Claw Marks

Life Tracking Part 2

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:00:38 -0700

What do the data say?

I’ve previously explained my visceral need to ingest information and my obsession with data collection and analysis. As pertains to my health, this has manifested in glorious fashion. Here is a list of all the variables that I’ve regularly tracked since January:

Body weight right when I wake and again before I go to sleep.
Circumferences of the following:
- Right and left arms
- Right and left legs
- Abdomen at the navel
- Waist
- Chest at the nipples
Body fat (3 point method with calipers)
- Chest
- Abs (or where I think they should be in theory)
- Upper right quadricep
Every meal (4 per day)
Every supplement including time taken
When I do ‘stalling’ exercises on my binge days
Any drink that isn’t water
The amount in oz. of water that I drink per day
Amount of sleep in hours:minutes
Whether or not I take a nap during the day
Quality of sleep – Both on a 1-5 subjective scale of how I feel as well as information taken from the ‘Sleep Cycle’ alarm clock on my phone
Amount of daily protein ingested
My awesome wife bought this new scale that gives me the following in addition to weight:
- Body fat %
- Body fat weight
- Water %
- BMI
- Bone Mass %

By this point, I’ve got a TON of data to work with. Granted, I’m sure there are other things that I can track but this is certainly sufficient for my needs. In my previous blogs I’ve talked about some of the conclusions and course corrections that I made with all of this fantastic information. As previously reported:

January 1^st: 264 lbs.
February 1^st: 256.5 lbs.
March 1^st: 250.5 lbs.

Here’s the new stuff:

April 1^st: 245.5 lbs.
April 17^th (this morning): 238.7 lbs.

So what did I change in April that’s let me lose twice as much in 2 weeks? 2 things:

I added more protein.
Sleep tracking.

The monthly tracking data only tells part of the story. The whole story goes something like this:

X month
- Week 1 Y lbs.
- Week 2 Y lbs. -5
- Week 3 Y lbs.
- Week 4 Y lbs. -5
- Week 5 (or new month) Y lbs. -5

Basically I’d only lose 5-8 lbs a month thus far because I’d lose some weight one week, and then I’d either plateau or gain weight the other 3 weeks of the month. Despite my looking at the data sets and adjusting to reflect my best weight loss days, this pattern had continued for 3 months. After doing even MORE research during my March stagnation period and talking with my wife about her training regimen, I decided that I should get more protein. I was only eating roughly 100 grams of protein per day. Looking at protein charts for my size and body type I should be getting TWICE that amount.

So I added another 100 grams of protein in the form of two protein shakes. The first around lunchtime, and the second just before bed. The first week of this change, was a bit spotty. Normally, I take one week of supplements per month. This first week of higher protein was my week of no supplements.

Despite that, I managed to lose 3 pounds. 3 pounds in one week isn’t great, but it’s only one pound more than my previous average. So I decided to continue the protein regimen and se where it takes me on a week that I restart all of my supplements. Here are the supplements that I’m currently taking:

Alpha Lipolic acid – 4x/day (Anti-oxidant and reported to be anti-aging by way of delaying the decay rate of mitochondria)
Garlic Extract – 4x/day (Garlic has like eleventy kadillion benefits. One of which is to boost testosterone production. Others include cancer prevention, high blood-pressure reduction, heart disease prevention.)
Green Tea extract – 3x/day (ENERGY BABY!!!!! Also, it has been shown to be 20x more antioxidant effective than Vitamic-C. Prevents cancer, etc.)
Policosanol – before bed (May help control cholesterol.)
Chromemate – 1x/day (There are a few reported benefits to this ‘drug’ one of which is 22% longer life span. That’s all you had to tell me! Once my workout begins next week, I’ll be upping the dose to 3x/day as Chromemate is also said to aid in recovery.)
Glucosamine Sulfate 1/day (I’m 6’5” and 37 years old. My joints already creak like a factory full of rusty door hinges. This helps me walk around without falling apart. Though I’ll likely stop taking it once this bottle is empty as I’ve felt no real benefit from it. Also most studies have shown that despite the big pharma hype machine, there doesn’t actually seem to BE any benefit from it.)
Flax seed oil 1/day (Provides Linolenic acid – an essential fatty acid which cannot be produced by the human body. It has many benefits including reduced heart disease risk)
A potassium/magnesium/calcium blend with some other weird stuff like dandelion.

Ok, so that’s a ton of pills I’m taking right? The ALA, Garlic, Green Tea, and Policosanol I started taking specifically because when I read ‘the 4 Hour Body” I decided to do everything that Tim Ferriss recommended. I’m like that with new workouts. I read all the information. Then I do some research into the process, supplements, dietary requirements and also the success that others have experienced with it. Once I’m satisfied that it won’t injure me, I don’t just leap in with both feet, I do a fucking cannonball.

So I started the 4 Hour Body diet which I’ve been doing since February which I’ve chronicled here in this blog (just a few posts down.) Anyway, back to the data and what it says. I added the supplements back in to my diet and…. I gained 1.5 pounds. What the fuck? REALLY? I gained 1.5 pounds? Back to the analysis. Diet – nothing changed. Timing – nothing changed. There was ONE variable that moved, however: sleep. I looked back at my sleep records and it seems that the second week of added protein, I slept horribly. My average sleep quality (according to the sleep cycle alarm clock) was 56%! OUCH.

This does make sense though because I’ve been working a different project this last week and it required my presence at 10am. Typically I don’t even get to sleep until 4 or 5am so that threw my whole routine out of whack. Even though I reintroduced the supplements back into my diet, I slept like total crap all week. This is one of the great benefits of tracking everything that you do: you can easily spot anomalies.

More Course Correction

Here’s where I rectify the anomalous behavior and see what is REALLY going on with this added protein idea. All this week, I’ve made it a point to be in bed by 2am (baby steps.) My sleep timer is set for ~9am so that will give me a minimum of 6.5 hours of sleep as opposed to the 3 to 5 I had been getting. I also started wearing the mask that I usually wear when I sleep during the day to keep out the sun. There is a little ambient light in my bedroom at night, and this helped filter that out as well. Most days this week I actually slept for around 7.5 hours. The average sleep quality was now 80%. This may still seem low, but after 3 years of using the sleep cycle alarm clock I’ve only reached above 90% like twice. 80% is actually a pretty good average.

And the weight loss? I went from 240 last Saturday to my goal of 235. This is actually the first week since I started the 4 hour body diet that I’ve reached my 5lb/week goal. The sleep has paid off in spades. I’m going to attempt to continue the trend and shoot for 90% sleep quality. The quality of sleep seems to only be indirectly related to the time spent sleeping. I’ve hit 89% with 7 hours, and I’ve hit 60% with 9 hours. I’m going to try to narrow that all down a bit and see where it takes me. If I can squeeze another pound out of the deal by consistently hitting 90% then it’s worth it.

The Musical Fruit

Also, It’s worth noting here that I actually ran out of beans 2 weeks ago. This basically means that I’ve been eating strictly paleo for the last 2 weeks of data.

There was one exception though. On monday of this week, I stopped in and ate a cajun chicken bowl at Wahoo’s for lunch. I don’t eat rice, so that means just chicken and white beans. That day I lost 1.5 pounds and the following day I lost 1.5 pounds. I specifically chose white beans over black beans because I tend to favor black beans.

One of the figures that sticks out in my head is from very early on in February right when I began the 4 Hour Body. One of my best weight loss days contained 2 anomalies: 1 was bacon, and the other was organic white beans. The following 2 days, I also lost 1.5 pounds each day. I worked the bacon variable again a few times and if I eat 3 strips of bacon in the morning with my eggs it appears to have a positive effect. That first week of added protein, in fact, I was eating 4 strips of bacon every morning. By the second week, I had run out. So it seems, while I need to do more testing, bacon not only tastes good, but it’s good for weight loss. That being said, I still wouldn’t recommend a diet that uses bacon in excess, but I’ve got a good friend of mine helping me to test the bacon theory as well. He is a BIG man. I’ve known for a long time that he just doesn’t eat breakfast. So I’ve got him eating 3 strips of bacon and 5 eggs right when he wakes up. He’s also added 2 16 oz protein shakes per day to his diet. I don’t have all the results at this point, but the first 2 days he reported losing some circumference, so we’ll see how it goes.

Back to the beans. I have suspected for a little while now that white beans would fare better for me than black beans, but lately, every time I hit up the organic section in Albertsons, they’re out of white. They have pinto, kidney, black, garbanzo, red and every other damn bean variety that you can think of, but no white. Apparently someone else figured this out as well.

Time to figure out the vast WHITE BEAN conspiracy.

-G2

PS I wrote this post 2 weeks ago. On May 1^st, I weighed in at 232.8lbs. That’s a total of ~13 lbs. Lost in April just by regulating sleep and adding protein.

Life Tracking Part 1

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:00:40 -0700

My Friend ‘Doc’ Abe Felmley

As I’ve mentioned once before, my good friend Abe ‘the Doc’ Felmley once said to me:

“You know, commander, most people they do that whole ‘measure twice cut once’ thing. I, myself cut and then throw away the ruler … but YOU. You measure 50 times and then that cut you make is like the best cut anyone’s ever seen.”

At the time, the Doc and I were collaborating on a number of art and music projects. Some of them have seen the light of day others may some day live, and many are likely lost to the ages. He said this to me at a time when he was virtually mass producing artwork. Websites, mini-comics, songs – to this day I don’t think I’ve met anyone as prolific as the Doc. When I wasn’t around to draw some of the stories he was writing – he’d just do it himself and keep charging forward. It was a time of overwhelming inspiration. Mostly, I was just trying to keep up with the man.

Few people even to this day understand the relationship that Doc and I had. Doc’s mom thought I was a bad influence on him and my girlfriend at the time thought Doc was a bad influence on me. In him I saw a person who brought all of his ideas to life and in me he saw someone who could bring ideas to life in an amazing way.

When we got together, pure chaos always followed. There was a time when we dropped 5000 super balls down 3 stories in the center of a crowded upscale mall in Orange County, Ca. (A spectacle that I’ve heard has been repeated there several times since.) Every child that was within sight of the event was smiling for a good 20 minutes afterward as they tried to gather as many as possible. Some of the adults even managed to join in the fun. Security nearly caught us, but the chaos was far too much for them to keep their attention focussed in one spot. Many years later, someone told me that there’s a good chance that we inadvertently inspired this classic Sony ad:

There was another time where we trekked to Catalina Island and I ended up with cactus barbs in my tongue and completely dehydrated but high on energy drink from one of our sponsors at the time – Atomic X energy drink. There was that time that we walked from California to Oregon together. Doc chose to return home while Fran and I continued the walk in the direction of the east coast. Together we wrote comics, novels, picked up women, lived in an abandoned church and had countless other adventures. Eventually, our paths diverged and we ended up taking very separate routes through life. I’ve thought of starting the autobiography of my walk across the country with an entire section just describing the ‘Doc’ years.

When the Doc made his measurement observation I had just completed some website or drawing or something. The Doc and I definitely had a ‘competitive brother’ relationship. While we respected the work of one another, there was always the drive to make our next project completely outdo whatever madness the other person created. This time, The Doc was marveling over the amount of craftsmanship that I put into the work. (As a side note, one of his very next projects was an incredible website that I still have on file somewhere called “Dangerfizz.com” It was an incredible reverse engineered site that he self branded.)

This “Measure 50 times. Cut once.” sentiment has stayed with me over the years.

I’m naturally curious. If I become interested in a subject, I tend to find out everything that I can that’s related to it. For example: In 2005, I wanted to buy two new monitors. I knew that I wanted flat panel monitors (at this time, they had only been affordable for about six months.) So I began looking around. I’d stop in at various computer stores (most of which are now out of business) department stores and on the internet. After about 4 months of searching, I narrowed it down to 2 different models. The first was a pair of EXTREMELY high quality NECs. The only downside to these monitors was that they cost around $800 each. Ultimately I opted for a pair of ultra bright HP 2207s with the shiny clear coat finish and side USB ports. These were ~$600 each but I found them on sale for ~$350 each. This was about 6-7 months after I decided to buy new monitors. Measure 50 times, cut once. I still use those monitors to this day. Granted, I now have a larger third monitor that I use as my primary, but I’d be lost without the 2 HPs when I’m editing or drawing. Hell, they even look amazing when I’m playing Battlefield 3 in SLI Surround (that’s 3 monitor widescreen mode for those who don’t know.)

The moral of the story is: I’m thorough.

So when, in January I found myself weighing nearly 270lbs for the second time in my life, I decided to do something about it. That something began with tracking some variables. The first time I looked across at a scale and it stared back at me saying “270, fatass” I was working at Skytop, PA as a glorified janitor. That summer began an ascent to the most fit point I’ve ever been in my life. Before the year was over, I was free squating 400+ pounds for reps. I could easily run a mile – including 6 flights of stairs – without becoming winded. I remember the first time I forgot some gear back at my room. I had some time before my lifting partner Dave and I began, so I decided what the hell, I’ll RUN back to my room and get it. At this point, I was 20 and I hadn’t run since high school – 3 years prior. I remember laughing uncontrollably at the ease with which I climbed the stairs at full speed. It was amazing. Over the next 5 years I continued to become a machine. Sadly, only a few photos remain from that era.

