In saying that, it moves very fast, goes for 1.5hours like all good comedies and doesn’t overthink itself

However, the humour very “late-2000s”. Watching it now feels like it’s performing for an audience that no longer exists. And, the audience it did exist for when it came out [me] now has a different palette.

It’s not bad, it’s not good. I smiled more than I laughed. Probably not a rewatch as there are other low-stakes and funnier comedies to fit the bill.

I love that it doesn’t do the whole “remember this?” sequel thing. And while there are obviously some jump scares, the tension comes from momentum and choices.

Standard for the genre is the question of what happens when surviving is the only option and what are the morals of this type of world. Here, Spike is dedicated to his Mum. This is the emotional spine. Dr Kelson, the plot engine, is a kind gentleman who still cares for People™

This means nothing really happens outside of pivotal discussions between 2-3 people, which makes total sense for a story meant to be told on the stage. A stellar cast, everyone pulling out decent performances. I think this would be much better as a play than a movie. That said, I enjoyed it enough.

A political movie which was every bit what one would (or should) expect from a movie about politics, ending in a turn to pessimism, accepting all its flaws. This is not a movie about great characters or character turn around. No one is redeeming or seeks redemption.

It’s interesting to ponder that back in the late 90’s, there were no camera phones - so the paparazzi in this film are the “professional” press. As such, scenes where Anna (Julia Roberts) is casually out for dinner seem plausible in a way that would be impossible in a smartphone era. We live in a world where the paparazzi is everyone. Interesting also to see no one, at all, glaring at a screen during their daily life.

I needed a baseline 2-day program for the gym amidst broken sleep and routine.

The Logic

There’s a camp of Bro Science2Meaning the science of lifting weights and is by no means derogatory in this context. that states the last 5 reps before failure drive adaptation. Everything else accumulates fatigue. With 120 minutes per week, I couldn’t afford sets that didn’t count.3See: Lyle McDonald on Muscular Tension and Muscular Fatigue https://bodyrecomposition.com/training/muscular-tension-and-muscle-growth#Effective_Reps

With 2-days per week and limited time, your weapon for effectiveness (and hopefully some semblence of progress) is intensity. This meant every set I did was to 0-1 reps from failure. One can add more volume if not used to or willing to [truly] push that hard. The corollary and trade-off is that more sets = more time in the gym, an anti-goal for New Dad Training.

The Split

Push-bias and pull-bias full-body. The bias was to limit too much systemic fatigue when you’re already wrecked. I don’t train for powerlifting meets and hold no lift as sacred. Meaning the “good old” Bench, squat, and deadlift need technical precision and warm-up time I didn’t have. This was maintenance plus whatever more I could eke out.

Swap exercises based on your gear, what you wnjoy and what you can do with good form. Just watch rest-pause and myo-reps on anything requiring stability. You’re going to actual failure, then pushing it again.

Session 1: Push Bias

Session 2: Pull Bias

What Mattered

For my contexts and goals, lower body got straight maintenance work only. You could do more if you wanted. Everything is a tradeoff. Pick your character. For me, this held the line.

I aimed for Monday and Thursday. But, life with kids doesn’t follow schedules in the early days. As long as I got 2-4 days between a session, it worked.

With low volume, intensity isn’t optional if you want a half-decent benefit and/or results. You need to train hard. That means, 0-2 reps from failure every set. Chase progression obsessively. Track workouts and try to beat the log-book, even +1 rep counts. There’s no volume to hide behind.

You can maintain on a third of the volume it took to build. Before bub, I was hitting each muscle group twice per week for a total of 9-12 sets (excluding overlap). That means 4-6 sets once per week sustains me. When dieting or when life’s particularly tough, one [focused and hard] session per week beats zero every day of the week. On this program, in the span of 10 days, I was hitting everything at least three times. It’s more than it seems on paper.

Rest-pause and myo-reps saved me loads of time. First set hard, truly hard. Then, 10-15 second breaks, with mini-sets of 3-4 until I couldn’t hit reps anymore. This is auto-regulatory in a way, some days you’ll get 5 mini sets, others only 1-2. Listen to your body. I used this on all isolation movements.4I would have done the whole routine like this with access to good machines.

A small home gym removed friction. Pull-up bar was the only thing I needed a gym for. Everything else I could do with an adjustable bench and adjustable dumbbells. I would substitute pull-ups for DB lat pullovers if I couldn’t make it to the gym on any given day.

Post newborn days: 3 Days

I’ve expanded to three 45-60 minute sessions. The extra day makes a big difference for legs. But if things get chaotic again (another kid, for example) I’ll drop back to the New Dad framework and maintain what matters.

Two hard sessions per week held my strength and some. Maintenance costs way less than building. Once you know that, you’ve got no excuse to stop entirely.

There are no flashy scenes or high-budget fluff, the story unfolds with Michael (Clooney) telling you what’s going on with his face. I’ve not seen many Clooney films aside from the Oceans series, Batman and Up in the Air. After watching his performance, I want to see more.

The film has no mystery or case to solve (it’s all obvious and plainly stated) but it doesn’t detract from the ending. Both my wife and I particularly liked how even though he was divorced, there was no drama surrounding it. This often distracts in other films. We don’t know exactly how family life was, but we also don’t care. Most films would mine that for 20 minutes. This doesn’t bother.

Would rewatch (my signal for great movies is rewatchability)

Stack

• Bun: Replaces Node, npm, and webpack. Fast.
• TypeScript: Types keep me honest.
• Plain CSS: One small stylesheet, inlined into every page.
• Markdown-It: Markdown → HTML.

No React. No hydration. No 500kb JavaScript bundles. Just HTML and CSS.

Build

Everything happens in src/build.ts. One file, top to bottom:

1. Read markdown files from content/
2. Extract frontmatter (title, date, ratings)
3. Process markdown with custom rules:
   • Wikilinks: [[Page Name]] becomes internal links¹
   • Footnotes: becomes expandable inline notes
4. Find backlinks by scanning who links to whom
5. Generate HTML using template strings
6. Write to dist/

That’s it. No bundler, no magic.

Speed

The whole site builds in under a second:

$ bun run build
📍 Building Ryan's Blog...
✅ Build Complete!

I edit a file, run build, it’s done. No webpack. No dev server.2Most of the time, I don’t even run a build as I use Obsidian with a Git plugin, so commits happen automatically when I save.