Monday, September 22, 2003

Diet update: This last week I saw a 3 pound loss. Overall, I’m very happy with the progress, and I’m keeping to the diet well. My energy level has dropped a bit from last week, but I still feel better than before the diet.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take my advice too well from last week. From the files of “always make sure how much damn carbohydrates are in whatever you are eating,” I really failed. I had thought I found the Holy Grail for this diet: Del Taco’s Macho Beef Burrito. I had been eating one of those every other day (sans tortilla) and they’re just perfect for this diet. Until I discovered last night that the spices put in the meat have carbohydrates! D’oh! That didn’t even occur to me.

Well, the good news is that I still lost weight for the week, even though I probably took in sizeable amounts of carbohydrates from those burritos. So, without those this week, I’m hoping to improve on my results for this week.

So to recap:

Start weight: 236 lbs.
Current weight: 224 lbs.
Total loss: 12 lbs.

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Interesting read. The Bull About the Beef - Has the Atkins diet really transformed the American economy? By Charles Duhigg
Well, I managed to make it through a week on the Atkins diet, and I’m 9 lbs. lighter for the effort. I’m feeling very energized and have noticed that in the mid-afternoon, I have not been experiencing a lull in my energy level. I’ve also been staying up longer and have been sleeping approximately 7 hours per night, which seems about perfect right now. I had been sleeping at least 8 hours and sometimes 9 hours a night prior to the diet, and always feeling like I had never had enough rest.

So, here’s some things I have learned from the first week:

• I’ve shifted my mindset to the long term now. At first, this diet was just a “let’s see what happens” experiment. Well, I’ve seen and I like, so now I’m committed for as long as it takes to see my abdominal muscles.
• The Coca-Cola company, in their infinite wisdom, has packaged their caffeine free diet Coke very similarly to their caffeine free regular Coke. I drank 1/3 of a can of the regular before I realized my mistake (“Hey, how come this tastes so good? Aww, damn.”). Considering that my carbohydrate intake is limited to 20 grams per day, and that one can of the regular Coke contains 39 grams, you might conclude that I was very upset with myself for such a stupid mistake.
• Despite what you think about what is in a food, always, always, always read the label or ask. Last week I found out that McDonalds adds fillers to their chicken, which increases the carbohydrate count. I also found that Skippy peanut butter is loaded with sugar, after I enjoyed some celery and peanut butter sticks. D’oh!
• In-N-Out burger sells their Double-Double as “protein style,” which substitutes the bun for wrapping the patties in lettuce. Yummy!
• Despite what the book may have you thinking, calories still count. The good thing about eating a protein and fat rich diet is that you feel full very quickly when eating, which automatically helps you reduce your calorie intake. But this most certainly is not an “all you can eat” diet.
• While beer has a fair amount of carbohydrates, wine does not. Especially white wine. I was very happy to learn this, because I had initially assumed that all alcohol was completely out of the question. The truth of the matter is that most hard alcohols have no carbohydrates.

The first 2 days of the diet were fairly rough, as I quit carbohydrates and sugar cold turkey. Clearly, I had some addictions there, but I was able to sit in Baskin Robbins yesterday afternoon with my kids while they enjoyed their ice cream and I had very little desire to order anything for myself. That, my friends, is nothing short of amazing for me.

Look for another diet update next week.

Monday, September 15, 2003

Before anyone thinks that I’m a Disney critic and can’t say anything nice about the company, they should probably know that I’ve invested a considerable amount into the purchase of Disney’s timeshare program, the Disney Vacation Club.

I’m actually a huge fan of Disney and theme parks in general. This explains why I’m often critical of the company that seems to milk the parks for every dollar, just to stop the hemorrhaging of the company’s other divisions. It would just be nice if company management could actually turn profits in all of their divisions so that they didn’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and say that I’m really very excited for my next trip to the “World” on January 18, 2004. A mere 131 days from now! I made the reservations for the trip in April and I’m looking forward to really taking in all the Beach Club has to offer.


Disney's Beach Club Villas, part of the Disney Vacation Club

I’ll be there for two weeks with my parents, sister and my girlfriend. Somewhere in that time, my buddy Dave will be showing up to enjoy the parks and then to geek out at Lotusphere.

