Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I discuss the FTC guidelines taking effect on Dec. 1st. Are you preparing your disclosures? Checking them twice? We also spend some time discussing the death of the CrunchPad … and laughing about it.
The primary focus is on how the FTC has left so many questions about all of the new rules we are supposed to follow, but yet they remain silent, not answering blogger’s questions. Do we have to go back and add them to old posts? What about using the “Like” feature on some sites? It’s a mess. (Links thanks to Steven)
As if The Twilight Saga: New Moon having the third biggest opening weekend in movie history, and the biggest single day ever, it remained number 1 at the box office this week, and has surpassed the domestic and international box office totals for the first film in the series already.
It is rare for a sequel to perform better than the original, but considering New Moon has been in release for 10 days as of this post, and Twilight had a total of 147 days to make its total, this sequel is going to bury the ever living heck out of the original. The current box office totals for both, along with their budgets, are listed below. (data taken from Box Office Mojo)
Budget
Domestic box office
International box office
Total
Twilight
$37 million
$192,769,854
$192,227,954
$384,997,808
New Moon
$50 million
$230,674,000
$243,000,000
$473,674,000
You can see a full breakdown of how the movies are stacking up against one another here, but one interesting detail is Twilight dropped off 62.2% its second weekend, while New Moon dropped 70.2%, but considering the stellar first weekend, that isn’t surprising.
So, why do I write so much about this? Do you really need to think about it? You all had best prepare for an onslaught of every supernatural teen novel series, which there are several, to be turned into a movie pretty darn soon. The movie theaters are going to be lousy with them as they can cast unknowns and produce them on a pretty small budget, so the risk is extremely low compared to the potential returns.
Remember, it was teenage girls that propelled Titanic to being the highest grossing film of all time, and here we go again.
Get ready folks, this is just the beginning of the roller coaster ride of teen girls over taking the local cineplex.
Black Friday 2009 went pretty smoothly … Black Friday 2010 won’t.
Mind you I only went to my local Walmart for Black Friday and I hadn’t been to one since 2006, but I know 2007 & 2008 were just nuts as they had always been. After the death of a Walmart employee in Long Island, NY last year (something I heard my local store employees reference multiple times), I knew things were going to have to change thie year, I just didn’t know how radical it would be.
The biggest key items, of which there were about 10, were scattered through out the store. The $398 laptop I was after as a fairly cheap way for me to get a Windows7 system was in the front of the store in the optical center. The sale was due to start at 5:00 A.M. and I arrived at at about 3:45 A.M. to discover the new system: slips would be handed out at 5:00 A.M. for the laptops with a limit of one per customer, and a total of 18 were to be sold. They said they wouldn’t hand the slips out before hand so I went off to pick up some oatmeal and search out the other items was after like a 1 TB external hard drive.
I get back to the vision center at about 4:00 A.M. and the Walmart employee has changed and they’ve handed out four slips already. Whatever, I get my slip and I’m fifth in line for the laptop. About 4:20 A.M. another employee comes by and says the $298 laptops are all claimed and I hear there are only five of the $398 ones left.
4:40 A.M. and the last slip for the $398 laptops is handed out … and now the complaining begins.
Angry customers from other sections of the store are walking out of the store complaining about how could the store be out of the items already if the sale starts at 5:00 A.M. … a couple women walk in at 4:45 and come to get a $398 laptop, they walk out complaining at the top of their lungs about how this was unfair, and they weren’t staying if they couldn’t get their primary item.
At 5:00 A.M. we were allowed calmly into the vision center where an employee collected our clips and another employee placed the laptops in our carts. No fuss, no muss, no fighting … and then I made it out to the bulk items such as the hard drives and it was the usual chaos.
While I applaud the changes Walmart made this year, it’s a one year bandage and won’t work a second year. There are two scenarios that will happen next year:
People will arrive earlier than ever to line up for the slips. Next year I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about people being there at 1:00 A.M. or earlier. (remember, I’m in a small town, that is about the same as people in a big city lining up the day before)
The slips will be held strictly to the 5:00 A.M. rule and you will have a mob trying to get slips which will slide us back into what past years have been like.
