Op-Ed | ShrinkGeek

On the level

Mar 152010

Penny Arcade discusses the leveling drive.

Gabe and Tycho have fallen down this rabbit hole as well...

It looks like this whole motif of life being a game is contagious. According to folks speaking at the Games Development Conference, the next potential “killer app” is getting people to apply gaming and leveling mechanics to their lives. For things unrelated to using electronic gizmos or mechanical pencils and funky dice, the notion of “leveling up in life” is earning gaining a lot of mental traction with folks outside of the gaming industry. This is an almost inevitable side effect of those of us who grew up gaming hitting the point in our lives where, not only are we a meaningful target demographic, we’re in positions where we can begin to shape corporate policies.

Take a minute if you need to cackle maniacally at that thought. I’m going to.

The conceit of earning and unlocking achievements in the big blue room isn’t new; it’s just not been called that quite so openly before. Loyalty programs, such as frequent-flyer miles, have been around for decades, and they are a fairly subtle but direct implementation of this concept. By reaching such-and-such a milestone (dollars spent, miles flown, nights stayed, or whatever), you earn perks to encourage you to continue to prefer a particular service purveyor, whether that’s an airline, a hotel, or credit card.

Achievements serve as inducement to put in extra effort and attention to things we ought to be doing (as the friend who pointed out the IDGC link out to us put it, “I want achievements for everything, dammit. Especially brushing my teeth.”). However, just as leveling up in games gets tougher, it does in real life, too.

Slow and steady wins the race

Health News, Op-Ed 6 Responses »

Mar 022010

Bugs Bunny and Cecil Turtle are registered trademarks of Warner Brothers

Dieting is a touchy subject. We all have our own ideas as to what is the “best” way to lose weight, and with very little research we can often find studies that back up our claim. What’s more, we’re all pretty defensive of our choices. Getting together in a room full of low-carb and low-fat dieters and asking them which is the better way to diet is as fraught with danger as standing in the middle of the lobby of the Marriott at Dragon*Con with a bullhorn and asking what the best Science Fiction series is.

In the spirit of full disclosure I have to admit that I am a low-fat, calorie counting dieter. That’s what Weight Watchers® really is, when you get right down to it. They just wrap it up in a convenient system and assign food point values. I’ve been on Weight Watchers for over 9 years now and while the amount of weight I have lost has varied consistently I have managed to maintain the large majority of my loss following that program. As a result, I am obviously biased toward low-fat diets and a big proponent of them. I truly believe that portion control, exercise, and healthy food choices are the key factors in losing weight and keeping it off.

A study released in the Annals of Internal Medicine seems to back me up on that.

Too Fat To Fly?

Op-Ed 3 Responses »

Feb 182010

via @thatkevinsmith on Twitpic

There’s been a bit of news floating around recently that I have, frankly, been hesitant to comment on here despite the fact that is probably one of the more relevant topics in recent events when it comes to our target demographic. For those of you who are unaware of what, exactly, I’m talking about (and bless you for having the ability to somehow avoid every major news outlet for the last week) – Kevin Smith (director of the highly acclaimed independent film Clerks) recently caused quite a stir on Twitter when he posted about being removed from a flight on Southwest Airlines because he was, well…Too fat.

The story is, honestly, considerably more detailed than that. If you’re interested in all the details you can hear them directly from Mr. Smith himself on his Smodcast web site. You can also see the two official responses from Southwest over on their Nuts About Southwest blog.

Full disclosure

Op-Ed, Site Meta No Responses »

Feb 152010

Image courtesy of kkimpel on Flickr

From time to time, you’ll see us do a review of a fitness product, exercise game, food or diet supplement, or whatever else around here. Most of the time, it’s because one of us owns it already; sometimes, we’ve gotten a trial sample of something, or are given the use of it for a while. A lot of the time, what you’ll read here originates from very close to home – Mike and Krystalle get a ton of use out of the exergaming titles they have for their Wii; both they and Scott and have made Weight Watchers a guiding principle in their eating habits; and my copy of Starting Strength sits right here on my desk, underneath the notebook where I log my daily workouts. It’s not just fiction authors who live by the dictum, “Write what you know.”

The companies that have been kind enough to send us review samples have done so knowing that we’re going to be giving you, our readers, our honest assessment of whatever they may be offering. Whether it’s effusive enthusiasm, a thumbs-up with a caveat, or some well-earned derision, we’re not going to sugar-coat what we say.

That’s not how we roll, whether it’s 1d4 or 8d12.

Snackwell’s skullduggery

Health and Fitness Tools, Op-Ed No Responses »

Feb 082010

In what can only be seen as complete universal injustice, we here at ShrinkGeek have to hold down regular old nine-to-five jobs in order to put our healthy food on the table. Fortunately, the job that I’ve got is a pretty decent one – especially when you factor in the benefits. In particular, the employee gym we have in our corporate headquarters is pretty nice. I’m down there at least once a day, and it has helped me considerably in my efforts to refocus on my weight loss in the last year.

One thing we do not have, however, is a cafeteria. We’re a decent-sized company, but we don’t really have enough staff in our main location to justify that kind of expense. The only access we have to food comes in the form of vending machines, and as someone who traditionally doesn’t carry cash, that has never been a viable option for me… up until last week, anyway. We recently switched vendors, and now all of the food dispensary units in our break room take debit cards.

Unfortunately, many of the options in those machines can’t really be slotted into the “healthy choices” category. In fact, some of the ones that seem obvious choices in that arena are far from it.

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On the level

Slow and steady wins the race

Too Fat To Fly?

Full disclosure

Snackwell’s skullduggery

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