Great. I’m fairly certain I’ve got grade two calf strains in both legs.

The Sydney Morning Herald offers an intriguing analysis of possible Oscar nominations. They seem to think that Sean Astin will be nominated (but isn’t deserving), and that Johnny Depp won’t be nominated (but should).

Who will scratch the preciousss??
Actually there was one amusing thing that happened tonight. As I was paying for my magazine at the newsagent I was surprised to hear the guy behind me in line ask for “three Lord of the Rings.” I whipped my ahead around in time to see the clerk hand over six dollars worth of Return of the King instant scratch-off lottery tickets emblazoned with Viggo’s head on top. I’m still laughing about it.

The Mathematics of Misery
1 – set of keys forgotten by me at home this morning
1 – mobile phone forgotten by the Snook at home this morning
10 – therefore useless phone calls placed by me to the Snook
2 – number of hours it took him to realize I hadn’t signed on to IM from home
25 – dollars spent on magazines and food at the shopping center to keep me busy
5 – daggy garments tried on at Kmart
2 – blinding calf and foot cramps in the middle of the Kmart bra section (brought on by last night’s crappy Pump class)
3.5 – number of hours it took Snook to finally reach home and let me in

Add it all together and it equals a NIGHT of SUCK. I’m goin’ to bed.

AskMetafilter tackles the important questions like… What is the origin of the slang term beeyotch? The responses are fairly enlightening. I’m pretty sure I picked it back in London in ’98 (courtesy of Hoey and Hipp, for those that know them). That thread also contains the following joke which made me snort with laughter:

Q. What does Snoop Dogg wash his clothes with?
A. Bleee-yatch.

I’m ranting about “low-carb diets” over at Glitter again…

Roger Ebert doesn’t think Andy Serkis should necessarily be nominated for an acting Oscar for his work on Return of the King. Hmm. I disagree. I can see what he means about all the extra work the technical guys did, but I think you could still nominate him on the basis of the vocal performance. As Ebert’s letter writer mentions, wasn’t there a lot of talk about Robin Williams being nominated for Aladdin a few years back? I think Serkis easily eclipsed that performance.

And by the way, I hope you all used your Christmas break to catch up on the Oscar contenders… because the Web-Goddess Second Annual Oscar Contest is coming soon!

A Pump class by any other name…
Ow. It’s been a while since I had a good gym rant, right? I’m in some serious pain here, people. I meant to go to Pump class last night (with the instructor that I like) but by the time I got there it was full. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just run tonight and tomorrow I’ll try out a new guy.” Bad idea. First, a little background for you non-gym-rats:

Body Pump is a class where a bunch of people do synchronized weight lifting to music. It’s pretty low-impact and it targets all the major muscle groups, so it’s a good workout for me. The thing is, it’s like franchised. The company that invented it makes gyms pay a license fee to use the name. My new gym must have had a falling out with them, because we don’t have “Pump” class anymore… We have “Flex” class. It’s the exact same workout though and that’s all that matters. I mean, the whole point of having this standardized routine is that you pretty much know the workout you’re going to get before you go, right?

Wrong. This guy tonight apparently decided to do a little innovating. My suspicions were raised when he had us each get some extra equipment (“Two extra bars??”), but everyone else in the class was either an old lady or a scrawny Asian, so I figured I’d be able to keep up. Right off the bat, he had us doing aerobics to warm up. Aerobics! I don’t have a good track record with that. Plus it was like eighty degrees in that gym. I was sweating like crazy. (It reminds me of that yoga crazy people do in a heated room.) As for the actual lifting, he went too fast and combined groups together and pushed me beyond where I could go. He had us doing weird things like using the extra bars as ski poles for doing calf raises. He made me do pushups on the floor without my towel and I got carpet burn on my knees. (Yeah, I do girly pushups. But at least I can do more now than I could six months ago!) Halfway through it I was literally trying to come up with a good enough excuse to leave. It was like yoga all over again. Every time I looked around I could see that everybody else was doing fine, while I just couldn’t get into it. I had no energy and I was flailing, and every time he’d exhort us to go a little deeper or hold something longer I could tell he was directing it right at ME. And he went so fast! I was trying so hard to keep up that I knew my form was suffering. Now I’m feeling it. My legs hurt and my neck feels seriously screwed up on one side. I’ve probably slipped a disc or something. Stupid man. I should raise a complaint or something… *grumble grumble*

Sydney is suffering a sniper crisis at the moment… from somebody with a BB gun.

I was excited to see this review (with accompanying photo gallery) for the stage production of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books at the Royal National in London. It sounds interesting, to say the least. I can’t believe they cut the character of Mary Malone! Granted, you could trim a lot of her story out with the weird motorcycle-animals, but she fulfills a pretty crucial role in Lyra’s temptation. In terms of casting, wow, Will is pretty darn cute! I think Timothy Dalton would make a great Lord Asriel (though Terence Stamp, who did the voice on the BBC radio production, would be better). The daemons look pretty cool. But, my, Mrs. Coulter looks old! I thought of her as much younger and prettier. Isn’t that part of her charm and attraction? (Link courtesy of Max.)