Noodled!

So loyal long-time readers of the Scantabulous Technodojo will remember when I posted half-naked pictures of myself along with a nutrition log in the latter half of 2006. This is when I had lost a ton of weight by eating properly and exercising at the gym with Muncher.

Well then I graduated from chemistry school and went to Thailand for a three-month postdoc.



The Thai people like to brag that when American farang come to Thailand for a long time (3+ weeks) they always lose a bunch of weight eating Thai food (noodles). Now food poisoning not withstanding, this seems like a perfectly reasonable claim, as most farang that come to Thailand are seriously obese American businessmen who could lose weight by bagging their own groceries. At the time I, on the other hand, went to Thailand in the best shape of my life, and the only direction to go from there was toward worst-shape.

Leave for Thailand:
Weight: 164.4 lbs
Body Fat: 9%*

Return from Thailand:
Weight: 181.6 lbs
Body Fat: 23%*

Now, admittedly I was probably slightly underweight when I left, but that doesn't make up for the hideous body fat gain due to noodles. Lots and lots of noodles. I'm not going to post pictures, as the before picture isn't supposed to be better than the after picture, but you can imagine the terrible results of going from a high-protein diet to a noodle-only diet, even when you still work out.

In any case, now that I'm back in the states with access to regular food, I decided to get back into shape. Unfortunately there were some unexpected factors that have inhibited my self-discipline in getting back into the groove. The first one is that I do not have the awesome gym a block away like I had in Champaign, as well as the very consistent workout partner Muncher to ensure I don't wuss out. Secondly, in Champaign I had coworker Ted who was doing the exact same diet/exercise method as me, and everyday at work we would discuss carb-loading and compare nutrition charts like two blueshirts fresh out of Intro to Biochem for Health Majors. I didn't realize how much that kind of positive reinforcement helps one stick with maintaining the workout and logging their nutrition.

So I decided to analyze what worked and try to simplify the dieting and exercising method so my lazy butt could maintain it without too much conscious thought. Reading various websites, Men's Health articles, and playing with the nutrition log math I have found a simplified solution that allows one to maintain the proper nutrition and fiber without logging everyday.

MEALS
Every Sun-Fri meal (4-5 per day) should contain 1 item from each of the 3 following lists:

1) Protein (2-4 oz)
Chicken breast
Ground Turkey (lowfat)
Organic Beef (lowfat)
Pork
3-5 egg whites + 1 egg

2) Legumes (1/2-1 cup)
Black Beans
Kidney beans
Pinto Beans
Lentils

3) Veggies (1/2-1 cup)
Spinach / lettuce
Asparagus
Mixed Veggies
Peas

No matter how you mix these meals they will be about 1:4:4 = fats:carbs:protein. Plus you'll get your necessary allotment of fiber without resorting to 3 bowls of Kashi a day. Toss in one protein shake in there sometime during the day and you're golden. I've been logging it for a few days now after I eat to check it and it works great. So I just load up on these things at the grocery store and I'm good to go. No need to log anymore!

Saturdays are cheat days, which means I can eat whatever I want. Pad Thai, Bagels, Ice Cream, whatever. This is actually an important part of the diet as I found out last year. You need one cheat day per week to maximize weight loss, because otherwise your body thinks you're starving and gets too efficient. Also by eating a ton of hot tomales on Saturday I can make myself sick of them for the rest of the week.

As for the lack of a Muncher and gym I have found this 30-minute Men's Health workout, which totally kicks my ass, and I can do it in my apartment with a folding chair, broomstick, and two dumbells. For the cardio section I practice Thai Sword, but that can totally be replaced by treadmill running for the nonjas out there.

Just thought if anyone else felt like cuttin' the old love handles they'd appreciate the company.



*Body Fat Percentage is based on a programmable electrode body fat scale. You put in your height and stuff so its fairly accurate.

Shadows of the Black Feather

Since I have no one to play Starship Troopers with out here in Eugene, I'm going to post about my recent DnD games that I play with folks all around the continent with the software Fantasy Grounds.

The Characters

Two of three players were fully available for the game, the third was desperately trying to get the Fantasy Grounds installer to work properly and spent the night correcting corrupt video files and such and finally got it working at the end so he could watch, but by then his character had been relegated to the "quiet guy with amnesia in the back" status. To be fair, had it not been the player it was, with the computer haxx0rz skills he had, the installer probably never would have worked and we'd be out a player for the future games.

