RealFolkBlues

Hell yeah Will! Glad to see you could make it, man. Bebop tunes will be played son. I gots work to do now.

Congrats! MAGFest as a honeymoon? That's awesome. When you get there you gotta tell Brendan (Mr. MAGFest, the creator and principal organizer) that. He'll flip his wig.

-the good ole palm flat pushup -knuckle pushups: make fists and pushup from there. This is very much like benching your own weight if you go down to the point where your upper arms are parallel to the ground. -fingers inwards pushups: with palms flat on the ground, bend your wrists so that your fingers point towards each other. This is great for your pecs. -fingers backwards pushups: with palms flat on the ground, twist your arm so that your fingers face backwards and are just to the side of your ribcage or so. Awesome for triceps. -spreadeagle pushups: lay flat on your face with your arms straight out, then bring your fingertips in to where your wrists are and lift up before doing reps. Good for shoulders. -fingertip pushups: make sure all your fingers are sharply bent at all times and rest just your fingertips on the ground before doing reps. Very hard for beginners and those without a conditioned grip but great for those with decent grips/conditioning. -"squares" or "triangles:" place your palms flat right underneath your face with your thumbs together and your fingers either straight ahead (forming three sides of a square) or coming together to make a triangle. Both very difficult and really good for your pecs, squares are a little safer for your back. -claps: from a regular palm flat position, do a rep and clap one or more times before hitting the ground. You're gonna have to push off hard, especially if you're trying for more than one clap per rep or the very difficult clap behind your back. This hard, fast push is good for developing quick-twitch muscles in your upper body. Obviously, be careful with these. -one handed pushups: from palms flat move one arm in about a hand's width and remove the other. Good luck. -no handed pushups: you really only need to do sets of one with these. -leg lift pushups: from whatever hand position you desire, as you go down, lift one leg up about a foot or so. Alternate legs with each rep. Much harder than it sounds but great for your back and leg muscles. A good way to make sure you're getting some leg warmups in there as well. -slow pushups: exactly what it sounds like, from any hand position, do reps VERY slowly and hold your body position once tensed. Try moving your body weight to one side and holding position there. Make sure you come up as slowly as you went down for best effect. Great for endurance. -front incline pushups: from any hand position, place your hands on a surface higher than your feet. Typically easier overall but works your lower shoulders and pecs a little better than normals. -rear incline pushups: from any hand position, place your feet on a surface higher than your hands. Typically hardier overall but works your upper shoulders and pecs a little better than normals. You probably know this, but with all pushups, make sure your back is straight through the whole motion and don't just dip your hips. You may not get your arms all the way parallel to the ground but that's still better than doing the exercise incorrectly. @Arek: did you want me to list off some ab exercises as well?

@plastikbag: There's a lot of stuff you can do just by yourself or with free weights. Don't neglect isometrics like Taucer's example above (which I tried yesterday and was surprised by) or pliometrics like good old push-ups and sit-ups. I can give you like twenty different types of pushups, all of which will work different muscles, and there are maybe even more types of abdominal exercises. You might try making a small workout circuit wherever you store your weight, i.e., one spot reserved for pushups, the next for wall squats, the next for crunches, etc. Just a few strengthening exercises like these, done somewhat often, sounds like it will get you at least started towards your toning/health/energy goals.

JIMMY! Come on, man, its MAGFest! Sweaty nerds and videogames beat out family and beautiful skiing everyday. Stop trying to kid yourself.

I went as a samurai and my girlfriend was a geisha. Pictures forthcoming. One of the more comfortable costumes, I think, though refolding a hakama is a task.

This is actually a good example of something that hasn't been brought up in this thread yet. It's an important lesson for beginners and something veterans often forget in their exercising zeal. For best results and minimal injury, one should leave a day of rest between workouts, at least for each muscle group that was hit hard. That is, if you do a light run and work on your upper body on Tuesday, you can do another light run on Wednesday but you should lay off your biceps, triceps and so on until Thursday at least. This day of rest allows your muscles to rebuild and saves you from overstraining them, which can lead to injuries.

Not a good argument, prophet. Death Magnetic stomps faces, if you haven't heard it. Both of us like St. Anger, anyway. Scandalous, I know.

OCR! Convince me/my roommate to still come to MAGFest when Metallica has a concert in DC two weeks later with Machinehead and The Sword! I'm probably still coming. Whether or not my roommate is, though... Some of you might actually remember him from M5. He came to eat dinner with us one night, big guy with giant beard and long hair.

This. Thank you.

Looks like Guitar Hero wins. j/k That having been said, my roommate and my gf have played it a couple times at Best Buy and say it's the hot shit. I'm pretty excited. I bought those silencers for my Rock Band drum kit because the sound of the pads bugged my roommate and man do they piss me off. Also, we need another good guitar, and this one sounds like a winner.

