subversive puppet show

Zombies Run As A Workout

Posted: April 24, 2012 in ARG, exercise, gamification, gaming, iPhone, video games

It’s been about a month and a half since I bought, downloaded and reviewed Zombies, Run! and I was curious how the app would hold up as a longer-term workout regime. I also had a pretty comprehensive list of things to make it more awesome, some of which I’m happy to say they’ve already implemented. So consider this a little check-in on those things.

A Long-Term Solution

I’m happy to report that Zombies, Run! has actually become a long-term sustainable solution for my exercise routine. There were 13 missions to start, all of them story-related, which I calculated would end in two weeks of daily running. My schedule doesn’t permit daily “runs” but I’ve been going an average of three times a week, and according to the run tracker I’m going farther and farther in the same amount of time (around 40-45 minutes with variations if I get stopped at a light or the dog takes a poop.)

Six to Start has added a bunch of new story missions – I’ve still got six left or so – and several options for “supply missions” in their most recent update, which are designed specifically to be replayable. I haven’t tried one yet (mostly because I’m digging the story too much to not play storyline missions) but having that option is excellent.

This is pretty much my workout routine now.

The radio mode – which it defaults to when you finish a mission – is a great touch, and I’ve actually extended my runs just to hear the DJs on the radio mode.

The key thing is that I’ve actually found a fun way to turn my workout into something enjoyable rather than an un-fun grind, which is what always killed workouts for me. I actually look forward to my runs (and I suspect my dog doesn’t mind them either!)

Awesome Check-In

I had several suggestions to make the app more awesome, and it looks like Six to Start is going in the right direction: you can now go into “long play” mode where it puts two songs in between each story or radio bit. There still isn’t a longer mission or two, and I can’t go straight to radio mode (which would be boss), but it’s a good step in the right direction.

I still want the social stuff (running with a pal also playing) and the warm-up routine would be great to add as well, but none of these things takes away from the fact that I’m planning on making this my long-term workout solution.

Which brings me to:

Just Shut Up And Take My Money!

I swear by Weight Watchers and what they did for me to help me get to my target weight, not just while I was losing but while I was going through the alm0st-as-difficult process of trying to figure out how to switch to maintenance level of food intake. I was happy to give them a monthly subscription for that service, and frankly the only thing I used it for was the tracking tools. If it meant keeping new missions coming and future options open, I’d be more than happy to pay a monthly subscription for Zombies, Run!

This. This is me.

I’m not sure if anyone in the customer research department is reading this but if it meant continuing this Good Thing that I’ve found – you have at least one monthly subscription sold already.

More Awesome-er

One final point before I go: Six to Start seems very committed to making this game last, which is great for those of us who plan to keep using it. They recently announced that fans can record their own audio for Radio Abel, which will play during the radio mode of the game. My running buddy and I are already talking about our audio script(s). Turning to your community to produce more content and increasing the longevity of your game is fantastic.

This is how gamification is done people. It’s like a master class and workout all in one!

Pop Quiz: Is President Obama A Communist?

Posted: April 19, 2012 in communism, Nazis, Obama, politics, Republicans

Pop quiz time: which of the following things makes President Obama a dirty nasty awful communist?

President Obama wants to provide affordable health care for all Americans
President Obama feels that the wealthy should not pay lower tax rates than the middle and lower classes
President Obama thinks that employers should provide birth control for their female employees as part of their health care plans should the female employees choose to utilize this service
President Obama wants to sieze the means of production from the bourgeoisie and put it in the hands of the proletariat
A talk radio host / my pastor / my parents / some person on an Internet forum told me so
He’s not a Communist

If you answered 1, 2, or 3: congratulations, you don’t understand what Communism is and should probably educate yourself before attempting to engage in political discourse.

If you answered 5, then you should probably do yourself a huge favor by paying more attention to facts that don’t fit your confirmation bias and/or let others do your thinking for you.

4 is the only one of these answers that would define President Obama as a Communist. If you can find one instance of President Obama stating that he intended to sieze the means of production from the bourgeoisie and put it in the hands of the proletariat (perhaps by using the army or something), then yes, you could rightfully call him a Communist.

If you answered 6 you got the power-up and won the game because it’s the only correct answer. Go you!

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms to make about the Obama presidency. Calling him a communist for any of the reasons above is akin to calling Republicans Nazis because they continue to treat women as second-class citizens who cannot make up their own minds about decisions involving their bodies without interference from wealthy white men.

It makes Republicans utter douchemonkeys who are living in the 19th century and who think they can shamelessly exploit people’s good intentions for their own financial gain – but it does not make them National Socialists.

So please, if you’re going to engage in political discourse or vote, exercise your ability to educate and think for yourself before joining the conversation at the grown-ups table. Then you can legitimately call those who do not hold your beliefs names that accurately fit their positions rather than specific terms with specific meanings that make you sound like a knuckle-dragging gorilla to people who do know what they mean.

My Thoughts on Zombies, Run!

