ctb4469's blog

Human interest is not very interesting.

I have a hard time watching local news broadcasts after the second commercial break.  Generally, that’s when the networks turn to human interest stories.

I guess I should care, but generally, I don’t.  I can’t help but think that I wouldn’t have seen this news any other way and, therefore, it’s not that important.

One day it’s a story about a cat that was stuck in a wall.  I love cats, but I imagine that if I heard every quirky cat story, I wouldn’t.  How did the broadcasters choose this story?  Surely, proximity was a factor.  But should that make me more interested? 

The next day, it’s a story about an elderly woman without air conditioning.  Am I jaded?  The anchors don’t solicit my help.  As a matter of fact, they explain how church volunteers bought and installed window units.  Problem solved?  Yes!  Interest generated?  Not so much.  At a minimum, I agree that the volunteers deserve praise, but I imagine that each would dismiss it.

Maybe there’s a story about a man who is frequently mistaken for George W. Bush.  Or maybe a man is fired from his Santa Claus job because he refuses to work on Christmas Day.  Local high school sports star gives blood.  Doctor donates aspirin to senior center.

There’s a reason these stories are relegated to the end of the broadcast.  Most of the time they feel like filler, as if there wasn’t enough real news to fill the 25-minute broadcast. 

Maybe it’s an inside joke.  Maybe it’s how old journalists haze new journalists.  Actually, if that were true, I might be slightly interested.

The cat was fine, by the way.

Roger Federer was knocked out of Wimbledon quarterfinals by 12^th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Wednesday. Federer was up two sets, but Tsonga came back with decisive breaks in the final three sets.

Is it the end of an era?  Federer has lost at three of the last four Wimbledon tournaments.  He’s one game away from tying Pete Sampras’ record of seven Wimbledon titles.  He looks stiff, but he’s always looked stiff.  He looks disengaged, but he’s always looked disengaged.  Federer’s game was one of textbook precision, emotional control and all-around technique.  He has a good serve, but many are better.  He’s a great returner, but…I could go on.  I always felt it was his mechanical mindset that set him apart.  Even in the face of defeat, he looks analytical, not discouraged.  Often, he fights out of those situations, and it’s easy to imagine that if emotion had surfaced, he might not have.

Wednesday’s match was different.  Federer seemed discouraged.  Still, Federer at his worst is still Federer.  Tsonga had to dig deep to capitalize on what could have been a brief failing.  He also had to maintain an aggressive game against arguably the sport’s greatest player.

So, is the end of an era?  Is Federer like Sampras, who quit while he was ahead, leaving us all to wish we could see more?  Or is he like Agassi, who trained hard and was a top player in to his 30s?

In order to be No. 1 again, I think Federer will have to reach a new level, a la Agassi.  It won’t be enough to just be Federer at his best.  The field is strong, with Nadal and Djokovic playing fantastic tennis, and earning spots ahead of him. 

Either way, it’s an exciting time.  The best player in the sport may be vulnerable.  What does that mean for tennis, and for us? 

Anticipation, speculation, uncertainty, drama, suspense, and some good tennis.  That’s what.

More and more studies support the idea that building muscle is the best way to lose fat.  The high-intensity training method, or HIT, purports to be the best way to accomplish that.  The technique was originally developed by Arthur Jones, creator of Nautilus exercise equipment, and used by world-class bodybuilders like Mike Mentzer and Casey Viator, both former Mr. Universe winners.

HIT supporters approach muscle development in a logical, scientific way.  In order to build muscle, one must trigger a growth mechanism and then allow the muscle to respond.  That is, allow it to grow.

HIT separates itself in how it accomplishes those functions.  In HIT, the growth trigger is very specific.  In order to trigger growth, you must reach momentary muscular failure.  While this sounds reasonable, it’s difficult.  Muscle failure is well outside most people’s comfort zone.  Failure comes long after fatigue and soreness.

HIT requires brief sessions.  The human body can’t support that kind of effort for long.  Exercises are generally limited to one set of 8-20 repetitions.  This is a sticking point with the traditional ‘3 sets of 8-10’ mentality.  In the HIT method, though, one set to complete failure is all that is required to trigger growth.  Anything more is a detriment.

Rest plays a significant role in HIT.  The mechanism that increase muscle size in response to training also repairs muscle.  Any activity beyond the growth trigger, i.e. extra sets, builds a debt that has to be paid by the recovery system before growth can occur.  HIT also maintains that the recovery system has very limited resources.  As such, the brief, one-set exercise session should be followed by a period of quality rest.  Beginning workouts should be followed by 48 hours of rest, with no exercise.  In advanced training, the periods can be 4-5 days.  The idea is that, with a limited ability to recover, lifting heavier weights costs more, and takes more time to pay back before growth can occur.  This concept extends to the number of different muscles trained per session, decreasing as greater weights and effort are used.

