Friday, October 8, 2010

Gym regimen - October 2010

A3 workout: Back and hamstrings: 45 mins
91kg, BMI 25.5

Warmup: stretching, Ski machine, step-ups

Leg curl: 15, 10, 8 @ 30kg, 35kg, 45kg

Stiff-leg deadlift: 12, 9, 6 @ 65kg, 75kg, 85kg

Lever pulldown: 12, 9, 6 @ 70kg, 90kg, 110kg

Lever bench row: 12/6, 8/6, 6/6 @ 65kg, 85kg, 100kg
[I did 6 reps of hammer-grip rows after the underhand-grip rows. The hammer-grip handles are closer together, which works the middle back more, while the underhand handles are wider so as to work the outer back (latissimus dorsi).]

One-arm dumbbell bench row: 12, 8, 6 @ 18kg, 22kg, 27kg

Ski machine: 3 mins, 3 mins, 3 mins

+ + +

I love working my back! I also felt more secure on the stiff-leg deadlifts. Tonight I will work traps, tris, and delts and maaaaay go paintballing this weekend. But I'm just so stingy. The outing to Tainan tomorrow is enough "fun time" for me for one weekend. I feel fairly confident in saying that the last of Taiwan's "really hot days" have passed until next June or so. Still gets muggy and bright but for the most part we are now in that great, blustery, cool season called fall.

I've been sleeping more lately, admittedly, with the help of some great afternoon naps. I had a very elaborate but rapidly foggier and foggier dream last night. It was set in a modern metropolis, like New York in Manhattan, but the first sequence of action took place in a Greenwich Village/Oxford burrough that was decidedly creepy and mysteriously run down. The opening "sequence" had me and two other blokes going into a cellar apartment of a man who seemingly dealt in rare books. Once in his lair, though, his Gollum-like perversity became disturbingly clear. For not only was an oily, bedraggled blend of Hannibal Lecter and Count Olaf in frumpy, dusty clothes, but he also seemed to have three rows of teeth, one lower and two upper. His inner teeth were fairly normal, although rather "English", but his outer row of teeth was oversized and gap-toothed all the way around. I gathered that he wore them like dentures. Why? Well, it seems his fetish was to trade books not for money but for bites of people's flesh. At first he set upon the younger fellow with us and bit a chunk from his cheek, I believe. The young man wept but quickly pulled himself together without losing much blood. Then, once we got the biter to settle down and talk shop, things seemed fairly stable, until suddenly he bit into my older friend's right sleeve and tore off a small chunk of flesh and fabric. The older friend was used to this kind of treatment, so he reacted with a painful chuckle (or was it a chuckling groan of pain?). Right away he grabbed a pair of scissors and wrapped a wad of cotton around the front so as to clean out and mend the wound in his arm. The biter could barely contain himself while my wounded older friend tried once more to discuss what books they might obtain on this visit. Finally, the biter hovered in my direction, working his jaws like a dog chewing an invisible bone. He wanted to bite my fingers, so I had the awkward challenge of both fending him off with my hands and not presenting them as gifts to be bitten. This is when I got a close look at his teeth. Very upsetting.

Teeth have been a vivid trope for me ever since reading Anna Karenin as a senior in high school.

I made it out with my hands intact and I think we got a few books. It was a breezy, slightly moist day in "Oxfordhattan."

Suddenly the action had me in uptown and a high bird's eye view allowed me to dream of a giant alien spacecraft crashing into the city. It wasn't totally devastating, since the chip came in almost parallel and slid along the tops of many skyscrapers before it came to a halt. On top of the spaceship was huge statue of what was apparently their leader. He looked like a (blue) mix of Stitch, The Brain, and Al Capone. Once the debris and some of the frenzy had settled down, I somehow found myself on top of the ship as it opened and met the blue Stitch Capone. He looked exactly like the statue, so much so that even when he spoke he retained the half-open smirk in the corner of his mouth.
After that things get hazy. The ship didn't belong to a race or tribe of aliens but seems to have been manned by aliens of all kinds who served under the Stitch Capone like a team of smugglers or rock & roll space bandits. I think it became increasingly evident that the bandits were on earth to harvest human tissue, perhaps to sell on the interstellar market ("blackhole market"?). The last parts of the dream were a mix of City of God and District 9, as far as the gritty, impoverished surroundings went, and the wobbly, edgy camera work went.

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