A while back two people, one friend and one YouTuber, tricked me into playing a game regularly. Lately I’ve found myself watching the game more than playing it. I call this studying.

As much as I enjoy the game, every now and then I’m not in the mood to play it or I’ve been playing it and I’m no longer in the mood to do so. I’ve got a bad internet connection to the USA so playing the game involves watching my tank hop around and die rather than moving around smoothly than dying. (That says a lot about my play style, now that I think about it.) Or, on the Asia server, I’ve got a better connection but the play style there is maddening enough to make me prefer doing work.

However, instead of doing work anything even remotely productive, I inevitably track down a couple people livestreaming the game via Twitch.tv. and watch them play instead. That’s right, sometimes I’m so lazy I can’t even be bothered to play the game myself. I make someone else play it for me.

The streamers playing World of Tanks fall into several categories: 1) the Ragers, who’ve been known to break their keyboards during play; 2) the Teachers, who carefully explain what they’re doing and why they are doing it in an attempt to make other players better; 3) the Nice Guys, who don’t teach but seem to be having fun; 4) the Hot Chicks who, well, you really don’t care how well they play, and 5) the Scary Good Snobbish Assholes. They are so good they’ve lost the ability to empathize with people just learning to play the game at higher levels. This group is also known as the Whiners.

I have learned a lot about the game and the best streamers are more fun to watch than most television programs in the world. Every now and then life intervenes for some of the streamers–one man’s fiance broke up with him while he was streaming–and they get real to the point that you can’t help but watch even as you want to look away.

Very raw, but it beats playing the game. It also beats working.

Looking for a place to eat lunch yesterday was actually kind of painful.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent yesterday at a knife show and then did some window shopping at a couple stores near the knife show.

The problem was, at some point, I needed to get something to eat. As I’ve been on a weight loss program/lifestyle change–down 10 kilograms/22 pounds as of two days ago–my choices were suddenly limited. Complicating things was the fact I was in Ginza, one of the most expensive shopping districts in the world. (Sukibayashi Jiro, the currently trendy sushi restaurant is there along with other expensive restaurants.)

I looked over the menu at a steak house (my eating plan involves light carbs not light eating) but couldn’t find any prices on the menu and Ginza is not the kind of place you want to find yourself in an “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” situation.

My next choice was to wander around until something caught my eye. Unfortunately, several fast food places caught my eye and I found myself struggling between my default mode (fast and cheap) and my eating plan (think, moron, think).

That’s when I suddenly felt hungry (in a cranky, burn the world sort of way–oh you like you don’t ever feel that way) and the devil over my left shoulder began whispering “McDonald’s French fries. Hot and crispy. Salty, tasty French fries. Cheese burgers with French fries. Hot crispy salty.”  The devil over my right shoulder suggested KFC, because I could get chicken, wouldn’t have to worry about the bread, and I don’t like their fries. The devil over my left shoulder kept whispering about French fries crispy and hot at the other place.

I fired up the maps on my phone and went looking for the KFC and instead found a large sign advertising a food court in the basement of the building. The sign had color pictures of the restaurants’ signature dishes and I went “yes” to all of them, temporarily forgetting it wasn’t a menu.

I chose a chicken place that turned out to be closed from lack of gas and a sushi place that was also closed because of a lack of gas. I ended up at a tonkatsu, or pork cutlet restaurant. It was exactly my kind of place: a bit grungy and full of locals. The pork was breaded, and the meal came with rice, but it also came with miso soup and a metric ton of cabbage (more or less). Either way, it was fewer carbs than I’d have eaten at a place with French fries hot and crispy and definitely had a lot more vegetables, all for about the same price.

I came out feeling full and, more importantly, didn’t feel hungry later as my body wasn’t searching my meal for traces of nutrition and, finding none, demanding more food.

Next time I go out I’ll carry a healthy snack and I’ll plan where to eat in advance. Or I’ll just burn the world.

Several hundred years ago, when I was at Ole Miss, I walked out of restaurant without eating. A few months later, I made my then girlfriend leave a restaurant.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, I have a 20 minute rule about service in restaurants in the South. In other places it’s a 10 minute rule, but in the South things are a bit more leisurely and you have to make allowances. (I once went to a party 20 minutes or so after the scheduled start time and had to help set up the party because, by Southern time keeping, I’d arrived early.)

I’ve heard of people leaving expensive stores because they couldn’t get a clerk’s attention to get a simple question answered. When I bring this up to Southerners, they usually frown and say a general “on behalf of the South I apologize to you” apology but also add “it’s a Southern thing” and then wonder out loud why I’m so impatient.

The first time I left a place I was looking for lunch. I went to a popular bar and restaurant and sat down at a table. There was a bartender there but he seemed busy with something and I just pulled out a book and started reading. After 10 minutes or so, I realized I hadn’t been served and looked for the bartender, who seemed to still be busy but his job did not, as near as I could tell, involve speaking to me, bringing me water, asking me if I wanted a drink or tracking down a waitress to do all of the above. After 20 minutes of waiting, including 10 minutes of pouting, I got up and left.

