I’m in the Galt House in Louisville KY right now, just got back from the Video Games Live concert.  Check it out at:   http://www.videogameslive.com

The concert was phenomenal.  There was an internet phenomenon at the concert too (which I’d link if I wasn’t too tired to look him up on YouTube) but he plays a lot of video game themes completely blindfolded.  It’s truly a sight to behold.

It was a completely awesome time.  Sure, it was full of 18- year old nerdy kids who I can seriously relate to, but I felt like a complete minority not only in video gaming prowess, but also in the fact that I *was* over 18 years of age, was not there with my mother, and had probably at least seen a female naked, in person, within the last year.  That was truly an ego boost.  I wish I’d taken my camera in so I could’ve gotten some really good pictures.  My good friend Brandon was there with his wife, and I was there with my wonderful girlfriend Jessica (which contributed to my minority status in the venue) and he’s got some good pictures for me.  I was a wuss and decided not to press my luck by breaking the venue rules and sneaking my camera in.  Fail for me.

I’ll definitely be going next year.  Hell even Jessica really liked the show and she’s not a hardcore enthusiast like I am.

Surprisingly to some, I have an interest in not only writing, but in musical composition.  Back in my high school heydays, I’d sit around on hot summer afternoons and mess around with a music program I had called MusicTime.  I was in band, so I knew a bit about different musical styles, instrumentation, and how different parts of music came together to make a whole tune.

I’ve got quite a few little nibbles of MIDI files I had created still archived, which I listen to occasionally.  I want to expand and possibly “finish” a few tunes but the motivation seems to come and go as my attention gets constantly diverted to other interests.

What I’d ultimately love to do is finish learning a modern programming language like C#, and combine my two interests in writing and music by creating a roleplaying game (RPG).  I’ve even got some old stories that might adapt well to a script.  The musical score would of course be composed and arranged by myself since… well… I’d know better than anyone what music would best fit a given scene.  I’d probably want to involve someone with better graphical skills to create the art for the game though.  I suck at drawing.

If you know me personally, you’ll know I’m a huge video gamer. Moreover, I’m a big fan of the Final Fantasy game series.

Gaming was nice when I was younger, because quite frankly every game worth playing came out for a Nintendo system since Sega was the only “real” competitor and most of the other consoles died off rather quickly. It did take Sega to raise the white flag though, and I’ll give them some credit in that they had a company like Working Designs to create some awesomely fun games for Sega CD and Saturn.

Nowadays, there is no clear winner in the console wars. You have the 800 pound gorilla named Microsoft who’ll dump as much capital into the market to come out the clear winner as is necessary. Then you have Sony who was the previous title-holder when they released the Playstation and then Playstation 2, which was far above every other gaming system out there. Then of course there’s Nintendo, who since their release of the N64 and their choice to stick with limited, expensive, cartridge-based media has been playing catch-up but still held onto dominance in the handheld gaming market, choosing to stick with that and play towards gaming innovation instead of jumping on the “prettier, crisper, more violent” gaming bandwagon. Kudos to them, seriously.

The problem with this balance is that now, for some strange reason, instead of seeing ports of games for certain systems, or complete exclusivity for certain systems, we’re now being taunted with some series of games being spread across all possible hardware choices and some of those choices not even being what, in my sagely gaming experience, would be considered a wise choice. The latest slap in the face of this long time, die-hard gamer is Final Fantasy.

This one started out on the Nintendo bandwagon, as it was obviously the market leader and the games would reach the biggest audience which equals more money for Squaresoft (now Square Enix). When Nintendo decided that cartridges were the way to go and CD based games were not, Square began producing its games for the Playstation. We’ve seen three great Final Fantasy games for it: Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9, as well as a slew of remade games that were released for it. Once the Playstation 2 was released, we got to see several more great titles: Final Fantasy X, X-2, and Final Fantasy 12. What happened to 11 you ask? This was released for PC as a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).

Ever since, Square Enix can’t seem to decide where its loyalties lie. One of my most beloved games, Final Fantasy 4 (Final Fantasy 2 here in the US) has been long considered a gaming masterpiece. I was excited to hear it was going to get a facelift and a remake released on a next-generation console. Imagine my horror to find out it was coming out for a handheld system… the Nintendo DS! Sure, it has updated graphics, but they’re about 10 years outdated and very Playstation 1 in appearance. How can this even be justified to fans like myself? I’ve read forum after forum of people just gushing over this remake. How is this even possible? Why not create something of quality by releasing it for Xbox 360, or even Playstation 2 or 3? I feel like the fans have been cheated by the decision to release this for DS. Additionally, that means anyone wanting to try this remake will have to shell out the cash for a DS that for many will be ultimately worthless and underused. It gets even better.

