Author: D'Arque Bishop

We may not make the Whole 30.

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

As I’ve posted about in the past, Jennifer and I were on the paleo diet, where the idea is that we would stop eating processed foods and grains, and eat far more organic meats, fruits, and vegetables. We were doing well for the most part, until we reached my birthday last month. Starting with my birthday party, we started being less strict due to different events like birthday parties, a New Orleans trip, Christmas meals, and others. As a result, we started gaining weight again.

We knew we had to get back into the program, so Jennifer came up with the idea of going back in with a bang: starting the New Year doing what’s called the “Whole 30”. The Whole 30 is a hardcore version of the paleo diet, which acts as a sugar detox. Absolutely no cheats are allowed, and you stay on the strict diet for 30 days. It sounded like a good idea, and we started on the 1st.

After three days, we’ve decided that we’re in hell.

While eating dinner tonight, we realized that it was the little things that made the original run bearable. We would allow ourselves small cheats, like Crystal Light lemonade, creamer in our coffee, and dark chocolate for dessert. Now, we have to do workarounds. The lemonade is totally out, and we now drink water instead. I’ve been drinking coffee black, with the exception of this morning when I tried a creamer Jennifer made with coconut milk and vanilla. Our one dessert has been that creamer concoction with blueberries. They’re not bad, per se, but we were happier with the minimal cheats and the sweetness they brought to balance everything out.

It’s just more strict, and we’re struggling. The small cheats made it much more bearable, and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to make the entire 30 days. We’re going to keep it up until Thursday at the very least, but if we’re not happy (or at least tolerant), we’ll go back to what we were doing before when we first started the paleo diet. It’s not worth it to us if we’re miserable, and we’d rather be on a less strict version than become disgruntled and give up entirely.

We’ll see what happens.

Cutting back on the social networking posts…

D'Arque Bishop

Those who follow me on the three social networking platforms I’m on (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+) have probably realized that I’ve been posting a lot less often than usual. There’s a reason for that.

A good chunk of my social network postings have been done during work hours, when I was between tasks and/or not engaged in anything that needed doing. I don’t believe it interfered with my work and my supervisors never had an issue with it. Still, I was discussing the issue with Jennifer recently, and she helped me come to the realization that I probably was spending too much time on it. I then decided to cut my usage drastically.

Instead of keeping the feeds open on a regular basis, I’ve restricted myself to only checking them on scheduled breaks. I don’t see as much (especially on Twitter) and I’m less inclined to post. I’d considered simply deleting the accounts altogether, but I’m not quite ready to go to that step.

In any event, I’ve been finding the changes work out pretty well for me. I’m taking social networking less seriously, and don’t feel as disconnected when away from it. I’ll still read and post every so often, but for now, I don’t mind being quieter.

Slowly entering the next generation of gaming…

D'Arque Bishop

I haven’t posted here in a while. I should do something about that…

Last month, both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 were released. I can’t say I’ve been too impressed yet; there hasn’t been anything released on Playstation 4 that I want, and the only game that drew my eye on the Xbox One was the new Killer Instinct game. While I loved the first two Killer Instinct games, I’m not sold on the new one, especially as it’s not even a complete game yet and has no story mode to speak of. Until a killer game comes out for either console, I really don’t see the need to buy either one yet. As a result, as I’ve said in previous posts, my next generation console will likely be my PC.

As it stands, I’ve already got a few games in my “to play” queue for the PC. For example, while I donated on the Kickstarter, I haven’t yet finished Shadowrun Returns. I’m also eligible to get the first expansion, Dragonfall, because I did take part in said Kickstarter. I’ve also managed to get myself into the beta programs for two upcoming games: Infinite Crisis, which is a MOBA based on DC Comics characters, and Hearthstone, which is an online collectible card game based on the WarCraft universe. Unfortunately, while I’ve played both games, I haven’t gotten into them as much as I would like.

