via Dre & Niralth

Your senior year in High School is supposed to be “the best year of your life.” Let’s see how much you remember. I know for some it might be hard for you to go back that far!

Year: 1994
1.) Who was your best friend?
Sean or Pete, probably.
2.) What sports did you play?
I swam. Played water polo, as well.
3.) What kind of car did you drive?
My parents’ 1984 Toyota Camry.
4.) It’s Friday night, where were you?
Either something band-related, or swimming-related.
5.) Were you a party animal?
No.
6.) Were you in the “In Crowd”?
Not by a longshot.
7.) Ever skip school?
No… not high school classes, at least. Pete & I probably skipped a few UCB math classes to play Mortal Kombat 2, though.
8.) Ever smoke?
Not then, not since, not ever.
9.) Were you a nerd?
I guess.
10.) Did you get suspended/expelled?
Nope.
11.) Can you sing the Alma Mater?
We had a song?
12.) Who was your favorite teacher?
Uh… hm. Tom Cochrane, though that was my junior year. Senior year, maybe Mr. Sands, the English teacher?
13.) Favorite Class?
I didn’t particularly like any of ’em.
14.) What was your school’s full name?
Piedmont High School
15.) School Mascot?
A guy in a kilt.
16.) Did you go to Prom?
Yes.
17.) If you could go back and do it over, would you?
I dunno. Maybe? There are things I’d definitely have done differently, but I don’t know that I’d trade what I’ve got to do things again.
18.) What do you remember most about graduation?
Nothing in particular, really. Graduation was pretty meaningless, for me.
19.) Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
First kisses count? I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Yeah, it was senior year. Shaddap.
20.) Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?
The what, now?
21.) Did you have a job your senior year?
Lifeguard at the Piedmont pool.
22.) Who did you date?
Not gonna post someone’s name without their permission. AC.
23.) Where did you go most often for lunch?
When I was at school, I’d eat stuff from home. When we went to Berkeley, probably LaVals.
24.) HAve you gained weight since then?
Yeah. 50 lbs. Yatz.
25.) What did you do after graduation?
Swam, worked, not much else, really. College, then work.

So, Beemer’s in town. Went over to Tortuga to hang out, and play some games. We ended up playing something called “At Wit’s End”, which is pretty much like Trivial Pursuit, but with different types of questions. The board structure’s somewhat different, but not in a way that seemed to really matter (though some cards have ‘side effects’ that can change the course of the game pretty severely). Fun times. Beemer asked why I haven’t been posting very much, and the answer’s sort of sad – not much is really going on. On a day to day basis, there just isn’t a lot of interesting stuff.

I mean, okay, so there’s the diet thing, which I’d been doing pretty well on. Today was a bit of a ‘setback’ in the sense that I ended up eating a huge-ass steak, ’cause we bought a ribeye at Safeway, and the thing was freakin’ ENORMOUS. Still, it’s one of the better steaks I’ve ever cooked, Ei-Nyung and I split it, and she wisely kept half of her half for lunch tomorrow. I wish I’d done the same, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Oh, well. Tomorrow morning, I hit the pool, so I’ll just have to swim a little harder. By and large, I’ve been able to stop with random snacking, I’ve been making myself a little something for breakfast, and I’ve been bringing in lunch every day for the last week or so.

So, that’s been going reasonably well. Not terribly interesting or anything, but there you go.

Finished Rainbow Six: Vegas, and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The developers have really streamlined the squad mechanics to the point where they actually feel like a help, rather than a hiderance. Not once in the game did I ever feel like they were “stupid” or that they made the game worse. In fact, being able to quickly and simply direct them around, and the way the levels were designed, the teammates added a level of strategy that wouldn’t have been present otherwise. Very impressive.

One of the things that I found was interesting was that (mild spoilers coming) the game’s not structured as a standalone story. Sure, it has an arc of its own, and interesting things happen. But the overall structure *clearly* puts this as the beginning of a series of games – to the point where when Vegas 2 comes out, I’d suspect that they’ll have to have some “Previously, on Battlestar Galactica” style segment to bring people up to speed. Not that it’s deep, or overly complex – merely that it’s clear that the story from Vegas will continue into the next game as though that was how it was designed from the start.

Given Ubisoft’s pretty well annual (or shorter) schedules for their major franchises, this actually comes to me as a welcome change. It’s like they’re taking the positives of episodic gaming, and combining those with the epic production values of a “standalone” game, in a way that I haven’t really seen previously.

I mean, sure Halo -> Halo 2, but Halo had an “end” that felt like an end. Halo 2’s cliffhanger didn’t even feel quite the same. Vegas’ ending simply sets you up for the next chapter. It’s more like “Insert Disc 2” rather than “Coming Soon: Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (which is a pretty stupid name, but then again, they shipped a game called Rainbow Six 3, so there you go)”.