HIT proponents claim that this is why many bodybuilders plateau, or fail to see significant results even when training for hours each day.  Their body is unable to recover from those sessions sufficiently to provide growth.  Arthur Jones reportedly guaranteed a three-quarter inch increase in bicep size in 4 days to any body-builder who trained with him.  To those that took him up, his first order was to rest for 4 days.  The story says that, to a man, each grew at least that much with no workout.

There are a number of books on HIT training.  Mike Mentzer’s “High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way” provides an almost scientific explanation of each facet of HIT.  Ellington Darden’s “The New High Intensity Training” takes a different approach.  While Mentzer explains what happens to a muscle on a cellular level, Darden provides anecdotes that illustrate the point.  For instance, lions maintain significant power and muscle mass using very brief bouts of intense, all-out effort, followed by long periods of rest.  Both books provide beginning, intermediate and advances workouts and diet tips.

My family and friends think that I’m paranoid.

They’re right.

I frequent technology news sites and what I read terrifies me.  Having worked in the tech industry, I’m acutely aware of how little consideration people give to security and privacy.  This may be fine for what I would consider everyday, general technology usage, but now, everyday, general usage seems to include willingly placing extremely personal information on the web in great amounts and great frequency.

I have very little desire to participate in online social networking.  I understand the draw and the benefits.  I also understand the dangers, minor and major.  It would be nice to talk to high school buddies, but I would most likely lose interest in that quickly.  If those people were that interesting, I like to think that I would have heard about or from them.  I am still in contact with several friends from high school, and that’s good enough for me.  I don’t feel like I’m missing anything important.

I know what information I could glean from social networking sites if I tried.  Even without any hacker skills, someone with minor psychology training could infer enough from the information to manipulate and take advantage of another.  This happens, and regularly!

If I were completely secured from identity theft, hacking or physical loss, I still couldn’t imagine providing so much insight to the inner workings of me.  I would no more yell my personal interests and feelings to someone across a crowded room than I would post them online, even if that someone is a dear friend.  That is reserved for people who put forth more effort than clicking the add me button.

I am not a fan of the CBS television show “Two and a Half Men”.  The characters and situations are very formulaic, and the acting is less than nuanced.  I fail to understand how it came to be a hit comedy show at a time when better shows are cancelled before they finish their first season.

Angus T. Jones, as the half-a-man, is excused.  He was 10 years old when he began the role of Jake Harper.  As with most child-stars, if they can read a script, they come across as cute.  The lamest joke, spoken by a child, can yield the biggest laughs.  Unfortunately, he is not 10 anymore.  I believe that if the casting director could have predicted the future, he or she may not have cast Jones.  Obviously, it is too late to recast him, but the character would be better-served with a real actor.

The role of Alan Harper, played by Jon Cryer, is well-defined, but that definition restricts Cryer.  His other work, while not Oscar material, delivers range not seen in this role.  Alan Harper is a modern day Felix Ungar, obsessing over right and wrong, clean and dirty, carefree and responsible.  Cryer brings some depth, but the role is the moral anchor and, therefore, sunk deep in the water that is the show.  Alan is far from perfect, but the humor lies in his attempt to achieve perfection or, more often, to hide his imperfections.  His most prominent role, however, is the straight man.

Enter the funny man, Charlie Sheen.  Sheen’s very-public private life led to his very-public firing.  The show however, must go on, as will my critique.

Sheen’s character, also named Charlie, delivered the one-liners to Cryer’s set-ups.  Sheen’s comic timing was non-existent.  The actor never seemed energized.  His eyes did not move around a room naturally.  He trudged across screen in a way that made him seem older than he is.  Sheen has a great resume.  He has even done situational comedy before, when he stepped in after Michael J. Fox left “Spin City”.  Comedy is not his strong suit, but that performance wallops his Charlie Harper.

Sheen was fired, and the demographic held its collective breath about the fate of the show.  Ashton Kutcher was cast in early 2011.  The show sails on, leaving better shows adrift in its wake.

For the most part, I blame Chuck Lorre for the show’s quality.  While I imagine the show as better with higher-quality acting, the gags and themes are no better than the VHF-relegated shows from the 1980s.  The tragedy here is that I know he can do better.  I am a fan of his other show, “The Big Bang Theory”, and have seen enough of his other sit-coms to know that he can write quality, relevant and poignant television.  So many shows today are predictable.  This one just seems dumb, and not likably so.

I have little hope that Kutcher will bring much to the table.  Like the show, I find him over-rated.  He is a step up from Sheen, though.  I plan to watch, but I expect my opinion will hold.

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