Let’s get through the other stuff first – you know, the things in my life that don’t revolve around my waistline.

I have no idea where this goes.

Yes, there were parts of it that were sublime. Talking with Laura Linney for 15 minutes was excellent. Watching Peter Weller hijack an interview by James Wallace made me laugh harder than I had in years. Meeting dozens of filmmakers from all over the world was humbling and enthralling.

Would I do it again? I have no idea. Ask me again in August.

This week, I’m indulging two of my old pasttimes with “moonlighting” gigs. Tomorrow night, I’ll be delivering a DJ set at Lee Harvey’s, a wonderful bar in Dallas’ Exposition Park. It’s not a set I’m used to performing – I won’t have to worry about keeping a dance floor happy, or dealing with the whims of karaoke singers. Instead, it’ll be more on the rock side of the spectrum, even though I’ll be delving into all four corners of my library. There are food and drink specials. If you came and hung out with us, I’d be most pleased.

Then, this weekend, I’ll be running around at the Dallas Comic-Con. Originally, I was only going to be emceeing the con’s Costume Contest. The last time I did this, during FanDays in October 2011, I had an absolute blast. Here, see for yourself:

I’ll also be leading a pair of Q&A sessions at the Con. On Saturday, there’s a panel with David Prowse (Darth Vader), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett). I’ve met each of these gents at previous cons, and can’t wait to host this discussion. Then, on Sunday, I’m sitting down with James Marsters. (Don’t worry – I’ll get the accent question out of the way fast.) All in all, it should be a really fun weekend. If you’re not already coming out, then you must not want to see Patrick Stewart, Stan Lee, Adam West and Burt Ward, Neal Adams, Laura Vandervoort, Kristanna Loken… or me.

Okay. My weight. When I got back from DIFF, I had lost ten pounds. My guess is the stress of being up and functioning for 20-22 hours a day for twelve days took its toll on my system. I’m just not starting to get my energy back, but the weight crept up as well. I’m getting back on the three-workouts-a-week routine, and not being as indulgent with my food. I still have conviction that I’ll hit my goal of weighing 200 pounds by year’s end. It means I have seven months to lose 50 pounds.

And I will.

I’ve run into a few people over the last three months who ask me the exact same thing: “How are you doing it?” When I tell them “Diet and exercise,” a few people peer in, as if I’m hiding something.

“No, really, dude. What are you doing? Which program?”

I’ll admit I shared their skepticism at the outset. All I’m doing – all – is watching my caloric intake every day, and working out at least two times a week. (My goal is three times, but there have been a couple of times where that wasn’t the case.)

An essential tool for me has been My Fitness Pal, a free iPhone app and companion web site. By logging everything that I eat, every day, and being honest about the portions and quantity, I’m making a lot better choices with my food.

The site also has the option to look deeper at sodium, fat and carbohydrate content. I’ll sometimes look at it, if I have a concern about a food that is really high in sodium. However, I mostly keep to the calories.

My rate of weight loss has slowed a bit. I’m still heading in the right direction, but – as I knew and everyone else told me – my meteoric decline was short-lived. I’m still confident that I can hit my 2012 goal to get down to 200 pounds by year’s end. I’m simply off my pace to do that by Labor Day.

I probably should have done this a while back, but you can link up with me on My Fitness Pal. (Several people already have, including Manda and Chance.) Shoot me an email and I’ll give you the details. If you’re having problems keeping your goals of slimming down, I can’t endorse My Fitness Pal enough. The simple fact of knowing what you’re putting into your body every day does wonders.

I’ve been telling myself, for the last seven weeks, that I will not lose weight quickly each and every week. That eventually, I would hit a slowdown point. That I was not going to sprint to the finish line.

That has all come to pass this week, as I’ve been stalled out at or around 261 pounds for the last week.

I haven’t made it easy on myself, naturally. While I have kept up with the workouts (at least 30 minutes on my Elliptical Mistress three times a week, and usually a lot more), and the lowered caloric intake (1600 calories on the topside, and most days lower), there have been a couple of times where I’ve splurged.

Example: Saturday night, most of the crew from my work were taken out to Texas de Brazil, a high-calibre churrascaria that simply does not screw around with “low cal.” The entry in My Fitness Pal for Texas de Brazil is comical: “Light Salad Bar and Lean Meat Carvings.” 1000 calories. I logged 1.5 servings, just to be safe and accurate.

The next morning, I dragged my sorry arse out of bed and hit the elliptical for an hour.

So, here I hover. I’ll bust through the plateau eventually, and continue on the downward line graph progressions. I just need to be patient.

