turtleJP’s blog

Wow, never though it would be this difficult. I guess it shows the real addictiveness of caffeine. Well I've made it through 4 days nows and things are seeming getting to be a bit easier. I know getting up this morning was a bit easier than the other mornings. The side effects that people have listed came on pretty heavy last night at work. Especially the headaches.

So if anyone is wondering how I' ve been doing it.

• Nothing in the house. I'm a recovering Diet Pepsi addict so no having it in the house makes things a lot easier.
• Day One: straight cold turkey. Very tough on me and my family. I was very irritable that day and a total jerk. To my wife and kids I must say ごめなさい。　
• Day Two: Placebo in full effect. Stopped by the store and grabbed a 12 pack of Diet cherry 7 UP. So when lunch came around it was time for a can and while feeling it was able to make it through.
• Day Three: This is where is has been getting interesting. I went to lunch at a quick service place and was there in front of the fountain drinks and found my self getting the "shakes" the caffeine was calling my name. I felt like a junking in Trainspotting. It was amazing and scary at the same time. In comes Decaf Diet Coke. Ahh the nectar of the Gods and a good bridge at this point. Kind of like Parallels or BootCmp for new Mac users.
• Starting morning four and feeling pretty darn good. 
  

 
One think I've found out is that is helps to be around people you really can't be to short with and get away with it the first couple of days. I worked closely with my wife and clients and that made the day flow easily without any issues.

Can't wait until a full week goes by.

Chris

I've gone all crazy and am going to be going off of caffeine. Day one has been rough. I've been lethargic and very irritable all day which is not a very good thing at all but hey gotta think long term.

I've thought about the different methods between going cold turkey and the gradual method.

Cold Turkey would be nice but is probably going impossible since I think I'm more likely to go on a binge session at the local eating establishment with free refills.

For me it's going to be the gradual/placebo method.I'll break down to one cup/can a day and fill in the rest with the decaf variants.

Lets see how it goes and wish me luck.

Chris

Funny thing happened on the way to Christmas. I stopped spending money. I guess one of the things that made us. Rethink the whole Christmas giving thing was the Wii. As a family everyone wants it. But when I saw the prices on Amazon in excess of $700. I had to say WTF!  Why someone would want to spend $500 over list price for something that will be a semi easy find in 3-4 weeks is beyond me. I mean I could just wait and buy the Wii and 10 games for the same price people are paying for just the console. Holy Toldeo people where is your patience? So I though of things that I would actually really need or have a vaild want for Christmas and the list was pretty short.

• A good zip up hooded sweatshirt
• World of Warcraft 60-Day Game Card (yes I couldn't stay away)
• Apple Store Gift Card

Pretty simple and easy. If I get two out of the three I'll be thankful.

Ahh so GTD/43 Folders of me. But I must encourage all of you to try it. Buring your Favorites/Bookmarks folder is such a nice feeling. It's cut down my time wasted browsing in more than half. Heck I might even be able to write a review or two like I originally planned.

A co-wored sent me a spreadsheet in an account. I forwarded it to my gmail account and it fired right up in the Google Spreadsheet. No this is fine and good but what if I could just double click on an .doc .xls or whatever file and it logged into docs.google.com for me and opened the file. If there is something like this already out there please let me know as I'd like to impliment it yesterday.

Small things like this would make the web based office a snap for people like my Dad and wife. Keep it simple.

Two cents and out.
Chris

As those that read this know I recently put WoW on the shelf and quit playing. OK big deal right. Yeah not in the grand scheme of things but was is off was the overall response from work. And some  that I didn't expect.

Disbelief being the first one. "Did you really quit?" is a big one. Like I'm quiting drugs or alcohol after a long battle with addiction. Yes, I have to assure them. The odd part is that it has spread like wild fire. People that I never talked to about the game but surely heard me talking about it to other guild mates at work have come up to me congratulating me fore quiting. Like I need a sponsor for quitting WoW.

The second being  disappointment. This mostly coming from guild mates. Upset that I was leaving, funny but it was like when I met my wife and started to hang out with my friends less and stopped going out ot party for the most part. There was the initial disbelief but as in life, the party will go one but just without me.

Finally was genuine curiosity and support. I've had the conversation as to why I quit with several coworkers and after giving them my reasons all agreed that it made sense and would have done the same. Heck now one other person has dropped out of the game now so I have my support group I guess.

I'll need to get him on IM incase I need an intervention.

LOL

There are things that annoy me about the web. One is site browser sniffing, yes I am using Windows XP so just give me the damn file. The other is when a feature works great on all of machines. Linux, Mac, Windows. Nice a platform, browser agnostic. They way it should be.

Enter WaMu. They have a great feature that shows you a copy of the check you wrote. So when balancing my check book I saw an entry that wasn't expected and clicked on the icon for a picture of the check and it kept telling me that the service was unavilable. Hmmm IE only now? Fired up IE and low and behold all was working again. Bastards.

Why would you retrograde and once work with anything and now only work with IE?

Might be finally time to find a new bank. A credit union even?

Any Mac friendly banks that any of you might recommned. L.A.. please.

What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.

Gosh, hard to give you an all time top five. But here it goes.

 

1. ShenMue 1 and 2. Probably my all time favorites. Yes they count as two games but itis a conituation of the story.

2. Call of Duty 1 (Still waiting for CoD 2 to hit the $19.99 price point so I can snatch it up)

3. Final Fantasy VII. Great story. Got me hooked on RPGs

4. NBA 2k The only sports game I seem to by year after year even when I tell myself I don't want to.

5. Nintendo First Party titles. Ok this is pretty broad but any Nintendo systems is worth owning if only for the stuff that Nintendo puts out itself.

No, I'm not starting up a rogue WoW server for me an 1000's of my closest friends to play on. It's just that I've but WoW on the shelf. It has been removed from the Dock and Start Menu. Heck the un-installer is running right now.

So why did I quit? In the end it could have been a couple of things but most of all it was becoming a productivity and time drain for me. It had become no longer a simple distraction. I guess in the end while it was still fun I was more of a casual gamer that likes to pick things up and put then down 20 minutes later. This wasn't the case and isn't really possible with WoW. In retrospect it probably is but I'm not going to drop $15 a month to jump on for 30 minutes a few times a month.

There are a couple of quotes that people have said the I guess really struck home though.

"Daddy, why do want to kill all of those things?" 

This came from my 5.9 years old (yes that's a .9) I think that exposure to violence to both of the you daughters is not something I want to expose them to at this time. Virtual or not.

"I'd much rather be learning something or work on my insert thing here"

In the end I would rather be spending more times with my kids. Learning more Japanese. Getting to the gym more etc etc.

I am not going to demonize WoW. It was fun and will continue to be fun for millions of others. I do not feel high and might for being able to put down the keyboard. In the end it was external pressures that won out over the continued play of the "online sensation"

Blizzard. It has been fun and I thank you for that.

How do you eat your pizza:  folded, flat or with a fork and knife?
Submitted by danimass.

All depends on the pizza. If it's a huge deep dish pizza then it's a knife and fork. Nice thin crust I have to go with the curve Not quite a fold more of a soft U shape. Holds everything in a makes it easy to take a bite.