Most of the time, the five day moving average is my friend. Today, however, it is working against me. The good news is that after a week of being sick with a flu or virus or something, I am finally feeling mostly back to normal. The bad news is that while I was sick I also bloated up like a German sausage. Although I have lost more than five pounds in the last two days (purely from losing all the fluids my body was stockpiling), that won't show up in the moving average for a few more days. I just keep reminding myself that this has never been about weight per-se, it is about feeling better and more healthy. Temporary illness aside, I feel fantastic and my clothes have never fit better than they do right now. So, it's all good. It's just galling to see it mapped out on a graph. I'll get over it.

I also watched the second half of the army of Angels story today, and I liked it far less this time around then when it originally aired. Let's talk about that.

Graham Strong is not a name that would be familiar to any but the most die-hard Doctor Who fans. Although he never worked on the show in any capacity, he is directly responsible for my being able to include all 97 missing episodes in this ridiculous project. You see, back in 1963 Mr. Strong was a fourteen-year-old electronics geek, as well as being a science fiction fan. Back then there was no such things as reruns, home video recording, or any other kind of repeat market. With no way to revisit a show, a few fans like Mr. Strong would record the audio from each episode as it was broadcast. Strong, though, went one step further -- he directly wired the audio output from the family television into a reel-to-reel recorder, and starting with episode 7 of The Daleks' Master Plan he gathered pristine audio recordings.These were in fact so clean that, back in the mid-90's, he loaned his recordings to the BBC including more than 100 early episodes of Doctor Who. Because his recordings were superior to anything the BBC had in their archives, many of the DVD's of early episodes from the show use his audio. As it relates to this project, it is his audio recordings that allowed for the reconstructions of lost episodes that I watched. That's almost fifty days' worth of treadmill time that I put in listening to Mr. Strong's recordings while watching corresponding photos from the missing episodes.

Sadly, Graham Strong passed away yesterday at the age of 69. He was my kind of geek, and I applaud his ingenuity. My condolences to his family, he was a remarkable man and he will surely be missed.

Also: today I watched the return of both River Song and the Weeping Angels. So let's talk about that.

It's been a bit of a long day today. On the upside, I got to sleep in. Also on the upside, since our new roof was done on Friday it was totally fine that it's been raining non-stop yesterday and today. For the first time in eight months I am not worried about leaks or rotting wood, because we finally have solid protection. On the downside, my autistic son was adamant about going to Epcot today to visit Alice and Snow White but I knew darn well that neither of them would be out in the rain. He was twitching and shouting and on the verge of a complete meltdown before we compromised and went to the Magic Kingdom instead to visit Tinkerbell since she is indoors. Then we got very lucky and had a rare Snow White visit, which made him very happy indeed. So it all turned out okay, it was just a little stressful along the way.

Oh, and I also watched River Song die today. So let's talk about that.

Happy Free Comic Book Day everyone! Did you stop by your local shop today? Or are you too wasted on tequila for Cinco de Mayo to remember? In either case, I hope you had a great day. Personally, I slaughtered a group of hedges in my front yard that I have hated for ages now. It felt great. 

And after that, I watched River Song meet the Doctor for the very last time. So let's talk about that.