During my run yesterday (which was miserable, by the way; thanks for nothing heartburn), I was thinking about blogging. Why do we write blogs? Is it just a way to tell people about our daily lives? Is it a call for attention? Is there something else? And what makes a good blog? Is it the topic, the way the blog is written, the blogger's skill at telling stories?
I've read a variety of different blogs for a number of years and the ones that interested me the most were the ones that talked about a specific topic I was interested in (mostly, gaming; more specifically, WoW). Some people just wrote about their experiences, some set out to prove things, some gave advice, some tried to carry on a conversation with you, others just asked a question at the end of their blog. I'm not sure there's any one style that was more entertaining to me or made me want to comment.
I suppose the real reason I was thinking about it last night is that, reflecting on the types of posts I've been making, it seems a lot like I'm simply talking at someone rather than trying to include them in a conversation. Does that matter? I have no idea. Shoot, I haven't even sent this blog to anyone, so it's not like I'm actively trying to build a reader base, but still ... you have to wonder (or I do) how long I will continue to blog if it's just me writing an online diary. Right?
I actually think that blogging about my return to WoW would be fairly interesting, and I plan on doing a weekly post about my fitness progress (if for nothing else, it will keep me motivated). Other topics though? No idea! Does anyone really want to read my rambling about fantasy sports? Maybe not, but who knows!
What do you think makes a good blog? (see, I'm learning already! including a question at the end, what a pro)
Friday, October 31, 2014
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Some common food myths
As promised:
1) Fat is bad for you.
The body actually requires fats for many functions including metabolism, brain function, and hormone production. So why do fats have such a bad reputation? Well, aside from trans fats (which actually ARE bad for you and are banned by the US FDA), I'd wager that this reputation comes from the fact that they are higher in calories than carbs or protein.
Taking a step back, there are three major macronutrients that we consume: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Each are used for varying purposes, but carbs and protein both have 4 calories per gram whereas fats have 9 calories per gram. So if you were to eat a similar amount of protein and fats, you'd gain more weight from the fat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind if you're trying to lose some weight.
2) Eating too many eggs will give you high cholesterol.
The truth of this one is that it is unlikely to do so, but there are some individuals who may experience this. But for most people, it's not something you need to worry about. Nom away on those omelettes!
3) Eating small meals throughout the day will speed up your metabolism.
Simply put, it makes zero difference whether you eat 3 meals a day or 6 smaller ones (assuming the amount of food is the same overall).
4) Don't eat before bedtime - it'll make you fat!
This is a silly idea if you stop and think about it - just because you're asleep doesn't mean your body stops functioning. In fact, your body does a lot of recovery / repair work when you're asleep, making it an important part of getting in shape! Your muscles actually grow when they are repaired, not when you're lifting / exercising. So with this in mind, your metabolism doesn't just stop over night.
It's much more likely that weight gain due to late night snacking is because of the types of food we generally consume as snacks (chips, cookies, etc) and our habit of eating out of boredom/habit while watching tv, playing games, etc.
5) Only X amount of protein can be absorbed at once.
This is partially true. Yes, your body can only use a limited amount of protein at one time, but the rest of it doesn't just vanish into thin air. Instead, it is saved for later and then used. There's no need to try and eat 20-30 g of protein every 3 hours.
6) Make sure to consume protein within 30 minutes of working out!
Protein timing basically isn't worth worrying about for 98% of people. The other 2% aren't reading my blog trying to figure out how to get in shape. Basically as long as you're hitting your macros and getting enough protein overall, it doesn't matter when you get your protein. Indeed, the body shows increased protein synthesis for up to 24 hours post-workout.
For some reason I feel like there was another one that I had planned on adding, but I can't come up with it now. I'm sure I'll think of it while running tonight and then promptly forget by the time I get around to updating this post tomorrow. Either way, hope some of that was informative!
1) Fat is bad for you.
The body actually requires fats for many functions including metabolism, brain function, and hormone production. So why do fats have such a bad reputation? Well, aside from trans fats (which actually ARE bad for you and are banned by the US FDA), I'd wager that this reputation comes from the fact that they are higher in calories than carbs or protein.
Taking a step back, there are three major macronutrients that we consume: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Each are used for varying purposes, but carbs and protein both have 4 calories per gram whereas fats have 9 calories per gram. So if you were to eat a similar amount of protein and fats, you'd gain more weight from the fat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind if you're trying to lose some weight.
2) Eating too many eggs will give you high cholesterol.
The truth of this one is that it is unlikely to do so, but there are some individuals who may experience this. But for most people, it's not something you need to worry about. Nom away on those omelettes!