So what can stores do now to protect their employees and customers next year? The only solution I can possibly see is to come up with something different than the slips, throw everyone off with a totally different idea. Year after that? Back to the slips. Keep changing it up, keep the consumers off balance as to how things are going to be done each year. Complicated? Yes, but it’s about the only way I can think of to keep everyone involved safe.
Your thoughts? How would you change Black Friday to keep everyone safe?
It would seem that it is now more acceptable to be someone who is convicted of felony assault than to be an openly gay performer in the United States.
As is well-known by this time, Adam Lambert, the second place finisher in this year’s American Idol competition, raised some eyebrows last Sunday with his performance on the American Music Awards (AMAs). During his performance of his new single, “For Your Entertainment”, which closed the show, he groped a female dancer, shoved a male dancer’s face into his crotch and kissed his male keyboardist. Much has been made of this, but seeing as it was done just short of 11:00 P.M. EST, it has been more of a social outcry than anything else.
So, essentially ABC just told the nation, “It’s okay, we have kept you all safe from the evil gay man … now ladies, get ready to swoon over the repentant Chris Brown! Aw, isn’t it cute when men apologize?”
Of course, it isn’t just ABC that has made poor decisions this week in relation to Adam Lambert in wake of his AMA’s performance. When Good Morning America canceled, CBS snapped him up for the Early Show to discuss the controversy. During the segment they showed images of Adam Lambert’s now infamous kiss with his keyboardist, but they blurred it out. Fair enough. However, the show then compared it to the Madonna and Britney Spears kiss from the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) several years ago, and that image was shown un-blurred.
We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences.
Okay, how in the world would this lead to ‘legal consequences’? It’s a kiss between two consenting adults, no body parts are uncovered, and it is in no way different from the Madonna image. As my late maternal grandfather would have said, “I smell feces of the male of the bovine species.”
While I feel CBS is lying, what ABC is just offensive on so many levels that it is astonishing. I have stated publicly in some episodes of Scattercast how disgusting I find the beating of women, and if Good Morning America had booked just about anyone else on the planet I wouldn’t have said one word about this. However, when you book someone convicted of beating a woman so you can avoid an “unpredictable” gay man? Yeah, you aren’t sending out a bad message at all!
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I are at the Twitter discussion again tonight because MG over at TechCrunch wrote an article entitled This Is Why The Internet (And Twitter) Wins that made us both want to slam our heads into keyboards. We spell the whole thing out for you, and, oh yeah, we discuss sex bots and e-readers … we are incapable of staying on one subject.
- More on my weight loss and how I turned Thanksgiving into “Super Workout Day”.
- Some random stuff about … random stuff.
- What idiot decided Black Friday sales should be at times like 4 or 5 A.M.?
- Not much else for you all this week, hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Here’s
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I have a short discussion about file conversion, and how it usually sucks. We then move on to a discussion of an article by Tom Foremski at Silicon Valley Watcher about the benefits of a single search indexing system … and while it is a great idea, why we think it will never happen.
Feeling like you just can’t get on that treadmill one more time? Feeling like you want to give in and have fried chicken? You need to stay motivated.
You’ve started exercising, and you’ve changed what you eat, but do you have what it takes to make the long haul? Believe me, I know it isn’t. You are surrounded everywhere you go with food that is bad for you, advertising telling you how delicious things are, all of them trying to lure you in to buying & eating them. It is so easy to give in and “cheat”, but you simply can’t.
So here are some simple points to staying motivated as you try to lose weight that have worked for me. As always, this is what has worked for me, and everyone is different, so you need to experiment to find what works best for you.
First Step, “The Cheat Day”
Okay, I have mixed feelings on this.
A lot of diets suggest you give yourself a cheat day on your diet one day a week, but I found that to be like inviting trouble into your life. It becomes easy to say, “Oh well, I’ll make this my cheat day …” and then you do it again … and again … and again. I finally did away with a set cheat day and just try to gauge it, but I have made it more like once every couple weeks. Basically, if I have to think about when I last cheated, more than likely I’m okay.