Posted: February 28, 2012 in apps, ARG, games, gamification, gaming, iPhone, video games

On a trusted friend’s recommendation I downloaded Zombies, Run!, a new iPhone / iPod Touch / Android game. The premise is simple: you go out and run (or walk), and the app immerses you in an alternate reality game where you’re escaping zombies and helping rebuild a town.

The price seemed a little steep ($7.99, oh noes!) but I figured I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did. It is hand-down the best gamification experience I’ve had on my iDevice so far, and there are a lot of lessons to learn here both in the fun/app department and for us marketing folks who are still trying to wrap our heads around the whole gamification thing.

Here’s a little overview of my experience (which is fundamental to the rest of the story), and then the marketing lessons and my suggestions for the app – which aren’t so much “fix this!” but “here are some ways to make an awesome experience awesome-er!”

This. This is an awesome zombie.

My Zombie Story

I’m not a runner. I tried to be once, and after I hurt my knees (which took months to heal, and even then never healed quite right), a doctor asked me if I ever liked running. “No,” I answered honestly. “Then don’t do it,” he said. “You’re not built for it. Find exercise you like and do that instead, like swimming.” At best, I’m a walker or a hiker. 10-mile hike? Awesome. 10-minute run? Kill me now.

So first I made sure Zombies, Run! would actually function well as Zombies, Walk Quickly! It does. Download, load onto my phone. I did this when I knew I could take a 15-minute walk at work to give it a try “in the field.”

Firing up the app is a very different experience. I haven’t realized how much I’ve been trained to accept a standard procedure when I log into an app for the first time – create an account and password (yet another KeePass entry), link to Facebook Connect (yet another privacy setting to deal with), then tell it not to post every update to social networks (see above.)

Zombies, Run! starts with none of this. There are a handful of screens explaining the app, then a little “slide to run” slider with a reminder to put my headphones in. I head out of my office and “slide to run,” then start walking. It asks me to select a playlist (defaulting to the Braid soundtrack. I swap for “80s Science Fiction” – more on this in a minute.) Immediately a story begins and I’m walking around.

Zombies, Run! swaps pre-recorded story sound files with your playlist as you walk around. The game is broken into missions that consist of a handful of these sound files, which play in between the songs on your list, giving you a story as you go. They’re designed to last around 25-30 minutes depending on the length of the songs in your list – a decent workout time. And you can pause it if you want to split it up or need to take a phone call or something, and pick it up at any time whether it’s later that day or next week.

The first two-minute segment introduces you to the world and some of the characters. By the end of it I’ve been “dropped” into a zombie-infested area and I need to “run” to safety. The recording quality is great, the voice acting is superb, and the zombie noises feel appropriately menacing. The segment ends with a clear call to action: there are zombies right behind me. I need to RUN to safety!

I’m a fast walker, and that’s what I do. My playlist kicks in: Mike + The Mechanics “Silent Running.” I had not planned this. The song picks up. “Can you hear me, can you hear me running?” There’s no way I’m passing this up, bum knee or not. I start jogging. I’m sick (getting over a nasty cold), I hate running, but I’m being chased by zombies and I have an awesome soundtrack. “Can you hear me running, zombie scum?” I take off. I’m grinning like a fool.

Of course I tired out and slow down to a walk after a couple of minutes. The song ends and the adventure continues.

Wait, that's not it.

The story has me running through a hospital (infested by zombies) to pick up a MacGuffin. Along the way, a computer voice informs me of different collectable items I’m picking up: light bulbs, first aid kits, cellphones. More on this later.

After a half-hour (of my planned 15 minutes) the mission ends and Zombies, Run! goes into radio mode, playing my playlist. I can keep going to collect more items or return to base. I’m sorely tempted to keep collecting items but I need to head back to my office, so I hook around and finish the mission.

The app now takes me to a screen where I can manage the base, upgrading elements by assigning the items I’ve picked up to various sections of base. Upgrading adds people to the population of the base and there are some missions that appear to be unlocked only with certain upgrades: I need a Level 3 Hospital to unlock a later mission, for example.

I fiddle with my base a little bit then start planning out the ultimate Zombies, Run! play list. Mike + The Mechanics will be on it as will Bonnie Tyler. Because, why not. I’m actually sitting in my office contemplating a second walk for today to get more items and hear more of the story, and definitely looking at my lunchtime schedule for tomorrow figuring out where I can slot in a half-hour for exercise.

Zombies, Run!: Mission Accomplished.

The Awesomesauce

OK, so what specifically makes Zombies, Run! so great? Glad you asked. As I mentioned above this is the best gamification experience I’ve had, so here we go.

It starts right away. I really like how it drops you right into the experience, provided you’ve got your headphones and are ready to go. 30 seconds after firing up the app and you’re already “running” and involved in the story. There’s no account creation process up front – and this is a fantastic change of pace.

