In addition to the 2 articles that I wrote for Associated Content, I also have one of my short stories published.  You can find that at www.associatedcontent.com/article/725765/missing.html

 To see the articles, click on the link to the right that says My Associated Content, or click here.

Hide the Doritos! Here comes HR

With work running the Biggest Loser contest, I found this article very interesting.  My work does not offer free food very often, so there’s not a whole lot they’d be able to do.  However, there are a few things that I find ironic.

 First of all, though I freely admit I’m a geek, I work for a fairly large meat processing plant.  The company I work for makes thinly sliced/Philly style steaks and beef patties, but they also make fully cooked meatloaf, cooked beef, pork and chicken, uncooked beef, pork and chicken — all with or without soy, and with or without breading — cooked and uncooked salisbury steaks, oh yea and partially fried breaded beef, pork and chicken, some of this even with cheese.  So anyone else see the irony in the company offering a Biggest Loser contest?  Though they may advertise items that have no trans fat, not all of these items are low in fat. 

 Second, on Tuesday, we’re going to have a “First Annual” hot dog eating contest.  Everyone at the building I work at is invited, as long as someone in their department is participating in the contest.  That’s really healthy, huh? 

 That’s not counting when my department (which includes the dietitians) has a pot luck, which generally happens once a month, for birthdays and/or holidays.  Though there’s usually salad or other healthy food, there’s always some sort of sweets too.  Cake, cheesecake, pie.  That’s conducive to losing weight, isn’t it?

 At work, we have a cafeteria where we can get our lunches or snacks.  About 2 years ago, the dietitians tried to get healthier food into the cafeteria.  Unfortunately, there were mixed results.  The cafeteria kept making too many changes, so the dietitians couldn’t give nutrition information for the healthier menu items.  The healthier menu items didn’t always go over well.  They still do offer one “healthier” menu item every day, but I’m never sure how healthy these items are even if they are listed as healthy on the menu. 

Then again, I’ve noticed that I have a more rigid idea of what is healthy than even the dietitians.  I guess reading the book SuperfoodsRX changed my opinion on a lot of things.  Well, that and reading posts by a girl on eDiets, she aimed for at least 10 servings of superfoods a day, and had energy at 40 that I envied at 34.

Does this mean I think the companies are doing the right thing offering the lower fat and healthier fare?  Well that depends.  Are they cracking down on people bringing their own (unhealthy) food?  Then, as much as I understand how much this helps with insurance costs, that’s restricting someone’s freedom. 

 On the other hand, offering incentives and lower insurance rates if someone loses weight, to me, that leaves the choice to them.  We do pay more in medical costs with the way that America’s weight has gone up.  The incidence of obesity related diseases has at least doubled in the last 20 years.  I’m not talking just heart disease and stroke risks.  My father was thin and had a several strokes.  My sister is thin and has had to have an operation to put stents in her arteries near her heart.  Heart disease and stroke may be related to bad diet (and smoking), even though type 2 diabetes may be more prevalent in those who are overweight or even obese, I’m talking about things like fractures in the heel bones from bearing all the weight over the years, or knee problems caused by the same.  What about when women have back pain from the extra weight in their breasts from being too heavy? 

 Of course, the food and drug companies are making a lot of money off this.  The more food people eat, the fatter they get, the more these companies get to earn money off our weight problems.  But the insurance companies and doctors are also earning money off this.  The sicker we are, the more we go visit them, the more we pay, and ’round and ’round it goes. 

The solution?  Take advantage of anything your company offers to help you lose weight.  Yea, it seems silly to be so focused on your weight, especially if you’re not worried about how you look, but if you want to live longer, you need to take care of yourself.  Exercise, & eat right, even add in more fruits and vegetables.  We may be getting mixed signals, but no one has ever said fruit and vegetables are unhealthy.

Oh yea, and just cuz I can…
 Happy Birthday to me 🙂 
 If you ask, I turn 18 again today 🙂

I was asked to explain more for my post on Game Snobbery.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I meant.  I mean what is a game snob?

 When I think about a game snob, I think about how someone who plays a time intensive game like World of Warcraft might think that someone who plays a game like Bejeweled isn’t really a gamer.  Bejeweled doesn’t seem to take the level of skill that WoW does.  What about someone who plays computer games feeling that someone who plays console games isn’t a gamer?  I’ve seen that myself.  My husband easily gets addicted to playing Need for Speed, but I never considered him a gamer because he didn’t play any computer games.  Of course part of my condescension might just be because I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to play video games.  Spyro is about my speed.  With the cheat codes to get unlimited lives 😛

 So, though my husband plays console games, and Yahoo! pool, I don’t consider him a gamer.  Is that being a snob?  How is that different from someone who plays WoW looking down on me because I play a text based game, or even because I only play a couple of hours a night? 

 Is it all interrelated to how much a person knows about computers?  I mean I’m a computer geek, my husband only knows enough about computers to be dangerous.  My friend who used to game was an artist, but also a computer geek.  His wife was a writer and only played online games because her husband did.  It’s a great way to help a relationship, but did that make her a gamer?  She played Asheron’s Call too.

