For cortejo: http://us.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html?hpt=T2

She and I have had a number of discussions on the "a calorie is a calorie" thing in past. This is about the sixth "junk food" diet I have seen in recent years (Supersize Me notwithstanding, because that guy was just being an idiot - sadly, much like many people in North America are.) You probably shouldn't eat Twinkies all day, every day, of course.

I have for a long time been a huge advocate for "calories are calories". Not that I eat junk food all day long, but I completely do not stress about what I eat. Granted, I am hypoglycemic after all, so all sugar and no protein is a singularly bad idea. I also like veggies as a snack. The only measure I use for weight loss is calories in, though. It works for me!

I have had quite a few conversations about the whole "clean" vs. "dirty" foods thing, and I generally prefer to define a "clean" food as one you didn't consume too much of, and a "dirty" food as one you did. That's not to say that various foods may not have beneficial health effects - antioxidants, and so on. This is simply from the perspective of weight loss.

Huh.

Has it been a month already? Time to post something!

• Operation dive back to the SCA is in full swing.


• I have a brand new gorget for armoured combat. Yes, I get to go fighting again =)


• Dandelion Festival was great fun. Fenced a lot, visited with excellent people, ate good food. What's not to like?


• I was told that there will be sock puppets at Murder Melee and that I should go. Who am I to argue?


• I can apparently be bribed with sock puppets. Who knew?


• I will be at Pikeman's, Melee, Trillies, and Pennsic. Probably Autocrat's Day Off as well.


• That means I need to make poles for my pavilion Real Soon Now.


• Between the above and non-SCA events, my next unaccounted-for weekend is in July if I don't go to Baronial Muster, or after Pennsic if I do.


• The weekend after Pennsic is a gathering of friends in Vegas that I'd really like to go to.


• O.o


• Sitting this morning before running: resting heart rate of 64


• Immediately after finishing 10K: 172


• I still can't quite believe that I now run at least 5K almost every morning

Not sleeping yet. Not happy about that. I have eaten a Flexeril, though, and sleep will come soon. I should have taken it earlier, but I thought I'd get to sleep fairly easily. Wrong. Hopefully it doesn't leave me overly groggy for fencing.

WTB an appointment with the neurosurgeon Real Soon Now.

As usual, my parents packed up their stuff at the end of October and my brother drove them down to Yuma, Arizona in their truck and then flew home. Come spring, my turn to fly down there and drive back. Somewhat different this time around as my dad's having some health problems so they both flew back, leaving me to drive alone. My total drive across the US was about 3675 kilometres, and then another 620 from the border crossing at Sarnia to Maitland.

Three days of solid driving, leaving early Thursday morning. I crossed the border at Sarnia at 3PM Saturday, and was at my parents' place at 8:30PM. Definitely an interesting trip, and I have always enjoyed really long journeys like these. I like to drive, I find it very relaxing and good for reflection and thinking.

( It's also entertaining to observe the world that goes by as you travel: )

All in all somewhere around 9200 kilometers (yes! OVER 9000!) in four days, counting the flight down.

For blinkus2000:

"Andy Kaufman faked his death and took over the GOP as a performance art piece."

...it all makes so much sense now.

Homeopaths Without Borders

Really?

C'mon, really?

Argh!

I roasted some pumpkin seeds. They are delicious.

Well, mostly.

Aion turned out to be a bust. I agree with blinkus2000 that the game makes a great deal more sense if you look at it from the perspective that the developers hate the players. It's almost like they have some elements that are put in specifically to see if the players will eat that shit sandwich with a smile. Funnily enough, that actually seems to be the case. Who knew? For my part, I've cancelled subscription and should log in and send all the crap I have to other people in the guild before my access expires.

I'm still subscribed to World of Warcraft, but have officially retired from raiding at this point. There are several things that brought me to this point:

Firstly - As I learned with EverQuest back in the day, being an active raider while getting and keeping in shape are mutually exclusive. For me, at least. The last time I got in exceptionally good shape was after I quit playing EQ and had all that time available.

Secondly - It's been almost five years playing at that level. That's enough now. The game is going in interesting directions in the future, but that's not enough to overcome the time factor for me.

Thirdly - All of the people that I actaully became friends with (or was friends with already) have already or are likely soon quitting. It's nice that the new people that have been coming into the guild are, for the most part, reasonably good at pressing the buttons in the right order and pixels are being slain and progress is made. None of these people are people I care to try and get to know.

Truthfully, any of the above is plenty enough reason to slow down. As it stands, I will keep working on the addons I wrote and maintain, since that's fun and I have a good community of users who are very appreciative of the work. It's basically production code which I don't write a lot of these days for work, so that's good for my skillset. I am currently saying I'll log in and goof around, but that's very unlikely in reality. Really, I am too competitive to be a casual player and the draw to go back to raiding would be very strong.

It will be interesting to see just how long Internet fame lasts.

And, there are lots of things to do that I have not done in a long time, people to see that I have not seen in a long time, and things yet to try that I haven't yet tried. Good times ahead!

I did not expect this. He's not bad!