The problem I have with Infinite Crisis is two-fold. The first problem is that I’m new to MOBA games, and as it’s a beta without a tutorial Infinite Crisis has something of a learning curve. I’ve played some online, but I always feel like I’m useless and don’t know what I’m doing. I feel better having watched some of the demonstrations the developers have done on live stream events, but I’m still a bit uncertain. The second problem is that my system isn’t keeping up with the game. My main PC has a budget video card, and the demands for recent games on it have been a bit too much. It’s not just Infinite Crisis, either; Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition runs slowly on it as well. I need to buy a more decent non-budget card, but that will have to wait until after Christmas. Until then, there’s not much point playing when my system lags all to hell.

Hearthstone is fun, but like Infinite Crisis I have two problems. The first problem is the fact that I’m trying to get back into the mindset of playing collectible card games. It’s been twenty years since I last played one; I used to play Magic: The Gathering and Jyhad (the precursor to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle) with my friends Chris and George. Even then, we never bothered learning how to create specialized battle decks. We would just take all of our cards, put them in a big pile, and play using those. With Hearthstone, on the other hand, I’m going to need to learn to create battle decks if I plan on playing online. I’m also having to get used to playing that kind of game again; while people on the unofficial Hearthstone IRC channel I’m on seem to find the tutorials/practice enemies easy, I’m struggling.

The other issue I have with Hearthstone is that as a casual game, I would probably play more often if there was a tablet version available. Fortunately, Blizzard has announced that there is an iPad version coming out fairly soon, with iPhone and Android versions coming out late next year. As far as gaming on the go goes, hopefully by then I’ll have replaced my currently-struggling iPhone 4 with an iPhone 5S.

I should also point out that the PC is not the only place I will be gaming. For my birthday last month, Jennifer, her mom, and my mom got together and got me an iPad Air. I’ve already loaded all of the games I had on the iPhone onto the iPad, and even added a couple like Injustice: Gods Among Us, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Doctor Who: Legacy. When the Hearthstone client comes out for iPad, I’ll definitely pick that up as well. Once I’ve cut some of my “to play” queue down a bit, I’ll pick up some of the longer games like Final Fantasy IV and possibly Final Fantasy VI (should it come out).

In any event, I should be okay for gaming even without a console. Most of the games I play on console right now have PC versions; the only downside would be that for games from NetherRealm Studios (and possibly others), the console versions come out several months before the PC ports do. Still, it’s a smaller price to pay than having to pay $300-400 for a new system that doesn’t have the games I want, and I can be fairly patient. :-)

Halloween, under the light moon…

D'Arque Bishop

Happy Halloween!

Jennifer and I aren’t doing much of a Halloween this year; seeing as we don’t anticipate many kids coming down to our end of the street, we’re skipping giving out candy. If we watch a movie tonight, I’d like to see The Crow or the 1931 Dracula. It all depends on what Jennifer’s in the mood for, though.

In lieu of a normal Halloween, then, I’d like to repost this story I saw from elsewhere. Those of you who, like me, grew up in the days of computers that had minimal graphics and were known for text games like Zork will appreciate it. The original author is unknown.
Read more “Halloween, under the light moon…”

The cat goes, “GERONIMO!”

D'Arque Bishop

Of course, on the weekends, Jennifer and I divvy up the chores. One of the things I always do is make the bed. Tonight, I took the sheets into the bedroom and began putting them on the bed.

We have four cats in the house, so as one might imagine there’s some cat furniture in our bedroom. One of the most prominent pieces of cat furniture in the bedroom is a tower with two platforms the cats can use to sleep on. In the evenings, the top platform is usually occupied by Bennett, our younger male. Tonight was no exception, as he lounged in the platform and watched me work on the bed. That struck me as odd, as he usually enjoys “helping” (aka, playing on the bed and getting in the way) whenever we make the bed. I didn’t pay it too much mind, though, and continued to work.

Unfortunately, I should have realized he wanted to “help” after all. As I walked around my side of the bed to tuck in the sheets, I passed in front of the tower. Just as I moved in front of it, I saw him get up, and then caught a glimpse of a white blur…

… and the next thing I knew, I felt the weight of a ten pound cat land on my back, right on the shoulder blade.

