Griddlelol

I can't wait to go back and S-Rank all the missions. I've played 20 missions so far and got 5/20 S, with most being A/B and one E that is mocking me. I also like the idea of completely limiting myself and going back with nothing but a distraction item, and procuring all my weapons from the enemies. I've done that in a few side ops (although you have to start with a pistol and a primary, but I just choose the worst ones). It's a lot of fun.

I feel like I'm being a contrarian, but a lot of this is tangentially related to my field of research so I end up reading about it anyway. So this is false. Activity does not mitigate the health risks of being obese. The research on this is around 10 years old found here and here. Essentially it's better to be thin and sedentary, than fat and active. It's also better to be thin and active than anything else...who'd have thought? The fitness industry is really good at ignoring scientific data that doesn't help them make money, or doesn't back up what they believe.

I'm so jealous. I could not kill that stupid HR7 final quest. Had no clue what I was doing and no one would join my PuGs for it. Haven't played in a while...

I hate my opinion on this, but every time I see/hear Ocelot I think "oh hey, it's Troy Baker." That guy is so incredibly noticeable since he's in everything. I also love that it's got loads of crazy shit. The man on fire, the giant fire whale, it all adds to the game making it less of a boring military game, and more like an awesome Japanese game. There are so many mechanics. I don't even know what half of them do. What the hell is Heroism? Why does it go da-dum when I murder a guard?

Worst of all, the walker looks dumb. You'd get some crazy leg cramps using that thing.

Eh, I didn't feel like dodging was the problem. Everything gave you days to avoid it, my problem was seeing the other boss. It was really hard to keep track of, then suddenly fireballs are hitting your ass. I beat it in the end. It was pretty funny, I kept getting invaded by the same dude on my way. He came in 4 times in that tiny ass area. Each time I murdered him. I thought I'd have to go through that PvP gauntlet again, but I managed to kill the boss. I think the Old Iron King bosses are the best. Some great stuff there. I also platinumed (got all the achievements) which was pretty fun. I really think DS2 got a bad rap. It's a solid, great game.

I agree. "Street" to me is like chav. It's like that time Benedict Cumberbatch (spelling?) said "People of colour" or something, which made people mad. Yet that seems to be the opinionated in a way that is different from me way to say black in the US. Damn the thumbs edits.

Quiet's humming is incredibly annoying. She's good for fire support, but I don't like how long it takes her to "infiltrate" a base and mark enemies for me. Plus, I like petting D-Dog. He appreciates it. When you get her to full-on-level-10-buddy, she will do a little lap dance for you in the helicopter. It's incredibly embarrassing.

So despite telling myself I wasn't going to get it, I got it. I can say pretty comfortably already, that this is one of the best games I've ever played. I don't know how many hours in I am but probably around 50 and I've done a lot of side ops. There are so many crazy stories that come from it, that I'm sure no one will want to know. I can't help myself. During one mission I brought in all the wrong gear thanks to not paying attention. A rocket launcher, an assault rifle, and my trusty tranq pistol, and only grenades and C4. I basically had to either grab everyone, or my silencers would expire fast. So after some comedy mistakes on my part, all my silencers were spent in the first 5 or so minutes. This meant I snuck through most of the level, actively avoiding people until a chopper spotted me. I blasted it out the sky, killed a few soldiers with the few rounds of rockets I had left, then in a moment that makes it the best, I picked up a downed enemy's sniper. Then I turned into a Lord. Just fucking head shotting bitches left and right. I was carrying a prisoner too, so I would just throw them down and whip out the sniper and pop a few guys in the head before moving on. All while my chopper was waiting for me. Mission ended, I was convinced I got a shit score. "S" rank. Apparently all those head shots and crazy accuracy at the end made up for every single mistake I made along the way. Snake just controls so well. It's sublime. I've bumped into a few instances of awkwardness, but 90% of the time the controls just allow you to be amazing. Also, best buddy is D-Dog. By far. Fuck the horse. Quiet is decent, but no where near as useful as having that dog nose around.

