Diet changes are hard, I'm trying to change mine and it's very hard. Now I am one of those people that don't believe in diet pills or saying 'I'm on a diet'. A diet as most people should know, is 'The sum of the food consumed by an organism or group'. And to that, I have changed mine.
I wanted to change the amount of food I eat and the type of food in the vain attempt to become 'Healthier'. I am also cheap and want to save money where I can to pay down stupid student debt. Eating only the amount I need, never over eating, and eating right are the end means. So far it hasn't been that bad, I don't eat a whole lot of sugar, I have vastly reduced my bad carb intake, stayed away from trans fat; but that is not the issue. I have 1 craving that is starting to tweak my nerves and that one craving is meat.
I have reduced my meat intake to be of rational portions to the fruits and veggies that make up my meals. Before I would eat meat for all meals of the day, all kinds of meat, and lots of it. I tried cutting it out all together before, a few years back, but I found that I would never feel 'Not Hungry' unless I had meat. Going vegetarian for even 2 weeks was me feeling like I was continually hungry for 2 weeks. I could feel my stomach with food in it and all the food just sat in my stomach, it made me want to gorge in order to fill the void of no meat.
This time around, I am keeping my delicious butchered animal remains, but I have pushed the portions down. I now can become 'Not Hungry', but once I eat a small morsel of that animal flesh, I want to keep consuming it. Meat is delicious and I say to all you vegans and vegetarians that you are missing out on some of the most delicious food I call animal corpses. These delicious, dead, delectable treats are tantalizing and should be given a taste no matter what your moral code is. This is why I tolerate apple products and understand the mass of people who consume it.
Back to my main point as I can talk about meat all day. The cravings for more meat are the worst right now. So far, because it's cheapest, I am consuming a serving of chicken for lunch and a serving of chicken for dinner. I season them and cook them myself. It does not matter how delicious I make the chicken, or how not hungry/full I get, my mouth wants to bite into a delicious hamburger, greasy bacon, glazed ham, roasted venison, grilled ribs... The list goes on.
The biggest fight, is fighting these cravings. Beat the cravings and win. That's what I think anyway.
So I will continue to fight temptations, hopefully better than how Jedi's and Sith fight each other in episode 1.
It's one of those days, you know? The days that feel like days, and afterwords come night. Usually when night rolls around, I'm tired and want to go to sleep. I usually do go to sleep, but something magical happens when I re-awake into the world - it's day again!
My dreams and slumber must be a type of sorcery that manages to turn day to night and night to day, or even a short nap can slingshot me into the future in tiny intervals. I'm a time travelling magician and all I need is sleep. I wish I could do that right now, that way the work day can end and I can go home refreshed and happy.
This is not to happen, my powers of sleep are hindered by a force called 'Work' and I am compelled to do this 'Work'. I am on break now, I cannot combat with work forever for that would destroy me. I am a non-confrontational person and right now I don't want to confront 'Work', I just want to use my special magical and travel into the future.
Normally I would be able to use my sorcery and travel through time until work goes away, but this place called 'The Office' seems to be impervious to magic, void of life, and always demanding. It's almost like a prison, almost, except for the fact that there is no time in the yard. Fresh air would feel good right about now.
Well, 'The Office' is demanding me to confront 'Work' once again - So I shall dawn my helmet, jump into my ship and see if I can finally achieve something with this 'Work' force.
I must be on fire, I totally owned a meeting today when the meeting owner was away sick. I could have done my usual thing and sat back, waited, and let people guess the meeting was canceled - but no! I went in there and owned that shit. I updated project risks, gave people action items, and action-ed on a few myself. Apparently I work better when I know no one is looking at me, breathing down my neck waiting for me to do something wrong.
I did move desks last week, this is what may have given me the energy. Hawk eye's are not staring me down, so I feel a little more comfortable to get shit done.
I have upped my leadership from a little stressed 'yes man'. Now only if I can build off of this, I may be able to do the same when I'm around people watching me. A new 'me' is coming into town, being born from a shell of a weak squish-able thing! Let me play you the song of my people...
I really only wanted the first 30 seconds, but meh this is good to.
On another note, I've gone 2 weeks with blogging.
THAT'S AMAZING!
It's usually 3 in a row and i'm done. I must continue for 30 days and it will become a habit for me, much like how I've gone since march without biting my nails.
Little goals, little victories - That is how I am going to change my life.
Eventually the little things add up into a massive pile of achievements.
Big goals left to achieve:
- Finish my mystery/investigation novel
- Finish designing the prototype of the space battle table top game
I should have a writing marathon, 30 days of me working on my novel and updating on Novel Pending everyday. That may be something I will tackle starting June, once I get past writers block and the urge I have of not touching the book.
