Day 79 was the last Plyo-X workout for this round. It was, at least for the beginning of the workout, the best I have been able to do. I was able to keep up with everyone and get much deeper into the squat moves than I had before. That resulted in my being pretty gassed by the end of the workout so I was having to modify a lot for the last couple of rounds of exercises, but overall, it was my best Plyo session. And, my legs are very sore today from all the squats, which is ultimately a good thing.
Day 78 was my last Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps workout for this round of P90X. As I have said before, this is probably my least favorite of the resistance workouts. That said, I think that I had my best workout for this one last night. I was able to do better on some of the push-up moves, and I was able to hit the 10 rep max on a couple of the moves that used weights. So overall, I think it went pretty well, but I am still a long way from keeping up with either Dave or Phil.
Day 77 was a very shortened version of Yoga. I basically went until the break (after chair and twisting chair) then bailed out. I was not feeling very well at all, and figured it would be better to just rest instead of pushing through any longer.
Day 76 was x-stretch. Nothing much new to report about this workout, except that I am closer to being able to actually put my elbow on the side of my knee on the seated spinal twists. I can get my low forearm over there now, where up until now I had to use my hand. So, I am definitely losing weight and getting more flexible.
Day 75 was Legs and Back and ab-ripper-x. I was again able to do all the reps during ab-ripper, although still had to modify some of the moves. And, I was able to hit at least 10 reps on all of the pull-up moves with 110lbs of resistance, so I will be increasing that to 115 for the Back and Biceps workout next week.
Day 74 was Kenpo-x. Nothing new to report about this one. It pretty much went the same as it has the past few times I have done it. I was a bit off-balance during some of the kicking exercises, but nothing too bad.
Day 73 was the last of the shoulders and arms workouts. Again, I was able to hit the 10 rep max for some of the moves, and for others, I could only hit 8-9 reps. But, I did manage to increase the weight for all of the exercises by at least a bit from the start of this round to the end. So, that was progress. And, when doing ab-ripper I was finally able to do all 349 moves, hitting the 25 reps on all of the moves and the 50 for the mason twists (although I do have to keep my feet on the floor for that one). I did decide that my next workout will be a round of Chalene Extreme and then I will switch back to P90X. My hope is that I can get in good enough shape during the Chalene Extreme round that when I do P90X again I can do regular pull-ups instead of using the bands. But, if not, I should be able to do the 155 lbs of band resistance when doing the pull-up moves for round two of P90X. But, for now, I will be focusing on finishing this round of P90X and then on Chalene Extreme.
Haloween Six, also called The Curse of Michael Myers, was really a mess of a movie. The mess, admittedly (by the producers) started with the production of the movie and carried through to the final product. It picks up years after the events of Halloween 5 in which Michael is broken out of jail and Jamie is kidnapped by the man in black. In this movie, we learn the identity of the man in black and find out that he is a larger part of a larger cult (essentially). The movie is pretty much non-sensical from beginning to end. The basic plot is that Jamie is pregnant (and it is very much hinted that Michael is somehow the father), has the baby, and escapes from the cult. Then, of course, Michael tries to track down the baby and in the process comes back to Haddonfield and wreaks havoc.
Really, the only thing that makes the movie worth watching is seeing Paul Rudd in one of his first major movie roles (this movie came out the same year as Clueless), as Tommy Doyle (the kid Laurie babysat in the original movie) who has become obsessed with Michael Meyers and seeing Donald Pleasance for the last time as Loomis. Everything else about the movie pretty much fell into the hot garbage category. Firstly, Danielle Harris, who was open to reprising her role as Jamie, hated what was done to the character so much she decided to not have anything to do with the movie. The plot was just stupid, and because the audience reception was so bad there were major reshoots done, including after Donald Pleasance died, that the character of Loomis was essentially written out offscreen.
This is just the theatrical cut of the movie. The disc does not include the producer's cut that was for years just available as a bootleg, but finally released in the Blu-ray box set a handful of years ago. I think the actors did the best they could with what they were given, which was not much, but Rudd and Pleasance did a really good job in their roles and basically kept the movie from being total garbage. I think if Jamie would have been incorporated better into the movie so that Danielle Harris would have come back, and they dispensed with the silly cult stuff, the movie would have been a lot better. That said, it is a very dark sequel, and it did have some good elements to it, just not enough (in my opinion).
