OK, so a little backstory for those that don't know. Back when I started dating my bitch of an ex-girlfriend, she got me started on this diet stuff that her parents sold. The stuff worked great. I lost like 75 pounds in 6 months or so, but then slowly gained a little more than half back by the time we broke up. I still wanted to lose weight and that stuff and diet worked for me, so I asked the bitch to ask her mom if there was someone she knew close to my parents that sold it as well. Her mom said not really, but that she would keep selling it to me at a discount, I could just call my order in on a business phone number they ran, and she'd leave it in a big rubbermaid chest on their front porch. Take my stuff, leave my money, and go. That system worked great, until yesterday.

I went there yesterday to pick up an order. Granted I was early, and should've told her mom I'd be there early, but I neglected to do so. As I was pulling up to their house I was praying to a higher being that my stuff be in the box. So I pull up, and of course, it wasn't there. At this point I was debating what to do. I could go home and just come back later, but thats driving way out of the way, twice. So I sacked up, and rang the doorbell, not knowing what to expect. Thankfully her mom answered the door, she invited me in, said how good I looked, gave me my stuff, I gave her the money and we proceeded to chat for about 5 minutes. She was showing me photos from the bitch's sisters wedding, to which I barely looked at. It was just way too weird being in that house again. All the while we're talking I hear rumbling from upstairs, so of course the first thought going through my mind is oh shit, someone's home, I need to get out of here! Then I hear someone coming down the stairs. Thankfully it was just the bitch's brother in law. He said how good I looked and more idle chit chat, then I said I needed to be going, and left. Not once did the ho's name come up. Which was good. I barely noticed her in the wedding collage I glanced at (she looked the same, which was a little chubby!)

Weird experience. Lets hope that never happens again! Thankfully I'm almost at my target weight and then I'll stop this diet, see a nutritionist and get on a normal diet to maintain my weight.

Yes its that time of year again. Time to dress up and get candy. What couldn't be more fun? I actually am planning on attending a costume party this weekend, so I'm pretty psyched about that. My costume you ask? Highly original, I have to admit. I plan on donning my glasses, throwing on a suit, shirt, tie, shoes, and the all important last step in the costume, a Superman t-shirt. Yes, I'm that original. I'm going as Clark Kent changing into Superman. I figure unbutton a few buttons, undo the tie a little, show the Big S, and you're good to go. Now if I just get a spit curl in my hair, I'll be all set! It should be fun though. I hope so, considering all the costume cost me was $15 for the new tshirt. My old Superman tee was getting a little ragged, and probably doesn't even fit well anymore.

Speaking of that. The weight loss continues. The clothes that I just bought, are starting to feel loose. Thats good, and bad. Good for the obvious reason, bad because I just spent all this money on them two months ago. Oh well. I'll have to get a smaller belt, thats all and hold out until I hit my goal, whenever that is. So, the status report for this week. Very good results, I must say. Here we go... Drum roll please...

I am down another 5 pounds! Awesome! In total I'm down 57 pounds since I started this thing the day after July 4th weekend, I have another 23 to go before I hit that goal and get that guitar! All said and done, I'm 71% there. I can't wait until I get into the teens, and then single digits too. Lame, I know, but I'm psyched. And, most importantly, I'm feeling better.

My knee is feeling better too. I had physical therapy last night, and I go again tomorrow and its different, but this morning, walking around, no stiffness at all. No pain I could notice. Thats a good thing. The therapy sessions are more like getting a deep tissue massage just on my knee, thigh and hip area. Its a combination of feeling good and hurting, but in a sick, good way. It also involves a lot of stretching out of things in my bad leg, and doing some exercises like leg lifts and wall sits at home to build up the quad muscle. Its progress, so I'll stick with it, despite how unconventional it seems from the last time I went to PT.

Alright, back to work. Have a great weekend everyone! And Happy Halloween! I'll try to take some pics to post of me and my friends in our costumes. Brett's a fireman, surprise surprise. Rob and his friend are going as Ghost busters. Should be cool. Adios!

All I can really say is this, we threw one hell of a party! Craziness ensued, too much to really go into detail about, because I wasn't witness to too much of it. But the pictures can sort of tell the story. You can find them here:

Party Pictures!

