The Open Notebook of an Atypical Teenager

Whoa. Sorry about not updating in a while… but I’ve been very busy, and I have nothing to write about. Writer’s block, I’m sure of it. So, if any of you guys have ideas, please comment and give me some suggestions. Thanks for still checking my blog!

Augh! Yesterday was the first day I missed a post!! Oh noes! 

Well, that aside, I was thinking about something really weird.  So, do you remember as a child someone would ask you, “Would you rather burn or freeze to death?”. Well, older and more experienced, I have a more insightful answer than “neither”.

First of all, there is technically no way to ABSOLUTELY ensure someone’s death by a certain cause. Even if some crazy serial killer hides you in a remote area and chains you to the ground, there’s always the of chance that a nuke-bearing plane randomly drops a nuclear bomb on you right as the killer is putting you in the freezer, or lighting you on fire, thus have your cause of death “death by nuclear bomb”. Or a severe earthquake. Or the killer suffers a sudden heart attack, and you die of starvation from being shackled to the ground.  However, I also understand that the question was hypothetical. If this were for certain to happen, or this were for certain to happen (being two mutually exclusive choices), and you had a choice, which would you choose?

Well. If, as I’m sure I did at some point in elementary school, you answered “neither”, or “I wouldn’t let that happen”, that’s ridiculous.  The answer “neither” infers another choice, which is non-existent in the question. The answer “I wouldn’t let that happen” is ridiculous because each of the choices are for certain going to happen, as the HYPOTHETICAL question states.  The question says “…to death”. Therefore, nothing can save you. For certain you are going to die. Even if your killer has a heart attack, YOU WILL DIE, and by those means.  The two choices are simple: You WILL die by being burned, or you WILL die by being frozen. Therein lies no other alternative, and the choices (although couldn’t be in real life, see above) are certainties.

Now, all this in mind, we come to a choice.  The fire or the ice? Well, we could review the options.  Fire. Well, a large flame would be a rather short death; the carbon monoxide would kill you well before your external tissue ever lit on fire, unless you covered yourself in something flammable, e.g. gasoline.  However, a small fire would ensure a slow death, eventually ending in heatstroke or heart failure (again, unless you are covered in gasoline). Sounds painful, but it could be worse.  Ice.  Your body temperature slowly drops below 98.6, then at 95 you enter a mild state of hypothermia, where one experiences muscle contractions in the neck and sever shivering.  One gets panicky, lose rational thought. Soon any sense of urgency is gone. At 90 degrees, one has sever hypothermia. 87, one loses any thoughts other than to keep the vital organs working, cerebral impulses drop 10 percent.  86, heart beats become arrhythmic.  At 85, for an inexplicable reason, one rips off their clothes.  The normal threshold is about 77 degrees before one dies, usually not before an “out-of-body” experience.  

All in all, I would think the fiery death to be the desirable. The latter death sounds too long and more painful than carbon monoxide poisoning, which one does not feel. What do you think?

YAYYY!!! 

Yeahhh!!! 2008 hits, as of 5/26/08, at 6.21 PM!! Yayz for all of you who helped make it happen!!!

Cool how I have as many hits as years since 0 AD… 

YAY!! Keep up the good work y’alll!!! I will try to as well!!

As of Sunday, May 25, we are 17 hits away from 2000 HITS!! 

This is amazing.

I was reading an article on the Wii Fit the other day, and respected GEISON CACHO, video game columnist for the Contra Costa Times, wrote some interesting things about it. The entire article is:

“It’s Day Five of my “Wii Fit” exercise regimen, and right now, I’m feeling so much burn that I could set Jane Fonda on fire.

My hips are sore. My arms are aching. My shoulders hurt. I didn’t know yoga could do this to you, but that’s been one of many surprises in Shigeru Miyamoto’s latest game.

What started out as a fancy scale in his bathroom has, according to Wired, blossomed into an experience that’s half workout program and half video game.

