got super proud and stuff and posted it to Twitter and Facebook. A workflow patter was thus created. That was during a brief period where I was feeling okay about going to Facebook again, entirely due to the weight loss surgery support groups. Now I am feeling down on the whole thing again so I need a new Wordle workflow.

Wordle 474 2/6

🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

That’s right, boys and girls. Now when I get it in two tries, like I did today, it’s going to Twitter and The Blog. Enjoy!

In the immortal words of Barnie Stinson, “this is so going in my blog!”


Last night I was put in command of the television remote control and managed to get caught up on every show I’m currently following. There were three shows that I was one episode behind. I watched ’em all. Andor, Rick and Morty, and The Handmaids Tale. Andor has been my main focus, but after the cliff hanger in Handmaid I might be watching the next episode of that show first.


The plan for tonight is to do something with dinner that I haven’t done since the surgery. We’re going to have some spaghetti. I’ve made spaghetti since the surgery, for Jen and Harry, but I haven’t eaten any of it. Pasta, bread, rice, and rice-like things were the last items to come off of my do-not-eat-these list. Well, sugar is eternally on that list but as of now it’s the only thing left.

Pasta has been off of the do-not-eat list for over a month, I just haven’t felt confident enough in the universe and my tiny, rebuilt, mangled stomach to give it a go. I haven’t had bread or rice or quinoa either. I can if I want, I just haven’t. Tonight I am going to have a tiny little serving of spaghetti. Cross your fingers that it doesn’t make me sick. I expect it is going to be friggin’ epically delicious. I hope so, at least.

Week 22

Hello and welcome to week 22! The week where I did not weigh in. I weighed in yesterday. I was thinking of doing it today, but if I don’t then we’ll get an extra day when I weigh in next week and maybe that will give me a more impressive number. Or not. Who knows. As long as I keep moving in the right direction I really don’t care how fast it goes. Though in this case bigger is, if not better, more fun.

I think we may have weathered a storm at work. Fingers crossed, right?

I watched half of last week’s That Pedal Show while doing this morning’s exercise. I should have watched The Handmaid’s Tale. A new episode is out but for some reason I keep thinking new episodes come out on Thursdays, like Andor. Wait… is Andor out on Wednesdays too? Shit, is there an Andor that I haven’t seen? I gotta start writing this shit down. Ugh! Lunch is going to be an hour late today. Maybe I’ll be able to watch something during lunch, but I usually try to avoid TV during work hours.

Crap. I just checked Disney+. There is a new Andor today. Grrrrrr.

Anyway, my walking is done. I still need to do the weights and the elastic. I didn’t do them yesterday because I was too busy, but I’ll do them today.

22 weeks and 140 pounds since surgery. I still can’t believe it. It’s starting to feel like a fairy tale. Some kind of make believe. It’s almost too good to be true. My next check in at the clinic is October 18th. I wonder how much I’ll weigh when that day comes around.

Planning for Tomorrow

I am only working half a day tomorrow. I am leaving early for a doctors appointment. I am meeting with the nutritionist. I have a note on my phone with a few questions I need to ask. Hopefully it will all go well.

Star Wars: Andor comes out tomorrow. I am so ready. They are giving us three episodes on day one, and the scuttlebutt says they should have just released it as stand alone movie. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I had zero interest in this show when it was first announced, but the closer we get to the release the more hyped up I got. Now that it’s here I cannot wait. I hope to get up early enough to watch at least one episode before work. Let’s go!

This doesn’t relate to tomorrow, as far as I know, but the great spider hunt just tallied four more victims. One of these days those bastards are going to organize themselves into some form of spider militia and they are going to come for me. Until that day comes… the hunt continues.