If you get the original DVD release, you just basically get the movie itself. There are no extras (besides some coming soon trailers). Ultimately, the movie is not for everyone. Even for Halloween fans, it is not even close to being the best Halloween movie (or even the best sequel). So, I cannot say that even fans of the series are going to love it, but I still think it is worth watching as long as you temper your expectations.
Day 72 was plyo-x again. It went fine. Pretty much the same as it has the past few times. This was the first time I have done this workout in the morning on an empty stomach, so I was a bit more tired during the workout than I tend to be when I do it in the evening. But, I made it through.
Day 71 was the last Chest and Back workout for this round of P90X. It actually went pretty well. I was able to hit 10 reps on each of the resistance exercises with the weights I was using and got at least one more push-up in on all of the push-up moves. I was also able to get 12 reps on each pull-up move with the 105 lbs of band resistance. So, overall, that went very well, and I made a lot of progress from day one.
Day 70 was x-stretch. Overall, it went well. I would not say that my flexibility increased at all over last week. Everything felt about the same. My back was a little bit sore yesterday, so I did not even try Back Hero and just did Camel twice. Other than that, it went well.
This is one of the young-adult novels set in the high republic era, set after the events of the novel The Rising Storm, and the Nihil attack on the Republic fair. The aftermath of the attack is still being felt by pretty much all parties. The book is centered around the characters of Vernestra Rwoh and her padawan Imri, both of whom are trying to deal with force abilities that they cannot control and are struggling to understand, and Sylvestri Yarrow a hauler whose ship was mysteriously knocked out of Hyperspace and then attacked by the Nihil at the beginning of the novel. It also involves the already-established Jedi characters Reath Silas and Cohmac Vitus. It also brings back the Nihil character Nan who was saved by and then saved Reath in the novel Into the Dark.
This novel is partly about the power struggle within the Nihil and a battle for control of the group and in part a thriller/mystery with the Jedi trying to figure out if the Nihil has a new weapon or if ships are getting knocked out of hyperspace due to some strange natural occurrence. I definitely think the book reads more easily now that many of the characters are established, as I had to spend less time trying to figure out (or remember) who all the characters were. I still think these novels would be better if they did more than name-drop Yoda. It does not make any sense that one of the most powerful Jedi at what is likely the height of his power would sit on the sidelines of the fight against the Nihil just to be mentioned by other characters. Not that he needs to be the focus of the novels, but he could definitely be utilized in some way.
Overall, I would say that even though the novel is one of the young-adult novels, and thus considered ancillary to the main storyline, it is as good and as enjoyable as the main "adult" novels in the high-republic series. It is not a difficult read, and at about 320 pages, depending on how fast a reader you are, it can be finished pretty quickly. I definitely recommend it.
Day 69 was a very modified Yoga-x. I had to do the workout later in the day than I wanted and I was not feeling well. So, I basically cut it short after the moving asana portion of the workout. I did not even attempt to do the balance poses. But, I did what I could, and thankfully feel better today, so I should be able to do x-stretch without any issues.
Day 68 was the Legs and Back workout with ab-ripper as the warm-up. Really, the only notable thing about this workout is that I was able to get more reps in with the 105 lbs of resistance on the pull-up moves than the last workout. Otherwise, it pretty much went the same as it did last week.
Day 67 was the Kenpo-x workout. I actually did the workout in the morning (which I am going to try to shift to for all of the workouts within the next few weeks) on an empty stomach. So, I did get a bit gassed at the end, but I made it through and was able to keep up pretty well. The only major change I made was backed off a bit during the active rest periods. I drank more water and jogged in place as opposed to doing the jumping jacks and x jumps.
Day 66 was the Back and Biceps workout, with ab-ripper as the warmup. I was able to hit the 10 rep max on a couple of exercises, but the pull-up moves were still pretty tough with the 105 lbs of band resistance. I was able to do 13 towel pull-ups, but the rest were in the 8-9 range (and 4 corn-cobs). Overall though, I would say the workout went well. I was able to hit 23 reps on all the ab-ripper moves, so Friday I will be bumping that up to 24.
Day 65 was plyo-x. I do not have any kind of huge update for this workout. I was able to push harder on some of the exercises, but others I still had to greatly modify. I am definitely not in the kind of shape where I can do all the moves unmodified for the entire time frame. And, I still just run in place during the rock star hops to protect my back.
