I usually title these posts with a line of dialog from the episode I watched that day. Today's episode did not disappoint. By which I mean, of course both episodes were extremely disappointing, but at least they gave me a perfectly accurate title to use.

This ridiculous project has had a fair amount of ups and downs. The first year was pretty much a consistent free-fall in weight, and then I added strength training. I can't with a straight face look at that graph over there to the right and claim the entire bounce-back has been from building muscle mass, but at the same time I don't feel at all bad about finding a balance between how much I want to work out and how much and what I want to eat. I am not training to be an athlete, I just want to feel better than I used to. I have accomplished that in spades. Case in point: as of this morning I have now done a cumulative ten thousand push-ups. When I started I could barely do three. Now pretty much at any time I could drop and do twenty without breaking a sweat, and I consistently do a hundred (in five sets of twenty) during every other workout. I am damn proud of that, especially as a middle-aged guy over fifty with no sports experience. I got me some guns!

I have been at this ridiculous project for nearly two years now, and K9 just might be the show that breaks me. I missed a workout yesterday explicitly because I just couldn't work up the will to get on the treadmill and watch two more episodes. I am not even halfway through it. The other day I contemplated other shows targeted to the same age group that I enjoyed better, and frankly Big Bad Beetleborgs came out ahead of K9. Sure, Beetleborgs is childish and cartoonish (as you might expect from a show that features bad knock-offs of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers teamed up with bad knock-offs of classic Universal monsters plus a ghost that is supposed to be inspired by Elvis but comes across as more of a Jay Leno riff). But at least Beetleborgs was entertaining. Here, just watch the opening credits, that will tell you everything you need to know about the show.

Ok, so getting back to K9...

Oh good lord, this series. I took Monday off because I was buried in work. I took yesterday off because it was my birthday, and my present to myself was to not watch K9. Today I was back at it. You want to take any guesses at what I thought of today's two stories?

Four days of K9 down and nine days to go. Not that I am counting or anything. But this time around I actually have something to say about at least one of the episodes I watched today.

As noted philosopher (and bunny rabbit) Thumper once said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nuthin' at all." So I'll get on with that.

You want to know the fundamental, existantial difference between The Sarah Jane Adventures and K9? Well, SJA was written for children, whereas K9 appears to have been written by children.

So, I had intended to move directly from Shada to the Australian K9 series. I watched most of The Sarah Jane Adventures as streaming episodes on Amazon, and I had looked to see if they had K9 as well, which they did. I thought. Three days ago when I went to pull it up, I discovered that although there was an entry for it there were no actual episodes -- only a "where to watch this" message that was no use. So I had to break down and actually buy the entire show on DVD (which was mercifully cheap). It arrived yesterday, so this morning I dove into it. Weep for me.

The nice thing I have learned about sit-ups is that if I wake up with a kink in my back, doing several sets of sit-ups will sort it right out. In hindsight it seems obvious, the movement is exactly what is required to naturally get the spine back into shape. The first time I discovered that, though, I was more than a little surprised. I had hesitated to do the workout, but decided to try it slowly and carefully. During the first set my back was sore -- not in an OUCH something bad is happening way, but in an *ouch* something is out of place kind of way. After my first rest, when starting the second set I realized that whatever had been out of place had moved back into place and all the soreness was completely gone. Sure, by the end of the fifth set I was completely exhausted, but dang if my back didn't feel fantastic...

If I had to pick one word to describe this morning's treadmill viewing, it would be "disrupted". On the whole I think I am a good father, but I will be the first to admit that sometimes my reaction to my autistic son's obsessive behavior could be better. Case in point, this morning he was absolutely focused on his small red camera not working. It is worth noting that he has four, count them four digital cameras. Three of them were working properly, but he interrupted me on the treadmill no fewer than four times because that particular one was not. Fortunately my wife stepped in and contained him so I could finish my workout, because by the last time around I was responding less patiently than the autistic person. That's always a bad sign. In any case, I did finish the middle third of Shada. Here's what I thought.