Today, today was the most un-eventful day in a long time. At first I was not going to write anything because nothing has happened, but then I decided to post anything, something that came to mind. So I will share with you a bit of good feedback I got today.
I must be learning something at work, which is a good thing, for I action-ed on asking for additional QA resources for our project. This may not be a big thing for most people,but it is a big thing for me. This is the first time I was pro-active on something instead of reactive.
I'm still nervous as this still requires me to leave my bubble, to step up and ask for something needed instead of waiting until my superiors notice and ask me to action on it. Small steps is all I need.
I also managed to speak up and ask questions during both poker planning/ sprint planning meetings today instead of sitting there lost in thought and waiting until later to ask. Next step is to discuss with the Designer of the project to increase the description on the user story criteria so it actually shows design and not ambiguous design hopes. I still have a ways to go to step up/own up and grow into my position.
I have never felt like I have made it into the game industry, yet I have. I still feel like the 20 year old fresh out of college not knowing how to get a job and I think it's because of my contracting company. I never needed an interview, there is really no reward for hard service, the only thing they mostly have to show for hard work is that I get to keep a job.
Until I can get into a place with out being in my current contracting company, is the day I will see myself as a professional, but so far I've been put into temp positions until someone the contractors want fill the position. I guess I feel I will only always be a temporary person. I have the skills to fill the position, but there is something there that people don't want to critique and let me grow. So I sit in a position, do my best to fly a plane, ask how I'm doing, and have the instructor look out the window and say "You're doing good, just keep doing what you're doing" as he hides the fact he is grabbing a parachute and getting ready to jump just in case the real pilot doesn't comeback in time for the crash.
So I find myself filling many different roles, mostly on the same project, never really filling out and growing but pushed out. So it was nice to actually get solid praise, not just a pat on the back saying i'm doing good, but actual solid feedback on exactly what I did that was good. Though I still do not know entirely what questions to ask.
So that is a win for me and that leaves my day a little brighter.
Yesterday was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and the temperature was in the 20's. That is Celsius for those american folks. We don't need people thinking I'm enjoying a hot beautiful day of 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
With nothing on my schedule but to play some video games, I instead opted to clean and redesign my aquarium tank. As it is a 20 gallon tank, there is not a lot of room to maneuver things - but I do believe I am getting better than my previous attempts. Like every skill, the more one practices and makes it the best their skill can accomplish, they will improve. This would be my fourth attempt at designing an aquarium and I will say that this one is head over heals better than any other one I attempted.
I present to you, the beauty the now resides at the foot of my bed that my girlfriend and I stare at until we drift off into the comforting realm of sleep.
I learned two amazing lessons things today. First I learned that high school set me up to live as an adult.Before you start assuming I had good classes and excellent teachers, I did; but not for the reasons you may be thinking. The final lesson that would propel me through adulthood game graduation night.
That night of drinking, smoking, dancing, and all out awesomeness had awarded me an item that would show the true wisdom of my elders. It took me since June 2006 to figure out this vision of wisdom from my oh so great teachers.
The night of my graduation, you were still able to stand up,this great item was granted to the worthy, yay for I was worthy.
For this prize fits a can of Guinness Draft perfectly.
Is that not a thing of beauty? My school clearly knew what I would need in the future as an adult. Needless to say, it was delicious and refreshing.
Afterword, I learned my second lesson, bubble blowers are still incredibly fun.
I went up and down my street with my girlfriend and a friend with bubble wands creating fantastic bubbles. It does not matter what age you are, bubble can be enjoyed by anyone, anytime. Using my hatlight, I discovered a great picture to take. I shall post those on a later date.
Those are the two lessons I learned today. One a discovery and another an experience.
Now I shall leave you with an amazing exercise idea.
I will open up with an apology. Yesterday there was no post posted up on my blog. That is not to say I did not actually write something up, which I did, it was just that I had to remove the page and the grounds of my own stupidity and misunderstanding. I did not know how to fill the void and re-edit the page, so I just took it down.
I was on an amazing rant about how awesome Stumbleupon is and how everyone and their dog should use it, as it is the best tool for a procrastinator.
Anywho,
I shall open up today with a post as well as a post later tonight to make up for the gap.
This morning's post will be about Diablo III and how it urks me. Don't get me wrong, I like the game, I do find it fun - but working in the development of games myself, Diablo III is complete mediocrity.
Now I'm going to set a standard and that standard is 'Torchlight'. Great game and they did amazing things for the budget they had. The game was great, it was fun, colourful, and exciting. For a lower budget game, this took the icing off any cake. I am incredibly excited for Torchlight 2, namely because it has multi-player.