In Japan, they have released a sequel to Final Fantasy 4, which means basically it’s a continuation of the storyline since all the Final Fantasy games have different stories and characters. It is Final Fantasy 4 – The After This game has classic graphics and characters as a throwback to the original game, but will only be released for a specific brand of mobile phone, and possibly only in Japan!

Besides this, there have been other games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles that have come out for Nintendo Gamecube, one of which you need to buy a Gameboy Advance to make the most of the game, and spinoff games based on Final Fantasy 7’s story released for Playstation Portable (PSP).

Why is a huge, profitable company like Square Enix doing this? How is this doing any of their fans a service by either forcing them to shell out the cash for an expensive game system, or skip playing the games they love entirely? I’m not poor, but I certainly can’t afford to shell out $500+ for the hardware and then $50+ for the games, after which the hardware is completely useless to me.

Sadly, I may end up buying a DS to play the Final Fantasy 4 remake, because I freaking love the game *that much*. Possibly I will buy FF12: Revenant Wings for it too (which is another spinoff for Final Fantasy 12, which was released on the Playstation2). Basically it feels rather unfair to taunt loyal fans by releasing sequels or additional storylines on different systems. One of these days I’ll simply speak with my dollar and quit buying any of their games until their corporate officials get back on their Ritalin and can focus on one damn system for a few years again.

I took my girlfriend with me to see Iron Man last night. She was actually quite willing to do so, and seems to love movies like Batman, Spider-Man, etc…I’m happy! Anyway, she seemed to be highly impressed with the story and the characters.

Me, I was just drooling at the prospect of seeing another comic book come to life. Tony Stark is another “regular guy” who ends up becoming something extraordinary. Sure, he’s rich beyond words, but he’s also extremely intelligent and definitely has his share of personal problems, from a history of womanizing to an alcohol problem. However, he’s got no other superpowers save for the suit he builds, which again is through his own genius. He’s even got a major weakness in that he’s got shrapnel in his chest which threatens to kill him except for a powerful electromagnet that keeps the shards from digging into his heart and killing him.

Characters like these in movies are what really make comic books appealing, I think, or at least these types of characters. They have stories that, even though their lives may be different, we can at least relate to their troubles. Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is just a kid, but he has personal struggles within his non-superhero life that makes him all that more interesting. The girlfriend was musing how these movies also tend to have good stories with them, simply because there is decades worth of material and all sorts of aspects of the characters’ lives have been fleshed out already.

In short, it’s another hit. It’s got action, a little romantic tension for the ladies, and it’s full of laughs and general good times. I think this was the first movie produced by Marvel Studios since it was formed, and I hope their next movies will rock just as much. There was a preview for the new Incredible Hulk movie, which I’m sure will make up for the suckitude of the last Hulk movie.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen Iron Man but plan on it… stay until after the credits. Especially if you loved the movie. You’ll see.

Continuing with my renewed motivation to continue my karate training, I put down the money to order some quality sparring gear today. I found a great website with a HUGE selection of equipment for martial artists called Karate Depot (http://www.karatedepot.com). The website’s clean and the prices are pretty sweet too. I got a set of ProForce Lightning sparring gear which includes the head, hand, and foot protectors.

sparring gear sets at KarateDepot.com.

Shipping was only $2.95 on the whole thing too. I figure it’ll take about a week to get ‘em, and then I’ll be ready, hopefully, for sparring next Thursday. I’m starting to remember my katas, but my muscles are having a tough time. It’s amazing how doing an activity like karate can show me where the weaknesses in my exercises are located. Even though I’ve been lifting weights and doing lots of moderate to high intensity cardio workouts, I’m really sore after Tuesday’s class in places that really surprised me. I’m glad I’ve been doing the cardio though, because without it I’d have been a complete wreck.

Well, here’s how things are going.  Saturday, I saw the scale dip to 189.5 lbs, which is another milestone for me.  It shows that even though things are slow, as fat loss can be and should be to stay healthy, what I’m doing is working and my work is paying off.

Also, I’ve managed to get in contact with an old acquaintance and tonight I’ll be starting back at learning Shotokan karate.  I used to train several years ago but found many excuses to quit, including horrible fitness which was going to bring my progress to a crawl in karate anyway.  It’s exciting.  I never really wanted to quit.  I guess when it comes down to it, I got lazy.

I’ve been contemplating how difficult the inertia of life can be sometimes.  Our brains do much of the work for us, establishing patterns and routines for things we do, but once we try to change them we run into friction.  The subconscious mind, I hear, is responsible for many of the things we do automatically without “thinking” about them.  This week started my road to fitness, and like everything else I’ve decided to start out with small steps to figure out what the path feels like before I take off into a dead sprint.