I also think “cheat DAY” is a bad term because it implies you can cheat on your diet all day long. I have preferred to just call it “treat”, and I allow myself something like a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard from Dairy Queen (they’re available only once a year, I figure one a year definitely qualifies for a “treat”), but that is the only cheat I allow myself on “cheat day”, the rest of the day is just like any other day of my diet.
If you don’t allow yourself some sort of occasional reward, you do run the risk of just going nuts one day and eating everything in your sight. So, moral of the cheat day story, use your own discretion to figure out what works best for you, but you do need to factor this into your plans.
Second Step, “Entertain Yourself”
I know this may sound a tad odd, but it’s vital.
There is nothing more mind numbing than walking on a tread mill or doing free weights. Boredom will kill your motivation faster than just about anything else out there. However, if you use the time constructively, you won’t even notice you’re really exercising.
So, how do you entertain yourself? Well, when I do free weights at home I’ve set up a TV and DVD player in the room I do them in and have taken to catching up on all sorts of DVD sets that I’ve been meaning to watch forever. So far I’ve worked my way through all of Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, The Batman and am now working through The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. Yes, I am only watching cartoons for now, there is no denying I am a cartoon fan, but it is also for safety reasons.
Although, let me stress that whatever you do to entertain yourself, you must put safety first. If you are putting in DVDs of something that requires you to read subtitles, pay attention to big plot points and so on, you are running the risk of losing track of your repartitions, how much energy you put into the way you swing a weight, possibly over extending your muscles and so on. So it’s fine to watch TV while you work out, but make sure to keep it light and not overly involved.
As for in the gym, I have discovered the wonders of podcasts on my iPod. Again, I try to keep them somewhat light so I can concentrate on my working out, and you also run the risk of laughing out loud depending on the podcast you’re listening to. (hint: The Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier podcast, Smodcast, has made me trip on the treadmill more than once thanks to laughing) The way I look at it, as I am a podcaster myself, this is almost like doing work while I work out as it allows me to keep up with what other podcasts are up to.
The ultimate goal though is to give yourself at least a bit of a distraction while you work out so it doesn’t become repetitive and monotonous. Those two things can become two of the biggest dangers to throwing you out of the mood to exercise. I have actually gotten to where I look forward to “my podcast time” as I don’t have any other time during the week to listen to them. I can’t wait to get to the gym each week when the new episode of The Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe comes out, the working out is just a fun by product of me listening to podcasts.
(by the way, safety tip on iPods, make sure to put your earbud cord inside your shirt unless you like them being torn out of your ears by certain machines … not that I have ever done that …)
Third Step, “Make Sure You Have A Support Group”
Many times I thought, “Okay, I’ve gone far enough, why not just stop?” I will admit that I am a lazy person at heart. I would much rather sit and watch TV, read a book, play a video game … basically anything other than exert myself. That, however, is also how I got into this situation, and I know it.
This doesn’t mean I don’t still occasionally think about calling it a day and stopping. Don’t kid yourself, this is hard work! I am exercising for over an hour a day, six days a week, it’s a lot of work!
Whenever I get discouraged though, there are my parents constantly telling me how much better I look every time I turn around. Then I have my long time friend, F, who has taught me a lot about picking the proper foods when I eat out, and telling me that he can see the difference. By far, the biggest booster, and a one woman cheerleader squad for this journey of mine has been the Diabolical Miss M. I thanked her profusely in my post about having lost 100 lbs, so I won’t embarrass her again, but I credit her bottomless encouragement with a lot of what has kept me going.
Never underestimate the value of the people around you to keep you motivated. I’m not saying to make an annoyance out of yourself by asking them, the people who really care about you will let you know how you’re doing. And remember, I said this is a selfish act due to how much time you have to spend focusing on yourself, but at the end of the day you are also doing it for them so that you can remain in their lives longer.
Fourth Step, “Don’t Get Discouraged
I can’t believe how many times I came close to throwing in the towel because I would hit a plateau. It happens. There is nothing you can do to prevent it, and you just have to struggle through them.
