So I decided to go see my doctor today because I have noticed my heart rate has been elevated as of late. He performed an EKG and found that it is indeed way elevated. He drew some blood to check if it is thyroid related, but I won't find out the results until Monday.

He did say that the EKG showed that my heart is perfectly healthy and shows no signs of heart disease or anything like that. My heart may just be 'out of rhythm', and may need to be shocked back.

After giving this some thought, I can't remember the last time when my heart rate didn't feel the way it feels right now.

Frankly, this whole situation has me pretty freaked out. I've never had any major health issues outside my hernia surgery last year. Anyway, just needed to vent about it a bit.

Heart issues can be terrifying, but things like elevated pulse or even abnormal beats are actually relatively mundane and not very threatening.  In general, a serious heart issue would impact you physically in the moment, like you'd feel faint or have shooting pains or something like that.  They should still be checked out of course, but it doesn't sound like your life is in danger or anything

I had issues last year during a particular stressful patch of my life where my heart began skipping beats every once in a while.  It's a very bizarre feeling, and I didn't know what was going on.  I put my fingers to my throat to check my pulse and felt a beat just... not show up... when the feeling came.  

I thought I was probably going to die any second and got an immediate appointment with a doctor.  Turns out it's a "benign arrhythmia" and a fairly common reaction to heavy stress.  Once I took a few days off and took care of some of my stressors things got back to normal fast.  

I'm not a doctor, but I would guess the doctor will tell you "yeah it's a little weird, but eat a little better and take more walks and you'll be fine."

Looking forward to Deadlight very much. 

I think his response is pretty much perfect.

Pandemic 2.5 is out on IOS. Adds features (that I don't remember exactly) over the flash version. Is universal I believe. http://appshopper.com/games/pandemic-25

Create a disease... kill off the human race...

SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!

For .99 cents.

Plague, Inc is a massively improved version of Pandemic 2.5.  Much better UI and more fun to play.  Pretty much the same game, but I played well past my bedtime last night

Progress report - About six weeks into intermittent fasting and a paleo(ish), high-fat diet.  Down 15 pounds!  I've definitely lost some strength but it hasn't been extreme.  I have another four weeks to go before my trip to San Diego and am feeling great about hitting the beach  

The biggest diet issue for me is snacking during work.  They keep our kitchen stocked with junk food like gummi bears, sour patch kids, chocolate-covered espresso beans (90% chocolate, 10% bean), cinnamon red hots, and other "gamer snacks" that I don't need in my body.  Gotta maintain willpower!

Uplink is quite good and has sucked up an inordinate amount of my time since it was released.  Never played it on PC so I'm enjoying this a lot.  The permadeath with no warning is pretty hardcore and annoying though.  Gotta work harder to cover my logs!

RealMyst is coming out on Thursday for ipad 2 and 3.  Really looking forward to it.

Diablo can run on your Air!

I have the high end 2011 MBA (best aside from custom order on apple store) and D3 chugs on my laptop, even with everything cranked down low.  WoW ran great, but D3 not so much.

Yeah this was my experience with the Beta.  It runs, but with some big reservations.  I turned everything down and it would seriously chug whenever any moderate activity was on screen, including some 5+ second freezes/hitches.

I have a 2011 Air and it's fantastic for everything except 3d gaming of any kind.  I primarily use OSX Lion but I have Win7 installed and use it through VMWare Fusion.  Works like a charm.

If they come out with a slimmer Pro for a reasonable price, I would consider upgrading.  I would like to play Diablo

Damn looking good Kathode!

Thanks!  Super proud of this team 

Dawnguard trailer is out.  It's about vampires.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3PjBSicSVqI

You can certainly find quality companies with solid growth in the stock market.  Or even better, don't bother with individual stocks and invest in a solid index fund.  The market is an investment engine and there's never a guarantee that you'll make money of course.  But the overall direction, averaged over time, has been consistently higher and should continue that way as long as the world keeps growing.  IPOs are speculation engines and shouldn't be bought by the average investor (IMO).  The famous advice of Warren Buffett applied completely to the FB situation - "Be fearful when others are greedy."

Looks like they took all violence that should have been in the rest of the season and packed it into one single episode.  The Blackwater episode was so awesome, I watched it twice.  BOOM!!!

Sorry to hear about the issues Pete!  Sounds like you get a sweet Robocop-style upgrade to your spine once it's all said and done though  Best of luck getting through to the other side of it all.

I have been doing ok with the intermittent fasting myself.  I haven't checked my actual weight in a while but I have definitely slimmed down the abdomen donut.  I have noticed that I have a tendency to create a binge eating situation at nights when my 8pm cutoff time rolls around.  If I eat dinner early, like 7pm, instead of just ending things then, 7:55 or so rolls around and I think "Oh man, my last chance to eat."  I then stuff myself with something, and end up making myself sick.  Just a problem with willpower and the ability to say "no more."  

I'm basically going to keep this up another six weeks.  In July I'm going to San Diego for a week for Comic Con and some beach time.  I'm going to eat myself silly while I'm there, and then settle back into a normal healthy eating pattern afterwards.  I really miss breakfasts

Can't wait.  One of my favorite series of games from this generation.

Here's the image our box art will use if you haven't seen it the past couple days:

Day 2 of saying "fuck it" and getting back in the gym.  Before my most recent injection I took it easy.  Not today.  Sure, I dropped in weight on all of my lifts, but I still did the same amount of volume, and I've been doing modified intermittent fasting so my workouts have been fasted (16 to 18 hours between meals, then loading up on "clean" protein and lots of greens within a 6 hour feeding window).

