Some sort of hot, I guess. I'll find out soon enough, I guess. CG was like, "This is a non-exercise invented by a 100lb Indian con-artist in the 1970's to give everyone heat stroke. I'm pretty sure being muscular will just make you die faster." Woooo.
(with special thanks to Mr. Rogers) Hookgrip sent me my set of Klokov wraps today. All I have to say is:
PRAISE KLOKOV. A messiah for the rest of us!
For today, I didn't have much time to train, but I couldn't resist giving these bad boys a whirl, so I squatted up to 365x5 nbd. HALLELUJAH. all the reps were veeeery comfortable immediately. Most reps had zero pain, and at worst, I had a small twinge during one tiny part of the ROM. My "bad" leg was fully engaged and I don't remember the last time I felt this strong. Hell, If I had had these last summer, I might have beaten idlehands to that 200kg squat. Alas, no time machines. Looking forward to picking up some magical gains in then next few weeks.
Coach was amused, too; he had been badgering me about getting wraps for weeks now. I asked him if he used them himself and he was like, "We didn't use shit!"
I went, "Guess they don't make them as tough anymore," and instead of gloating, he just said, "You mean not so primitive anymore! We were drinking at the gym, too! It's better now. Protection is important!"
"We still talking about lifting?"
"Eh? Oh. Heh. Yes of course lifting! Why are you thinking about those things when you are training? It's weightleeeefting, not the chasing girls! FOCUS!"
So I showed him the wraps and told him they were the Russian kind, and he went, "Oh yea? Russian? So now you will finish your pulls? Hey is there a hammer and....what do you call it? Axe?"
"Sickle?"
"Yes that. Your wraps are not red, and no hammer and sickle?! I don't believe you now. Is not real Russian."
BTW Why did I have to leave early? One of the weirder guys in the game group called me and asked me to help him do a practice run of........you ready, Idlehands?!?!.........Small World! I actually wasn't that excited about what appeared to be a simple area control game, but this guy actually walked over to my building, found me at my desk, and started pestering me, at one point going as low as to bow at my feet while yelling, "Pleeeeeeaaase??!?!?!" This guy is 30 years old, by the way, not 4. Gamers are a weird bunch sometimes. Out of embarrassment for the both of us, I caved and agreed to do it with him after I got back from the gym.
Well, when I showed up, I found him sitting at a corner table with a grumpy-looking Cancergirl and a guy whom I recognized as his office neighbor. CG gave him a stink-eye and shook her head at me; I wasn't the only coerced "volunteer." Turns out, he had obnoxiously asked several others out of redundancy in case we should bail, and now we had four, enough for a full game. He immediately handed me the rule book and said, "Okay you read this and tell us what to do."
"Uh...you haven't read it?"
"I have absolutely no idea how to play this game. You teach us."
"Ooookay, well, sure, it's only a few pages, I guess. But why didn't you read this ahead of time?"
"Oh, well, it's in English and that's my second language. I don't want to misunderstand something and make an error in play."
"Fair enough, I guess."
I started reading and trying to do the setup. I usually like to play those old Avalon Hill style conflict sims with the thick rulebooks (any of you older guys own Panzerblitz or something?) so it's no problem for me, but CG and the other dude are getting restless and start loudly complaining about boredom while interrupting me every few seconds by waving a component in my face and asking me what it did.
This goes on for about thirty minutes, and then, when I finally had the hang of it, CG took out her phone and found an instructional video on YouTube which explained everthing in about five. -___- So many advanced degrees in engineering/CS in that room and no one remembered to check the internet? WE ALL FAIL.
The best part: after this was finally working out, I noticed that this asshole had a German translation of the rules printed and placed right in front of him! Turns out he was just too lazy to read and wanted me to do it for him.
Anyway we played the game and it was a fun little area-control system and despite her whining about this was dumb and that we should just play Settlers, Cancergirl grew super intense about crushing us all. ran away with the win, and insisted that we try it again later with all the expansions thrown in. Go figure.
Fun, but not really my idea of a great time.
I'd rather be here:
This is EuroFront, a giant simulation of the entire war in Europe, 1939-1945. You can play individual events (France 1940, Barbarossa 1941, Overlord 1944, etc.), and indeed, the game was originally a much smaller game just about the Eastern Front, 1941-1945, but really, you haven't lived until you've tried to do the whole damn thing from beginning to end. If you do it right, it takes two full days, with a few hours of sleep here and there and LOTS of coffee, to get 'er done, and you really need four players, two Allies and two Axis, to keep everything straight. I've never actually made it that far: we've always gotten to where it was obvious by 1942 how things would pan out, usually because someone botched a key even, e.g. Germany successfully invaded England, or were completely repulsed trying to get to Moscow, etc., and stopped. Ahhh someday we'll get it right. In any case, it's a great way for four people discover new insights on the sorts of horrible decisions leaders had to face during those crazy years.
For an example of how this plays, and for something so big the mechanics move along very elegantly, some guy logged his game, with photos of key engagements, here:
AAR: Conquering the World, part 1 - France must fall
Like with my experience, he botched it early, screwing up the invasion of Russia, but you can still get a great idea of the game.
BTW, note that in the picture, everyone sitting around the table is a middle-aged white man, including the designer, Craig Besinque (green shirt). I'm pretty sure I'm the only person under 50 who enjoys these things.