3) Eating small meals throughout the day will speed up your metabolism.
Simply put, it makes zero difference whether you eat 3 meals a day or 6 smaller ones (assuming the amount of food is the same overall).
4) Don't eat before bedtime - it'll make you fat!
This is a silly idea if you stop and think about it - just because you're asleep doesn't mean your body stops functioning. In fact, your body does a lot of recovery / repair work when you're asleep, making it an important part of getting in shape! Your muscles actually grow when they are repaired, not when you're lifting / exercising. So with this in mind, your metabolism doesn't just stop over night.
It's much more likely that weight gain due to late night snacking is because of the types of food we generally consume as snacks (chips, cookies, etc) and our habit of eating out of boredom/habit while watching tv, playing games, etc.
5) Only X amount of protein can be absorbed at once.
This is partially true. Yes, your body can only use a limited amount of protein at one time, but the rest of it doesn't just vanish into thin air. Instead, it is saved for later and then used. There's no need to try and eat 20-30 g of protein every 3 hours.
6) Make sure to consume protein within 30 minutes of working out!
Protein timing basically isn't worth worrying about for 98% of people. The other 2% aren't reading my blog trying to figure out how to get in shape. Basically as long as you're hitting your macros and getting enough protein overall, it doesn't matter when you get your protein. Indeed, the body shows increased protein synthesis for up to 24 hours post-workout.
For some reason I feel like there was another one that I had planned on adding, but I can't come up with it now. I'm sure I'll think of it while running tonight and then promptly forget by the time I get around to updating this post tomorrow. Either way, hope some of that was informative!
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Psh, being responsible is for losers
I thought this was too humorous not to share, so I'll post the food related myths tomorrow instead.
Anyway, I've been dealing with a head cold since Sunday morning and haven't been getting the best of sleep. Last night I planned to watch the World Series game starting at 8 and then try to get to bed by 9:30-10:00.
My wife and I both ended up getting home a bit earlier than usual, so by the time we were done with dinner and whatever shows we had recorded it was only 7 pm. Rather than sit and watch some junk tv shows I didn't care about, I figured I'd play on the computer for a little bit and then come back downstairs to watch the game and have some ice cream.
I'm still in the process of downloading WoW (it actually finished last night) and haven't quite pulled the trigger on renewing my sub yet, but I had a couple of choices for gaming: D3 (bleah; I'm almost against this just on principle at this point) Torchlight 2 (hadn't touched it in ages), SC2 (I usually just play arcade games), or Civ 5. I started up TL2, saw that it needed to download a patch and closed it. I then opened SC2 and started a Tower Defense arcade game. We won quickly and it was just meh, so I looked for a different type of arcade game. Didn't really see anything I liked so closed down SC and opened up Civ. I had just finished a game over the weekend, so I figured I'd start one, get a few turns in, and then head downstairs for the game and ice cream.
Well, as 8:15 rolled around, one of the NPC civilizations declared war on me. The next thing I knew it was 9 o'clock and my wife had just come up to bed to read for a bit before going to sleep. So much for going downstairs to watch the game and eat ice cream. Engrossed in Civ5, I kept playing ... and the next thing I knew my wife had turned the light off in the bedroom and gone to bed. It was 10:15, but I figured if she was already asleep ... why not play till 11?!
So sure enough, I played until 11. A night that started off with plans of watching the World Series, eating ice cream, and going to bed early turned into me playing Civ 5 until much past my bedtime. This is why we can't have nice things! To be fair, the WS game quickly turned into a route (7-0 after 2?!), and Civ has always had that "just.one.more.turn" thing going on, but passing up ice cream is pretty bad.
So there you have it - before even buying the WoW expansion, I've set out to prove that I'm still bad at playing games responsibly!
Anyway, I've been dealing with a head cold since Sunday morning and haven't been getting the best of sleep. Last night I planned to watch the World Series game starting at 8 and then try to get to bed by 9:30-10:00.
My wife and I both ended up getting home a bit earlier than usual, so by the time we were done with dinner and whatever shows we had recorded it was only 7 pm. Rather than sit and watch some junk tv shows I didn't care about, I figured I'd play on the computer for a little bit and then come back downstairs to watch the game and have some ice cream.
