Doing my part

I believe that if every fat person would lose 10% of their body weight, the world would be a better place as the resources available could be spread among some of the people who do not have them.

I recently hit that mark. However all that did was change my category from very obese to obese so I need to lose 10% again from that weight and then another 10%.

The previous weekend had a large bump due to the large amount of food I had. With having to go 36 hours without any solid food this week, I expect to do more than stay stable. Hopefully I can do that.

The last Marscon 2011 post

I did a chart showing who played with whom last year and was asked to do it again. Unlike last year, I had other ideas I needed to get out of my head and this weekend and finally had time to make this:



Unlike last year, there is video of the entire weekend main stage on you tube thanks to Mr Tuesday who was able to get them posted some within 24 hours of the performances. Hopefully this eliminated errors though I almost expect someone to find one.

Tournament of bad Madman region

Over the past couple of years, two local sports radio DJs, Dan Bernstein and Terry Boers have done the tournament of bad where they with two people who work with their show arrange 68 bad things involving sports and other things into 4 regions and have people vote on what is more bad to get to one winner. This year the final features Notre Dame student safety against Getting on Lake shore Drive in the middle of a snowstorm. (Urinal conversations and Charlie Sheen's rehab efforts)

I was wanting to make my region a couple of weeks ago but was unable to do so until today. Here is the region:



Here is an explaination on why these are here in bracket order:

play-in game - USA soccer - FIFA (international soccer federation) has for years tried everything to get the US good in international soccer so the networks will pay top dollar for coverage. That is the only reason they pushed the women's game knowing the US is one of the top teams to try to generate interest in a country which does not care. FYI: Major League Soccer consists mostly of players who could not make it in the good leagues that exist in Europe.

play-in game - bad apostrophes - An apostrophe is used for possession and not plural. I have seen ads, billboards, tv commercials and even a cake that used an apostrophe as a plural.

1 - State of Illinois financial situation - Drastic measures have been taken to try to recover from many years of neglect and abuse.

8 - NFL rule changes - The NFL is now concerned with head injuries and want to reduce them. However, the new rules that are created to try to protect players can change the game completely. Fans like the NFL partially because it is a collision sport and take collisions out can ruin the game.

9 - People overenthusiastic about their lifestyle changes - I get it. You did something that make you better and you want to help others. It can go too far. Like posting charts on weight loss progress and .... er .... You know what I mean.

4 - Obama haters - He was fairly elected president. Had there been an problem with his eligibility, it would have been taken care of before he even started his campaign. I don't agree with many of his decisions and personally believe he was not ready to take office when he did. That does not mean I want him dead or impeached. People will have a chance in 2012 to elect a president.

13 - Avoiding the number 13 - I have seen hotels, hospitals and software skip that number. Putting a specific number will not create a problem nor prevent one. More effort should be placed on quality rather than superstition.

5 - Wrigley Field wall - It is mostly made of brick and is covered with ivy. When a college football game was played there last November, both teams had to go one direction worrying about players with helmets and padding crashing into the wall. They have padding painted with ivy for that game. That should be installed for the safety of players.

12 - playing songs on a car horn or doorbell - Unless the horn or doorbell is musical, playing a song with it might sound like the song to the person doing it but is annoying for everyone else.

2 - Soldier Field surface - Horrible, game changing. Needs to be replaced many times during the year. The Bears would be better off changing to an artificial surface.

15 - people who live in the US and can't speak English - English is the only official language in the US. People who want to enjoy the benefits of living in the US should learn the country's language.

7 - parking a car in two spaces - If a car is too expensive or too large for the driver to park in one space in a public lot, then it might be best to replace the car. I understand the desire to not want it dinged but to me taking up two spaces in a crowded parking lot is inviting people to smash the windows.

10 - NCAA football and mens basketball playoffs - They have the opposite problems. 68 teams is too many for basketball and I don't care if one of the last teams is one of the last 4 to make the field. With the money involved, I doubt that will change. Football has 2 in the title game along with many bowl games. The 3rd best football team is left out. As with basketball, money rules.

3 - Stating "god" is punishing Japan - Bad things in nature happens and people suffer and die from them. Jumping on that situation to try to impose a religious agenda is the exact opposite of what most religions want their people to do when others are in need.

14 - Counting an NHL overtime loss as a tie - Though teams get a point for it, it is still a loss.