You’re rewarded almost immediately, often and in different ways. The story pulls you in and you instantly feel like you’re part of the action, and the game commands you to “run” – and then rewards you by coaching along when you have (“great work! Oh no, there’s more zombies coming, run!”)Then, as you’re running, it drops more nuggets in the form of the collectable pick-ups, They come often enough that you feel like you’re accomplishing something every thirty seconds to a minute or so. Now that I know what those objects do, I feel like I’ll begin planning ways to improve my base even before I end my next “run.”Finally, at the end, I can go into my base management section whenever I want – not necessarily during a run or right afterwards, but whenever I fire up the app (say, once I’m back at my desk and have cooled down a bit.) I can then take my time, click around the base, learn more about the items I picked up, manage the various little fiddly bits – all different kinds of rewards.
There are clear things for me to do next. There’s an entire gallery of missions and whenever I fire up the app that magical “slide to run” bar comes back. In fact, after finishing the initial missions I have a choice of two missions to run next, which is fantastic. I can see future missions unlock after certain requirements (it’s telling me I need a Level 3 hospital for a future mission, for example), so I need to keep collecting health items to keep upgrading my hospital to unlock it.
It has removed the grind from exercising (or disguised it very, very well). One of the reasons I hate exercise is that it’s really goddamned boring. I’ve tried to find various ways to mitigate this with varying degrees of success: listening to DVD commentaries, audiobooks, and podcasts; watching TV; playing video games; etc. None of them have worked for long. There’s always a point where I feel “damn, I’m just grinding out exercises and what’s the reward for this?” Congrats, Zombies, Run! – you’ve done something no other form of entertainment has done. You’ve made me forget I’m working out and grinding.In fact, at the end of my walk, I wanted to keep going because I wanted to see what other items I could pick up. I had exercised for 35 minutes and not only was I not tired of the grind, I wanted to keep doing it.
I feel like this is very much my game. This has everything to do with the playlist I selected and the extremely positive experience I had with that playlist. If, for example, I’d stayed with the Braid soundtrack I don’t think it would have been nearly as grin-inducing as cheesy 80s tunes (note: my Zombies!!! playlist will include Highway to the Danger Zone. How could it not?) But taking my music and bringing it in makes it a very personal experience on a level not possible if I was only listening to the canned audio from the stories.
I’m already seeing a certain degree of choice: I can choose how to allocate my resources in my base, and I can choose my next future mission. And of course I can choose my soundtrack, so if I want I can totally customize my experience with some kickass music.
It’s fun. Not gonna lie: I had an enormous grin on when I started jogging and hearing Silent Running. It was a fun experience from start to finish, and that’s why people want to play games (or gamify an otherwise un-fun experience – like exercise.)
There’s an ARG tie-in. I’m not going to spoil anything but one of the items I unlocked lead to a website that has a bunch of pre-loaded content that ties into the game’s story. It’s extended content that I don’t need to engage with, but I already feel rewarded for doing so. Well done.

Marketing Hat On

There’s a lot for marketing people to take away from the above. In fact, you might as well call this “gamification best practices” and call it a white paper (hey, that’s not a bad idea.) A minor tangent:

Marketers have a way of fouling up everything cool they touch with very little in the way of positive results – at least when it comes to stuff like gamification. This was a hot 2011 buzzword but it’s since fizzled out, largely because most marketers didn’t know what the hell they were talking about or why gamification is important. Since my agency is working on a potential ARG-style app, I wanted to highlight the above as best practices – but also state one more quick thing.

Not pictured: Gary Gygax.

Marketers Aren’t Game Designers. We run the risk of plowing forward with building “a game” based on partial understanding of how games work and potentially embarrassing ourselves by building something half-assed and watered down that will end up burning through a lot of our client’s (or department‘s) money but accomplish very little else apart from building the Go-Bots of whatever app we’re knocking off.

So if we’re serious about games, we need to engage game designers. There, I said it. It is why we will fail – repeatedly – if we try to make stuff half as cool as Zombies, Run! Great designers are out there and making great stuff. Our clients want great stuff. Why shouldn’t we engage people like those how made Zombies, Run! The studio (Six to Start) who helped the author (Naomi Alderman) bring this game to life specializes in transmedia storytelling experiences and have done some great work in the past. They’re walking that line between marketing agency and game developer or storyteller. Most of us don’t, and if we’re headed into that area, we should be tapping into resources like Six to Start.

How to Make It More Awesome-er

I wouldn’t be a gamer if I didn’t have some suggestions to make Zombies, Run! even better. I want to point out that I haven’t spoken to the designers whatsoever and I’ve only had one main experience with the game so far, but I read their site and blog to get as much information as I could. So if these suggestions are already in the works and have been announced but I missed them (or if I unlock them later), then good on me for anticipating future awesomeness.