I'm still in the process of downloading WoW (it actually finished last night) and haven't quite pulled the trigger on renewing my sub yet, but I had a couple of choices for gaming: D3 (bleah; I'm almost against this just on principle at this point) Torchlight 2 (hadn't touched it in ages), SC2 (I usually just play arcade games), or Civ 5. I started up TL2, saw that it needed to download a patch and closed it. I then opened SC2 and started a Tower Defense arcade game. We won quickly and it was just meh, so I looked for a different type of arcade game. Didn't really see anything I liked so closed down SC and opened up Civ. I had just finished a game over the weekend, so I figured I'd start one, get a few turns in, and then head downstairs for the game and ice cream.
Well, as 8:15 rolled around, one of the NPC civilizations declared war on me. The next thing I knew it was 9 o'clock and my wife had just come up to bed to read for a bit before going to sleep. So much for going downstairs to watch the game and eat ice cream. Engrossed in Civ5, I kept playing ... and the next thing I knew my wife had turned the light off in the bedroom and gone to bed. It was 10:15, but I figured if she was already asleep ... why not play till 11?!
So sure enough, I played until 11. A night that started off with plans of watching the World Series, eating ice cream, and going to bed early turned into me playing Civ 5 until much past my bedtime. This is why we can't have nice things! To be fair, the WS game quickly turned into a route (7-0 after 2?!), and Civ has always had that "just.one.more.turn" thing going on, but passing up ice cream is pretty bad.
So there you have it - before even buying the WoW expansion, I've set out to prove that I'm still bad at playing games responsibly!
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
A couple quick guidelines if you don't want to log calories
One complaint people often bring up when I tell them what I'm doing diet-wise is that they don't want to have to track their calories. It seems too complicated and is too much effort for them. Everyone is different, so while I personally enjoy logging what I eat (it's like a puzzle you get to play with your life!), I understand that some people are different. With that in mind, if I had to distill my current diet down into a couple of easy to follow guidelines, this is what I'd recommend:
1) Don't drink your calories!
Courtesy of KJ, of course. Essentially what we're talking about here is stuff like soda, juices, and even alcohol. You may not want to remove drinking from your weekly activities, especially if you do it in social settings, which is totally fine. Stuff like soda, juices, and even milk has a lot of calories though. Given that you're drinking them, they rarely make you feel full, which can lead to consuming an awful lot of calories without realizing it.
As an example, a 20 oz bottle of Coke has 240 calories. If you went from drinking one of these a day to replacing it with water, you'd lose half a pound a week without making any other changes! Another way to think about those calories is how it compares to other foods - 240 calories is the equivalent of: 8 ounces of chicken breast, 3 apples, or 8 cups of broccoli! Needless to say, if you're trying to lose weight and don't want to be hungry, eating half a pound of chicken will be more filling than a single bottle of coke.
2) Lean proteins and veggies are your best friend!
Essentially you want to be filling up on high satiety low calorie foods. Most lean proteins and veggies tend to fall into this category because of the sheer quantity of food you are able to eat for the calories. Proteins also tend to be digested slower which leaves you feeling fuller for longer.
3) Try to limit your carbs.
Carbs tend to get a bad rap these days, and there's nothing inherently wrong with them. But if you're trying to limit your calories, limiting your carbs can help you do so in a manner that allows you to not feel hungry all day long. Not only do carbs tend to be high in calories, but they also are digested fairly quickly, which means you will be wanting to eat something sooner.
4) Drink water!
The whole 8 cups a day thing is largely unnecessary, but we sometimes mistakes our body's dehydration cues as feeling hungry. Staying hydrated is also important for exercise, of course.
Tomorrow I'll touch on some common myths about food that a lot of us still believe (I did too until recently!).
1) Don't drink your calories!
Courtesy of KJ, of course. Essentially what we're talking about here is stuff like soda, juices, and even alcohol. You may not want to remove drinking from your weekly activities, especially if you do it in social settings, which is totally fine. Stuff like soda, juices, and even milk has a lot of calories though. Given that you're drinking them, they rarely make you feel full, which can lead to consuming an awful lot of calories without realizing it.
As an example, a 20 oz bottle of Coke has 240 calories. If you went from drinking one of these a day to replacing it with water, you'd lose half a pound a week without making any other changes! Another way to think about those calories is how it compares to other foods - 240 calories is the equivalent of: 8 ounces of chicken breast, 3 apples, or 8 cups of broccoli! Needless to say, if you're trying to lose weight and don't want to be hungry, eating half a pound of chicken will be more filling than a single bottle of coke.
2) Lean proteins and veggies are your best friend!
Essentially you want to be filling up on high satiety low calorie foods. Most lean proteins and veggies tend to fall into this category because of the sheer quantity of food you are able to eat for the calories. Proteins also tend to be digested slower which leaves you feeling fuller for longer.
3) Try to limit your carbs.