6 - Saying any comedy song is done by Weird Al - People share and repost files. When they do that to a funny song, many automatically state Weird Al and occasionally misspell his name. There are many people who do funny songs who are not as well known as him. In a CD being released April 1, Devo Spice has a song about it. Gnome Sane?

11 - PGA/NASCAR end of season playoffs - It happens in September through November otherwise knows as football season. Most fans don't care. This cheapens championships since it is based on a few events rather than the whole season.

I am not going to ask people to vote since I know there won't be enough people interested to make it worth the effort to run it.

Rock Band squeeeee

Last Friday evening where both of us were tired, Carrie and I were talking and the subject of the band Boston came up and I told her how much I enjoyed their first album and when 6 of the songs from it came to Rock Band, I went home from work, immediately turned on my XboX 360 to get them to play in album order with side 2 first finishing with Foreplay/Long Time which was on the Rock Band 1 disc.

Though we had met 7 years earlier and have become surrogate spouses, the subject of my non dementia music preference is something that we had rarely talked about. After getting home from work this Sunday, I decided to look at the 475 songs available to play in Rock Band on my system and discovered there are about 75 songs I had or would have immediately purchased when available for DLC to play right away. (This includes songs that are available on the 5 RB discs I have)

20 of the songs are those I would play on my Dementia Radio show and are all made since 2000. Since those are the only 20 songs from the 21st century that fall into the get it now category, I did not include them in this chart:



Orange is 60s, green 70s, pink 80s, and blue 90s. Not wanting to make too many categories, I recategorized some genres to classic rock and pop/rock categories.

Off Target

Unable to find any snacks at the Mall of America that were healthy, I told the three people I was driving that I needed to get fruit and since it was 1PM Friday, we had time before anything started at Marscon.

When we passed a Wal-Mart, the passengers were not wanting to stop there. Though I am a Sam's Club member, I can understand their desires since one of the people I was driving is a target employee who gets a discount. Though savings would not be significant on a 5 day 900+ mile trip involving 4 nights in a hotel, I figured why not and headed towards the Target I thought existed west of where we were going.

The Target employee said he could use his phone to find one and directed me differently and after going to a distribution center, headed towards a store. However, it was a little slow and I got info on where to exit the expressway 10 seconds late and had to swing around.

For clarity, I used multiple colors since it would be confusing if I didn't.



Anyway, we finally got my hungry and irritable self there.

surviving the bump

I did forget to mention one other bad thing about Marscon. Weight gain. The party atmosphere causes people to overindulge and while looking at some the people there I do not seem fat so there is no guilt. When I tried to lose weight in 2009, it ended at Marscon and ended up back to my regular eating and getting myself to the point where I weighed what I did this January.

Not wanting to repeat that mistake, I decided to take the whole week before off work to avoid eating the extra food I usually do wanting to eat all the extra calories I am allowed from Feb 26 through Mar 11 in the 5 days of the con allowing myself about 12,500 total for the 5 days.

Things changed the before the con as I ate a lot of pizza while casting with two others on Wednesday and donuts on Thursday morning. I then realized the weekend was going to be about controlling gain rather than maintaning weight.

The rest of Thursday went ok and Friday's trip to the Mall of America better as I saved calories by eating a regular size grilled steak and walked around to find a place that had fountain Diet Coke since I do not drink Diet Pepsi. Every place in the south food court, including Mc Donalds, had Pepsi. I also decided it was best to not get a Dairy Queen shake or any other mall snack food though I was tempted. I ended up going to Target to get bananas, apples, and Diet Dew, the only Pepsi bererage I drink which is not available in the mall. I also saved calories by not drinking alcohol after the music not really in the mood to start to party after midnight.

The rest of the weekend involved a lot of food and beverage. Two breakfast buffets in the hotel, snacks in the movie room, the surprising well stocked con suite, the awesome spread by Breakman Z's parents enjoyed on the ride home and KAHN's mongolian buffet provided me much more than the planned intake of calories along with the food I brought and the large amount of alcohol consumed on the party bus.

When I returned to work on the 9th, there was weight gain and after eating at a wake on the 10th it was worse. However, one week of better eating more than overcame the weight gain as shown here:

The easy chart

On the way home, I figured out the details and used last year's map to reflect the 2011 dementia track attendence.



I know due to financial concerns (including one performer who was missed by many after he discovered the cost of airfare once he knew he could go increased to the point where the trip was not doable for him) some states represented in last year's chart are not in 2011.

As far as deciding performer/fan I decided only anyone introduced as the main person performing on stage or who is a member of a band as performer.