Before I forget, to those of my friends and coworkers celebrating Hanukkah: Happy Hanukkah! Enjoy these last few nights!

To those who celebrated Christmas in all its commercial glory, I hope you had a nice Holiday!

When I started this month in a 30-day-challenge, I knew it was going to be hectic and I’d really have to push myself to blog each night. I also knew that I probably wouldn’t make it, but jumped in with the reality that my site needed some content badly. Looking back, I missed several nights, had some nights that were blah-di-dah, and a few gems out of it. Which is really all I could ask for. I haven’t even twittered every day this month, which is really saying something.

So tonight, because I love each and everyone twelve of you who actually ready my feed, I’m going to go rapidfire and publish 30 posts tonight!! Ok, more like four or five. But this should help make up for some of the nights that I missed.

Maybe next challenge will be a 24 hours of blogging challenge? One post per hour for 24 hours. Sounds deadly.

Even though I gave in to temptation at the office, I’m still doing well on my moderate weight loss goals. I’m yo-yo’ing like crazy though. I was down 13 lbs from where I started, almost 1/3 my goal, when I weighed in a few days ago. Today I weighed in and I’ve since gained 8 lbs of that back. To be fair, I didn’t weigh my self at the same time I normally do, which is the morning. And it was after I ate a big meal and drank a lot of water. So tomorrow when I weigh in I have a feeling I still have gained a little bit of weight but it won’t be the 8 lbs.

To help track my progress and develop a trend line, I installed The Hacker’s Diet plugin as suggested by John. Now if I could just get him to tell me his secret about getting the charts displayed on a publicly viewable page within WordPress.

In addition, I have been running 2-3 times per week on a regular basis. I also started a very light weight training program, so that when I decide to move to a full weight-training schedule I won’t be too green.

Final Thought: Anyone else see the irony in having a 2-hour long prime-time TV show about losing weight?

What a waste of my time.

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers story is about an alien virus that is easily communicable and turns the infected into an emotionless, almost mindless, collective. The goal of the infected is to seek out and hunt down those that aren’t infected and, well, infect them. Or give them death. Whichever is easier. They can tell you aren’t part of the collective if you show emotion, if your heartbeats faster, or if you sweat. Show anything more than a stoic look on your face and you are theirs.

I remember seeing the original when I was much younger. Even in this remake, I still love the story line, but man did they miss the mark on this one. Normally I don’t think you can go wrong casting Nicole Kidman for a part, but this may have been one time when she wasn’t the right fit. Or perhaps we could blame the direction. It’s gotta be damn near impossible to film something where you can’t express emotion.

But Joss Whedon came damn close. And he did it for TV.

I haven’t seen many Buffy episodes, but there is one that is so thrilling, so defiantly creepy, that it sticks out in my mind. The episode was “Hush” and I think it is Joss Whedon’s masterpiece. It revolves around a fairytale. And I think it is the best adaptation of a Nightmare being brought to life through the magic of film making.

The Gentlemen come to a town and steal the voices of all who live there. You can’t talk, you can’t cry, you can’t scream. They then hover, yes hover, around town and look for victims and cut out their hearts. No one hears them coming. No one can hear the screams of the victims.

I searched and searched for a good clip of the episode, but unfortunately Hulu doesn’t have this season of Buffy on their service yet (give it time though). In mean time, I found the original trailer for your entertainment. If you have the DVD’s, load up Hush and enjoy!

So where am I going with this? There are several parallels: Classic story vs. fairytale; missing elements that make us human (voice vs. emotion); innocent beings being hunted down like prey; and nightmares.

I think Joss Whedon wins!

BTW, don’t get me started on the whole “I am Legend” vs. Bodysnatchers meme. Which I also think did a MUCH better job than “The Invasion”, and it was pretty much the same movie except staring a dude.

Ok, you got me started… Let’s compare those two movies: Infection rips through society turning humans into more than humans vs. Infection ripping through society turning humans into aliens; a doctor plays the lead in both movies; both try to get to an outpost of immune survivors; both find ways of surviving among the infected; both find cures and start to rebuild society (oops, sorry, that was a spoiler).

In the case of The Invasion vs. I Am Legend, I have to give this win to Will Smith.

For the title match: Sarah Michelle Gellar vs. fresh prince dance-off to “Gettin Jiggy Wit It”.

I’m beginning to accept what some of my strengths and weaknesses are. I’m great at the idea concept stage and strategizing a long term vision. I’m horrible at the details of what happens between concept and vision.

I’m great at quick burst projects, things that can get done in a couple weeks or less. I’m horrible at keeping interest if it spans beyond that.

I’m great at initiating contact and establishing solid relationships with potential vendors. I’m not as good during the implementation stage (though to my credit, I had an awesome success with a vendor this past summer). I’m worse at ending the relationship.