Carbs tend to get a bad rap these days, and there's nothing inherently wrong with them. But if you're trying to limit your calories, limiting your carbs can help you do so in a manner that allows you to not feel hungry all day long. Not only do carbs tend to be high in calories, but they also are digested fairly quickly, which means you will be wanting to eat something sooner.
4) Drink water!
The whole 8 cups a day thing is largely unnecessary, but we sometimes mistakes our body's dehydration cues as feeling hungry. Staying hydrated is also important for exercise, of course.
Tomorrow I'll touch on some common myths about food that a lot of us still believe (I did too until recently!).
Monday, October 27, 2014
Staying in Shape
As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the things I'm concerned will fall by the wayside if I pick WoW back up is my recent dedication to getting/staying in shape. Thanks to some great information provided by reddit.com/r/fitness, I am in the best shape of my life. I've lost 19 lbs over the past 4 months, as well as trained for a marathon and gotten much stronger. I have tried in the past to get in better shape, but never with the success I had this time. What was the difference? There were two big things, in my mind:
1) Realizing that calories were what was important for weight loss, not whether something was "healthy" or not
I feel like this is the biggest misconception that I've always had. In the past when I tried to lose weight I always went with the approach of "eat healthy food!" This invariably led to a diet that was somewhat effective at first, but eventually saw stalled progress and led to me having intense cravings for junk food and desserts. In retrospect, this approach was flawed in a variety of ways. First, defining something as "healthy" can be highly subjective - as an example, an 8 ounce glass of Orange Juice has the same amount of sugar as three Oreos! Second, trying to restrict your diet to only healthy foods isn't really sustainable long term for most people (certainly not for me). The key to successfully losing weight and keeping it off is making changes that are sustainable long term; ya know, the old "it's a marathon, not a sprint" cliche. And finally, the weight you gain/lose is (almost) entirely dependent on whether or not you're consuming more calories than you're expending. You could eat nothing but ice cream all day, and as long as you are consuming fewer calories than you expend through the day, you would lose weight. Conversely, you could eat nothing but spinach and baked chicken all day and if you eat more calories than you expend, you would gain weight.
I started tracking calories on MyFitnessPal and aimed for a 500 deficit a day (the equivalent of 1 lb a week). My weight loss was pretty consistent and I would highly recommend trying this out if you've ever wanted to lose weight but struggled with it. Doing this also allowed me to treat myself to desserts and junk food on a semi-regular basis as long as it fit into my daily calorie limits (in fact, I'm eating a Twix Ice Cream bar as I type this). This made it much easier to stick to a diet long term instead of removing all manner of tasty foods from my "healthy" diet.
2) Following a specific program in the gym
It's kind of funny and sad at the same time to look back on what I had done in the past to try and get in better shape. So much wasted time. I followed a popular program created by someone who actually knew what they were doing, rather than just randomly picking an exercise to do at the gym based on a whim. The program made sure to focus on all movements equally, rather than just the muscles you can see from the front, which is definitely a mistake I've made before. It also had specific instructions about when to increase the weight on a certain lift and by how much.
I've changed up the program that I'm following after 4 months as I'd like to focus on building muscle a little more instead of just focusing on strength. This new routine has me going to the gym 4 days a week, though the workouts have been fairly short so far. I'd love to stay with it and be able to join the 1,000 lb club (combined Bench Press, Squat, Deadlift) within the next 6 months; I'm at ~864 right now using predicted 1 rep max. But with winter coming and Wow at home ... will I still be motivated to do that?
1) Realizing that calories were what was important for weight loss, not whether something was "healthy" or not
I feel like this is the biggest misconception that I've always had. In the past when I tried to lose weight I always went with the approach of "eat healthy food!" This invariably led to a diet that was somewhat effective at first, but eventually saw stalled progress and led to me having intense cravings for junk food and desserts. In retrospect, this approach was flawed in a variety of ways. First, defining something as "healthy" can be highly subjective - as an example, an 8 ounce glass of Orange Juice has the same amount of sugar as three Oreos! Second, trying to restrict your diet to only healthy foods isn't really sustainable long term for most people (certainly not for me). The key to successfully losing weight and keeping it off is making changes that are sustainable long term; ya know, the old "it's a marathon, not a sprint" cliche. And finally, the weight you gain/lose is (almost) entirely dependent on whether or not you're consuming more calories than you're expending. You could eat nothing but ice cream all day, and as long as you are consuming fewer calories than you expend through the day, you would lose weight. Conversely, you could eat nothing but spinach and baked chicken all day and if you eat more calories than you expend, you would gain weight.
