Have You Thanked a Veteran?

It's Veteran's Day and little did I know that I worked with a bunch of them. Some of the webcomics I read did a tribute to veterans in their own way and it made me realize that a lot of us take for granted the sacrifice they've made. So, if you see someone who you know is or might be a veteran say thanks.

On another note, it's been a couple weeks again since I've posted. I think since there's no format or a topic I'm easily get distracted and don't post anything. That or I have ADD and just don't think about it enough. I'm voting for the latter. So, I'm going to go ahead and do one of my giant updates that I do every couple of weeks/months/years to kill the last ten minutes at work.

I finally broke down and got a Twitter account. You can find my page here if you'd like to stalk me some more. I've only been on for 24 hours and have fallen into my usual early addiction with tons of updates. We'll see how long this last. You can follow me on there though if you'd like to stalk me some more. I won't mind as long as you don't send me animal parts in the mail....

I still haven't gotten back into the exercise regime. I REALLY want to, I swear. I just haven't pushed myself to that point yet. Monday is the day. I'm doing it. Cardio at least. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to start up the 100 push up program again or not. We shall see. I fully expect you all to hold me to it. I don't know how, but you'll figure out a way.

Fable (The Original) has been on the plate as of late for video games. Yes, I realize that game is from 2004 and that there are much better games with better graphics blah blah blah. With the economy as bad as it is and me being pretty broke I've decided that spending $60 on a video isn't in the cards right now. So I'm playing through all the games I bought back when I had money (or was stupid enough to use a credit card) that I never completed. I will, however, probably make an exception for Gears of War 2 but only because then I can swap it with a friend for Fall Out 3. Collaboration saves money, even out of the working world. Whuddathunk?

It's been a lot of fun so far. I'm a dark will user that has some pretty awesome tattoos. There are some small nuances that I'm getting used to (like changing between spells and remembering what set I'm on) but all-in-all it's a good time. Maybe in 2012 I can get Fable 2 to see what they've fixed in Fable....

I'd update more but I'm done at work and don't want to be here any longer than I have to. You know you'd do the same.

Asian Out

*tumble weed*

I swear, I didn't forget about this. Okay, maybe I did just a little... but really there hasn't been much to report.



I quit the 100 pushup program after I realized I had been doing the program ENTIRELY wrong. I meant to restart but ended up getting caught up in a ton of other things. I haven't even been keeping up with my Wii Fit. I imagine my trainer is going to yell at me the next time I get on that board for not working out with her. (yes, I chose the female trainer. Why would I want to stare at a dude?). I have no idea what my current weight is but I'm thinking it's not good or about the same as it was before. Bleh. I need to get back on the wagon and into the gym.



It doesn't help that the fall season TV shows are in full swing. I had to clear out a bunch of old stuff from my DVR to make sure I could record everything I want to watch. The list is immense and I'd love to add more (Heroes, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) but don't have the time nor the will to do it. Plus I have this weird thing where if I don't start from the absolute beginning of a series I can't watch any episodes. I hate jumping into the middle of a series.I hate missing back story and what not. So, maybe the next break in lineups I'll rent the DVD's of the shows I want to pick up so I can catch up on them and fill my DVR up with MORE TV to watch when I have free time.



I've also fallen way behind in video games. Like, waaaaaay behind. And the holiday release schedule is in full swing. Fable II came out yesterday. Do you want to know what I was playing? Fable I for the original xbox. I never played through it before so I'm doing it now. I did manage to get through Gears of War and Assassin's Creed over the past couple months so I've got that going for me. There are still a ton of games I own that I've touched maybe once or twice and haven't completed. We'll see if I can get through some of those before I buy anything new (not likely).



Hrm, what else. I guess the big news lately is the economy and the election. I'm not big on politics so I won't even comment on that. The economy? Yeah, it sucks and almost everyone lost a ton of money in their 401k's (woo for me being stupid and putting all my investments in low risk investments when I started working) but what can we do now? Pay your bills and quit your whining. Cut out the fat. I'm attempting to do that myself by not buying as many games or toys (I already went on my binge with my new iPod) and I'm attempting to cut back on eating out for lunch. Do what you need to do and don't rely on someone else to fix your problems. And that's my thoughts on that.



Don't forget that October is Breast Cancer awareness month. So Feel Your Boobies ladies.