So I have strengths in initiating things and getting them past drawing board. I can accept that. What I need to do (and have done for the most part) is make sure I have the people behind me that can execute on my vision. This is for both my professional and personal projects (example of a personal project: it took me two months to tile our shower, it would have taken a pro all of 4 hours.)

What I also struggle with is timelines. Since I’m so used to being a one-man-show when it comes to producing sites, I always feel that I can get something done faster than what reality is. Other projects fill my co-workers queue, and in the grand scheme of things a proper website takes time. I wanted to launch a WordProject before Thanksgiving. It’s still not done. It’s at about the 90% and I found myself getting frustrated. Then a thought occured to me that if I were launching this site at a major public corporation, this thing would still be sitting on someones desk waiting for approval, and could take months or even a year to get it launched properly. The fact that I haven’t launched it after 3 weeks of working on it isn’t something I should be ashamed of. I just need to be patient, and realize that quality work takes quality time.

So in addition to joining others on this 30 day blogging challenge, I also took it upon myself to join a weightloss challenge with John and a few of his buddies. Unfortunately for you, that means that I’ll be doing some fatblogging a month earlier than the rest of the world.

This challenge isn’t just “who weighs the least at end of X amount of time” like most weightloss challenges. Instead, I give them what I want my desired goal to be. This goal is then devided 12 times, and setup as milestones every 2 weeks or so. So for my goal of 36 pounds, I need to lose 3 pounds every two weeks. Sounds simple enough, but I also kept in mind that Holiday foodstuff is a keen weekness of mine. Cookies, eggnog, turkies and hams, and a family tradition that my mother-in-law makes called Tea Ring. Yum!

In an effort to curtail some of my weaknesses, I’m going to rely on my blog as a quick place I can go for some fat camp therapy. If you see half-crazed posts about how we just got a goodie basket and I can’t break away from the Poppycock, then you’ll at least know the reason why.

So far, I’m ahead of schedule by 1 pound. I have another week until my first official milestone, so as long as I don’t mess up and GAIN weight, then I should be fine.
John, who invited me to this whole mess of another challenge (and yes I really need it) has a really cool plugin that charts your weight and progress. I forget it at the moment, but once I find it, I’ll be adding it to my blog as another tool.

So far, I’ve been able to hit the treadmill like a machine. It didn’t take long for me to get some wheels back. I’m slowly working my way up to a 45 minute run. I’m at 15 minutes now, which is 5 minutes more than last week. Once I hit 25-30 minutes at my current pace I’m going to notch up the speed too. I also hit a few circuit weights when I’m at the gym, but nothing fancy. I’m mostly concerned about getting my cardio up first.

Now I just need to work on my eating habits.

It was asked when I’ll do my next daily recap, to which I must answer: “When I can.” I enjoyed writing the two that I did so far, mostly I made time to read what everyone was writing. But unfortunately I’ve brought it upon myself to finalize a project that I’ve been working on forever, and to finish it by the end of this weekend. After that I’ll have a lot more personal time to pursue things that are a lot more enjoyable to me, such as the daily recap!

My alien abduction last night didn’t help either.

But it wasn’t my fault. UFOs kept me away from the blog. It’s the truth! Last night at about 11:00 pm I was flipping through the channels to find something that would be good “background noise” while I wrapped my blogs. I came across Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind just as it was starting. I was immediatley enthralled once again by this masterpiece. This film was done so well that it could be released today and it would be just as good. The storytelling, the detailed cinematography, the special effects, the acting, and the directing were all timeless.

I remember watching this when I was 8 or 9. I don’t know if my parents knew I watched it or not. But it was totally fascinating to me. There were some scenes that were so intense that I had nightmares for months after seeing them. This one scene I remember vividly from my childhood:

As an adult I watch this and am very entertained. Just remembering the emotions I went through as a kid gives me that much more satisfaction watching it as an adult. Fright is a powerful emotion, and I love the adrenaline rush, even if it was from 20 years ago!

And yes, Aliens kept me from blogging last night.

Well, looks like I have to read Jake’s post last…

John takes us into the universe of Wordpress again with a focus on paid themes. He’s done some cool stuff with the Revolution theme so far, including Video Game Dude and a site for his Massage Therapist. There’s a third Revolution based site in the works, and I’m glad say that I’ll be working with him on it. It is going to be one of the coolest Rev sites you’ve seen!

Less exciting is my blast to the past with my soliloquy about past, present, and future of Nokia. My intentions were to make a brief update, but I ended up with a feature piece that made everyone’s eye-rolling audible from half way around the country! Heh, oops.

Ruh roh, 408Down gets a sad trombone.

My shirtwatch gets a DOUBLE sad trombone. I decided to pull it from the challenge since I plan on relaunching it on Jan 1. With prizes! (Guess what I’m giving away: it’s not pants!)