Allow me to shuffle my playlist, or to work through a playlist over multiple missions. It seems like the missions are set up only to play the first few songs on a playlist without skipping around. I want a 30-song playlist that it pulls from randomly or shuffles or plays through over a series of missions. Or alternately, Spotify integration or the ability to play a Spotify playlist. And a pony.
There isn’t enough explanation on the base screen. I eventually figured out that I needed to drag my items onto the base, but didn’t realize the base had different areas I could drag them to, and that certain items needed to go to certain places. I did manage to figure this out after a while but it wasn’t clear.
I’d love missions of varying lengths. 30-40 minutes is fine for a normal workout, but I’d love a few longer missions for a long weekend run every now and then.
More social options. I don’t just mean “Facebook Connect so I can post on my wall” (which some people probably want) but options that allow me to share the cool factor of the game with a buddy or partner in a variety of ways. Let me run/walk with a friend who also has the app, and tailor the story for the both of us. Let me see my friend’s bases and maybe we can go on missions to help each other out.
Please let there be more than the 13 missions I can see on the select screen currently, even though most of them are ghosted out. You’ve hooked me. I’m going to do a run a day. I want this to last more than two weeks – I want this to be a long-term solution to managing my health, which has been a struggle for me.
Consider adding non-running elements to the game. It doesn’t have to be complex – but warm-up / stretching routines that play into the story would be slick, even if it’s just base chatter and some encouragement.

Fact: The ability to to this would also make the game more awesome.

I’m sure I’ll think of more awesome-er things in the future but that’s what struck me after my first go and fiddling with the app afterwards. Minor UI things aside, I loved Zombies, Run! and am already planning on how I can incorporate it into my routine for the next couple of weeks. I want to go on another walk right now to see what happens next. Hats off Naomi Alderman and the Six to Start team on crafting a great experience!

If the Play’s the Thing…

Posted: January 18, 2012 in analysis, marketing, software, theory, video games

My friend Roger Whitson pinged me early on Twitter yesterday and directed me to a post by Mark Sample on Play the Past: What Comes before the Platform: The Refuse of Video Games. It’s a good article and makes some very salient points about a side of gaming that people don’t want to talk about, what Sample sums up as “Pre-Platform Studies:” what goes into making the things that play the games we play?

Specifically Sample’s talking about the long lines of supply that go into producing the raw materials that are fed into the factories that are made by workers into things they will never personally be able to afford. It’s a tale of slavery, coercion, warlords, organized crime, exploitation, and Western consumer ignorance. Go read it – it’s a good post and hits the points better than I could myself.

If you don’t feel some measure of guilt over this, you should.

Something bothered me after reading Sample’s post though, and (like any good netizen) I turned to Twitter to discuss it with @rogerwhitson. Why did Sample pick on video games specifically? Why is it so important to video game studies that we include the amount exploitation that pervades the supply chain? Does it actually matter to the study of the game itself? Shouldn’t we then study the deforestation and supply process that goes into the creation of books (I asked Roger)?

Our discussion went off on a tangent about the importance of the influence of capitalism (Rog’s label, not mine, although he later admitted it was shorthand for what I referred to as a technologically advanced society. After all, the Soviets weren’t exactly known for their Earth-friendly or nonexploitive labor practices, and they built video arcades too.) Sidenote to readers: don’t use “capitalism” as a synonym or shorthand for “technologically advanced society.” It’s wrong on several levels.

That’s more like it.

What we came back to in our conversation was that Sample’s point was most definitely important: people don’t really know about the awful things that go into making the things upon which we play our games, and that should be part of the conversation. But at what level?

Let’s start with a few statements and assumptions.

1. Is platform important to video game studies? Yes, absolutely. “Platform” covers the hardware you use to play the game, which includes graphic and sound capabilities and input: two important overall aspects of the gaming experience. It also includes lesser-important things like media (although load times do affect the game experience) and multiplayer capabilities and experiences. So yes, it’s important.

2. Is platform important to other studies? Well… sort of. Is a book on Kindle fundamentally different from a book on paper, to the point where it would change the overall experience? If so, the difference is more of an Xbox 360 vs. PS3 instead of an Xbox 360 vs. Atari 2600 argument: in other words, relatively insignifiant.

But what about, say, music? Listening to a recording done on a home casette recorder is significantly different from listening to a recording done with professional recording equipment. So too is listening to both recordings on a tinny mono speaker instead of a high-end audiophile system. The experience changes both ways, therefore the platform does influence the study.

Movies are the same way. A film shot on an 8mm handheld is vastly different from a film recorded with DV and postprocessed on massive server farms to add CGI to every frame. Watching them is a different experience on a small black and white TV than on a 9-story IMAX screen.

John, stop the car, Ringo’s got out again.

I realize I’m talking in degrees here, but if anything I’m searching for larger context in the overall conversation to answer my previous question. I left the conversation with Roger yesterday and took the dog for a walk (a sure way to clear my head if ever there was one), and came back and Tweeted that the thing that bothered me about Sample’s article was that he didn’t offer solutions. Actually, I was wrong. He did offer solutions: the importance of including the Pre-Platform studies in video game studies.