Posted on SpotJots near: 1178-1199 S EISENHOWER BLVD, LOWER SWATARA TWP PA 17057 US

Hurricane Gustav

First: Thanks for getting this thing going again, Mike!

Ok, now on to business.

We have the Weather Channel on, and they are talking about Gustav. They just announced that they are not using the Superdome or the Convention Center as shelters--in other words, if you are going to evacuate, do it now. Additionally, Dan's dad said that that some or all of the major roads leading to and from Louisiana will now all be northbound.

I'm so glad that they are actually doing something this time. Although it seems odd that that something is closing huge shelters, I think (I hope) that it works in getting people out of the area. While I obviously hope that the hurricane doesn't hit in New Orleans, I'm glad that there are so many precautions being taken.

Frustration!

Week 6 Exhaustion Test

http://www.hundredpushups.com



AGRAH! I'm an idiot. I've been doing the Hundred Push Up Program for 5 Weeks now. When I first started I found you could download the entire program on a PDF to use as a guide. What I didn't know is that the PDF guide does NOT contain all the information. I checked the website the other day and found this out.



Apparently if I don't meet the goal of the minimum level during an exhaustion test I'm supposed to redo the previous week. That means I should have redone Week 4 before moving on to Week 5. Ugh.



Either way, I also found out that I'm supposed to do the exhaustion test again before Week 6. Woo. So I did that today and pushed out a whopping 28 push ups. I'm waaaaaaaaay behind. I might just go back to week 3 again and go through those weeks again.



This (amongst other things in my life) is becoming extremely frustrating. I am seeing result in that I'm losing a little flab but it's discouraging about the actual progress in fitness I'm not making. Agrah!



Posted on SpotJots near: 668-715 WERTZVILLE RD/PA-944 , EAST PENNSBORO TWP PA 17025 US

Announcement Part Deux

If anyone reads this there are a couple things to address:

1) First, and foremost, a HUGE congratulation needs to go out to Dan and Lindsay. This past Sunday the two became one (dammit, now I have Spice Girl stuck in my head) and tied the knot. It was a great weekend with the only casualty being Dan's phone (my bad) and my scraped up leg (stupid Jersey shore).

2) Sorry for not posting since June. The summer went by so fast and so much has happened that, to be honest, I forgot about the blog. I've actually been cheating on the blog with SpotJots which I have been posting to most as of late. I'm pretty sure I can link this with that and have anything I post on Spot Jot show up on here. I may have to do that today to keep both of these things running.

If you'd like to catch up with what I've been doing for the past six weeks you can check out My Spot Jots page and read what I've posted. Most of the posts are about an exercise program I'm working on call The Hundred Push Up Program. It's been a real challenge and as I approach the end of the program it doen't look like it's going to let up.

Other than that the summer has flown by. Not a lot has happened in my life. I've been off and on with my video games lately. Wii Fit has been neglected, reinstated, and reneglected now. I borrowed Gears of War from a friend and managed to get through that on Casual (read Easy) but want to try my hand at a harder setting. I finally got around to starting Assassin's Creed and have high hopes for it. Exploring the cities is a ton of fun.

I've got a pile of games that I bought in the past either used or new that I either haven't touched or only played for a moment before putting it back on the shelf. I want to get through some of those before I buy anything new but the fall line up is coming up quick. *sigh* I wish I had a free day to do nothing.

- Michael

Currently Playing: Assassin's Creed
Currently Wanting: My bed to catch up from sleep from the weekend (almost back to normal)
Currently Needs: To shave.... I haven't shaved since Sunday and it's starting to look real bad
Currently Looking Forward To: Pittsburgh next weekend for the Irish Festival
Currently Feeling: Stuffy and tired

Announcement

Considering our relatively low readership, I'm sure anyone who sees this will already be aware of the news. I figured I'd post it anyway, mainly because Mike reminded me of how I, too, frequently let things like this blog fall off my radar.

I have accepted a 12-month position at my company's facility in Riviera Beach, Florida. My start date is July 7th, which is less than a month away. We haven't even listed the condo yet, because there was someone who was interested and I wanted to minimize my costs. That has fallen through (which I think saved us headaches down the road), so we're back to finding interested parties. I am going to talk to the person I'm replacing and the person I'll be working for, but we're thinking about trying to push the start date back a little bit to give us some more time to sell.

The position will be with Engineering Operations, so I'll get to see a completely different side of the company. It will be difficult, especially once classes start up again. It should be a very good experience though, and I will get insight into the top of the business, which I wouldn't normally get until much later in my career.