I started tracking calories on MyFitnessPal and aimed for a 500 deficit a day (the equivalent of 1 lb a week). My weight loss was pretty consistent and I would highly recommend trying this out if you've ever wanted to lose weight but struggled with it. Doing this also allowed me to treat myself to desserts and junk food on a semi-regular basis as long as it fit into my daily calorie limits (in fact, I'm eating a Twix Ice Cream bar as I type this). This made it much easier to stick to a diet long term instead of removing all manner of tasty foods from my "healthy" diet.
2) Following a specific program in the gym
It's kind of funny and sad at the same time to look back on what I had done in the past to try and get in better shape. So much wasted time. I followed a popular program created by someone who actually knew what they were doing, rather than just randomly picking an exercise to do at the gym based on a whim. The program made sure to focus on all movements equally, rather than just the muscles you can see from the front, which is definitely a mistake I've made before. It also had specific instructions about when to increase the weight on a certain lift and by how much.
I've changed up the program that I'm following after 4 months as I'd like to focus on building muscle a little more instead of just focusing on strength. This new routine has me going to the gym 4 days a week, though the workouts have been fairly short so far. I'd love to stay with it and be able to join the 1,000 lb club (combined Bench Press, Squat, Deadlift) within the next 6 months; I'm at ~864 right now using predicted 1 rep max. But with winter coming and Wow at home ... will I still be motivated to do that?
Friday, October 24, 2014
Oh right, actual questions!
Yesterday I detailed why I ended up getting sucked into WoW, but I guess I didn't really explain how detrimental it was. My typical daily routine involved staying up to 3-4 am playing WoW, sleeping until noon, going to whatever afternoon classes I had (morning classes had no chance), working from 5-9, and then playing WoW until I went to bed. Needless to say, I didn't do so well in school that semester; I ended up with two Ds and a C- ... the first time I'd ever gotten a grade below a B in my life. Additionally, I spent most of my time in my room with the door shut, refusing the offers from my friends to come hang out. It became a running joke that I still hear about to this day, 9 years later.
After that semester, I canceled my subscription. I went through the Spring semester feeling much more like myself and then ended up coming back to play during the summer, since my Dad and Brother had transferred servers to play with my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins. I proceeded to play for a long while in a much more responsible manner - I hung out with my friends, I went to classes, I studied, and I stayed in shape. Heck, I even managed to have a non-gaming girlfriend and play at the same time!
So the questions I have are:
1) In the past I've shown both the ability to completely lose myself in the virtual world and to play games in a (mostly) responsible manner. Will I be able to play responsibly this time around? I'm recently married and a new home owner so I certainly have less free time than I used to. Additionally, I've been really into working out lately and I'd like to continue that trend rather than replace it with gaming.
2) One of the reasons that WoW is so "addicting" is that there's almost always something else in the game you could be doing. Whether that is raiding, PvP (Arena or BG), harvesting resources for crafting, playing the AH, leveling an alt, doing daily quests, etc ... there's almost always something to do. Since I would have less time to dedicate to playing, my character's progression would suffer. Would I be happy just being a "casual" (often used in a condescending manner)? Would I be okay with not having the best gear and not being able to partake in all the PvE content? Would I be okay with not being able to compete with the top PvPers?
On the other hand, maybe knowing that the time I was putting into the game was going to eventually pay off would make the couple hours of play time I have during the week seem much more rewarding. I might get there slower than before, but I'd still progress every time I played.
3) The sense of community I felt when I played WoW was very strong. Obviously when I played with my family we had good times and I felt close to the people I was playing with on a regular basis. But even before that, before we transferred servers to be with them, I was "well known" on my server. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm just Anchorman-ing you, but people knew who I was (some random person PMed me after I posted on the server forums that I was quitting) and I had a good group of online friends that I played with. If I start playing again, I won't know anybody. MMOs can be a pretty lonely experience if you're stuck playing by yourself. That sounds awful.
Then again, I have had good experiences making friends in other games as well, so perhaps making new friends wouldn't be out of the question.
4) I am such a noob. I used to know things. Now? I haven't played in over 4 years. I've missed two expansions (third is coming up). There is so much I don't know about the game now. I've gone from being an "elitist" to a complete noob. It's seriously daunting. Intimidating, even. And yea, I know, those things come back pretty quickly, but still ... it makes me nervous just thinking about it!
