Today I started a new story written by Terry Nation, of The Daleks fame. Unfortunately, thus far The Keys of Marinus does not live up to the same standard. The overall thrust of the six-part story appears to be "setup, then spend one episode recovering each of these four objects, then resolution". It's exactly the same kind of grinding mission that makes me completely uninterested in gaming these days. But even beyond the overall story structure, each of today's episodes in their own way addressed the notion of Free Will -- although I think not intentionally. Oddly, the first episode seems to posit that Free Will isn't necessary. The second episode does the reverse, but not in any kind of knowing way.

Let's talk about that.

This morning marked the seventh, and final, episode of Marco Polo. Picture, if you will, me striding away on the treadmill as the big climax unfolds, completely transfixed as Marco and the villainous Tegana finally face off with swords raised. Now imagine the volume of profanity as my stream of the reconstruction chose that exact moment to crap out. I'm just sayin', there may have been some dialog provided by yours truly that would not have met the BBC's broadcast standards of 1964.

Thankfully, after a few minutes of troubleshooting, I was able to resume the broadcast and see the big finale. Let's talk about that.

Look, I know that in the 60's it was perfectly acceptable for a Caucasian to be cast in the role of an Asian. They could put on a bad wig and maybe a Fu-Manchu beard, turn their L's into R's and their R's into W's, and perform in a broadly caricatured manner, and it would be totally cool (ref: Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's). But just because it was completely acceptable for the time doesn't make it any less uncomfortable to watch now.

Let's talk about that.

Today I learned that Aladdin was actually a bad guy who raised an army of trained killers by getting them all whacked out on weed - hence why there were named the Hashshashin. And that, my friends, is the origin of the word "assassin". So there you have it, Doctor Who fulfills its educational mandate, and teaches us all about the perils of reefer madness. I also watched a story about people on the verge of death by dehydration while I, myself, was literally dripping with sweat. How's that for irony?

Marco Polo continues, let's talk about it.

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...