Resetting My Sleep Schedule

For pretty much all of my life I've had a pretty odd sleep schedule. I've tended to always prefer the night time and have been known to stay up until all hours of the night for pretty much no reason, and then sleep through much of the day. I've tried setting myself on a "normal" sleep schedule -- particularly since I married a woman with a very normal sleep schedule -- and the only way I've been able to achieve it is:

1) Using a high powered alarm clock set far away from the bed to get me out of bed in the morning
2) Ingesting large amounts of caffeine to jump start the system at the beginning of the day
3) Staying on the brink of exhaustion most of the time to allow me to fall asleep at a normal hour

But It's time to put those days behind me and the inspiration is this great illustration of circadian rhythms that I found in Wikipedia, complete with the good ol' Da Vinci man in the middle (click here for the larger version). So the new schedule is starting now, and that means going to bed between 11PM and 12AM -- after melatonin secretion has started and after bowel movements have been supressed -- and getting up in the morning at 7AM -- just after the sharpest rise in blood pressure and slightly before melatonin secretion stops.

But that's not all. This handy chart has encouraged me to do a whole lot more with my life. Here are a few of the other things that I am now setting out to do to make the most of my circadian rhythm:

• Highest testosterone excretion is at 9AM, so this is when I will train everyday for my debut in the Ultimate Fighting Championship octagon. Of course, I will refuse to take any match that isn't scheduled at 9AM.
• High alertness is at 10AM. This is when I will do all of my driving. If there are errands to run 10AM is when that happens, otherwise I stay inside.
• Best coordination is at 2:30PM. Washing dishes and other house chores will take place at this time -- dropped, broken, and chipped dishes will be a thing of the past. I will also hone my shuriken throwing skills during this time slot.
  
• At 3:30PM is the peak of reaction time so obviously this is the time I will set aside to play Wii baseball. Think you can get a 90mph fastball by me Mr. Wii? Think again.
• Greatest cardiovascular efficiency and muscular strength comes at 5PM. I'll never succeed in my 9AM UFC debut without being in shape, so this is when my training will take place. Of course this will have to be done at home (no driving after peak alertness) and without any weights (why risk injuring myself with weights after peak coordination time?).
• Highest blood pressure and body temperature occur at 6:30PM and 7PM, respectively. I will use this time to harvest my body's naturally elevated temperature and turn it into electricty to help power my house. Since no such device for doing that currently exists, I will use the peak alertness time on days that I don't drive anywhere to work on inventing such a device.
  

This schedule will obviously leave me little time for much else, however, there are still a couple decent times to contact me if you need to get in touch. Right around noon will be one such time since I have nothing scheduled for that slot. It is, however, about two hours past high alertness and two two and a half hours before maximum coordination, so be prepared for me to not pay particularly good attention to anything you have to say and don't be surprised if I drop the phone a few times.

Alternatively, between 7PM and 9PM would work. When I have my body heat harnessing device invented I will be spending this time slot extracting my body's heat, but I'm sure I'll be able to talk on the phone at the same time. I can't promise that the body heat extracting device won't be noisy, but I'm sure we can talk loudly.

This schedule also leaves me little time to blog, but I'll be sure to check back in in a couple of weeks to let readers know how my life has been elevated to supreme levels by following this schedule.

A Few Fun Links

Please tell me that by now you've heard the infamous audio of Christian Bale losing his shit on the set of the new Terminator move. What? No? Ok, well here it is. But I'll give you one better, nay! two better! Here's a clip from Conan with James Lipton reenacting the whole scene. You heard me right, James Motherflippin Lipton. And if that doesn't give you your fill of Balemania, check out this response from Warner Brother's PR department.

And now for something completely different... Think the recession is no fun? Try setting it to music. Ah yes, the sweet sounds of the economy going down the tubes!