So there I was, almost a decade since my walk across the country with The Doc and Franbo and again, I found myself across from the scale as it mockingly said “270, fatass.”

That’s when I decided to begin tracking EVERYTHING. Today, 2 weeks in to April, I weighted in at 237. So far, the only things that I’ve implemented are INSANELY detailed self tracking and a slow-carb/paleo diet 6 days a week. In the next 2 weeks, I’ll add a zero cardio workout. About 2 months from now, I’ll start running again.

More to come,

-G2

Pre-ordering Bioshock with Nicolas Cage.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:01:03 -0700

So I played through Bioshock Infinite. Before I go anywhere else, I’ll say that it certainly WAS a great game, and one that I really wish that I had the time to play again.

For many years now, I’ve read the IGN review of a game or occasionally watched the video review which is typically just a guy reading the written review over some video before I play the game. There were 2 main points that I took away from the interview: 1. Bioshock has a crazy twist ending, as most of us suspected but we wouldn’t see it coming. 2. The PC version is far and away the best looking version of the game.

Ok cool. Now I’m even more excited about Infinite. At this point I’ve already seen it played at work, though I tried to keep my eyes away from the screen just so I wouldn’t spoil it for myself. It certainly DID look good on the PC but my copy was reserved on 360. Normally this would be no big deal, but I preordered the special edition (I have both Bioshock 1 and 2 special editions, so I wanted to match my collection.)

GameStop: a big bag of dicks.

At this point I think it’s necessary for me to back up the train a bit here and discuss my relationship with GameStop. I’m an OLD school gamer. I remember going to ‘EB Games’ and buying games for my Commodore Amiga 2000. Back then it was called ‘Electronics Boutique’ and it was a store that was only recently multi-state. I had never seen one outside of NY or PA. Fast forward almost 10 years to 2000. Electronics Boutique, with their goofy ass purple lettering were becoming ‘EB Games’ just as GameStops were popping up everywhere. I remember having a conversation with my buddy Jay about how we just simply preferred EB. The staff were nicer and they had a better selection of PC games and items. It seemed, at the time, like GameStop was trying to cater to the consoles more than anything. GameStop then bought EB Games.

So I started buying my games from them.

GameStop Pre-order. I’m not going to get into the semi-shady used game business that GameStop has built, as that’s been covered many times over the past few years. We’ve seen several large game companies fall (most recently THQ) despite GameStop recording record profits during several of those years. I’m the type of person who pre-orders my games by looking at the list of upcoming titles and saying “Ok, I want those 4” and then paying for all of them in full. When the day of release comes, I walk in, show them my receipt, take my games and walk out. This worked real well for a time. Then they started offering bonus pre-order items. Cool. Only they never seemed to have one left for me. Not that I’m keeping score, but here are some items that they stiffed me: an Alex Mercer statue from Prototype, mini-bike and UFO vehicles for Saints Row 2, a GameStop exclusive map pack for Far Cry 2, and a few others all fell into the ‘Sorry man we’re all out” despite the fact that I typically pick up my games at midnight releases or within 2 hours of the store opening. I suspect that some friends of GameStop employees who rented or borrowed those games from Blockbuster or GameFly ended up with my pre-order bonuses since, at the time, the pre-order bonuses were packaged seperately. GameStop also handed me a 360 copy of Fallout 3, despite the fact that I reserved a PC copy. Again, this was the special edition version so I couldn’t simply exchange it. Pre-ordering has never worked well for me at GameStop. Other companies such as BestBuy or Amazon have worked just fine. In fact, when Metal Gear 4 came out, BestBuy was the only store in the area that had surplus of the MGS4 branded 80GB PS3, so I picked one up along with my special edition pre-order. (Yeah, I pre-ordered MGS4 before I owned a PS3)

When you move into the realm of ‘Special Edition’ versions of games, GameStop gives you usually no more than a 10 day window in which you can pre-order them. If you don’t follow games, you’re pretty much out of luck. Also, once you have these pre-ordered you can’t change your system, say when a review comes out telling you that your version is buggy or not as good as a different SKU. This is what I faced with my copy of Bioshock Infinite: Songbird Edition. I just read the review from IGN telling me that PC was better, but now, I’m locked in to 360. GameStop FINALLY got the pre-order bonuses right by taking them OUT of their employees hands and instead packaging the pre-order bonus directly in the game box, but they didn’t manage to get rid of all of the downside of pre-ordering.

I spent about 5 days of debating various semi-shady methods of obtaining the PC version; “Hi, random Wal-Mart employee whose IQ is likely double digit. I would like to exchange this 360 copy of Bioshock Infinite (that I didn’t purchase at your store, but luckily for me, the 360 game inside the special edition box is actually a retail version, it doesn’t say anything on it like ‘not for retail sale’) for the SAME game, but the PC version rather than the 360 version, AND I’d like you to give me ten bucks since the PC version is actually cheaper.” At any normal store, this type of douchebaggery wouldn’t sit well with me, but FUCK WAL-MART. Ultimately, I looked at all the special edition bonus items and the pre-order items, realized that they were all 360 items, and decided to just bite the bullet and play on 360.

IT WAS AWESOME.

I’m sure that there were some bells and whistles that were missing from the PC version but lemme tell you – Bioshock Infinite is one DAMNED FINE LOOKING GAME – even on Xbox 360.

At this point in gaming history, we have reached an era where it’s more noteworthy to say that a game DOESN’T look good than to say that it does. Graphics today are of such high quality that almost any release on any device will look really really good. I’m a game snob. There are many older games that I LOVE but I simply won’t be able to play them again because they are hideous. Blocky models, ultra low res textures, no shadows – it’s just a nightmare. Most games made since 2007ish don’t suffer from those issues, and certainly the games that are arriving in 2013 look really good.

This is a fantastic time to be a game enthusiast. We are finally in an era where FUN and STORY and CHARACTERS not only MATTER more than graphics, but finally, they are what most companies are forced to focus on because every game looks good. Story, fun and characters are now the only things that can set your game apart. You won’t see many games sold due to ‘amazing graphics.’ Or as I like to call them: ‘shiny piles of poo.’

So back to Infinite, IGN review and how Nicolas Cage fits in.

I’m going to be talking in as nonspecific terms as I can at this point, but you’ll likely be able to put things together so if you haven’t finished Infinite yet, tread lightly in these next few paragraphs. I’ll tell you when the spoiler has ended so you can keep reading if you like.

Here’s the second part of the IGN review that paid particular attention to:

After the original’s mind-blowing “Would you kindly?” twist, you’re probably expecting a similar “Gotcha!” this time. Will I spoil it? Of course not. But will it come? Yes. Will it catch you off-guard? It got me, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t wow most people. The moment it happened was, for me, every bit as stunning as Andrew Ryan’s reveal in the first BioShock.

Sweet, there’s a cool twist and I won’t see it coming. Fast forward to 2 hours in to the game. I’m on my PC in my clan’s Ventrilo server talking to [1MI]Zain.

- SPOILER ALERT –

Zain: “Did you play Bioshock yet?” (He had finished the game by this point)
Me: “Actually, I finally decided to start it last night. Played for about 2 hours before I went to sleep.”
Zain: “Hurry up and finish I want to talk to you about the end.”
Me: “Yeah, I’m working on it. I suspect, though, that they’re going to go all ‘Wicker Man’ on me.” (the 2006 remake, not the original Christopher Lee version)
Zain: “I’m not saying anything at all.”

Fast forward a week when I’m sitting on the couch sick from one of those pesky common colds. You know, the type where you’re too tired to be able to concentrate on anything to be productive, but you’re too alert and shitty feeling to be able to sleep. Yep. I was right. Straight out of Wicker Man. Sadly, 2 hours in, I knew the basic plot. Wicker Man + Bioshock + Derigibles = Infinite. Thankfully, Bioshock Infinite is still amazing, and as soon as I have some extra time on my hands, I’m going to be playing it in ‘1999 mode’ because I’m a hardcore gamer.

So here’s the basic comparison:

WM: Edward Malus (a police detective played by Nick Cage) is led to a strange island.

BI: Booker DeWitt (a private detective) is led to a strange island in the sky.

WM: The inhabitants of the island are crazy pagans.

BI: The inhabitants of the island are crazy pagans. (Before you can enter ‘Columbia’ you have to be baptized into their crazy America worshipping religion.)

WM: Edward spends the whole movie trying to find and save a little girl from the islands inhabitants.

BI: Booker spends the whole game trying to save a little girl from the islands inhabitants.

WM: The little girl (Rowan) turns out to be his daughter.

BI: The little girl (Elizabeth) turns out to be his daughter.

WM: At the end of the movie, Edward is trapped inside a giant wicker man. Rowan (his daughter) sets it afire and burns him alive.

BI: At the end of the game, Booker is held down in a river by his daughter (Elizabeth/Anna) and he is drowned.

SO there it is. Bioshock Infinite is basically the Wicker Man.

——-END SPOILERS———

The bottom line though, is that Bioshock Infinite is great. The graphics DEFINITELY hold up on the console version. Also, the songbird statue is pretty bad ass, and the various extras included in the special edition are also pretty cool. Songbird looks quite natural standing next to my Big Daddy.

What the heck am I eating anyway?

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:00:44 -0700

So there are several things at this point which should be obvious to anyone with even a single functioning eye: Not all foods are made alike.

I say this not to point out that there are differences between Roast beef and an orange, but rather that there are differences between an orange and an orange. Even two oranges of identical species are different. The same can be said for most things that we decide to put inside ourselves.

Wholey $#!+ Foods

A few weeks ago, I needed some things that could only be found at Whole Foods. Some fresh crushed almond butter and their amazing 365 brand aged balsamic vinegar. If I could, I’d drink the balsamic vinegar by the glass, it’s so good. Sadly, it’s also a vinegar so it’s harsh as hell, but makes for a tasty dressing on my salads.

While squeezing my giant 6’5”, 240lb. frame through the tragically narrow aisles I noticed something; there are no unhealthy people walking around. Every single person in the entire store (with the sole exception of a single fat guy I saw at the check out counter) was lean and fit looking. What’s more, even the older people looked younger. You know the type, worn ball cap over a neatly trimmed but balding head wearing a light sweatshirt despite the 75 degree weather and sandals. Or the woman wearing a nice scarf and loose fitting summer pants with a floral pattern. They’re probably doctors or somehow connected to the medical profession.

Anyway, the reasons that this strikes me as odd start with the fact that I’m in southern California. When I lived in Huntington Beach EVERYONE looked like this. I lived right on the beach FFS. Out of shape people just don’t live in the western part of Orange County. You spend too much time outside at the shore. Fat is embarrassing and even if you are fat, 6 months of playing beach volleyball, ultimate frisbee and surfing work wonders to get rid of it. When I think of ‘Californians’ these are the people that I see in my mind. Superhumanly fit and attractive people.

The second reason is that I currently live in Los Angeles. I’m still pretty close to the beach, but I live about 4 miles inland. The rent is cheaper here than in the OC, and there are working people here who don’t have time to go to the gym and play beach volleyball all day - which is always the excuse for being out of shape - ‘Oh I just don’t have time!!!’ As such, when I go to Vons or Albertsons to buy groceries, I see ‘normal’ looking Americans. Heavy, thin, tall, short - anything goes.

So I start to wonder: What’s different between Vons or Albertsons or Ralphs and Whole Foods? Aside from the roughly 10-20% price increase - virtually EVERYTHING at Whole Foods is natural and/or organic. That’s it! Now I’m sure that we’ve got another chicken and egg thing going here, but at the same time, are you willing to risk that the place where you buy FOOD for your family is unhealthy?

I’m sure that not everyone who shops at Whole Foods also works out. I’m also sure that not everyone at Whole Foods counts calories or carbs or fat or sugar or protein or whatever. So can the secret of looking young and being healthy be far simpler than all the talk shows and infomercials and magazines make it? Can it be as simple as ‘Just buy all of your food at Whole Foods?’

I don’t know.

The Tuna Example

So I made some tuna salad today that I could use for the week. I’ll usually make 4-5 cans at a time and spoon it out as I need protein for my spinach and kale salads. I’ll usually add some black or pinto beans to this salad, often right from the can if I don’t have any freshly made. I’ll make sure that there’s a good source of fat in there, either whole olives, 1/2 an avocado or some extra virgin olive oil if I’m out of the other two. Then I’ll finish it off with some aged balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

When I buy Tuna, I usually buy whichever brand is on sale. When I put them in my cupboard, I’ll just add the new ones to the stack. As a result, this particular day, I had 4 different brands. 1 Bumblebee chunk light, 1 Starkist chunk light, 1 Chicken of the Sea Solid White, and 1 Whole Foods brand that doesn’t have ‘chunk light’ or ‘solid white’ or anything else descriptive on the front of the label. It just says “Albacore in water.” On closer inspection, it does in fact say ‘solid white albacore tuna’ in the ingredients. Also of note, this tuna has the fewest ingredients. Water is the only other ingredient on the label. The other three brands all contain vegetable and/or soy broth and salt.

For years, I’ve made tuna with a 2 to 1 ration of chunk light to solid white. The solid white tastes better, but it’s dry as hell. The chunk light is more fishy, but it’s nice and wet and doesn’t get stuck to anything as you consume it. I also add some onion powder and when I have them, chopped Claussen pickles to my tuna.