Ha, I just started doing IF myself.  I don't eat from 8pm to 12pm.  I am about a week in and still having hunger problems.  My main issue is that I really like to eat, and used to "graze" quite frequently.  I'll find myself opening the fridge right before bed these days, looking for a snack, and have to stop myself. 

I view my support of Wasteland 2 as patronage, not an investment.  It's similar to being a patron of the arts, but on a smaller financial scale (at least for me).  If I get burned, then I won't contribute to that developer again.  I'll continue to support projects that interest me, especially for games that won't ever get supported by a publisher (too niche, it's not a FPS, it's turn based anything).  

You're not the only person who views it that way - that's the way it is.  Kickstarter is not an investment vehicle, and isn't set up to be.  There are tons of laws around investments. Kickstarter is a gift at best.  The money is gone as soon as the project gets funded.  As far as I can tell, they're not even technically required to send you the rewards.

Still, I think about it the same way you do.  I like to remain idealistic and contribute to people's ideas.  I totally understand the chance that some of these tiny games I'm contributing to could end up completely sucking or just falling apart.  I've made about 10 contributions and still haven't gotten anything for it (although my HuMn wallet ships soon).  I'll keep contributing as long as people keep coming up with interesting ideas and putting them out there.

Been totally slammed at work as we headed toward a milestone today.  I'll get caught up on moves soon.

Game Informer put up some of our concept art here-
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/23/the-world-of-halo-4.aspx

Some of it is out there already, but I believe some of it is new.  We have a pretty badass team of concept artists.

There will be new enemies.

Don't know why they labeled the gallery as concept art.  The first seven are in-game shots.

 

Retina display or not, it looks damn good to me.

Anyone else been having networking-type issues lately?  I'll frequently get long delays or errors trying to log in, or refresh my games list, or submit my movies.  Pretty irritating.  I thought it might be an ipad 3 thing but it happens on my phone as well.

Preordered this and really looking forward to it.  I hope it runs on my Macbook Air (I have Win 7 running through VMFusion).

If you read the article it isn't stating that they are opening it up to actual indies, they still require a publisher like always. 

...which can be, and often is, Microsoft working out a deal with 'actual' indies  

[Game of Thrones]

I've not read any of the Hunger Games books or Game of Thrones books, despite everyone being all hyped about both series, but then I read the comments and am turned off.

WAT? Read it!

Full new trailer.  It's awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU

Syntha 6 is really good tasting but it is a little further down the line toward a weight gainer than a standard protein shake.  Pretty carby by protein standards at 15g per scoop (22g protein).  Also, it contains a blend of proteins, but the main one is whey protein concentrate, which is the cheap version of whey, opposed to the better protein isolate.  I wouldn't recommend it for people trying to watch their weight.

I get the Isopure mentioned somewhere previously in the thread and I think it's great.  The cookies and cream flavor is tasty even when just using water.

If I had to eat what Purge listed above, I'd starve.  

Maybe, but have you tried to eat a five-egg omelette?  That's a huge breakfast he had.  In general, fat and protein keep you sated longer than carbs.  You do have to work your way into it though.  You have to stop just eating because it's time to eat and switch over to listening to your body, which is a significant change.

I don't want a cookbook... I just want someone to tell me what to eat for two weeks.

Eat what's in that cookbook for two weeks.    I don't know if anyone is going to write you a meal plan.  

Edit: Snark reduction

I'm willing to guinea pig.  Tell me what you eat on a daily basis (not like I'm going to have the same meal as you every single day, but give me some idea), and I'll eat that stuff, sticking to the calorie levels that I've been consuming (or less, if I don't feel the need to eat, I guess), and after a couple weeks I'll report back: weight change, how I feel, how well I'm able to do the types of exercise I do (endurance stuff), and how sustainable I feel it would be in terms of cost (which I think would be greater), and personal desire for bread.

I've recommended this cookbook before, by far my favorite:
http://www.amazon.com/Primal-Blueprint-Quick-Easy-Meals/dp/0982207743

Tried about 30 minutes to recreate my awesome Shepard after the import thing failed me.  No dice.  Looks like I'm waiting for the patch.

The Annihilator can really tear up an unprepared team, as rittchard is demonstrating against my team in our game right now.

Ordered my 32gig wifi version.  Retina display was a big upgrade for the iphone IMO.  Excited to see how it looks on the ipad.

Here's a comparison shot between ipad 2 and "new ipad" - http://i.imgur.com/o47x2.jpg

Bumping this up as we are finally starting to put some in-game stuff out there.

Video:
http://t.co/8Ez2LaIS

Screens:
http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/Universe/detail/halo-4-master-chief-gallery/8c0254fc-3dc5-464e-b9ef-0c6c924abcab#imageNumber=3

Diets are much easier when you allow yourself a specific day to cheat.  I don't have much of any problem following a paleo-style diet when I can pig out on Sunday.  If you're "good" six days a week, there's basically nothing you can do on that last day that will undo your progress.

Looks great.  I got bored of Brotherhood by the end, and skipped Revelations completely.  This has me excited about playing again.

Your hip flexors may not be able to handle that much woman.

Perhaps kegel exercises might help?

Momentous achievement tonight:  I won a game against wonderpug!    That bumps my record up to something like 1/20

Final Fantasy Tactics finally released an ipad-native version (... for $17.99).  Reading mostly positive reports on GAF and toucharcade.

Liking dwarves a lot so far.  The bazooka guy can really catch people off guard, and I've wiped the floor with a few people who didn't realize what he could do.  Now that we're a week or so in, I'm seeing more people focus on taking him out.  Really like the engineer's shield ability.  Even a scroll-buffed attack only breaks it, so it leads to some interesting strategy both offensively and defensively.  I also am getting a lot of mileage out of the shotgun spread attack.  It's a little on the weak side but if you hit it right, you can take out three units in one turn.