Sick Of Being Overweight

I'm at the point in my life where I'm sick of being overweight. I'm not morbidly obese or anything, but I need to be 20 lbs lighter. Diets just don't work. Well, they do work, but not for very long. Atkin's works. It's just a very limited diet in terms of things you can eat. My body needs fiber. I don't get enough of that with the Atkin's diet.

America is overweight because of easy access to convenience foods and lack of exercise. The laziest people in the world are Americans. My problem is that even though I power walk at least five days a week for 40 minutes I stay at the same weight. My diet is to blame. I eat too many processed foods with empty carbs. I don't eat nearly as many as I used to, but I still eat too much of those junk foods. Of course I also never stop at one slice of pizza either. No, I have to eat an entire pizza. At this point I've changed my diet to more protein as well as fruits and vegtables. I'm also drinking tons of water. It's a no brainer that I'm feeling better and have more energy. This is the diet for life. I really need to stick with it. I don't like feeling lethargic and crappy. That's the way I felt when I was eating tons of processed foods.

Eating 5 or 6 small meals a day is also helping with cravings. I never really feel hungry. I think all of the water I'm drinking also helps. I've cut my calories down by about 500. I will slowly but surely lose weight. My goal is to be at 180 by the beginning of November. I weighed in at 195 when I started.

Don't get me wrong with this blog entry. I'm not preaching. I love high carb foods. I'm just sick of having an ugly gut, feeling lethargic, and I'd like to hit old age without having a million health problems.

What's On My Mind

I've been busy playing Infamous lately. Man, what a great game. If you only own an Xbox 360 or a Wii you're missing out big time! Game of the year so far for me. It's a blast, and my current gaming addiction.

I'm no longer blogging for ThisXboxLife. I've had some things going on lately. I'm better off blogging about a wide range of things here on my personal blog. Blogging about only Xbox related news felt limited. No hard feelings whatsoever to the crew at ThisXboxLife. You guys still rule.

It's time to start thinking about putting in pre-orders for games I definitely want to buy. Beatles Rockband and Modern Warfare 2 are two of those games I'm definitely buying. Amazon will be getting my cash for those.

Bought a new Laptop this past weekend. Windows Vista isn't that bad, but man is it a resource hog. I still prefer XP for sure.

I finally created a facebook account. I've been tired of Myspace for ages. Facebook basically feels like a Myspace for adults who can spell and don't act like a bunch of ghetto morons. Bye Bye Myspace.

I'm thinking about picking up a scanner so I can scan some old pics of me as well as my father. If anyone knows of a good scanner at a good price let me know.

Hockey season starts in a little over two months. Can't wait to see my Stars in action starting October 3!!! GO STARS!!!

Found a pretty cool site for streaming music last night called Slacker.com. Pretty decent selection of music.

Latest food addictions = Swiss Miss Fudge Bars, Fiber One Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Steamed Broccoli, and Fresh Pineapple.

If I was still the fast food junkie that I was years ago I probably would have eaten at the Sonic that arrived in town late last year. I still haven't eaten there yet. These days I eat at decent restaurants with real food. If I do eat fast food I always pick Qdoba or Culvers.

My Saturdays have been free lately due to a blown motor in my nephew's stock car. I always have stuff to do, but being at the races is fun.

I'm still enjoying my Mustang, but it's dirty at the moment. I can never wash the damn thing because it seems like rain is always in the forecast.

Too Many Game Sites, Reviewers, & Podcasts

Now that every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they are a "hardcore gamer" we have an oversaturation of websites and podcasts devoted to gaming. It really needs to stop. There are so many terrible websites and gaming podcasts out there now. It's gotten to the point where any idiot with a pc and an opinion can have his/her own site and podcast. Having an Xbox 360 and an opinion doesn't make you an authority on gaming. I'd also like to add video game reviews on youtube to this list. I don't know how many video reviews I've seen for games with total stumps doing the review. I mean shit at least learn how to form a complete sentence before you decide to do a video review for a game. People really need to stop embarrassing themselves.

I think the main problems I have with independent gaming sites are terrible spelling errors and a lot of copying and pasting of news stories that they found over at IGN or Kotaku. There is such a thing as spell check. USE IT! This is exactly why I will continue to ignore all the wannabe's and go to the bigger sites like IGN. They actually have site editors who get paid to make sure they don't look like a bunch of half-witted morons who can't spell. I realize that not all independent gaming sites are bad. Heck, there are some good ones out there. It's just that the bad ones far outweigh the good ones.

Another issue I have is all of the terribly boring game reviews out there now. I think I'd probably rather pull my fingernails out one by one with pliers than read another game review. If I want a game review now I'll either watch a video review on Gametrailers.com or IGN.com. If you only have a written review of a game chances are I won't be reading it. I just don't want to take the time to read a review that's going to bore the shit out of me.

I'm also listening to only a handful of gaming podcats now. There are just too many braindead morons creating podcasts.

I know I sound negative, but hey someone has to tell it like it is.

DEFINITELY A PEEVE!!!

I see random words misspelled all the time. I'm not saying I have perfect spelling or anything, but some words I see misspelled just irritate the shit out of me. Ready for the word that I see misspelled all the time that is my new peeve?