A backlog. Also I've not finished MGS3 yet.

Goddamn it, I saw it for £40 in Tesco yesterday. Must hold strong.

The ultra great swords are pretty much always the same one. The one that looks like a buster sword. I think it's the one called "greatsword". Still the vast majority are casters. I've not tried elements on the boss. If you buff before you start, you lose the buff. There's also not a lot of time in the fight to get a buff off without getting hit. I'm sure it's as that would fit thematically. I'll try that tonight. I'm also rolling in effigies. I've had 99 for a while.

I managed to get all the sun medals. I did a mix of leaving my character at the iron keep, and getting a summon once every 10 or so minutes, and if those dried up, I farmed the falconers at things betwixt. They have a low drop rate, but it's higher than 0 with all the buffs you can get. Helping people out was actually really fun. I'm most surprised that I never once encountered a Dex build. Everyone was either a caster or rocking an ultra great sword. I'm now doing the abyss covenant. I made it to the boss, but man is that boss tough.

Seems like a smart decision. People love Amiibo. People love Shovel Knight. I'm sure it'll make them a lot of money. I'd consider getting one if the pose wasn't so lame.

Goddamn it's difficult to resist buying this now.

I read that as butt hole. I'm kinda disappointed now.

Oh yeah, they're the worst. NG+ is good! Although its difficulty was clearly balanced before the DLC was introduced because I'm ploughing through everything. Plus, I'm trying to max out Sun Bros, meaning I have all the souls. I think I need 100,000+ for a levle up now. Getting 30 Sun Medals is hard. I have 25. Sometimes I get summoned every 5 minutes and plough through like 3 or 4 bosses, others I'm waiting around for an hour to get summoned, then the host will die on the boss. It's really frustrating when it's bad, but really fun when it's good. Some of the host deaths have made me crack up hard though. Right after the Smelter Demon, there's the bridge that a turtle knight breaks. I jumped over it, and started fighting him, dispatched him and moved on to other enemies. In the corner of my eye, I saw the host running stopping then turning around and going for a longer run up. She did it 5 or so times, then the last one just ran straight off the bridge without even jumping. I cracked up for about 5 minutes after that.

I disagree with the assessment that you won't lose much weight without exercise. It's demonstrably false. There's a ton of data out there on weight loss, in humans and animal models based entirely on hypocalorific diets. Anecdotally, I've lost more weight by dieting than I ever have by exercise alone. Obviously I've lost more weight by dieting and exercise, but in my experience with other people, doing both is more likely to lead to failure, especially if they hate exercise. Just saying "you have to exercise" is such shit advice because it avoids the key issue. "You have to eat less" is far better advice. A meta analysis of dietary/combined/exercise interventions showed that combined weight loss of diet and exercise interventions are not significantly better than dietary only. Exercise only being the worst. I'm not saying exercise is bad. I would recommend everyone exercise, but it's completely inefficient for weight loss. It's great for bone, heart, lung, metabolic and circadian health. I'd also argue that changing habits about how you eat is easier than changing habits about how you're active, that's subjective though, but if someone hates exercise, I'd imagine they'd feel the same as me.

The thing is, if you're on a calorie restricted diet, you won't gain muscle from exercise. It's impossible, unless you're a complete beginner, or tremendously over weight. So there won't be any significant gain in basal metabolic rate. Why would you be on an isocaloric diet, or hypercaloric diet if you're trying to lose weight? That would be counter productive. Also, remember that while muscle has a higher level of resting metabolic rate than fat tissue, fat tissue still metabolises. For every bit of fat you lose and muscle you gain, the difference between your overall metabolic rate is actually quite small.

I'm usually under the impression that anything can be funny, but most of that sounds like it came out of a 14 year old kid's mouth, trying to act cool for the older kids. Pretty sad that passes as comedy.