Not only was Torchligh a low budget game, it was developed in 11 months. That is incredibly impressive for any game. The FIFA and NHL franchise can boast the same development time, however, those teams have a much higher budget and far more people to throw at the product as well as a previous iteration to work from. But 11 months for Torchlight to go from concept to release, that is an amazing feat.
The game itself can sell for $20 about and the studio makes enough to live on to create Torchlight 2.
Jump to Diablo III:
The aesthetic appeal, looks just above par to Torchlight.
The player and monster animations look about on par with Torchlight.
The story would be on par with torchlight.
The audio, music and all, would be on par with Torchlight.
The only thing that Diablo III blows every single game in the world out of the water, would be from the cinematics. The skill and amazing detail in the cinematics is absolutely stunning. But put this aside, as this actually hasnothing to do with gameplay or the ability to draw the player in.
Now that Diablo III has been set to just above par, lets look at some of the things that makes this game 'Bad'.
Diablo III was in development since 2001, It was probably shelved a couple of times, but the concept was there in 2001, 2008 the game was first announced; then finally, May 2012, the game was released.
Development Time:
Diablo III - 11 Years
Torchlight - 11 Months
If you actually watch the credits to Diablo III, there were a ton of people who worked on the title, this game's budget was massive.
The game needs to be sold at $60 a unit, minus the collectors edition crap.
Product Cost:
Diablo III - $60
Torchlight - $20
This is starting to look like a common theme. Though Diablo III and Torchlight are amazing games, Diablo III was vastly over budgeted and it looks as though they wasted the money to come out with a game that would be 'Good Enough'. Either that, or the millions upon millions it took to develop the title went into their animators for those amazing cinematics.
I will also put in a big minus for the DRM system they have.
I don't want the argument of "You're on the internet all the time, what does it matter if you want to play single player and have to be online?"
I work on server games enough to know, it's not the user that is the problem. Generally the servers will fuck up, the server will be at fault, and when the servers go down for any reason, millions of people now cannot play the title and enjoy the game. This is an example of a poorly implemented DRM and the people who orchestrated this should be ashamed. This is a slap in the face to any and every aspect of user experience. They get an automatic 0 to the score's average for this mess up.
To put Diablo III to a score using Torchlight as the base of 5, it would be the following:
Diablo III:
Animation: 5
Story: 6
Aesthetics: 6
Audio: 5
Voices: 7
Gameplay: 6
Online: 10
Game Length: 5
Dev Time: 1
Unit Cost: 3
DRM: 0
Final Score : 4.9/10
For this style of game, I will always refer to Torchlight until a new par is set. Until then, my review for Diablo III is a 4.9/10. This game was definitely a flop in achievement and it looks as though they paid way too much much to reach par. That is why Diablo III is a mediocre slosh.
I will reiterate my first comment, I in know way hate Diablo III, I like it and play it and enjoy it. But for the amount of effort that went into the game, absolutely nothing shows for it except that blizzard has an amazing marketing team who I applaud. If this was any other studio, the game alone would have been an utter waste of money and the studio would have had to close, if the project was not already permanently shelved. Thanks to marketing, the fans of blizzard that eats anything they throw, the game is a success.
Now to keep with tradition, enjoy a bit of distraction:
The most epic super power in the world, the power to melt butter with the shear strength of FUS RO DAH!
A little something I wanted to share:
Pure Epicness.
On another not, I have consistently updated my blog every day Monday-Friday since last week. That's like 6 in a row after this one.
IT'S A NEW RECORD!
Must continue for 30 days lest the habit be broken.... I know the weekend is saved for other things like games and writing and soccer games (GO WHITECAPS)
For the most part, I just forget on the weekends that I have a blog. But let's just keep that between you and me.
I was sitting there in a meeting at work. Now this was not just any meeting, it was a meeting that did not need me there. People thought I needed to be there, but nay; I did not.
So what was I to do for 2 hours?
Yes 2 hours...
While a was droning and falling asleep, I decided right then and there - I must create my own language and writing script.
And so I started creating the characters which was the basis of what has slowly evolved and grew into grammar and a numerical system. Pronunciations are still being filtered out as what I originally had sounded disgusting and couldn't roll off the tongue.
I have begun to put the entire evolution of the language in a very nifty book.
In this book, I have developed how to write sentence structure, create headings, show dates, and references to nouns. It is still a work in progress.
The explanation is simple, It screwed me over from seeing the eclipse yesterday. All over the west coast of the US saw it, the Midwest saw it, and the Lower Mainland, Canada?
Nope.
It decided to start raining that morning and continues to heavily rain until about the evening today.
