Tag: health

100 Push-ups

Random Thoughts

As another year draws to a close, I again find myself still not in as good a shape as I’d like to be.  I mean, I’m not morbidly obese or facing serious health issues… and if the zombie apocalypse comes, I am confident that I could fight off the hordes of the undead and be able to outrun them when needed.  However, while sheer will and adrenaline can get you through many ordeals, it would be nice to be in better overall shape.

So, to that end I have (once again) decided to try to get more healthy.  Since many of my previous attempts has failed, I am going to use an approach that has worked in other areas of my life.  See… the problem is that my lack of good health can actually be chalked up to a large number of bad habits, and rather than to simply try to cram a new lifestyle on top of or around my current one, I need to identify my bad habits and break them one by one, and to instill new habits one by one.

About a year ago I broke my habit of drinking sodas.  I was literally drinking a half dozen cans of soda a day.  The first step was to cut out caffeine, so I switched from Coke to Sprite.  After I got used to that, I switched to water, and sometimes lemonade (Crystal Light to be exact).  Overall, dropping soda for water caused me to drop about ten pounds, maybe fifteen.

My next step is to add in a new habit.  My goal is to do 100 push-ups a day.  That is in a 24 hour period.  Right now, it takes nearly twelve hours for me to do my 100 push-ups.  I can do 10 at a time easily, and I can do 20 at a time alright, but beyond 20 in a row my arms get tired.  So I do 20 when I can, and 10 when I can’t, and take long rests in between.  My goal is to be able to do the 100 push-ups in a couple or three minutes.

That’s where I am… I’ll post updates as I feel inspired to.

The Line Forms to the Left

Random Thoughts

I started laughing uncontrollably today. But it was one of those things that shouldn’t really be funny. As I’m sure you know, the Pope died. Its a sad but expected loss. His health had been dwindling, and the whole world knew he was not long for this place. Over on CNN’s website, they’ve been running constant play-by-play coverage, as they do with just about every story. And this article appeared this morning, mile-long line for glimpse of pope.

And I started laughing.

When I was a kid, my family took a trip to Disney World, and my experience waiting in lines has never ever been the same. While we stood in line for tickets, and me being a huge fan of School House Rock, I started singing “Elbow Room” and jabbed some poor guy in the kidney while I was claiming my space in the name of Manifest Destiny. But that’s not really why I was laughing… It was all the signs they used to have at the various rides.

So I’m reading about the pope, and the mile-long line, and the first thing I imagine is the Louvre museum scene from the movie ‘Eurotrip’. I picture people standing in line, and a mime-robot is there trying to entertain the masses and earn money to feed his robot family. Then I see the first sign, “The wait from this point is [240] minutes.” And the numbers are those stick-on numbers so they can change the sign as needed. At the front of the line was a standee, which looked like an archbishop with his hand put out to his side about waist level, and a word bubble hung over his head, “You must be this tall to view the Pope.” From there the scene went crazy… women holding screaming kids, people placing their belongings into cubbies before going to view the Pope, people coming out the other door some saying it was the best viewing ever while others were trying to play off that they slept through the whole thing. Finally, I turn to my friends and say, “Screw this guys, he’ll still be dead later, this line blows, lets head over to Lenin’s tomb and come back here when the line dies down.”

Hours later, I’m still chuckling. Yes, I’m weird.

A Glimmer of Hope.

Gaming

Last night I was able to participate in a unique (in my experience) raid in EverQuest: Xegony in the Plane of Air.

Normal raids in EQ run a simple pattern. 1) Clear guards. 2) Set up, buff, etc. 3) Pull boss. 4) Tanks in front, complete heal chain, everyone else to the sides and back. 5) Pound on it until its dead.

The Xegony raid is different.

We set up beside some rocks on an island in the Plane of Air. The Main Tank, Secondary Tank and Third Tank, along with their complete heal chain compatriots, set up behind us. Xegony was pulled to there and the Tank set in. At 90% health, a wave of other spawns “woke up” and started to move toward her. The rest of the raid charged to meet them. We fought, a named spawn and 5 guards. Meanwhile, the Main Tank is “soloing” Xegony. Every 15% of her health, another wave would wake up, and we’d charge, north or south depending on the call, to meet and stop them. Xegony actually died while we were stilling fighting the last wave… the raid never fully engaged her.

It was a blast! Most raids are mind numbingly boring, turn attack on, mash a special attack key every now and then, with your biggest concern being if you are standing in the right place and making sure you aren’t stealling aggro from the tank. This was just so much more. It was a much needed breath of fresh air (pardon the pun) in EverQuest.

I think I’m ready to keep going now… and while my faith in SOE’s customer service and some of their design decisions (berserkers?? fu!) hasn’t been turned around, I’m at least happy to know that there might still be a few folks in there who actually understand what is fun in gaming.