Just for fun I opened one of each and looked at them side by side. I’ve included this photo for comparison as you read.

The first shot in this image is all four cans freshly opened. As you can see even in this poorly lit iPhone image, there are distinct differences. The Bumblebee can on the left contains very tiny tiny particles of fish floating murkily in water.

The Starkist is more of the same, but with larger chunks that are clearly visible.

Chicken of the sea has an unfair advantage here, as it’s solid white tuna, not chunk light. Solid white is typically larger chunks of fish and less water than the chunk light. Of the four, it is clearly the most white of the bunch. It contains some large chunks of fish surrounded by smaller pieces similar to the previous two.

The stand out here is the Whole Foods brand. There are virtually no small pieces of fish. It looks like a freshly cooked fish that’s been stuck in a can. Even the water surrounding the fish doesn’t obscure the bottom of the can.

Once I’ve drained the water from the cans, the differences remain. I have a specific device that has been designed to strain cans of tuna fish. It’s a small disc with holes in it that fits inside the can once opened. Before this device entered my life, I spent years of can lids bending in half as I used them to strain out excess water or worse yet - tuna firing out the top of the can on to my shirt as the lid folded beneath the weight of my forceful strain.

So after straining the water out, the Bumblebee is a mush of watery fish. Even with the tuna strainer, I’m not able to separate all of the water out of the can. The Starkist isn’t bad, its like hundreds of little fish flakes in a wet pile. Then we get to the solid white tunas where the Chicken of the Sea can is almost entirely strained. At this point, you can clearly see the actual chunks of tuna muscle. They are, however, still covered in smaller flakes.

This is again where the Whole Foods brand sticks out from the competition. First off, it’s not a traditional tuna can. This one has a pull top lid that comes right off. You don’t need to use a can opener. There is a lip around the top of the can that prevents the strainer from actually fitting inside the can. I can’t push down into the tuna to squish the water out. Instead, I hold the strainer on the lip of the can and simply turn the can over in the sink. Surprisingly, all of the water just pours right out. I don’t have to squash down the tuna to remove any excess.

Finally, I dump all of the cans into my mixing bowl. Normally, I’d grab a fork and pull all of the tuna out of the can. For the sake of this test I decide instead to shake each can vigorously over the bowl.

The results can be seen in the above photo. As you can see, I won’t be eating any Bumblebee tuna unless I force it out of the can with my fork. The Starkist is slightly more accommodating. As expected, the Solid White performed quite differently, but still yielded a varied result. After a shake or two from the Chicken of the Sea can, the bigger chunk of tuna fell out. Some of the smaller pieces of tuna remained in the can.

The clear winner in this category should be no surprise by now. With the Whole Foods can, I simply flipped the can over without shaking it and all of the tuna fell into my mixing bowl.

Conclusions

If these results hold for even 50% of the foods that you would buy at whole foods, then it’s not terribly difficult to see why the people who shop there are in far better shape than the people who do their shopping just a few miles down the road at Vons, Ralphs or Albertsons.

At this point I wonder why anyone would shop anywhere else. Even if it was a question of MONEY that seems absurd to me. How much money are you willing to spend for a few more years of a healthy, high quality lifestyle? Furthermore, let’s REALLY talk money. If you shop at whole foods, odds are that the average person there has more money to spend for food than their Vons counterpart. That being said, the people that you meet there are more likely to be either A. more serious about their own health and/or B. more likely to be in a position to help YOU with the same. If the adage ”it’s all about who you know” holds ANY water, wouldn’t you like to accidentally strike up a conversation with someone at Whole Foods than Vons? The odds of the person who spends more money on food knowing more people of means than someone who doesn’t are pretty good so you’re probably better off financially spending more money at whole foods while you get to know some of the people who shop there.

-G

How I made MORE actually become LESS

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 09:19:00 -0700

A quick update on my latest scientific experiment: Me.

On Friday, February 1st, I weighed in at 256.5 lbs. Then I changed my eating habits (see my previous blog post) and began tracking them over the course of the next 4 weeks.

On Friday, March 1st, I weighed in at 250.5 lbs, a loss of 6 pounds in one month averaging 1.5 pounds per week. Not too shabby, but nothing earth shattering. At 250 pounds, that’s less than 1% per week.

After talking to a few people some on Reddit and some I know in person, I changed 2 major things:

1. I started eating one Tsp. of Almond Butter (fresh ground at Whole Foods, so ZERO sugar) every night before bed

and 2. I used Saturday as a completely over the top, eat ‘til I’m sick binge day.

Saturday, which I had previously referred to as my ‘off day’ or ‘cheat day’ now became my ‘binge day.’ It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. All Saturdays prior, I ate like a normal American. I’d have fast food, pizza, soda, pasta or whatever else came to mind but never really gorging myself. Looking at my list, I’d estimate that I never went over 2800 calories in a day. That may sound like a lot, but my BMI at 250lbs calls for around that amount just to maintain my current weight.

On the 2nd of March, however, I force fed myself a STAGGERING 5200 calories.

Here’s what I ate:

Breakfast

1 raw lemon 17 5 half walnuts 69 1 tsp almond butter 50

4 servings egg beaters (about 4 eggs): 100 calories 1/2 cup spinach: 30 cal 2tbsp Black Bean Salsa: 60 cal

Second Breakfast

In N Out 4x4 with no sauce: 1040 Ham and Cheese Sandwich Ham 4oz: 240 cal 2 slices cheese: 120 cal mayo: 60 cal Deli roll: 170 calories

Lunch

Spaghetti: 1/4 box - 400 cal Lawrys Spaghetti sauce: 50 cal butter: 1 tbsp 100 calories

Dinner:

2 Ham sandwiches Ham 4oz: 240 cal 1 slices cheese: 60 cal mayo: 60 cal Deli roll: 170 calories

Ham 4oz: 240 cal 1 slices cheese: 60 cal mayo: 60 cal Deli roll: 170 calories

1 pint Ben n Jerrys Late Night Snack: 1080 cal

Drinks: 1` bottle Dr Pepper 250 3 cans Yerba Mate Iced Tea 156 1 bottle Yerba Mate Iced Tea 110

Total Caloric Intake: 5162 calories

Here’s where it gets interesting.

When you meticulously track your body composition (weight, body fat, measurements) and the foods that you eat, you build up a good amount of data that can quickly be referenced to give you a rough idea of your progress.

During the month of February, my average pattern of weight would be as follows:

Friday Morning: X

Saturday (cheat day): X-1

Sunday: X+2
Monday: X+2

Tuesday: X
Wednesday: X-1
Thursday: X-1

Friday: X-2

The bottom line is this: for 2 days after my ‘cheat day’ I’d gain as much as 3 pounds. Only 3 days after the ‘cheat day’ would I level off again to my pre-cheat day weight.

Let’s compare these results to last weeks results - the first week that ‘cheat day’ became ‘binge day.’

Friday Morning: X

Saturday (cheat day): X-2

Sunday: X
Monday: X-1

Tuesday: X-2
Wednesday: X-3.5
Thursday: X-3

Friday: X-4

More becomes less

For the non-analytically inclined folks out there, what this basically shows is that on the week that I chose to binge, I actually lost TWICE as much as the 5 previous weeks. Also, My body recovered FASTER than when I just ate normal portions, and I was able to lose an extra 2 pounds over my 5 week average.

With that in mind, here’s what my binge day looked like this week:

Wake Up -

1tsp Almond Butter: 50

3 Walnuts: 78

Breakfast -

4 whole eggs: 280 Cal

5oz Ham: 250

1 small broccoli crown: 40

3Tbsp Lentil/Spinach mix: 150

2nd Breakfast -

1 DiGiorno Pepperoni Pizza: 1860 cal

5 Strips Bacon: 175

.75 liter Mt Dew: 340

1 Qt Grapefruit Juice: 350

Lunch -

1 DiGiorno 4 Cheese Pizza: 1860 Cal

5 Strips Bacon: 175 Cal

.75 liter Mt Dew: 340

1 QT Grapefruit Juice: 350

Dinner -

1 pint Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream: 1120 Cal

Before Bed -

1tsp Almond Butter: 50

Total: 7470 Calories

Let’s see just how much less I can get out of more this week.

-G

PS. Yes. On these days, I feel like I’m going to explode.

My Latest Sculpture

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:27:00 -0800

On the recommendation of one Matt Obringer, one month ago I began the “Slow Carb” diet made famous by Tim Ferriss in his book the 4 Hour Body.

The gist of it is this:

Each meal choose one item in each of 3 categories:

1. Meats (Chicken, Beef, Fish, Lean Pork)

2. Beans/Lentils

3. Rough Green Veggies (Spinach, Broccoli, Kale, Brussels Sprouts, etc.

Nothing else. Particularly no foods that can be white such as potatoes, pasta, breads, etc. - if there’s a WHITE version of it, you can’t eat it. So no Whole Wheat bread, cause there is a white version of bread.

During this time, I’ve tracked every item that I’ve eaten and my body measurements/weight/body fat so that I could play with the data. I also decided that I would be ELIMINATING exercise during this time because I wanted to be able to review the data without the added variables that working out would bring to the results.

Here are my findings as posted on Reddit (http://bit.ly/13uuiyc) in the 4HourBody subreddit:

To start out:

When I began this diet, I decided to do it completely without any exercise so that I could eliminate a variable when testing and analyzing my results. For these first 30 days, the most exercise I’ve done is a mild hike once a week, or the recommended binge day exercises.

Day 1 (Jan 29)

Weight: 257
Navel: 120 cm
Hips: 106.5 cm
Chest: 124 cm
Arms: 36 cm
Thighs: 61cm
Body Fat: 32.2%

Day 30 (Feb 28)

Weight: 248.5 (-8.5)
Navel: 115 cm (-5)
Hips: 102 cm (-4.5)
Chest: 122 cm (-2)
Arms: 36 cm (=)
Thighs: 58 cm (-2)
Body Fat: 26.4%

note: I’ve been measuring body fat with digital calipers using 3pt method, so this measurement I use for difference over time rather than true accuracy

On Daily Tracking: For the last 30 days, I’ve kept a daily journal of my meals and measurements. I used the iPhone app Lift at first for several daily reminders until the habits developed and I don’t need the reminders any longer. Google Drive is the home of all of my stats - simply because I can use it anywhere.

Pros:

extremely quick. Tracking eats MAYBE 15 minutes of my day in total. I track my measurements immediately after brushing my teeth in the morning. I have my cell phone handy and record them as I measure them.
Insanely useful information. After a month of recording this information, I’m now able to look back on days that deviate one way or the other from the norm, and start to fiddle with the formula.

Cons:

Seeing your measurements fluctuate up AND down on a daily basis can be really frustrating if you let it. On my spreadsheet, I only have one color highlight and it’s on Saturday. I do this for 2 reasons - 1. Sat is my cheat day. I’ve got all of the Saturday notes built into my sheet so that I remember the binging rules. 2. When I glance at my journal, my eyes naturally compare all the green lines and gloss over the white ones. Also - with the Saturday measurements highlighted, I don’t see the aftermath of cheat day until I actively look for it. I focus on my progress BEFORE the cheat day.

Here are some interesting anomalies that I’ve found:

The foods that I eat appear to have a 2 day lag time before I see a peak result.
eg. On SUNDAYS (Cheat day +1) I usually only move the scale 1-1.5lbs up. MONDAYS (Cheat day+2) otoh the scale averages 2-3lbs more.*
My highest weight loss day was 3lbs on 2/1-2/2, just a few days in. I’ve not been able to match that weight loss in the subsequent weeks.
Despite that initial drop, the following week, I plateaued. I was within 1lb. of 255 for 10 days straight. A quick look at my food calendar immediately pointed out the problem here: I had almost completely eliminated beans/lentils during these days. As soon as I course corrected, I immediately lost 2lbs. (And by ‘immediately’ I mean the results occurred 2 days later)
Weight loss Slowed down on the week off of AGGa (I haven’t been able to find the ‘P’ localy, and my chart too easily confused G(reen Tea) with G(arlic) so the G from Garlic became Ga)
The most that I’ve gained from a binge day is 2lbs. I’ve gained this amount also on non-binge days (today for example, I’m 2lbs heavier than yesterday).

Meals

Here is what my basic day looks like:

Wake Up: Measurements, 5 Walnuts, Tsp. Almond Butter
Breakfast (within 30 mins of waking - around 9am): 3 Whole eggs OR equivalent size Egg Whites/Egg Beaters style goop, 1-2 cups Spinach, 1 cup Beans or lentils from previous night dinner or 1/2 cup black bean salsa
Second Breakfast (about 3-4 hours later - around 1pm): Salad with 2 cans Tuna or 1/2 Large Chicken Breast. Spinach, Kale, 1 cup Beans or Lentils, Aged Balsamic Vinegar (Whole Foods Brand - I’d drink this by the gallon if it weren’t so harsh. The flavor is AMAZING.) 1 TBSP. Olive oil OR 5-7 Spanish Olives.
Lunch (4 hours later - around 5pm): 1/2 Large Chicken Breast, 1 cup Beans or Lentils (usually in the form of some Spinach Dal or a tomato based spicy lentil mix), 1-2 cups Broccoli (about half a crown from the farmers market or Sprouts Market).
Dinner (4 hours later - around 9pm): 1 large Chicken Breast or 1lb. Turkey Sausage (pre cooked weight) or 2 Beef or Turkey Burgers, 2 cups Broccoli or Brussels Sprouts, 1 cup of Beans or Lentils (Again with the Dal or Spicy tomato sauce)

Preliminary conclusions: This diet works. I’ve seen actual results in 30 days with ZERO exercise.

