Racing. Hard.

I was looking through a computer magazine a few days ago.

And something caught my eye.


iracing.com.


Someone mentioned it off-hand in reference to some force-feedback gaming wheels.


Needless to say, my last few days have been a blur and a headacke of racing hour upon hour.


And I am NOT good.

Pretty crazy set-up huh??  (Obviously not mine.)

I've actually been burning out my wheel(s), had to return the first one almost the first day, and this one is starting to smoke too.

Sunshine.

Feels like all I need to do to stay happy, is get a bit of sun everyday =)!!

Ah, Audrey Hepburn. How I wish you had lived in my time/place/orbit.

The best looking woman of all time. Or at least these last 200 years.

Tough as balls.

Almost as Badass as the Badger.

My attempt at god-like control over my computer. Fail.

So.

I finally figured out why my copy of Starcraft 2 wouldn't run on my computer.

It wasn't, exactly, what I first thought.

When I first tried, and then tried, and then tried again, and then..... to run my copy of SC2, it kept crashing before it really even would get a chance to load.

Using my vastly superior intellect. I decided that the ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION is that my cpu was not powerful enough, (Which it isn't, to be fair).

Let's just say, that after months of beating my head against a wall, crying "Woe is me, who must again buy a new comp *again* just to run a single computer game!",
I accidently turned off the firewall one day and, Low and Behold!!! while trying to run the damned game (For the last time....haha, ya right). IT RAN!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE *&$#???

So, folks, today's lesson #1 is, turn off your firewall before running Starcraft 2.


Well, after hours and hours of trying to play the game, being yelled at (Metaphorically) by other players the whole time, telling me to quit my lagging or they where going to track my IP adress and find my house adress. After that they told me they where going to come right up to my house, get really angry and buy me some beers in retribuition, screaming the whole time, they would crack one open and pass it to me..

I realised soon that this game just was lagging to Hard, to really be playable.

Well thats when Idea #8.7*came into play.


Overclocking.


Thats right folks.


OVERCLOCKING!


Overclocking is basically like boring out your cyclinders on your engine. It will increase power, but its difficult to do, and also risky. Essentially you run the risk of overheating your cpu, melting it. You can overclock your video card, cpu, and RAM.

Well, Since I was potentially willing to purchase a new computer all together (Something I don't want to do).

I thought that was a great idea.


Lets just say, that 39 hours later, losing massive amounts of sleep, creating bowel problems from inconsistent intake of food, turning my hair gray from stress, becoming partially bald from hair pulling; oh and lets not forget being forced to re-format my computer, losing ALL my music, budget info, programs, documents....

My gaming has NOT improved,
I have NOT done anything other than waste a SUBSTANTIAL amount of time,
I HAVE managed to ruin my chances with women
I HAVE managed to completely fail at life.
...
Haha, well maybe thats a bit extreme.


Well, there is always a bright side to it. All this fucking around, has developed a couple more potential leads; Getting my computer to run directly to the router instead of wireless, upgrading the motherboard to gain access to overclocking options for cpu... etc.

Lesson #2 folks... Don't play Starcraft 2, or any computer game for that matter.   Ever.

* (Thats how many ideas I've actually had in my sad exsistence in life),



When you overclock a CPU, you need to stop it from overheating.... So.... This, is what I constructed......
Looks nice and modest doesn't it?

Back to the Drawing Board

So, On valentines evening, Having no clue as too the "importance" of the evening was to some people, I went to the climbing gym. Just another monday,

But Man!

The place was Slammed!

It took me a hour or so, to put two and two together and remember something about valentines day.

Bascially, where this is going, is that because it was so busy, I ended up sticking to the caves (The overhung area, very difficult on the body). And of course, not warming up properly, I destroyed my body.

Torso - blown
Elbows - blown
Intelligence - blown

The biggest issue was that I tweaked my torso, bad enough to make it hard to sleep, as well as re-injuring my arm joints. (both injuries still hurt today, two full days past the climb).

Having just recovered from tendonitis on both elbows, I am super upset that I immediately put myself out of commission for training.

I know the arm injury isnt related to the tendonitis, as the pain is on opposite sides of my arms from where it was painful before. And this is more of a muscle tear/stretch, than a tendon pull.


So,

This got me reading BIG into body training.

I read all of the DONT DO THIS's and realized that so many of those, I had being doing.

- Overtraining
- Excercising when muscles are sore
- Not stretching enough
- Not warming up slowly and carefully enough
- Not *Cooling Down* after a work-out

I have never trained for a sport in my life, although I have always been athletic, and I am learning the hard way, that it isnt so simple.

Today, I hit the regular gym, and worked on muscles that are opposed to the muscles I use for climbing.

I have been strongly advised to work the opposite muscles to the 'Pull' muscles that I use for climbing. Basically climbers develop extremely strong back muscles, but build no chest strength. Build their forearms up on the bottom heavily, but build no muscle on the top, Develop a extremely strong grip muscles for their hands, but don't develop the opposite muscles.

All these imbalances ultimately are destructive on the joints and composition of the body. Even though, as a climber, I technically only "need" certain muscles, my body gets weekened by the imbalance of muscle.



Also, Another thing I read today, Is that a teacher looked at two groups in his pottery class from the beginning of the year, till the end of the course.

Half the class focused on quality, The other half focused on quantity.

In the beginning, group number one (Quality) got better grades,

but by the end of the course, group two (Quantity) where producing excellent quality pottery, at a MUCH higher production.

The first group, where struggling to produce the "perfect" Piece, while the second group where banging out bowl after cup after vase after....etc.

I have been climbing like the first group. Spending WAY too much time fighting through ONE problem, while I should be doing ten different easier problems each night. (A problem is a route).

Essentially, building up my confidence, while also making me a more efficient climber.


Back to the Drawing Board.