I missed a rare eclipse all because the weather had a stick up it's ass.
Yup... Fuck you weather of the Lower Mainland, fuck you.
Here is what I missed and can only see from the inter webs...
I've come to the conclusion that I need career advice. I have no Idea as to where I am going and where my heading is. I used to have a goal and a heading, but that was blatantly shot in the foot.
Needless to say, the support group that helped me move up has moved on. Those that had a plan for me and with me have long since left and I am stranded in a position where I don't have my 'Yang'. I am only half as effective without my 'Yang'.
I can clarify about my 'Yang'. That 'Yang' was a co-worker and friend of mine, Mike Palmer. During my early years in QA it was me and him supporting development. We sat next to each other and supported each other. If I didn't know something, Palmer would know and vice versa. We learned our weaknesses and learned from them and so we grew and took on more responsibilities. My weaknesses weren't always my weaknesses as we would share knowledge and fill the gaps in our skills.
Needless to say, he moved into another team and started setting up shop and success there while I moved into a profession completely alien to me. He stayed in his support base and knowledge base, I moved into a position I knew I wanted to go into but had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what was needed of me. I also had no support base. Every mistake was a glaring sore, every under performance was treated and inspected as a bacterial infection. I had no clue that I had no chance and no one took me to the side and told me what I should be doing, well not until it was far too late. I was told I was not allowed to stay in the position then they told me what was wrong and went that was that.
I slaved for hours to the best of my knowledge, being grotesquely underpaid, all in the hopes of being hired full time. This was to no avail. I did what was needed of me then pushed out the door. I moved from QA to Development, then back to QA. I had no real choice. No one was even looking at my resume, I never even got my foot into an interview position. (I can probably blame my crappy networking skills for that.)
I had no choice but to move back into QA, but with my senority and what I thought were my skills sets, I moved into a more project manager position. I may be able to do the job, I like the team, but I have no passion for the position; and this affects my performance. I commonly find myself not knowing what questions need to be asked and sometimes get caught in a reactionary for instead of a proactive form.
Long story short, I need career advice on how to find another 'Yang' or how I can improve without one, because as of right now, I am listless and lost; aimlessly wandering through the position trying not to fail the team. This, some may agree, is not the best situation to be in.
I must remain positive though, and with that note....
I am trying to set goals for myself and in doing so I've learn very valuable lessons.
1 - If the goal results in me becoming accountable for someone else - Example in the office - I get the objective done as I don't want to let other people down or the team down.
2 - Creating goals for my own personal benefit, I tend to let it slide unless I'm held accountable.
I don't know why I do that to myself, I work hard for other people but can't muster the energy to finish anything for myself. I am not held accountable and I need to be. So as of right now, if anyone reads these, I am writing a book and should be scheduled to be finished (ie. first draft) done by end of November.
I can post my daily or weekly updates about the progress of that novel on my "Novel Pending" blog. If there is no updates, try and keep me accountable and send evil emails at me (iantorn@gmail.com) or my twitter (Ian_Torn) calling me out. If I hate disappointing others, shame me and get me back to the work table.
Now for more distractions before I get my nose down to work and earn my 9-5 pay check.
I am starting to learn a valuable lesson - Social Media is important.
I thought I could get away from that and not have to touch it all that much; I always thought "Hey, I don't need this. Social Media is for Extroverted people who want to blab on about nothing."
Ya, about that... I need to start blabbing about nothing more often it seems.
To those that know me, I am an introvert. I love to think, imagine, and reflect on everything. Those that don't know me, I believe, think I'm just anti-social and a hermit. Now I'm not saying being a hermit is a bad thing, it's just that I'm not anti-social. I just don't like large groups or feel that ranting about nothing is useful.
Apparently people learn a lot from rants about nothing. I'm not a psychiatrist, but some people are or at least have training in the field. Rants tell a lot about people. Probably it says a lot about me when I keep calling them rants, but I'm not sure what.
Going back to my first statement - The value of Social media.
I have been reading a pretty good book recently - A dance of Dragons. It's a pretty good tale so far, I do so love Tyrion.
I have also been reading a fantastic book as well - The Introvert's Guide to Success in Business and LeadershipBy Lisa Petrilli. I am learning about how social media is one of the best ways to reach out as an introvert in the world of business. This is something that never actually clicked, mostly because I never knew how to properly use it so I threw it off as useless.
For all you introverts out there who wish to get at least a heading on to where to go to move up the ladder, I suggest you pick this book up. I am not yet done this book and already I have pulled some helpful knowledge.
Now I shall end today's post with the biggest and best celebrities on the internet.... Kittens.
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