Because I do “patient” so damned well.

[After 31 Days: weight - 266.5 lbs. Pounds left to goal - 64.5.]

I'll replace this shot of Bad Karma at McFadden's with a real shot as soon as one comes available. But I'm clearly there.

This, after burning an estimated 1183 calories on stage with Bad Karma. It felt amazing, after the gig – not only had I killed it on stage, but it felt better from the last time I sang with ‘em. Wasn’t nearly winded. Wasn’t gasping for breath between songs. In better shape.

Let me be clear, here: I know for a fact that I won’t lose ten pounds each month. I know there’ll be a plateau or three to bust through. I’ll put an obstacle or two in my own path by eating wrong, or not hitting the gym like I need to.

However, looking at the progress Manda has made in the last year (50+ pounds lost and going) does nothing but fuel my desire to keep grinding.

Also, I read comments like these, and it lights another fuse. This is from Betsy Myers, my very first girlfriend:

Never in all the years i’ve known you would I have thought you’d have been that heavy.

The next 29 days are going to be interesting. While I can feel the weight is slightly less from when I started the year, it’s really not that evident. I’m hoping the next weight I lose is where people can really start noticing. Particularly, I want my gut gone, or at least on the porch on the way out of town.

Patience, Pike. You know this was always going to be a process.

Shut up. Dumb Inner Bastard.

I know North Texas needed the rain this week. Badly. Lakes were dangerously low, water shortages rampant. However, it was murder on my weight loss plan.

You might remember my bout with knee surgery after an errant bastard whacked me with a baby carriage in 2002. Ten years later, any time the barometer drops, my pain level increases. Both of my knees, and both of my ankles, are an orthopedic disaster. Even though I will get in three heavy cardio workouts this week, I went three days without one. And that’s entirely no good.

Still, it felt good to get back onto the elliptical tonight and grind it out (45 minutes, on a single hill climb and descent program.) I’m naming the elliptical at the gym Heilwig. Nice, thick Germanic task mistress. When the complex finally does get in the new gym equipment that they’ve been promising for months, I’ll be sad if Heilwig goes away. She’s a sturdy beast.

Win of the week, for me: the first batch of clothing that I couldn’t wear in 2011. Two different pairs of shorts, and one pair of pants. It’s nice, but my belly is the focal point of my reduction rage. When I sit down and chat up folks at this year’s DALLAS International Film Festival, I don’t want to look at my ponderous gut and shudder.

When I don’t look like a burrito in my prom dress, that’s when I’ll be satisfied. For a little while.

First, a note for those who have no desire to hear me go on and on and on about my quest to drop a third of me by the time our Mayan Calendar runs out. I will get back to my screeds about media, sports, and pop culture. I have a decent amount to say about last week’s SOPA / Protect IP Act protests. However, I need to get back into the rhythm of posting normally. It’s all coming in due time. There’s also my bi-weekly “Rock Vault” column that I’m writing for the NB Citizen. That’ll be a hoot.

Okay. To the business at hand.

Sunday was supposed to be the day where Manda and I got our rest together, watch a little playoff football, and just be relaxed before she went back to work from vacation, and I simply went back to work. The original plan we had laid out was: we would work out during the week, and Saturday. Sunday was a recuperation day.

Neither of these women were our server at Hooters tonight. Sadly.

I don’t mind Hooters all that much, but I never really understood what one of my normal meals there cost me in caloric intake. Hell, a single order of fries alone is 630 calories. Add to that the boneless wings (710 calories) and two large Michelob Ultras (285 calories), and I had screamed past my daily limit.

Which only meant one thing. As soon as the Giants quit toying with the 49ers in overtime, I had to go hit the gym. I had around 1000 calories to burn off, which equals around an hour of cardio and weights.

Some of my friends tell me that a “cheat day” is important, and I agree, but not in the way they’re meaning. I may go 100 calories ver my limit every now and then, but once I have a 3000 calorie day and do nothing about it, that’s a slope my metabolism probably can’t scrabble back up.

Look. I know my own body. Acutely. And I know that I need to be vigilant over my own desires to eat the way I have for the past ten years. This is my chance to really change my appearance, and keep it where I want it to be. Can’t blow this one; too much is riding on it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully relax again, and will likely need to always moderate my food from here on out. At least get out and exercise on a normal basis. You know, the basics that every person is supposed to follow. It even applies to America’s Sweetheart.

>On Day 19, I weigh 270 lbs. Eight pounds down from my starting weight. I’ve met my calorie goals (or come in under it) on each day but one. On days where I’ve worked out, the difference is drastic.