It's finals week so I can't promise anything, but I'll try to post again shortly.

I think I have ADD

Either that or I have a routine of starting something and never ending it. Unfortunately for me, it seems like it is going to be much more of the latter.

So, I was all gung-ho for Wii Fit and the board and all it that was good and great with what I could do with it. And then I downloaded this.

Now, for those of you who know me, and you should if you are reading this since we don't really have any readers other than those who write on this blog, I'm a big fan of web comics. Mostly video game based but there are a few others out there that I enjoy greatly that have little to nothing to do with video games. Penny Arcade is by far a staple of any video-game-related-web-comic reader.

When Gabe and Tycho, the two main characters of Penny Arcade (and alter egos of the writers), announced a while ago they would be creating their very own video game and releasing it to the public their audience waited with drool coming from their mouths. I didn't really think much of it when it was first announced other than "Great, another video game I'll have to the list of games I need to play." Don't get me wrong, I was excited for this momentus occassion, just not as excited by the announcement so much as the actual release.

And then the game was released. Last week, in fact. The same time Wii Fit was released and when I had an incident in the family which turned into a family gathering. I really was excited about the release of the Penny Arcade game, but didn't find time last week to actually purchase and download it with the family visiting and other things going on. I was genuinely more excited about the Wii Fit release but the fact that I actually had to go to a store and pick up a piece of hardware was the girth of the excitement. Who doesn't like picking up a new toy from the store after pre-ordering and waiting what seems like FOR-EV-AR. So Wii Fit took precedence over the Penny Arcade game.

Tuesday night I found myself sitting in my room watching reruns of shows that I had seen about a million times. With the family gone and a day to go before the next game in the Pens/Wings series I found myself extremely bored. With my dad using the big screen downstairs where the Wii is currently located and my laziness in full swing I decided against moving the Wii back up to my room (and the hassle of hooking it up) and opted to turn on my xBox 360 for the first time in a long time (Well, that's a lie. My little cousing was playing Guitar Hero 3 last week but I don't count that since it wasn't quality gaming time for me). I went to the download screen to see what was available and was blasted with ads for the Penny Arcade game. After that subtle reminder my excitement for the game grew. I went straight to the download page, bought it, and watched the download bar with anticipation.

I dove right into the game creating a character that looks as close to myself as the minimal options the game gave me. In all actuality, the in game me looks a lot like myself. The narration and writing is what you would expect from the guys at PA including sarcasm, tons of humor, and a bit of sailor's mouth. The cell-shading style fits in perfectly with the art style they use in their comic and the areas look beautiful. The game play is a little odd at first and sometimes the camera isn't the best (I found myself walking up and down streets a couple times just to make sure I found everything I could inspect, but I'm one of those guys who likes to search every nook and cranny). The fighting system takes a little bit to get used (I'm still working on it, even after logging a couple hours Wednesday) and can get a little hectic sometimes when you're trying to setup your attacks and blocking enemy attacks at the same time.

As it seems, I've gotten sucked into another game. My plan right now is to finish this ASAP so I can get back to the backlog of games I have not completed (if even started, poor Assassin's Creed). Since this is only an xBox Live Arcade game it can't be THAT long so I'm hoping to finish it in the next week or so. At the same time I'm hoping to get into a routine with Wii Fit. Ideally I would do my daily test every morning before work and maybe one or two workouts or games but at this point in time I need to work on getting up early enough that I get to work on time. I might have to settle for a post dinner or pre-bed timeframe for now. We shall see what develops.

-Michael

Currently Playing: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1
Currently Anticipating: Cigar Social after work and Lost season finale tonight

Introducing the Video Game tag. I'm surprised we didn't already have this tag.

*chirp chirp*

::watches the tumble weed go by::

Well, it's been a while. Over two months, in fact. I kind of saw this coming, for me at least. Things usually drop off my radar after a good month or two. I've been busy with work and family and life in general. I really should be catching up on work from the super long weekend but decided I'd do a post. So here are some thoughts on a recent purchase I made. Enjoy!