I'll try to recount as best I can, but its not easy. We told people to show up at 7, but of course no one did. So in waiting for people to show up, of course we started drinking. We started the night off by all four of us, Shari, Seth, Rob and myself doing an Irish Car Bomb together. Way to start it off right, huh? We sat around some more and waited for people to show up. Shari and Rob started heating up some food, Seth watched some hockey, I tended to the music and started drinking a few beers.

Eventually people started showing up and the party was in full swing! I can't recall all the details, but Brett eventually showed up, as did the girl who will be the maid of honor at my brother's wedding and a friend of hers. And at some point in the evening I committed a huge faux pas, that I spent most of yesterday apologizing for. I let it slip in front of the maid of honor how much my brother spent on the engagement ring. Bad, I know. But, it could've been worse. I called up Beth, Randy's fiance and apologized, and we're all good. I shall just watch my tongue in the future.

Everyone was gone by about 3 AM, and it was just me and my roommates in our living room, with beer bottles all over the place. The party ended just like it began, with the 4 of us sitting around. I like that. The next morning we cleaned up while somehow Brett found his way onto the couch and was passed out snoring. We shared our collective stories, vowed to never party or drink again, and looked at the pics. Good times. I say we do it again in the Spring, but Shari needs convincing. Oh, and the never drinking again, that got shot to hell last night when I came home and after a crappy day downed a few beers, then Rob, Seth and myself split two pitchers of beer at the bar/restaurant we live behind while watching the Giants on Monday Night Football.

So my roommates and I are finally throwing our first party in our new house tomorrow night. Should be a lot of fun. I hope. I invited a bunch of people, but sadly, I don't think many from my invite list are coming. Oh well. According to Shari though, a ton from hers are, so it'll still be good. We're even going so far as to get a few trays of professionally prepared food, like Penne a la Vodka, and whatnot, and a quarter keg o'beer. It should definitely be an interesting experience. Hopefully we won't get kicked out because of it! I shall be back with a full report as soon as I sober up from the whole thing.

OK, onto the Friday progress report. Yeah, so I skipped it last week. I was just exhausted from the Ranger game the night before, and the fact that I drank at the game, and then came home and ate a huge bowl of cereal didn't help the scale in the morning. Last week I gained 2.5 pounds, but this week I lost it all, plus 1 more to grow on, so a total loss of 3.5 for the week, but only 1 from two weeks ago. Slow and steady wins the race, right? So the standing at the moment are, 52 pounds lost so far, with 28 more to go, and I'm 65% of the way there. At this rate, the holidays will be here and I'll just buy another guitar and amp, with my holiday bonus and still not have earned the one thats sitting in the closet at my parents house. Its all good though. All in due time.

In other news, I started physical therapy on Wednesday for my knee, and lets just say it wasn't what I was expecting at all. I kind of had a feeling something weird was up when I didn't see any kind of weight machines when I walked in, and it was more of a doctors office feel. So I get called in, and I go into what is basically an exam room, but with a kind of massage table in the middle. There's a radio playing all new age music in one corner, and a candle burning in this weird thing thats giving off smoke in the other corner. Yeah, so not you're traditional physical therapy place. They do something called Myofascial Release Therapy, which is very close to massage. Basically, fascia is connective tissue that runs throughout your entire body, so they work on relaxing that to ease tension on the muscles, or something. Like I said, it was very weird, very Eastern, very holistic-like. But, I figure I'll give it a shot. I'm not in such a bad state (actually getting better everyday) that this is the last ditch effort before surgery. If I do this and still wind up hurting myself somehow, I'll just go to a normal physical therapy place. Plus, the therapist was kind of cute! Bonus!

Alright, back to work. Looking forward to partying this weekend!

My brother's 30th Birthday celebration stretched out for the entire weekend. I'm exhausted from it, honestly. I just hope someone goes through that much trouble for me when I'm 30. They better.

The game was a lot of fun, even though the Ranger's lost, with 3.3 seconds left. That really sucked. But, my brother was thoroughly surprised that his friend came all the way in Florida. The game and all that stuff he kind of knew about, but he was shocked that his friend showed up. I had a lot of fun though, so thats what counts. Friday night we went out to John Harvards, just my parents, my brother and his friend for his birthday, as it was the day of his actual birthday. Saturday morning we went out for breakfast, hung out for most of the day and then went to friends of Randy's house to watch Ultimate Fighting Championship. All I can say is, thats the nastiest shit in the world and will never ever watch it again. Sunday my mom threw a BBQ and had my grandma, Randy's fiance, her parents, a bunch of his friends and Seth and Shari. A good time, and a full stomach was had by all.

