November 2007 Archives

I'm burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. But I have nothing to complain about. This year has been incredible and I've been blessed with so many opportunities. I've got work raining down on me - and I'm not even talking about my day job. Unfortunately I'm not talking about acting either, but rather outside technology/internet projects. I can barely keep up. I feel I need to grab as many opportunities as I can while they exist 'cause ya never know what tomorrow will be like. Hollywood is quickly trying to converge into the digital/internet world and I'm a part of it in every aspect and from both ends of the business. It's exciting albeit exhausting talking to so many people about so many different ideas, projects, opportunities. My own creative projects as actor and producer are also proving to have big possibilities - I just need the time to concentrate on them.  At this point it's a race to the new year as I have a couple projects I need to finish and deliver before Christmas all while taking care of holiday errands and doing XFlowsion (a high energy yoga/cardio) 4 times a week trying to reach my goal of 10% body fat by year's end.

It's amazing to think how much I've accomplished since the beginning of the year. I've been very blessed.

At the beginning of the year H and I were lucky enough to be chosen to participate in a new yoga/fitness system created by Eric Paskel called XFlowsion. For 30 days we did intense yoga/dance/martial arts 4 times a week and ate according to the XFlowsion diet (whole grains, veggies, fruits, etc, etc). By the end of the program I lost 11lbs. A month after the program I dropped another 9lbs and ended up at 163lbs / 14.5% bodyfat. Well Christmas has come early this year because Eric has moved to LA from Michigan and has offered 3 weeks of free XFlowsion classes to those who participated in the original program. The XFlowsion commercial will be re-shot, AND Eric will be opening up his own gym sometime in Jan/Feb. 

So H and I are back in XFlowsion boot-camp again. We started Friday. The schedule is Tues/Fri/Sat/Sun which means we just completed our 3rd XFlowsion class today. All I can say is that XFlowsion is one hell of a workout. H and I have been doing yoga at home and at various yoga centers, but nothing compares to Eric's classes. By the end of each class I am absolutely exhausted. I never sweat as much in any other workout than XFlowsion. It takes a lot of concentration, strength, flexibility and endurance to get through his classes. It's intense. But it's as intense as you want it to be because Eric is so mellow. Each class is completely different too (other than the typical yoga down-dogs and chattarungas mixed in with everything). So now I'm starting off at my new weight of 163lbs/15% bodyfat and I'm hoping to get down to 10% bodyfat by Christmas. That means I need to lose 5% of my weight in bodyfat which would be 8lbs. To accomplish this I'm going to try to be even more precise with my nutrition. Using the Harris-Benedict principle, I can assess my basal metabolic rate -- also known as BMR:

Men:
66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

66 + (6.3 x 162) + (12.9 x 71) - (6.8 x 34) = 1771

I need to multiply this by 40% and add the total since I normally work out 3-4 times a week.

This means I need to eat 2,479 calories a day just to maintain my current body weight. So I need to create a caloric deficit be reducing calories. 1lb is roughly 3500 calories. So if I decrease my calories by 500/day I will lose 1lb a week. If I can also burn 500 calories a day I could lose 2lbs a week - which would put me 2lbs away from being 10% bodyfat in 3 weeks. The big challenge is that it is the holidays and H and I love food. That means on Thanksgiving we will not be following the diet. But luckily, Eric will have an XFlowsion class Friday morning to make up for our dietary "sins".

Out of curiosity I asked Google how many calories Bikram yoga burns (it's the closest I could think to XFlowsion). I know it it's going to be different for everybody since it depends on your practice intensity and a lot of other factors, but from what I could find it sounds like it's possible to burn 600-700 calories in an hour. So XFlowsion four times a week would be 2400 calories burned at the least. I will also be hitting the weights hard at the gym twice a week and have one day to rest and recover.

During this training period I also need to make sure I eat enough calories to keep my metabolism running high. That means I need to eat approx 400 calories a meal 5 times a day which would put me at 2000 calories which is roughly the 500 caloric deficit I need to burn fat.