A Rather Odd Movie Review

So I received this letter from The New York Times the other day:

Dear Mr. Kopp,

We were forwarded a copy of your 2007 movie "Matt & Jackie: 7/7/07" and have attached our review, which was recently published in our newspaper. While we can not change the opinion of our reviewers, we do encourage you to contact us with any factual inaccuracies.

Regards,

XXXXXXXX
Editor, Arts & Leisure

This was a surprising letter since I believed that my wife and I were the only ones that had a copy of our wedding video. What was even more surprising, however, was the review that was attached:


'Til a Dull Movie Do You Part

There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing a wedding as a setting for a movie. Love, deception, trust, betrayal -- these are all themes that can play out as a couple walks down the aisle under the gaze of friends and family. What can't work in this particular setting, or any other setting for that matter, is a plotless, conflict free, hour of drivel. Welcome to "Matt & Jackie: 7/7/07."

We are first introduced to the main characters as they meet at the wedding alter in a beautifully apportioned outdoor wedding. Pachelbel's Canon in D slowly fades out and a handsomely dressed wedding party looks on as the female minister begins the ceremony. Viewers are then forced to sit through the entire wedding ceremony in real time, an intractably dull half-hour that brings little to the table in terms of revealing character motivations or underlying conflict.

Most viewers will undoubtedly be ready to cheer -- if they haven't already walked out of the theatre -- as rings are finally exchanged and the saccharinely happy couple kisses. A yet optimistic viewer might expect that at this point we would be treated to some sort of character development, tension building, or -- for God's sake! -- some dialogue. That optimistic movie goer (not to mention yours truly) would be sadly mistaken though.

What follows the ceremony is an extended montage that reveals nothing about either of the main characters or a single one of the wedding attendees. Instead, it appears to have been used almost solely to add time to the production and hopefully hoodwink viewers and distract them from the fact that the movie is completely void of any meaningful plot. As the mediocre music drones on, the camera jumps from one location to the next observing small groups of the wedding guests enjoy cocktails -- all in excruciating real time.

Any human being with an IQ over 10 will have almost certainly left the theatre and demanded their money back by the time the post-ceremony montage has finished. I must have somehow pissed off my editor though, and quite literally had to be restrained as I tried desperately to avoid wasting any more of my life watching this rubbish. Faced with a choice of losing my job or finishing the movie, I persevered. I was rewarded with a poorly rehearsed cake cutting scene along with multiple slow dancing scenes that would have put a meth addict to sleep.

What could have been bright spot among this hopeless mess were the speeches given by the best man, maid of honor, and the father of the bride. The speeches were punchy and humorous, yet touching at the same time. However, without any previous development of any of the characters involved, it was impossible as a viewer to take much of anything from the speeches other than the reactions of the actors. So what could have been a small oasis in this hopelessly arid crapfest of a movie fell flat and somehow left me even more despondent.

I was hopeful that, as the wild and very apparently drunk group of wedding attendees rushed to the floor at the conclusion of the father-daughter dance, we would finally get some sort of tension or climax. I was terribly wrong. As what appeared to be the most interesting part of the night began to unfold, the movie abruptly ended.

To say that this was a poorly written movie would be to assume that there was a script in the first place. Clearly words had been put on paper -- the aforementioned speeches as well as the ceremony were obviously pre-planned -- but the writer seems to have no sense of how to set up a story, create conflict, or generally keep his viewer from wanting to bite through the restraints keeping him in his chair, throw the movie projector at his boss, and run out into oncoming traffic.

Even as an attempt at avant-garde filmmaking, this falls light years short. It is all too clear that everyone -- the main characters, the wedding party, the attendees -- are all happy at the beginning of the film, and are all just as happy (if not also much drunker) by the end of the film. It truly is traveling without moving, and in a movie that is about as interesting as casting Jean Claude Van Damme as an intellectual.

For those in the mood to see a God awful movie, my suggestion would be to head to Blockbuster and pick up a copy of "Navy Seals." If someone suggests "Matt & Jackie: 7/7/07" to you, my suggestion would be to run away as fast as you can and never speak to that person again.