Creeping a bit (because that’s how I roll) I saw an earlier conversation Sample had with one of his followers about the book question, and both of them mentioned books that are (I’m paraphrasing) ethically created – not printed in countries where they would deforest land for pulp, or mistreat workers in the paper mills.

That’s where I left things last night.

This morning I realized perhaps the best comparison to what Sample was proposing wasn’t from another art form at all, but instead from the food industry.

Pre-Platform Food? How about ethically sourced, local, and/or organic food? Chances are, thanks in no small part to the rise of the online foodie movement and the ease of access to films like Super Size Me or Food, Inc., you’re at least aware of these options as being healthier for you as well as better for local producers and the environment. You’re probably not calculating the carbon footprint of every meal you consume (although if you are, bully for you!), but there is a much higher level of awareness around these things at the consumer level.

Waggle Wiimote to pick locally-sourced food.

But this isn’t just a movement at the consumer level: chefs prefer these sorts of ingredients when they’re creating food. Case in point: local Seattle chef Becky Selengut‘s book Good Fish, which is as much about seafood preparation as it is about the ethics around the seafood supply chain: an issue around which there are as many moral problems for Western societies as the consumer electronics supply chain.

And that is the crux of my reply to Mark Sample: Pre-Platform Studies should be part of conversations around not just video games, but any artform that ties so closely into supply chains. Where DOES that paper come from that your novel is printed on? Aren’t there just as many third-world miners, raw materials, factories, and exploited workers in the sound system I’m listening to, the Kindle I’m reading on, the television I’m watching, the cameras and computers that went into producing Avatar as there are in games?

To rephrase as a statement rather than a question: this isn’t just about video games, and it’s frankly a larger conversation that just video game studies. It is (marketing hat on) a consumer awareness and perception issue that goes way beyond video games. As a technologically advanced society we become increasingly reliant on things from which we are further and further divorced, whether it’s our phones, TVs, Xboxes, cars, food, or even the houses we live in or the places we work and play. I’ll admit, as savvy as I’d like to think I am about such things, I have no clue about how most of the stuff I use is made. Even the table I’m typing this on was made in India, and I can only imagine the state of the furniture factory that created it or the processes that went into harvesting the trees – and my imagination is not good.

I don’t want to think about the exploitation it took to create these pixels.

This is what I was looking for in Sample’s blog post, because it is a broad and extremely important consumer issue in an increasingly global society. It’s not like we can all whip out our local Shaker-made iPhones and connect to the Organic Locally Sourced Cellphone Network. At least, not yet. It is good to have goals after all.

So the conversation Sample’s proposing seems to me less of one central to video game studies, and more of one central to overall consumer awareness and the impact of a technologically advanced society such as ours. There are indeed a lot of conversations to be had about exploitation at all levels of the games industry, from the aforementioned supply lines to the more First World Problems around game companies overworking staff members around launch and then firing them shortly thereafter.

Video game screenshot of the awful working conditions at a fictional video game company. Meta as fuck.

But whether this is integral to the study of the game itself is another story. I’m coming down on the side of “not really,” for the same reason that the context of the paper the first edition Moby Dick was printed on isn’t integral to the study of Moby Dick, or the way that the oil that powers a sports car isn’t important to the performance of the car itself on a test course. Which takes away nothing from the broader point that this is a very important issue. It just strikes me as a consumer ignorance and awareness issue rather than a critical one.

Four Tips for Interacting With A Formerly Fat Person

Posted: December 16, 2011 in family, friends, humor, tips, weight loss

I meant to write this post a month ago, but my experiences coming home for the holidays reminded me I never got around to it, and it seems like as good a time as any to put this down.

What inspired this is the variety of reactions I get about losing weight from my friends and family, especially people who haven’t necessarily seen me in a long time. I can tell it makes some people uncomfortable (for whatever reason – it’s not my place to speculate) but it also elicits some well-intentioned behaviors in others that, frankly, are a pain in the ass to deal with. So undersand that I’ve written this as a friendly and helpful tips, and I fully understand that the last thing my friends and family want to do is hurt me; I just don’t think people realize how things come across sometimes. I want people to see things from my point of view without coming across like an overbearing jerk, so please take this advice in the spirit it’s given.

So, some tips for interacting with a former fat guy.

1. You don’t have to keep offering me food; or, no means no. Food is wonderful; it tastes good, and it’s an inherent social driver for our culture. It’s also something that I had a very self-destructive personal relationship with that I have repaired for my own health and well-being.

A key part of that process for me was identifying both what I wanted to eat and in what quantities. I’m really good at keeping my diet sustainable. I know full well how much and of what I can eat. You don’t have to go out of your way to prepare super-healthy stuff when I’m around, but if you’re serving biscuits and gravy don’t expect me to take a massive bowl of it.

