I posted this over at my Blog, and I plan on tracking my own progress there. I was super-inspired by Xena and decided to challenge myself. For the rest of the ladies here who have a warrior inside them, I challenge them to pick up their swords (er...dumbells) and fight! The post from my blog:
"Today, I got a subscription to NetFlix--and as a part of that subscription I can watch unlimited stuff online! For $14 a month, with 2 movies at a time and unlimited online stuff...I have no idea why people even watch TV anymore. But anyway, off-topic. I started watching the first season of "Xena: Warrior Pricess" again and I'm SO inspired. When I was a kid, I loved Xena--I distinctly remember being outside in my wooded backyard and pretending to be her, or Gabrielle. I had a walking stick as a sword/staff and I would go on imaginary adventures and fight imaginary fights...
Anyway, after watching a few episodes on NetFlix, I became very inspired. I wanted to go outside and kick some ***! Since I can't defeat great warriors, gods, demi-gods, goddesses, vampires or cyclopses...I'm going to kick my own *** at the gym. I can't fight things with read swords, but I am planning on going LARPing (Live Action Role Playing, to you uninitiated into geekdom--Google it and try not to judge too harshly!) in April! To get in tip-top LAPRing condition, I'm going to push myself physically at the gym. I'm going to shape myself into a fierce warrior a-la Xena!
Tomorrow the Challenge begins:
- Hit the gym as hard as possible, as often as possible. Warriors need well-trained bodies.
- Eat like a warrior: to get your body strong and battle-ready.
- Need inspiration to hit the gym? Netflix a Xena episode, and then imitate the Mistress!
- Warriors like Xena are strong and smart. Spend the time you're not training your body, training your mind!
Are you prepared?"
I'm not going to be the "official" challenge leader, or hold you accountable for your participation. We need to hold ourselves accountable But I hope that the warrior spirit inside you pushes you toward bettering yourself mind, body and spirit!
Sounds fun! I'm in! I have a question...
I used to have Netflix, but switched to Blockbuster because I liked the extra in store rentals, bonus rental coupons, & game rentals....buuuut Blockbuster recently put a cap on the amount of store rentals, got rid of bonus coupons, & now charge you for game rentals [when they were free before with coupons] AND they raised their prices. So I canceled my membership, and I've been considering Netflix again. How does the watching things online work? You said it's unlimited, but what do they have online to watch? And how is the quality/speed? Thanks for answering.
I don't think watching the episodes online or through Netflix should be a requirement for the challenge, it just happened to inspire me. The Unlimited online thing starts with their $14 package. They have hundreds of movies, TV shows and even exercise videos through the online viewer. I think the quality of the video depends on how good your PC is and how fast your internet connection is, and also the size of the window you watch it in (Full Screen mode will be harder to keep "sharp" than in a smaller window--I've been watching in Full Screen).
Today I watched "Mean Girls" (the quality was rough to start, but got better as I watched until it could have been a DVD playing in my PC) and Xena (4 episodes so far--a lesser quality of viewing than the movie, but again, if you leave it alone to play, the quality seems to clear up after a few minutes ). But they really have EVERYTHING. New movies, old movies, full seasons of TV shows. It's pretty crazy!
You need an updated version of Internet Explorer and Windows Media player, at least 3gigs of free space, 512 MB ram and an internet connection--they have the qualifications on the site. You download their viewer, and then select what you want to watch on the website through the Internet Explorer browser. The quality isn't DVD quality, but it's about TV quality most of the time with my internet connection (Cable out at school).
I'm totally going to do this. I'm more All About Buffy than All About Xena (I loved Xena to bits, mind, and definitely cut my teeth on this whole sword-wielding warrior woman kind of book. Er. And still read them, come to that...) but - yeah. Yeah. I can definitely see using my ***-kicking Pop Culture RiotGrrl Heroines as inspiration! This needs to be thought on a little more, but I think that this notion of geekly inspiration is AWESOME.
Glad you're inspired, Fay! That was the intention I'm a geek girl at heart (D&D-loving, Renaissance-faire attending, LARPing kinda girl), and Xena just inspired me to no end! She's buff, she's tough, she's intelligent Anyway, if you want to join on in, feel free!
I've been subconsciously doing the same sorta thing the last week or so...(The new BBC Robin Hood's been on tv, and two of the girls on it kick ***, and I geekily want to be them, so it's been inspiration to work out harder, aka. at all...), but what a great idea to make it a conscious challenge! I'm so doing this!
And when Robin Hood finishes, I may look into Xena - never seen an episode in my life.
The Xena Challenge!
But I hope that the warrior spirit inside you pushes you toward bettering yourself mind, body and spirit!
I'm a geek girl at heart (D&D-loving, Renaissance-faire attending, LARPing kinda girl), and Xena just inspired me to no end! She's buff, she's tough, she's intelligent 
Anyway, if you want to join on in, feel free!