One of the things I’ve had to try changing has been my sleeping pattern.  My work schedule’s a bit interesting right now in that one week I’m the early guy and have to be at work by 8:00am, and the week after I don’t have to be there until at least 9:00am.  This week, the start of my journey, has been the early week for me at work so I’ve been having to be at the gym by 6:00am in order to get at least 30 minutes of cardio and then make it back home.  I don’t know how effective my first two workouts have been.  However, I’m definitely getting way sleepier in the afternoons.  I went to bed around 10:00pm last night, woke up around 5:45am and I’m still tired.  I think my body can get used to the schedule, but it’s tough!  The workouts aren’t so bad,  except I may have to branch out from the bikes I’ve been using.  The seats aren’t that great and after 30 minutes the part of my body that’s the most sore ends up being my butt.

In terms of workout, I definitely feel like there’s a difference in my body.  I feel constantly warmer than previously noted.  I sweat for like a half hour after my workout’s done.  My legs don’t even get sore and I’m working on the bikes hard enough to keep my heart rate at a moderate fat-burning level and generate a good sheen of sweat.  I never claimed I was in good shape…

So, I will make my best effort to hit the gym all five days this week, and maybe on Saturday, and then I’ll weigh in and see if the diet and exercise is making an impact on the scale.

I’ve always had an avoidant nature when it comes to pain.  It’s a pretty natural thing to want to avoid things that make you feel miserable.  However, I’m finding that the muscle soreness that I’m getting after doing my push-ups and sit-ups is most welcomed.  It means that what I’m doing is working, and the muscle is going to be rebuilt a little bit stronger than it was before.  In other news, it looks like I may have met my goal for this week of my new lifestyle.  I wanted to at least lose one pound while still keeping a high diet, and my weight has not spiked upwards all week.  The eating constantly and eating cleaner foods looks like it really is making an impact.

In work news, we got our new file server in so it looks like I’ll be setting up Linux and some Samba shares on it probably today sometime.  Fun!  I’ve only set Samba up once or twice, so it’ll be a good learning experience.  I’ve never had it authenticate with Active Directory either, so if I learn anything new in this whole process perhaps I’ll post it here.  Maybe some newbie like me will stumble across it and find some good information that’ll hopefully point them in the right direction if they’re having problems.

I know I’ve been blogging about my health kick I’ve been on lately, but the goal is to constantly keep it in my mind so that these practices become habit, rather than be a diet in which I can see an eventual end.  Today’s going to be an interesting day.  It’ll be the first day since I’ve been eating differently that I’ll be home all day or around town.  This means my meals will need to planned for more and since I haven’t really stocked much of my healthy groceries at home, I don’t have as much healthy stuff on hand to eat.

I can make this happen though.  I think I’ve done a good job so far, even if I’ve been a little low on my calories.  My protein and complex carb intake has been pretty balanced, though again I’m a little shy of my protein target.  I can make it through today though, and at least once I’m past the weekend things should start flowing a little smoother in terms of my eating every day of the week.

So I’ve started making more conscious decisions about my health, which I mentioned before.  The information I’ve been reading says I need to be eating five or six meals a day! That’s what I’ve done for the last two days, and let me tell you I can tell changes are happening already.  Where I used to go from the previous night’s dinner to lunch the next day without food and feel okay, now I’m hungering for something every few hours.  I hear that’s good because my body’s metabolism is kicking into gear and doesn’t think I’m starving anymore.  I do feel like I’ve got a little more energy than usual as well, despite the fact I haven’t had a caffeinated beverage either.

This is similar to how I was as a teenager, and I loved it.  I was an eating machine, and never got fat… well until after high school.  I ate breakfast regularly, had at least three meals a day, and snacked heavily between meals.  In college, I developed the habit of skipping breakfast entirely.  As I hear, that’s the worst thing you can do for your metabolism.  Three meals may even be too few of meals for most people.  I’ve also been logging my calories, protein, carbs, and fat.  I’m working on developing a solid water habit, but I’ve had to resort to drinking La Croix lemon flavored carbonated water a few times.  At least it’s calorie free, and has no artificial sweeteners.

I feel as if I’m going into information overload though in learning all of these facts and figures.  My next goal is to get to a doctor for a physical once my insurance kicks in.  I’ve been pretty sedentary since I stopped doing karate, and I don’t want to kill myself when I start exercising.  Then, once I’m broken in and into a workout routine combined with an adjusted diet I will hopefully start seeing some real results.