When it comes to daily blogging, Jessi is getting the job done! Hey it is postworthy too, with her find of Burda in her mailbox, and mostly because she discovered that Minnesota is full of passive aggressives. As if she didn’t get enough passive aggressive sightings in Utah!

Geof-eff-eff reports that Black Friday was indeed a success in the retail sector. Cool, I guess. But he neglects to mention that the 2% rise in sales only cost retailers 3 human lives this year. They blame the economy. Yay America. sad trombone (for retailers, not Geoff. Good job Geoff!)

You know someone is doing some heavy reading when you have to choke through their titles of their reading list. Such is James. His reading list reads as if it came straight out of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I still have “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” on my bookshelf.

MoneyRemix gives us some tips on how to fly home for the holidays on the cheap. Driving may be a better option now that gas is cheap (I think they watered it down). USAirways still charges you $15 for bringing luggage and $2 for an onboard Coke!

And now back to Jake. Damnit Jake (new nickname) posted 29 years worth of toys and now I’m googling Micro Machines and M.U.S.C.L.E. men. He said something about twitter too, but somehow I lost my interest. Oooo, ebay!

QUICK UPDATE: OOPS! 408Down DID post yesterday about the challenge (of all things)! When I wrote this post, the RSS feed from Netvibes didn’t update. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is piss of a chick who carries boxing gloves, shooting targets, and I’m sure a gun (probably a 30 out 6) around in her car. Sorry Sarah! I’ll be sure to manually refresh the feeds for my recap tomorrow!

Before I start though, take a quick look at the public page I created on Netvibes for this challenge. Pretty cool, huh? Ok, now here I go…

James and his wife were so excited about the challenge that they had a baby! Wow, way to kick things off James! Ok, so the baby girl is a couple of weeks old, but it sure is a great way to start a month of writing!

When not crafting cool handbags, Jessi uses her blog as light therapy. For her real issues, I’m sure she uses her fake facebook account. C’mon Jess, share the juicy stuff!

408Down uses blogspot as therapy too! In yesterday’s post she admits to seeing a recent New Kids concert. Not only that, but it sounds like she got in a drunk fight too. Ok, that would have been a cool concert to start a fight at.

Sweet news: John is taking requests. He kicks off the challenge with his can’t-live-without-wordpress-plugins list. I like plugins. I like them a lot.

Geoff writes about a company attempting to spread the retail black-weekend to 5(!) days. Mobile Tuesday? For real? Yawn. I think I consider this a fail since the first time I heard about it is from Geoff, and Tuesday is pretty much over. I like Geoff’s other post about his soon-to-be new toy: Western Digital – WD HD TV Media Player.

While reading Jake’s post about always on internet, my ADD kicked in as soon as he mentioned Hamster Dance! Whoa. That’s deep.

Pete gives sound advice for money management and budgeting during the holidays. Except that he advises to NOT tell your kids there is no Santa Claus this year. Oops, too late.

My attempt to revive shirtwatch already failed. I get sad trombone. But in all fairness I fell asleep at the keyboard last night. And to make up for it, I will feature two shirts today! But it is a failure nonetheless.

However, I rocked TJMS with announcing the 30 Day Bloggers Fight Club and in case anyone bitched about cheating by talking/blogging about fight club(cough cough, John!), I made a back up post about some contest that marketers would enjoy.

And I think…yup…that’s a wrap. Woo hoo!

The last challenge failed miserably for me and my COX-enable internet nightmare. So much so that the sight of my site gave me PTD. Others fared the same and/or better. Jake cheated because he tweeted, but we love him anyway. And Hawkins conquered all, posting a damn good streak way past 30 days. Also, my remixers posted every day, but I paid them.

Omni and Hockey Mom, you guys game?

Mr. Vegas Wordpress is go!

Kupka wants to play.

I’m in once. twice. thrice?

Who else wants to join?

It’s the busiest time of year, especially for our industry. It’s the eve of WordCamps 1 and 2. Stories will be told for generations to come.

Who will be the last man standing?

UPDATE: Jessimeister has joined us for our blogger games!

Who’s got next?

UPDATEZ: 408down is on the UP’n UP and joined el Concurso! This will be fun! Her blogspot profile says “always drunk, often happy”. Err… I read that wrong, but I like my version better.

UPTADATE: Geoff Is Awesome (who’s name doesn’t start with a ‘J’, but that’s ok because Sarah already broke the trend) has joined our battle of the blogs and promises not to post about his love of fruitcake.

UPDATEDZ: Jake is back with us for another go! I promise to give Jake fair coverage even though I secretly hate and/or love him for having such a cool domain name. I wish I had my name, sigh.

Who else? It’s never to late to join! Jump jump!