Steben

http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15945 This competition of sorts was invented by myself in an effort to counteract my own tendency towards laziness in starting and keeping to an exercise routine and diet. Not that I'm a total fatty, but I certainly need to keep active, or I will be one day soon. This is not a head-to-head competition with your fellow community members! Rather, consider it as a competition against yourself. For the most part, you're setting your own rules, and you're setting your own goals. Here's how to participate. The game lasts from now until Saturday, August 2nd. Anyone may jump in the game at any time they choose. To play, you have to come up with at least one goal for your personal heatlh that you'd like to meet over the course of the summer, that is, by August 2nd or sooner. Here's a tip: keep your goals S.M.A.R.T.! Specific: Say more than "Be Healthy". You goals need to mean something. Measurable: Try to make your goal something you can measure. Numbers are nice here... do you have a set weight you'd like to see yourself at? Would you like to be able to run a mile in a certain time? Attainable: Don't pick goals you'll never be able to reach, at least within the time limit. Be realistic... but don't underestimate yourself either! Relevant: Don't pick goals without a reason. I could go through life without being able to bench press 200 pounds... I just don't have a need to be able to do that. However, a related, relevant goal might be to build arm muscle, to impress the ladies? Timely: Don't say you're going to go to the gym every day if you'll only have access to a gym during a few weeks of the summer. Keep in mind your other activities and base your goals on what you'll have time for. I won't be checking to see if you goals are "smart", since it's all kind of subjective anyway, but setting your goals carefully will help you make sure that you will be able to meet them. Design some sort of health plan for the duration of the game that will help you meet your goal or goals. This could be an exercise routine, or a diet, but for best results you should commit to both. The questions that you should be able to answer with your plan are What, Where, When, and How. If you're not sure where to begin, check out the Community thread linked above for ideas. Also, many colleges offer fitness consultation as part of your student fees (that's how I'm going about this), so if you're in university, look into that. Once you have your goal(s) and health plan, post them in this thread! To stay in the game, you'll need to check in every weekend by posting in this thread. Include a day-by-day summary of your exercise and/or eating habits, and point out any inconsistancies with your health plan. We don't need (or want) an essay or excel spreadsheet or anything, a sentence or two per day is fine... you shouldn't have to say too much if you kept to your plan anyway. No one's gonna do perfect, but in order to be held accountable you need to be honest and fess up if you falter in your plan... this should help curb the temptation to ignore it as often. You may always adjust your goals or plan in order to make them more ambitious, but try not to wuss out and make things easier on yourself. Just announce it when you check in the thread. How do you win? Well, you get to decide if, at the end of the summer, you are a winner. Ask yourself these questions: Did I meet my goal? Did I exceed it? Or, at least, did I make some progress towards it? Did I make a solid plan, and stick to it for the most part? Will I commit to continuing to make healthy choices, even once the summer session has ended? If you can answer "yes" to all those questions, heck, sure, you win. Maybe we can arrange for some sig badges for those who make it all the way through. I'm acting as judge and organizer for the event, and I reserve the right to remove anyone from the game for inactivity, so don't forget to check in! But I won't be anal about it or anything... the point isn't the game itself, but in getting everyone involved to stay healthy and active. If you have any questions, post in the thread or send me a PM. The game starts... NOW! So set your goals, design your plan, post it here, and get started! --- PARTICIPANTS: Steben Geoffrey Taucer Fishy DragonAvenger Global-Trance The Derrit LuckyXIII amarriedmegaphone Vivi22 Majin GeoDooD Mechasonic4ever The Dennis The Xyco Blake Patrick Burns OA Kenobio Blue Magic Lord.Roderick.i Random Hajile

I will buy this game three times.

There's no way for us to discern who's lying or to quantify the work done or anything. Having prizes would just cause dramarama and frankly isn't something I'd want to deal with. There's nothing stopping anyone from placing side bets, but I see no compelling reason to have prizes or even placement in the official "competition". EDIT: Not that I think it's a terrible idea or anything! That had actually occurred to me when I first thought up this thread, but eventually I came to this conclusion.

I saw that picture before reading the post, and I thought someone was trying to pull one over on the rest of us by putting up a fake "before" pic.

Alright, well, this generated enough interest for two hours on a Sunday afternoon for me to think it's worthwhile. My last final is Friday, so next weekend I'll go about getting this thing organized. In the meantime, keep the suggestions/feedback incoming.