Let me put it this way: it’s very obvious that I’ve lost a good deal of weight in the last seven years (it’s hard to hide the physical change of 150 pounds off.) Looking at me is a reminder. You know I’ve lost a lot of weight. So, please ask yourself this: if I was a recovering alcoholic and you were aware that I used to have a self-destructive relationship with alcohol, would you offer me a drink? Would you continue to offer me drinks throughout the day if I politely refused the first one (or two?) How do you think I would feel if you did, even if I knew you were doing it out of politeness?

Apply that to food. It’s not a perfect correlation but I would argue that what I’m recovering from is very similar to addiction, and the mental processes I use to stay healthy is similar to how recovering addicts make it through the day.

I don’t like to throw food out but if you heap a bunch of it on my plate after I tell you not to, I will. Also understand that it’s a lot harder to control portions once the food is on your plate. I still nibble. I’m only human. I know my weaknesses, and I control them by not putting the food on my plate in the first place. Like the booze, I know where the food is and if I really want to make that choice I’ll do it myself.

2. Yes, I’m still self-conscious about my weight. Please understand that as much as I’m proud of what I’ve done that being fat left lasting psychological damage, in no small part related to the fact that my weight gain was directly linked to my depression. You don’t have to reassure me. I appreciate it, but honestly it’s best just left alone. And yes, looking at pictures of me when I was much heavier is very uncomfortable for me. That’s why I’ve personally only kept a handful myself.

3. I want to inspire you but in a healthy way. I’ve noticed that when I’m out with people they’ll often pick up on the fact that I’m ordering healthy, smaller quantities or loading up on fruit at the salad bar and skipping the full-fat ranch dressing. Then they turn around and order something way outside of what they would normally eat. Cool, let me inspire you; in fact, that’s one of the best parts about having made such an achievement is helping others see that it is possible. That being said, understand that the me you see now and the way I eat now is the result of seven years of constant, hard work.

Say you went to a martial arts competition and saw a guy jump through the air and break 15 bricks with his hand, and you thought, “that’s freakin’ awesome. I want to do that!” and you go and break your own hand trying to break a single brick. That dude worked up to where he is; so have I. If you try to jump on the train at my stop, you’re going to end up hurting yourself, or worse doing something unsustainable with your diet and turning around and getting even madder when it doesn’t work out.

Having spent seven years gaining weight and seven years losing it, I can say this: it’s not something that comes easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. You’re going to make small failures and backslide and lose heart and hope along the way. But if you want to lose, really want to lose, then talk to your doctor and start doing something sustainable. You may have to lose a bunch to kickstart yourself (like I did with two different low-carb diets.) You may need way more exercise than I did. It’s going to be different for you, but it is do-able. Don’t break your hand trying to smash some bricks. Train up to it. It’s really the only way it will work.

4. I’m not judging you. For some reason I get the impression that people feel judged, especially around their choices at mealtime. Guess what: it doesn’t matter to me what you’re eating (unless you feel guilty and try to get me to eat more because you’re feeling that way, in which case see #1.) I don’t care if you’re fat or skinny or eating a ton or eating like a bird unless I feel like you’re directly putting yourself in danger, in which case as a friend I would say something – just like I would hope you’re doing the same for me.

Please understand that, if you feel like you need to lose weight, what I want most is to inspire you, not judge you. You’ll have to make that decision on your own though. Hopefully my experience will help serve as a realistic way to show you how it could be done.

The Kids Are Alright

Posted: November 22, 2011 in 9/11, Bob Dylan, Bush, Fight Club, Michael Moore, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, Penn State, political activism, politics, protesting

I started not understanding Occupy Wall Street’s purpose. I fell into the media trap of reciting a talking point: they have no message! But the more I spoke to members of the movement, people online, people at Occupy Seattle itself (yes, I’ve been a few times), the purpose and message became more clear. Occupy started focusing itself as well, which helped. Switch to Credit Unions? Yeah, I get that. And old friend who worked in finance until 2008 (heh) has been telling us the same thing for months. The Beautiful Competition’s been saying it for years.

The more I learned about Occupy, the more I realized I’ve seen this before. I was quite an activist in my college days: supporting Nader in 2000, working on a certain filmmaker’s TV show, railing against corporate greed and a fundamentally corrupt system.

Youthful Indiscretions

After Bush was elected and 9/11 happened any sort of discourse about these subjects came to a grinding halt for several years–while the very interests we sought to highlight proceeded to continue their ruin of our economy. Not just the American economy mind you, but the global economy.

It’s been a strange past month. I’ve watched as friends and family attack the Occupy movement with a variety of strawmen and non sequitors. I’ve seen relations of those family members struggle to try to find a job several months out of college–hardly a unique phenomenon, and one that’s central to the heart of the Occupy movement.

Yes, it’s the protesters who are messy.

They’re not too proud to go and flip burgers (despite being told that incurring tens of thousands in debt is the way to avoid burger-flipping): it’s just that there aren’t enough burger-flipping jobs available. “They should shut up and get a job” in response to Occupy is the response you’d make only if you were utterly clueless about the economic situation in this country (and now spreading into the EU.)

