A career that might be ending, and another one that is over...

Well, this hasn't been a very good few days for people I'm fans of. First off, let's get the good news out of the way: Amir Sadollah, who I was pulling for, won The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rapmage vs. Team Forrest competiton, submitting C.B. Dollaway at 3:02 of Round 1 with an armbar. Coincidentally, that's exactly how he won a prior fight against Dollaway. Here's hoping Amir keeps his head straight and goes on to become a force to be reckoned with in the middleweight division.

Now the bad. Later that night, one of my favorite fighters, Evan Tanner, lost a match against Kendall 'Da Spyder' Grove. I thought Evan was doing, if not overly well, then at least decent, but apparently the judges disagreed. One scored the fight 29-28 Tanner, but the others scored it 30-26 Grove, meaning that two of them saw one round as a 10-8. Evan said in his postfight interview that he felt "flat" during the fight(ironically, that was how Amir said he felt in the early part of his match with C.B.) and that perhaps he's "getting too old"(he's 37); he also worried his heavy drinking over much of the last three years(he's been sober for about eight months) might have damaged his body past the point where he could get back in the shape he used to be in. I hope he gets another chance and can show people the old Evan Tanner, because this guy, who started out almost completely self-taught, was one of the most entertaining, unorthodox fighters in UFC history. In particular, his last match before his self-imposed hiatus three years ago, he stuffed a single-leg takedown, then pulled his opponent's hands apart, fell to his own back, and locked in a triangle choke. I've still never seen anyone even attempt that move again. Rest up, Ev, I've got faith in you.

And on Sunday, one of my heroes, stand-up comedian George Carlin died of a heart attack at the age of 71. He'd had heart problems for years, and apparently walked into a hosptial in Santa Monica complaining of chest pains, then died later that night. Damn it, that's two of three(the other being Johnny Cash) of people I'm fans of that died before I got to see them(Granted, Carlin was usually in NYC, LA, or Vegas, but still). Next time Willie Nelson comes to North Carolina, I'm going.

HeroesCon 2008...

Yay, went to the Con again!(third year running).

So what happened this year...Well, unlike last year, when I got to meet Peter David, or the year before when I got to meet Warren Ellis, there weren't really many people I was a huge, awe-inspired fan of. I did get a bunch of trades for cheap, though, as well as a DC Direct World of Warcraft Ilidan Stormrage figure that I've been trying to find for months.

Met Peter Laird(co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and got an autographed Splinter print. He even drew a turtle headshot on it. And sitting next to him was inker Dan Bergeson, so I got him to ink in the turtle's bandanna, a request he said he'd never had before.

And I also met Matt & Mike Chapman, The Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner and all its related insanity. Got Matt to autograph a Strong Bad print, got the Strong Bad_email.exe dvd set, some PVC figures, and got a pic of the BC that I put up on Wikipedia.

Going with me this year were Brother Love and Gypsy Woman. She bought a set of three kunais and a bunch of anime soundtracks, while he bought a pair of sais and a lot of Spider-Man and Batman stuff.

And I'm on vacation next week, so woot!

That is all!

HIITing it hard...

Started a new excersise program today; HIIT, or High-Intensity Interval Training. Basically, you warm up, then alternate between going all-out in whichever exercise you chooose for a certain period(say two minutes), then slowing down to a medium rate for two minutes, then going back up to all-out for two more, and so on until you've done this for about fifteen minutes(or sixteen, so it equals 4 hard, 4 medium). According to the literature and opinions I've read, an easy way to tell if you're doing it right is that you feel like total and complete crap afterward. Well, that happened to me. I'm not sore or anything like I would be from an intense freeweight workout, but put it this way: I did this from about 9:15 to 9:50(with time for warm-up and cool-down), then headed back to mi casa and showered. I set my alarm for 1 p.m., and laid down for a nap. This was at 10 a.m. This stuff sucked so much out of me that I didn't wake up till 6 p.m., and I don't even remember hearing my alarm until about 5:30(it's a repeating alarm on my old cellphone) Now granted, I also work third shift, but during my shower, I felt my energy level drop somewhere down around my ankles, and it was literally all I could do to rehydrate and nibble a bit of food before pretty much collapsing into my bed.

As an MMA fan, I came up with a novel HIIT structure. Also, for a lark, I decided to incorporate swimming into the routine, along with some Muhammad Ali-esque in-water punching.

Warm-ups, 5 minutes: mixture of jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, stretching.
Interval 1(high, 2 minutes) Swimming: race breaststroke laps
Interval 2(medium, 2 minutes) Swimming, backstroke laps
Interval 3(high, 2 minutes) Swimming, front crawl laps
Interval 4(medium, 2 minutes) Swimming, backstroke laps
1-minute rest(had to go to the bathroom)
Interval 5(high, 2 minutes) MMA, leg kicks, chest-depth water
Interval 6(medium, 2 minutes)MMA, jabs, shoulder-depth water
Interval 7(high, 2 minutes) MMA, arm+leg workout of Thai clinch+knees, chest-depth water
Interval 8(medium, 2 minutes)MMA, southpaw jabs, shoulder-depth water
Cool-downs, 5 minutes: stretching, sit-ups, basic yoga.

So I'll be monitoring over the next few weeks and we'll see how it goes.