@Dervish; I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the tone versus build concept of weight training. Essentially, lower weight and a higher number of reps increases the tone and endurance of a muscle group, whereas high weight and fewer reps builds muscle mass and increases the raw power of a muscle group. If you want to shape up without buffing up, try reducing your resistance and increasing your reps. This may be a bit tedious as you really should be doing a lot of reps per workout, but it works wonders. That actually segueways a little bit into my own workout goals. I'm a red belt now in my martial art (Tang Soo Do,) and really need to shape up. I'm reasonably strong, but my endurance and flexibility are not where they need to be. Also, I can't jump very high, which kind of sucks for my jumping and jump spinning kicks, which are important in my art. First off some numbers; Age:23 Height:5'8" Current Weight:187 lbs (silly girlfriend and her delicious cooking) Goal Weight:less than or equal to 175 lbs Years Working Out Seriously:10 Years In Tang Soo Do:3 1/2 I have various other goals, but the weight is the first and most immediate one. I am currently going to the dojang two to three times a week, and joined the Y yesterday (half price for me and my lady through my work.) I plan to go to the Y at least twice a week. Good call Tauce. Maybe the first post should be updated with everyone's goals and progress, etc.?

Happy birthday! I'll tilt one back for ya! Also, I think it's sweet that you and your girlfriend are planning on going to MAGFest when just a little while ago we were praying for your life. Here's hoping you continue to do great, man, and keep up the awesome mixing.

I'm bringing my djembe again this year. Might actually end up playing it since I won't be working 40 hours there this time (free admission and t-shirts are great but damn did that hamper my freedom of movement last year.) It's still private. I'm still screaming Brinstar Jungle from Super Metroid.

Somebody should make an animated .gif of Jose doing awesome stuff. Have a great b-day, Jose! I'll consume a cold one for ya!

Lead guitar eh? How good are you, exactly? Beaten Dragonforce? Beaten GH3 on expert? I'm not trying to say I'm the shiznit or anything(I haven't done either of those things, for instance,) but I am solid, and also very entertaining to watch. That having been said, if Pixietricks or Harmony or somebody with some genuine vocal talent doesn't come, I can sing. I'm alright. I can drum most songs on hard, and I don't really care if I ended up playing bass or hell, even just organized. Like I said, I might be running the tournament and I've got my own crew who I don't doubt will want me to play with them. As for the JamSpace, I'm an alright percussionist. I'll be bringing just my djembe, though. Somebody (who has more time to spend on the boards) should probably make a JamSpace thread.

Happy birthday o glorious leader of OCR party! Much potato vodkas will be dranken for you! Ve will how you say, party down comrade!

Hey hey Jimmy! Happy birthday good sir! Get Amanda to buy a guitar from you or something so as to get a double present. Or would that be too obvious?

I'll be there with my girlfriend and crew. This time, I'll try not to pass out on the JamSpace stage...or whatever I ended up doing that Saturday night. Thank you, tequila. Also, I was thinking of making an OCR Rock Band. Takers? I might end up running the tournament, and I'll probably be playing with said crew, but we shall see.

To begin with, I've had the game since WEDNESDAY! Bwahahahaha! Thank you awesome mom & pop stores who break street date. That having been said, it reminds me of the transition from SCI to SCII. It's on new game systems and thus there's a technical overhaul but not really a huge new supply of content. It's more a refinement of the core gameplay that's different here. Like wingless said, lots of tweaks here and there. My boy Mitsurugi's fairly similar, though they have changed a few things for Astaroth (nerfed Poseidon Tide Rush-can't really blame them for that.) I personally don't mind that there aren't create-a-fighter weapon styles. They were all mostly broken remixes of moves from other, more fleshed-out sytles. Who likes remixes, anyway? No crap talking before matches is kind of lame, if understandable, and I haven't yet unlocked a character to fulfill the old Inferno/Edge Master/Charade/Olcadan role of a different style each round, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy. You are definitely on, Rama et al, at M7 because I'm gonna work like no hours this year. You had a pretty good Siegfried, didn't you Rama?

First off, this idea is sweet. Some ideas; Emperor-King of All Cosmos from Katamari Hierophant-Krelian from Xenogears Chariot-Epoch from Chrono Trigger, any of the airships Temperance-Frozen Flame from Chrono Cross Ace of Cups-Celes from FFVI Queen of Swords-Jade from Beyond Good and Evil 5 of Wands-Fated Battle or Siegfried from Soul Calibur 8 of Wands-Link from Zelda (an adventure game, I know, but it fits the description pretty well) 10 of Wands-Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear Page of Wands-Yunseong from Soul Calibur

Didn't you hear? Soul Cal is serious business. In other words, I'm a hardcore SC fanboy who's afraid of change.

Wow, I'm surprised there isn't more Star Wars inclusion hate. I've pretty much come to terms with it, though, as I realized that Mitsu blocking Vader is about as realistic as Talim blocking Astaroth. Also, Jedi are sweet. As for the lots of similar characters, such is the cost of being a successful fighting game series. I mean, damn, Alpha 3? Great game, fully half the characters clones. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3? Ridiculous. Overall, really damned excited. Getting my limited edition like a true fanboy first day next week. My Mitsurugi is formidable, as is my Astaroth. You are all on in a major way come MAGFest 7.

Signed up. There was a thread about this a while ago, but man, Facebook is a solid ass website, technically. I just signed up last week and man is it better than MySpace.

Man, that's awesome. Congrats, djp!