When I returned from my Boston vacation I had a really weird weight drop of 10 lbs over a two week period, and then I sat at 285 for just over 2 months. I was infuriated, I was discouraged and I wondered why I was killing myself in the gym and with the free weights if I wasn’t going to make any progress. I really wanted to throw in the towel this time, but I noticed parts of my body tightening up, but no weight coming off. I worked harder and harder and finally the plateau broke and I’ve lost six more pounds now.
You can also keep reminding yourself of the benefits of your weight loss:
More energy – I can’t believe how much more energy I seem to have, and I love every minute of it.
You’ll feel better about yourself – I finally admit it, this has definitely boosted my self confidence. It isn’t that hasn’t given me an ego, but it has certainly made me feel better about myself in general.
Clothes fit you better – I have also been able to get back in my favorite jacket from high school (an army fatigue jacket), that really makes the whole thing worth it!
Honestly, the benefits are far too many to list. On the other hand I can not think of one drawback to weight loss, and how could there really be downsides to that? Always remember what you are doing you are doing for you and your health. Is it selfish? Yes, but this is a good selfish because it can also benefit your family as you will be around longer.
Conclusion
This entire series has been a lot longer in the word count department than I anticipated, but I hope everyone learned something from it. These three posts have been far more revealing about myself than I originally planned, but it was worth it all if it encourages even one of you to start trying to lose weight. If I can lose 121 lbs, you can lose 10, 20, 30 or whatever that number is you are looking to drop.
As you can see from these posts, I radically changed my life, all for the better, and most of you don’t need to make such a radical shift, but it can be done if needed.
In short, if you need to lose weight, I am living proof that it can be done, you just have to get angry with yourself first … that was oddly the easiest step for me …
One last disclaimer: I am not a physician, a nutritionist or a fitness professional. Before starting any diet or exercise program make sure to consult your doctor.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I have a discussion tonight about … well … call it a “pot luck.” With Thanksgiving upon us in the United States (remember, Steven is Canadian), the tech news is a bit lackluster to say the least. So, we start off with the intentions of talking about Google’s redesigned search page, and … we end up many other places.
Okay, you’ve started exercising, but have you changed what you eat yet?
Yesterday I talked about getting started with exercising, which most weight loss programs suggest is your first step, and then you work on changing what you eat.
As I said yesterday, I am not a medical expert, I have done this mostly by the seat of my pants with some input from a couple of close friends, and eventually my doctor. If you do plan on embarking on any serious weight loss, you should always consult your physician first.
First Step, “Put Down The McDonalds!”
Look, I know it’s bad for you, you know it’s bad for you, just simply stop eating fast food. Even their “healthy alternatives” are about as healthy as drinking a cup of fat.
Need more convincing? Simply watch Super Size Me. Slanted? Probably. It doesn’t matter, it will still scare the living heck out of you. Once I watched it, I dropped all fast food from my life unless I’m travelling, and even then I try to be careful as possible in what I order (focus on turkey or grilled chicken items with as few condiments on it as possible).
If you go to a walk-in restaurant such as Ruby Tuesday or Chilis, they have healthier choices, but even then you have to be careful. I have lunch once a week at Ruby Tuesday and I order the Turkey Burger Wrap (tortilla instead of a bun, less carbs), but as a healthy “alternative” it still comes with french fries. I change the fries out for rice mixed with tomatoes and green peppers, but even that gets ruined with melted cheese on top of it, so I have them leave the cheese off. So they give you a “healthy” main item and then try to kill you with the sides, so watch that closely.
Second Step, “Watch What You Drink”
Sodas have to go. Period. There is nothing redeeming in in soda pops … nothing.
Iced tea is okay in moderation, but try to watch what you sweeten it with, and if you can skip sweetening it, do so.
I have taken my coffee black since I was about 17 or 18, so I didn’t have to consider cream and sweetner, but if you use either or both of those, consider low fat alternatives or cutting them completely. And those big ass drinks you order from Starbucks? Go read the facts on them, and then if you must go there, try to choose their “healthier” alternatives. Personally I get a venti sized Latte when I go, but since I have no Starbucks in my town, that is one every couple months, I consider it a treat to myself and factor it into my calorie take for the day.
