Week 17 of Weight Training: No Change

I kept my promise to do more exercise and exercise I did. However, due to a lapse in judgement early in the week, I ate a lot of junk food and just didn’t recuperate from going over my calorie intake. The good news is that I didn’t gain any more weight. I just stayed at 226.5 pounds.

This week I aim to curb my bad eating habits. I already grilled a lot of chicken for the week so that will definitely help and I am also planning on adding running to my exercise routine. This should hopefully yield good results in the following week.

Not Feeling Socially Inclined At The Moment

After joining Google+ and the bloom of its newness aged a little, my whims have once again shifted. This past week in fact, I’ve been feeling a bit reclusive and haven’t really done much in any of the social networks that I’m a member in. Maybe it’s because I’m a little busier than I have been for some time, but I don’t feel like spending much time in the social network environment. They are starting to seem more like time wasters than anything else. Maybe I “don’t know” how to use social networks appropriately (frankly, I’m starting to realize I’m not as social as I use to think I was). Consequently, I decided to ax a few of my accounts and the remaining ones are still in question. The following is what I decided:

Nixed accounts:

Triberr:
I joined this social network for a day and then didn’t see the appeal to it. Number 1, I blog for the fun of it and don’t really see it as a money maker of any kind. It’s just a place for me to jot down my personal thoughts into the ether. If people read them great, if not, that’s fine a well.  Triberr seems to be a blogging tool that can mass promote your blog to a bunch more people than you can with your own methods of posting on Twitter and Facebook because it will utilize your “Tribes” followers/friends as well to exponentially broaden your reach. It sounds sort of nice but it also feels a bit like a mass email or fax scheme and I don’t want to spam people about my personal thoughts. So after joining this network for a day I decided to opt out.

Tumblr:
Tumblr is another blogging platform that I joined around a year ago or so. It’s sort of a mix of WordPress and twitter. You can write more than you would on twitter but you can also write less than you feel inclined to on WordPress. I did a few posts on it when I first started but I noticed one thing about tumblr that fell short for me. Unlike WordPress where if you decided to jump to a a self-hosting solution you could easily export your site information from WordPress to your new option. Tumblr doesn’t have that ability. It’s a self-enclosed, walled-garden type of network. Also WordPress just seems faster than Tumblr, when it comes to signing in, posting your entries, etc. So after a year or so of inactivity, I decided to just close this account.

GetGlue:
This is a check-in social network like Foursquare, except you use this to check-in activities. At first, I was a heavy user of this network (via the iPhone app). It felt like a game and I was eager to check-in what shows I was watching, what music/podcasts I was listening to etc. But now it just seems a little silly to me and I could better use that time to actually just enjoy the activity I used to “check-in”. Also, I don’t plan on getting my earned stickers anytime soon (the big incentive for checking-in on GetGlue). I have enough clutter in my home.

StumbleUpon:
I was convinced to rejoin this social network a few months ago by a buddy of mine but once again I stopped using it after a few weeks. It’s a cool network to “discover” sites you would’ve never found on your own by “stumbling” across them based on your interests. It’s a fun time-killer but, as I’ve said already, I don’t have any time to kill. So my account is once again deactivated.

Goodreads:
I guess you can say this was one of the first check-in activity social networks available before GetGlue, except this one focused on reading. I joined this network around 2 years ago or so and I would occasionally login to update my “books read” list and see what books people within my social network have read. It was a cool site to find other books that you might be interested in. It was also a cool place to read personal reviews and submit your own if you want to give your two cents on a given book. However, as I said in an earlier post, I stopped reading for a long period of time and I have visited Goodreads even more seldomly. Plus when I was using GetGlue, I would check-in on that site in lieu of Goodreads. Consequently I deleted this account before I decided to delete GetGlue as well.

ex.fm:
This is a social network that is music based but for whatever reason I never quite figured out how to use it effectively (it didn’t help that I mostly listen to podcasts over music). Consequently I just cut my losses and cancelled this service.

Social Networks left standing:

Even though I haven’t really been doing much in the social network-verse, I still decided to keep Google+, Facebook and Twitter active. Though I myself may not be active in them I still visit them every so often to keep apprise of what’s going on. Facebook is especially good in keeping me updated on what free local comedy shows are happening on any given week. I’m still on the fence with Foursquare. Though the appeal of checking-in has lost its luster, occasionally they offer good deals in the area I’m in. So for now, I’ll keep it on my iPhone but it may not be for long. Time will tell.

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Week 16 of Weight Training: Another Setback

For whatever reason, I felt sluggish and lazy this past week and so I didn’t do any exercise. I was still being my normal active self and watched what I ate. But apparently that wasn’t enough. So I gained another pound and am up back to 226.5 pounds. For 16 weeks I have 15.5 lost pounds to show for it.

Obviously, this is a set back and I just have to keep wading through the obstacles. I started this week by exercising first thing this morning and I am planning to continue doing so this whole week. Let’s see how well I follow through with that plan.