5) The cost. As you may or may not be aware, not only do you have to buy the actual WoW game but it costs $15 a month to keep your account active. There are two ways to think about this in my mind:
The first is that $15 for the amount of time you'll be playing is actually a relatively cheap form of entertainment. Consider that movie tickets for my wife and me would cost ~$20 for a 2-3 hour show. Add in popcorn and a drink and you're talking $10-$15 per hour of entertainment. WoW, on the other hand, would be a much smaller figure - if I played just 10 hours a month, then you're looking at $1.50 per hour of entertainment. Totally reasonable, right?
On the other hand, there are a lot of quality games out there that don't have a monthly fee. In fact, of all the games I've played since WoW, only one had a monthly subscription fee. So it's certainly possible to find entertainment in games for much cheaper than WoW.
So those are the questions I've been kind of tossing around in my head. I guess it all just basically boils down to, can I play in a responsible manner and still have fun? I'd like to think yes, so I am leaning toward picking it back up.
I will not be posting over the weekends, so look for a post on a different topic on Monday!
After that semester, I canceled my subscription. I went through the Spring semester feeling much more like myself and then ended up coming back to play during the summer, since my Dad and Brother had transferred servers to play with my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins. I proceeded to play for a long while in a much more responsible manner - I hung out with my friends, I went to classes, I studied, and I stayed in shape. Heck, I even managed to have a non-gaming girlfriend and play at the same time!
So the questions I have are:
1) In the past I've shown both the ability to completely lose myself in the virtual world and to play games in a (mostly) responsible manner. Will I be able to play responsibly this time around? I'm recently married and a new home owner so I certainly have less free time than I used to. Additionally, I've been really into working out lately and I'd like to continue that trend rather than replace it with gaming.
2) One of the reasons that WoW is so "addicting" is that there's almost always something else in the game you could be doing. Whether that is raiding, PvP (Arena or BG), harvesting resources for crafting, playing the AH, leveling an alt, doing daily quests, etc ... there's almost always something to do. Since I would have less time to dedicate to playing, my character's progression would suffer. Would I be happy just being a "casual" (often used in a condescending manner)? Would I be okay with not having the best gear and not being able to partake in all the PvE content? Would I be okay with not being able to compete with the top PvPers?
On the other hand, maybe knowing that the time I was putting into the game was going to eventually pay off would make the couple hours of play time I have during the week seem much more rewarding. I might get there slower than before, but I'd still progress every time I played.
3) The sense of community I felt when I played WoW was very strong. Obviously when I played with my family we had good times and I felt close to the people I was playing with on a regular basis. But even before that, before we transferred servers to be with them, I was "well known" on my server. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm just Anchorman-ing you, but people knew who I was (some random person PMed me after I posted on the server forums that I was quitting) and I had a good group of online friends that I played with. If I start playing again, I won't know anybody. MMOs can be a pretty lonely experience if you're stuck playing by yourself. That sounds awful.
Then again, I have had good experiences making friends in other games as well, so perhaps making new friends wouldn't be out of the question.
4) I am such a noob. I used to know things. Now? I haven't played in over 4 years. I've missed two expansions (third is coming up). There is so much I don't know about the game now. I've gone from being an "elitist" to a complete noob. It's seriously daunting. Intimidating, even. And yea, I know, those things come back pretty quickly, but still ... it makes me nervous just thinking about it!
5) The cost. As you may or may not be aware, not only do you have to buy the actual WoW game but it costs $15 a month to keep your account active. There are two ways to think about this in my mind:
The first is that $15 for the amount of time you'll be playing is actually a relatively cheap form of entertainment. Consider that movie tickets for my wife and me would cost ~$20 for a 2-3 hour show. Add in popcorn and a drink and you're talking $10-$15 per hour of entertainment. WoW, on the other hand, would be a much smaller figure - if I played just 10 hours a month, then you're looking at $1.50 per hour of entertainment. Totally reasonable, right?
On the other hand, there are a lot of quality games out there that don't have a monthly fee. In fact, of all the games I've played since WoW, only one had a monthly subscription fee. So it's certainly possible to find entertainment in games for much cheaper than WoW.
So those are the questions I've been kind of tossing around in my head. I guess it all just basically boils down to, can I play in a responsible manner and still have fun? I'd like to think yes, so I am leaning toward picking it back up.
I will not be posting over the weekends, so look for a post on a different topic on Monday!
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Second post?!
So wait, you're saying just titling each post with the number of posts I've made is a bad idea?! Huh, alright. I'll look into that.
Yesterday I mentioned that I have a number of questions regarding whether or not to start playing WoW again. To fully understand why I have reservations, we first need to take a trip through memory lane and go back to when WoW first was first released.