Physical therapy starts tomorrow. I'm sort of half looking forward to it. I just want to get better and avoid surgery, even though I know its going to suck ass going through it all. We shall see how it turns out.

Alright, catching up on TV. Adios for now.

So I went back to the doctor yesterday for what I thought was going to be a follow up visit on the state of my knee. The odd thing going in was that it was with another doctor in that practice. I thought my main guy was just off for the day. Turns out, it wasn't a follow up, but the second opinion my original orthopedic doctor told me to get. I was confused as I thought the whole purpose of a second opinion is to see someone that doesn't work with the original doctor, like someone who has his own practice, or something. I guess not in this instance. When I voiced this to the nurse or whoever brought me into the exam room she asked if I wanted to cancel. I figured I was there, I took off from work already, waited in the waiting room to be called, I might as well see someone.

So the doctor I saw said that basically surgery was a last resort, so he kind of agreed with my opinion on the surgery as well, but he did suggest that maybe some physical therapy would help. I kind of think that it could. At least I'll start working out the muscles that I'm supposed to be strengthening in my leg, my quads mostly, isolate those and prevent this kind of injury from happening. We'll see how it works out. I start next Wednesday, the 18th, after work. Fun times.

That's it for now people.

It was a very weird feeling for me on Sunday night. I went to bed thinking I had accomplished a lot during the previous two days. The sad thing is, when looking back on it, I can't really think of anything. Seriously. I did take it very easy over the weekend and my knee is starting to feel better. I'm in no way at 100%, but I'm getting there. I no longer feel like I'm going to fall on my ass the second I get out of bed and step down on my leg, so thats a good thing. The limp is going away and its not so painful to exercise anymore. I still hate wearing this damn brace and count the minutes until I get home and can take it off. It sucks, we'll leave it at that.

But the weekend was good. I spent Friday night at my place and went to my parents on Saturday morning. Had my usual guitar lesson and things are progressing there nicely. I'm two weeks into my whole, learn to play, learn the fretboard more, and so far so good. I'm really only learning scales and different techniques, but I think it'll help. I trust my teacher. After the lesson I went to Guitar Center for awhile to try some stuff out, and to buy a big ten pack of strings. I was thinking I wanted a cheap guitar to mess around with and modify for my birthday, but now I'm rethinking that. We'll see how I feel in a month. Saturday night I watched the Rangers win in a shootout, which was sweet. And, to celebrate my Strat's one year anniversary of being owned by me, I gave her a nice cleaning, and slapped on a new set of strings. I love that guitar. I play it more now than my other one. I think its the John Mayer influence on me, as he plays mostly Strats.

Anyway, Sunday I hung around my parents for awhile, eventually went back to my house and relaxed the night away. I had to work yesterday despite the holiday, and here we are on Tuesday afternoon. I'm working half days the next two days. Tomorrow to go for a followup on my knee. Thursday is the day of my brothers surprise 30th birthday Ranger game. So I have to pick up his best friend who's flying in from Florida at the airport, get my mom and then go to my dad's office to meet him, and then we'll all drive into the city to surprise Randy. Should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. I hope he's shocked. He knows something is going on, he just doesn't know what!

Alright, back to work!

Well, the title is a dead giveaway, but who cares. I'll just jump right into it.

Those four pounds I gained last week? Gone, along with two more, so I'm down 6 six this week. Honestly, a lot of that was probably in the pizza I ate the night before last weigh in, and it was probably still somewhere in me. So, down 6, for a total of 51, breaking that barrier, with 29 to go and 64% of the way there. So with the 50 pound mark, I have lost a total of 100 pounds since I started losing weight and dieting and all that other fun stuff over three years ago. Took awhile, but I got there. This would have also been my stopping point and I'd have my guitar now, but that'll have to wait until those 29 pounds go as well.

I know that when I first started doing this, and talking about getting the guitar it was all in good fun and that seemed like the main reason I was doing it, but its definitely taken a back seat with all the recent developments with my knee. Don't get me wrong, I love the guitar, and I want it, but at the moment, healing my knee is definitely the top priority. I've been wearing this annoying brace all week long, working out a bit as well, and it still hurts. I realize its going to take time and that I can't give up hope yet, but part of me feels like this is just a pain I'll have to live with my whole life. I definitely do not want to have surgery, not after everything my doctor said about this particular procedure and everything I've read about it. So I'm going to try to avoid that like the plague. I have a follow-up appointment with the doctor on Wednesday, so we'll see how it is by then. I plan on taking it very easy this weekend, so hopefully that'll help.

