Internet Capital? Not Downtown Seattle
After a year in Bothell and living on the Eastside for the last 10 years (remove that two years in Boston), I have finally moved back to Seattle proper, Central District to be more exact. It is amazing to be blocks away from things, being able to walk five minutes to a cool bar or restaurant with actual people is pretty awesome. I have however found out Downtown Seattle’s dark secret. Horrible Internet Service.
Diet Changes
Part of losing weight is changing your diet and I needed to shake things up with mine. I love food and I eat when I get bored, which is common. What I needed to do was control the things that are bad for me and add more healthy options at home. I don’t mind cooking, I actually enjoy it, so I just needed to get rid of most of the snack foods in the house. So what is out?
Soda. I love soda. In my younger years, which probably contributed to my weight increase, I could drink four to six cans a day. Not anymore. No soda in the house at all. I still drink a Diet Mt Dew with my lunch, but that typically lasts from lunch to when I leave work. While at home I now drink Gatorade G2, which has 20 calories for 8 fluid ounces, compare that to a 12 ounce soda which is 150. I have been drinking more water, but still need some flavor. I’d probably drink more if my ice maker in my fridge worked. Perhaps at the new place.
Red Meat. This makes me sad. Red meat has always been part of my diet. I love steaks. I love cheeseburgers. The price is reasonable. You can make all types of stuff with it, but really isn’t that great for you if it is a major part of your diet. I have just gone cold turkey from red meat. It wasn’t that difficult.
Cheese. This one breaks my heart. I love cheese. When I moved to Boston it killed me that it wasn’t a cheese town. After returning to Seattle and being able to buy all that tasty Tillamook Cheese again and gaining some weight as quick as I could eat it, I knew I had to stop. I’ll miss you cheese. Perhaps I’ll treat myself once in a while with some tasty extra sharp.
Snacks. As I said above I tend to eat when I get bored and living in Bothell can make a person really bored. To get around this I have ditched many of my favorite snacks and replaced them with Dill Pickles, which are a favorite of mine. I’d always have some type of snacks in the house. Cookies, buttered microwave popcorn, chips and salsa, and cheese. Not all together, but these were the things that were just a few steps away in the kitchen. Bored during a commercial, grab some chips. Ready to start a movie, pop some popcorn. It was easy, but if it isn’t here I can’t eat it.
With all these changes, what has taken its place? Well I have made an effort to eat more fish. Living in the Seattle area, it is easy to find fish at every store I shop at, and if you keep your eyes open you can find some great deals. I was at Fred Meyers today and they were selling fresh half/whole wild caught Coho salmon for $5.99 a pound. The fish weren’t cut, but you could ask the butcher to cut it into fillets and remove the bones. A great deal for $5.99. They also had Alaskan Cod for $4.99 a pound. I’m hoping when I move downtown, I’ll be able to make it down to Pikes Place Market and actually shop down there.
Portion Control. While this isn’t really something to replace, I have started to pay attention to how much I eat when I cook at home. I started eating on my small plates more often. I attempt to size out my meals with greater detail now. It is amazing when you actually portion your meals you see really how much you have been overeating.
Well these are just some of the changes to reach my goal by the end of the year. Now I just need to keep at it.
Weight Battle. Starting Over.
Many many years ago I was very skinny, about 140 pounds. Skinny and lean. My friends joked if I could gain weight, cause I never could. And then I started working at Microsoft. Between moving out of Lower Queen Anne to Bellevue and starting at Microsoft with all that amazing free soda, I gained about 40 pounds over four years. Over the next five years after that I gained another 40 pounds from just a relaxed inactive lifestyle. One Christmas I was around 220 pounds and needed to do something. Small changes to my diet helped me drop 20 pounds, but the lack of real activity slowed down any real weight loss.
Upon moving to Boston, the mixture of being poor and playing soccer weekly I dropped another 20 pounds and got down to 180 pounds, which was great. But after returning to Seattle I gained those 20 pounds back fairly quick. I’ve been hovering around 197 to 200 for a couple months now and it is time to really drop some weight!