My sophomore year of college was pretty awesome. I joined the rugby team (I first played rugby my senior year in high school, the inaugural season at my school) and was a starter on the B-Side. The coach even told me that I would have a chance to compete for a starting position on the A-Side in the following season. Not only was rugby fun because I love sports, but it also helped me find a group of people that really made me feel like I belonged. This was something that I think I really needed at the time, because going from a relatively small high school (200 students in my class) to Virginia Tech (>20k students) was a hard adjustment. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to basically being a nobody. Suddenly I had people to go party with whenever I wanted, people to get food with, and people to just go outside and toss a rugby ball around with if I was bored. I spent the summer after my sophomore year training hard, determined to be in great shape.
And, because each story needs a love element, I also met a girl. I fell head over heels for her, despite the fact that she had a long term boyfriend that she'd been dating since she was in high school. Not to be deterred by this, we became friends and ... then one night, close to the end of the year, she told me that she had broken up with him. Success! We started dating almost immediately - for some reason the fact that she had just gotten out of a serious long term relationship didn't send up giant red warning flags at the time.
I had also just changed my major, thinking I wanted to do something in Biology rather than boring old Business, so over the summer I signed up to take some classes at a local college to catch up. My new girlfriend went to study abroad and I was working, taking classes at night, and fitting in workouts when I could. As you might have guessed from the previous paragraph, the girl got back from abroad and decided she wanted to be back with her old boyfriend. Heartbroken, I poured the rest of my summer into working out and reading about this fancy new game coming out called "World of Warcraft." For whatever reason, I can still picture myself sitting in my dad's basement (god, how cliche is that?!), eating dinner late at night after class/workout, and reading the forums about some of the small cool things you'd be able to do in this new game - you could actually click on benches and your character would sit! you could press a button and it would sheath/unsheath your weapons! zomg!!!
So as the summer came to an end, I was in the best shape of my life, and ready to go back to school. Our first rugby practice was on the second day of school. To drum up interest, we were practicing on a field that was right in the middle of campus, the Drillfield. We were doing some drill where you run through a human obstacle course of sorts, and as I was going through, I spun out of a tackle. Or at least, I tried to spin - part of my knee went and the other part didn't. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital (I've often wondered whether this was good or bad publicity) ... I had torn my MCL and PCL. I had surgery and was done for the year. I still went to some of the rugby get togethers, but I felt like an outsider. Plus, it was hard to drink on crutches!
It wasn't until the following summer that I realized I wasn't going to play rugby again. My knee has never been the same, it's still got some laxity. Knowing that I wasn't going to play rugby completed the "outsider" mentality that I had. Despite the fact that some friends on the team told me it didn't matter and I should still come around, I didn't. I had lost the group of people I had spent most of my time with, and I turned to WoW to fill that void.
I'm still not sure whether WoW sucked me in and caused me to withdraw from the rest of my life or if the rest of my life just sucked and I found solace in WoW. Either way, what followed was not pretty!
... and that seems like a great place to end today's very long, rambly post. If this were a tv series, that would've been a great cliffhanger had I not ruined it with this note about what a great cliffhanger it was!
Yesterday I mentioned that I have a number of questions regarding whether or not to start playing WoW again. To fully understand why I have reservations, we first need to take a trip through memory lane and go back to when WoW first was first released.
My sophomore year of college was pretty awesome. I joined the rugby team (I first played rugby my senior year in high school, the inaugural season at my school) and was a starter on the B-Side. The coach even told me that I would have a chance to compete for a starting position on the A-Side in the following season. Not only was rugby fun because I love sports, but it also helped me find a group of people that really made me feel like I belonged. This was something that I think I really needed at the time, because going from a relatively small high school (200 students in my class) to Virginia Tech (>20k students) was a hard adjustment. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to basically being a nobody. Suddenly I had people to go party with whenever I wanted, people to get food with, and people to just go outside and toss a rugby ball around with if I was bored. I spent the summer after my sophomore year training hard, determined to be in great shape.
And, because each story needs a love element, I also met a girl. I fell head over heels for her, despite the fact that she had a long term boyfriend that she'd been dating since she was in high school. Not to be deterred by this, we became friends and ... then one night, close to the end of the year, she told me that she had broken up with him. Success! We started dating almost immediately - for some reason the fact that she had just gotten out of a serious long term relationship didn't send up giant red warning flags at the time.
