First things first: Oof, the treadmill really kicked my butt this morning. My alarm went off, I ignored it. I laid there thinking of a million reasons why I could really, just this once, take the morning off. And then, mostly because of this blog and my own manufactured accountability, I dragged my sorry self out of bed and got to work. I'm glad I did, but wow was it a fight through the last few minutes. So... thank you to all of you (probably imaginary) readers, you are keeping me motivated even if you are just phantoms in my brain.

As for Doctor Who, today's viewing was the first two episodes of my first reconstructed episode (a.k.a. "recon"), the much-lauded Marco Polo!

A.K.A.  Ladies Wear Snuggies. Today's two-parter was a complete story in one day, and a bottle episode to boot. But before I get to that -- I made lots of tweaks to the site last night. Thanks to some helpful comments by reader Michael Montoure, I corrected some issues with the Comments feature. Now the commenter name shows up correctly, and the links to comments work correctly as well (previously they were badly broken.) I also replaced the large banner image with another version that is 1/4 the file size, which helps the site load much faster. As always, if you have any comments or suggestions I am all ears.

Anyway, getting back to The Threshold of Eradication....

After taking a (actually not-so-) lazy day yesterday, this morning I hit the treadmill with renewed energy. I increased the speed by a bit, and increased the time as well. I even added an extra sprint at the end. The payoff was to see my total weight change for the past week as being down 1 3/4 lbs, which is exactly in the healthy 1-2 lbs per week I am targeting. So that was nice. Also: the Daleks were defeated, and one lucky Thal got a little sugar.

Let's talk about that.

No treadmill today, and no Doctor Who. I was out very late last night, and frankly between this morning's yard work plus spending the afternoon walking around the Magic Kingdom, I have gotten plenty of exercise. I am just too dehydrated right now to even think about getting on a treadmill. Tomorrow morning I will wrap up The Daleks.

Look, I'm not saying that Terry Nation ripped off J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm just saying that today's viewing consisted of a group of adventurers traveling through a dangerous swamp, containing a giant tentacled monster, in order sneak up on the bad guys by taking a dangerous path mined through a mountain range. 

Let's talk about that.

In yesterday's episodes, the Daleks described their arch-enemies the Thals as being horribly mutated. Of course, when you are a little fleshy lump that has to drive around in an armored wheelchair to get anywhere, the phrase "horribly mutated" is somewhat subjective. So of course the Thals are all either impossibly handsome or incredibly buxom and leggy (depending on which ones you choose to stare at, I'm not making any judgments here.) 

Speaking of being horribly mutated, I did actually weigh myself today after my morning workout, and I now have enough data to start using a five day moving average. Good news! I am down a perfectly-respectable 1.14 lbs from my start point, in just over half a week. I am of the opinion that healthy and sustainable weight loss should happen gradually, no more than 1-2 lbs per week, so I am right on track with where I want to be.

So anyway, getting back to those sexy, sexy Thals...

Today has been a strange, off-kilter day for squeezing in any exercise. We have a house guest who arrived very late last night, and so not only were we awake way past our bed times (we're old!), but in the morning I did not want to disturb anyone by firing up the treadmill. If I had been facing another day with the Tribe of Gum I might have just written off today as a loss. Fortunately, today's episodes were ones that I have really been looking forward to. You know them, you love them, if you are looking for space fascists driving pepper-pot tanks with toilet plungers for arms then you can't go wrong with the Daleks.

All kidding aside, this is a genuinely great story with well-written characters and a slow-burn kind of pacing that builds a genuine sense of dread and fear. I was totally psyched to watch it (again).

I very nearly didn't get on the treadmill today. Being the parent of an adult autistic person brings its own set of challenges. Case in point: my son didn't sleep at all on Monday night, and last night wasn't much better. I had very little motivation to drag myself out of bed, and frankly having to watch another half hour of proper British cave men was not helping. But I forced myself to get up, and my reward was to weigh in at heavier than when I started this project.

So that was nice.

The glaring problem with watching Doctor Who from the very beginning is that, almost immediately you have to watch The Tribe of Gum. And, let's face it, nobody should have to watch The Tribe of Gum. It's less like watching paint dry, and more like watching the constituent components of paint be slowly formed over the course of several millennia by geologic processes too slow to observe with the naked eye.

Let's talk about it.

This morning I embarked on a new project - to watch every single (existing) episode of Doctor Who, in order, while walking on a treadmill. The idea came to me a few days ago, as I pondered a few things.