Setting goals for something like this is important, so I’m setting a goal now. 170 pounds by January 1st, 2012.
I’m 199 today and that leaves 111 days to lose 29 pounds. I think it is more than possible. A couple changes in my life will help as well, including playing soccer again, moving to Downtown Seattle with tons more to be able to walk to and take Scout for longer walks, and hopefully bike or take the bus to work. The ride to work is right about 10 miles each way over I-90, which sound reasonable. I might have to try it over a weekend, no idea of the elevation. If riding my bike doesn’t work, taking the bus might be a good alternative as well. It is about a mile walk to the I-90 transit center. While a mile doesn’t sound like a lot, just something is a nice start. Going to attempt to eat more fish, less red meat (sad), and cut down on soda as much as possible.
I think it is a totally realistic goal. I’ll keep you posted.
Frustration of Online Dating
Online dating is awful. Just an awful invention. I have to admit that most of my relationships have started via online dating sites, but even then I still think they are pretty much the devil’s work.
Every system is different, but all are flawed. Free systems such as OkCupid suffer from the shotgun method, which I have to admit I have done. Let me explain the Shotgun Method if you don’t know what it is. A guy signs up for and searches the various profiles. Finds some interesting people and emails them and waits. And waits. Perhaps sends a second message, trying not to be a creepy stalker, but still nothing back. Feeling disenfranchised with the process he just decides to email anyone remotely interesting in the attempt to just get a message back. On the other side, you have women receiving tons of emails with little to zero substance. This must be annoying for them constantly getting random emails, “yer cute.”. This pretty much destroys the whole system, making free sites like OkCupid worthless. The site might work if you are model hot or something, but for your normal dude it gets to be a drag.
You have pay systems, like Match, Chemistry, or eHarmony, but these also have their problems and they take your money. The first flaw with all of these systems is that they are built to have people pay and there is no way to find out who is a paying member. Email someone interesting and never hear back, they probably weren’t a paying member. While the system appears to have tons of possible matches, the amount of actual paying members is significantly less. When I was on eHarmony it became comical how many closed matches I’d get. Their system lists users and you work your way through various questions before actually having a real email. They refer to “get lost” as “closed match”, and after being on there a couple months I just made a game in attempt to get to 1,000, which I broke in under six months. One side of accomplishment with a good amount of damage to my pride. To make matters worse, eHarmony sends out tips via email, one being Five Things That Drive Women Away. Three of them were directly related to my job! Way to steal my money and make me feel bad!
I’m sure there are things I could be doing better. Better text, better photos, perhaps lose a couple more pounds. I’m awful at writing about myself. Most of my profiles come off too honest which makes me sound boring or sad. My latest update to my OkCupid profile in a fair mixture of twisted humor. I just tell people how it is, so I probably sound like a bitter women hating man or something. Probably not the best way to impress. I was given a suggestion of more photos of me with people, but that is difficult as I am typically taking photos when I am out with friends.
I’m hopeful for things to change. Losing some more weight, getting paid a little more (doesn’t hurt), moving to downtown Seattle. Who knows if any of this would help. I’m seriously thinking about having a ghost writer for my profiles, perhaps someone reading this would want to take a shot.
In the mean time, I’ll continue to search online and shotgun away as I’m bored and home alone on a Friday night.
Suits Season One
Season one of Suits has completed and I for one can’t wait for it to come back. I am a sucker for a good legal drama and Suits does a good job balancing the legal side with a little buddy comedy with the relationship between Harvey and Mike. It doesn’t hurt that the ladies on the show are hot. Mmmmm Donna.
The season ended last night with a pretty powerful cliffhanger. Not sure where they will go for season two, but it will be a long couple months until it starts back up.
Super Bowl Ads With Web Addresses
The Super Bowl is over and the this year had some great ads, but one thing I noticed is the stronger emphasis on directing viewers to additional content via the web. Majority of the ads close with web address, Facebook pages, Twitter hashtags, or more. While watching I decided to track what ads had what, and here is how it breaks down.