There is a certain amount of irony here: the very boomers whose protests in the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War are the same people who simply don’t understand Occupy, for whatever reason. I was reminded yesterday of a verse written by these very boomers more than 45 years ago, which are oddly prophetic for Occupy. Here’s a video to accompany it.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

Much of this coalesced last week when I read this stunning article about a Catholic’s loss of faith after the Penn State pedophilia scandal. It’s not so much about a loss of religious faith but a loss of faith in institutions, leaders, and those who should be serving as role models. In a way it’s the loss of faith in the boomers who protested war but put us in this situation by allowing the monied interests to have their way with America. I grew up on The Simpsons: the first episode to hit Fox came out in my very formative fifth grade year. The Occupy grew up on South Park, a far more nihilistic cartoon lampooning literally everything. For The Simpsons generation, there are institutions we should still be able to trust. For the Occupy generation, the South Park generation, just a few years younger than me, they have been raised to suspect and distrust literally everything.

It’s an isolating proposition. It’s the ultimate existentialism, a body of internal self-reliance that would probably scare the ever-loving shit out of most people who rely on religion, leaders, institutions, or something for meaning. As the boomers drift around like boats on the ocean taking refuge in new age nonsense while ignoring the economic ruin they’ve enabled if not condoned, the South Park generation is taking to the streets.

Occupy Paper Street

In a Facebook conversation the other day about the above article I mentioned how much that nihilism reminded me of the film Fight Club. If there’s a movie that encapsulates what we were trying to achieve (or at least, Cassandra-like, trying to bring attention to) in the last 90s, Fight Club would be it. It isn’t a glorification of violence and anti-establishment behavior: the film is a warning that a corrupt and awful system stacked against those who enter it at a young age will inevitably reach a breaking point.

The Simpsons generation still trusted too much in the ability for things to sort themselves out. We were drowned by the jingoism following 9/11, the patriotism suppositories forced on us by the extreme right who said anyone who questioned their actions were traitors while the literally robbed us blind and ruined 99.9% of us while they made out like the bandits they were.

This isn’t to say that we don’t have our place in Occupy, as do the boomers who have joined and supported it, as do the Vietnam vets who are protesting, the 84-year-old retirees who have been pepper sprayed, as does anyone who understands what’s happening here (what it is, is exactly clear–if you’ve been paying attention.) But fundamentally it isn’t our movement. It belongs to the South Park generation.

They’ve watched as the institutions they have been told will uplift and protect them have repeatedly, fundamentally and systemically failed. And rather than accepting this fate they have taken to the streets, formed General Assemblies, put into action fundamental democratic principles, and enacted steps to raise awareness and start taking things back. They are doing what we tried and failed to do 10 years ago.

Despite the movement’s many shortcomings (see, we can’t do anything without questioning the institution!) it has the best chance of success of any political movement since the 1960s. It’s their time. They have my support. Their success won’t be stunted but enabled by their fundamental distrust in the institutions that lead us here–all of them. Those kids are alright.

Red State Welfare

Posted: November 13, 2011 in conservatives, liberals, political correctness, politics, rant, taxes

Because I’m trying to get away from subjecting my friends and family (OK, my family) on Facebook to my political views, I’ll post this here instead.

One of my favorite little facts about America: those states who receive more federal money than they contribute to the tax base are almost identical to the states who routinely support candidates who propose doing away with such programs. This is not a new trend at all.

Attention conservative red state welfare queens: I’m tired of my hard-earned tax money being taken out of my state and reallocated to yours, where you guys don’t work hard enough to support yourselves. Why don’t you go get better jobs you lazy right-wing conservative bums? I mean seriously, surely there must be some well-paying jobs in your states somewhere. That’s why all of us fled for the coasts, right?

Until then though we should put your fantasies into reality, remove the subsidies us blue-staters are paying into your states, and watch your states roads, schools, and infrastructure crumble even more. Because that’s how a community ought to support itself by your own rules and standards, right?

Or maybe we could all, you know, support each other. Like us awful class warfare liberals have been advocating – and you all have been taking advantage of while calling us names and taking away our rights in the same breath.

Hypocritical jerks. There, I called you a name. Although I’ll just use a conservative argument and say I’m “refusing to be politically correct” and you can’t argue with me, nyah nyah!

Man I’m out of practice at this whole rant thing.

NaNoWrMo Or Something

Posted: November 7, 2011 in national novel writing month, writing

Hey, did you know its National Novel Writing Month?

I realize it’s supposed to be a way to motivate aspiring writers to actually get off their asses and, you know, write.

For some reason it always turns into feelings of guilt and anxiety when I see a half-dozen writerly friends updating their word counts and I don’t realistically have time to plow through several thousand words a day for a month.

The problem is my own. I need to set lower goals first: I’ve got some short story ideas knocking around I should finish off. With the ease of e-publishing these days, I could just release a collection of stories on Amazon, post it on Facebook, get a few dozen sales from friends and family and I’m on my way!