Now that I have some data to work with, I believe that my next 30 days should see better results. My goal is to lose 12 lbs in the next 30 days since (according to the data) I shouldn’t see a 10 day plateau.

My next move is to change Binge Day to Binge Meal, and then to 1 Binge day every 2 weeks. Following that, in about 30 days, I’ll be adding exercise back in to my day.

There are 2 things that I’d like to note here:

I have yet to see any evidence of extreme end weight loss (5+lbs/week qualifies as extreme to me.) I’m averaging 2lbs/week. 2 lbs a week is what I generally lose on any kind of diet - it’s nothing revolutionary. I admit, I may be doing something wrong, though I’m not aware of what it could be at this point save the zero exercise thing. I have read of others losing massive amounts of weight but at this point, I’ve not been able to match their results.
I didn’t eat ‘poorly’ before starting this diet. I don’t like sweets aside from some honey in my Chai Tea (though I’ve since replaced that with Saigon Cinnamon and switched to Yerba Mate Chai (the bags or loose leaf, not the bottled kind with the added sugar)) and the rare bag of Unreal Peanut M&Ms. Prior to this I have lived mostly paleo for several years, though, since I’ve been married, about twice a week I’d have some form of floury thing, be it bread on a sandwich or some rice/pasta/potato thing. Girls prefer floury things in my experience :P

I hope that any of this helps you guys on your journey. Also, I welcome any and all hints and tips.

I’d like to be able to get my weight down to about 195 ASAP and then begin bulking back up to around 225. At my healthiest point (around 13 years ago) I was 195, Squatting 450, Bench 275, Curl 200, I could run 10 miles with a backpack on the Appalachian Trail (In NJ/PA for those of you familiar with that landscape. That ain’t no cushy TRACK I can tell you ;) ) etc. and I’d like to get CLOSE to that size again.

The Case Against Reality

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:46:00 -0800

History:

Let me start by stating, for the record, that I am not a Democrat. I am also not a Republican. I have never been a Democrat, though I was a Republican until I began thinking about politics on my own. What I am is Independent. That does not mean that I don’t know what I am, in fact if I were to describe my personal philosophy of life it would be one of independence. My golden rule is ‘one persons freedoms end where anothers begin.’

I would say that I first started following politics around September 12th, 2001. Prior to that I didn’t really care. Like most Americans, I sat glued to the television for several months that autumn. I sat in my neighbors house (for many years I have opted out of television, so I didn’t even have basic cable in 2001) and together we watched the world react to the horrific events of Sept 11th. We watched on Fox news.

Many things happened in that year for me. First, I stopped attending church in favor of Atheism. Second, I decided that I was not a Republican any longer. That was also the year I first found a test called the “political compass test.” (http://politicalcompass.org/) The theory behind the political compass is that there are more sides than just right and left. The idea being that right and left are economic viewpoints and up and down are social viewpoints. At the top of the scale you have authoritarianism, fascism and at the bottom you have libertarianism or anarchism (gentle reader, please do not confuse the word ‘anarchism’ with the word ‘chaos’ as in this particular sense - they are not synonyms.) From left to right, you have the liberals, socialists to the ‘conservatives’ (neo-liberals),

I tested first in that year and found that I am actually exactly dead center between left and right (x=0 for you mathematicians) and about 2/3 of the way down the scale toward anarchism/libertarianism. Since that time I’ve tested roughly 5 more times with almost exactly the same result each time.

2005

2007

2008

2012

In 2000, I voted for the Green party candidate, Ralph Nader. For this the liberals will tell me that I wasn’t voting for Nader, I was voting against Bush. To which my reply is, no, I voted for Ralph Nader, which by default is against Bush AND Gore. Nonetheless, I still receive some of the blame for the debacle that was the 2000 election where the United States had a President whom they did not elect. In 2004, I voted for Kerry mainly because I disagreed with the very essence of George W. Bush. At that time, I would have voted for virtually anyone just to get that man out of office.

By 2008, I had endured enough bullshit from the political world and the media that I had become pretty good at weeding out facts from spin and flat out lies. I remember in 2004, talking with my father (a party Republican, and a Vietnam veteran) about the Swiftboat Veterans for truth ad and how there was solid evidence that the entire thing was staged, but by that time, the damage had been done. Even if he didn’t believe the ad anymore, he couldn’t trust Kerry. I remember the entire ‘flip-flopper’ incident and a vast majority of people voting for Bush simply because they could see themselves having a beer with him at some fantasy barbecue. I remember a book titled ‘Perfectly Legal: The Secret Campaign to Rig Our Tax System for the Super Rich’ (NYT bestseller btw) and a visit from the local branch of Secret Service that my friend received just for reading and discussing it at work with some colleagues.

In 2008, I was ready for Barack Obama. I had done my research early on in the primaries so that I’d know what each candidate stood for and also where that was. I celebrated wildly the night he was elected as our President. I followed through the vital first 100 days and watched as he achieved more than most presidents by that time. Then something happened; I decided that everything was alright. For the first time in many years, I trusted our president, and I felt confident that I could get on with my life because Barack had this. Sure, I kept watch from a distance, but I had nothing to worry about because he had my back. I watched as he brought our troops home, as he got Bin Laden, as he passed Obamacare and also as he wracked up record debt.

When it came time to re-elect him, I didn’t see a good Republican challenger - Romney was too far left for most Republicans and the Mormon thing made them uncomfortable. Most Republicans think that Ron Paul is bat-shit crazy. Newt was too polarizing in the current environment, and Rick Santorum couldn’t compete with the nonsensical amount of money and planning that Romney had already put in to his bid for President.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought “Sweet, I’ve nothing to worry about, the voice of reason continues to prevail in the United States, Obama has this.” On October 3rd, several of my left leaning friends had decided not to watch the presidential debates. I sat down on my couch that night, certain that Obama would wipe the floor with Romney. But something terrible happened instead. Obama was clearly not prepared, and Romney cleanly destroyed him. The President never questioned anything that Romney said. He didn’t question the spin on facts, nor the ambiguity of Romneys proposed ‘policies.’ He just let his challenger have the stage and say anything he pleased right or wrong.

The Gargoyle Method

One of my favorite endorsements came from a person who frequently told me that he wanted to fight me and always followed it up with some horrific end that I’d meet in some specific hold or move that he would apply to me. In one of those self indulgent ”It’s time for me to leave the company” emails, he said ‘don’t debate Gene unless you really know what you’re talking about because even if he doesn’t, he’ll convince you that he does.’ During the time that we worked together he often liked to engage me in some political topic or another, but I was always more informed than he - even with the writings of the opposing viewpoint and he found it difficult to ever come out ahead while making his ill-researched points.

Another endorsement that has been applied to me: “Most people measure twice and cut once. I usually cut, and then throw the ruler away but you [Gene] measure 50 times and then when you cut its better than any cut that anyone’s ever seen.” I relate these to you so that you’ll understand fully the attention to detail, effort, and even joy that I infuse into acquiring knowledge about everything.

The Gargoyle Method of addressing a problem is one that has been honed over time by myself and my best friend, Glen Mayers (http://grimthinks.com/). It follows only one rule: what do the data say? In other words, we collect all of the data that we can find - be it right, left, true, false, sane, bat-shit crazy, accidental, intentional or fabricated. Once all of the data is on hand, we analyze it, try to find the inaccurate data which we then discard, and make our conclusions based on what is before us, not what someone tells us and not through the filter of any agenda.

Both of us have often been heard claiming that we’re never wrong. This is because our conclusions are based on the data in front of us. If you then show us new data, our old conclusion is not wrong, it continues to be correct given that specific data set, but we now make a new conclusion based on the inclusion of the new data. We vehemently avoid clinging to previous conclusions. I do not care to hang on to false beliefs for any reason.

Here’s a real world example: I reach in to my pocket and find my cellphone is missing. You tell me that you saw me leave it at a diner where we just ate lunch. The conclusion: Given the testimonial of a trusted friend, I assume that it’s at the diner, so we get in the car to see if it’s still there. As we get out of the car, my cell phone falls out of your pocket. With this new evidence, I’m not going to continue to insist that my phone is at the diner. The new conclusion is that you had my cell phone the entire time. Both conclusions were correct. (though admittedly, the one conclusion that is now in question is whether or not you are a trusted friend.)

This same principal can be applied to everything. If Jesus Christ were to appear on my couch this afternoon and have a conversation with me before vanishing, then I’d cease to be an atheist. Am I wrong to be an atheist in the meantime? No, because there is no evidence to support a superior being of any kind, so I don’t draw that conclusion. I look at the evidence (none) and conclude that there is no god.

Sanity

Now that you have some background as to how my mind works, let’s get down to the main point: reality. Over the course of the last ten years I’ve talked with a great many people. I’ve founded and led 2 separate forums dedicated solely to discussing politics and religion - the two things that most people refuse to discuss. People lose their minds on occasion when discussing these things, but on the whole I’ve tried to keep the discourse civil.

In any discussion between two parties, if one party refuses to compromise or in any way come together with the second party, and that second party is open to compromise, then the compromising party will always lose more than they win. The ‘uncompromisers’ will never agree to anything that doesn’t 100% agree with their principles. The compromisers, on the other hand, are willing to find common ground to move the conversation forward.

This is the main issue that I’ve witnessed between modern Republicans and Democrats. Before you get on your high horse and tell me “OMFG NOT ALL REPS/DEMS are this way!!!!1111” Yeah, I know. My father, for example is one of the more rational people I’ve ever met, and he’s a Republican. My friend Glen is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and he’s very definitely on the left. I’m talking here about the core of the parties. I’m addressing the majority of each.

If Obama says “I’m willing to talk to my enemies” the Republicans damn him for not standing up for Americans, they call him a socialist/Muslim/communist sympathizer and accuse him of apologizing to terrorists. If the Democrats try to pass legislation that doesn’t 100% agree with the Republicans, then they filibuster and accuse the Democrats of inaction and say ‘they can’t get anything done.’ Then a Republican takes office, the Democrats are willing to find common ground - so they do - and the Republicans take credit for being visionary and being able to ‘reach across the aisle.’

This also translates over to many of the people who support candidates. In the last month, I’ve been accused of being an ‘Obama Cheerleader,’ of having ‘drunk the Kool-Aid,’ of ‘believing partisan rhetoric,’ etc. simply because I have analyzed data and found it lacking in sufficient facts to back up statements like ‘Obama Lied’, ‘Obama is a communist’, ‘Obama is Kenyan,’ etc. When their evidence is discredited, people turn to ad hominem attacks, they dodge the question and present more questions, or they simply stop talking.

When I’m presented with a ‘debate fact check’ from Breitbart.com, and I then present 3 more fact check sites, including factcheck.org, rather than address any of the new evidence, I’m met with “is that the same Annenberg (referring to the Annenberg school at the University of PA, where FactCheck is based) that Obama and terrorist Bill Ayers worked together?” This, of course, is a loaded question, meant to immediately discredit FactCheck.org as being in league with terrorists. 2 things here: 1. Even if they WERE terrorists, that doesn’t mean that their fact checking is wrong. It has absolutely zero to do with their fact checking. You might be able to assume that they’d have a certain point of view, but that’s it. 2. This use of obvious misleading logical fallacy points right at the heart of the problem - these Republicans don’t give fuck all about reality. They only care about flying their flag from the white house.

If tomorrow, you were to take the entire Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and swap the people out with the New York Yankees baseball team, most fans of the Lakers, and fans of the Yankees would still be fans of those two teams. Laker fans would not swap out their Laker Jerseys for the blue and white, nor would Yankee fans suddenly find some purple and gold. They’d still say “Oh I’m a Yankee fan.” The most that 90% of them would do is acknowledge that their team is unlikely to do well this year.

And so it is with political parties. It’s so desperately important that each party have ‘their team’ in office that some of them don’t care how they get in, or what they have to say. Reality no longer matters. When I post these videos: http://bit.ly/SC7KDa

rather than anyone offer a rational response, they are ignored. When I’m told “Obama said 6 times during his UN speech that the YouTube video was responsible for the attack in Benghazi” and I go back and REWATCH the UN speech in its entirety, instead of acknowledging that Obama doesn’t say that EVEN ONCE (the closest he gets is when he is talking about freedom of speech and he says “There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon or destroy a school in Tunis.”) I’m instead shown videos of how the ‘liberal media’ lies to us with their agenda.

That brings me to another point: if, on the x axis in the political compass test, you fall halfway to the right of the centerline, then 3/4 of all the other points of view falls to the LEFT of you. It doesn’t mean that there’s some conspiracy out there to get you, it means that YOU hold a position further RIGHT than most of society! When you consume information - 75% of it will be LEFT of your point of view. The SAME thing goes for those on the left!

