Well, its been an interesting month. Like I mentioned I got a new job and moved mid-June. Those first few days were hectic as I had spent all my money on a deposit, rent, bed, and other stuff so I did not have enough money to stock my fridge. So I had to eat some fast food. I forgot how good it tastes, but since I've essentially been grease-free for over half a year it wreaked havoc on my system...I woke up feeling sick as a dog.

Fortunately I got paid and I can now buy good stuff. So I have been eating fairly healthy (oatmeal for breakfast, protein shake for snack, mixed greens with a can of tuna on top for lunch, and something lean for dinner) but now there is another issue: my workout schedule!

Work is essentially a "make your own hours" situation. Unfortunately, my hours are based on the head brewer since I am in an apprenticeship position. I have to show up when the other guys shows up. Since my days are usually 10 hours of lifting 50 pound sacks and 100 pound kegs, stirring quicksand-like mash, and doing other physical stuff in a hot and steamy room, I cant workout after work. As a result, I have to workout in the morning. Unfortunately, it seems like the guy I work with always calls me five mins after I get on the elliptical machine! GRRrrrrr!

Anyway, to sum up, I dont feel I have put on too much weight...I am more concerned about losing my muscle mass (which turns to fat, yuck) as a result of not lifting weights. I think my job has me burning enough calories throughout the day that I can stay at my current weight if I continue to eat healthy.

OK, thats it for now...more of an angry rant than a blog. I need to find a scale that can go beyond 300 pounds so I can track my progress...its very difficult to hold yourself accountable when you can tell yourself that you think youre losing weight (as opposed to knowing youre losing weight).

OK, so in the past four hours there have been about five threads built upon anti-atheism of varying degrees.

SO I go to make a pro-atheism thread asking that atheists be left alone by our religious harassers. It gets locked in 10 minutes, the reply being "we dont need another thread"

I agree, another thread was not needed...about FOUR THREADS AGO!

So my question is this...was that fair? Was it fair to allow four or more anti-atheism threads, and zero pro-atheism threads?

It is clear that Gamespot mods have an agenda, and frankly this is the first time moderation has been offensive to me. I have had threads locked before, and I have been suspended, but this is the first time I think Gamespot made a mistake. In short, I feel every Gamespotian deserves equal representation.

PS: for anyone that did see my thread, I wrote "please, for the love of God, leave us atheists ALONE!" as a bit of sarcasm to lighten the mood. I realize sarcasm doesnt translate well through text, but for Christ's sake people wasn't it obvious I was joking? Or were you people that replied so quick to prove me wrong that you typed something before you actually thought about what I mean by it?

My goal for this blog is more to hold myself accountable by making a public record of my progress, while possibly helping those that would also like some tips on weight loss.

OK, so I will just start from the top, give some quick background. When I went to college, I weighed 275. That seems like a lot (and it is lol) but I was not a fatass; I am a tall guy (6'3''), I do have large bone structure, and I have a lot of muscle. I was husky, but I had no gut or anything. Come junior and senior year of college, I had a lot of stress in my life. Combined with me turning 21 years old and drinking heavily, I essentially balooned to 417 pounds by September 2007. My social life went to crap because most of the friends I was comfortable with had graduated and left, and I was too ashamed to pursue any new friendships with whatever acquiantences I had. This only made the problem worse. Oh ya, and I forgot to mention that I was a cook and I am a gourmand, which means I love good food lol.

So, anyway, something had to be done. So when November came around and I was done with school, I moved back home and started to lose weight. The first trick is to get a gym membership. For the first three years of college I was addicted to the gym, and I was able to maintain my weight and strength. But when I moved off campus, it became harder to motivate myself. So, as I worked out, I could feel myself losing weight. It was great.

The second key to me losing weight is my job, which was an active one, so it supplements going to the gym quite well. I was a cook at this startup company, and essentially I was working 70 hours a week. I would stand on my feet for 12 hours a day, six days a week, and eat only one meal with the occasional snack every now and then. It was great; I problably walked about one mile every day going back and forth to the walk-in cooler. I quit that job, but now I work in a brewery, but thankfully that is also an active job and I have been able to keep my beer consumption to a minimum (about 3 beers a week).

Diets are epic failures in my eyes. South Beach, Atkins...theyre not worth it. I have been on all of them, and while I lost a good amount of weight at times, they simply are not something I could live with, nor should they be. With that said, I went about coming up with my own diet (I have a degree in food science, and took a lot of nutrition classes). Essentially, I can eat whatever I want, so long as the glycemic index of the food is low and my fat intake is under 20 grams of fat per day, and I limit my starchy carbs. So I can eat any fruit with edible skins (apples, grapes, plums, cherries, etc) but none with no skins (I cant eat bananas, for example). I can also eat all kinds of vegetables, but not heavy starches like potatoes. HF Corn Syrup is a huge no-no, and should be illegal imo.

By doing that, I have lost 52 pounds since since December. I was 417, and I am now 365. I will continue to make monthly installments on my blogs to keep track of my progress.

Well, after two suspensions in a row (a three-day and a seven-day) I am back.

And, of course, when you are suspended suddenly there is a plethora of interesting, unqiue posts to respond to.

In short, I will be watching my mouth and what pictures I post. I am just happy i did not get banned!

So today was my second day at work in a small microbrewery and it...is...AWESOME! Its a lot of hard work and cleaning, but it is so enjoyable. The pay sucks, but it is good experience for me (I majored in Food Science at college) so it should look good on a resume.

