Holy cow, I didn't intend to take another five days off. It just kinda happened. I don't even have any great excuse really. I mean, yesterday was a mess because a service technician was supposed to be here between 8am and noon so I didn't want to treadmill in the morning and be interrupted. I figured I would do it on my lunch break. Instead, the technician didn't show until mid-afternoon, and by then my day was shot. I had no time in the evening. So that's one weak excuse and four days with nothing but laziness to blame. I'm a complete fraud and failure. Ah, well.

On the other hand, I performed a structural redesign on the Time Treadmill and then watched the back half of The Ark in Space today, so let's talk about that.

Check it out, the Blu-Ray release of Tom Baker's first season was successful enough that the BBC just announced Doctor Who: Peter Davison Complete First Season coming this December on Blu-Ray. For those readers who happen to be my wife: no, I have not pre-ordered it yet, and yes it would make a lovely Christmas gift. The set includes remastered versions of all 26 episodes from Season 19, including the very excellent Castrovalva, the last true pure historical story Black Orchid, and of course Jonny Lee Miller's television acting debut in Kinda. It is a really solid season with only a few missteps (I'm looking at you, Four to Doomsday), and I am really looking forward to revisiting these episodes in a few months.

Speaking of revisiting new episodes, I watched the first half of the Blu-Ray version of The Ark in Space today and it was pretty awesome. Let's talk about that.

Usually when I title these posts, I pick my favorite line of dialog from the episode(s) I watched that day. At first I would always try to give the title some context in my post, but eventually I gave up on that as being more effort than it was worth. In any case, I had no trouble at all picking the title for this post, at the point where the Brig exasperatingly says, "Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets..." As it turns out, I like that line so much that I picked it as the title for when I watched this episode the first time around. Oops. So instead I went with my second favorite bit of dialog, from the end of the story when the Doctor decides he is tired of UNIT and wants to scamper off and see the universe again.

So let's talk about that.

After eighteen solid months of being on the treadmill dang near every day, it's not especially surprising that I am not all that eager to hop back on after basically two weeks off. But here I am. I decided that, rather than jump right into the next spinoff (Torchwood), I am going to take some time to enjoy the recently-released BluRay of Tom Baker's fantastic first season as the Fourth Doctor. So I started in on a re-watch of Robot. So let's talk about that.

So, the big news today: This morning for the first time since I began this project, I weighed in at more than fifty pounds lighter than when I started this project. I am very, very happy with this result. The days of losing two and three pounds per week are far behind me, all of the easy progress has already been had, at this point it is a battle to make any kind of incremental progress. Which, I feel amazing, so I am happy with what I have accomplished so far. But I am also greedy and want a little bit more. Go figure. Anyway, I also watched the back half of The Android Invasion today.

The great thing about Classic Who is that, even when you have a wobbly story like Pyramids of Mars you never have to wait long to get a truly great story. The Android Invasion is a veritable who's who of Who -- written by Terry Nation in his only non-Dalek story since the first season's Keys of Marinus, directed by former producer Barry Letts, featuring the last appearances of John Benton and Harry Sullivan, and also a major villain role played by Milton Johns, who had previously appeared in the very excellent Enemy of the World. What I'm saying is, I really enjoyed today's viewing on the treadmill.

Let's talk about that.

Yesterday was a miserable day. I mean, not nearly as miserable as the time a year ago that I had a severe bout of diverticulitis and ended up in the hospital, but still pretty miserable. I spent most of the day with a roaring headache, which I am sure that my (admittedly lethargic) workout did not help. Although I succeeded in what ching the first half of Terror of the Zygons it was mostly at a stumbling stroll and I barely walked 2 1/2 miles. Today was much better, though, I was back up to just one notch below my top speed and clocked in at just over four miles while finishing the story.

Let's talk about that.

I watched the first half of Terror of the Zygons. I have a headache. I am going to bed.

Let's barely talk about it.

I somehow managed to up my speed again a notch today, and set a new record for the number of steps and distance in one session. So that's pretty cool. I had a fantasy that today would be the day I finally hit the fifty pound mark for total weight lost, but alas that was not to be. How tragic. It's ok, though, I'll get there. Today's viewing was the second half of Revenge of the Cybermen and it was pretty nifty.

Today marks the seven month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 678.23 miles on the treadmill while taking 1,367,292 steps, watching 400 episodes and 78 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 47.84 pounds in weight. I did not realize until I started typing this out that today marked my 400th episode viewed. How cool is that? I was feeling a little bit frustrated that I have only lost 5 pounds in the last month, until I looked at last month's checkin and remembered that the previous month I had only lost 2 1/2 pounds. So by that measure, this month has been twice as successful as the one before. Also this month, I had to go through my entire wardrobe and pull out a huge stack of pants and shorts to stop wearing. Anything with a 46" or 44" waist was yanked, leaving me with only 42" items. In fact, I had to go shopping for two new pairs of jeans, because I had no decent ones left that didn't look like clown clothes on ...