Charlie X

What a day today! Between a trip to get groceries and speakers, another trip to get a part for the speakers and hanging out with friends I’m not sure how I found time to work out! But I did… YEAH. I got together today with a few of my co-workers who I am happy to also call my friends! We got dinner and had a few drinks! Then I did something I have not done for a very long time…the random trip to Target to kill time. I have not made a trip like this since I was in college, and I am glad to say that it felt just as good walking around the Rogers Target as it did walking around the Wal-Mart in St. Cloud. I find some type of unnamable joy in walking around a store and goofing off with friends, whether it is making fun of products, sharing stories or trying on a kid’s bike helmet that looks like a shark (which I did!). I had a sneaking fear growing over the last few years that I had outgrown this passion and thankfully I have not!

With all of the fun though, I have not done a great job of sticking to my diet today. People keep telling me there are calories in alcohol and I have never believed them. I have a strict rule… Liquids don’t have calories, especially clear liquids. Hence the reason I drink vodka. Well I guess I need to change this rule. From now on out I will stick to the diet more regularly at least 6/7 days of the week.

Today’s Workout:

Treadmill- 2.55 miles   230 calories

Charlie X

This show is about a young man named Charlie who is discovered living alone on an abandoned planet and has grown up without human contact. Charlie seems fine and normal despite being incredibly socially awkward and naïve.  As the show goes on suscpicious events start happening around Charlie and we come to find out that he has some pretty extreme super powers, like being able to destroy a ship with his mind. He even changes a lady into an iguana, not practical mind you but impressive none the less. In the end he tries to hijack the Enterprise so he can go and live with distant relatives on a human colony. At the end an alien from a race of super beings shows up on the bridge of the Enterprise to take Charlie back with them. At this point everyone is sad and the boy is gone. Oh and by the way, the super beings look almost exactly like the wizard from The Wizard of Oz.

A few worthwhile or interesting points about this episode:

The character of Charlie reminds me so much of the students with Asperger’s Syndrome I work with on a daily basis at school. Like them, Charlie is so awkward and does not know how to interpret social cues, engage in conversations, get his needs met, or even talk to a person they want date. In one scene Charlie sees two men share a greeting and then one pats the other’s butt to say good job. Charlie later tries this with a female to disastrous results. Charlie though can’t see the difference between the two situations. I find this show very interesting because it was written so long before Asperger’s was recognized as a syndrome and yet Charlie clearly fits the label.

Uhura Sings! Oh yes ladies and gentlemen she is a lounge singing, short skirt wearing, Beehive hairdo’d Diva. Check this episode out for this odd yet fun segment.

Starfleet officer in red lycra pants! WTF??? Yep Kirk tries to teach Charlie wrestling and they wear the most awkward outfits ever. And apparently underwear for men in the 23^rd century sucks because it was Panty Lines a go go for this scene. Also interesting to me is the reminder that William Shatner was once a sex symbol, though now the sight of him in those red pants may make a baby throw up!