Using a new peripheral called the Balance Board, “Wii Fit” aims to improve a player’s health through yoga, strength and aerobic exercises. There are also some fun minigames thrown in for good measure, but most of the time will be spent on those abs and delts.

It’s a departure from other Miyamoto projects in that this is a self-help game. It has a purpose other than to entertain, and follows similar Nintendo properties such as “Brain Age” in the company’s Touch Generation series.

In “Wii Fit,” players start off with their Miis. They give some information about themselves, such as height (I’m a short 5-foot-6) and age (I’m a spry 28). The Balance Board then weighs the player and tests their balance through the peripheral’s sensors.

It then calculates a player’s body mass index (a normal 19 for me) and “Wii Fit” age (48! I have the body of a middle-aged man?). From there, the game’s spent trying to achieve certain goals, namely the ideal BMI of 22 and a “Wii Fit” age that’s a tad more youthful.

 

At that instant, the game becomes a daily routine. Just like the gym, it’ll take some dedication to consistently hit that Balance Board. But lucky for weight-loss consumers, playing “Wii Fit” isn’t a chore.

Although it’s full of staid exercises, the game never loses sight of its purpose: It wants to make losing those extra pounds fun.

All you have to do is pick a trainer. I chose the woman (I’ll refer to her as Carla), and she started me off on some yoga breathing exercises. Later, Carla moved me onto stances with fancier names like the Palm Tree or the Chair.

Nearly all of them use the Balance Board and focuses on how well players can keep a red dot in a yellowish circle. If they’re unbalanced, it’ll swivel around and move erratically. Yoga masters apparently stand as still as statues.

The strength training is more strenuous and has workouts like pushups and lunges. Some of Carla’s exercises require a solid sense of balance like the Sideways Leg Lift, so clumsy players who can’t stand on one leg should be careful.

Though “Wii Fit” can detect balance, it has no way of accurately detecting a player’s form. Throughout some of the more complicated exercises, I wondered if I was lifting my leg right or bringing my arm back correctly. Other exercises like the Rowing Squat were difficult because I didn’t quite know how to pull them off.

But despite these flaws, Nintendo, as usual, gets the fun right. When I worked out, I zeroed in so much on the fitness features that I nearly forgot to enjoy myself with the minigames and aerobic exercises.

The Hula Hoop competition is a favorite. Not only does it work out the abs and core muscles, but it’s also a blast as players swivel their hips and try to catch hoops within an allotted time limit.

Elsewhere, the Balance Bubble was a a good diversion. It treats players like a human joystick as they navigate their Miis down a river while avoiding its jagged walls. Moving around by leaning one way or another is almost like controlling a Segway scooter.

The other sets of games, especially the ski and snowboarding slaloms, show the Balance Board’s potential for extreme sports like skateboarding. And developers have already answered that call with Namco Bandai’s “We Ski” and Electronic Arts’ upcoming skateboarding title “Skate It.”

So far, I’ve been fairly good with my exercise regimen. My weight’s been up and down like a yo-yo, and in a laughable problem, I have to gain 18 pounds to hit that 22 BMI. That means gaining some muscle, so I’ve been focusing on the strength exercise.

But overall, “Wii Fit” has done a good job of keeping my interest and rewarding me for progress. A clocklike piggy bank keeps track of the time spent exercising and gives credits that are used to open up more exercises and games.

With “Wii Fit,” Miyamoto performs a careful balancing act between the practical and the entertaining, and though the game stumbles slightly, it nevertheless accomplishes its goal.”

So. He makes some interesting points, and in some ways I take it back. 

In my view, after reading the article, the game does have some of the “fun factor” kids look for, but they shouldn’t have to read some Cacho to find that out. Shouldn’t Nintendo, as an earlier point, make the cover, or even name, be more kid friendly? As I mentioned before, the box looks dull, and looks like it’s boring old yoga exercises or whatever, but in reality it can be very fun. maybe Nintendo should have added these things to see on the box, o in advertisements that I’m sure exist.  