Call that “National Writing Anything To Keep Some Kind of Momentum” month.

Blogging

Posted: November 5, 2011 in blogging, writing

Blogging’s a funny thing. You don’t do it for more than a year, realizing you’ve just kind of left a part of yourself dangling out there (and let’s face it, a pretty esoteric closing post to boot.) Then you write one letter to Google and tell yourself “hey, I should publish this somewhere other than Plus so I can actually, you know, find it in a week” and all of a sudden you’ve got ideas for blogging again.

Blogger’s gone and got itself a new interface. It looks like the rest of Google’s interfaces: less Web 2.0 and more Tech 2015. I feel like I’m using an interface designed by Apple’s interns.

My life has changed in many ways in the last 15 months. New job. New tech. New games played. New hobby (winemaking). The anti-greed movement I’ve been a part of since college has gone and made itself more mainstream by camping out in public parks. My dog’s grown up, and one of my cats has moved on. In other words life is moving forward.

My problem with blogging has been writing for the sake of writing. Therefore my previous mission statement still stands: I will only write if I feel I have something of value to add to the conversation.

Otherwise, you can just catch up with my personal shit on Facebook, and my more newsy shit on Plus. And when I occasionally dip back into Twitter… well… I don’t reliably use it anymore because the value just wasn’t there.

An Open Letter to the Google Plus and Reader Teams

Posted: November 1, 2011 in feedback, Google, Google Plus, Google Reader, letters

Dear Google Plus and Reader Teams,

I’ve been tracking closely the development of both Plus and Reader; I was excited to try the former and have been a long-time user of the later. Reader has been an important tool in my digital toolset for years; I use it personally to track and read important news and updates from friends’ blogs, and I have used it professionally and semiprofessionally as a monitoring tool for blogs, social media, and news.

Like many other Google Reader users I met the announcement of Reader’s integration into Plus with some skepticism; at best I was cautiously optimistic. When I finally switched over yesterday I found the new UI different but nothing that would cause any permanent harm; I have suffered through UI and design pages on services beginning with the Prodigy network back in 1990. Although they cause short-term confusion there hasn’t been a single instance where I’ve ceased to use a service because of a UI change. I would prefer something with more color delineation between posts, but you’re receiving enough feedback about that from people far more qualified as designers than I am, so I’ll leave that be.

The main piece of feedback I have about the new Reader is around its social sharing features. Reader’s sharing features were, for myself and many others, a self-selected and silo’d social network. I followed users (offline friends mostly) who actively shared news and other content I found interesting, and would occasionally comment on that content and have conversations with each other. Rarely would these develop into full-blown conversations (and if they did we typically moved to IM), but the information discovery mechanisms of this service were invaluable to me both for professional development and personal enrichment.

I understand how to share content through Reader into Plus; this is not the issue. The frustrating thing about this change is that I no longer have the option to filter content from others in the same silo I had in Reader. This, frankly, was functionality I expected when Plus launched (if you check my account, it’s one of my first Plus posts.)

Reader gave me a way to get content from a few people without drinking from the social media firehose of less-relevant updates. I love my friends to death but I don’t want to have to filter through 10 pictures of their kids to get to the one news story they found interesting. Facebook doesn’t allow for this kind of filtration, and neither did Plus when it launched – which would have been its defining competitive factor. This is the beauty of Reader’s old system; if was a filtered network.

In short: rather than cloning Facebook’s functionality, I wish Plus had been more like what Reader was in its content filtering.

My recommendation then is twofold:

1. Make a feature in Google Reader where you can automatically create a Plus circle from the people you’ve followed. This was a basic exporting beat Google completely missed; why should I manually have to recreate a circle of followed friends from one Google product into another? That should have been one click, or done automatically, behind the scenes. Google’s value proposition is its platform ubiquity; this was a missed opportunity to demonstrate this is actually the case.

2. Within that circle (or within any circle in Plus) allow me to filter posts from people in that circle to only show +1s from Reader. I love my friends to death but don’t want to cruise through a dozen pictures of kids in Halloween costumes to get to important news.

To put this a different way: turn circles into content silos, not just person groups.

In fact, this kind of filtering is what I expected from Plus in the first place. It would be a true differentiator from Facebook’s platform, which forces me to filter in reverse, by blocking updates from certain apps like Farmville. Instead, Plus should allow you to filter down, only showing updates from certain apps that I self-select – like Reader, or Twitter, or a photo sharing site.
I will still continue to use Reader for my RSS feeds, and look forward to a Google app that duplicates the closed nature of the network in Reader I had come to appreciate and enjoy – and for which there is now an enormous gap (and opportunity) within the digital landscape.

I have long been an advocate of Google’s services and overall value proposition for years. I may be one of the few Wave fans still left in existence. I understand that decisions like this are made at far larger levels than one piece of consumer feedback can ever hope to affect and change, but I certainly appreciate any consideration you’d give to the above recommendations.

subversive puppet show

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