As of this morning I have done more than four thousand pushups cumulatively since I added them to this ridiculous project. Also, remember a few days ago when I complained about being as big as a whale? Well, the last of my illness-related bloating has fallen off and I have lost more than seven pounds in the last five days. Trust me, it ain't because I was doing anything different. It's just the vagaries of illness combined with normal daily fluctuations. This stuff gets into your head and messes with it, though, so I'm not going to pretend I wasn't thrilled when I saw the number this morning. Good stuff.

As for Doctor Who (and speaking of being as big as a whale), Amy was suddenly nine months pregnant at the start of the episode. Oh, and Rory had a pony tail. So let's talk about that.

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.

Good news: I am on the upswing, health-wise. I actually did fifty pushups this morning, although I still took an easy pace on the treadmill. I am at the point where I feel substantially better than I sound. That "sounding" part could be an issue, though, in that I have my debut performance at the Orlando Fringe Festival tomorrow in which I need to sing and talk non-stop for a full hour. Oh, and play guitar. Still, two consecutive nights of solid sleep have done me a world of good, and hopefully I'll get another tonight.

As for Doctor Who, well... you can probably already guess how I feel about this one. So let's get it over with.

Still sick, still no new push-ups, and a slower pace on the treadmill today. Blech. Also blech: being sick means bloating up and retaining fluids (mostly phlegm), so I weighed in my heaviest in months today. I feel like a beached whale. It's ok, though, I know it will drop back off as soon as I get clear of this stupid cold or virus or whatever it is. But still, blech.

Speaking of whales, there was a big ol' space whale in today's episode. So let's talk about that.

I am still sick. Not horribly miserably sick, just sick enough to feel like my body is comprised of 90% phlegm. So I skipped push-ups yet again today, but I forged through on the treadmill which managed to bring my overall total to more than three million steps since I started this ridiculous project.

This morning's viewing was the first Eleventh Doctor story, so let's talk about that.

Not only did I not do any push-ups today, but I actually ended up at Urgent Care. I have a sinus infection, and am  now on antibiotics. Hopefully they will kick in rapidly, because four days from now I have a full run through of my Fringe show plus two performances. Right now I can't even sing a note. Should make for an interesting weekend.