There was actually a study done that addressed the political bias of the big 3 news networks: http://bit.ly/SBXEkS It found MSNBC to lean to the left, Fox leans to the right, and CNN fits squarely in the center of those two.

It’s this fucking manipulation of words that bothers me. Instead of addressing facts, and information that I present, my own words, or those of someone else are twisted to mean something that they are not saying. It’s fucking straight up dishonest. It disgusts me. If your argument is so tenuous that all I have to do is watch the source of whatever you’re claiming to prove you wrong, then either you are extremely gullible for believing what you are obviously repeating to me, or you are intentionally trying to misrepresent the truth so that you can change the minds of all the people who will not do any research on their own. The is also straight up fucking dishonest.

What it is NOT is a debate. It’s not even a conversation. Instead it’s me talking and presenting evidence and someone else not paying any attention whatsoever because they’re too busy distorting, fabricating and flat out lying about reality so that they can forward their crazy agenda and get their candidate in office.

Turning Point

This carefully crafted deception is why the first debate could have possibly delivered the presidency to Mitt Romney. Because prior to the debates, Democrats and other Obama supporters faced this mountain of bullshit and fought day after day on the side of reason, logic and truth only to see the very person that we had been defending just sit there and let the bullshit happen unchecked. Instead of having our backs, he fueled the fires of the ‘birthers’, the tea party, and the bat-shit crazy Glenn Becks of the world. Now, not only do we have to fight the constant stream of garbage that they spew, but he actually stood there silent and validated their arguments by not questioning their credibility when handed the opportunity on national television.

The victory that should have easily been his was instead handed to a man who has held virtually every point of view in his active 6 year quest for the presidency. Mitt Romney doesn’t care about doing the job of the President of the United States, he just wants people to call him “Mr. President.” If he actually DID care about the job, he wouldn’t have listened to every single person in the Republican party that told him “Oh if you say X and Y it will win you the support of Z demographic.” If he had actually held a point of view and expressed it with some conviction, then that horrific first debate may have actually won him the presidency. Instead, he followed it by placing ads in Ohio telling Jeep employees that their jobs were going to be shipped over to China. Chrysler VP Gualberto Ranieri actually had to step in and set the record straight.

Toward the end of the campaign, (and even now actually) I couldn’t even talk to Romney supporters because they completely deny reality and their only argument is “you’re a sucker who got duped by the liberal media.”

Republicans: Seriously, please, enough with the nonsense. It’s time to let the tea party and Fox News wither on the vine. I get that you all still think that there’s a liberal media out there (and there is) but it isn’t ALL media. It’s only a few people.

Rachel Maddow put it best:

“Ohio really did go for President Obama last night, and he really did win. And he really was born in Hawaii. And he really is, legitimately, President of the United State - again.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Center really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.

And the polls were not skewed to oversample democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake poll numbers about the election to try to make conservatives feel bad; Nate Silver was doing MATH.

And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy, sometimes. And evolution is a thing. And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal BY us.

And nobody’s taking away anyone’s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.

And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And UN election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms on the regulations on the financial industries and the insurance industries in this country are not the same thing as communism.

Listen. Last night was a good night for liberals and for democrats, for very obvious reasons. But it was also possibly a good night for this country as a whole.

…But if the conservative movement and the conservative media and the republican party is stuck in a vacuum-sealed, door-locked, spin cycle of telling what makes them feel good, and denying the actual lived truth of the world, we are all deprived, as a nation, of the very debate between competing, feasible ideas about real problems.

Last night the republicans got shellacked, and they had NO idea it was coming. And we saw them in real time - in real, humiliating time - not believe it even as it was happening to them. And unless they want to secede, they will need to pop the fictional bubble they have been so happily living inside, if they do not want to get shellacked again.”

And as for those who will only use deceit, fabrication, and ad hominem attacks I say:

Fuck that shit.

-G2

"Of course, it's Bush's fault and we're all racists"

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:11:00 -0800

One of the biggest comments I hear from Republicans whenever I tell them that much of the deficit that we face and many of the problems that Obama faced coming into his Presidency were things that Bush actually did. They try to tell me that it’s irrelevant, but I disagree.

For example: Bush took a $314B Surplus, and turned it into a $500B Deficit. (which is actually more when you take into account that the bank bailout was voted in before Obama arrived, yet the effects are attributed to him because he was in office when it was completed.) Obama began office with a $1500B deficit and in 2013, it is projected to be an $800B deficit.

History of Deficits and Surpluses: http://bit.ly/RO41Ts

So when Republicans say OMFG OBAMA CREATED 13 TRILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT! If you look at the actual record, this is not true.

WSJ Article on Market Watch: http://bit.ly/VPeqTi

Clinton’s final budget went into effect in 2001. He left office with a ~ $160B surplus (down from ~$310B the previous year,) and a public debt of ~$6T.

Bush’s final budget went into effect in 2009. He left office with a ~$1500B deficit (up from ~$500B the previous year), and a public debt of ~$12T

Obama’s final ‘budget’ (here to mean spending for the year as congress has not passed an official budget) of his first term goes into effect this next year, and while there certainly are some things that can change, 2013 will have a ~$900B deficit (down from ~$1100 the previous year), and a public debt of ~$16T.

So blaming Obama for $16T creating worth of debt is completely misleading. By misleading, of course, I mean total fabrication. Not true. False. Trixy little hobbitses.

The REALITY is that under Obama, ~$4T was created, not $16T.

Once I get this point across, the typical response leaves the realm of the rational and dives straight into “OH OF COURSE, IT’S ALL BUSH’S FAULT AND WE’RE ALL RACISTS”

After my initial bafflement wears off, I gently point out that never once have I blamed Bush for everything bad, nor have I called anyone a racist. Bush is, in fact, responsible for $6T of debt, and Obama is responsible for $4T (so far).

Recently, though, one of my friends (of almost 20 years) went on a Facebook posting spree of roughly 10 images all similar to the following:

So I get where the whole “It’s Bush’s fault” thing comes from: in the face of the reality that Dubya was actually a shit president, all they can do is say “Oh well you’ll just blame Bush for everything” implying that 1. I’m changing the subject, and/or not holding the current President accountable and 2. that somehow them saying this negates the facts of the issue and my arguement.

But until recently, I didn’t understand where the whole “and I’m a racist” thing came from.

Here are some headlines from today:
http://bit.ly/VPhMWz

A Romney/Ryan supporter says “And another 4 years of the N***** maybe he will get assassinated this term”

and this: “Racial slurs yelled at Ole Miss Obama protest”

http://cbsn.ws/ZhAQLX

Now before I go any further, this is OBVIOUSLY not the majority of the Republican party. To even suggest this would be completely nonsensical - But here’s the thing. When shit like this happens and it’s associated with your party, the RIGHT thing to do is have a press conference and say something like “We’re sorry, everyone, we don’t condone the actions ro statements of Denise. In fact, we think that she’s a fucking moron, and we are not only ashamed that she is one of our supporters, but we would also like to add that we do not agree with anything that she says. We’d actually like to be unaffiliated in any way with her and we certainly do not feel the same way. As for the nonsense at Ole’ Miss, ditto. It’s time for these people to advance to the 21st century.”

Well ok, maybe not EXACTLY that, but certainly disavow it SOMEHOW so that your party isn’t associated with it and certainly, it’s time for them to insist that their party DOES come into the 21st century with the rest of us.

-G2

Sometimes, Violence IS the Answer.

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 13:40:53 -0700

Ok kids, I’m first going to talk about the concepts of SKILL and TALENT.

TALENT is something that you’re born with. It is not earned. It is something that comes naturally to you - you do not have to work for it.

SKILL does not exist in you when you are born. It is the result of experience in a particular field. You cannot fake it, you cannot just ‘have’ it. One of the quickest ways to gain skill is education. You learn from experience - either the experience of others, or your own.

ABILITY = Skill + Talent.

Herein lies one of the most frustrating aspects of being an artist. When you spend time developing your SKILL and some joker comes by and tells you anything at all about it - he likes it, he doesn’t like it, whatever, you want to know that this person knows WTF he/she is talking about. If their ABILITY is not up to your ABILITY, then sure, you might be able to learn something from them, but mostly, they’re just talking out their butt to look cool. These people are only one thing: F***ING ANNOYING. They are doing nothing but wasting your time. Since you only live a finite period - they are stealing your life from you.

Even the most TALENTed people, if they practice their craft, will develop skill. It may not be the same skills that you or I have to develop in order to possess ability equal to that person, but they will learn over time simply through the experience. Jimi Hendrix may not have been able to write out his music in long form, but if you asked him to play a song after hearing it even one time, I’d bet that he would nail it note for note on the first try. If you played a note on a flute, he could match it on his guitar without thinking about it.

For the record, if a person doesn’t know what they’re talking about, I really don’t care what they think of my photo/song/playing style/drawing/etc. and I’d rather they just STFU. In fact, assume that I REALLY know about my craft, and if you DON’T know what you’re talking about, then don’t be surprised when my eyes glaze over about halfway through whatever you’re saying, and I start doing something productive in my head while ignoring you entirely.

If someone has knowledge to drop, on the other hand, then let’s talk - and I’m all ears. At that point I’m the one who STFUs and I start taking notes in my head.

With that in mind, here are some more concepts I’d like to introduce:

THINKERS and MEMORIZERS

A THINKER is someone who figures things out. They learn through research and experimentation.

A MEMORIZER is someone who sticks a ton of facts into their brain and can recite them on demand.

When you ask a THINKER a question, you will probably wait for a second or two while the thinker digs into her brain and deconstructs the problem. While this is going on, the thinker may start to talk, and eventually, if her experience is broad enough, she will give you the correct answer, or at least get pretty close. Afterward, she may look up the actual answer to see whether or not she missed something. Sometimes, this process even occurs while the conversation is in progress. The thinker is at home doing research while answering a question.

When you ask a MEMORIZER a question, if she has come across the answer in her travels, then she will give it to you. Otherwise, you’re out of luck. Typically, it is difficult for a memorizer to figure things out, since her method of learning is entirely based on the research and publication of others. When asked to teach something, or for an opinion, a memorizer will often be extremely uncomfortable unless there is a very strict plan to follow.

Most people have some combination of THINKER and MEMORIZER. There are facts that we just learn - there are 50 states, 26 letters in the english alphabet, etc. and there are also things that we have to figure out - how to drive a car with manual transmission, how to sculpt, and how to clear 4 lines simultaneously in tetris.

Here’s where punches in the face come in.

People who have more than 75% thinker in them NEED to figure things out. They can no more stop the puzzle solving process than they can stop EATING. It is VITAL to them. The process is intensive, sometimes pleasurable (unless we’re talking about network troubleshooting), sometimes frustrating and rarely occurs at a rapid enough pace. Even if they figure something out IMMEDIATELY it seemed too easy, and thus the thinker has to ponder it further to be sure that they didn’t miss something. Interrupting a thinker who is solving a problem is like shaking a rabid badger and smacking him in the face. It will not have desirable consequences.

Before I go further, I apologize to everyone I’ve ever snapped at, or will snap at in the future (because I’m certain, it will happen again). This is why I do it. If you interrupt my process while I’m deconstructing some problem, I have to start again, maybe not at the beginning, but there are connections that are on the verge of being made that you have just killed. For you memorizers out there, imagine if I kept moving a book you were studying, while sounding a klaxon at random intervals. It’s the same thing.

Let’s turn back to talent and skill. Thinking and memorizing are essentially nothing more than two methods of gaining skill. Mostly, people of unequal ability levels interacting with one another pisses me off. About the only time the interaction DOESN’T piss me off is when one person is calmly teaching the other.

Usually though, that isn’t how things go down. In my experience, there are 3 main interactions between people of varying ability levels:

1. A person of high ability calmly shares knowledge with a person of low ability.

2. A person of high ability belittles the lack of ability of the person of low ability.

3. A person of low ability offers criticism of the work of a high ability person, and ignores the knowledge of the high ability person, or questions the relevancy.

There is actually a fourth interaction that I’ve experienced, but this one usually changes into one of the first three, and that is:

4. A person of low ability offers criticism of the work of a high ability person, and listens intently when the person of high ability shares knowledge.

So a quick recap, and then I’ll bring it all together:

1. ABILITY = Talent (innate) + SKILL (learned)

2. THINKERS learn by experience

3. MEMORIZERS learn by storing information

We’re all made up of some combination of TALENT and THINKING/MEMORIZING and these determine our ability in a given area.

Now then:

QUESTIONS are ALWAYS welcome.

IF someone asks you a question, it is because the don’t know the answer and would like to know.

a. HIGH ABILITY folks - help out the questioner, don’t talk shit to them - there was a time when you didn’t know the answer either.

b. LOW ABILITY folks - asking questions is the way you learn. ACTING like you already know the answers is disrespectful and makes you look foolish.

Here endeth the lesson.

-G2

Yeah, I kick TONS of ass at Bad Company 2.

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:12:08 -0700

Yeah, I kick TONS of ass at Bad Company 2.

I love it when a plan comes together

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:15:21 -0700

Alderan is no more

Well, my team was in the studio again all week making mad amounts of videos. We made so many videos this week that we may break YouTube. Ok, so that’s a bit overstating, but seriously, it was in the neighborhood of 200 videos between 4 dudes. This is a good time. WE now have a formula that will feed the quota machine. This is going to free us up to do some REAL work.

