Steben

I was so obsessed with this game when I was ten that my mom made me quit playing. Telling her that it was Christian because you got to pray in order to kill bad guys was a Bad Idea. It was just as well. I went back (forward?) in time at like level 80, and was constantly being rocked by all the baddies in that area. I doubt ten-year-old me would have had the determination to grind my way to a higher level, or the cleverness to beat it at that low level. Also, I kept trying to do the pray thing earlier in the battle than I was supposed to, so I never would have beaten it anyway. Years later I've played through it and beaten it multiple times. I even beat Mother 1 without cheating, once, although I wasn't so successful on the second attempt... if there was ever a game that needed to tweak some balance issues.

Well, I'm on vacation, but I managed to get out and jog Saturday and yesterday. I'll have to give it another go tomorrow as well, since I know I'm eating way more than usual... or at least worse. (mmm, fried seafood at restaurants, and potato chips and soda at the beach house...)

Okay, so I bought The World Ends With You about a week ago... I am incredibly happy with it - both with its gameplay and soundtrack. The story is, well, I guess I didn't expect much anyway. Neku (is that the protagonist's name?) was a total dick, of course, but now that I just got to week two I'm beginning to LIKE him, at least in comparison to Joshua. I actually expected the game to end after Shiku (again, is that her name?) Day 7, though, with only the prospect of a New Game+ or something to keep me going, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much about getting twice as much (at least?) gameplay out of it. I am still terrible at managing both screens... playing on Hard is downright ridiculous, especially when trying to learn Josh's slightly altered controls. Then again, I usually play at level 1 as well, so that helps make things rough. Anyway, I totally want the IABW + TWEWY soundtrack... I think the CD releases later this month?...

Guilty as charged. To the letter, actually. It's convenient if you have a roommate who wants to watch TV, and you want to play Chrono Cross, and your roommate is an utter tool who thinks Cross was a terrible sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Wow... it's been a crazy week for me personally... I'll have to attend to this later. Actually, I have a question... would it upset anyone if, since the competition is self-motivated anyway, I quit keeping up with check-ins and count on ya'll to do it yourselves? Frankly, while I normally spend a lot of time on the intertubes, some weeks like this past one are so busy that it's hard to rationalize spending a half-hour going through the thread and checking to make sure everyone's posted in the past week. The competition would continue for the summer, but I'll just count on everyone to be honest about their participation rather than keeping up the active/inactive list on the front page. While we're talking about this, I'm also curious. After the summer's over, perhaps we should make a new thread in Community? We could just call it OCR Fit, and it can be free-for-all talk on exercise and whatnot. People can check-in like they have this summer if they'd like, or they can just talk about health/diet/exercise and whatnot. Thoughts?

Well, it's time for this week's checkins. Yeah, I fail completely. I've been busy, and I spent what time I would have spent exercising, playing MGS4. Also, I need to find a working MP3 player... I really don't like running without having music.

Does anyone else have a problem with connecting to the network for any of MGS4's online content? Every time I try to do something online, I get an error... However, my PS3's online functions seems to work fine, like the web browser and store. I'd like to give MGO a whirl, but can't even download the 1.01 update.

Okay wait people have beaten this already? Heh, I've been home visiting with family for Father's Day... no time to rush through it. I just got to South America. Speaking of which I'm really digging these location names. The Middle East, South America... like those are specific places. And I love how everyone speaks perfect English. Makes me wish I lived in the Metal Gear universe... I'd rock out at geography.

I'm not sure if everyone remembered to check in for both checkins since the last time I caught up, but everyone's posted at least once since then except for Random Hajile, so that's good enough for me. Incidentally, here's my list of participants and inactives. Double-check to make sure I haven't made a mistake. And with that, my Week 6 check-in. I've definitely improved on the elliptical machine since I last got to the gym here in AU weeks ago. I'll have to try and go again tomorrow before I return home for Father's Day weekend. The weights weren't as bad as I thought, despite my three-week hiatus. My week off has made me kind of lazy... notice that I did nothing Monday or Wednesday. I need to make sure I get back in the habit I was in before.

Okay I've got it now. And am sucking it up... Metal Gear games are like my kryptonite, but I have fun anyway.

I was pissed off when the guy behind the counter tonight told me that they couldn't sell me one until 7am (unlike what a guy earlier that day had told me). That is, until I heard about the $100 gift card deal. That's groceries to last me a while.