I’m looking forward to returning year after year to DisneyWorld, and hopefully many of my friends will take me up on my offer to join me!

Friday, September 12, 2003

Sadly, it’s beginning to appear that the Big Thunder accident really may have been from all of the budgetary cutbacks at the Disneyland Resort. I was hoping against hope that this was just a freak accident, but it’s becoming more clear that Eisner may have blood on his hands.


My daughter and me on a recent Big Thunder ride

Here’s a quote from the MiceAge.com update from a former cast member that had worked the Big Thunder attraction for 7 years:

My initial chill has since been replaced with anger and disgust. I am absolutely sickened that Disneyland after so many safe years of operation, has now become a place where accidents of this magnitude are allowed to happen and even become commonplace. There is no doubt in my mind that this accident and others are the direct result of the cost cutting measures that were first implemented back during the time when I was a lead on the attraction. I just thank God that I didn't stick around to witness the end result.

Why do I have this feeling that the investigation is going to be glossed over and nothing is going to change?

Thursday, September 11, 2003

I decided to no longer play Star Wars Galaxies about a month ago. The game is devoid of content, and while the graphics are stunning, there isn’t enough game play depth to warrant a serious commitment. I’m taking a wait and see attitude with this game, so I expect that I’ll give it another try early next year.

I do, however, like to read the Galaxies message boards on occasion, because it reminds me of many of the reasons that I left the game. A couple of days ago, the publisher of Galaxies, Sony Online Entertainment, decided to lock the public message boards and require that users be actual paying subscribers to Galaxies to read the boards.



I know I shouldn’t be shocked, but I can’t help but being confused. I had a programmer friend in the Marine Corps, “Weems,” who was not known for his people skills. He would often remark that he liked to build user interfaces that would hurt the user. He was kidding of course but that always gave me a good chuckle. You’d appreciate it more only after you’ve sat through numerous meetings with users who can barely operate a computer, yet expect the programmer to magically make up for their deficiencies by making requests that NASA couldn’t fulfill. I digress.

I think Weems works for Sony Online Entertainment. I’ve spoken to him, just the other day, and while he says he has his own business, I beginning to think he’s lying to me. Sony is just really mad at their customers; they want to hurt them and their families. I can’t see any other reason behind their actions, besides blind idiocy.

Clearly the move was to ensure that new customers would be completely clueless about the poor game design. If you want proof, go look at the home page for the game, and try to find a glowing review on the front page, that often appear after the press lauds a well deserving piece of software. Well, you’re not going to find any, because there aren’t any good reviews. What’s dismaying is the gaming press is notorious for being “bought off” with advertising dollars which Sony has certainly spent. Even the most liberal of gaming reviewers knew that a sub-average review was a stretch.

My subscription to the game is not yet over, so I can still access the message boards. And closing the message boards has definitely not stopped the players from screaming about all of the problems. What is most troubling for me though is that I’d like to come back to the game at some point, because I’m a Star Wars fan and an MMORPG fan. So, now I have to go out of my way to find out if the bugs and game design have been fixed because I won’t be able to access Sony’s message boards. It seems to me to be double-edged sword.

I should have known better. This is the same company behind the highly successful, and highly boring, EverQuest. They fooled me twice, shame on me.

Diet update: As of this morning, I’ve lost 7 lbs. I’m assuming that some of this, maybe the majority is water weight, but I’m very encouraged. My energy level is the highest it has been in years, although I’m sure it will become even higher as the weight disappears.

Monday, September 08, 2003

Today, I’m the heaviest I have ever been in my life: 236 pounds. It’s time for a change.

I’ve always struggled to manage my weight. Even while enlisted in the Marine Corps, I was never able to achieve the weight that would be considered fit. I have been running to improve this situation; however it’s becoming more and more obvious that I need a diet to go along with the exercise. Sigh.

I’ve chosen the Atkins diet because I did attempt this diet half-heartedly before and lost 5 pounds in the first week. I didn’t prepare myself properly by having foods nearby that are low in carbohydrates, so I quickly fell of the diet. Today, I’ve purchased so many special foods for this diet, that I only have myself to blame for failure. I have the credit card bill to prove it.