We’re formulating plans this week that will get us to 1 million YouTube subscribers. Granted, that may be over the course of a year, and across 4 seperate channels, but we have the will, the skill, and the means. I spent most of this week running the studio crew and making sure that we produced a ton of content, but I DID get to mess around a little with our new Wacom Tablet. Lemme tell you something: I’ve had Wacom and other digital drawing tablets for YEARS now, dating back to the 90s. This new one is called a Cintiq. You artists out there already know what I’m talking about, but for those of you who don’t, here’s what they are:

It’s basically a MONITOR drawing tablet. You can see what you’re drawing and you draw straight on the monitor. It is a thing of beauty. THat one in the image is the 21 inch version. I’ve been using the 12 inch version for about 20 hours. Here are a couple of the things that I sketched up real quick:

This is just a quick sketch that I started. As you can see, it isn’t finished, but it’s a great example of the power of Art Rage, which is a small program which is by far the BEST bang for the buck when it comes to drawing and simulating real world paints/markers/canvas/paper/etc. Kenny O turned me on to it. OH and BTW, I’m including Photoshop and Painter in that category as well. The basic version of Art Rage is $40 as opposed to several hundred for the other 2 programs.

This one is a quick sketch for my man Glen Mayers. He’s starting a new website called www.grimthinks.com Grim is a character from the same campaign where I took the name Garlock. About 1/3 of the people who know us don’t know us as ‘Gene’ and ‘Glen’ but rather as ‘Garlock’ and ‘Grim.’ Props to Jay Houck for helping us create those personas.

Anyway, neither of these are done yet, but expect a LOT more drawing from me now that I have this thing.

Also, for anyone who missed it, check out Game of Thrones in 60 Seconds. Just be aware that this coontains MAJOR spoilers from the show, so if you plan on watching it, DON’T check this video out XD.

I spent some time at the end of the weekend researching YouTube strategies and playing a TON of games.

Here are the games that saw time in my weekend:

And it wouldn’t be a weekend without some BATTLEFIELD. Though instead of posting footage from BC2 which I actually played, I’ll post some vids from BF3 which I’m going to play for literally months of my life:

anyway, Check in with me next week as I FINALLY continue my “How to Promote Your Band” Photoshop series, also I’ll be starting up an After Effects series, and running some old school art battles. Hope you all are fucking awesome. -G2

Planking on a Whale Shark PART 2

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:13:01 -0700

First off, the BALLSY PELICAN from last week.

The thing was pretty funny. It flew in to the pool, and swam straight at me, only veering off at the last minute. He swam around for a good 20 minutes before he realized that we totally weren’t going to feed him.

SWIMMING WITH THE FISHES.

We went scuba diving - a staple in any of our vacations. I’m pretty sure that Jo chooses where to vacation based specifically on cool diving spots. When we initially arrived in Cabo, I saw a brochure with some dudes swimming next to a whale shark. FUCKING EPIC!

AWESOME. THIS I MUST DO! However, I soon learned that WHALE SHARKS only come to the area around February, and this is June. There MIGHT be a whale shark hanging out, but odds were against it. So promptly, I decided that we’re coming back in February. There is NO WAY that I’m missing this! Furthermore, I may just have to pull off the elusive SHARK PLANK. More on that later.

Anyway, despite the lack of GIANT sea creatures in our travels, we did encounter heaping BOATLOADS of fish, etc. on our first dive, I began swimming down and was almost immediately enrolled in a giant school of about 1000 fish. There were HUNDREDS of them easily. All I could see were fish all around me. The dive was very simple: me, Jo and our dive master.

See the full gallery on Posterous

It did take me a little time on the first dive to get my bearings and remember how to control my breath. That coupled with the fact that this was the deepest dive I’ve ever been on, shortened the experience since I ran through my air REALLY quickly. All in all though, it was an AWESOME dive. We saw a guitar fish, some eels, Jo found an octopus and we found just about every type of fish short of Nemo. IT was a great experience. Here are some more random images from the dive.

See the full gallery on Posterous

SHIFTING GEARS

The rest of our trip went basically the same way. We bought 3 gallons of gas and 2 dudes insisted that they didnt speak ingles despite answering our questions in both ingles and espanol. They wanted 250 pesos for 3 gallons which seemed a might steep to me. Even at $6 USD/gallon of gas, the price is still only $18. Jo managed to negotiate them down to $16 USD while I was getting ripped off by the ATM machine. The machine told me that it distributed money in pesos, so I asked for 200 so that I could pay the 250 for gas, and it ended up giving me $200 USD but in pesos. WTF am I going to do with 2000 pesos? At this point we were within sight of the airport so it wasn’t like I had all thiis time to get rid of the worthless peso. (Ever try paying for somethign in the states with pesos?) Even the ATM was designed to take my money from me.

Anyway, we arrived back in LA. I showered, shaved, slept and then went to work.

Every day at Mahalo is like a week in the rest of the world. I looked at my new list of things to do and holy crap, there are a ton of them. I spent some time catching up with everyone and trying to get a handle on things. Just when I had everything in order, Jason assembles my team and says “Let’s see how many videos we can do with this new system.” Referring to some new switching equipent that we just purchased for our newly constructed studio B. He gave us some examples of what he was thinking and handed us the keys to the Death Star. He literally said “Let’s see if we can destroy Alderan with this thing” He told Cory (Mahalo’s producer/studio manager/talent guy) to give us priority access to the studio and told me that I could have anything that I needed to get the thing rolling

The following day, we ordered a Cintiq tablet from Wacom and took a team field trip to Barnes & Noble to buy some books. You want knowledge? I’ll give you knowledge. IN addition, I’ll not only take out Alderan with my productivity, I’ll erase the solar system.

I immediately booked the studio every day from 2pm til midnight and prepped my team for battle. I drew up a plan of attack and the next work day, we obliterated Alderan. Our quota at work is 17 videos per week. On day 1 of our assault, we got in the studio late (something that would happen to us all week as other Preditors ran over time with their shoots, and Cory needed the studio to move things around for the friday special TWI taping.) Despite this, we shot 26 videos between 2 of my team in 2.5 hours. That’s most of a weekly quota in 2 and a half hours! It typically takes the two guys in question all week plus most of the weekend to do this same amount of videos the old way.

On Thursday, one of the teams ran over their schedule, which set the next shoot back several hours. Rather than kick them out, or raise a fuss, my team immediately annexxed Studio A, completely rearranged the studio to fit our format, and then learned a completely new switching system in under 2 hours. So rather than lose an entire shoot, we minimized our losses, learned a new setup, and cranked out another 30 videos.

I haven’t seen the completed/uploaded numbers yet, but I know that we shot over 100 videos. To put this in perspective, my team usually releases 78 videos per week. 2 of my guys (the ones who actually got to use some of their allotted studio time and weren’t repeatedly F’d in the B) shot 78 videos in about 8 hours. Tomorrow will be our first day in the studio where I’ll be booting people out if their shoots run over. Now that we see what this new method can do, it’s time to REALLLLLY open it up and see how far we can push it.

THIS is Planking.

As I sat in the airport, waiting for our flight. The news covered an incident of ‘planking’ in Austrailia where a person died. Planking, as most people understand it, is lying down on your face in a wierd place. The whole thing just sounded dumb to me. That is until Phil, Kenny and I got to talking ‘Plank Philosophy’ and realized that we had all stumbled upon the greatest idea that the world has ever seen. Since then, we’ve begun to train. You see, planking is a lifestyle choice. It isn’t just about lying down. That is the amateur plankers choice. THe wannabe just lies down. The Pro planker doesn’t take ANYTHING lying down, and especially not planking. Here’s a little primer to show you all what the future of the sport holds:

http://www.thisisplanking.com/

2 PINTS UP

If you love film, and you love alcohol, then check out the Box Office Booze Podcast. Two good friends of mine, who arguably have more passion for film and knowledge of the industry than most people that you know, do a running commentary of popular movies while hanging out in their flat, with a good bit of liquor. This last week, Green Lantern dropped, they spent the entire week talking about comics and film. Comics and film have always gone hand in hand, even when Hollywood screwed up their adaptations. Comics have always sought a cinematic view of storytelling and visuals before cinema existed.

In a special ‘Green Week’ episode, I sat down with the duo and talked special effects and punches in the face.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=589520429435

Check out the rest of the podcasts here: http://boxofficebooze.podbean.com/

That’s about it for now. Before I go, a special shout out to Susanna who, a few years back, broke up with me so that she could buy a house in North Carolina. This month she completes that goal. Granted, without me, most spaces just feel empty, but congrats on buying one!

- G2

Planking on a Whale Shark PART 1

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:40:00 -0700

After some last minute packing, and some important items left at home, I stopped at a little coffeshop and deli at LAX to buy a handsome looking roast beef sandwich while Jo wandered off to the little girls room. I waited and wondered how, as good looking as the sandwich was, it could possibly justify its $9.99 pricetag. Perplexed, I shook my head and brought a bottle of water to the cashier and paid for both items. I met Jo a few feet out of the shop and she suggested that we hit Chilis before we get on the plane. In to my pack the sandwich went. We stood on line at Chili’s for a LONG time before taking our seats, but ultimately, we ate and boarded our plane to Cabo San Lucas.

TAKE OUR MONEY ANY WAY YOU CAN

Mexico is cool and all, but one thing that I’ll never get used to is that the majority of the people who stop you as you walk around, do anything that they can to separate you from your money. In addition, they always try to get the largest sum out of you first and follow that scheme up by chipping away at the initial amount until they find out how much you are willing to pay them to leave you alone. We walked through the gates of the airport out into the wilderness - meaning here 12 dudes who try to be ‘helpful’ by giving you directions - right to their friends who are waiting to take your money. One of them stopped Jo and told her that in order to get to the shuttle, she first had to talk to the gentleman at the counter next to him.

This guy of course told us of some crazy package that he could get us on scuba diving for like 80% off of the price and in addition to that he would give us $100 cash and also get us 80% off of like 3 other attractions in Cabo. He assured us that he would pick us up at 10am the following day and drive us around t these places. Promptly, I handed him the $40 down-payment on all of these fantastic ideas, and he walked us ever so joyously to our awaiting shuttle that would drive us the 300 yards to pick up our rental car. $40 was our price to get this guy to leave us alone.

Once we arrived at Budget (thankfully, there ARE international car rental places in Cabo) the rental agent hooked us up with a midsized sedan for $80/5 days. GREAT deal. Until they told us that we HAD to use their insurance which came to $160 US. Yeah, that is in fact TWICE the price of our 5 day car rental. Half an hour in Cabo, and already, we’d been fleeced for $200. Nice vacation. TO add insult to injury, one of the sales people at Budget talked with the guy who dropped us off, and she found humor in telling me “That guy who walked you to the shuttle scammed you, you’re never going to see him again.”

One could certainly hope. My first meeting with him cost me $40.

AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

The southern tip of Baja California Sur is absolutely stunning. The Pacific crashes in to some epic hills and creates interesting formations in the stone including the iconic arch which appears on all manner of Cabo merchandise. Here it is posing in a photo of a good looking couple on a boat.

If you were to approach BCS (Baja California Sur) from the south in the vacintity of this arch, you would leave the Pacific Ocean by landing right on the beach about 150 yards from our hotel - the Solmar. Directly behind the Solmar is a giant hill, and behind that a small bay, and the rest of Cabo San Lucas. The Solmar is on a private beach that is about 300 yards from the above arch. On low tide days you can walk to the arch from the hotel in about 10 minutes door to shore. In this image, you can see just the tip of our hotel peeking out in a small dip in the rock on the left. Those buildings in the distance I’m told are multimillion dollar mansions.

We arrived at the Solmar and were greeted by Ereeeka! After some time talking, she asked us if we had been fleeced at the airport, and I happily told her YES! I gave some random dude a buch of dollars for no really good reason save my everlasting faith in the honesty of humanity. She asked me for a receipt that he had given us, and suddenly I was the one who was surprised. Were they in it together? She looked at the paper as Jo handed it to her and made a note of everything that had been promised us as well as a name on the receipt - the name of the HOTEL that had sent him. I was missing something, and the look on Jo’s face told me that she had missed it as well.

Seconds later, Ereeeeka! was telling us that not only would she honor everything that was offered us by the gentleman at the airport, but she’d add to it as well, and give us our $40 back in the form of credit for any of the services at the hotel.

SOLD

All of this sounded GREAT to me. For some reason, I have a tendency to trust people associated our hotel much more than strange dudes at the airport.

Then she told us the catch. We’d have to attend a presentation the following morning at 8am. NO F’ING WAY JACK. Seriously, I don’t wake up at 8am on WORK days when I have to be there at 9:30, there was no WAY that I’d be doing that on vacation. She happily offered to move the appointment to 8:30. Greaaaaat. Well, whatever. I’d just go to bed early! XD

Anyway, Jo and I followed the bagman to our rooms and tipped him entirely too little due to the fact that all I had on me were large bills. (yeah, to you he may be the bellboy, but to me he’s the bagman. I totally live in a 70s gangster film.) We ate and relaxed for the rest of the day.