I was knocked forward to lean over the bed, and tried to maintain some semblance of balance so that Bennett wouldn’t hurt himself by falling. Bennett, on the other hand, was less concerned about me as he dug his claws deep into my arm in a bid to keep from falling. He failed, and fell backwards onto my bedside table, knocking over the phone and lamp. He then straightened himself out and ran off.

By this point Jennifer was wondering what the commotion was about, and came over to investigate. We found Bennett had left a bruise and sizable bloody scratches on my arm. As she was helping me clean and bandage the wounds, I explained what exactly had happened. She ended up laughing, and saying, “I’m sorry, it’s not funny… but it is.”

So, now I have bandages on my arm, and I’ve learned my lesson: next time, when making the bed, make sure Bennett isn’t in the room, or if he is, stay out of his way if he’s on the platform.

My console choice for the next generation may just have been decided.

D'Arque Bishop

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was thinking of sitting out this upcoming generation of console gaming, as neither the Xbox One, the Playstation 4, or the Wii U really showed much appeal to me at all. My attitude was that I would probably do what I did during the Playstation 1/Nintendo 64 generation, and stick to PC gaming. I already had a PC, and there was nothing that really grabbed me for console that wasn’t coming out for PC as well. I saw the same thing happening with this generation. My only concern was that my consoles are connected to a 32″ HDTV, which is obviously a better display than my 24″ PC monitor.

As it turns out, those concerns have been assuaged.

On Monday, Valve introduced SteamOS, a specialized Linux distribution designed for gaming on PCs connected to televisions. There were two specific traits about SteamOS that drew my interest. The first was that as SteamOS was a software platform and not a combined platform, it opened the way for PC developers such as Lenovo and Asus to produce their own SteamOS consoles, while not having to worry about the actual software portion of the console development process. They would just need to abide by Valve’s quality certification.

More interesting, however, was the fact that SteamOS could stream games playing from a Windows Steam client. As SteamOS is a Linux distribution, it cannot natively run Windows programs. Valve had released Steam for Linux some time ago, and a number of games are available for it now (including most/all of Valve’s own library). Those games will be available on SteamOS, but the streaming feature will be needed in order to play Windows Steam games on the SteamOS box. As I have a number of Steam titles under Windows already, that will make playing them a bit more convenient. :-)

Earlier today, Valve announced that they are beginning a beta test of the Steam Machines, which will be their reference machines for other hardware manufacturers to build from. Three hundred people will be chosen from the applicant pool; I’m not naive enough to think I actually have anything but an extreme long shot to get into the beta, but I’m entering anyway. The only step I can’t yet fulfill in their list of requirements is playing a game using a gamepad in Steam’s “Big Picture” mode, and that’s because I’m at work right now.

In any event, it should be interesting to see if game developers will be making SteamOS ports of their games once SteamOS (and its development software) is actually released. I already have one friend tell me he plans on building his own SteamOS box once the software is released, and I’m honestly torn on whether I would build my own SteamOS box or (more likely) buy a pre-built Steam Machine via Newegg. It’s still early, as the platform won’t be going into full-swing until early next year, but the rate things are going I think the console I’ll be playing on in a year’s time will be a Steam Machine.

Requiem for a Beast…

D'Arque Bishop

It hasn’t been a pleasant month for me on the car front.

I had a black 2008 Dodge Avenger SXT that I nicknamed “the Beast”. I called it that because at the time it was the largest car I had owned (even if it was a mid-sized sedan), and the way the front of the car was designed it looked like it had a fairly mean expression on its “face”. I also joked that the Beast was my superhero car, as it was an Avenger, had remote start capability, had Bluetooth handsfree capability installed in its stereo system, and accepted alternate fuel (it had flex-fuel capability and accepted gasoline and E85). I loved that car, and had absolutely no intention of giving it up.

Note that I’ve been speaking about the Beast in the past tense. There’s a reason for that.

Almost exactly a month ago, I was driving to meet Jennifer for dinner after work. I was stopped at a red light, waiting to make a left turn, at the front of the line. A car coming the other way ran the red light, and smashed into a car turning into the lane right front of him. He then lost control, and his now-ballistic vehicle smashed into mine, on the front driver’s side corner. The impact was hard enough to cause all of the airbags to deploy, and the car frame was severely warped.

