James Chamberlin

Twice a year DeepDiscount.com (formerly known as DeepDiscountDVD.com) has a 20% off sale on their DVDs and a few other items. But their biggest sellers tend to be DVDs. Anyway, their fall/winter sale begins November 09th for those who are interested. You aren’t guaranteed to get the best price during the sale, but I’m usually able to get the best price when I shop during the sale. I usually only buy one or two DVDs, but I know of several people who spend over a thousand bucks during these sales.

You can find out more info at DVDTalk.

Another upgrade came out from WordPress, so I quickly updated it. Damn, that didn’t take long… two days after I upgraded this thing, another comes out.

I just activated Akismet to deal with the blog spam I’m getting bombarded with. Ogre’s used spam karma, but Akismet should help me out quite a lot. We shall see…

UPDATE:
Less than a full day later, I admit I am loving Akismet so far. It’s blocked quite a lot of spam so far.

When I hopped in the shower this morning, I was quite pleased to find that the water temperature was back to normal, if not slightly higher. Ahhh, warm water. Taking a cold shower is terrible this time of year.

Anyway, I returned to the gym and found that the owner had assembled several new pieces of equipment while I had been away (for more than a week). Not only was there new equipment, but the remaining pieces got moved around quite a bit. Since the gym is rather small, everything’s a lot closer, bunched together. It’s a little odd, but I’m sure after a few more days, I’ll get accustomed to the changes.

I had quite a lot of things planned for today, including hitting the gym. My plans for the day were dashed as soon as I took a shower this morning. No hot water. Dammit! My hot water heater died and I had to spend much of the day replacing a heating element and cleaning up the mess the water left. What a day… The water seems to be nice and warm now, but I haven’t taken a shower since this morning’s freezing-cold one. The replaced element won’t last for long, but it’ll save me some money until I have to replace the entire water heater in a few months… just in time for winter. 🙁

When I started this blog, I launched it with a version of WordPress which was released the same week. Since then, I’ve resisted the urge to upgrade with every software update. After chatting with Ogre, I decided I may as well upgrade. He needs to do the same — his is more out-dated than mine was.

Along with the software upgrade, I went with another theme. This one looks pretty nice. I haven’t looked at each page, but I like what I’ve seen so far. What do you think of the change?

I haven’t written a whole lot in the past few weeks. While I wrote a few reviews a little while ago, it’s nowhere near the amount of reviews I’m used to writing. Instead, I’ve been busy writing for IGN Guides. In the past three weeks, I wrote two guides and I’m starting another right now. This is by far the busiest I’ve been in some time. I’m expecting some downtime after this third guide, which will allow me to write additional TV reviews. I’m really looking forward to that.

I’ve got another weightlifting update…

Seated Barbell Shoulder Press – 95 lbs x 5
Cable Front Pulldown – 195 lbs x 4
Cable Seated Row – 200 lbs x 4
Lever Hack Squat – BW + 160 lbs x 2
Sled Leg Press – 1,030 lbs x 3
Leg Extension – 260 lbs x 8
Lever Standing Single Leg Leg Curl – 70 lbs x 10
Barbell Bench Press – 225 lbs x 1
Close Grip Barbell Bench Press – 165 lbs x 3
Barbell Incline Bench Press – 155 lbs x 2
Cable Standing Fly – 120 lbs x 10
Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension – 70 lbs x 5
Standing Cable Triceps Extension – 160 lbs x 5
Cable Seated Fly – 150 lbs x 5

There have been a few increases since I blogged my first max list a few days ago. The list also contains a few new exercises which I didn’t include previously.

Between last Wednesday and this morning, I was able to increase my max lifts on two exercises.

Barbell Bench Press – 225 lbs x 1 (formerly 220)
Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension – 70 lbs x 5 (formerly 65 x 6)

Although neither are dramatic increases, I’m frankly glad they’re still going up. I was a little frustrated when I hit a bit of a wall a while back, which means I wasn’t seeing any change in my strength. Now that that is over, my strength (both upper and lower body) is increasing and I’m losing more weight, which is excellent to see happening.

Below, I’ve listed the current maxes on several weight lifting exercises. Not all of the exercises I do are shown here. Some, I simply haven’t found what my max is just yet.

Seated Barbell Shoulder Press – 95 lbs x 5
Cable Front Pulldown – 165 lbs x 6
Cable Seated Row – 200 lbs x 4
Lever Hack Squat – BW + 160 lbs x 2
Sled Leg Press – 1,030 lbs x 3
Leg Extension – 260 lbs x 8
Lever Standing Single Leg Leg Curl – 70 lbs x 10
Barbell Bench Press – 220 lbs x 1
Barbell Incline Bench Press – 135 lbs x 6
Cable Standing Fly – 120 lbs x 10
Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension – 65 lbs x 6