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y!!!! That's how it's spelled folks! I usually see it spelled "definately". THAT'S WRONG!!!!

Again, I'm not perfect. You would think people could spell DEFINITELY the right way though. Just sayin'!

Top 10 Most Famous Cars

Through the years we've seen tons of cool cars on television and movie screens. Some of them don't seem as cool now that I'm almost 37 years old, but the memories still remain from my childhood. I've always had a love affair with cars. I generally like a car that looks sexy and goes fast. It speaks volumes about the car I drive now. As usual this list isn't in any order. It's just a list of 10 of the most popular cars that I dig.

1) 1969 Dodge Charger aka "The General Lee" from The Dukes Of Hazzard. (Like a lot of kids I loved this car to death. I even have some pics from 4th grade posing in front of it at a car show.)

2) 1974 Ford Gran Torino aka the car From Starsky & Hutch. (I barely remember anything about this show because I was really young when this show was on. I do remember the car though.)

3) 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am aka the car that Burt Reynolds drove in "Smokey & The Bandit". (Once upon a time I owned a Firebird. Mine wasn't the cool 1977 Firebird though. Mine was like the one Michael Knight drove. The 1977 Firebird is/was badass!)

4) 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am aka the car in Knight Rider. (It doesn't do much for me now...probably because I drove one just like it for a few years. Same color too. Now my brother in-law's wife owns it. It's a rust bucket piece of junk now. It was decent when I drove it.)

5) 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe aka the car John Milner drove in American Graffiti. (Man I fell in love with this car and Milner's Deuce Coupe when I first saw American Graffiti back in 1982. Waht a sweet street rod.)

6) 1979 Ferrari 308 GTS aka the car from Magnum P.I. (Never cared for the tv show, but damn I wanted to drive that car.)

7) 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 fastback aka the car fron Gone In 60 Seconds (Man, I'd give my left and right nuts to own this car. Shit, i'd even give up sex for a year for this car.)

8) 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT aka the car from the movie Bullitt. ( I have yet to see this film, but it's qued up for instant streaming via Netflix on my Xbox 360. I hear the chase scene in this film is still the best ever.)

9) 1978 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 aka Forrest Whittaker's Camaro in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. ( This movie is full of great scenes. Two of those scenes involve this car. It's a riot when Mike Damone is told "DON'T FUCK WITH IT"! Of course there's also Jeff Spicoli declaring "I can fix it" after wrecking it.)

10) 1948 Ford Deluxe aka the car from Grease. (Very cool old school ride. I'm not big on convertables, but this one os sharp even with those crazy lightning bolts...afterall IT'S GREASED LIGHTNING!

Worst Band Ever

I'm not even joking with that blog title. I've heard some bad bands in my 36+ year existence, but the band COMPLETE easily wins worst band ever category. What's sad is they seem to take themselves seriously. I discovered this band a while back on a message board I used to post at. I was reminded of them again because someone posted a video for their song HOOGIE BOOGIE LAND. It's just bad. I mean it's terrible. If anyone has heard worse I'd love to hear that band.

This is really bad. You've been warned!

Early Game Of The Year & MST3K

If anyone finds it odd that I haven't been on Xbox Live in a couple of days now there is a damn good reason for it. That reason is Infamous on the PS3. It's been well documented on this blog that my PS3 is used for a blu-ray/dvd player. Sure I own a few games for the PS3, but they never get played because they just aren't all that great. I only buy exclusives on the PS3 because I play cross platform games on my Xbox 360.

I'm about 6 or 7 hours into Infamous now, and I'm having a blast playing it. I don't know what it is about third person action games, but I just love the hell out of them for some reason. For me Infamous is the best thing since Crackdown. I'm finding myself getting lost in the gameplay just having a ton of fun with it. I haven't had this much fun with a game on the PS3 since Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. This game is so good that if I didn't already own a PS3 I would honestly go out and buy one just for this game. It's that good. I recommend anyone with a PS3 to at least rent Infamous. It's early and there are a lot of games that are coming out in the fall, but so far this is easily my game of the year.

While I'm not playing Infamous and other games I'll be watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000 dvd's from Netflix. I used to watch this on Comedy Central when it was on. I really had no idea just how many episodes there were untill I did some research online. I've got a lot of episodes to rent from Netflix. Too bad I can't instant stream them though.

MST3K SHORT

iPhone...Do I Really Want One?

Everyone in my family has the same cell phone. For about the first four months the phones worked great. Now they are basically junk. We text a lot. The keyboards on our phones work sometimes. My wife and daughter have replaced their phones a coup[le of times now. I still have mine. I've just been living with terrible stopping and slowing down while trying to text. I'm sick of it at this point, so I'm thinking about buying out of our contract with Alltel, and getting iPhones. My question is how much can I expect to pay? Right now we pay just under $200.00 per month for unlimited texting as well as a bunch of minutes that we don't need because we have "my circle" which allows you unlimited minutes to the people in "your circle". We also have unlimited internet access. If we can get a decent plan for about the same price per month then I'm all for getting iPhones. Obviously I'm going to have to do some research, but any input from people reading this blog would be appreciated.

inFAMOUS Impressions

I finally went out and bought inFAMOUS for the PS3. I simply couldn't wait for GameFly to send it to me. By the time they send me a copy all of my hair would be gray.