The next morning, I woke early, as I tend to do for some reason which eludes me. I’m a dyed in the wool night owl after all. I have no business being awake before noon on ANY day. I wanted desperately to just roll over and smash my face against my pillow for another few hours, but just as my nose hit the cotton pillowcase, Ereeeka! called to confirm our 830 breakfast appointment with the time share man - Victor. Now the whole picture came in to focus. At first, I thought that I’d just be giving away 40 bucks to the airport man. Flushing it. He assured me that he’d be waiting for us at 1030am but I knew better. NOW, faced with new facts, Jo and I realized that the conman was really a timeshare man competing with our own resort. I’d be willing to put another $40 down as a bet that he WOULD be there to take us to a time share presentation of his own.

Vic started off well, like any other salesman. It would have been fine except that he was talking to a dude with extensive sales experience, a chick with a PhD (almost) in Psychology, and 2 people with top 1% IQs. At first, we chuckled every time Vic pulled out a tried and true sales technique to show us in order to handle every possible objection that we may have in advance, and to make it sound like only an idiot who had no idea what was good in life (- to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women, for those keeping score.) This was funny for the first half an hour. Two hours into it, I just wanted him to spare me the sales stories, Jo was completely falling asleep and we had to basically drag numbers out of him. I even critiqued his sales technique for him and told him where he needed to stop talking and just sell the fucking thing. He talked some more.

Finally, we told him that no matter what he said, all of our dollars are tied up in an ING direct account, so his “Buy it now or you’re never going to get this good a deal again” sale had no chance of working. Then we met Sheryl. Vic’s “Manager.” Why is it that salesmen always go get their manager? I mean seriously, why would I ever talk to someone who ISN’T the manager when I know that all the good deals come after talking to the manager?

Sheryl gave us a reasonable deal, and we took it. We’re now the proud ‘owners’ of 175 weeks of vacation internationally. A good number of those weeks are reserved in the Grand Solmar resort in Cabo San Lucas, and the others are wherever. So if you’re looking to vacation there, or pretty much anywhere on Earth at this point, Jo and I can get you a great deal on a week of vacation. This is our second time-sharey vacation plan. We’re already going back to Cabo in February if we aren’t pregnant by that time. More on that later.

EVERYONE LOVES BACON

While I do love me some bacon, particularly the black forest bacon from Whole Foods - that stuff is MAGICAL! In this case though, I’m talking about “bakin.” No, it has nothing to do with pastries I mean BAby maKIN’. Go ahead, find me one person who DOESN’T like makin babies, and I’ll show you a liar. Sheryl, our sales woman, was pregnant. I spent several minutes interrogating her to find out everything that she knew about the subject so that Jo and I could go back to our hotel room and try to make some babies. We need to begin our mighty army.

She laughed and gave us some bakin advice.

We signed some papers and went back to the Solmar for some food. Actually, I had a bacon cheeseburger.

PIRATES!

There’s really nothing that I can say about our sunset dinner pirate ship cruise that this video doesn’t sum up:

Me + Tequila + Dance Competition + Pirate Ship = Hilarity.

Even though I don’t really drink and I can not in any way hold my liquor, the following day, with zero hangover from the half of a bottle of tequila that I drank during the dance competition, we decided to go fishing. Fishing in this case consisted of Jo and I watching as Juan put some poles on the side of the boat and drove around for 5 hours. We did see a shark:

3 hours in to the trip, Jo said to me “This trip MIGHT be more interesting if we caught something.” No sooner did that sentance leave her lips then we got 2 bites on the line and ended up reeling in this decent sized tuna:

Then nothing for the rest of the outing.

We went back to the hotel, and this happened:

Sorry about the insane amount of shaky shake, apparently my iPhone doesn’t like wind either on the audio or on the video. I’ve been typing now for about two hours, and I’ve still got SOOO much left to report. There’s E3, and Planking and the Keys to the Death Star! I’m going to save part 2 for tomorrow, for now, though, I’m going to leave you with this ballsy pelican: (which is currently encoding on YouTube)

Phil-osophy

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:35:22 -0700

So I’ve got a TON of stuff to update including our vacation to Cabo San Lucas, keys to the Death Star and my short short time at E3 this week.

BUT I’m going to save all of that for this weekend, because my good friend Phil just starred in another awesome video, and I have to show it. While a few of us on the video games team were hanging out at work talking about how we didn’t get to go to E3 this year, we decided to make our own E3 at the office. you all may remember Phil from the Portal 2 sucks video:

Well, we all chipped in and got him a special pass for E3:

XD I could seriously watch Phil for days at a time.

On another note, get ready for a MASSSSIVE blog this weekend :) And you know how much I usually post so imagine how much you’re going to have to read this weekend. Don’t worry, I’ll do a table of contents ;) Hope you all are rockin out and enjoying life. -G2

How do you top fiery mecha wings?

Mon, 30 May 2011 22:34:54 -0700

The answer is: You can’t.

Mechanical wings that breathe fire are at the highest point of awesome on the scale. The only way that you can get higher up in the realm of coolness is to start combining things. So for instance, fiery mecha wings that are ON a 900 ton atlas MORE awesome than just fiery mecha wings by themselves. However, I do not have a 900 ton Atlas (no, not a book of maps. Seriously, how did you get this far in life without knowing what an ATLAS is?)

BEHOLD:

the MIGHTY ATLAS (the mech that wins is the atlas)

Anyway, I don’t have one of those. Sadly. Nor do I have fiery wings. Hell, I’d even settle for a fire mask (@ 2:49 in this video ;) ):

So what to write about?

I took some time this holiday weekend and biked around Santa Monica with my lovely wife. That was awesome. We both still need new seats because the current ones leave you with a sore bottom. It’s not as bad as say, sitting on a railroad spike, but it’s in the same neighborhood. Still, it was nice to just ride around ttown for a while.

I’m in a weird frame of mind because I literally have 2 days of work this week and then it’s off to sunny and beautiful Cabo San Lucas. THAT is exciting! It’s no crossbow made of fire, but its pretty cool. We’re going to do some scuba diving and some general lounging around. I’ll probably do a ton of drawing and I’m going to try to wrestle a shark. I figure I’ve never had any formal viking test of manhood, so that would stand up as a pretty good test.

My new mission at work is to get my entire software team into the mysterious realm of profitability. I’ve got a plan that includes making bad ass video tutorials along with some great viral type things. As everything comes together, I’m going to be talking to every community that will listen to me and trying to engage the audience first hand. It’s not enough to make cool shit, you have to show people your cool shit and then, you get them to come back when you make more cool shit.

We’ve already got some incredible videos, so that’s step 1.

JustinZ continues the great Photoshop series:

KennyO and Sean are even doing crossovers:

And even the New guy is kicking ass:

I’ve got a TON of stuff brewing for the next few weeks. I’m going to be doing After Effects, Photoshop, and HTML 5! We’ve also got some great ideas for some cool videos that are a bit above and beyond the normal tutorial video. Here’s a little taste of what we’re working on (some of you may have seen this already):

Anyway, I’m going to go rest a bit before my marathon 2 more days of work. I have SOOOOOO much to get done, and so little time before vacation. Hope you all are well. -G

Test

Wed, 25 May 2011 12:53:00 -0700

Test

Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit -

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:55:44 -0700

And what a reward it was!

Over ten years ago, I discovered the German industrial band Rammstein. They haven’t played in the USA that entire time. More on that in a minute.

Combichrist. In order of bands, my favorite 5 are roughly as follows:

U2
Nine Inch Nails
Combichrist
Rammstein
Trivium

Thursday, Jo and I went down to the OC to hang out with Combichrist. We met the band at the Galaxy. A HUGE venue with a teeny tiny stage and pit area. The band was pretty cool. I’ve never been to a meet and greet before and it was an interesting time. I’m not much of a fanboy, so I really didn’t have much that I wanted to say. When we all lined up for the group photo, I heard a voice coming from ABOVE and behind me saying “I’ll stand here next to you.”

Well that doesn’t happen to me very often. Now I know what it feels like for most of you to have me standing behind you!

The voice belonged to Abbey Nex of Psyclon 9 and Genetorturers fame (yeah, I know, none of you have any idea what those words mean. Are they books, bands, movies? Well you get to stay in the dark on that one!) Anyway, Abbey and I chatted for a while about being tall. Believe it or not, it was actually a compelling conversation. You wouldn’t understand though, because you’re short.

Then, we were kicked out of the Galaxy so that we could go get our tickets for the show. The tickets were actually to another show and someone wrote numbers over them. We had VFIM passes (Very Fucking Important Monster) so we never actually bought tickets because admission to the show was included with the pass, but apparently the Galaxy still needed to count us.

Highlights of the night included this strange Daft Punk like band called Whiteqube. If you can imagine the Numa Numa guy (If you don’t know who I’m talking about, then you have to stop and watch this before you keep reading:

Now picture THAT guy, but TWO of him. Now picture them with 2 MacBooks and a huge keyboard standing inside a huge homemade PVC cube. Got it? Ok NOW imagine that they have shirts with LCD screens on the front of them that change with the music. NOW imagine them playing songs that were almost Daft Punk.

Where Daft Punk started off with Robot Rock:

Whiteqube opened with “R U READY.”

As you can see, they have a very Daft Punk feel, but the crowd wasn’t really into them - until, in song 2, Numa Numa guy began throwing lightsticks out into the audience. At that point EVERYONE loved them. All you could see was a sea of multicolored arcs as the crowd jumped and waved their new lightsticks back and forth to the beat of the music.

2 bands later, we were on to Combichrist!

The guys played a bunch of songs that I’d never seen live, and in general just rocked the house. Now let’s talk about the house that they rocked. Aside from Abbey, I was probably the tallest guy in the building. I was DEFINITELY the tallest guy in the pit. It was such a strange pit too. People were standing at some remove from one another, and it was comprised of about 50% girls. If there’s one thing that I know it’s this: Girls don’t belong in the pit. There, I said it. Here’s the main reason - there is always at least one douchebag in the pit who just spins around punching and kicking. Now if you’re a big dude, and he does this to you, then you kindly show him the outside of the pit, by tossing his scrawny ass through the crowd. If you’re a girl, you get punched in the face, and now you’re bloody, your boyfriend is pissed, and that scrawny douchebag is getting beaten half to death by 5 other dudes. Here’s the reason that I don’t like girls in the pit: PITS ARE MADE FOR KILLING, NOT FOR STANDING AROUND.

Seriously, how can you see AWESOME metal/industrial/hardcore/aggro bands and just stand around bobbing your head? If you’re a warrior, you can’t. It’s not in your blood. So you can see my dilemma here. I was standing in a pit with mostly girls. There was no carnage at all. None. Combichrist even has a SONG about being in the pit, and this lame ass OC crowd let me down.

SHAME ON YOU OC.

Next time I come down there, I’m going to level some buildings just to show you how to have fun, because falling asleep during Combichrist is the opposite of that. Here’s a coupla vids for ya:

Thursday, got home, did some showering and did the sleep dive into bed.

FREITAG

The day began like any other. I woke to kisses from my lovely wife, and I stepped out of bed completely prepared to attack my day. Work went not nearly fast enough. Like seriously, why is it that when you have something that you’re looking forward to doing, that time CHUGS by. We’re talking FULL STOP here. I jumped face first into video editing, hoping that it would serve to pass the time. It didn’t. After a while, the Keg party started at work, a time that I usually take to mean that I’m not going to be getting any work done for a few hours, and so I reluctantly peel my brain out of the work zone and into the socializing, talky zone.

I passed the time by watching DK try to contain his excitement about the new Portal Live Action video that we’re working on. He really can’t contain himself. He spent probably an hour moving things around in his office and decorating with anything portal that he could get his hands on. He went around to other offices looting various items out of the empty areas so that he’s comfortable when he starts to live stream the building of his Portal Gun. The whole thing was really funny to watch.

Then I went outside and chatted with the Head Honchos for a while until the cavalry arrived. Jo pulled up in our new Elantra, and I rallied the troops. Jeff, Elvis and I all piled in to the car and headed out for Elvis’ house, where we would be parking for the night as it is located a short 3 blocks from the Forum. We stopped at a small donut shop on the way and ate some Chinese food. (No, really. The place is named like “Bob’s Donuts” or something, and they sell Chinese food.)

Elvis wondered aloud why we all weren’t really hyped for the show yet. I assured him that I was saving my energy.

Walking from Elvis house to the Forum, I could feel the energy building. Inside, I could hear Combichrist begin their set. 2 separate guards told me to stop running. 2 Seperate guards were completely ignored.

I saw the stage and ran straight into the front. Yeah, there were people between me and the front of the stage, but I didn’t let that slow me down. Before CC had completed their first song, I was 3 people from the very front of the crowd. This type buffer is what I like to call “cushioning from the really painful metal bar that for most people is stomach high, but for me, it’s …. not. So I let the people in front of me offer their bodies as padding as I watched Combichrist warm up the stage for the main event.

Fucking Orange County. OC, Go fuck yourself.

Whatever sickness OC had borne on Thursday, they obviously shipped it north into LA on Friday because NOBODY was moving. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE? I even go stared down by some chump who was cuddling with his girlfriend in my fucking pit!

