theswordsman's Diaryland Diary

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Hulu Plus

The atmosphere in my apartment right now is kind of like the disturbing scene in The Raven, but with drums and bass. I made it through the Friday night performance. By the end, I could identify the old songs they were playing, and I'm pretty sure the band and set list are the same as when I first moved here. I didn't have the option of sleeping when I wanted, so I drank a beer and watched Burn Notice. When the band stopped I grabbed four hours of sleep, got up for a stage of the Tour de France that was exciting but depressed me at the end, then went to sleep away the quiet afternoon.

I jumped on that free month of Hulu Plus in exchange for linking them to my Facebook (I don't let them post anything, or see a lot of the stuff). I went to their section for Criterion Collection films - they take a beat up copy of an old movie and make an effort to restore it to original quality. Last night I watched The Scarlet Pimpernel. Right now I'm on the first of the Musashi Miyamoto Samurai Trilogy. The first time I tried to watch it years ago, from Netflix or whatever, the video was so bad I could barely make out action or read subtitles. Now it's all really sharp, and I can watch in 720P. The first installment is kind of slow and unpleasant, but it's a chapter in the guy's life, and some of the visuals make it worth it.

The supplements are really helping. I'm having vivid dreams, for one thing. But I can wake up in the morning and immediately remember where I put something the night before, or something I need to do right away. I'm capable of laughing again. Last night I hung out in a chat room for a bit, and quickly came up with the line, "I'll bet guest 183 isn't even his real name". It was hilarious at the time, and I chuckled as a couple of others reacted.

I just found out that Women's World Cup is going on. I'm gutted that twitter doesn't have the hash tags this time where you can have a soccer ball or a country's flag pop up. I'll try to start watching Sunday.

I'm worried about Contador and his team. I remember being at a basketball game once where my team got behind right at the start, and struggled the whole time before they finally took the lead with like 20 seconds to go and won. There was only twenty seconds of fun for me the whole game. This Tour de France feels a bit like that. I still hope/believe that he can win it, but while I hope next Thursday is a huge day, there's a chance he night not take the lead until the end of Stage 20. I'm cool with that, because his Giro was so entertaining, and what he's trying is a big deal. But it's tough to manage expectations. If I sit here for four hours hoping for a big finish, and it doesn't happen, it sucks. But if I stay calm, and the end is exciting, I wasted a chance to be excited for four hours. I guess I'll just be excited for the big climbs on Thursday and if something happens before then, it's a bonus.

I made it through another day without heading out for food. I haven't been eating oatmeal, so some of the other groceries didn't last as long as expected. At least I'm losing a few pounds, while eating fairly often. I went through a loaf of good whole wheat bread in three days, plus mini steaks and eggs and cheese, peanut butter, preserves, milk, orange juice and grape juice. I'm psyching myself up for my next round of shopping.

10:14 p.m. - Saturday, Jul. 09, 2011

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