On another note, Cacho gave the game a B+, which is pretty damn good. And I trust him. It is, as he said, a good combination of fun and exercise.  So why doesn’t Nintendo flaunt it? This could be a more popular game than it is! … right?

Also, thanks to Cacho, I take back what I said about the fact that kids won’t get dedicated to it, or want to play it. This quote sums it up: “At that instant, the game becomes a daily routine. Just like the gym, it’ll take some dedication to consistently hit that Balance Board. But lucky for weight-loss consumers, playing “Wii Fit” isn’t a chore.  Although it’s full of staid exercises, the game never loses sight of its purpose: It wants to make losing those extra pounds fun.”  So, in trusting Cacho, I believe that Nintendo has hit the right note and made a great game, just I think the consumer appeal is a little low. That’s all.

And just for good measure, because I included him, you can reach Gieson Cacho at 510-735-7076 or gcacho@bayareanews group.com. Read his blog at www.iba buzz.com/videogames.

 

We’re so close to 2000 HITS!!!! Wow. That’s amazing. We like halved the time to get another thousand hits. Well, keep up the great ‘work’ all me readers, and I will keep the posts coming and I will keep them interesting, relevant, and upbeat.

Thanks!

Rawr. My amazing no homework streak sadly ended, and I had to type up some weird page long thing. But that’s okay. Now I get to rant about SLEEP.

Sleep. All studies have shown that teenagers need 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night. But we all know practically NOBODY gets those numbers.  Why? Well. For me and most other high schoolers, it’s homework. We simply get a lot of homework to do, which ends up taking us through some, most, or all of the night. For others it’s slacking off for a while (aka playing video games, etc. until 7), then have to do their homework which, since so much time was wasted, ends up taking them through some, most, or all of the night.  For others they have had some traumatic experience in which they can’t sleep in fear, depression, etc. For a small percentage, sports, extracurriculars, and other out-of-school things keep them busy until late, when they begin homework, which ends up taking them through some, most, or all of the night.  Not to mention insomnia. And some lucky few just don’t get much homework to do, and get sleep. This should be all of us. 

In short there are about 4 causes of loss of sleep: Homework, Extracurriculars, Trauma, Slacking. With the exception of the 4th one, which is the kid’s fault, this can be remedied.  Homework. Teachers, lay off a little, please? Or maybe start school a little later? Extracurriculars. Coach, can we have practice only 6, not 7 times a week? Trauma. Hello therapist? (Insomnia? Just take your medicine, okay?)

Pretty much, school is the main culprit in the problem, and they have done a few things to help in the cause, but it hasn’t gone very far. Example: late Tuesdays. Honestly, that doesn’t do much. It’s nice for that one day, but we get the same homework, and end up going to bed late and not getting enough sleep. One random night won’t help too much.

I don’t have many solutions, but I do think something should be done, from firsthand experience. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Just wanted to let you all know that on Tuesday, May 20, we hit an all time LOW in hits in a day. That’s right. The highest is 189, and the lowest is 16. That is.. fantastic.

This is motivation to be magically re-interested in my blog!! I will start writing more interesting things to help that of course. Because it’s my fault.

So yeah!! Rock on people!!

Hah! Again today I have no homework. I love this!!!! I can actually get sleep!! Hmm…

This is why teacher’s shouldn’t assign homework. So kids can get enough sleep. Also, so they can have at least HALF a life.

So, rant over, I have no homework again tonight, making an all-time record of 2 days in a row. Come on, even the first days of school we had homework. Be it a summer assignment, or signing the policy sheet, we had homework. But I don’t have any now!!!!! 

But, that reminds me that finals are coming up. But that reminds me school’s almost over!!!!! But that reminds me I’m moving soon. Wow, this is like a death chain of happiness and unhappiness. Yay! Nay! Yay! Nay!

Basically, I just wanted to laugh in your faces again with this post. Hee hee.

Kick back and relax. That’s what I’m going to do. A weird feeling, but I have no homework tonight. 

Ahh. Kick back, watch some TV, and sleep. Something I don’t get much of. But that’s for another post.

Right now is just for relaxing…