All of the stories that you heard about the diet are true. Pretty much eat tons of protein without regard to fat or calories, but limiting yourself to less than 20 g of carbohydrate per day. The thing you probably haven’t heard is that this part of the diet only lasts the first 14 days. After that, you’re steadily increasing your carbohydrate intake to find where you stop losing weight, and then lower your carbohydrate intake by just a few grams to continue gradual weight loss. So yes, I’m looking forward to eating carbohydrates again, just not as many as I have enjoyed in the past.

In addition, I’m publicly announcing my diet, so hopefully that will be a good incentive for me to stay on track. The theory here is to keep myself accountable. So, today, September 8, 2003, I weigh 236 pounds at 27% body fat. I’ll check back in next week to detail my progress.

Friday, September 05, 2003

I love to play computer games. My dad bought me my first computer 20 years ago, a Timex Sinclair 2000. I spent hours typing on the membrane keyboard from this book that had a few games written in basic. I was hooked on the games I was able to play.

The emergence of several MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) on the market in recent years has been my gaming focus. I love the idea of playing a game with thousands of others online, whether it’s in a cooperative effort or fighting against each other.

You may have heard of games like this, such as EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot or the recent Star Wars Galaxies. While I have enjoyed playing each of these games to some degree, none of these games was really able to capture my attention for months on end like most players. Star Wars Galaxies is enduring growing pains that ensures that the game is more frustrating than fun at the moment, and I will probably play that game again at some point in the future.

However, I really wanted to play a MMORPG now, so that I can escape from my world for a couple of hours a day and enjoy a different world entirely. I stumbled upon a game entitled Asheron’s Call 2. I had played the first version of Asheron’s Call, also an MMORPG, and found it to be the most enjoyable online experience that I had so far in this genre. Unfortunately, the game was plagued by massive cheating and the developers of the game didn’t do much to stop it. That’s really a show stopper for me in this genre, as I believe the games need to be fair considering how much time they ask of you.

Asheron’s Call 2 was released last year and was met with a very frustrated player community who felt the design of the game was flawed and that the product was released too early. While the design of the game isn’t fundamentally flawed (it’s just not anything like Asheron’s Call 1), the game did have a large helping of software bugs.

Today, Asheron’s Call 2 has lost many aggravated players, however the game is now stable. In fact, during prime time, there are only 1500 or so people playing Asheron’s Call 2, where Star Wars Galaxies has just reported that their subscription base is 275,000.

I decided that now would be the perfect time to give it a spin, and in fact, they are offering a completely free trial right now that requires no purchase of any software or even a credit card number.

I’ll be reporting on my experiences with this game in the coming weeks ahead, but if last night was any indication, this game is going to hold my attention for at least a few months. The game was designed and succeeds by letting brand spanking new players actually get into the game almost immediately. After only 2 hours of play, I had a real sense of accomplishment and enjoyed my time in their world. I can’t say that of any other MMORPG.

Here’s some highlights:

The first dungeon I found, I immediately became lost because there are no stereotypical right angles in the dungeon. It had a very natural feeling, almost like adventuring in an ant farm, and it was disorienting.

The game has been designed to eliminate down time and almost has a FPS (first person shooter) feel to it, although that may be an overstatement. It definitely doesn’t move as slow as traditional MMORPG’s.

The graphics are stunning and beautiful. In fact, they give you the option when installing to place very high resolution information on your computer. What a great idea! If you have a high speed computer, you can really press it’s capabilities and really enjoy your surroundings. If you don’t have a fast computer, you can install the normal detail graphics and ensure that you’re machine will keep up with everyone else. Neat! I was in awe of this little magical dagger I found that had a red glow infused within it. When I equipped the dagger, the red glow was actually a real 3 dimensional light source that acted just like any other light source in the environment. Swinging away at monster, you could see the shadows cast on the cave walls as the red glow swiped by the monster.

If you’re looking for something to play, for free in fact, you should definitely check out Asheron’s Call 2. Worst case, you’ll enjoy yourself for a few hours on someone else’s dime.