 Oh yea, and I got an email from my brother after he read my blog… he used to play Dungeon Siege.  Does that make him a gamer?  Where is the line? 

 Is a gamer really different in any way than a non-gamer?  It seems to me that we all have addictions, just varying degrees of addiction.  Oh yea, and we’re not all interested in the same thing. That’d be boring if we were.

Since it’s almost midnight my time, I’d best try to sleep.  A dear friend of mine is going to comment on how late I’m up. 

If you have any comments on my interpreation of a game snob, feel free.  I’m curious what others think, and whether they look down on others that do not play the same type of games…

*edit: I had to turn off the comments because I kept getting spam.

Women in Games

I struggled a bit with what to write about after my last few posts.  After all, I had said everything I could about women gamers.  Or had I?

 The article above talks about theoretical reasons for women gamers to be mostly social gamers.  In a way, I agree with what was said, as a general rule, women are more social than men.  However, I don’t entirely agree with what the author said because I am not the type that is interested in soap operas.  Granted, I’ll admit, I do read romance novels, but the ones I prefer are the ones with a mystery involved.  A crime to be solved, an adventure to be had, something more intellectual than just girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. 

 The stories I like the best though, are not romances at all.  They’re fantasy novels… the kind with dragons and elves.  Halflings and dwarves.  Or magic.  JK Rowling, Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey.  If you were to look at my bookshelves, those are the books that you’d find.  Well, then I have some that lean more toward science fiction.  Especially some of Anne McCaffrey’s, she does both fantasy combined with science fiction. 

 Back to my topic though, one thing I’ve found is that a lot of times, women who are online tend to be rather defensive about being women.  I asked one person that I MUD with whether she was actually female, and she said that I could ask a couple of other people who would verify that she was.  Odd, I prefer to take peoples word for it.  Especially when there’s nothing extra they’d get out of lying to me.  I mean I fully admit I’m female.  A guy playing a female character isn’t going to get more help from me than a guy playing a male character.  I just never saw the point.  I mean the other people live who knows how far.  Plus, I’m married.  I help when I feel I can help.  If I don’t have extra, I just don’t help.  Oh yea, unless you become my friend.  Then you’ll get as much help as I can give, all you have to do is ask.

Oh yea, and as for the misconception that female gamers don’t know as much about gaming as male gamers.  Try logging onto any game I play and you’ll find that misconception crushed.  I may not have the hand-eye coordination for a first person shooter, but I certainly can play Dungeon Siege, Diablo III, or even MUD as well as, if not better than a good many male gamers.

I don’t need to post a pic proving that I’m a female on the internet.  I am NOT a gamer’s girlfriend or sister.  I am a gamer, and I am proud of it.

Confessions of a Gamestop Girl

I was looking for more about Women in Gaming because for some reason this topic has caught my imagination.  When I did a search on Google, I came up with several articles, one from Escapist Magazine.  In the article above, the girl that the author interviewed talked about how working in Gamestop, sometimes female gamers came in and assumed that she didn’t know anything about gaming. 

She talked about how sometimes gamers call themselves elite because they play a certain game, or in some cases played a certain game.  Like finishing Final Fantasy II with no errors on the game save.  Like thinking that they’re hard core because they play World of Warcraft.

That got me to thinking, do I think I’m a hard core gamer because I MUD?  I mean MU*ing (playing either MUDs or MUSHs) doesn’t attract the attention of the younger generation any more.  Why play text based games when you can play visual games like WoW or Everquest?  Yet my feeling is why pay for gaming when you can get the same result using your imagination?

Which of us is the game snob?  Or are both of us?  Someone who plays WoW and thinks that text based games are stupid?  Or the one who plays text based games because that’s what she used to play, and it uses her imagination more?

I’ve been trying to remember why I didn’t like EQ as much.  Granted, I didn’t play a long time because I got involved in some stuff in my personal life at the time.  BUT, I think I realized why I played Asheron’s Call more than I played Everquest.  With Asheron’s Call, I could practice making stuff, food or arrows.  Oh, and a really close friend and his wife used to play.  I think I was all about the social aspect even then.  Trying new things and exploring are both fun, but it’s more fun to socialize. 

In the article it also talks about how mothers would come in to get video games for their girls and would choose Bratz games over anything else.  So are we directed toward what others think we would like for games?  If I hadn’t had 3 older brothers, would I have even had an Atari?  I’m pretty sure I would have gotten into Sci-Fi/Fantasy still.  Though I would read all of the books my mother got for my brother, I picked up Caves of Steel on my own.  Oh yea, and the book that truly freaked me out Z is for Zachariah. 

So am I a game snob?  Does someone have to play RPG’s to get my respect?  I’d have to say the answer to both of those questions is probably closer to yes.  I may want to say no, I may want to see the best of myself, but I don’t see that someone playing the Sims is anywhere close to someone who plays World of Warcraft.  Maybe it’s the percieved level of skill involed.  I don’t know.

wotmud was nice enough to leave this link in answer to my last post. 

http://womeninleadershipandtechnology.blogspot.com/2007/09/female-gamers-on-increase.html

It sounds like the person who wrote that post is in the gaming industry, so she has a different perspective on it than I do.  However, she does state this:

Female players tend to be casual, interested in easy-to-pick-up social games but not willing to fork over $30 to $50 for more “tough guy games”. The lure is in getting girls to obsess over games the way they obsess over boy bands or shows like Hannah Montanna.