The opening intro to this game is one of the best I've seen. The graphics are really nice especially for an open world game in a city with a lot going on. Climbing buildings is easy and fun as well. So far I'm also digging the moral choices that you have to make which are either good or evil. I'm playing through on good first. Later I'll try and tackle evil. My only complaint with the game is that the "Reapers" on the rooftops are highly talented snipers who can easily put bullets in your body. I started playing on normal mode, but decided on the fly to play on the easy difficulty mode until I get the hang of it because the "Reapers" tear you up on the ground and in the air. So far I can see this as my go to game. I'm only an hour in, and I'm having a lot of fun with inFAMOUS. It looks like my PS3 is finally going to get some use other than being a dvd/blu-ray player.

Songs About America...Well Kinda

So I'm driving my American made Ford Mustang today thinking about songs that are about America or at least have America in the title. I came up with a few. Some are worthy. Some are not so worthy.

James Brown "Living In America" (Right away I'm reminded of Rocky 4 when I hear it. Apollo Creed looking cheezy in his top hat and tails all decked out with stars and bars. I can get down to this song though. It's good. I FEEL GOOD!)

Night Ranger "You Can Still Rock In America" (You definitely still can, but most new rock bands sure can't. Somne would argue that Night Ranger can't either. Whatever though because I like Night Ranger in all of their cheezy 80's glory. This is a good guitar rock tune.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "American Girl" (I've been a fan of Petty for years. The guy can write a catchy song. I love catchy sing along songs. "American Girl" is no exception. It's a great song that was also part of the Fast Times At Ridgemont High soundtrack.

Neil Diamond "America" (I love this song! Yeah that's right I love it. I believe it was back in 1980 that this song was really popular and on the radio all the time. Neil has this reputation for being a dork or whatever...at least with my generation, but this guy was awesome. He's a great songwriter/performer. To me "America" is majestic and even epic.)

David Bowie "Young Americans" (I guess you could say this is Bowie's interpretation of young america back in the day? It's an ok song. I can take it or leave it.)

Kim Wilde "Kids In America" (I love this tune. It's one of those 80's tunes that stands out to me. Kim was hot back in the day too.)

David Bowie "I'm Afraid Of Americans" (Yet another Bowie song about Americans. I like this one enough that when it came out I downloaded it and burned it to a cd-r. Good stuff.)

Kid Rock "American Badass" (OK i'll admit this. I like this song. Years ago when it was released Mtv played the crap out of the video and for some reason I liked it. Maybe it was because he sampled "Sad But True" in the background? "Sad But True" is the only song on Metallica's "Black Album" that I like because it's the only heavy song on that album.)

Bruce Springsteen "Born In The U.S.A." (I own this on cd. My mom owned it on vinyl. Not really a big fan of the song. I do like how it doesn't shine the greatest light on America though. Too bad Reagan had no idea of that.)

Hulk Hogan & The Wrestling Boot Band "I Am A Real American" (How can you not get chills when you hear this song? Say your prayers & eat your vitamins, BROTHER!)

Don McClean "American Pie" (I hate this song with a passion! It's too long. It's too boring. It sucks!)

Grand Funk Railroad (We're An American Band" (God, I hate this one too. I mean holy shit how many times do they have to tell us in one song that they are an American band? OK, I get it already. You're an American band. Now shut up!)

The Guess Who "American Woman" (Great song. This one rocks. Lenny Kravitz's version does not!)

Styx - "Miss America" (Yep, this one rocks too. I like it. I don't love it, but it's good.)

M.O.D. "U.S.A. For M.O.D." (Tasteless and funny as hell. I like it!)

Anthrax "American Pompeii" ( It's Anthrax, so of course I like it! John Bush owns you, Sac!!!)

Def Leppard "Hello America" (It rocks! Back when Def Leppard ROCKED!)

Dio "Dying In America" (Blah, RJD was once the man, but not the album "Angry Machines".)

Gwar "America Must Be Destroyed" (For me GWAR is hot or miss, but mostly miss.)

Lawnmower Death "Kids In America" (I actually like this cover. Great band actually. If you have never heard "Satan's Trampoline" you need to!)

Motorhead "America" (It's Motorhead. You either like them, or you don't. This one is decent.)

Nuclear Assault "My America" (This is a band that I don't listen to nearly enough these days. Good song, and "Game Over" Rules!)

Pantera "The Underground In America" (This one is off of "The Great Southern Trendkill" which in my opinion is an incredible album and highly underrated.)

Pro-Pain "American Dreams" (One of my favorite bands, but not one of my favorite songs. It's ok.)

Sacred Reich "The American Way" (I love this song. I love this album. I love the guitar solo on this tune.)

WASP "Goodbye America" (WASP's best days are behind them. Once in a while they put out an album with a few good songs, but Blackie should really pack it in. This one is decent at best.)