Anyway, the first character was Garsim Cinderheart, recently un-retired dwarven mercenary and master of the waraxe. He took back up the axe to avenge his namesake for his clan from a less-than-reputable ancestor (who's actions were recently rediscovered in the Records of the Realm when the Dwarven Library was remodeled), and get his family's name crossed out of Citadel Adbar's Book of Grudges. He plans to do this by correcting the wrongs of his nefarious ancestor, so his dwarflings can live without shame.



The second character involved in tonight's game and accidentally caught up in events around him is Milo Nimblefeets, Halfling entrepreneur of dubious goods and services. On a quest to make as much capital as possible in a world ripe with creative investment opportunities, he finds himself on the run from large cities more often than he thinks is reasonable. Clearly the bigger folk of the realm often overreact at the slightest accidental market adjustment to their financial situation. He can also stab folks in the back really hard with his silver dagger.

The Game

The characters individually met at Durkon's Deliveries. A new and untested teleportation business in the realm of Faerun. They had each decided to sign up for the first attempted mass teleport of goods (chickens in cages, etc) and customers across the Anauroch desert from Sundabar to the realm of Damara. Some because they had specific business in the region, and others because they didn't care where they went as long as it wasn't where they were.



Dm fiat, fantasy cliches, and Cory's love of slapstick comedy being what it is, the teleportation cast by the absent-minded wizard went awry and the characters ended up in the middle of a forest with chicken feathers fluttering down everywhere. The halfling was particularly distressed by the teleportation and lost both of his previously-eaten breakfasts to the ground as he hung upside down from a tree. The dwarf quickly retrieved him from his perch. The caged chickens had not survived the trip.



After getting their bearings and looking around, they found themselves near a road in a dark and mysterious forest. Traveling in the direction they figured was "North-by-North-railroad," a mysterious gypsy rode down the path toward them. After making sure he wouldn't put a mysterious gypsy curse on them, they allowed him to hand them a mysterious letter, given to him by a mysterious man looking for adventurers. With all the mystery in the air it was clear that their narrator had taken a creative writing course.



Even though I had pre-typed out eight box responses to questions I felt they would ask the gypsy, who they seemingly randomly met on the dark road who just randomly had a note for them, upon receiving the note they simply turned their backs on the gypsy without a word and started discussing future plans between eachother, instinctually knowing the gypsy's plot role had been fulfilled without ever even asking his name.

With that, the gypsy rode away, his plot role fulfilled.



The adventurers then knew that the teleportation had at least gone somewhat correctly, as Barovia was in the realm of Damara. Also, since Garsim had found evidence that his ancestor had once traveled to Barovia, and that was his destination in the first place, he had no trouble deciding to visit the town and meet the Burgomaster. The promise of wealth enticed the halfling to join him. The mute and unassuming human followed them without a word while he attempted to fix the corrupted dlld20.xml file in his FG Data Application folder. The demihuman duo continued down the road in the dark and mysterious forest.



Eventually they came to an old rusty gate that opened on its own to let them through and then slammed shut after they passed it. They went through the haunted self-opening gate without even blinking. Soon, they came upon evidence of a horrible mauling by some enormous beast of a fellow adventurer on the road. As experienced investigators and righters of wrongs they were, they took his stuff, left the body, and continued on their way.

After that they came to the Village of Barovia.



But instead of being greeted by buxom beer-carrying barmaids, the village was strangely quiet and covered in a dark and creepifying mist. Also many of the buildings looked abandoned and the windows were boarded up from the inside. Soon they found out why, as they stumbled upon a group of flesh eating zombies! (I also remembered at this point to take a few screenshots.)



Not only that, but they were also beset on by large rat-dogs and a necromantic wizard who retained his magical skills even after undeath, and who quickly held the halfling in a magical vise with eldritch words of dark power. As the dwarf battled frantically with the beasts, the halfling was nearly brought down by the dark creatures as they clawed at his motionless body. Suddenly, more zombies erupted from the doorways to the north! The dwarf, thinking quickly, grabbed the paralyzed halfling and threw him in an empty building, blocking the doorway himself so he could '300' the horde of zombies as they staggered toward the party. While this protected the magically paralyzed halfling for a time, it also trapped them in the small abandoned house surrounded by zombies!

Soon the magical holding spell wore off as the dwarf valiantly protected the doorway, and the halfling got his bearings just as the rat-dogs slithered between the dwarf's legs to attack the party. Being living creatures rather than undead flesh, the rat-dogs were susceptible to the halfling's sneak attack, and the little ruffian made short work of the beasts with a few stabs to the spine.



Eventually the dwarf finished off the remaining zombies as they could only squeeze together three at a time to attack him, and the battle was concluded. But what of the village and the people of Barovia? Has everyone succumbed to the zombie plague? Was there anyone left alive? And what of the note from the gypsy who, if they had bothered to ask, would have told them he got the note from the Burgomaster just the day before?