That’s one of the pitfalls of working out at night – I fear not getting into the gym during the day, so I eat light. Then I’m 600 calories under my goal and it’s far too late to eat.

On the subject of working out: I’ve moved from doing a straight 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, on the same amount of resistance, to 35 minutes with a “cross country” program. I’ll get my heart used to that level before I crank up the time or program some more.

I feel good. It’s not really the full life-changing euphoria I’ve felt on earlier attempts to get lighter, which were ultra-low calorie restrictive diets. However, I do feel better after every meal, and feel awesome after workouts. And it’ll only get better.

I will do this.

Marty Yawnick – you guys know him, right? – posted this Op/Ed article from the Blogs section of the New York Times site earlier today, knowing it would make my head explode. The headline alone is linkbait at its finest: “Should The Times Be A Truth Vigilante?”

The main crux of the piece is: what the line should be for journalists when they hear someone, be it a candidate for office, elected official, or political pundit, delivering a complete falsehood? When someone like, say, Gordon Keith, says “Mark Followill killed five coeds at UNT,” should the duty of the reporter to, in the same piece, write: “Of course, Followill didn’t kill anyone, and Gordon Keith is a bad person for suggesting it”?

(Mark: I’m sorry for adding on to your growing Google Bomb. The example was just too good to pass up.)

The money quote:

[On] the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:

“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”

My gut reaction is right in line with Krugman’s. It’s a base duty of any reporter’s job, when they hear a statement like that, to investigate it and confirm it. Confirm, confirm, confirm. And, when you encounter bullshit, it’s your job as a journalist to report said awful offal.

Any Journalism 101 student would be able to tell you that.

Now, let’s perform the other, abysmal part of a journalists’ job: look at the opposing viewpoint.

My response to Marty after ready the piece – which, to be honest, didn’t feel like it was written by one of the Times’ leading scribes – was a Devil’s Advocate spinner. Too many times, candidates – or elected officials, or really, anyone operating in the political arena – have gotten used to being able to say damn near anything and not having it challenged. With the electorate so willing to be spoonfed “realfact” and talking points that hardly have a fleeting basis in reality, it strikes me that people aren’t willing to do any fact checking for themselves. Why should a reporter, who is underpaid and really grateful for their paycheck to begin with, risk getting their access revoked, or the ire of an Editorial Desk that might have an agenda of their own, stick their neck out and dispute the person they’re covering on a regular basis?

No, I don’t buy it, either. Not for a second. Yet, there must be a reason why a writer for the Grey Lady thinks their fact-checking function, as one of the most widely-read newspapers in the world, is an interesting experiment.

After 278 people commented on the post, feedback was disabled on the post. Perhaps someone at the Times thought the question was silly as well.

I think Orwell might have been off-target by thinking government would be filling the role of Big Brother. As media companies consolidate, and accrue multiple TV networks, dozens of radio stations, and powerful online presences, a few voices dominate the conversation. Is it that farfetched to see someone like Rupert Murdoch firing up Thinkpol? Citizen media – yes, Virginia, I’m including bloggers in the conversation – has to fill in the gaps left by media consolidation.

I’m reminded of a quote from “Contagion.” Elliot Gould’s crotchety doctor, Ian Sussmann, is plagued by Jude Law, a rogue blogger who sniffed out the global pandemic early and knew Sussmann was working on a cure. Sussmann, on hearing Law’s Alan Krumwiede had spilled the beans: “Blogging is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”

Many writers for traditional press outlets, as well as elected officials… Hell, a good chunk of the populace has the same opinion. The main reason is the lack of any accountability. Bloggers can post up anything online. It’s easy.

So, what exactly, separates a blogger in a free Internet café posting to a WordPress site from The New York Times,if not constant accountability and fact-checking?

A co-worker stopped me in mid-sentence and said, “Are you losing weight?” My normal response is to demur, tell the person something self-effacing. However, I’m trying to accept compliments when they come (as you never know when they’ll stop). So, after thanking her, I asked how she could tell.

“Oh, your face looks much thinner. My boyfriend loses weight from his face first as well.”

While there are a hundred photos that you can easily see the added weight hanging off my skull, I really look at the last six months while producing Reel Geniuses and wonder how I could have ever stepped in front of a camera.

John Neese, our director and technical punching bag, put together a great reel showing off the program’s first-season run. As a way to pad out the post, I’m going against his express commands and posting it here, for your entertainment.

When I step in front of a camera next – likely the 2012 DALLAS International Film Festival – I won’t cringe nearly as much at the result. Well, at least the visual.