DarqByte

34 inches? I know what you’re thinking about but no, I’m not talking about that. 34 would be selling myself way short anyway.

The latest chapter in my whole “make myself look and feel better” thing has arrived. I’ve been putting off getting new clothes mainly because I wanted to complete my weight loss first. I didn’t want to have to buy a bunch of clothes in a stopgap fashion. Unfortunately, my last two pairs of jeans bit the dust, so I was forced to replace them. They were Levi’s, and they were built rather well. The only problem was that it was tough to find 38-30s that weren’t below my heels. They weren’t truly 30s so I kept stepping on them and wearing down the bottom of the pant legs. For the record, I really needed 37s, not 38s. They don’t make 37s.

Now I’m in 34s! 34-30s and they aren’t too long. This makes me a very happy person. I’ve lost at least 30 pounds and 3 inches off of my waist. Good stuff. I’ve recently begun making progress again and I anticipate hitting the 175 mark by the end of this month or early February. That would be 35 pounds off since I started nearly a year ago. I think my target is 160, but I won’t really know until I get there.

I recently looked at photos of me when I went to just the mustache, the Robstache. Wow I’ve lost weight since then. I do look better. Still got further to go. Additionally, I’m going to try to start running in the mornings with Pepper (and potentially Laura). I was supposed to start this week, but being excessively tired when my alarm went off put the kabash on things. Hopefully I’ll start tomorrow.

And if I do start tomorrow, wow what a day it will be. Today I start my next semester of MBA courses. In 50 minutes, actually. I’m in Lied Library right now. But because my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve signed up to play soccer on Wednesdays. I was originally waffling on the decision, but Laura’s support for me switching days and the fear of getting really out of shape spurred me to sign up. In any case, tomorrow’s my first Wednesday day of soccer on a new individual coed team, and for some odd reason we have two games tomorrow… What the fuck. Two games? A doubleheader? I’ve done it before, but by choice not by facility scheduling. Running in the morning plus two soccer games in the evening. Wow.

And that’s not the end of it! I told my Thursday soccer team I’d make the games if they were late enough, which is basically 9pm or later. So the 9:10 game this Thursday? Yup, I can make that. And I’m hoping to run on Thursday morning as well. Which would make three runs (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and three soccer games from Wednesday morning to Friday morning. Wow. See why I think I’ll hit 175 this month?

In other news, I wish I had endless time to do everything I want to do. Not only am I trying to find time to work on OMGN 4, I want to write a memoir about my video game life until, well, now. I think it would be very interesting because I don’t think there’s much of anything like that out now. And I’m a pretty good example of someone who gamed a lot when they were a kid and make the transition to being a responsible (well, at least I think so) adult with a married life and a job and other normal responsibilities.

This brings me to another subject: video games. Specifically, the original Atari joystick. See, my friend Jonathan recently got a tattoo in Elvish from Lord of the Rings. He loves it and I’ve always wanted a tattoo and I’ve always loved video games. I wasn’t 100% set on what tattoo I wanted but I knew I wanted a video game-related one, especially after seeing Anne’s roommate Ed’s “Mario 1up” tattoo he’s got. See, I didn’t want a tattoo that was system- or franchise-specific, I wanted one that represented video games as a whole. Now I know the Atari joystick is still Atari, but it represents so much more than that these days. And I’m asking Jonathan to give me a nice illustration of it so I can verify I indeed want to get it permanently marked on my body.

Laura’s been making sure I really want one, and I do. I am, however, curious to know what you all think of it…

Anyway, that’s it for now. Chat at you all later when I know more about my spring courses and I can let you know if I think I’ll be on track to continue my pursuit of a 4.0.