So last time I lost 11lbs in 4 weeks doing XFlowsion 4x week and lifting on and off for that period of time while moderately following the XFlowsion diet. That means I should have no problem hitting 10% bodyfat in 3 weeks.

Tonight I realized that the upgrade I did from MovableType 3 to MovableType 4 broke any and all links to my old articles once I had rebuilt my blog. The problem lies in the configuration option named "Basename Length" under Preferences->Blog Settings->Entries in MT4. The default value in MT4 is 30, whereas the default setting in MT3 was 15. Now I thought I could easily fix this by changing the value to 15 in MT4 and republishing my site, but that didn't work. So instead I wrote this little PHP script to make copies of all my old archives articles and truncate the filenames to 15 characters. Now thinking about it, what I should have done - instead of making copies of the files, is create files with truncated filenames but that contain a PHP Header() directive that points at the current article with the 30 character filename. Anyway, here's the script I wrote. Maybe it will help someone else. Be sure to CHMOD -R a+w archives/* before you run the script so that the script has permissions to create the new files. Then make sure you put the permissions back to what they should be when you're done.

<?php

function changeext($directory, $verbose = false) {
  $num = 0;
  if($curdir = opendir($directory)) {
   while($file = readdir($curdir)) {
     if($file != '.' && $file != '..') {

       $srcfile = $directory . '/' . $file;
       $string  = "$file";
       $str     = strlen($ext1);
       $str++;
       $newfile = substr($string, 0, 15);
       $newfile = $newfile.'.php';
       $dstfile = $directory . '/' . $newfile;

      if (eregi("\.php",$file)&&(strlen($file)>19)) {
            ($srcfile, $dstfile);
            //echo "copy $srcfile, $dstfile
";
        }

       if(is_dir($srcfile)) {
         $num += changeext($srcfile, $verbose);
       }
     }
   }
   closedir($curdir);
  }
  return $num;
}

changeext('archives',  'false');

?>

It's fascinating to think that the industry that I fell into while trying to be an actor has set Hollywood on fire. The work I do at my day job adds fuel to the flame as we find creative ways to attract bigger audiences on the internet using video and interactive experiences. So Hollywood finds itself in the same position I'm at in my professional life - re-invent yourself or die. So while Hollywood struggles to find a profitable place on the internet, I struggle to find a profitable place in Hollywood as Talent. But I see myself as the next generation of content creators and talent. Not only do I have the skills to produce anything and everything on the internet, I also have the skills to be in front of, and behind the camera. I'm like Robert Rodriguez meets Kanye West. So while WGA strikes and SAG talks about a strike next year, I will be making my move.


Here's an inside look at why Hollywood is in trouble:

--------------------

This WGA strike is going to suck.
The other side is prepared to have us sit on our asses until the SAG
contract is up in JUNE. They all claim to be working toward a resolution,
but um... They are already reshaping the midseason. Do the math.

The studios and networks are sitting pretty and seem fairly convinced that
they own the internet.

THE WGA HAS NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING IN THE NEW MEDIA REALM.
I met yesterday at the WGA offices and have agreed to help them try to
create a web presence worthy of the fight they are launching over new media.
As it stands, I had to explain that a BLOG is not a website.
I have my hands full.

They asked me yesterday, "how do we link videos to our website?"
What?
The two members of the communications committee
asked me what FACEBOOK is?!!

We are truly doomed if our negotiations committee doesn't fold and take a
shitty deal. Seriously. The PR alone is going to kill us.

I've tried to explain the advantage to using the internet to our advantage.
Today I'm supposed to present a plan to use daytime soap fans to bang down
the doors at Colgate Palmolive and boycott their products unless they put
pressure on the other side to give us a piece of new media.
I talked to a communications member last night who didn't realize there are
soap opera discussion boards and mailing lists!!!
"How do we find out where they are?"

OMFG!
I'm in hell!

Who better to legitimize video on the internet than Oprah? http://youtube.com/oprah