Friday night we went to a pub crawl - stayed out until 12 AM. Woke up at 11 AM Saturday. It was hot again (whyyy? December in shorts and sweating your ass off is NO FUN. Seriously, just try to be festive while sweating and hanging lights. Its not easy.) It was hot and we had a party Sat night, so I decided my day would be best spent on the couch watching all my TiVo'd shows before the DirecTV guys showed up to switch out our receivers.
We got a HD DVR b/c our 2nd TiVo unit is slowly dying. We got a good deal on it, so hey, why not. Guys were supposed to show up btwn noon - 4. We had the party at 7. Guys called at 2:30 asking if they could show up at 5 since we were last on their list. I told them we had to leave at 6 for the party and they said that they could be done by 6 no problem. Which really wasn't helpful, since I still had to shower and get ready for the party - and that simply wasn't going to happen with random repair guys in my house. They did actually show at 4, but left at 6. They did something to mess up our TV. Its a projection TV, but its one the last projection TVs that were made before flat screens became affordable, so really, its still a pretty nice TV. I still don't know what they did, but I encouraged them to leave by nearly growling and throwing my new remote at them.
Went to the party - it wasn't that exciting. Combined office party with the boss's friends and family. it was um, odd at best, especially since we didn't really know anyone. Got home at 1 AM. Woke up at 11:30.
And since I still had my long run to do, that left Sunday afternoon. My hip is still really tweaky - I think some scar tissue from my 2001 bout of ITBS popped on tuesday and the tendon is really angry at me right now. Seeing as how it was hot out and my hip hurt, I headed to the gym for some quality time on the dreadmill. There were no freaky people there (bummer) and the TV shows that were on were horrible. I had to spend an hour watching DinoLab on Discovery Science (It was either this or ice skating). I cannot imagine having to be an "actor" on this program - it was soooo horrible. Its like they were doing a Jurassic Park experiment but combining it with educational properties instead of slash and gore.
In a futuristic stadium-sized state-of-the-art laboratory/gym, scientists study a remarkably realistic cast of digital dinosaurs and put them to the test - from running on a treadmill and pulling weights to navigating an obstacle course. Outfitted with a 50-metre long motorized treadmill, a massive water tank and a wind tunnel; plus pulleys, cranes and levers for hoisting and manoevering the unwieldy creatures, this environment is the perfect testing ground for paleontologists' latest insights into the lives of dinosaurs. How fast could the T-Rex run? Long considered the biggest, meanest, fastest, strongest killing machine, the T-Rex is pushed to its limits on the giant treadmill. But just what happens when the T-Rex falls at more than 40kph? Also, watch a flying Pterosaur - with a wingspan of eight-to-nine metres - hang-glide in a wind tunnel; and in a glass-walled tank, see how the prehistoric king of the sea, the Plesiosaurus, thrashed its three-metre neck to stun its fishy prey. In addition to testing the mettle of these mythic dino monsters, Dinolab also reveals the surprising connections between some prehistoric creatures and modern-day animals. Consider the Triceratops: How could an herbivorous animal with a thick hide, long horns and large, low-slung belly not be the Cretaceous counterpart to the modern rhinoceros? The analogy is obvious to the most casual observer - but it's also wrong. Experts reveal that the real Triceratops is closer to a cross between a crab and a bull, demonstrating that its quick rotations and lunges made it a fierce match for the T-Rex in battle.
So they have real actors with cattle prods who "encorage" an animated T-Rex into this sub-level box with an open top and a treadmill. Then they turn the treadmill and watch him "run". And a "scientist" scans the T-Rex with some sort of thermal scan. And then they crank up the treadmill speed and T-Rex crashes, gets pissed, and eats an electrical transformer. And at no time does the pissed off T-Rex jump out of the research hold (which appeared to have an open top with open access) and get all slashy with the "scientists". Oh, and they were doing something weird with a velociraptor - backing it into a corner and tossing basketballs and raw hamburger. I wasn't listening to the show to figure out what the hell this "research" was for.
So, um yeah. Good entertainment while spending an hour on the dreadmill!
Hoping that my hip is better and the air temps are back to "cool" for next weekend.
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