Not Understanding The Recent Netflix Backlash

Recently, Netflix decided to change their pricing plans (which will take effect on September 1, 2011). They decided to split up their streaming and DVD plans as two different services. So instead of paying $10.00 for unlimited DVDs and unlimited streaming, you would now have to pay $7.99 for instant streaming and another $7.99 for the unlimited DVD plan. In other words, those that were accustomed to having both services will now have to pay $5.00 dollars more. This isn’t an issue for me since I already switched to the streaming only plan, but it seems to have really irked a lot of people on the Internet and it begs to question, why?

First of all, how many of those complaining really take advantage of the DVD plan? Second of all, $15.00 a month is still at least half of what anyone pays for cable and you’re getting a-la-carte service instead of being forced to have services you don’t want (how many of those channels in your family basic service do you really watch?). Alas, I understand, somewhat, that people don’t like to pay more for services that they were already paying for at a reduced cost. Unfortunately, sometimes prices have to go up.

The fact of the matter is, Netflix spends a hell of a lot of money on shipping out DVD’s and they realize that the streaming model is their future. So they need to plan accordingly and that is the reason for their new pricing model. And honestly, I still don’t see anything out there that really compares to the Netflix model. But for the sake of argument, let’s list the other legal streaming options available for those that want to cancel their Netflix accounts because of the price change.

Hulu Plus
You can get Hulu Plus for the same $7.99/month pricing plan as Netflix. They do have some movies in their collection that are no longer available in the Netflix library (the Criterion collection comes to mind). Also you get to watch the current seasons of a lot of the popular TV shows that won’t be available on Netflix for some time to come. However, you have to sit through commercials during your Hulu plus viewing and you may not have the same shows/movies available to view on your TV, via a set-top box, that are available on a web browser (this really annoyed the hell out of me when I tried out my free trial with my Roku box).

Amazon Prime and other Video On Demand Services
If you’re already an Amazon Prime member and pay your annual $79 fee, for free 2-day shipping and $3.99 one-day shipping, you’re also entitled to free instant-streaming of 5000+ TV shows and movies (this comes out to roughly $6.58/month). if none of those 5000 options are what you want to watch they have a more extensive library of rentals. You can generally rent movies for $3.99, though they sometimes have discounted rentals. For most TV shows you have the option to buy them for $1.99 per episode (if you get a season pass it drops to $1.89 per episode). There doesn’t seem to be a rental option for TV shows, except for the ones that are already free for instant streaming for Prime members and a few others that don’t have a buying option like True Blood.

When you rent on Amazon you’re given a 30-day window before it is removed from your queue. Once you start to watch a rental you have a 48hr-window to complete your rental viewing. Also. you can’t change how you’re watching your rental (if you’re watching your rental from a web browser you have to finish it there. You can’t switch to your set-top box).

This is a good option if you like to watch movies as soon as they become available for rental (unfortunately the movie industry isn’t keen on the a-la-carte model which is why Netflix doesn’t get movies until they’re no longer popular and they’ve already gone through pay-per-view, premium cable channels, Amazon and iTunes services, etc). But as you can already see, you’ll still be paying more in the long run per month with this option versus Netflix.

iTunes
iTunes does allow you the option to rent TV shows as well as buy the episodes, with few exceptions. You can rent a TV episode for $0.99 or buy them for $2.99 each. Movie rentals vary from $2.99 to $4.99 each but they also offer a “$0.99 Movie Rental of The Week” category. iTunes also offers the same 30 day-window for keeping a rental in your queue but they only offer you a 24hr-window to complete your viewing of your rental once you start watching it (TV shows are given a 48hr-window for some reason). Unlike Amazon, you can switch from your computer to your portable device or Apple TV, provided you downloaded your rental to your computer first.

I found it surprising that iTunes had more flexible rental pricing options than Amazon. Unfortunately for me, iTunes is only available on the TV via an Apple TV device, not through my Roku box, and Apple TV only works with a HDTV which I currently do not own (I’m perfectly content with my standard color 480i TV, thank you very much). So unless I do a pricey upgrade I can only use this option on my computer and iPhone.

In Conclusion
It still seems to me that Netflix is the better bang for your buck. Occasionally I may rent a movie through Amazon but those days will be seldom as I tend to be more of a TV show viewer and I have a bunch of shows that I’m happily watching on Netflix. For those that still feel like they’re getting ripped off, a good free option would be your public library for your movie needs.

Week 15 of Weight Training: Up 2 Pounds But Undaunted

This time around I behaved, ate what I was supposed to and even exercised for a change. But alas, this time on the scale sees me 2 pounds heavier. Either my bad eating from weeks before caught up with me or once again, because I started working out I’m gaining muscle mass. It could also be a bit of both.

Regardless, I don’t feel bad about this turn of events. I feel lighter than I have in some time. I definitely feel more energetic and all my clothes are much looser than they have been in some time. These things make me know that I’m going in the right direction and I just need to continue with the exercising and the good eating. I’m sure next week I’ll once again lose those 2 pounds and possibly even more.