- 71% of the ads included a URL to the product or company, including every movie trailer.
- 14% of the ads included a Facebook Page to the product or company.
Even with the 110 million viewers for the Super Bowl many companies provided the ability post the ads to your Facebook Wall or your Twitter account, which just increases the amount of impressions.
With Facebook and Twitter becoming one of the most powerful tools allowing companies to get instant feedback on their products, adding a simple web address to either a product page or a Facebook page seems like a simple and cost effective addition to any ad in my opinion.
Looking Forward to 2011: Video Games
2010 is behind us and 2011 is here with a whole year of new games to look forward too. 2010 had some great games, but 2011 appears to have some amazing games being released over the next 12 months. Here are some of the games I am looking forward too.
Dead Space 2 is going to be awesome, wait, it IS awesome! I thought Dead Space was one of the best games of this generation, and Dead Space 2 looks to be great.
Screw all the haters out there, I love Killzone and Killzone 2, and Killzone 3 looks incredible! This is one of those games that makes me fire up the Playstation 3, and not put the controller down until I am done.
I am so excited about L.A. Noire! I am a huge fan of the time period of the L.A. Quartet, and L.A. Noire appears to let you play some lost James Ellroy novel. After years in development will it deliver? I sure hope so!
Brink has impressed me since the first time I saw it at PAX Prime back in 2009. Conceptually the online mechanic appears to be something that will change things moving forward. I’m excited to see how it turns out.
What more can you say about Uncharted? It will be awesome. Nuff said.
XCOM is back, but it isn’t your father’s X-COM. With a great 50′s style and mechanics that appear to be more then just shooting stuff, I’m excited how this will turn out.
I have no idea what you do in Journey, but I am hypnotized by it. Visually simple yet beautiful, I am curious what exactly you do.
Day the world ends? Perhaps. Diablo 3 is coming and life might end as we know it. Well at least the social life of millions of gamers.
WOOHOO! One of the best games of last generation is back with a nice new coat of paint. Beyond Good & Evil HD will give many gamers a chance to check out this amazing game.
I am really excited about Spec Ops: The Line for a couple reasons. With a good number of friends working on the title, I am excited to see what they have built and the other the curiosity of how the game I could have worked on turned out.
From the first time I saw Deus Ex: Human Revolution at GDC in 2010, I knew it was going to be awesome. The graphics are amazing, the art direction is spot on, the mechanics that meld classic Deus Ex with todays action first person shooters.
2010 in Review: Video Games
Even though I work in the game industry I don’t get to play as many games as I would like. Sometimes a game will just grab my attention and won’t let me put it down until I beat it. There is a common theme in the games I enjoyed in 2010, lots of retro flavor. Here are some of my favorite games of 2010.
Darksiders was released in January and I jumped on this late in the year after hearing a number of great responses from friends. Being called a mixture of Zelda and God of War, Darksiders was a pleasant reminder that games don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be great. I’m happy that JoeMad finally has a game out as well!
While I think this technically came out in 2009, it became one of my favorite games in 2010. 1 vs 100 was just fun, no pressure, easy way to spend an evening. It is sad that Microsoft pulled the plug on it, and I’m curious why they did, but I’m guessing Chris Cashman wanted too much money!
There is a growing theme in my favorite games of 2010, simple and fun, and Joe Danger falls right into that category. Excitebike with some platforming in a wonderful light hearted 3D environment, Joe Danger was a blast to play. Amazing that the game was created by four people.
A new Pac-Man? Really? Pac-Man DX takes the classic mechanics and turns them to 100. Faster, crazy psychedelic graphics, various modes, and crazy tense soundtrack. Pac-Man DX is a must buy!
LIMBO falls into that amazing mixture of classic mechanics and brilliant art direction. A game that no publisher would ever greenlight, it shows what an amazing concept with brilliant people can produce.
Super Meat Boy reminds me when I was younger playing on my NES wanting to swear and break my controller. An absolutely brutal game, yet when you complete something you feel like you have accomplished something. A great feeling in todays market where you have a checkpoint ever five seconds.