I ran for 22 minutes yesterday. That's my entire checkin since I left last Friday. I'm headed back to Auburn today, so the diet and exercise should return to a sense of normalcy. Much as I love working for the BSA, I was in charge of food for a lot of the week, and it was all unhealthy stuff too. Wives and girlfriends would bring goodies for the staffers too, which were delicious, but not nutritious. Combine that with no time to work out, and last week was terrible as far as OCR Fit is concerned. At some point this week, before next weekend's checkin, I'm going to catch up on the bookkeeping for the standings, so make sure you all checkin if you haven't already!

Snuck away from camp to grab a couple songs from the internet, and to do work for auburn.edu/auband/ . My summary for this week will be sad... I'm eating terrible and mostly sitting around making sure kids don't hurt themselves or others. Woo fun. It's over Saturday, so starting Sunday I'm back on track. Okay, back to work for the BSA some more.

Nekofrog, you'll need to at least post some sort of goal to officially participate in the game. I haven't been very picky about how much detail people have gone into, but here's the tl;dr rules: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=403923&postcount=1 Here's my Week 4 check-in: (a little early for reasons I'll explain shortly) Alright, so, I'm going to be mostly away from the internet the next week as I work as an adult staffer for the local National Youth Leadership Training course. I'll have to make it back to the 'net at least a couple times to fulfill my duties as the AU Band's webmaster, but I probably won't have time to mess with this thread until a week from Saturday. So I'll trust you guys to start off the Week 5 check-ins next Friday without me. I'll catch up with the bookkeeping to see if anyone's dropped out when I return. So, uh, be good kids. My number's on the fridge. See you in a week!

Do you want to join the game? Post your fitness goal and plan, and you're in!

Woo, 'ran another 30 minutes today! I wonder how far I went in that time... I'll have to go over the path I ran in my car later today, and use the odometer to find out... probably less than three miles, but still, it's an improvement over the past, I'm sure. I think later this summer I'll work on getting my single-mile time down. I think I'm running the first mile at around 9 minutes, but that's as a part of the longer runs I've been doing.

Hey, good to hear from you. I moved you back to the active participants, but you should let us know how you've been sticking with your plan over the past couple weeks when you get a chance. You aren't disqualified if you haven't done anything, but you should let us know. In general, guys, if you're gonna be out of touch for a while, give me a heads up and I won't move you from the active to inactive list if you don't post within a week. Sending me a message via PM ensures that I will see it. Also, thanks for checking in DragonAvenger.

Okay, we're missing DragonAvenger and Lord.Roderick.i from this past weekend... you guys should let us know you're still alive and participating asap. Five Dollar Foot Longs are a gift from God. Two meals pretty much, for $2.50 each. Do you want to join the game, Blake? I don't think you've posted here before. -- Anyway, I wanted to try and see if I could repeat my performance from yesterday, running 30 minutes straight. However, we ended up visiting family for Memorial Day, and I spent the afternoon swimming and playing with my younger cousins, and now it's raining outside, so I'm gonna have to wait until tomorrow. Swimming today reminded me how much I like it, though... I should start going to the pool at my school when I get back into town.

Hey that was fun, and informative. Thank you for the past ten minutes of my life.

Ha! I ran for 30 minutes straight today, so I made my goal. Now I gotta decide if I want to work towards running longer, or running faster.

Week 3 Check-in: A pretty lame week, overall. Of course, I lost a weekend due to obligations working for a National Youth Leadership Training camp, but there was no excuse for skipping Thursday. As for food, I'm still eating better, and a little less, but I'm not counting calories explicitly. Not sure if I want to go back to that... honestly, it's a huge pain, but I know I ate less when I had a solid number in my head that I knew I had to keep low. I think I'm gonna go out and buy a scale... I'm curious to see how my weight's changed over the past few weeks.

Well I suppose my guess about that file was correct. Glad I didn't download it.

'Ran for 20 minutes, walked for a bit, and then ran for 10 minutes. It's not as good as my 25-minute run on the 12th, but I stopped before I needed to in order to catch a breath before finishing out the full half-hour. I'm feeling good on reaching my half-hour goal by the end of the month. Oh snap, it's the weekend. I'll have to add my check-in shortly.

Well, I ran 30 minutes today! Um. Well, I ran for 16 minutes, 7 minutes, and for 7 minutes again, with walking breathers in between. I'm gonna work up to doing it all straight over the next week. Wish me luck!

Zircon, thank you. That's a pretty neat tool to have.