Caffeine also makes you retain more water, so the more caffeine you cut from your life the better as it will lower your water weight. I’ve written about my cutting my caffeine before, and the eventual withdrawl it caused, but all is good now, and I have been able to maintain the level just 2 -3 cups of black coffee a day, and one cup of green tea. There are days I would love to have more coffee, but I keep myself in check.
And did I mention no sodas? Yes, it is worth mentioning twice.
Oh, and for the love of the deity of your choice, stay away from the “energy” drinks! The amount of sugar they contain could kill a small animal.
Third Step, “Read Everything”
There is a reason nutritional facts are printed on packaging. Use it … embrace it … let it become your friend.
Make sure you read how many “servings” are in a package, and remember that the facts printed are for “one serving”. So, if a nutritional fact chart says “200 calories” and you plan on eating the whole package, multiple that 200 times the number of servings the package says it contains. So 3.5 servings per container would be 700 calories total. Read carefully, they try to sneak stuff past you to make it sound healthier.
Fat calories are pretty much unavoidable, but anything under 50 percent of the total calories is pretty acceptable. However, just remember it is acceptable once or so a day, not 3 times a day.
Fourth Step, “Cut Your Servings”
As Americans we are constantly attacked with “All you can eat buffet!” ads, and fast food employees asking if you would like to “super size” your order … just say no. If you are walking up to a food service station that looks like a feed trough, this is probably not the place for a person attempting to lost weight.
All that being said, the first place you need to cut how much you eat is at home. This has been the biggest hurdle for me as I do live with family, and my mother is an outstanding cook … I hate her for that. Saying no to her food is like telling a classic artist, “I’m sorry, I don’t care to look at your latest sculpture.” I have to build my eating each day around what she is preparing, and then I simply have to try to control how much of it I eat. This is never an easy task, but it has to be done.
Fifth Step, “Eat More Often”
I know this sounds crazy, but if you want to lose weight, eat more often.
The theory is that if you eat around 100 calories every three hours you will keep your metabolism burning through out the day. The problem is that after you have a large meal, your body only continues to process that food for another 2 to 3 hours. By introducing another 100 calories you can basically reignite your digestive system, and it will continue to process that food. It will also help control your hunger when you get to a large meal.
Believe me, it isn’t always easy to consume another piece of food. It may sound like Heaven to get to eat all day long, but you do get really tired of it after a while. Just remember to change up what you eat and you should do fine.
While I have no scientific proof that this actually works, it sure seems to have helped me out with my weight loss.
Sixth Step, “Build A Diet That Works For You”
I can not stress enough how these plans may not work for everyone. You have to experiment and find what works best for you, start by reading up on other diet plans, mix-and-match if you need, but I honestly see no reason to ever pay for a diet plan. The Internet is an amazing resource, why should you pay some entity to tell you what to eat when you can research it for yourself? Take that money and spend it on a gym membership or exercise equipment for your home.
Again, as with any weight loss advice, consult your physician for advice before beginning. I am in no way an expert, or nutritionist, and you should remember everything that I suggest in these posts is what worked for me. These suggestions may not be correct for you.
The next entry in this series will be about staying motivated. It’ll be published on Thursday of this week, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure as not to miss it. Also make sure to check out part 1, Exercise, The First Step To Losing Weight.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I have a discussion tonight about … are you ready for it? … TWITTER! I know, it is SO rare we discuss it, but it’s true.
Actually, tonight’s episode is based off of a really excellent post by Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks about how user unfriendly the Twitter Web interface. Honestly, the article is almost shocking in how not in tune the technorati are with the common user’s experience, and Mr. Stern brilliantly dissects the problems with the interface. Of course Steven and I use this as a launch pad for further discussion. (links, as always, provided by Steven)
I’ve lost all hope for humanity.
Black Friday 2009 went pretty smoothly … Black Friday 2010 won’t.
Aw, only 36 articles this week … you know, I have fond memories of sleep.
It would seem that it is now more acceptable to be someone who is convicted of felony assault than to be an openly gay performer in the United States.
Scattercast is 71 … and back to the normal length
Feeling like you just can’t get on that treadmill one more time? Feeling like you want to give in and have fried chicken? You need to stay motivated.
Okay, you’ve started exercising, but have you changed what you eat yet?
