Exercise, comics, all sorts of stuff

First, a bit of leftover news from Tuesday: My sister gave birth, three weeks early, girl, 7 pounds 4 ounces. Yay!

On to Wednesday: Did a cardio workout, pretty much like Monday’s, but tried just going faster in the 19th minute rather than raising the resistance. Still no Level 10. I could feel myself pushing at my limits, but couldn’t gather the willpower to break through. Note for next time: Use the machine in front of the fan.

Also, my arms still ache from Sunday. If they hurt tomorrow, I’m doing another cardio session instead of upper-body weights.

Comics: Bought $60 worth of comics today! Fortunately, I had $80 worth of store credit, so I didn’t actually have to pay for them! Craig Thompson’s Blankets finally came in, and SPX 2003 shipped early, and Dave Cooper’s Ripple came out in a trade, with toned paper and two-color art. Plenty o’ comics-reading for the next few days!

And cadhla ran her 1936-era League of Extraordinary Gentlemen game today. Way cool. I won’t go into the plot details, but our character lineup included Tom Swift (and his Electric Rifle!), The Shadow, Dorothy Gale (and Toto too!), Lord Peter Wimsey, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, Hugo Danner, and Mary Poppins.

Yesterday's sketching and today's workout

I nursed an iced coffee for an hour or so yesterday in the Java & Jazz on Broadway, north of 17th. I’ve been reading The Avram Davidson Treasury, and in between snatches of “The Affair at Lahore Cantonment” I sketched a few people. The woman on the right saw me, and seemed to be posing a couple of times. When I was done she came over to see, and liked the sketch. I was dissatisfied with it; I hadn’t managed to capture the complex pattern of glossy highlights in her hair, which was what I’d been primarily interested in.

My arms were almost back to normal today, just lingering stiffness and a touch of ache, but I held off on another round of upper-body weightlifting anyway, and did a cardio workout on the elliptical cross-trainer. It went much like the last two, though I tried lowering the resistance and going for speed in the 19th minute. Still didn’t quite feel like a 10, but I’m not certain what a 10 would feel like for this kind of exercise.

This was my last day at Gold Coast. Tomorrow I try Synergy.

Black Queen?

I wonder what the context is for this photo of Famke Janssen. It’s much too early to be seeing teaser stills for X-Men 3, but for those of us who remember the original version of the story that appears to be emerging in the movies, well, it’s certainly suggestive.