In other news, Seth, Rob and myself had our first jam session last night. All acoustic too, which wasn't so bad. I just don't like playing acoustic, but it was fun. I think going forward I'm going to play electric and let them go acoustic. It was a lot of fun, we messed around with a few songs, but after awhile, 3 guys strumming the same chords got a little monotonous, so I applied some of what I've been practicing this week to it. I've been really gung ho about improving my knowledge of the fret board, and soloing and scales. So while they were strumming away, I was trying to figure out what key the songs were in, and playing a solo (which is basically just notes in that scale) over it. It sounded really cool. And really good practice. We all had a good time. We're going to try to make Thursday nights our regular Emily Valentine rehearsal time. Yes, thats the name of our band!

Alright, back to work. Have a great weekend everyone!

So, I found this pretty interesting website. You upload a phot of yourself and it runs some kind of face recognition software and pulls up a list of celebrities that you look like. Go to MyHeritage and check it out. Here's me. I look most like Hayden Christensen, young Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker himself. Cool, huh?

What a crazy weekend. So much to report, its not even funny. I'll start with the biggest news and work my way back.

First off the bat, my brother is getting married! He picked up the ring he ordered on Saturday and popped the question Saturday night, after which I got the call saying she said yes. Ready for even more craziness? They already have a location for the wedding/reception, and a date. So mark your calendars, November 10, 2007, my brother gets married and I'll have a sister-in-law. Oh, and I'm the best man, which I was pretty shocked at, but its a very cool thing. Shocked because I may have made mention to my brother, probably while drunk, that he wouldn't be my best man in the event of my nuptials. So I have to make a speech and plan a bachelor party, right? I think I can handle that. So they're already making up guest lists, my parents, my mom specifically want to be involved in the planning, and my dad offered to split the cost with her parents, so that basically buys her the say she wants. Have I mentioned yet how glad I am that its not me getting married? Well, I am. At least now I get to see the effect this has on my parents from the outside. I can take notes, careful notes, for whenever my time comes around. Next!

My knee is still messed up so I went to the doctor today. Not good news. I now have to wear a brace for most of the day, under my clothes, thankfully. But an uncomfortable thing either way. I need to keep doing the rehab that I'm doing. I need to keep losing weight and working out and strengthening the leg, and give it time to get stronger and better. If I'm still having problems in a month or two, I'll be getting a second opinion, because the other option of surgery, didn't sound pleasant. If I remember correctly the procedure was a two parter, called a proximal realignment and lateral release. I'm suffering from something called Patellar Track Disorder, which is kind of what it says. My knee cap (patella) has trouble staying in the track of bone that its supposed to and has a tendency to dislocate. It won't stay in its track because the tendons on one side of it are tighter than the other side, where its weaker. So the tightness has a tendency to pull the knee cap out of place. This would explain why I hurt it doing absolutely nothing. My doctor said thats when its most likely to happen, as the muscles and everything are at rest. It also explains why I've felt the occasional "my knee is about to give out" feelings that I've had in recent weeks, but that it didn't. So, back to the surgery. I'm not psyched about the prospect of it. Mostly because of the following. According to my doctor, its not a procedure he's fond of performing. It can't be done arthroscopically, so there will be incision marks on both sides of my knee, where they're release some of the tightness on one side of the knee cap and adjust it on the other. This surgery has a very long rehab period. And here's the kicker, the benefits of said surgery, are marginal at best. So, not psyched about the surgery. Going to keep doing what I'm doing, wear the brace and pray that it gets better.

Lastly, went out with Brett on Saturday night, until 5 AM Sunday morning! We went to the Post Office Cafe for dinner and drinks and a girl that Brett's been talking to on Match.com came and met us, and she was really cool. We went out drinking for most of the night, then got some food at a local diner and then left. Brett wasn't too into her, but I kind of liked her and thought she might have liked me too. So I got her number from Brett and sent her a text message, to which she responded by calling me back, and we had a little talk, where she said that she'd like to hang out, get a drink, whatever, at some point soon. So we'll see how that goes.

Alright, thats it. Time for bed! Night folks!