With that said, I can honestly see myself doing this forever, albeit in my own brewery or at a place that can pay me 60+k a year. I got to make five barrels of stout yesterday, and today I learned how to clean kegs, clean bottles, fill bottles, and all kinds of things. The people I work with are super cool as well.

First, before I begin, I just want to say that I do not hate consoles, nor do I hate console players. Hell, most of my friends play consoles, and I jump at every chance to play them as well despite not owning one. None the less, my blog right here will argue against consoles. I will try to keep it as objective as possible, and will certainly do my best to keep it unoffensive, but here it goes.

First, one must consider the types of players on each platform. Console players, from my experience, seem to want immediate and short-term satisfaction from their games. As a result, a console suits them; they can get their 30-60 minutes of gameplay in and be happy. In addition, games on console are also much shorter. While this is imo a quality issue that needs to be addressed (Gears of War was about six hours, Heavenly Sword about five hours, and Halo 3 can be beat in a weekend), it doesnt seem to be a detriment addressed by the console community as a five-to-eight hour game will last them over a week.

Conversely, PC gamers are ethusiasts. We like our games as complex and, at times, as frustrating as we can tolerate them. PC gamers are willing to install patches and edit .ini files to get games to run their best. In addition, PC gamers often play for longer sessions than console gamers: matches of Starcraft exceeding four hours, or beating a six-hour game like Portal in little over a day are not uncommon, and as a result games with less-than-average length receive criticism (as recieved by Bioshock, for example).

Then there is the cost issue, which seems to be a main arguing point for anti-PC console players. Everyone assumes that gaming PCs are expensive, and they would be right. If you are going with mainstream builders such as Dell, Gateway, or Alienware, a gaming computer will exceed 1800 dollars. Unfortunately, these more ignorant console users dont do their research: a good gaming PC can be built by a gamer, or even bought for relatively cheap from a good source. My computer, for example, didnt cost me more than 1300 dollars and it is dual core with an 8800GTS. ANd games only cost about 40 bucks.

Consoles, on the other hand, have a small initial cost that grows quickly. First, there is the console itself, often costing 450 or more dollars. Then there are games, which are 60 bucks a pop. Slap on an HDTV if you want visuals to be their best (while still falling short of PC...just compare UT3 to Gears of War; runs better and looks better on PC) and thats about 1200 dollars right there.Oh, and since you still need a PC for work and internet, add another 500 bucks.

The rest, such as controls and visuals, are imo all subjective so I wont even go there.

There are many arguments to be had with in-game advertising.  Some are valid, while others dont seem to make sense at all.  Furthermore, there is a disturbingly large amount of passive people out there; gamers who say they dont care, or who say that the ads are subtle enough that they dont notice them while playing.

The truth, in my opinion, is that in-game advertising is taking the ultimate advantage of videogame buyers.

We pay often more than 50 dollars for a newly released game, such as Battlefield 2142.  That is a large fee, and it should adequately pay for any patch work done in the future, and still make a nice profit for EA.  In addition, servers are provided by third parties, not by EA or DICE.  So, why does EA need to in-game ads?  Is it to cover developmental costs for patches, or to provide great servers for their faithful fans?  No, its because theyre greedy.

EA really slipped this one by us.  While we were busy arguing with eachother about why theyre bad and how it will effect our gameplay experiences, nobody really questioned the necessity of ingame advertisements. 

When I watch a football game, I see ads on TV.  Monster.com, for example, might pay for a stadium.  Whereas Coors Light pays for the rights to distribute the game to networks.  The difference between the football game ads is that we get something from it!  Instead of paying to watch the game, we get to watch ads.  However, in the end, we get a cool sport to watch on TV.  Sure, ads may be annoying, but even they can be amusing...and we get a free football game on TV.

With BF2142, the buyer doesnt get anything out of it.  The money goes directly into EA's greedy, fat pocket.  We wont get new maps, new weapons, new classes, new anything except the occasional bug fix. 

Instead, we spend 50 dollars on a bug-ridden game and have to play with ads that ruin the immersion we should experience.  If we got something from the ads, such as a free expansion or a reduced price in the original game, I could live with them (just as I can live with football ads)...the fact, however, is that the consumer doesnt get anything out of the ads.  It is a one-way situation with only the corporation benefitting.

By the way EA, do you think you can fix the "sentry gun shooting through Titan walls problem?"

-eVGA 680i Motherboard
-Core 2 Duo E6400
-Big Typhoon processor cooler
-eVGA 7600GT KO
-2GB G.Skill DDR2 800MHz memory
-Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
-Rosewill 550W Power Supply
-DVD-RW, DVD-CDRW drives
-Floppy Drive
-Antec case

Runs great!  Built without any problems at all.  I can vouch for the 680i mobo, too.  A 7600GT is a good card, but I was not expecting such great results.  I really think the chipset on the motherboard is helping a lot.  Plus, I have three PCI-E slots!  I think it is pretty safe to assume that the only thing I will need to upgrade over the next four years is my graphics card.  I will problably end up going for another 2GB of memory too.

::Update::

Well, got some birthday money from my folks and grandparents and bought a widescreen 20.1 inch LCD screen.  The rig runs great, Oblivion I can run with the texture packs and stuff installed at 1280x760 or whatever that resolution is just fine.  Maybe in a few months I will get a Dx10 card and then I can really crank the graphics up.