I bought Wii Fit and We Ski last week. I haven't actually had a lot of time to sit down (er, stand up) and play both games a lot. I went through the initial tests with Wii Fit which was interesting. It gives you your BMI (mine was really high, but that was expected since I'm not a small guy. Although it was higher than what I had thought it would be.... I blame the "sturdy base" I have), weight (which was the same as the last time I was at the doctors), tests your center of balance and posture (ie if you stand with your weight distributed evenly between your legs or if you lean/slouch to one side) and then does an initial test on body control (shifting weight between your legs and holding for three seconds). Although my measurements left something to be desired I did fairly well on the body control test. My "Wii Fit Age" was a good 22, two years younger than my actual age.

After all the tests you can setup goals for yourself like if you want to gain or lose weight and then a time frame to achieve your goal. I obviously opted to lose some weight. 22 lbs was the max, I set a goal of 20 lbs and a month to do it. Pretty aggressive goal which I'm probably going to push out a little farther (perhaps 3 months). Wii Fit actually told me it was aggressive saying that, on average, most people try to lose a couple pounds (2-3 lbs) every two weeks. I was pushing about 10 lbs every two weeks. In all honesty I don't see myself losing very much weight as much as toning/building muscle (it's what's happened before when I tried to lose weight). So, although I may shed some fat, I probably won't shed any weight and my BMI will remain high and Wii Fit will continue to think that I am morbidly obese (it doesn't actually say "morbidly obese" but it does place me very high on the obese scale).

Once you've completed the initial tests and setup your goal you can begin your "workout". I use "workout" because for the most part these are just mini-games that require a little more physical input that most of ther Wii games. Of course, the only ones I have tried were under the "Balance" section which works on, surprise, your balance. You'd be surprised at how much control you need to actually complete some of these games. The ski slalom game was extremely entertaining with the family. These games have various metrics to show your progress like shortest time and/or point totals.

I tried two Yoga and one Aerobic "games" too. I use "games" because they're more like instructional videos than games. The Yoga lessons take you through various positions and you complete them on the balance board while trying to maintain balance and posture. The aerobic "game" I tried was hulahooping which actually made me work up a sweat. It makes it interesting by having other Mii's throwing more hulahoops at you that you have to lean to catch and then continue hulahooping. The object is to get your counter (the number of times your hulahoop(s) go around) as high as possible.

As you go through the different "workouts" and "games" you're credited with Wii Fit Minutes (I think that's what they are). As you accumulate more minutes it unlocks new "workouts" and "games" for you to try. Also, as you do better and better on a specific "workout" or "game" it unlocks harder versions for you to try. I'm looking forward to unlocking more "workouts" and "games".

Also purchased was We Ski. Pretty obvious what this game is about, skiing, but it uses the balance board from Wii Fit. So, with remote, nunchuk, and balance board ready to go I dove into the tutorials. The controls weren't too bad. Some of the advanced moves were a little tricky to master at first but the tutorial was good enough that I could usually pick things up by the second try at most. The programming for this was just as sensitive as it was for Wii Fit so it made the game a little more difficult trying to control steering as accurately as I wanted. I had problems in both games lifting up one foot or the other and going way off course or overcorrecting. It's going to take a little bit of learning and a lot of practice to become really good but that's the idea behind Wii Fit.

Both games are sure to be challenging for a good amount of time. Even though the idea behind it is pretty simple the execution takes a lot more control. I had some family in town and they all gave Wii Fit a try and had a blast seeing everyone elses results and Wii Fit Age, My dad actually scored 47, nearly 20 years below his actual age. My mother was not that fortunate. One of my aunts got hooked and decided she wanted to get one. She and her husband will be looking for a Wii and Wii Fit when they get back to California.

Nintendo really has something with their Wii and Wii Fit. My parents and relatives can be considered the pinnicle "non-gamer" and have embraced and enjoy the Wii and Wii Fit. My dad even likes a good round of Wii Tennis. Of course, they wouldn't play without me so the barrier hasn't been breeched completely, but we're making strides. I have both my mom and dad setup in Wii Fit now and once I show them how to turn everything on and how it works they'll start working toward their goals in Wii Fit. Maybe one day I'll have to fight my dad for the Wii like we used to over the phone line before we got DSL. Wouldn't that be something?

-Michael
Currently: Procrastinating much more than I should have....
Currently Stuck in My Head: "Hold me closer tiny dancer...." (I have no idea why)
Currently Craving: a nap
Currently TV Obsession: watching the Pens lose to the Red Wings ::single tear::
Currently Anticipating: going home
Current Video Game(s): Wii Fit and We Ski, although I should really finish Super Paper Mario....