I had also just changed my major, thinking I wanted to do something in Biology rather than boring old Business, so over the summer I signed up to take some classes at a local college to catch up. My new girlfriend went to study abroad and I was working, taking classes at night, and fitting in workouts when I could. As you might have guessed from the previous paragraph, the girl got back from abroad and decided she wanted to be back with her old boyfriend. Heartbroken, I poured the rest of my summer into working out and reading about this fancy new game coming out called "World of Warcraft." For whatever reason, I can still picture myself sitting in my dad's basement (god, how cliche is that?!), eating dinner late at night after class/workout, and reading the forums about some of the small cool things you'd be able to do in this new game - you could actually click on benches and your character would sit! you could press a button and it would sheath/unsheath your weapons! zomg!!!
So as the summer came to an end, I was in the best shape of my life, and ready to go back to school. Our first rugby practice was on the second day of school. To drum up interest, we were practicing on a field that was right in the middle of campus, the Drillfield. We were doing some drill where you run through a human obstacle course of sorts, and as I was going through, I spun out of a tackle. Or at least, I tried to spin - part of my knee went and the other part didn't. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital (I've often wondered whether this was good or bad publicity) ... I had torn my MCL and PCL. I had surgery and was done for the year. I still went to some of the rugby get togethers, but I felt like an outsider. Plus, it was hard to drink on crutches!
It wasn't until the following summer that I realized I wasn't going to play rugby again. My knee has never been the same, it's still got some laxity. Knowing that I wasn't going to play rugby completed the "outsider" mentality that I had. Despite the fact that some friends on the team told me it didn't matter and I should still come around, I didn't. I had lost the group of people I had spent most of my time with, and I turned to WoW to fill that void.
I'm still not sure whether WoW sucked me in and caused me to withdraw from the rest of my life or if the rest of my life just sucked and I found solace in WoW. Either way, what followed was not pretty!
... and that seems like a great place to end today's very long, rambly post. If this were a tv series, that would've been a great cliffhanger had I not ruined it with this note about what a great cliffhanger it was!
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
First post!
Is "First Post" a totally lame title for your first post? Probably. This is the first time I've ever really blogged though, so you'll have to forgive my rookie mistakes.
Recently I've gotten the itch to play World of Warcraft (WoW) again. It's been about 4.5 years since I last played, though every once in a while I do get that nostalgic feeling again. The last time I got it, I went so far as to download all the newest content but never actually started my subscription up again. This time though, I'm thinking I might go back.
I've tried playing a variety of games since then, including League of Legends, Skyrim, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Diablo 3 (and xpac), Civilization 5, Torchlight, Wildstar, etc. Some have held my interest for long periods of times (LoL) other for shorter (D3-RoS), but none hold the same nostalgic value for me. I'm not even sure what started my nostalgic trip this time around, but it's been a steady onslaught since then (a lot of it self inflicted, to be honest).
Last time I played WoW, my dad, brother, aunt, uncle, and cousins all played (a co-worker that I was friendly with as well). It was quite the family experience! I did rated arena battles with my brother and we did pretty well considering I was an off-spec. On Sundays, the whole family raided together. Of course there were varying levels of skill and dedication, but looking back, I feel like that made it even more worthwhile (even if it was hard to deal with at the time). I still have some of the screenshots from downing raid bosses for the first time! Looking back through old screenshots is a terrible way to get rid of nostalgia, in case you were wondering.
I have a lot of questions and reservations about whether it's really a good idea to start playing WoW again. I'll share some of them tomorrow.
Recently I've gotten the itch to play World of Warcraft (WoW) again. It's been about 4.5 years since I last played, though every once in a while I do get that nostalgic feeling again. The last time I got it, I went so far as to download all the newest content but never actually started my subscription up again. This time though, I'm thinking I might go back.
I've tried playing a variety of games since then, including League of Legends, Skyrim, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Diablo 3 (and xpac), Civilization 5, Torchlight, Wildstar, etc. Some have held my interest for long periods of times (LoL) other for shorter (D3-RoS), but none hold the same nostalgic value for me. I'm not even sure what started my nostalgic trip this time around, but it's been a steady onslaught since then (a lot of it self inflicted, to be honest).
Last time I played WoW, my dad, brother, aunt, uncle, and cousins all played (a co-worker that I was friendly with as well). It was quite the family experience! I did rated arena battles with my brother and we did pretty well considering I was an off-spec. On Sundays, the whole family raided together. Of course there were varying levels of skill and dedication, but looking back, I feel like that made it even more worthwhile (even if it was hard to deal with at the time). I still have some of the screenshots from downing raid bosses for the first time! Looking back through old screenshots is a terrible way to get rid of nostalgia, in case you were wondering.
I have a lot of questions and reservations about whether it's really a good idea to start playing WoW again. I'll share some of them tomorrow.
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