Really interesting Mangela, thanks for sharing.

I've been busy, I completed two games. The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin The Witcher was a pretty good game. The narrative is a bit of a mix. It shifts from incredible moments like the famous bloody baron quest line to boring fantasy shit as the game moves into the final act. I completely lost interest in the final act. It felt excessive and it felt like the open world design became more of a hindrance, rather than an augmentation. The Witcher 3 is best when you're looking for Ciri. You're traversing a world encountering different and exciting things along the way. Characters, objects and small stories all make sense in the context of searching and looking for Ciri. Compare that to other open world RPGs of note like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Skyrim. Their open worlds make very little sense. They're distractions from the grave mission you're on to save the world. The controls suck, but what can you do? I was able to look past that for much of the game, but it became a chore in the final act. Dark Souls 2 surprised me. I lost steam the first time I tried to play it. I as was surprisingly close to the end (unbeknownst to me at the time) and just lost interest. SotFS held me in to the end. It's a souls game, so if you like that, you'll like DS2. It has one major problem in that the game limits your rolling invincibility frames from the start, requiring you to invest in a stat to increase it. It was an awful design choice which makes the start of the game painfully frustrating. Once you get past that, it has some good bosses, some great areas to explore and a lot of tough challenges. Flexile Setnry, Ruin Sentinels, sir Alonne, Fume Knight where the ones that stood out to me as the best. The sheer number of ways to do things in DS2 is to its credit. You can cast in 4 different ways. You can use huge swords and maces or fast katanas and rapiers. Each has their advantage and disadvantage, but I don't think any one is the optimal way. I'm now playing NG+, I've completely ditched my shield (which in the latter half of the game was merely for stamina regen) and it's fantastic. I'd liked to have done this from the start, but the agility stat makes it very difficult. Despite what many people have said, DS2 is a great game and a great souls game. I'm planning on getting the platinum trophy, but that's really just an excuse to play more DS2.

Exercise isn't good for weight loss. It's an incredibly inefficient way to lose fat. It won't hurt your attempts, but it certainly won't make or break your attempts to lose fat. The reason it sounds incorrect is because we've all been told for years that you have to exercise to lose weight. It's not false, but it's certainly not anywhere near the best way. I've come to see exercise as a catalyst. It speeds up fat loss when your diet is on point, but as badfinger said, it's probably in the range of 70/30 diet/exercise. When I was over weight and under trained I focused on putting on muscle first, then worrying about losing fat later. It's really hard to train and diet without ever having done either before.

The idea hat exercise is for weight loss is pretty old fashioned now. Eating fewer calories (it doesn't matter where they are from) is what will make you lose weight. If you find exercise boring, then don't do it. Try doing s sport, rather than just solo stuff. I don't enjoy "exercising" but I do enjoy training for a goal that isn't just looking better. That's probably the shallowest reason to exercise, which makes the whole thing tedious. I'd rather have a chocolate bar than have visible abs, but I'd rather go to the gym than be shit at my chosen sport. Which sport is up to you, but as a counter point to something you'll probably say...I hate watching sports too. I find it to be the most boring "activity" in the world. Love playing sports though, it's completely different. Talking of that, there's a local basketball group that my girlfriend used to play with. I'm tempted to go, but I only know the very basics of the sport and apparently they're all well into it. Don't want to look like a chump and make a million mistakes. The reason I want to join is because they're all pretty casual when it comes to commitment. I'd love the play a real sport again, like rugby, but I don't want to commit to 2 training sessions a week and 1 match day.

Fume Knight and Sir Alonne are fantastic bosses. I took down Fume without too much trouble, but Alonne is kicking my ass. This is by far the best part of the DLC for me. I love that you can respec in Ds2. I switched it up to a 40/40 quality build and having s lot of fun messing around with all the different weapons available to me now. I think for NG+ I'll make a spell sword to experience casting for the first time.