As I heard the opening to Blut Royale I knew that members of Rammstein would be joining them on stage. Also, as it happens, this is one of my favorite songs. I immediately spun 180 degrees and walked straight for the closest thing resembling a pit. There was a small open area where people had made room for a pit, but until Jeff and I arrived, there was no active pit. This changed. Though still, it was a lame. fucking. pit.

Here’s a vid from about 3 people to my left. This is Blut Royale, thus you won’t see any footage from me on this one:

Combichrist left the stage, and my frustration at the sad state of the world today grew. People are to fucking timid. I rallied a few seedy looking fellows who seemed up to the task, and I proclaimed that I’d be joining my lovely wife at the front of the stage for a few songs, and that tit was up to them to start a pit before I returned. If they couldn’t fucking do it, then at that time, I’d level that half of the building just to show them how it is done.

As I returned to my wife, 3 German fellows stopped me and asked if I’m a big Combichrist fan. After calmly presenting my case which went something like “FUCK YES I AM!” One of the guys bent over and reached down into his sock. He withdrew a drumstick that he had retrieved earlier in the evening, and handed it to me. I thanked him with a manly embrace and skipped on down the lane through the tiny bodies of people to where Jo was standing, and handed it to her along with the story.

Then:

The above vids aren’t mine, but to give you an idea of where Jo and I were standing, here’s one of the images that I took during the finale of Till Lindemann with his giant fiery wings:

Just as the band left stage, one of the roadies was handing out stickers to some of the people who were in the front. Here’s Jo, Jeff and I showing off our feat to my iPhone.

Suffice it to say that as soon as Rammstein kicked and torched their way on to the stage, the Forum turned into a PROPER industrial/metal audience. THOUSANDS of bodies crushed us in a vain attempt to get past us and into the front row. At this point every inch held required a tremendous force of will and strength. Throughout the night, we were covered in all manner of liquids, solids, and gasses. I’m sure that some well meaning doctor would have to hold himself upright if he were standing while reading a list of everything that our bodies were subjected to that evening.

Also - KISS has NOTHING on Rammstein. The stage was on fire in one manner or another for the majority of the night. Fire masks, a giant fire crossbow, explosions, a bucket of fire was poured over one of the members of the band, clothing was on fire, at one point, Till brought out a gas station pump and a flare and simply made his own flame thrower. Flake (pronounced flock-uh) rode a boat out over the crowd (we were standing center stage, front row, so we were some of the first people he rode over) He did the Flake dance, Till did the Till dance, hair was singed off of my body, a giant penis fired soap out over the crowd in a very sanitizing orgasm, and then confetti fell from the rafters so we could all wipe off, and ultimately TIll walked out on stage with giant fiery robotic wings, and all was right with the world.

The words that open this blog post are: “Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit” which roughly mean “Whoever waits patiently
will be rewarded when the time is right.” These are the first lyrics in the song Rammleid from the new album “Liebe ist fur alle da.” These lyrics are followed by: “Nun, das Warten hat ein Ende Leiht euer Ohr einer Legende:” - “Now, the wait is over Lend your ears to a legend:”

RAMMSTEIN

I waited over ten years for this concert. Not only did Rammstein come, but they brought me Combichrist as well.

No. You’ve never been to a concert that was THIS good. Not ever.

-G

PS. I reformatted my comp this weekend, I’ll have some videos up on Facebook from my vantage point hopefully later this week.

Proof of Concept.

Tue, 17 May 2011 23:34:40 -0700

Here’s a little taste of what we’re working on next. Please forgive the crudity of this model I didn’t have time to build it to scale or to paint it. :)

Seriously? Who the F are all these people and what are they doing here?

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:31:15 -0700

Before I start today, this needs to happen; WATCH these videos:

These 5 videos were made by some bad asses on my team. I was chatting with John Trefry at work today, and we spent a good hour marvelling at the incredible group of talent that Mahalo has amassed. The men and women that we have the pleasure of working with are some of the most skilled and talented people in their fields. Between the 50ish people that we work with - JUST on the grunt level, there are film directors with feature, short, horror, drama, documentary and comedy experience - and here, I’m not talking about making films in their back yards (though I’m sure that’s the case too ;) ) I’m talking about films that have been invited to pretty noteworthy festivals.

There are editors, musicians, chefs, video game developers, comedians and actors as well. These folks have social followings on facebook, some run their own personal live streaming shows, podcasts, vidcasts and websites, and are successful outside of the brilliant work that they do at Mahalo.

The videos above are just my own crew of “Elite Preditors/Video Gamers” I can’t speak to the other teams, as I’ve only ever worked on software, but here’s an average video production walkthrough for you, just because I know that not many people outside the industry know what goes into a video for us:

Step 1: Design a video tutorial course - This is much like a college professor would build a syllabus for his class.
- The first thing that we do is decide upon a subtopic within our main topic. For me it’s Photoshop, for DK, it’s Games.
- Then we have to research the topic, because even though we are experts in our various fields, when you’re talking about how to speed up your PC like Sean has built, you want to make sure that you are thorough and up to date on all of the newest information.
Step 2: Create/Locate Assets - Everything that makes up the course that you will use in your videos.
- Any logos or images that I’m going to use when I teach someone about how to design an album cover must be built before I start the chapter that I’m working on.
- Then I have to choose music that is going to fit the topic. This may sound like nothing, but believe me - if you want a fun time, look around at “royalty free music” sometime, and tell me what you think of it ;)
Step 3: Layout the actual lessons in the course and produce them.

At this point, I’m going to create a new bullet list, simply because from here on out, we’re talking about individual videos.

Step 1: Write down some bullet points containing everything that we want to teach in this video
Step 2: Build/Search out any video specific assets. If Justin Z. is demonstrating using talent in a movie poster - first he has to book the talent for a Photo shoot.
Step 3: Record the voiceover/screen capture. This basically means that Kenny will talk about how to use iMovie while he shows you how to do it. During this process, he will record his monitor and his voice simultaneously.
Step 4: Edit the voice/screen cap. Again, this might seem like an easy thing to do, and I’m sure that many people think that we could do it in one take. The REALITY is that our OFFICE is our recording studio. Any time someone just outside our office yells, or someone walks in, not only is it distracting, but potentially, it completely ruins that part of the audio. Imagine that you are a band in a recording studio, and while you’re recording your vocal parts, there are 3 teenage girls sitting in the corner of the studio texting and chatting away. That’s what we deal with every single day while we record.
Step 5: Render the VO/Screencap. (Tell the program to turn this into one single file that can be brought into the editing software)
Step 5: Record our intros on camera. This step can really happen anywhere in the process. We currently have Tuesday evenings set aside for it.
Step 6: Bring ALL of the assets into an editing program such as Premiere or Final Cut and put all of the footage together.
Step 7: RENDER the footage. This means that when we have the video looking and sounding right, we have to turn all of that into one single file that can be uploaded to YouTube. This process typically takes 15mins to an hour per video depending on the complexity of the video.
Step 8: Upload to Youtube. THis step is best done overnight, as is the rendering step. Sadly, sometimes you can’t render over night, because you need the footage faster than that.
Step 9: Add annotations to Youtube
Step 10: Add the video to the actual course page at Mahalo.com
Step 11: Advertise the video on Facebook/Twitter/ etc to tell our fans that we made a new video that they can watch.

We build 17-20 of these every single week.

The reason that I wanted to tell you all of this is just to illustrate the DRIVE of the people who surround me. If you all thought that I was driven - at Mahalo, my basline of drive is par for the course. Our leaders are pretty bad ass as well. Just google Jason Calacanis and Jason Rapp and you’ll see what I mean. Between the two of them, they’ve done some pretty amazing things.

Anyway, here’s a virtual high five to the whole team at Mahalo. It’s a pleasure to work with you all.

-G2

Enjoy the Abuse

Sun, 08 May 2011 22:11:00 -0700

Man, I work all the time. I mean seriously. ALL The time. It seems that I’ve traded in my busy freelance career for a busy career at Mahalo.com. I love the things that I do there, currently I’m in charge of a bad ass “How to Promote Your Band” Photoshop Tutorial Series, I also produce the Live Action video series with the extremely talented DK, and this week I’ll also be rolling out a new HTML 5 series since I have not been able to locate a good candidate that has the skills and stage presence to do this for my team. Also, I’m on the social team, which means that I constantly interact with the Mahalo fan base/community and I oversee the software department.

Here’s a bit of what I’ve been working on as of late, and seriously, it’s REALLY REALLY cool.

See the full gallery on Posterous

I’m at work about 14 hours or so 5 days a week and then I’m there roughly 8 hours on Sunday. I try to take Saturdays off and spend them with my lovely wife, but that doesn’t always happen, and sometimes I find myself spending a few hours on Saturday mornings at work. This is like an 80 hour work week. Since there’s only 168 hours in a week, I spend just about half of my time at work. So I’m not really sure where I’m going with all of this, but I know that it has to do with time. I’m wicked organized with my time, so I know that I use it wisely, and optimally, but I can’t help feeling that it’s not enough. My plans are enormous in scope but the time that I have to complete all of this is rapidly dwindling. Furthermore, My time for myself is almost zero. THIS especially is unacceptable.

Someone awesome said to me today: “There’s a fine line between hard work and exploitation.” An interesting point there. Most of my team at Mahalo certainly straddles that line. I do know that the pay isn’t great, but at the same time: do YOU love what you do? Also, this is FANTASTIC exposure for anything that I do from here out. After all, nothing says “I’m a master designer” like telling an employer or client “I designed/produced/edited/starred in X number of Design Courses all with 100+ videos each and collectively they have 20 million views online.” Also, this gives me time to work out some things that I have to learn as I develop my next company. Things like - how to run a large team. Finally, there’s the education aspect of things. Last week I was in a Social Team meeting that discussed FaceBook marketing strategies, and seriously, it blew my mind.

So here I am, working my ass off in the service of this internet production company and as usual, I have to sit back and take inventory of where I’m going with things so that I know I’m headed in the right direction. First things first: Does all of this mesh with my code? For those of you unfamiliar with it, in 1996, I basically tore down my entire philosophy/life to that point and rebuilt it into something that I knew that I could get behind. I knew that I needed a statement that would guide my actions into the future. This became what many now refer to as “The Gargoyle Code.” I spent the last 15 years refining it and now it stands as follows:

exercise INDEPENDENCE
LEAD by example
seek KNOWLEDGE
trust LOGIC
PLAN
keep it SIMPLE
COMMUNICATE facts
TRAIN consistently
ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK
REST

So there’s my jump off point. In any action that I take in all of my life, if it serves that code, then I don’t have to spend time wondering if it’s the right move for me. Beyond that code, there are 3 other things that guide my actions:

What one human can do, another can do.
Nothing is stronger than human will.
Life is the only value.

Here I am then, with only these few words to guide me. My current situation has me working 80 hours a week. I sleep around 5-6 each night, so ~35/40 a week. This leaves me another 48 hours to pursue other things. I spend roughly 1 hour a day commuting, so that drops me to ~40. if you include in there eating/preparing for work or sleep, I’ll say another 2 hours each day which brings my total free time to about 25 hours. This is basically the time on friday night when I leave work until the time that I go back to work on sunday - The one day that I spend with my lovely wife Jo.

Without going through the entire process, I do know this: When I added REST to my code I did so with the specific knowledge that I don’t spend enough time to myself. I typically get into a cycle of working and it overwhelms my entire life. I throw myself into the work ENTIRELY. After some time, this begins to drive me mad. Also on that list: I’ve let my training lapse DRAMATICALLY. The last time I worked out was 2 days before I started working at Mahalo. Everything else on this list is accounted for in my present life.

Ok, so now I know that something has to change. Here are the things that are missing: 1. Training, 2. Time for myself. My goal for this month: rectify this situation.

I DO feel overwhelmed at work, but I also know that it is of my own doing. I’ve decided my course, and I’ll continue to do so. My work goal for this month is to raise the bar for total number of quality videos produced. The CHALLENGE comes in adding the training and the ‘me’ time while achieving the goal. I’ll explore all of this more later in the week. For now, I need to include a section on my lovely wife.

Jo Shaw

So here’s what it’s like being married to the greatest woman in history: I found out on Friday that she bought a new car. Most dudes would have a heart attack at this. My text in return: “LOL.” This is because I know that she has great judgement. I TRUST my wife implicitly. She bought a 2011 Hyundai Elantra. This thing is pretty cool. 29-35 city miles, and 40-48 highway miles per gallon. Rated #4 safest car in its class (the others were named ‘BMW,’ ‘Volvo,’ etc.) So now we have this great new car and I’m actually LESS concerned with her driving that around than with her previous car. When we have kids here real soon, I’m not going to worry about their safety (Well, not due to the car anyway) plus this thing gets great gas milage, it’s roomy (my mohawk fits comfortably without touching the roof XD,) it has a great sound system, and it’s natively compatible with my iPhone/iPod as well as her Android, so we can both listen to tunes. There is a hands free phone system in the car so I don’t have to worry about fumbling for a phone when she gets a call (I don’t typically answer the phone when I’m driving.) Anyway, this is what life is like. You get cool new stuff and you don’t have to worry because if we couldn’t afford to buy it - she wouldn’t have bought it. PLUS she researched beforehand so she knew exactly what she wanted, and knew that the Elantra is a good choice for price, economy, safety and children.

I love my wife. She fucking rules.

- G2