Yes I’m on Atkins.

The Atkins Diet (or more officially, The Atkins Nutritional Approach) does have a particular appeal to me. It doesn’t work for everybody, definitely. And there are other diets out there (South Beach is another good one) or other ways to lose the poundage. But more importantly, Atkins is something I’m just absolutely comfortable with.

It’s the meat. All the meat you can eat. I’m a dude, and dudes eat meat. Yeah I’m cool with the occasional salad, bowl of yogurt or tuna casserole, but seriously, nothing is as satisfying as a large slab of steak and a side of veggies.

For the uninitiated and the uninformed, Atkins can be quite the challenge- you have to get rid of virtually ALL carbohydrates in your regular diet (at least for the first 14 days). For Filipinos and Asians, that’s a LOT of food. Kiss your bowls of rice goodbye, your plates of pancit and mami (noodle dishes) goodbye, nor can you have desserts, or even fruits! Your usual snacking options are now thrown out the window- no chips, no soda, no iced tea, no coffee, no candies or chocolates, absolutely none of those.

You can have a sandwich if you want, but don’t eat the bread So yes, if you just aren’t used to it, it does present itself as a challenge.

Anything else, is relatively fair game- meat of pretty much all kinds (beef, pork, lamb, chicken, etc.) , all kinds of seafood, all kinds of vegetables. Cheese is alright, butter is alright, nuts are alright. So it’s not all that bad. I say any diet that lets me eat a whole rack of baby back ribs and wash it down with a glass of red wine is just totally awesome.

Oh don’t forget to couple the diet with a good exercise program.

I must admit, I’m not an expert on Atkins, but I’ve seen it work wonders for me. And I’m just all too glad to help other guys out. Atkins, in my opinion, is a dude’s diet. Dudes who have a more than a little extra chunk and hate controlling their calorie intake- like me.

But if you’re just, say, 10 to 20 pounds overweight, you’re really just better off working out some, or if you have to, do South Beach. Like I said, Atkins definitely isn’t for everybody.

Wanna know your true self?

Hey. If you’re the type who digs checking out online personality quizzes and all, you may want to check out PersonalDNA.com. All you have to do is take a short little quiz, answer as truthfully as you can, and get your results right away!
According to these guys, I’m supposed to be an “Advocating Leader”- like Adolf Hitler, only a lot more nurturing. Or something like that.
Though it would be nice to know what other kinds of personalities you have out there. Or what kind of percentage of people who’ve taken the test are the same as you are. Or what kinds of people you’re likely to get along with, or butt heads with. In any case, it was entertaining enough to warrant me writing about it. Read more about my results right here.
Do check it out. In the meantime, I’ll go fancy myself as a William Adama. With my own battlestar to command and all that.

Checked out Facebook yet?

Holy crap! If you guys haven’t tried out Facebook yet, maybe you should give it a whirl. I just spent an entire Sunday morning trying out all the cool apps on it: you could make your very own Simpsons and Southpark avatars, load a couple of widgets on your favorite shows, take some personality tests, share files, and a whole lot of other great stuff.
I’ve been using Facebook these days to keep in touch with my relatives (Mom’s side, anyway). Yeah you could make new friends too, look for new business contacts, or just plain network away to your hearts content. Compared to the other online social networking sites, Facebook sure is choc-full of fun, but for some reason (I may have just missed it though), I couldn’t seem to find a way to customize the URL to make it more ‘me’.
In any case, you may want to check it out. Look me up, add me to your ‘Friends’ list. Should be awesome.

The Quest for the "How I Met Your Mother" Theme Song

Look, I’m a huge fan of TV themes. I’ve been collecting the themes to my favorite shows as soon as I found out they could be collected.

With the internet, Wikipedia, YouTube and other great sites out there, you can easily build up your collection of TV tunes, plug in, and bombard your eardrums with the opening themes of your favorite programs.

Most are pretty easy enough to find- say, all of the CSI shows make use of songs from The Who. Or shows like Scrubs, Smallville and Battlestar Galactica have been gracious enough to put together OST albums for schmucks like myself.

Lately, my girlfriend and I have finished Season 2 of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother (great stuff, btw, if you haven’t seen it yet!). Yes, we’ve been huge fans since the first few episodes of the previous season. It’s an awesome show. Not just awesome- it’s legendary! Anyway, we decided to find a copy of the theme and maybe load it on our mobile phones as a ringtone or something- coz that would just be incredibly cool. Running a search on the usual sites: TV.com, Wikipedia, Imdb.com all point to the theme song being done by The Solids (half of which turns out to be the creators of the show: Carter Bays and Craig Thomas!). It’s a song called “Hey Beautiful”, which you can listen to in its entirety on The Solids‘ page on MySpace (which you could check out here).

While the song in itself is an incredible piece of work, those of us looking for that recognizable little hook from the opening theme of the show won’t be treated to the happy “puh-pa-pa-pah, puh-pa-pa-pah puh-pa-ra-ruh ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ruh” hook we’ve all grown to love. Hey, while on their MySpace page, do check out their other songs- great stuff right there too.

Anyway, I’ve noticed a whole bunch of fans looking for the short version of the song. Couldn’t find a copy of it a month ago- so I decided to get my own using Moviemaker. Right now, I’ve loaded it onto my phone and my girlfriend’s. So when we get a text message, we get treated to a 12-second slice of ear-candy: never fails to brighten up an otherwise crappy day.

Oh, you can get a copy of the theme song right here: Enjoy!

Back To Guild Wars!

OK. This whole day job is eating into my otherwise perfect gaming lifestyle. Two-and-a-half months ago, I was contentedly satisfied playing my World of Warcraft- until I was hit by the stark realization that, yes, the gaming lifestyle needs to be supported by a steady source of income. So I begrudgingly returned to corporate slavery to generate the resources required to keep on gaming.

And here comes the announcement of the release of Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Ahh. I have such fond memories of Guild Wars. It was the very first MMORPG I got into (since I was very much working at the time). I’ve started playing in early 2006, and I’ve worked my way through the Prophecies campaign, the Factions expansion, and then the Nightfall add-on.

They say that Eye of the North is Guild Wars’ first REAL expansion. What exactly they mean by that, I have no clue. But whatever it is, it sure sounds a whole lot better than the first two. Yay! More Guild Wars action for everyone!

Guild Wars is a great game for people who have work. While, yes, World of Warcraft is just as entertaining (or arguably more so), you’d like to be able to make full use of the gaming time you’re paying for every month. Unlike WoW, GW is free-to-play (after your initial purchase, of course). And unlike LOTS of other free online games out there, this one actually kicks ass. The storyline is very engaging, the character development allows you for lots of customization, the quests are appropriately challenging, and the game has incredibly high replay value. Getting both add-ons (Factions and Nightfall) gives you a lot more quests to play with, additional storage space, four extra character slots, improved henchmen and so much more. Oh, and it looks and sounds good too.

So just before I go get myself a copy of Eye of the North, I’d like to back and revisit the lands of Tyria, Canthia and Elona. Spend some time with old friends, make some new ones- getting myself in the mood for a lot more Guild Wars action. Let’s play!