The Summer Session of OCR Fit Club has started! Join us in the Competitions thread: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16036 ------ Okay, let me explain a bit. I've made the decision to start working out every weekday this summer, starting the day after my last final. In addition, I'm going to start watching what I eat... eating out less, cooking more, and cooking healthier. Starting May 3rd. Quote me on that. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time I made this sort of promise to myself. I think I've said I'd try something like this for the past two summers, to no avail. 'Problem is, there's no accountability. Without any friends or family making similar pacts, nobody's gonna care whether I keep up with my exercise or diet or whatever. I lack self-motivation to really keep up with this kind of thing on my own. So I wonder. I'm sure I'm not the only person on the internet in a similar quandary. And I came up with this proposal. Let's have a "competition" of sorts. Obviously, everyone here has different levels of fitness, so we're not interested in who's the healthiest person on OCR. Rather, anyone who wishes to enter this competition, has to make a commitment to some sort of exercise routine, or diet, or both. Then, all you have to do is keep up a good faith effort to follow it for the duration of the competition. You'd be expected to check in at some regular interval (weekly maybe?) and explain how you fared since last check in. For example, if you want to lose weight, you could include that in your check-ins. What I'd really like to see is people who normally lead healthy lifestyles involved in this too, since you could provide advice or support to the rest of us as well. If you already have an exercise routine, there's no reason not to join... just keep doing what you're doing. At the end of the competition (perhaps it could last for the summer?), everyone who kept to their workout regimen or diet is a winner. Maybe some clever artist could contribute sig badges for the winners? But the point, of course, is just to encourage healthy habits in our online community. And to make sure I don't have any excuse to slack off working out this summer. I'd gladly organize this competition of sorts, if there's interest in the community. So if you think you may want to participate, leave a post. And if you have any suggestions, please let me know! I'm curious to see how this idea pans out.

Heh, I think that's the third time that picture has been posted in the past month, now.

I ordered the middle artwork. Thing is, I didn't even purchase the game. (Yet, anyway.)

I'm committing academic incest at Auburn University... I'm wrapping up my undergrad math degree in a month, and I'm sticking around to get a Masters in math and math education.

Play Lucas and then no one will spam Din's Fire against you.

I figure that you feel like you're getting more for your money if a dollar gets you 100 points, rather than just 1.

thedon's never going to play his matches, because he's too lazy to track down his opponent. Just drop him or replace him.

Nope10char

Nintendo's never going to patch a Wii game ever. You sort of need a hard drive for that sort of thing, not half a gig of flash memory. :-/

I had a submission rejected from OLR that was me doing exactly that for the Super Mario Bros. 3 athletic (?) theme. I'd totally link it if I had it on this computer. Hey, maybe I'll put it up on YouTube someday and it'll be almost as cool as that video?! Doop doop skittle skattle...

Heck, I lean towards the Ninty fanboy side of the spectrum, but I bought a PSP. If it just played games I might just stick with my DS, but factor in the MP3 player functionality and other stuff and it's a pretty worthwhile buy. Of course, now I'm tempted to get a PS3 for the console-handheld connectivity, not to mention Blu-Ray... pretty sly, Sony...

Yawn. I'll await the reviews as always, but the only Sonic game I've ever bothered to buy from this decade was Rush.

This went up on the refrigerator. No, seriously. I love living with 3 other Smash addicts.

Or alternately... Of course, it now occurs to me that Retro was 2nd party. Ah well. Also, am I the only person who enjoyed Assault? It'll never replace SF64 as the premier Star Fox experience, but it's not a bad game. Also, Assault's Star Wolf theme is pretty kickass. (As heard in Brawl.)

Hahaha. Pheonix Wright for Super Smash Bros. 4!

Hokay, so. Mostly for nostalgic purposes, one of my roommates bought Kid Icarus for the Virtual Console when it came out months ago. He apparently used to own it for the NES, but never really got far into it. Nowadays, he can't even get past the first level. In fact, until very recently none of us could. We'd play it (much like Soloman's Key) as a joke, until we got bored with seeing the same Sacred Words over and over again, and moved on to whatever Wii game we were into at the time. However, with the release of Brawl last month, I've had the pleasure of playing as and against Pit (mostly the latter). So with nothing better to do today, I finally sat down with a mind to make some progress in the game. With a few hours of play, I'm finally at the second "dungeon" of the game. Conclusion: it is pretty tough, and annoyingly unintuitive! I say this in comparison to other NES games; however, perhaps I'm biased because unlike, say, any of the four NES Super Marios, either Zelda, Metroid, etc. etc., I haven't been playing this game on and off for a couple decades of my life. What do you guys think of Pit's singular console appearance? Personally, I can't see why anyone was particularly enthralled with this game, enough to merit Pit's inclusion 20 years later in Brawl. Then again, it's a much better game than the first 20 seconds of Ice Climber would have me believe (thank you Masterpieces).

There's a coin in my signature. That means I'm either a terrible person, OR I just donated a couple Lincolns to the cause. It's overdue of course... the last time I supported the site was when I bought a shirt in '04. Glad I could offer a little something though.

Or WTIWPGIT SLIGTBWMW for short? No need to capitalize every word, dude.

I'm playing through it, and it's pretty fun. With the major exception of the BS stealth minigame near Modeohiem. There's nothing to hide behind, hardly, and the camera just isn't built for that type of game. I ended up settling for just 4/5 items.

I was disappointed this didn't get any front page love, along with the traditional joke mix post. Ah well.