Tables and high places.

In which we talk about the structure of my desk.

As a nerd, I spend a lot of my life at my computer desk doing nerd-related activities such as browsing the internet, playing video games, blogging and downloading huge amounts of porn organising charity events for orphans.

As a nerd, I also complain. A lot. Normally I complain about mainstream things, Star Wars or whatever some guy said to me on a forum, but in recent weeks, I've been complaining about my back problems. For the most part, I've only been complaining about the severity of the pain despite me being young and having superb back muscles.

About a week ago, I realised how low my monitors were on my computer desk, forcing me to hunch or slide back in my chair in order to compensate. It was suggested that I get some old magazines/books/DVD cases and prop my monitors up to eye level so that I'm leaning less and sitting up straight. Ergonomically speaking, this is almost a good idea since then I'd be in the most comfortable I could be without inciting health problems. However, I'm paranoid and have too much time on my hands, so instead of coming to this conclusion by myself, I instead pursued a different solution entirely: Standing Desks.

For those of you born without the incessant need to know everything in the world, ever; a Standing Desk is a tall desk that you stand at, rather than sit at.

I didn't randomly pluck this idea out of the air; it's been suggested to me before by a few others who use standing desks, and standing at a desk is supposedly healthier than sitting down all day. It was Lifehacker who turned me onto the idea of utilising a standing desk as well. Since I like to think of myself as a DIY kinda person I'm going about the process of turning an old broken trestle table into a standing desk by adding shelves and some latches so they can be removed

I'm going to use this blog as a way of chronicling my experience with a standing desk once I'm done

Geekery, fitness and the eclectic boogaloo

My Fitocracy beta invite finally showed up.

With my decision to attack 12 separate new years resolutions, this was a perfect excuse to attempt the “Lose weight again” resolution.

Tonight I decided to take a crack at doing a few workouts to test my limits. It’s been a few months since I took to excercising frequently, or even on a regular basis at all. About 8 months ago I had finished the “Couch to 5k” program, and could comfortably run for 30 minutes straight.


Cue 8 months of being a fat, lazy drunkard.

During this interim, I’ve somehow managed to put on nearly 25 pounds (and it shows) through a steady diet of kebabs and alcohol.

Since Fitocracy has experience points and level ups, I wanted to see if I could break level 1 in one workout. The short answer was no. The long answer was whenthehelldidigetsobadatrunning.
I managed to do 4 25 rep sets of jumping jacks to warm up. I followed up with 20 minutes of dancing like a lunatic.

However, it was the run I was looking forward to. I used to enjoy running, even if it was a bit time consuming. So after a short break, I warmed up with a 5 minute walk and then went straight to running. It was all going well, up until about 3 minutes into the run. Suddenly I was aching, out of breath and near-ready to collapse.

So, I’m horribly out of practice, out of breath and out of shape. Hopefully using Fitocracy honourably will help me break this sedentary cycle I’ve entered (and maybe even get my cycling. dohohohoho).