As I started to leave, the bartender finally said “can I get you a drink?” and I just said “too late” and left.

Later, my then girlfriend and I decided to go to a famous and fairly expensive restaurant on the square in Oxford, Mississippi (home of Ole Miss). I followed her as she bypassed the reservation stand and commandeered a table. We then waited and waited and waited whilst the wait-staff walked past us and ignored us.

After 20 minutes, I invoked the 20 minute rule and suggested we go to the other side of the square to a different restaurant. She said we’d only been there 20 minutes and needed to wait another seven days before they noticed and served us. (Something like that.) My response was a caring and touching and understanding “why the fuck would we do that?” (Note: I probably didn’t use those exact words, but they convey exactly what I was feeling.)

We went across the square and had a good meal but I suspect it was that moment that doomed the relationship. (More on that in another post.)

I never did eat at that expensive restaurant.

Today proved that our oldest hates insects maybe more than my mother does.

As I’ve written before,  my mother has only two classifications for insects: bad bugs (those still living) and good bugs (those smashed on a hard surface). My mother even has a soft cackle in her voice after she kills a bug and declares it a “good bug”. You only hear the cackle if you listen closely–and let’s face it, who listens to their mother?– but it’s there.

Every now and then we get a small infestation of gnats in our apartment. This is especially true now as the weather is changing and the gnats are attempting to get “refugee” status in our house.

Our oldest seems to get especially annoyed by the gnats as they seem to hang out near her desk. This has led to a couple angry outbursts and noisy desk slaps. I sympathize with this as I’ve snapped and felt a rush of blood lust whilst killing insects but I’ve never felt the visceral hatred my mother had.

Our oldest seems to have inherited that hatred, but my mother doesn’t have the look in her eyes that I saw our youngest give today.

As we sat down to eat, our oldest suddenly tracked some movement and the look of hatred in her eyes was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. The look was what a hunting dog would give if it had not only spotted a duck, but also hated the duck with a passion. This wasn’t just “there it is” this was “I want to watch you bleed.”

Once I drew attention to the look, by crossing myself and saying several Our Fathers and Hail Marys, the look went away and I almost threw more bugs at her just to see the look happen again.

I also hope she learns to deploy that look at annoying boys.

I’ve mentioned before how, when I was in Albania, I ended up getting sick and losing a lot of weight. Recently, I’ve volunteered to lose weight have been doing my best not to get sick.

The impetus for this was a discount on a guided weight loss course run by former US Army soldier Vic Magary. I don’t remember how I heard about him, but I remember seeing some of his videos a few years ago and getting some of his diet books and thinking, well, yeah, some day. I like his common sense attitude and the fact he doesn’t try to sell a bunch of equipment or play up his service in the “I was totally Special Forces and please don’t look up my DD 214 and prove I wasn’t” kind of way. (Note: he was in infantry, not Special Forces.)

Then, when the 30 day course went on sale (it was the last time he was offering the course as he is starting a new project.) I decided to try it. I knew there would be resistance from She Who Must Be Obeyed and I also had a trip to the in-laws that would complicate things (hint: beer, beer and more beer and lots of food), but for the most part I’ve stuck to the plan.

Vic required participants to keep a food and exercise journal (daily exercise is part of the plan) and promised to send us angry emails if we didn’t keep our journal updated. He gave us daily feedback on our food journals and also gave us access to different sources of advice.

I found, and still find, the food journal to be the most useful part of the plan. Twenty four days after the official program ended I’m still keeping it. The idea is you enter what you ate, when you ate it and about how much you ate and that can be kind of terrifying in a “do I really drink that much bourbon?” kind of way. You also weigh yourself once a week. If you have a bad week you can review what you ate and never do that again. If you have a good week, you have a plan you can use again.

I went with much lower carbohydrates, meaning I eat a lot less pizza than I usually eat (luckily we don’t order it that often) and I have to go easy on pasta, rice and potatoes. I have to find a way to include vegetables with every meal, including breakfast. I also eliminated a lot of in-between meal snacks and changed the snacks I do eat.

My goal was for this to be a lifestyle change and not just a “I need to get into this suit for one night” plan. I also didn’t want to starve myself. She Who Must Be Obeyed is slowly coming around, although she refuses to join the plan. (She doesn’t need to.)

The results have been pretty good. I started out at 98 kilograms (216 pounds) and as of today’s unofficial weigh-in I’m at 89.5 kilograms (197.3 pounds). I’ve been inconsistent with the daily exercise, but mostly on work days when I do a lot walking (3.1 miles/5 kilometers each work day).

My goal is 84 or 85 kilograms (185 or 187.4 pounds) Then I can moderate things a bit.

Me at 152 pounds a couple days before I was medevaced. This is what I’m trying to avoid.