Thanksgiving Once Again

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy your toast, jelly beans, and popcorn!



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The Race, She Is Done

Running AND smiling? Yup, I've lost my mind.

This past Saturday was "The Rocky Balboa Run" in Philadelphia. This was my first ever 5k race. Actually, it was my first ever race, period. Why I decided to do this is two-fold, really. First, the guys over at NeoZAZ were doing it, and it seemed like a great opportunity to actually meet them. It was fun meeting all the guys that I've heard on their podcasts, and even spoken to myself, but have never been face-to-face with.

The second reason is more important, and that's my health. I've lost a good amount of weight over the past two years, but with my family history of heart disease, I knew that I couldn't just lose weight and call it a day. No, I had to get the dreaded "exercise". Now I've tried doing stuff at home and it never stuck, and I know that going to a gym wouldn't work because I'd find an excuse to avoid it.

Running in a race, however, not only gave me a goal (that of not embarrassing myself) but it gave me a great way to work out. I started slow, only doing a mile and just walking. Eventually, though, I got up to regularly doing more than the 5k distance, and in a pretty decent time.

Now that I'm in the habit, I'm doing the training even with no race. I am looking into signing up for some other races, but nothing definite yet*. Still, if I can keep this up, I might just get into decent shape. Not a bad goal.

Oh, if you're curious as to how I did, here's the breakdown:

Distance:          3.1 Miles
Net Time:        33:14
Average Pace: 10:42 minutes/mile
Overall Place:  1271 out of 3107
Men's Rank:     729 out of 1348

For a first attempt at anything like this, ever, I'd say I did pretty well.


* If anyone is in the South Jersey area and would like to get involved in any races that I'm going to participate in, just let me know and I'll keep you in the loop.

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The Artmor Project

Do you like Star Wars?
Are you free at 6 PM Eastern on Sunday, November 29th?
Do you want to help out Toys for Tots?

If you answered "Yes" to all of these, then might I suggest checking out this year's Artmor Project Auction. The Artmor Project was the brainchild of the guys over at NeoZAZ as a way to raise money for charity and to create some one of a kind pieces of art. They take blank Mandalorian chest armor (as worn by Boba Fett) and use that as their canvas, making some really striking art pieces. Just check out the image below for some of last year's creations.

Don't have the funds to bid on one of these pieces? I'm in the same boat, but you can always donate directly. Here's the link: http://www.neozaz.com/artmor-project-donation/


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Imagination is a Terrible Thing to Waste

My friends on Facebook already have heard this, but I figured I'd put it out there to the wider world. As you know, my Aunt and Uncle have been rediscovering some of my old toys and sending them to me. After dealing with the flood of memories, I've been giving them to my daughter to play with, although I prefer that she does it when I'm around. (Daddy's privilege.)

The other day, we received a small package with my old Michael Knight figure in it, still in pretty decent shape. So, as usual, I gave it to Kira to play with. The problem is that she doesn't know who Michael Knight is, but she does know who Mike Rowe is, and loves his shows.

Since it was a "new" toy, she wanted to play with all of my old toys, so we got them out. Now I have the Hall of Justice, but no Super Powers figures, so she used the GI Joes in their place, using the Hot Wheels as their vehicles.

So we had, for what I'm sure is the first time ever, the call come from the Hall of Justice: "Mike Rowe! We need you!" This is what I call an imaginative kid, but what do you expect from someone that plays with My Little Pony and Snake Eyes at the same time?

So why am I telling you all this? Well, for the simple fact that kids today seem to have a lot of regimented play, mainly imposed by their parents. "No, you can't play with those two toys together" and "That's <character x>, you can't say it's <character y>" are phrases that should never be heard. I am always entertained by what Kira comes up with, because EVERYTHING she does has a story, and these are toys. They're meant to be played with, not put up on a shelf to gather dust.

So, let's get out of our kids' way when it comes to playing. Let them be kids and think up the craziest ideas for playing with their toys. It'll serve them better in the future.


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Garfield Halloween

It's become a tradition for me to post videos around Halloween, so I'm going to keep that up. This one isn't a Disney one, unlike the previous three posts about this holiday. No, this one is the Garfield Halloween Special that we would watch every year as kids. I think it still holds up pretty well, and ends up being on the scary side, even with all the candy, candy, candy candy, candy.



It's a shame that we don't have any Halloween specials that have come out recently that have this kind of staying power. (Cue people in the comments proving me wrong.)

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Interruptions In Service

As you know, my wife has been working for the first time in quite awhile. What you don't know is that she's also been having some issues with medications changing and various drug side-effects. As such, if I'm not working or taking care of our daughter, I'm taking care of her. So, you will no doubt have noticed a distinct lack of podcasts coming out.

"But you've been on Back to the Bins all month!" That's because I don't have to edit those. You see, for what you hear, it normally takes 3-4 times that to edit it. So a half hour episode could take up to 2 hours of work. I'm sorry, but I can't justify that kind of time investment when I have family issues. I feel bad about missing my schedule (which is on;y once a month anyway), but this is a hobby and family comes first.

I've got two episodes recorded, one for The Hammer Podcasts! and the other for Comic Book Fight Club, that need to be edited. I promise I'll get to that as soon as I can, but I'm not sure when that will be yet. Sorry, everyone, but I'm going to have to ask you to be patient.

The blog, on the other hand, is firing on all cylinders. I've actually got posts written for the next several weeks, so you're weekly does of geekiness will still be there every Thursday.


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What If ... Star Trek: The Next Generation

As a dedicated listener of the podcast "Listen to the Prophets: A Star Trek Deep Space Nine Podcast", I have been re-watching Deep Space Nine so that I have some idea of what the hosts are talking about. In the first episode, we learn that Commander Sisko was at the infamous Battle of Wolf 359. That got me to thinking about the battle itself, or specifically the tail end where the Enterprise D comes in. This was detailed in the amazing two part episode, "The Best of Both Worlds", in which Picard is captured by The Borg and turned into Locutus. In the cliff hanger (which is responsible for all season ending cliff hangers on TV now-a-days), Riker issues the order to fire the new weapon that Commander Shelby has devised at the Borg cube. Spoiler: It doesn't work.

What if it did, though? What if, as intended, the weapon fired and destroyed the cube, killing Picard. We would then have an Enterprise D commanded by Captain William T. Riker. This two parter straddled the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4 of the show, and marked a distinct turning point, for me, anyway, where the show really took off.

What would have happened to the remaining seasons if Riker had been the captain? Would he have settled down to be more of a Picard and had Shelby (the new First Officer) be more of the action hero? We see some of that in this episode, but I think that Riker would have become more Kirk-like than he was to begin with. He would probably have gotten much more directly involved that Picard had and, for better or worse, made more direct decisions without consulting the committee of officers.

This would also have effected Deep Space Nine in some way, since Picard was integral in convincing Sisko to stay there. I'm sure Riker could have delivered the same speech, but I don't know if it would have had the same impact. Of course, Sisko might not have been such the tortured soul as the person responsible for his wife's death would have been killed at the battle.

What do you guys think? Would TNG have been a better or worse show if we had Captain Riker?

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Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes