Playing the game #gameondiet

After following @BethFishReads's, @toofondofbooks's, @myfriendamy's, and @fizzythoughts's progress in The Game On! diet, I decided to take the plunge and start a competition of my own. I bought a copy of the book yesterday and talked my friend/co-worker, Brandi, into doing a one-on-one game. We're going shopping for supplies today and then tomorrow, it's on!

I also picked up a copy of My Weight Loss Coach for my Nintendo DS; between that and my WiiFit, I'll be gamer-girl geeking my way to the top of this competition. I'm not going to review The Game On! Diet book; both Beth F and Dawn (and Amy and softdrink) have done a great job of that already. You can check it out online here if you're interested.

Brandi and I have already decided that if this four weeks goes well, we'll try to recruit some more teachers once school starts back up and get a bigger competition going. Wish us luck!

Weekly Geeks: Passions

This week's Weekly Geeks challenge is:

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea.

Tell us why you're passionate about it. Post photos of what you've made or of yourself doing whatever it is you love doing.

#2. Get us involved. Link to tutorials, recipes, Youtube videos, websites, fan sites, etc, anything that will help us learn more about your interest or how to do your hobby. Maybe you'd like to link to another hobbyist whose work you admire or tell us about a book or magazine related to your interest.

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've peaked your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow afincionado among us, link to them.

I have quite a few interests that I'm passionate about, other than reading and blogging. I enjoy a good video game: I have a Wii, DS, GameBoy Color, PS1, PS2, and Sega Genesis. I'm currently playing Final Fantasy XII on the PS1, Okami on the Wii, Kingdom Hearts on the PS2, and bunch of random strategy, puzzle, action-adventure, and RPGs on the other systems.

Some video game sites of interest (to me, and hopefully to you):
GameFaqs - a great place to go for walkthrus and cheat codes. I post (very infrequently) as jessidee on the boards.
Penny Arcade - a hilarious comic series geared to gamers
Kotaku - a blog about games with great reviews

My next big passion is crafts. I scrapbook, cross stitch, knit, and crochet. I post my completed and works-in-progress on Ravelry - my username is jessidee on there, too, if anyone would like to friend me. Which brings me to...

The Dewey's Book Reading Challenge Knit-a-long Mini-Challenge! Whew, that's a long name. Anyway, here are the projects that I've started this year in honor of Dewey:



This is a hat-in-progress. It will eventually have i-cords and kitty ears. :) I'm excited about this one, because it's my first time using double-ended needles and knitting in the round. I had to frog it a few times, but it's coming along nicely now.



This is a shawl I'm crocheting by request for my mom.

And here are a few works-in-progress that are still hanging around from last year:



This is an amiguri (crocheted stuffed animal) lion that I'm making for my friend Casey. She's a big Harry Potter fan, and she wanted a "Gryffindor Lion." I've actually gotten more done since I took this picture, but I still haven't gotten it all put together.



This is a star-shaped baby blanket I started crocheting when I found out that one of my coworkers was pregnant. She's already had the baby, so I decided that who ever is closest to giving birth by the time I actually finish, gets it. I'm usually not this bad about completing projects, but I keep putting this one down in favor of other projects.

My flickr account is exclusively devoted to my knit-and-crochet projects (and my yarn!), because that's the photo organizer that Ravelry uses. Other fun crafty sites:

Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins and Geek Central Station both feature geeky amigurumi projects, usually with patterns or links for purchasing. I especially love the Firefly-related posts.
Modern Cottage - recipes (another one of my passions!) and general craftiness
Not Martha - as in Stewart. But I like their ideas and tips much better.
The Mario Scarf Blog - If you haven't heard of Cassie Smith, you really need to check this out. She's knitting the first world of Mario as one long, continuous scarf. It's pretty much the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

So, what are your passions? I'll be visiting other WGs and posting about what I discover throughout the week

The Sunday Salon - 21 December 2008

This has been the most relaxing weekend I've had in about five months. Why? Because we started our Christmas break on Friday! Two weeks of blissful freedom from moody teenagers, essays written in chat-speak, and that one annoying coworker who doesn't have an indoor voice. I celebrated Friday night by going to Athens to party with my friend/coworker Seth. We tried to hit up the Terrapin Brewery Tour but got lost (it's a nondescript white warehouse with little outside lighting and NO SIGN) and ended up getting there too late. Maybe next week. To compensate, I bought a refurbished PS2 (Seth also works at a GameStop part time and used his discount) and Kingdom Hearts. I just started last night and I'm already to Deep Jungle, my second-favorite world (after Halloween Town). I'm trying not to use a strat guide until I get to Oogie Boogie's house, because that's the only place I can remember in the game that you can't get back to later.

"But what about BOOKS?" you say? Well, I'll tell you. This is a picture of my current Mt. TBR:


These are the books that I'll be trying to get through in the next two weeks, in addition to the Kingdom Hearts-playing, prepping for next semester, and reviewing the books that I've already read and haven't gotten around to yet:


Not quite as large a stack, and there are a few books (checked out from the library) that aren't pictured.

So, my goals for this break are:
1. Read some books. I'm not attaching a numerical value to this goal; I just want to decrease the size of that first pile before I go back to school.
2. Review some books. I'm shooting for 10 reviews - that's one every day during the week. We'll see how that goes.
3. Play some Kingdom Hearts. I'm not going to beat it in two weeks, and I'm not going to try. I just want to enjoy it and relish the awesomeness of the game itself.
4. Finish up my 101 things to do in 1001 days list. I'm currently on 18. Eep!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc, and a happy New Year! :)

Video games, sex, and coloring

This is a cute little video I found on BoingBoing. In it, SCAD prof Daniel Floyd discusses the use of sex in video games, and why they're not taken seriously as an art form.

And here's something that may help: Lifehaker has a link that shows how to turn your Nintendo DS into a digital sketchbook. There's also a video demonstration that looks pretty sweet.

Nintendo, call me.

A slightly reconstructed conversation between myself and my Code Monkey, in which I try to help him redeem himself for forgetting about Valentine's Day:

One month to go:
Me: Don't forget, Easter is a chocolate-and-possibly-flowers-holiday.
CM: I know.

Two weeks to go:
Me: Now remember, Easter is a chocolate-flowers-and-possibly-stuffed-animal-holiday.
CM: That's...not what you said before, but ok.

Three days to go:
Me: You know, sweetie, that Easter is a chocolate-flowers-stuffed-animal-and-possibly-video-game-system-holiday, right?
CM: What the...?! Says who?
Me: Haven't you heard of the "Wii-ster" Bunny?
CM: That's cute, but you're not getting a Wii for Easter.
Me: How about a DS? The "D-ster Bunny"?
CM: No.

Damnit, who was my flax?!

This is the awesomest game ever! Fran brought it to Jeff's last night for Board Game Night. Sorta like a cross between Uno and Go Fish, but much funner.

We were also gonna play the new Star Wars Trivial Pursuit Saga Edition, but when we started reading some of the questions we discovered that they had spoilers for the new movie. The big one that really upset me was: How many beasts pull Padme's body during her funeral procession? Answer: 6 (Highlight to read) That was something I probably could've guessed was going to happen, but still, I didn't want to know!

Another fun thing: playing "Assassins," which basically devolved into us running around the house, shooting each other water guns. So, so awesome.