I got off relatively easy: my ribs were slightly bruised and my arm was slightly burned by the airbag. More than anything else, I was annoyed and upset, as I only had one payment left on the car and I had only gone that particular route to avoid another accident. Still, the family in the car that was hit first wasn’t as lucky, as they all went to the hospital as a precaution. The guy who hit us declined to go to the hospital, and the police investigating the accident cited him for running the red light.

The Beast was eventually declared a total loss, and I got more than a fair settlement for it from my insurance company.

While waiting for the insurance check to arrive, Jennifer and I decided to go vehicle shopping. At first, I had four initial choices for my next car: a Dodge Avenger, a Dodge Charger, a Subaru Impreza WRX, or a Volkswagen Jetta. The first car I got to try was the Dodge Charger, as it was the rental vehicle that the insurance company was reimbursing me for. I had been thinking about a Charger for years, as it was Dodge’s “performance” sedan. As it turned out, I ended up not liking the car at all. It was too big for me, and I never felt comfortable driving in. In addition, I didn’t like how the windows were shaped and tilted, and I felt I had a better range of vision with the Avenger. After a day or two of driving the rental Charger, I dropped it from consideration.

My next choice was the Subaru Impreza WRX, which was Subaru’s “performance” sedan. However, when we went to the local Subaru dealership, we learned something that crossed it off our list immediately: the Impreza WRX is only available in manual transmission, which I never learned how to drive. I decided to try the Subaru Legacy instead, and I felt it was decent. However, the possible maintenance costs were a serious concern. I ended up keeping looking.

The next car I looked at was the Volkswagen Jetta. I tried the “performance” model, but Jennifer and I talked it out and decided that it didn’t suit how I would end up driving it. I test drove the next version down, and while it was okay, we decided there were two problems we couldn’t ignore. The first was again the maintenance costs. The second was that it was smaller than the Avenger, and as such I wasn’t as comfortable. Cargo space in the trunk was also an issue. We briefly thought about the Passat, but like the Charger it was too large for my liking. We ended up crossing Volkswagen off the list as well.

We finally went to a Dodge dealership and trying out an Avenger. I was perfectly comfortable and happy in it, so we decided to make that our first option. After doing research, we found that our choices of Avengers were somewhat limited. I had originally wanted an RT (which are the top of the line), but there were no Avenger RTs anywhere in the Houston area. I was okay with an SXT, but was not going to downgrade to an SE. In addition, I wanted black (or at least grey), the bigger 3.6L engine, and Bluetooth handsfree capability. We narrowed it down to several vehicles at three different dealerships, and I ended up spending a Friday shopping (with the help of Jennifer’s father).

In the end, we found that of all of the vehicles I had picked, only one really fit my specifications. Specifically, it turned out that while all of the other ones could have Bluetooth handsfree installed, it would end up being a bit of a kludge like it was in the Beast. The dealership had added the Bluetooth handsfree after the fact, and had placed the microphone right next to the windshield. As a result, anyone who I spoke to through it had to contend with wind noise coming from my end. The one I picked was the only one of all the choices that had Bluetooth handsfree built-in. In addition, it had Sirius/XM, GPS navigation, auto-tinting rear view mirror, and a sun roof. The only thing it didn’t have that I wanted was a spoiler, but that was easy enough to take care of. They gave me a good deal on it, and I signed on it. The main thing I ended up waiting on was the spoiler installation, and once done it looked like it was factory-installed.

So far, I have to say I really love this car. It’s essentially an updated version of the Beast, with the same colors and outside trim, except with the sleeker look and different external features (foglamps, dual exhaust pipes, sun roof, spoiler). It also has a stronger engine, so it has more oomph to it. The seats are also more comfortable, which makes for a more pleasant drive.

I wasn’t ready to give up the Beast, and I still feel bad about how I lost it. As Jennifer put it, “It gave its life to save you.” We had hoped to get another couple of years of life out of it, but it was not to be. I’m glad for the time I had with it, and I’m hoping I get the same long and useful life out of the new Avenger.

We have altered a favorite food, and it is glorious.

D'Arque Bishop

As I stated in a very recent post, Jennifer and I have switched over to the paleolithic diet. In short, we’re eating a lot of meats and vegetables, but have almost completely cut out breads, sugars, and other processed foods. For the most part, it’s worked out very well, and I haven’t really been missing much in the way of my diet except for a few items like pastas, pizzas, barbecue sauce, and chicken tikka masala.

However, my favorite dinner item of all is a hamburger, and the buns are definitely not paleo-friendly.

Fortunately, Jennifer did some research online and found a wonderful alternative on a blog called the dawn of paleo: buns made using sweet potatoes. We had a friend and her daughter over this weekend for burgers and hot dogs, and we tried them on our burgers. They were easy to make, and they ended up tasting delicious, too. :-)

A burger with a sweet potato bun.
A burger with a sweet potato bun.

To my surprise, they even did well as leftovers; I took a burger with me yesterday for my lunch, and I included the sweet potato buns. Microwaving them for 30 seconds warmed them right up and made them perfect for the burger. They’re definitely a have-again.

If you’re interested in the recipe, you can find it in a posting on the dawn of paleo blog, located here.

A friend’s brush with the law…

D'Arque Bishop

A friend of mine has had a rough time of it lately.IMG_2610

He and I have been friends for years. He’s in IT, but he actually works in development instead of administration. Due to how his employer is set up, he actually works from home full-time. In addition, he runs servers from his house so that he can provide email accounts for himself, his family, and his friends. As he is much more versed in development than administration, I help him out with administrating the servers.

A few months back, I got a call from him on a Sunday evening. He was panicked and shell-shocked, and for good reason: the police had just raided his home. The accusation was that he was distributing kiddie porn from his house via file-sharing utilities. The police had arrived with a search warrant, and seized almost all of his equipment. Every active server was taken, as well as his primary desktop PC. About all that was left were his home theater PC and an older test server that hadn’t been hooked up. I got him calmed down, and worked with him to get the test server reconnected to the internet and reconfigured so that it could provide the email services that the seized servers had been providing. Unfortunately, however, while he had been very diligent in keeping backups of his machines, the backups were hosted locally and were amongst the items the police had seized. While I was able to get mail services operational, any messages from before the police raid were pretty much lost for the time being.

More than that, my friend was worried sick. From the get-go he insisted to the police that he was innocent of everything. The police claimed that they had downloaded files from his IP address using a program called Shareaza, but he had never even heard of the program. The only file sharing he did was via BitTorrent, and it was always TV shows or music, not porn. He worried that somehow a virus might have infected his machine despite his extensive precautions. He was also worried that another mutual acquaintance that he had given an account on his servers to might have left something there. The problem was that many years ago (when we first lost contact with him), the mutual acquaintance had been convicted of possession of kiddie porn and imprisoned. All in all, though, my friend was sure the police would not find anything… though there was always a sliver of doubt. After all, the police claimed they had gotten kiddie porn from his IP address… though courts have claimed in the past that an IP address is not sufficient to identify someone.

The final result ended up being rather bittersweet. A couple of weeks ago, my friend got word that a relative of his who had been staying with him was asked to speak to police, and then was Mirandized. While my friend’s machines were found to be clean, the kiddie porn was found on the relative’s laptop. So, my friend was off the hook, but his relative is now facing charges.

The sad thing is that the police treated this rather ineptly. For example, even though they had kept my friend’s house under surveillance for several days, it never even occurred to them that my friend’s relative was staying with him, even though the relative’s car would be kept in the driveway every night. The police only learned that the relative was living there when he approached them himself and voluntarily handed over his laptop. Even then, it’s not a sure thing the porn was his. According to my friend, there could have been as many as three hundred people who have had access to that laptop to install programs. The laptop was the relative’s personal property, but he used it for work, and it was an informal policy at where he worked that whenever someone needed a laptop, they would just go to the nearest individual with one and borrow it for as long as was needed. As far as anyone knows, it could have been someone who worked at his office who borrowed the laptop that could have installed the illegal stuff. Considering the relative had plenty of time to delete the porn if he knew about it and didn’t before giving it to police, and considering how many people had access to the machine, it’s not unreasonable to think he didn’t know it was there.