There are some games I get obsessed over.  I’ll fully admit that I used to be addicted to MUDding.  A bit of that feeling has been coming back lately, when I log on.  I used to be addicted to Asheron’s Call, though I never was for Everquest because I had too tough a time with that game.  If I had had more time, I probably would have gotten addicted to that too.  Fortunately, I’ve learned to control my addiction to gaming so it does not interfere with my work or family life. 

 However, as a former AD&D player, the type of game I go for is going to be different from those who aren’t interested in fantasy roleplaying games.  My son has picked up some of the same interests, but he likes first person shooters and other military games. 

One of the drawbacks I’ve seen listed is the high cost of the gaming platform… Though my son had a PS2 (he broke it), we play mostly computer games.  In that case, the gaming systems are something I would have in the house anyway — did I mention I’m a computer geek? LOL

That said, I am cheap.  Though I have paid to play Asheron’s Call and Everquest, and for my son to play World of Warcraft, I prefer not to.  That’s why I like MUDding. 

I may like to solve puzzles, but games like http://puzzlepirates.com just don’t interest me for more than a month.  I get bored with doing the same puzzles over and over to go up levels.  I prefer to be doing different things.

I may have to check out other MUDs to see how many female gamers playing on them.

Players Who Suit MUDs

 I’ve been reading a lot about gaming recently, and why there are few female gamers.  Quite honestly, I got used to being one of the few females in many situations, so I wasn’t that uncomfortable as a girl on the MUD I played on.  It probably helped that 2 of my friends played female characters and I didn’t realize that they were not female in real life for at least a year after I “met” them online. 

 A lot of guys preferred to play female characters because they took advantage of the help they got as a supposed female.  I never acted like that, so to me that concept was foreign.  However, these two became good friends and though I have lost track of one of them, the other is a very dear friend to me. 

 One thing that I’ve noticed is that game companies need to start focusing on attracting female gamers.  I’m a fantasy style gamer.  That’s why I MUD.  In the times that I wasn’t MUDding, I played both Everquest and Asheron’s Call.  After awhile, I got bored with both of these games.  I had trouble with the lack of socialization compared to MUDding, and lost interest because I found it too difficult to explore and learn new things.  That’s one of my main focuses in MUDding. 

 Actually, I’m pretty well balanced with three of the four groups in the article that I linked to.  I like to socialize, I like to explore and I like being able to achieve something difficult.  However, most days the socialization and exploration are more important than achieving anything once I’m a high enough level to actually do anything.  Since I don’t play a pkill MUD, I don’t do the pkill part at all.

Gaming is probably going to be increasing in the next few months.  Especially with the financial news getting bleak.  Games are great for an escape.  For a few hours, you can forget what’s going on in the real world.

It’s been long enough since my last post that I really should post again. It’s also 11:30 and I really should go to sleep. Tomorrow’s Monday and… well we all know what they say about Mondays and back to work.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about the possibility of a recession.  It’s odd because the media seems to flip-flop between “yes, we’re in one” and “no, we’re not in one.”  It all seems to depend on what website I’m reading for that day.  I’ve been watching the reports about the Fed lowering interest rate.  A lot would think that’s a good thing.  But honestly, though I understand what they’re trying to do, they are making a big mistake.  The price of everything is going up because the American dollar is weakening against foreign currency. 

 When I lived in Vermont, Canadians would come south to shop, even with the exchange rate, they were getting a better deal in the US because of the GST (sales tax).  Now, $1 CN is roughly equivalent to $1.02 US.  That’s the closest I’ve ever seen it.  In 1998, $1 CN was roughly 70 cents US.  That’s the earliest I can find data for, but that’s about what it was in 1992 when I was working retail. 

 Foreign bond investors are no longer buying US bonds because the US Treasury is pretty much making its own money to try to stave off the problems with the “housing bubble” collapse and the attendant problems with the banks.  The US dollar is in free-fall and all the Federal Reserve wants to do is make sure that the banks don’t go under.   

 The problem remains larger than just the US though.  The world economy is going to go through some tough times while the markets “reset” to where they should be if it hadn’t been for this “housing bubble”

 Maybe it’s time to get a farm and start growing my own food. More on that later.

Ok, so it’s not too late after all. If you want more information about stopping the Mother’s act I talked about in one of my previous posts, go to http://www.wellnessresources.com/health_freedom.php  

Personally, I’d prefer that we really test any of these so-called drugs before we let pregnant women take them. Everyone I know that has taken anti-depressant drugs has had an adverse reaction to at least one. It’s scary to have suicidal thoughts because of a prescription medication that is supposed to help you.

I’m having issues with WordPress tonight, so the link is going to have to stay as it is.