What I did on my first day free from Couch Arrest

My first day off couch arrest. Yeah! I celebrated by duct taping a garbage bag around my leg (and dressing and brace) and showering. Wow did that feel good. Amazing how much difference just getting clean can make you feel. Of course, after that and getting breakfast I was pretty worn out. I don't quite understand how, on Monday, I worked all day and then went to the gym for about 90 minutes and was fine. And yet on Thursday just taking a shower and fixing breakfast requires a couple hours on the couch to rest up from. I guess that's another thing to add to my list of things that I don't understand. After my shower, I proceeded to spend most of the day on the couch...but I could get up anytime I wanted to. (It's the small things I've been holding on to.)

I'm off the prescription painkillers but am still hitting the ibuprophen pretty hard. I think this is to be expected. Advil PM is an amazing thing and made my night much more restful last night. It worked many times better than the prescription sleepytime drugs they gave me. I need to find out what that stuff actually is and remember that it doesn't work well for me. On a related note, I apparently respond really well to Demoral.

I saw a standup ad for the Monsters vs Aliens movie when I went to see Valkyrie last weekend. Today I looked up the trailer. I think it's got potential. The scene with Bob (or Blob?) hitting on the Jello made me chuckle. Valkyrie was interesting and enjoyable. A good drama with some action to liven it up a bit. The accents were a little distracting at times. Why is it that almost all of the Germans who weren't being played by Tom Cruise had British accents? I guess the director let everyone use their own accent and a lot of Brits were cast. Tom Cruise's very American accent did stand out at times. But it was only slightly distracting. He also didn't get to smile much...such a shame. (What...the man has a nice smile. That's all I'm sayin'.)

AMC is streaming the old British tv show The Prisoner for free (and without commercials!) on their web site. I had heard much about this series but had never seen any of it. I watched the first episode this afternoon. It was interesting but kinda slow moving. That's not surprising given that it's from 1967....and British. I'll probably watch some more episodes when I have some time. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's worth at least watching that first episode, just for cultural awareness as the series is referenced fairly often.

If you need noise cancelling headphones, these JVC ones are a good deal. I have a similar set that I bought before going to India last year and they work great. They don't block out all of the noise (nor do they claim to) but they make a very significant difference. And they're comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time.

My dad sent me a cool email that had pictures of a car that had run over a mattress...and just kept going. Apparently this is not a good idea.

60 lbs of tangled spring wrapped around the drive train. The driver drove over 30 miles with this mess, stopping only when it punctured the gas tank and ran the car out of fuel. Apparently the driver also complained of a "shimmy" when driving at high speeds.


Lesson of the day: stop driving if you ever run over a mattress. Better yet, don't run over a mattress.


And I think it's time for exercises, dinner, more exercises (well, the same exercises but again) and a movie to get me through until bed time.