Anyway – I’m glad to see some sort of narrative linkup between the annual installments of these games. I’d even like it if the Splinter Cell series and Rainbow Six had some narrative crossover, where appropriate.

Anyway. It was good to see Beemer, and hang out with the rest of the peeps at Tortuga. Gotta get out of the house more – maybe then I’ll have more things to blog about, eh? Anyway. Off to sleep. Gotta get to the pool in the morning.

Woke up at 7:45, hit the alarm, and slept ’till 9, after going to sleep at about 3am. We had a bunch of people over for a night of food, Guitar Hero, and Karaoke Revolution. No better way to ring in the new year that laughing at your friends making fools of themselves. It was a really great night – the kind of thing we haven’t done in ages, and I wish we did more often.

I felt like I had a hangover, this morning, despite not having anything to drink the night before. So, while Ei-Nyung took the dog out for a quick walk, I stared at a wall, trying not to fall back asleep, or otherwise incapacitate myself. By about 10:15, I’d gotten my head together, and we went out to meet U, A&B for Dim Sum at Jade Villa, in Oakland Chinatown.

Oh – rewind a touch. The night before, K & I had made a wager – we’d both resolved to lose ~20lbs. this year, and motivation is a key factor in success. So, at first we’d agreed that the loser would get the winner a game, but Ei-Nyung and N thought that that was too lame a deal, so we agreed the loser would buy the winner a Wii. By the time one of us succeeds, they should be available, at least.

So, at Dim Sum, I tried not to eat ’till I was stupid, which is what I usually do, and ended up eating a much more controlled, happy amount of food. It was tasty, and I didn’t feel like I was going to explode after it was all over. After we got home, I started reading “The Hacker’s Diet,” at the recommendation of a friend of mine who’s been using it the last few months. The weird thing about it was that it wasn’t particularly surprising. I suppose that’s the thing that’s good about it. It’s not about some miracle no one’s ever heard of, or some quick, painless thing you can do to change everything magically. The main point is simple:

Eat fewer calories than you burn.

The things that I did find interesting were that a.) the writer tells you it’ll suck for a while, and b.) he explains that exercise, in terms of losing weight, isn’t the key. The key is to eat less.

The thing that was interesting for me was that I realized today that I have a really strong connection between exercise and fitness, because in high school, I was ripped, ate a ton, and exercised *all the time*. That association’s stuck, like some sort of muscle memory. So, I figure exercise + eat a ton = ripped, and that’s simply not the case, particularly because I’m no longer swimming for 3-4 hours a day, or riding my bike everywhere I go. And even if it was, at the rate I’m consuming calories, it wouldn’t make as much of a difference as eating a bit less would anyway.

That’s not to say I’m not exercising. At dim sum, S, called, and wanted to know if I wanted to go swimming. I had planned on hitting the Y later, but this was much, much better. It was a stunningly beautiful day – just about as perfect a day as one could get – and so I jumped at the chance to swim in an outdoor pool instead of the Y’s indoor one (S’s family still lives in Piedmont, and so he still has a membership at the pool). Ei-Nyung and Sean’s girlfriend H went running, while we went swimming, and all was well.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back. Joe, Ei-Nyung and I watched a couple hours of the World’s Strongest Man competition, which was pretty hilarious, and awesome. Dinner consisted of some smoked salmon, cream cheese, crackers, and capers, along with some dumplings that Ei-Nyung cooked up. Quantities were much more reasonable than I’d normally consume, and though I feel hungry, it’s a good hungry, in the kind of way that lets you know that you actually haven’t overeaten.

After dinner, we walked to the Grand Lake, and caught a showing of “The Pursuit of Happyness”, whose titular misspelling really bothers me, but I suppose it’s part of the story, so there you go. I liked it – it’s a very “slice of life” sort of movie – I mean, there’s conflict and resolution and all that, but it doesn’t feel like that’s really the *point* of the movie. It’s just about this guy’s life, and what he goes through to try to make something of himself, and his relationship with his child. Touching, and sweet. Really well acted, too, both by Will Smith, and his kid, who plays his kid in the movie.

After that, took Mobius for a 1.2 mile walk – it’s pretty brisk out.

My starting weight at this morning’s weigh-in was 233.5 lbs, which puts my goal weight at 213.5, which would be the lowest my weight would be in about 3 years, and if I can “stick” it, and stabilize at that weight or less, that’d be the least I’d have weighed since meeting Ei-Nyung.

Wacky stuff. Good start to the year, though. It’s been a great day.