My friend finally was able to get his equipment back yesterday and is completely back online. He’s lucky, as I would not have expected the police to release the items for several more months, if at all.

As a result of this fiasco, one of my personal projects for this week is to come up with an offsite backup solution for him. That way, if something unforeseen happens at his house, we can bring him back up and running with the least amount of time spent and data lost. Of course, I don’t expect him to be raided by the police again, but then we weren’t expecting him to be raided by the police in the first place. He would have been in the same boat, however, if his house had caught fire or thieves had broken into there and stolen everything.

Also, as a result of this story, I must stress this: if you use your personal laptop for work, under no circumstances should you loan it out to anyone else. If someone else loads illegal material into your laptop, you will most likely be the one left holding the bag if it’s found out.

In the end, though, I’m relieved that my friend was essentially cleared of any wrongdoing and that he got his equipment back. I know it was a very stressful time for him, especially as he had other issues come up during that time that only added to the load on his mind. What happened to him is a two-fold cautionary tale about making sure you have offsite backups and making sure you control who has access to your own personal equipment. Still, he came through it okay, though he’s bummed that his relative is now the one facing charges. All I can do is support him as a friend and do what I can to help make sure he doesn’t go through that problem again.

In a sense, living as the cavemen do…

D'Arque Bishop

I decided recently that it was time for me to lose weight again.

It wasn’t a hard decision to make. I’ve been needing to purchase new shirts and new pants recently, and I’ve been forced to purchase a size larger than I’ve ever had to wear before. In addition, I found that the pants I was needing to get were bigger than I’ve needed to buy in the past. I felt embarrassed about my size, and I finally decided to do something about it. In addition, Jennifer and I wanted to get healthier, so it was time to do something about it. Instead of going on a diet, we resolved to do a lifestyle change.

To that end, we decided to do what our friend Lindsey did and went onto what’s called the “paleolithic diet”. To describe it quite briefly, it’s eating what cavemen did: meat, vegetables, nuts, fruits, and the like, while cutting out most carbs, starches, and processed foods. In a sense, it’s similar to the Atkins diet, except it’s a little more strict and requires more veggies. It’s definitely taken some getting used to, as many of our old standbys are no longer available, like sandwiches, cereals, burgers, pastas, and the like. On the other hand, we’re still able to eat some of the foods we could eat before with some modifications, like steak (no potato sides) and barbecue (no sauce).

What’s also helped is that Jennifer has gotten her hands on a bunch of paleo recipes for us to try. We’ve had the occasional flop, but much more often than not they come out tasting VERY good, so neither she nor I mind that we’ve changed things up. She’s even gotten creative in regards to some of her original recipes, like her tacos al carbon; instead of putting them in tortillas, for example, she slices open a red pepper and puts the taco meat in the pepper slice. We do cheat once or twice a week, but for the most part we’ve stayed on the path. Unlike other diets I’ve done in the past, the food I’m eating now is pretty varied and tastes good, so I don’t have as much incentive to cheat. There have been temptations (like the donuts in the break room right now), but I’ve mostly managed to stay good.

The thing is, while the paleolithic diet is considered by some to be a fad or ineffective, it’s actually working out for us. In our case, it’s causing us to eat healthier and cut a lot of the crap out of our diets. In my case, I’ve been very happy so far. I weighed myself this morning, and since starting the diet about a month ago or so, I’ve lost twenty pounds. The above-mentioned recently-bought pants are now a bit too big for me and the larger shirts that were a bit form-fitting on me before are now looser.

I still have a ways to go, of course. I do have goals and rewards set for myself; for example, when I reach the halfway point of my weight loss goal, I plan on looking into self-defense classes. I’m not sure what my reward will be for myself when I hit the actual goal, but at the very least I’ll be able to wear several of the shirts that are currently too small for me, including my Atari bowling shirt and a couple of my geeky tshirts I got from Jennifer early in our relationship. Until then, I’m going to keep on at it, and get back to a lower weight. :-)