I know this will shock and astonish you, but when I was a teenager I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. There are a couple other role playing games I remember fondly - one also made by TSR called Gamma World, which was basically just D&D in a postapocalyptic future with mutants instead of goblins, and another called Paranoia which was set in a dystopian future where everything is run by an insane computer. Great stuff. So anyway, in one of those games a friend of mine had a character named Ped Xing, thus named by his parents after a holy artifact they had found from the before times.

What made me think of that today? Well, today's story featured characters named Bin Liner and Fire Escape. In the Target novelization one of the other characters is named Drinking Fountain. Great stuff. So let's talk about that.

I am a child of the 80's. I mean, I was born in 1968 and was certainly present during the 70's, but I was a teenager throughout the 80's and that is where my pop culture heart will always find anchor. I don't have to remind you that, being the heart of Cold War and with Reagan driving the politics here in the States and Thatcher driving the politics in the U.K,, both post-apocalyptic and dystopian themes were ascendant in genre entertainment. From quality films like The Road Warrior and Brazil to trashy cash-ins like Solarbabies or Cyborg, my entertainment was filled with pessimistic visions of the near future. I saw news reports recently about a study that basically said that the music that you love when you are 14 becomes the foundation of the music you love for the rest of your life -- you certainly might expand your interests, but more likely than not you will frequently find yourself back enjoying the same styles that tickled your brain back then. I think that applies not just to music, but to your other entertainment preferences as well.

Which is a long-winded way of saying, holy crap but today's viewing of Doctor Who on the Time Treadmill played on my teenage neurons like a maestro at Carnegie Hall. So let's talk about that.

You know, I have posted something to this blog every single day for over a year. Some days it's nearly a novel, some days it's barely a sentence, but there's one there for every single day. Today is no different. And that's about as profound as I feel like getting on this particular day.

Yeah, I also watched Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill, so I guess I'll talk about that too.

So I am out at a social gathering tonight, and order a baked mac & cheese dish to eat. A friend sitting across from me looks at it when it is brought to the table, then she says to me, "That's on your diet?" 

"If you burn enough calories," I reply, "you can eat whatever you want. Just ask Michael Phelps."

In other news, I rather abruptly got a new Doctor today on the treadmill. Let's talk about that.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 1,224.96 miles on the treadmill while taking 2,369,202, watching 654 episodes and 143 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 60.54 pounds in weight. To say it has been a remarkable year would be a bit of an understatement. I have reached a bit of a plateau, and my personal trainer has instructed me to start doing pushups every day immediately after I finish the treadmill, so today I started with a pitiful 3 pushups. I'll be curious to see how that progresses. Aside from being my long-distance personal trainer, Chuck Rogers is also the author of the very excellent novel Heroes' Road and he wants me to be in fighting shape for when HBO options it as a new series and casts me in the role of.. myself (Lord Miles, Landgrave of Thunisia). I would hate to disappoint him.

In other news, this dropped today and I love it to bits:

Also, I finished The Trial of a Time Lord (and, by extension, the Sixth Doctor) this morning. So let's talk about that.

Brutal honesty, the trend line on that historical weight chart on the right has been driving me nuts. I've been stagnant in the 240's since before Christmas. In the last week the trend line moved upwards significantly for the first time since I started this ridiculous project. And yet, this morning I weighed in at my lowest weight since beginning the project. Which is both awesome and frustrating. I am going to finish up the Sixth Doctor tomorrow morning, and he will be the first Doctor in the project with whom I have gained weight. As if Colin Baker hadn't suffered enough indignity already. When I started I said very clearly that I didn't care about weight, that it was just a good gross number to track progress against, and that I had no particular destination in mind. I really need to get better at convincing myself that this is true.

Anyway, I finished the latest sub-story in this stupid Space Trial this morning, so let's talk about that.

Here's the weird thing about losing weight: it's a psychological bear trap. Case in point, I was really pretty upset with myself at the apparent weight gain I had experienced in the last two weeks. Bear in mind that also during those two weeks I pinched a nerve in my neck rendering my right arm anywhere from annoying to either numb or painful, and I also traveled out of state for a work conference where I had either limited or no access to a workout facility or treadmill. For six days I did not even have a scale to weigh myself. The natural and expected outcome was a slight weight gain, but it still bothered me (particularly because I nosed back up above 250, and getting below that number was a huge milestone for me). Today, with my pinched nerve slowly but progressively getting better, with my arm only being an occasional mild annoyance, and with drinking more fluids and getting back on my regular workout routine, my wieght has dropped back down to within 1.2 pounds of my all- ...

I'll get to today's viewing shortly, but first I have to take note that on this day exactly fifty years ago, this happened:

On a Saturday night, not unlike tonight, in the third episode of The Web of Fear, the Second Doctor made his first on-screen appearance with Then-Colonel Lethbridge-Steward, played magnificently by the late great Nicholas Courtney. He was meant to be just another secondary character there to propel a story, but Courtney's performance was so strong that he was brought back again in the following year's Cyberman classic The Invasion. Of course he would go on to become a mainstay of the series, and one of the most beloved characters and actors in the history of the program. It has now been nearly seven years since he passed away. He was truly one of the greats.

Anyway, I also watched two more episodes on the treadmill today, so let's talk about that.

The good news: second consecutive day back under 250. The bad news: the five day trend is still moving upwards. Even if tomorrow is a good day, the five day will probably still push upwards unless tomorrow is extraordinarily good (it won't be). I don't have a prayer of actually losing weight collectively with the Sixth Doctor. By my last day with him on Tuesday I will likely be back where I was when I finished the Fourth Doctor, effectively negating both Five and Six. The thing is, this was never exactly about weight. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say I would still like to get all the way down to 220 at least, but at the end of the day this ridiculous project has been about me feeling better overall and I most certainly have achieved that. Or am I just trying to convince myself? Hard to say.

In other news, I watched two more episodes on the treadmill this morning and was pleasantly surprised. Let's talk about that.

Two bits of good news today:

First, after two consecutive days of being back above 250 lbs, I finally dropped back down below today. Of course, moving averages being what they are, that number went up even though my weight went down. At this point I fear that poor Colin Baker is going to suffer the ignominy of being the first Doctor in this ridiculous project for whom I actually gain weight. Oops.

Second, I got the results of my recent colonoscopy, and it was very good. I was a little bit paranoid because of my dad. You see, he was a very heavy guy. After he retired he decided to make some changes; eat right, get more exercise (with particular focus on walking), etc. Over the course of a year he lost a bunch of weight. Sound familiar? Well, at the end of that year he went to get an annual exam to show off to his long-time physician, and that's when they found the colon cancer. He passed away nine months later. So, as awesome as I feel right now I still had that bit of family history nagging me in the back of my head. Turns out I am all clear, and barring any other symptoms I don't need to go back for another five years. Yay!

I also watched the rest of the current sub-story, so let's talk about that.