We'll find out, in the next installment of...

Shadows of the Black Feather: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft!

The Letter

The following video is for the players in the game I'm DMing.

Pi

Oh man. This little video from a Boston PBS kids show is awesome. Make sure you watch up to when the red wizards come out around 3:04 (when counting down) and after that you won't be able to stop watching it, and it only gets more insane after that.

ZAP PRESENTS 'Pi'


Did they say "Then man will know the death of God where wonder was before..."?

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PS: Here's a vid that Paul posted in the comments that I felt was worthy of a main post position in case anyone missed it.

ROLE PLAY TOURNAMENT - BE AGGRESSIVE

ScanCon: GenCon edition

UPDATE#2: Delp and I ransacked the GenCon server simultaneously and snatched True Dungeon tickets for Thursday 8/16/07 at 8:49pm-10:49pm (TDA00262), which is perfect. This means we'll play through TD on Thursday night, spend the rest of the night drinking in the True Dungeon's "Ye Olde Tavern," and have the rest of the 'Con to get swag from the publisher's floor. Delp says he wants the $35 for the ticket when we meet at GenCon along with our hotel money for him in small, untraceable bills. Preferably in an attractive leather European carry-all or canvas bag with $$$ printed on the side.




UPDATE: I've signed up for the events I want to go to I expect to fill up first. It took me 1.25 hours to finish the transaction (refreshing the page very six seconds), as the servers are majorly busy. I may need help at 4pm PDT to get True Dungeon tickets if anyone wants to sit on their computer and try to log in continuously with me I'd appreciate it. In any case, here's the events I signed up for:

Thursday 8/16/07 2pm-4pm - Tannhauser board game (released at GenCon!) - BGM00259 - got 2 tickets so first who calls dibs can go with me. --> Delp called it

Thursday 8/16/07 4pm-8pm - Hollow Earth "Lost World" - RPG00135 - bought last ticket

Friday 8/17/07 1pm-5pm - Godlike "Trial by Fire" - RPG00996 - bought last ticket

Saturday 8/18/07 3pm-6pm - 40K RPG "Illumination" (this is a sneak preview game) - RPG00527 - got 2 tickets so Brando you can go too.

Paranoia was filled up by 12:10 pm, so I couldn't buy tickets for a game of Paranoia. Sorry Devin. :(

Also, Adventurepan Paul is still in Japan and won't be attending GenCon this year so we won't need to put up with this again:



No, that's not actually Paul. I kid, I kid.

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As probably 90% of my readership will be attending GenCon with me this August for the first time, I felt I could post some important GenCon-specific info on here pertaining to events going on. So break out your fanny-packs and mountain dew, its time for a GenCon update!



First of all, events. You need to register for events if you want to make sure you have the optimal time at GenCon. The registration for events goes online at 12:00pm (noon) PDT on Monday, May 7th. The catalog is now up and in html form so you can peruse and search the available games and times here.

To actually register for the events you'll have to login on the GenCon site with your username and password you chose when you pre-registered for GenCon. If you haven't actually preregistered for GenCon and were waiting for some unknown reason DO IT NOW! You don't want to have to go through all the confirmation BS when there is only one game of PARANOIA you want to sign up for. Also go ahead and login right now to make sure your username and password is on the up-and-up and nothing will prevent you from registering for events on Monday (waiting for a password reset from GenCon when everyone else is can take a day or so).

Now you can purchase up to 2 tickets per event (most events seat 7-8 people) in case you think someone else will want to go with you. If you don't think someone out of our group will want to go don't buy the second ticket as you'll be taking away a spot for someone else who wants to go (decreasing YOUR fun at the event, because it won't be a full party). There are also generic tickets you can buy that can be used for any event as long as it isn't filled up. That said, I will likely buy 2 tickets to a number of events, because I can always count on Delp to game. Generic tickets you can buy anytime between May 7th - July 9th so no need to stress about those. I'll probably wait to buy any until I know what everyone else is already going to and maybe we can pool some generic tickets for the group or something.

As for True Dungeon, I will be purchasing those tickets for everybody in the group, and you guys can pay me back. The price of each ticket is $35, so if anyone is going to bail out on GenCon and TrueDungeon, they should email me immediately. As for the other events, everyone is on their own.



So look through the html catalog this weekend and decide what games you'd enjoy playing while we're at GenCon. As soon as I have True Dungeon tickets (they go on sale around 4pm PDT Monday) I will send a mass email or post it here so you can plan register for events around it.